City Trip

On Saturday Kay, Dan, and I picked up Julie in the City and spent the afternoon in Union Square. It was a beautiful day and we had a really nice time. Here are some photos (I'm trying to be better about uploading photos...digital cameras are both a blessing and curse):

The fog rolls into the Bay but the sun shined on the City the whole time we were there. The view from the bridge was awesome, and traffic slowed down in just the right spot.
Kay enjoys the sunshine and the view from the back of Dan's car.

Kay and Julie in Union Square.

Group shot! Such tourists. Hehe.

Dan and I eagerly awaiting the burgers we're soon to eat...it's hard to go to the City and not stop at Taylor's Refresher in the Ferry Building. Yum!

...and see Julie, I didn't post the picture of you swinging your hair around all crazy-like that you wanted to delete of my camera. ;-)

Halloween-esque Shingdig Thing

So, at the last minute we decided to throw a little Halloween get together at our house on Friday night. Everything came together quite nicely, we had plenty of drinks, candy, and pizza and a cool mix of friends, both new and old gather round the TV to watch some ridiculous scary movies. Here are some photos:

Something gory must have just happened in the werewolf-puberty-menstruation (eric bohman would have loved it) movie "Ginger Snaps" judging from the looks on Preeti, Chris, Vicki, and Morgan's faces. Especially Vicki. Hehe.

..or on me and Jacob's face. We kind of got into a photo war trying to get snap shots of people when they were grimacing the most.
Dan caught me pointing the camera at him. Kay looks concerned. Jeremy isn't even looking.

Dan, Julia, and I concocted this vodka laced drink called "witches brew" that Dan found the recipe for off the food network website. A larger bowl filled with Dan's beloved dry ice surrounded the punch bowl, making for a pretty awesome effect that entertained us almost as much as the second movie...

The more Dan drank the witches brew, the more he loved his dry ice.

Eric finally made it home pretty late, but in time for us to hang out and take a 2614 Regent Roomie photo...awwwww. :-)

Keg Stand

I did a keg stand tonight. In the Wurster Hall courtyard of all places. I was challenged by Ian to beat him, which I did, by a second...after getting beer up my nose.

Grad School is weird.

Hoodie

Today on my way to Smart Alex's with Dan I saw someone in Rasputin wearing my hoodie. The brown and blue one which has become a staple of my wardrobe this semester. I wanted to jump them, strip them of the hoodie and run away with it. It is my hoodie and mine alone. I had to go to two freakin Ross-Dress-For-Lesses to find it (I had a gift certificate)and it was the only one on the rack, so that must mean it's the only one in the world...right? right?

Stupid people wearing my clothes.

...and now, to completely shift gears...

I guess I never wrote about the Saint Francis game in detail...well, it was a ton of fun. I went with Jen, Lauren Berger, Chris, Shirley, and my parents. We met up with some other people from our respective classes and took a seat in the aisle next to the band which, to our amazement, now has snazzy uniforms...with hats. (oh, and we now have a color guard, cheerleaders, a mascot, and the micmen that Chris started....it's like something out of the early 1960s!)

There were about 8,500 people there. For a high school game. In California. In the Bay Area. This is not typical, but this was not a typical game. It was my high school's homecoming, its 50th anniversary, and against are arch-rival, Bellarmine..an all boys Jesuit school in San Jose.

Saint Francis pulled off a come from behind victory with a touchdown in the last 27 seconds, it was a thrilling roller-coaster ride of a game. I guess my little brother has rubbed off on me, that and I've gained a lot of self-confidence lately...because I got up and coaxed the crowd of Saint Francis alumni and families to get up and make noise for the team multiple times while Chris reassumed his role as micman and did the same from the track during the last few minutes of the game. It worked, they got up and made noise, and I think it made a difference.

There's something extremely gratifying about going back to Saint Francis with enough self-confidence to put myself out there like that. It reminds me how much I've grown and changed since I was a student there. High school was fine, but it's nice to look back and be reminded how much I've changed, for the better.

Your Heart is an Empty Room

And all you see
Is where else you could be
When you're at home
Out on the street
Are so many possibilities
To not be alone

-Death Cab

Fingers Crossed

I think I need another come from behind victory. Two just wasn't enough :-).

Rain on Down

Friday night/early Saturday morning I found myself lying near the window of some executive's corner office on the 27th floor of one of the towers in the Embacadero Center. I was there for at least 15 minutes or so just watching the light rain fall on the bay and the Ferry Building below me. It was one of those absurd but beautiful moments when time kind of stands still and you just think, wow...I wouldn't want to be any place else right now.

How I got there is not that interesting of a story...after a few failed attempts to find a club that didn't charge a cover over on Broadway... Steph, Dan, Julie, Laurel and I decided to ditch Bobby and his friend in North Beach and head towards the Financial District to hang out in Julie's office. Original plan was to take some wine up there, but alas, Safeway was closed by then.

We were all wet, freezing, and *slightly* buzzed. The rain had caught us off guard that night. Sometimes getting caught in the rain is irritating or depressing. But usually for me it's funny, exciting, makes me feel like a kid again.

The rain made Friday night memorable. And the more I think about it, the more I realize how many of my most vivid memories involve rain.

When I was exploring Boston on my own I got caught in a massive thunderstorm and had to hide on the portico of Fanueli Hall. It was pouring when I ran out of the Disney-MGM Studios with my family in our newly bought rain ponchos, pushing my mom in a wheelchair as fast as we could(she had just had an emergency gallblader surgery)... we were soaking wet by the time we had packed into the rental car. I have a similar memory of the four of us laughing and running around Scottsdale, Arizona one night after being caught in the rain and seeking refuge in an ice cream palour.

It was raining on Mountain View's 100th birthday as I stood with hundreds of other die-hard Mountain Viewers to see the dedication of Centennial Plaza. I have lots of memories of rainy days in Mountain View when, as soon as the first drops fell I would run to the closet, put on my red galoshes and yellow rain coat and go stomp in the puddles that always filled the end of West Dana. I remember towards the end of the big drought in the late 1980s when it poured for the first time in ages, and realizing that my little brother had never really seen rain like this before that he could remember.

It was raining when Kat and I took the GREs in the City and first saw our beloved "Great Fart Quake of 1906" sign, and when Erik and I went to Taylor's refresher during Finals week to take a break from studying last semester. In fact, my earliest memory of being in the City is a rainy night around Christmas when my uncle still lived there. We got caught in a storm while visiting Union Square, I remember running down the street under the awnings and into the BART station soaking wet (hmm, also my first memory of BART).

The more I think about it, the more rainy memories pop up. I'll stop though..don't want to bore you anymore than I already have.

So, in conclusion: I've been a lot more appreciative of those wonderful perfect sunshiney days lately , but I think I'll always love the rain.

What's a Bruin Anyway?

For my update on the weekend in LA (along with a photo essay!), see my Cal gang's group blog:

http://calbears05.blogspot.com