Hi Ho Hi Ho...

It's off to work I go.

The longest summer has ended, and so begins the next stage of my life.

Celebrate, Good Times, Come ON!

It's just a number.
I'm only a day older than yesterday.
Age is relative.

Awww, screw it.

I'm Twenty Five!

Twenty bleepin Five!

You know what? I really don't mind. So don't try to drag me down with your jokes about me getting "ancient"... you people who are, what? a few months? years? younger than me. You'll be here soon. Brahahaahaha.

I can't deny that Twenty Five is a number that makes you stop, pause and reflect. Looking back at my first quarter-century on this Earth, I'm thinking I'm not doing too shabby. I'll end the navel-gazing there. Things are going well and the forecast is for better.

So really, the only thing on my mind right now is party....party, and hope the partying extends into Sunday morning because Cal upsets U$C.

I feel like I'm in the mood for a cheesy celebratory music video:



Perfect! :)

I've been Busy

Saturday:
Visit UC Davis. See Cal lose (ouch). Dinner with Kay, Eric & Dan.

Sunday:
Break-up Part I.

Monday:
3-hour design exercise. SOM Job Offer! Drinks with Ian, Morgan, & Phil.

Tuesday:
Fancy dinner with Chris, Morgan and Phil.

Wednesday:
Break-up Part II. City of SF Job Offer! Dinner with Ian & Aditi.

Thursday:
Marin Headlands with Lisa & Morgan.

Friday:
Ian's Driving Test. Lunch with Lisa & Ian. Many phone conversations re: Job Offers. Dinner with parents.

Saturday:
Cal losses again. Matt & Kim's Engagement Party.

Sunday:
Car accident with my parents (shaken, but fine). Break-up Part III. Family time.


....no wonder I very rarely have complained about being bored during my soon-to-end job search/unemployment.

Phew.

Drip Drop

...ahhh

Tonight was the first night I walked home in the rain while living in San Francisco. From the top of the hill on Dolores Street, I could see the skyline of San Francisco behind the mist and rain. I paused for a bit to take it all in.

Now I'm back in my apartment, in my room. The rain is still falling at a steady beat outside.

I've opened the window and I'm relishing the sound.

This is what makes a place feel like home.

Enjoying It

I got up at 11:00am today. This is becoming routine.

I stumbled out of bed and found Kristina in the living room eating a salad before heading off to her job. I looked out the living room window and acknowledged that it was a truly beautiful San Francisco autumn day. I resolved to her that by 1:00pm I would be out of the house.

My mission today was to fight the lazy. To get out of my apartment and do what I said I'd do in my last post.

Mission accomplished. I went to the market, spent some time in Dolores Park, bought running shoes in the Inner Sunset, walked around Golden Gate Park, sketched and read in the Music Concourse, met up with Kay at Naan and Curry...and watched Heroes at Morgan and Phil's place in Hayes Valley.

Other than the shoe purchase, none of this was planned. It kind of just unfolded naturally. I don't know why I feel like it's worth writing a blog post about. I guess I just want to remind my future self of how nice today was and make all you income-earning working stiffs/stressed-out grad students jealous.

;-)

When the Lights Go Down in the City

Hello to the few of you who may have wandered over here hoping that maybe I finally updated this thing. Today is your lucky day.

Other than a few spats of unemployment-induced boredom - things have been pretty damn good here on the other side of the bay. I have a wonderful new home here in Noe Valley with two great roomies in an affordable, historic, well-kept apartment building on a quiet street near the heart of the neighborhood.

I never really explored Noe Valley until I moved here a month ago. It's a neighborhood that doesn't really attract tour-busses or college students. It's a part of San Francisco dominated by people who actually *live* here. It's like a small-town within the City - and just a quick trolley ride away from Downtown. I love it.

I'm just a block from the neighborhood's main shopping drag - 24th Street. 24th Street has almost everything you need to survive: restaurants, hardware shops, supermarket, pharmacy, gift shops, clothing stores, coffee shops, banks, bars....all wrapped in a oh-so-San-Francisco Victorian village-like atmosphere. No doubt, it's the center of San Franciscan yuppy-dom, but if the stroller-set gets too overwhelming I'm a quick walk downhill to the Mission or the Castro.

This place, right now, just fits. I keep having those pinch-me-I'm-dreaming moments when I step foot out my apartment and walk along this neighborhood's pretty little streets. Quite the change from the Southside of Berkeley. Don't have to worry about tripping over a drugged out crazy People's Park resident here.

Of course, there are a few drawbacks: My room is about half the size of my old Berkeley place. The cheap and plentiful food of Southside is no longer outside my door (which means I'm eating-in more...who knows, maybe I'll start cooking....) And of course, the comforting presence of Dengrove is no longer down the hall. Hehe.

But overall, things are great.

It's quite late. Past 2:00am. I am still unemployed so this does not really concern me. That said, it is kind of a bummer to sleep in and let so much of the day slip away. I know...I know....I'll be regretting that once I become a working stiff. Please don't remind me of this, I'm acutely aware of the fact and very tired of hearing it :-P

Tomorrow, I resolve to actually enjoy the situation rather than putz around my apartment like I've been doing that past couple days. I'm going to go to a bookstore, buy the sequel to the Golden Compass, and take it with me after lunch to wherever my heart pleases.

The City beckons.

I Can't...

...get. it. out. of. my. head.




We've forced the door shut.
Nobody wants to give up the key.
How do I change the lock?

In a week, I'll be in Rome.
[rinse. repeat]
In a week, I'll be in Rome.

Far away from this place.

In Between

Lately, whenever I try to write in this blog I usually end up filling an entire page's worth of words only to get to the end and delete it. Let's see if I can get this one to stick.

Didn't stick.

Oh well.

Had a Nice Day

Well. Huh.

Today was...nice.

Nothing remarkable happened, it just kind went the way I wish every average day would go.

I got out of bed...on time at 7:30.

I got to campus...with enough minutes to grab a hot cocoa and morning bun from Cafe Strada.

I went to my 8:00am class....and didn't feel like I was going to fall asleep.

I made my trek Downtown to work...and actually was productive the entire time.

I went to swimming....and was not the slowest person in my lane!

After swimming, I walked home....and a woman passing by wished me "Good Afternoon."

I went up to studio...and successfully sketched out a plan for San Antonio Center.

I thought I was going to eat dinner alone...but ended up eating with Ian and Lisa, meeting up with Chris, and randomly running into Jacob and Karl!

I went back to Wurster....and taught myself AutoCad with Aditi's company and help.

I came home at 1:00am, and don't feel exhausted.

Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it was the morning bun. Maybe it was having lunch while at work. Maybe it was the serendipity of running into people at the right time.

Whatever it was, today is the type of day I would probably forget if I didn't write it down, the pleasant kind of day that I'll miss once I'm done with grad school and no longer living in Berkeley. So, I just wanted to take this moment to say to myself, and to all my dear readers, that today, I had a nice day, and it was good.

Unseasonably Warm

Spring makes me feel uneasy, especially when it arrives early, out of nowhere like it did this weekend. Newspaper weather forecast: "Unseasonably Warm."

I'm feeling the heat.

I've lived on an academic calendar for most of my life, so the coming of Spring has meant that the year is about to come to an end. This is the last year where that will be the case. Soon, Spring will just be a shift to better weather. I look forward to that. But this year it's the biggest ending/beginning I've had to face.

*sigh* it'll work out, I know, but for now the not-knowing nags at me.

Party Party Party

In honor of me going out three nights in a row, and in honor of me sitting at home all day working on shit and occasionally procrastinating in order to pay for such actions, I offer you this music video of a new song that I find highly entertaining. Real men sing in falsetto. Enjoy.

Grace Kelly by MIKA

Grrrr.....BERKELEY!

So I was sitting in the California Theatre in Downtown Berkeley, watching Dreamgirls with my friends Peter and Michael. (It was the third time I've seen the movie :P )

First of all, the sound was craptastic. I felt like I was listening to the movie through a set of giant Dell laptop speakers. It actually made me WISH I was at some souless cineplex like the AMC at Bay Street rather than an old movie theatre in a downtown. Oh, the crushing conflict that such an impulse has on my historic preservationist-city plannery soul....

And then, near the end, some middle-aged typically Berkeley-looking bearded man wearing a funny hat, cheers, CHEERS, when Beyonce's character says, "well this is our last song."
Yes, sir, I understand that perhaps you did not like the movie and were happy that it was coming to an end. You obviously assumed that everyone else in the theatre shared your opinion and was quite happy to hear you holler. That or, you were embarrased to be there and felt so self-conscience about it that you had to cheer to prove to the middle-aged couple you ran into that you were above such a pedestrian form of entertainment.

Either way, you suck.

Why am I so wound up about one stupid guy's stupid cheer? Cause he reminds me of everything I dislike about Berkeley. The sense of entitlement and self-satisfication that hovers over this town can be toxic at times.

....

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return"

Unconditionally, though.