Even the wind was against us. It came through a crack in the window and stole Phyllis's plan from her desk. Lifted it up in the air and out the window and into the night. I didn't get any work done tonight. I tried...but things just didn't work out.

I'll probably be in studio from 12pm to 12am tomorrow. Argh. I want to go home.

This comes to you courtesy of my friend Allison's profile (who happens to be in the Cal band):

OK, this comes from stanfurd's student newspaper:
"We see a rivalry, that pits … an elite institution populated by erudite, sophisticated, not to mention well-groomed, students against a dirty, overcrowded lot of neo-hippies."
And this is what we have to say :
"So they hate us because we're poor and, reading between the lines, probably not white. . .But I can't hate them because they're Banana Republic-wearing country clubbers that need two maids and a butler to make sure they hit the urinal. . . .Congratulations on winning the rich daddy lottery; my admiration knows no bounds."

Hehe. Still living yesterday up today. After the game we chowed down on pizza and hit the Southside to grab some dessert and see the remains of the goal posts. Went to bed around 1ish...earlier than usual, all that cheering had me tired and my voice is still a little hoarse over 24 hours later.

Had to go to studio today and do fun things like paper mache a model of a mountain. I was literaly banging my head on my desk, half asleep....by 5:00. Luckily, Candice planned a dinner excursion to the City. I was whisked away from the grey monster that is Wurster Hall, and taken across the bay where it seems Christmas comes early. The Embarcadero Center was all lit up, the Pyramid had its green top on, and Pier 39 had its "raver" Christmas tree up.....(it had strobe lights in it). I now have a case of pre-Thanksgiving Christmas Spirit. Oh well, Let the Season Take Wing! (Happy Thanksgiving?)

We had a nice dinner at Bubba Gumps, and played an awesome game on the car ride back. The game was quite simple, taught to me by my cousins Tiffany and Jason during our Oregon trip this summer. Name a vegetable without the letter C in it. Everyone takes their turn, and is eliminated when they are stumped or utter a vegetable that starts with C. Go fig..that in a moment of pressure I say Chili....which probably isn't even a vegetable anyways.

We added the extra element of being forced to grab one of Lauren's gross flavored Berttie-Bott/Harry Potter jelly beans when we were eliminated. Candice's friend, Andy, got something foul that was eventually spit out the window. I got ear wax. Salty. Kay got vomit (spit out the window.) Yum. No one got Sardine or Grass..lucky for us.

Candice took me back to Wurster where I finished up my drawings and talked to my Professor who had come in to check on us. He seems to like what I'm doing and gave me a pat on the back. Phew. (He made someone else cry.) Came home at midnight...and that was my day.

This weekend feels like it was a week long....and yet it came and went so fast. A good..full....weekend....an extreemly Berkeley weekend that surpassed all my expectations from last week. Now all I got is this week to get through before a much needed Thanksgiving break and extended weekend at home in good ol' Mountain View.

WE WON! We got the axe! The loosing streak is over. It's done....Stanfurd has been defeated, their fickle fans have all returned to Shallow Alto. Those pompous SOBs finally got what was coming to them. (see previous entry about Lesley's Field Hockey Game.) "Accepted..Rejected" my ass. I never applied to your country club.

The Cal fans were pumped from the get go. The crowd was a roaring sea of blue. From the star spangled banner ("Oh say can UC!") to the roaring "Ohhhhhhhhhs" to the awesome card stunts... we were into it. An amazing wave was performed that went around the entire stadium more than a dozen times and was properly booed when it reached a certain section. The "Hey Alumni...Go! (Bears!)" chant rocked Memorial every time. And the Cal band ...the Cal Band was GREAT...once again they showed the farm what a REAL college band looks like. The team heard us all...and played their hardest... 30-7. They ended something that had gone on for way too long....a seven year loosing streak over.

The field was rushed by what must have been over 10,000 Cal fans...I was one of them. Both of the goal posts were toppeled and carried out of the stadium with dozens of people on them, down Bancroft, and on to Sproul Plaza. The fans cheered louder than they ever have before..."You know it...You know the story...You tell the whole DAMN world this BEAR TERRITORY."

We got the Axe. Why? Because we wanted it more.

Go Bears!

Today (yesterday now....but you get the idea) was interesting...very Berkeley for some reason. Things started out great with stats lecture getting out 15 minutes early. I spent the extra time sitting at my favorite spot under the Redwoods and Oaks along a quiet strech of Strawberry Creek reading the Heuristic Squelch. It was a beautiful day and it was nice to finally have some time to enjoy it.

After that I went to Music lecture which was actually entertaining today (what a change). We had a special performance by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players who performed a brand new piece for the first time by an emerging Chinese-American composer Zhao Long. We were the first audience to ever hear it performed...and that's cool...very Berkeley.

Right after that I grabbed myself some lunch from the GBC (Golden Bear Cafe for those not in the know) and sat on one of the terraced seating areas over lower Sproul Plaza. The normal sounds of protest emanating from the steps of Sproul Hall (today's was for increasing minority enrollment..very Berkeley) were drowned out by the soothing sounds of the Berkeley Jazz Group playing down in lower Sproul...also very Berkeley. It was a pleasant lunch and I took my time.

So then it was off to studio. Bah. Things took a lot longer than I thought.....I had a war with my cardboard topographic model. I just started cutting it up until it finally looked good. I also saw the last few seconds of Phyllis' fall to the ground after she fell asleep standing up. No joke. She blacked out and crashed into the chairs. Loud enough for me to hear while listening to Santana on my headphones. Aye...what studio does to us! Lauren brought Leo, Jacqueline, and I dinner from Gypsies....really nice of her. We ate in the seminar room and fantasized about going to Europe together over the summer. If only. Then it was back to work for another hour or so.

Got home in time for Buffy and Smallville....the two only shows in prime-time I ever make sure I'm home to watch. Spent the rest of the night struggling with the Stats homework I just didn't have the drive to do after working so much over the past few days. I'm spent. And I still have a long way to go with studio.

Erik asked me yesterday how I've managed to maintain my sanity with so many hours clocked on the 8th floor of Wurster since Saturday. I guess it's a gigantic balancing act..I'm tired...but I think I've been able to work in some R&R into these increasingly busy days. And I remind myself that this is an experience I won't have again....in the end I feel like I'll the hard work will have been well worth it...if not in the actual design skills I'm supposed to be learning, but at least in the memories and friendships I've been able to form.

I was in studio from 10:30 to 1:10 today....well yesterday now. I wasn't really joking when I said "see ya tomorrow" to Erik as I walked out the door in the morning. My away message for the entire day explained it all:

something about a funnel. pools inside the walls of the funnel. maybe having some pools outside the funnel? folding people in and bringing them back out. parti. meaning. poetics. tectonics. cardboard. sobo. zap-a -gap (aka cancer in a bottle). hours of time in the same place. cutting. pasting. missing my grandma's 75th birthday party. pounding my head on my desk.

bull shit.
(studio)

But it's all good.....I got everything I needed done...and I'm pretty happy with what I did. And there are still about 30 people working there now....so I don't feel so bad. Had lunch out Blondies....dinner...hot chocolate and a morning bun. I'm tired and hungry. Too tired to go to bed...too late to eat. Need to unwind somehow....hence the blog entry.

Friday was nice. Although, Mel's was a little strange...the food tasted bland and the milkshakes were scary. New management I guess. Harry Potter was a fun movie. Perhaps better than the first. I've never seen so many commercials before a movie. It took about 20 minutes (including previews) before the movie actually started.

Saturday's game was awful. The crowd was out of it, the band was out of it, and the team was waaaay out of it. But...the Big Game is only bigger now. Had dinner at the Spaghetti Factory in Jack London Square with my bro Chris and my Dad. That was really nice. Took us forever to get there though, traffic and a reallly really long freight train. Got to listen to Stanfurd loose their game and the oh-so-depressed post-game show while we were driving there. That made up for it. Hehe.

Ok. Sleep time.

Well, I'd say it was a great weekend. Warning: This is a long entry....and I'm writing it more for my own purposes of remembering this weekend rather then to entertain you...whoever you are. But it's here to read if you want to...so here I go.

The weekend kicked off on Thursday with a surprisingly well attended Centennial Celebration for Mountain View at the new Centennial Plaza and train depot. To my surprise, hundreds of people braved the pouring rain to stand outside or in tents to celebrate Mountain View's 100th. The rain certaintly made the event memorable....people were in good spirits and managed to make the best of it.

The plaza looks great, it's cool to see all the hard work that the committee put into this come together. The inscribed bricks were a great idea. I've got a picture of my family's and my grandparent's on the wall here in Berkeley. A lot of the ideas I came up with two years ago became realities. The plaque about the train depot's history was my idea, I even helped write it, and now its there on the train depot. The archway that was cut from the budget and which I asked the committee to bring back using alternative funding is there, and it looks awesome. To some extent, the name of the plaza, "Centennial Plaza" was my idea, although others probably thought of it as well.

I also suggested that grammar school kids write about what they think MV will be like in 2052, and there they were, on fancy display boards for everyone to read during the event. Funny thing was.....except for references to cell-phones, the essays could have been written by kids in the 1950s....with visions of skyscrapers, hoover cars, and robots that will do everything for us. Every once and a while there was an essay that seemed to hit the nail on the head. My favorite line....."And Mountain View will NEVER be renamed Mountain Dew." Phew...I was worried about that.

After the plaza dedication I got to go to a special reception, which was also a nice event.Saw lots of familiar faces from the city and from the Youth Advisory Group. Friday was a lot more laid back. I took a nice long walk in the rain along the Stevens Creek trail. The creek was full and the trees were turning colors. Took some nice pictures and really got into the spirit of fall. Went to lunch with my mom at Marie Calender's right after. Got so full, that when I went to dinner with Matt and Kim at Chili's all I wanted was a cup of clam chowder. But...CHILI's doesn't serve Clam Chowder. Boo to them. We went and saw the Santa Clause II after that. It's a nice Christmas movie, just as good, if not better, than the original.

Saturday was my birthday. Went to breakfast at the Los Altos Coffee Shop with my parents. Then went on a drive with my dad around Downtown San Jose and up Mount Hamilton Road to see the valley. Got a hot dog at Mark's Hot Dog's on Alum Rock. Jeesh, those are good hot dogs....and the fact that the hot dog stand is a giant orange built in the 1930s only makes the expirience better. My b-day dinner at the Spaghetti Factory was a lot of fun, and it was great to see so many of us together at one table (26 to be exact). Everyone had a really fun time.

Sunday my parents and I visited Santana Row in San Jose. Well....I was scepticle at first, but Santana Row is really nice. Santana Row is basically a mini-city within a city, with a hotel, open space, a movie theater, stores, restaurants, and high density housing all tied together in large historic-looking buildings that mimic a traditional downtown. It's right across the street from Valley Fair and the Winchester Mystery House. It offers the type of environment that Downtown San Jose SHOULD offer. It's friendly, and vibrant, and exciting. Most of the stores were too upscale for our taste or budget (or to ever locate in Downtown), but the restaurants looked good and the atmosphere was worth the visit alone. Another notch in San Jose's belt, and hopefully a wake up call to all those planners that are working on Downtown. Went to TGIF with the parents after, and once again was denied my clam chowder fix. Humph.

Monday was a beautiful day weather wise. Crisp and clear. Ran a few errands with my mom and then we had lunch at the Lakeside Cafe at Shoreline Park. That cafe has to have one of the nicest views in all of the South Bay. Good lunch. The rest of the day was spent working on homework....and then making my way back to Berkeley for another fun filled week of school. Woohoo. Oh well, before I know it Thanksgiving will be here, and then Christmas. All right. That's it. Phew. A good...long..weekend!

Happy Birthday to the best city I've EVER lived in! Woohoo to Mountain View....otherwise known as the Happiest Place on Earth. 100 years on this very day. I've got my Centennial Committee Shirt on, my jacket and umbrella..... I'm ready to brave the first storm of the season to celebrate the final Centennial Event of the year. Get to see the new Centennial Plaza, my family's inscribed bricks, and the new train station...a replica of the historic train depot built in 1888. Here's to historic architecture! Eat that Bill.

I was appointed by the mayor of the city to the Centennial Celebration Planning Committee back when I was in high school. How weird that this date is finally here. I remember being a young teen and realizing that my 20th birthday would be two days after MV's 100th. Jeesh...20! I thought. That's a whole new decade. Ack! The same thoughts go through my mind right now.

Hmm.....it sure is pouring outside. Unfair. So conflicted! Usually the first rain of the season is something I really enjoy. Now it's just...well...raining on my city's parade. Ah well!

Dia de los Muertos. It's a good tradition....and it's not just the Mexican version of Halloween. Dia de los Muertos acknowledges death as a part of life. It's an annual event where Mexicans and Mexican-Americans celebrate those that have passed away with symbolic alters, funny skeleton figures, special foods, and in some areas a trip to the graveyard for a nightime picnic. It's a healthy way of mourning and coming to grasp with our own mortality. Like most Mexican traditions, its a mix of ancient Aztec culture and Catholic/Spanish traditions.

My uncle, who lives next door to me in my grandparents' house, sets up an alter every year. It has pictures of members of our family who have passed away, yellow marigolds, skeleton figures, candles, and incense. There are also offerings to the dead, pan de los muertos....bread of the dead. According to tradition, on November 1st the souls of children that have passed away come and eat the "spirit of the bread." Then on November 2nd the souls of adults come. My uncle told me last year that he heard voices and noises outside his window last year....said he thinks we had some spirited visitors to the alter.

Why not?