But I really do now.
On this trip, I was there for about three days in between flights, and this time everything - the tiny roads with fields on the sides, running into ten people you know while out to breakfast, the Saturday morning market, the animals from my old home, the tornado siren and thunder lulling me to sleep. And I got to see my grandmother, my mother, and my dear, dear sister.
What a fantastic trip.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Sunday, July 20, 2014
All of a sudden, 23.
It was a very mellow day in lots of ways. I slept in (for me, so, 7:30 or so) and had a swim in the morning, talked to my host family and my skyped with lots of my actual family. I had a few presents to unwrap in the morning and then my aunt picked me up for lunch with her and the boys, Calder and Powell. We went and had Pho (and the squiggle over the o is one of the marks I don't know how to make on a keyboard - I know ö and ø and ó but not that one...) and it was delicious, and then (silly as it might sound) I went back to their place and had a positively blissful nap.
I think I was and still am quite tired - this week not only did I work on Saturday to compensate for my absence this coming Friday, but also from Thursday to Friday this week was the intern Hackathon, a hacking competition - except 'hack' in the sense of something you throw together, not breaking into someone's computer. So, this 24 hour ridiculous competition where we stayed at work (I came home for about five hours of sleep, I'm a wimp) and got to know each other as you only can at 1:30 in the morning when you've given up on your idea, right before you get your second wind. So, I was wiped out from that.
And so the nap was blissful. If my affection for sleep continues as it has so far, then by the time I hit forty-five or so, all I will want to do is sleep!
But then I woke up and had a lovely afternoon with my aunt, drinking tea, looking at pictures, watching a movie. And then we had an incredible dinner - grilled Maui onions and eggplant(who knows if they're really from Maui, but damn, are they delicious), grilled steak, roasted cauliflower and corn on the cob. Of course, courtesy of my uncle Sam, we also had a lovely bottle of wine. He opened it and told me it was from 2007 and that I should think back to 2007, who I was then, what I had done since then, how different I am now. He said that was one of his favorite things about wine - that you can think of when it was made and how long it aged, and every time you sip or inhale it's aroma, you can think back to that time. It really made drinking that glass of wine a particularly lovely experience.
Of course, there was also cake. :)
I think I was and still am quite tired - this week not only did I work on Saturday to compensate for my absence this coming Friday, but also from Thursday to Friday this week was the intern Hackathon, a hacking competition - except 'hack' in the sense of something you throw together, not breaking into someone's computer. So, this 24 hour ridiculous competition where we stayed at work (I came home for about five hours of sleep, I'm a wimp) and got to know each other as you only can at 1:30 in the morning when you've given up on your idea, right before you get your second wind. So, I was wiped out from that.
And so the nap was blissful. If my affection for sleep continues as it has so far, then by the time I hit forty-five or so, all I will want to do is sleep!
But then I woke up and had a lovely afternoon with my aunt, drinking tea, looking at pictures, watching a movie. And then we had an incredible dinner - grilled Maui onions and eggplant(who knows if they're really from Maui, but damn, are they delicious), grilled steak, roasted cauliflower and corn on the cob. Of course, courtesy of my uncle Sam, we also had a lovely bottle of wine. He opened it and told me it was from 2007 and that I should think back to 2007, who I was then, what I had done since then, how different I am now. He said that was one of his favorite things about wine - that you can think of when it was made and how long it aged, and every time you sip or inhale it's aroma, you can think back to that time. It really made drinking that glass of wine a particularly lovely experience.
Of course, there was also cake. :)
And then, after cake and laughter and smiles, I came back to my host family. We hung out in the kitchen and talked about our days and then my two youngest host sisters and I engaged in what I can only call some form of Calvinball -- for those of you who have never heard of Calvinball, I've attached a comic for your edification. Basically, we each guard one of the doorways in the entry hall - there's one to the music room, one to the dining room, and one to my bedroom - the first two are at least eight feet across, whereas mine is a normal door size. So, getting the inflatable ball through another doorway is one point each for the first two goals, two points if it goes in mine. But then again, I'm at least twice as big as these two girls, so things were slightly skewed in my favor. Still, I lost. Also, you can use hands or feet. And sometimes pick up the ball and walk directly up to the goalie past whom you are trying to shoot the ball. Everything is fare game. Hence, Calvinball.
And now, I'm going to go to bed. Only three weeks left of this internship-- crazy. And a very lovely Birthday.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
A Southern California Day
So, I woke up this morning at around 7:30 -- the latest I've slept in a while. I'm one of those folks who keeps waking up at 6 out of habit even on the weekends. But I got to sleep in and I went out into the kitchen to make my coffee and toast and joke with my two host sisters - as some of my Facebook friends know, we had a fun night of face painting the other night which ended with me somehow getting a really bushy painted mustache -- pitch black, obviously, as befits my complexion.
After breakfast, I changed into more suitable clothes and was picked up by a fellow intern to go and play soccer at a local park. Now, even the "just for fun" teams around here are incredibly serious about soccer - everyone has cleats, they even have proper referees running around, as well as matching jerseys. This bunch of misfits that I was with is nothing like that. Our skill levels range from the two people who play actively while they are at college to the rest of us, who "played in middle school" - which basically means we know which end of the field to aim at.
Also, these non-professional serious teams always take up the soccer fields, so we play in a baseball outfield with goals that are made of two water bottles precariously balanced on the grass -- today at least both goals were the same size, but I don't think they were really totally aligned on the different sides of the field. We didn't care. We were 12 people today, six on six, and the teams were quite well matched. As a result, of course, in spite of the generous amount of sunscreen I put on my nearly translucent skin, I still managed to end up rather pink in the face but I think I can just blame it on the sweat that made the sun screen run away. Still, we had a blast and though I have yet to score a goal in one of these games (I've been on the winning team all the times we've played ((twice)) and have played on basically the same team) today I had a few good moments of defense (where I play by default, though I enjoy forward as well) and one assist. Who knows if any of us will care about soccer in three months - or even on Monday when the World Cup is over- but it doesn't matter! It's a great way to spend a Saturday morning.
After that, we headed to another intern's house to barbecue and watch the professionals in the Brazil-Netherlands game. This house was classic California - a ping pong table on the open porch, beautiful open design, and a plum, a peach, a nectarine, and a lemon tree. Plus cherry tomatoes in the garden. I don't know how these people ever go to work in the morning. Especially because this little one is wandering around.
Alright. Now I have a bit of work to do - I was asked to join another project this week which is exciting, but first, as a good friend of mine says, I need to "put an upper bound on my ignorance". This project/problem involves so many things I've never worked with before that I really have quite a lot of catching up to do. Still, I like learning. Here I come, Information Theory, Data Compression, and C++!
After breakfast, I changed into more suitable clothes and was picked up by a fellow intern to go and play soccer at a local park. Now, even the "just for fun" teams around here are incredibly serious about soccer - everyone has cleats, they even have proper referees running around, as well as matching jerseys. This bunch of misfits that I was with is nothing like that. Our skill levels range from the two people who play actively while they are at college to the rest of us, who "played in middle school" - which basically means we know which end of the field to aim at.
Also, these non-professional serious teams always take up the soccer fields, so we play in a baseball outfield with goals that are made of two water bottles precariously balanced on the grass -- today at least both goals were the same size, but I don't think they were really totally aligned on the different sides of the field. We didn't care. We were 12 people today, six on six, and the teams were quite well matched. As a result, of course, in spite of the generous amount of sunscreen I put on my nearly translucent skin, I still managed to end up rather pink in the face but I think I can just blame it on the sweat that made the sun screen run away. Still, we had a blast and though I have yet to score a goal in one of these games (I've been on the winning team all the times we've played ((twice)) and have played on basically the same team) today I had a few good moments of defense (where I play by default, though I enjoy forward as well) and one assist. Who knows if any of us will care about soccer in three months - or even on Monday when the World Cup is over- but it doesn't matter! It's a great way to spend a Saturday morning.
After that, we headed to another intern's house to barbecue and watch the professionals in the Brazil-Netherlands game. This house was classic California - a ping pong table on the open porch, beautiful open design, and a plum, a peach, a nectarine, and a lemon tree. Plus cherry tomatoes in the garden. I don't know how these people ever go to work in the morning. Especially because this little one is wandering around.
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| Her name is Ivy. |
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