Dietary Restrictions

Today, I ate something green.

So far, I have noticed that there are not a lot of restaurants that serve cheap fruits and veggies around here. There are pubs that offer $10 steaks on Friday nights. And kebabs stands. Pad Thai. More pubs. Fish and chips. Meat pies. Tandoori take-out. Pizza places (none of which sell by the slice.) A most excellent German bakery where I got a divine apple bake in a pastry that really did honestly melt in my mouth. But little fresh food.

My first night here I did find a Thai place that served up a delicious chicken and vegetable stir fry and cost $20. (Compare to $12 for the same dish at Thai Smile, three blocks from where I lived in Rancho Mirage.) At that point, I had been up for 36 hours or so and didn’t much care. I needed green things. But the cheap food is, as usual, the food that’s bad for you.

       I looked in vain for a grocery store. Finally, I stopped in a convenience store and asked if there was a place to find a greater variety of grocery items. I understood one word that the young man with a heavy Asian/Australian accent said: “Woolworths.” I sighed. Where I grew up, Woolworths was a drugstore lunch counter kind of place. I didn’t want more diner food – I wanted an apple.

For four days I subsisted on a variety of food guaranteed to hurt me: fish and chips down at Circular Quay, right on Sydney Harbor. An egg and bacon roll on Darlinghurst Road. Latte (not even decaff – yikes) with sugar paired with a blueberry muffin at G’Day Café. And turns out that I’ve developed a six-dollar-a-day chocolate habit. (That’s like smoking a pack a day! Geez.)And my running shoes haven’t yet made an appearance outside my suitcase.

       Tonight on my way back from the Internet café, I noticed a sandwich board sign on the sidewalk pointing down a side street – “Adora Health Foods.” Hallelujah! Maybe they have something that I can eat that isn’t in the “shit that will kill me” food group. The place was barely big enough to turn around in, but had shelves to the ceiling of supplements I recognized.

And fair trade chocolate.

So the only thing I left with was a $5.90 Cocolo dark chocolate bar with almonds. I can recommend this as a complete meal. Almonds are now defined as a superfood, as is dark chocolate. And chocolate is derived from a bean, so it’s a vegetable. Perfect.

       I tucked the bar in my messenger bag, strolled back to MacleayStreet and turned toward the hotel. The late afternoon sun was warm, the breeze was just turning cool, and I could hear faint music from an open terrace door. I was just about to walk into the hotel when shopping carts across the street caught my eye. The store: Woolworth’s.  I crossed the street and looked through the windows of what appeared to be a grocery store. Sure enough, I saw men, women and children of all ages perusing veggies, loading up fruits and canned goods … Woolworth’s is a grocery store.

Well, shit.

Off I went to find something green to flesh out my currently vegetarian repast. I  found a ready-made Caesar salad, complete with child-sized plastic fork.

     Back at the hotel, I peel the container open – chicken and croutons and cheese and bacon bits each in its own little packet. I pick up the chicken packet.  I pull. I tear. I use my teeth. No luck.

Anyone who has traveled (or been alive) since 9/11 knows that it is now impossible to travel with a sharp object. After one long-ass day of travel, my little manicure scissors was finally confiscated by a team of crack security agents at the Brisbane airport (after the security agent at LAX walked me back out because I had forgotten to empty my water bottle, after I had spent an hour getting through Customs in Brisbane, after paying $20 cab fare to go 2 kilometers from the International terminal to the Domestic terminal because my flight was boarding in 15 minutes and I still had to check in and go through security…) I could not open the packets to make my salad. But women’s cosmetic bags usually have more than one implement that can be used to poke someone’s eye out or take hostages. My tweezers was nearly confiscated by the same alert Brisbane security agents until I begged amnesty, vowing I would threaten nothing but my own eyebrows with them.

Yes, tweezers can poke a hole in hermetically sealed chicken packets. And bacon bit/parmesan/crouton packets. And I ate something green today.

Wired, Not Wired

The Inner East suburbs of Sydney are characterized as “leafy.” They are. In fact, Macleay Street in Potts Point is lovely with circa 1900 apartment buildings that have been refurbished, mature trees and lots of young-ish people bustling back and forth.  The Hotel Devere, however, where I’m staying, is a bit bleak. In my Frommer’s guide book, “Sydney Free and Dirt Cheap,” the author mentions this hotel and says that the rooms are “a bit tired.” Online, the rooms look great. In person, they look – well, like a 1970s Holiday Inn. This might explain why the nightly rate is not much higher than a 1970s Holiday Inn rate. Yet, I believed in a great potential for comfort, especially once I got the cleaning staff to remove the mold from the ceiling in the bathroom.

    Additionally, the management of the Hotel Devere have turned out to be masters of manipulating the ambiguity of language. Wi-fi is available. Not free. And not in every room. Only in the lobby because of where the router is positioned. Being connected costs $4 an hour. I have now become aware of how much time I spend online, and have adjusted accordingly. This cost is made doubly troublesome by the fact that using my cell phone is dependent upon access to wi-fi. Great.

    Happily, Macleay Street and adjoining Darlinghurst Road are both dotted with Internet cafes with prices much more competitive. And – wonder of wonders – the Kings Cross public library branch has free wi-fi available. Interesting how I had to ask the desk staff several times if there was a library nearby. Perhaps they don’t frequent libraries.

    Macleay Street and more particularly Darlinghurst Road are dotted with much more than Internet cafes, however. At least three hostel/hotel facilities for backpackers can be found in a three block stretch, along with a dozen kebab stalls, a couple pizza places, a pub, a couple Pad Thai places, MacDonald’s (yes, they’re everywhere) several strip clubs and adult book stores. In fact, the largest club and store is directly across from the library. From the computer carrels on the second floor, one can gaze into Risque Boutique’s clothing showroom to see the latest in hotpants and studded collars. When I walked out, I strolled by a young girl leaning up against the wall just outside one of the clubs, platform heals, skimpy halter top, tiny cut-offs, texting.  And then I realized, hey, there’s a young whore!  I think the guidebooks call the neighborhood “eclectic.”

    The opposite direction from Darlinghurst Road is Elizabeth Bay which, as the name would suggest, is on the water, and is much more flash (as the Aussies would say) than where I’m staying. Elizabeth Bay is where Nicole Kidman’s parents live, where Russell Crow has a place, where all the hip Sydneysiders hangout, being beautiful and floating around, not having to occupy an office anywhere.  Potts Point is next up, and then Kings Cross which has historically been the red light type district. Now it’s been cleaned up a little bit, but on my way to the subway on Saturday morning, there were several revelers from the night before still reveling, the street stinking here of beer, there of urine.

The Bourbon, formerly owned by an expat Texan.

    When I got back on Saturday night, different partiers had taken their place, and many more of them. On the train, I sat in a car with about a dozen girls who looked about 12 years old chattering around me, in clouds of perfume, wearing the sort of heels that put orthopedic surgeons’ children through college. Short skirts, skimpy tops, big earrings and tiny purses. Similar but not the same as the other girl I saw earlier who also looked 12 years old, leaning up against a lamppost outside the library.

    Yes, the library saved me about $12 that day, but the connection eventually slowed to the point that I could not get on my gmail, nor log on to the blog. So. Off I went, past the little prostitute, and to a place across the street, right next to Risque, a flower shop and internet facility that charges $2 per hour. Happily, the flowers have a deodorizing effect on the place. (I had started walking into a different one and the smell of stale sweat and unwashed backpackers started my gag reflex.) The guy at the counter was very pleasant – a young man with German come Australian accent. Friendly, sympathetic about the library’s inferior connection and happy to take my money.

     The final straw with the Hotel Devere came at check- out. The day before, instinct bade me call the front desk before I made a local call to check on what charges would be. I was told $1.Since I was on the phone for about 40 minutes, I thought that was a pretty good deal. Then I was presented with a telephone bill for $47. A dollar a minute. Not a dollar per call. When fate presents me the opportunity to be self-righteous, I have a tough time resisting, so I was able to get half the charges dropped.  Turns out yes, the charge is $1 per call, but I called a cell phone number, so it’s $1 per minute. And how do I tell it’s a cell phone number? Oh, there’s an 04 prefix instead of an 02 prefix.  

    Good to know. It might be time for a cheap Aussie mobile. And it’s certainly time for a cheap Aussie hostel. More to come about the Cambridge Lodge in Stanmore.

This Vacation-Vision Quest-Expedition Thing

This is not a vacation. It is an expedition.  Maybe a vision quest. Or an adventure. I have a tough time hearing the word “adventure” lately. It has just a bit of a condescending edge to it. Like the whole EPL thing. “Oh, you’re going to have such an adventure!”  I suppose. I wonder if President Jefferson said those words to Meriweather Lewis and William Clark. Sounds like I’m off to go tobogganing or something. Or have become a character in a Dr. Seuss book. Yet, despite my hypersensitivity, the word is accurate; its definition “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.” Sounds about right.

I contemplated this as I was sitting near Gate 38 at Los Angeles International, waiting to board V-Australia’s flight 008 on 10 Oct, seat 42A, with service to Brisbane and connecting to Sydney for an arrival at my final destination at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 12 Oct. (You notice how I’m already using that funny way of writing the date? I’m so down with this whole Commonwealth Country thing.) I look around, and anywhere that there’s an electrical outlet, there’s a person between the age of 12 and 22 with a laptop or cell phone plugged in. And me.  I managed to exhaust my iphone battery by not knowing how to get logged out of Skype, and returning texts and calls to all of my friends who wants to speak with me “one last time” before I go. I love you all, but please, I have a phone number you can call. Free. Almost like I’m not gone at all.  I did that on purpose. So you don’t have to talk to me one last time. That feels a little bit creepy. I’m not going as a convict, for Pete’s sake.

A note to those who bring their own  water with them. TSA agents who are on their game will in fact have you pack up your laptop and quart-sized bag of toiletries and escort you back out to try it again. I had that opportunity in LA. The agent was nice, yet very serious about her instructions. As we exited, I asked her just how she stood the smell of feet every day. She sighed and said, "It's worse when they spray air freshener." Note to self: do not apply for a TSA job.

Oh, and a brief digression:  I found out that I can suspend my cell phone number for up to six months and pay very little-like, $10-during the suspended time. That eliminates the entire issue of accidentally bumping my phone off airplane mode and receiving a cascade of text messages and voice mails, and paying a six-digit telephone bill. For which I would bill each of you individually. Anyway, just a note to those who might want to try this whole expedition/adventure/vision quest thing.

I say expedition because I’m going to be gone for 107 days. And will go to several different places with the intent of discerning whether I consider these places inhabitable. Isn’t that what Lewis and Clark did? Maybe instead of analogies to “Eat, Pray, Love,” we could perhaps look at Ambrose’s “Undaunted Courage” as well. The title is a bit grandiose, but, that aside, I feel more like L&C than Elizabeth Gilbert.  Except I don’t have a crew of men pulling a boat upstream on the Missouri. And I don’t have a Newfoundland dog with me either. And I brought nothing to trade with the natives to keep them from killing me.  Aside from that …it’s exactly the same. 

The flight boarded promptly at 11:20 p.m. (or 23:20 as they track here in casinos).  I was back in steerage, 42A, window seat, making it awkward to climb over the nice couple from Brisbane sitting in 42B and 42C.  The woman had the center seat, and immediately put a neck pillow on, covered up with her blanket, and fell asleep. So much for conversation.  I immediately started watching movies. When was the last time any of you watched three movies at one sitting? (Okay, maybe Tod Goldberg has done it recently …) Anyway, I finally saw “The Hangover” and had to be careful to stifle guffaws to not wake the woman next to me. All I have to say is Bradley Cooper, call me. Soon.

I dozed for a while, noshed on cashew clusters, stayed hydrated, a bit too hydrated, and then didn’t want to wake anybody to go pee. Problematic. But I know now just how strong my bladder is, and it’s information that I’m sure will come in handy at some point. 

*

Staring out the window in the wee hours after some dozing. I assume these are the wee hours. I can’t tell being in this suspended state, floating along between hemispheres in an airplane where the glow of intermittent video screens dot the darkened cabin. A man snores behind me. The clouds float, charcoal over a black sea, and Orion shines over it all. I feel an affinity for Orion. He blazed away early mornings when I lived with my Lugg-dogg in Leawood, Kansas. He hung low in the southern sky, the feel of midnight hanging around him even at 5 a.m.  By the end of my run, he disappeared as the sky turned cobalt, then robin’s egg blue.  He stood over the desert, too, just outside my bedroom patio door, a colossus that the planes from Phoenix flew by to land at Palm Springs International.

Not everything is foreign here, not yet.

Down Under Tour 2011-12

A year ago June, just before I graduated with my MFA in creative writing from UC, Riverside, I had a chat with my friend Michelle. Since she was the person who could make sure I graduated, I had stopped by to make sure of just that. After we cleared up the details, I told her I wasn’t sure what to do next – that there was no fabulous job yet, and staying in the desert did not fill me with unbridled joy. The truth? I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and, whatever, it was, I didn’t want to do it here.

Now, if you’re a person who is discontent about your situation in life and yearn to change it, do not talk with my friend Michelle. She’ll just ask you questions like, “Well, if you could do anything, what would you do?” And she asks so disingenuously and openly that a person can’t help but tell the truth. She pulled that on me.

“Well, travel. I would travel.”

“So go to work up in Santa Cruz again, make some money, and travel.”

Well, that was easy. So I did go back up to Santa Cruz and work with an academic summer camp program, after which I embarked on my Western States Tour 2010 – 7,000 miles in six weeks. This blog is a product of those weeks on the road.

After I returned, Michelle and I met for dinner. Her daughter had just returned from world travels to points Asian and Pacific, and I listen with envy as she listed the countries and the cool things she had done (including being evacuated from the path of a cyclone in Australia). I, however, had still not secured a job, had not moved to either Santa Cruz or Missoula, Montana. Here I sat, once again, ambivalent about what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go.

I wondered aloud if I could possibly take off for a few weeks. Six weeks, maybe, or a couple months. How could I do that?

“Well, why not?” Michelle says. Or something to that effect.

Months passed. It was nearly a year past graduation and still I had no job and no plan.

In May, I started getting serious about going to New Zealand. A friend of mine told me to make a pro/con list. She looked at it.

“That’s not a con. Neither is that. Those are fears.”

Ok. So I’m fearful of taking off to the other side of the world. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to.

“Do the thing you’re afraid of.”

This woman has hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, and large parts of other major cross continent trails. She knows of what she speaks.

So I decided. I have another friend who says that we are deciders, not doers, and once we decide, the doing becomes easy. (Why the hell do I listen to these people?)

Before this gets to sound like a Marianne Williamson retreat, let me just say that it finally occurs to me that if I’m serious about doing this, and not just wishing that I could, I had probably do a little research about travelling, how much it would cost, how much hostels cost (could I really room with three 20-something backpackers and share a bathroom?) Turns out a person can travel with little money and impose upon the kindness of strangers. Housesitting. WWOOF-ing (more about that once I get to New Zealand). The bottom line is that you don’t have to do guided tours and stay in really nice hotels in order to travel. That is perhaps the difference between being a tourist or being a traveler. (More about that idea and Paul Bowles’ book later.)

In June I put all my things in storage and left for Santa Cruz once again to work with academically gifted kids. In August, I came back and imposed upon the hospitality of a friend until my departure from Los Angeles on October 10.

Various friends in the know advised me to pack light. One of them who worked in the diamond trade and carried a little pistol in a thigh holster (just in case) said, “One black bra, one nude bra, a few pair of panties, you can rinse things out in the hotel sink. Black clothes, and pick a color to accessorize.”

Okay, well, I packed more than that (a couple more bras and panties, for sure) but I didn’t pack a lot. Note the flatness of the suitcase – expander panel reserved for the way back. Also note all the room in the duffle, allowing me to bring my Dr. Martin boots, a stylin’ choice. All in all, my luggage consists of the duffle, the rolling suitcase and a messenger bag that holds my laptop and some books. If need be, this messenger bag can be packed into the duffle.

Off I go.

Children, children

The first day of class, half way through the afternoon session, one the 16 students in my writing class raised her hand and said, “Can I go home now?” The word “querulous” was invented for this girl.

Caught off guard, yet ever articulate, I asked, “Home as in back to the dorm, or home as in home home?”

She collapsed onto the table, her arms out, head down. “I don’t care. Just not here.”

Springing up again, she went on. “I just think I don’t deserve to be here. I should be home swimming at the pool, playing Pokemon and writing my fan fiction. I’m being held against my will. I didn’t want to come here in the first place. I …”

I cut her off. Told her that if she would please wait until three o’clock, I’d be pleased to let her talk to someone about it. But until then, we are in discussion. My thoughts were, “You bet. I’ll call home for you. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

Yet I resisted.

She was back that evening for study hall and the next morning. She took exception to John R. Stilgoe’s essay, “Beginnings,” from his book Outside Lies Magic. The piece urges the reader to “get out,” as in get out of the house, go wandering (not power walking or jogging) go alone, and go without your ipod plugged into your head, without your cell, without texting. The same student declared that Stilgoe “has a serious grudge against technology, and I don’t get what’s wrong with technology, I love technology, that’s why I hate being here, without my technology. I want my …” And once again the instructor cut her off. “Thanks. I understand how someone might think that.”

She sat and fumed. Interrupted another student in our discussion.

“Do I have to stay here?”

Well, yes, actually you do.

“I’m not going to listen, then. I’m just going to sleep put my head down on the table and sleep.”

Which she proceeded to do.

Things got even more interesting when we started to read Thoreau. Any writing that implied that humans might do well to reconnect with the natural environment and rid themselves of material trappings as well as technological gizmoes set off alarm bells in her head. This time it was, “I’m not listening. I hate this guy.” And she proceeded to shred the photocopy of “Where I Live and What I Lived For” from Walden.

At some point during the discussion, she rebelled further, informing us that she’s always right and anyone who disagrees with her is always wrong, and she hates people who are wrong and disagree with her, and this book should be burned.

Wouldn’t be the first time that someone suggested burning a book by Thoreau. The novel part was that this was coming out of a 13-year-old. Quite a bright 13-year-old. But still.

It occurred to me that perhaps I have neither the demeanor nor the temperament for the classroom.  My immediate reaction was to get rid of her, get her out, there’s the door, here’s your hat what’s your hurry. Go. Devil – git out!

 *

Most writers that I know agree that algebra class was a painful experience. I secured a passing grade in college algebra by missing the first test, stealing the answers, acing the make-up test (with the stolen answers), attending all the labs (for which I earned points), and ending up with a solid D. Helen Johnson drove me to this. As the high school math teacher with a 30-plus year tenure, she taught all of us Westersons and Petersons and Andersons and Swensons and, and, and. Baffled by anything describing one train leaving a station at 3 p.m. the other at 2 p.m. etc., I sought her help. The meeting ended with her shooing me out of her classroom with the admonition that I understood this perfectly and quit wasting time and get back to study hall. I still believe that I could score 100 percent on an algebra test with the right tutoring. In fact, I believe that I could learn calculus with the right tutoring. These beliefs, these delusions, they persist.

*

Defacing books was never a sport. Coloring in letters, the spaces in the O or the P or the A or B – that was the extent of it. Purely innocent. It took me years to actually highlight or underline in books, and I remember thinking what a great idea that was, especially if the author was not considerate enough to provide boldface, italics or vocabulary words at the end of the chapter. In this classroom, kids are encouraged – yea, instructed – to read with a pen or pencil in hand. Not a highlighter – you can’t write questions or comments with highlighters. Use pens. Use pencils. Question. Participate.

*

Right now we have three days left of the second three-week session. Today, we went on our last field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a fabulous place located on Cannery Row in Monterey (yes, we’ve been reading Steinbeck). The Aquarium has preserved part of the Hovden Cannery and provides interpretive information about it. This group could not have been more bored with the entire thing. I don’t recall ever seeing 14-year-olds who preferred to play in the sections designed for 5-year-olds. They would rather have done that had we not urged them on. No, I don’t think I’m particularly well suited to the classroom. I can’t say “come on, let’s go” one more time. Obviously with this current group I’ll have to say “get your asses over here.”

Four days to go. Just four days.

Dislocated Buildings

McHenry Library Terrace - complete with smoker.

Today I lost the McHenry Library. Strange, especially since it’s a building that has such a large footprint (as the architects say) and I could swear I hadn’t moved it when I departed UCSC last August. Yet, I walked from Bay Tree Bookstore, took a right up the road, kept going even when it looked like it was going into the forest primeval, kept going until I saw the sign for McHenry and Classroom Unit 1 (clearly someone needs to step up and claim naming rights for that one), headed toward where I thought the footbridge was, and yes, it’s still there, and over the bridge and …no library.

However, I did manage to find the Earth and Marine Science classrooms. And another sign directing to the library back the way I had come. At that point I could see a silver something or other (roof?) through the trees, and hear the hum of something that was either a large hover craft or multiple air conditioners cooling a five story building. It was the latter.

Teeny, tiny sign which directed me back from whence I came.

Despite my dismay, I'm not particularly surprised that I lost the library. The entire campus of UCSC looks much like a state park. In fact, the signage on campus is of the brown painted wood variety, with engraved letters highlighted in white. Very Smokey-the-Bear-ish. So everything looks the same, and buildings are cleverly hidden in the natural environment.

That said, the McHenry Library has at least a couple unique features. The first is a terrace complete with smokers. Two of them as I passed by. And an ash tray, which implied permission to smoke less than 30 feet away from the entrance of the building. Or maybe the structure is cleverly designed so that the smoking area is 30 feet away, which would imply that someone intended for it to be there. At any rate, smokers in California are a dying breed (literally and figuratively) because they’ve been chased out of most public places, including bars (!?) and restaurants. Turns out that inhaling second-hand smoke is a health risk. Too bad. As a former smoker, I enjoy a good hit of second-hand smoke every now and again.

Speaking of smoke, the second singular feature of the McHenry and UCSC in general is that it is the archive of the entire Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead archive, donated by the band in 2008. In fact, a couple years ago, right before I got my master’s from UCR, I saw an advertisement on the AWP web site for a chief archivist. Too bad I haven’t ever been a Deadhead or I would have applied.  In fact, UCSC was awarded a National Leadership Grant of $615,175 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) – the primary source of federal funds for the nation's museums and libraries. The grant enabled the UCSC library to digitize materials from its Grateful Dead Archive and make them available on The Virtual Terrapin Station web site. (Not up yet. I checked.)

My mission at the McHenry was to secure a temporary library card because writers and readers need those sorts of things. I also went to reintroduce myself to my friend Alex who helps manage the Media Center to finagle permission to check out DVDs. We aren’t supposed to be able to do that this year, even though our classrooms have no Internet capability so we can’t stream excerpts of video for our students. I guess that our administrators expect us writer types to retire to the classroom, draw the shades, light a few candles, trim our nibs and get our parchment stacks ready.

More to come about Santa Cruz and its numerous attractions. Maybe even some classroom drama.

McHenry Library camouflage.

Back in the Cruz

I have returned to where I started. The first blog entry on Run North / Go West featured a photograph of the Monterey Bay at Santa Cruz. I took it the evening before I left on what I now call my Western States Tour 2010. I'm back again, for the third summer, working with an academic summer camp for gifted kids.

The photo above is a view from the University of California, Santa Cruz campus, overlooking Pogonip City Park. The word "Pogonip" means icy fog in Shoshone, by the way, and yes, the park is covered in fog most mornings. But that makes for a fabulous walk or run on a trail that in places consists of so many layers of redwood duff footsteps are all but unheard, and sound is muffled in mist.

I have never professed to be a desert rat, and at times in this blog I have been downright hostile toward that inhospitable environment. The Coachella Valley seems to be dominated by those who profess to love the desert, but really love the desert climate in January and February. They don't love the desert, or they wouldn't waste precious groundwater irrigating turf. What they really want is their northern surroundings (green, lush, turf, grass) in an arid, temperate setting.

One of the neighbors.

The difference I find in northern California is that the people seem to really love their place. And it is regarded as place, not just space to fill. Conservation is real in this city. Environmentalism is real. And whether or not it seems like a movement or a thing to do or a lifestyle really isn't important. It's the way so many respond to this place - with a desire to keep it the way it is.

UC Santa Cruz campus is a miracle in itself. Founded in 1965, I believe. Reagan was Governor at the time, and arranged the place in separate colleges with no traditional quad, the idea being to avoid the demonstrations that eastern campuses were experiencing. The campus is truly in a redwood forest, confusing to navigate for newcomers because everything looks the same - like trees. Actually, like tree trunks, because it's not possible to see the entire redwood. I get a pretty cool deal here: room and board, on-campus housing.

On the right is the view from my balcony the first morning that I was here. Fog moves in shortly after dark, and dissipates by noon or so. Evenings are 50s or 60s - days have been around 80. Perfection. Even with the killer schedule (8:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.) it's worth it to be here. Oh - and I teach middle-schoolers, which is a mixed bag, but generally quite interesting. More about that soon.