the pics are in!

Hello friends. All the pictures are finally up for my trip. You can browse at will to old posts and see visual confirmation for all the wild claims I made about what I was doing this summer. Ooo, and if you want to comment stick 'em on this post so I can read 'em.

The pictures are up. School starts tomorrow. Summer is over. Cry.

[Oh, and if anyone wants to help me out with some html, I can't figure out what is making the text get progressively bigger on the quotes at the bottom of my blog. Sorry, it is really annoying. Didn't mean to add so much emphasis.]

the humdrum comes

hi there, sorry for the lack of posting. nothing too big or exciting has happened. came back from seattle to my new apartment still a mess of boxes and suitcases. helped out with orientation of new first-year MSW students (crazy to think that i was them last year and now i am supposed to be able to pass some degree of expertise to the newbies). saw a friend graduate from the Air Force as a linguist before he and his wife take off to move to San Angelo for training leading up to a stint in Korea (the Air Force base in Monterrey has a strange feel of a college campus in a communist like drabness and strictness). and then back again to do marathon shopping at Ikea, Target, and Albertsons to stock up the necessesities of a new home. thankfully, i do not forsee having to splonk down so much money again to buy things. our kitchen is now in order. the living room is cleared and ready for a couch. i will be securing a dresser tomorrow and will be able to finally unpack my clothes. and i feel more at home, and safer and less anxious too. the prospect of starting school on monday will not be Earth-shattering now that i know i can come back to some place quiet, clean, and all my own.

not a cloud in the sky...this can't be seattle

Twin Lakes on Orcas Island

Sculpture outside salmon ladder

Seattle!

So, long time no update. Here's the skinny. I found a place to live, actually the first place that I looked at with my future roommate. He needed more persuading that it was the apartment for us, but a weeks worth of dashing from open house to open house and cruising the neighborhoods for rent signs finally convinced him that we had the best there is. A bit pricier that we had hoped for but worth it for what we get. A real home! Windows on three sides. A huge living room. A breakfast nook and big kitchen. Closets everwhere. And the sign for me was that when we went to see it our potential neighbor, a little Latina girl, introduced us to the complex and all its amenities to tell us what it would be like if we lived there. Good neighbors! A real community. Since then I've met other families that live there and some students. I like that it is both racially and economically diverse at this complex, meaning not just Cal students. And it is right behind Whole Foods and a little local park. Can't beat the lovely setting in a cute neighborhood. Moving in, I start to feel that this is what I've been missing in California: a sense of home. I hope that my new apartment will give me that. The thought of our lease ending in May actually makes me kinda sad. I already miss a place that I haven't yet lived in.

Ah, but Seattle, my post title says. Well, I'm in Seattle right now visiting a dearly beloved friend and fellow former longhorn. For five days I'm taking a break from the dim prospect of resuming my life as a graduate student, so for just a few more days I will pretend that I am simply a young adult with the world to explore and experience. With the help of new and old friends, so far I zipped around Queen Anne, the boat locks and salmon ladder, Orcas Island of the San Juan Islands, Capital Hill, U or Washington, and hiked to Barklay Lake. I think I caught Seattle at its best, with everday so far being warm and sunny. I could have come to U Dub (as the locals call U of Washington) instead of Berkeley and I can imagine that life would not have been bad at all. But that is also not including months of prolonged raininess and the prospect of seasonal affective disorder. But isn't that what I had to endure in Berkeley this past year with our wet and gray winter? Alright, no more comparisons! Just appreciation for what a beautiful city Seattle is.

A House is not a Home

So...back on Berkeley. Mildly melancholy at the thought of returning to school but detained from mind stewing by the necessity of finding an apartment. After a furious week of huntung, emotional rollercoasters and moral dilemnas gallor, my future roommate and I have secured lodging off of Telegraph Ave. A bit far, but nice to have some distance from the intitution of academics. We begin moving in on Monday, thus beginning my search for furniture, like a bed to sleep on. This weekend laid low after a break bout with food poisoning. Maybe I should just not try to make salads. Mini adventures also encountered:

- Went to a sandwhich shop that's in what must have once been a tiny church. The Chinese owners ecstatically pointed out a ginormous lemon they had, the size of a cantalope, which they said they're friend used as air fresheners. They said that if we were ever having a bad day we should stop by and smell the lemon. For free.
- While swinging in a park, allayed the fears of a little Chinese girl. She thought I was going to steal clumps of grass that she had picked but my Chinese came in handy once again!
- Finally entered that hall of consumerism and style, Ikea. Strangely not as big on the inside as it looks on the outside. Found some fancy fingerpuppets.
- While house- and cat-sitting going well, still can't believe I'm getting up at 5 every morning to feed the cat. Nice kitty. Much fur. Weird dashing around the room.