I live by the Bay.

And here is a picture to prove it:

There's the good ol' Golden Gate. Beyond it is the Pacific Ocean (can you believe it?), and the hunk of land to the left is San Francisco. On the right is Marin County, where I went to get my bike.

My friend Stephanie and I went for an impromptu walk up in Tilden Park on Wednesday night. Neither of us have class on Wednesdays, so we decided to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and take the bus up to Tilden. We sort of walked around for a while, but it took us a while to get there, and by the time we had really gotten into the park, it was kind of time to head back and catch the bus home. I guess that's what happens when you go for impromptu trips on Wednesday evenings. But I got this nice picture on the way back, anyway. The sun setting over the Bay is always gorgeous, no matter how many times I see it. It always makes me think, "I can't believe I live here now."

Actually, it's kind of like Paris in that regard. I used to take this bus from school back to my place in Paris, and we'd go by the Eiffel Tower, and the Cathedrale de Notre Dame, and I would always, always think, "I can't believe I live here." Even after 9 months. And I'm still doing it here fairly often after... 15 months.

Kind of like... I can't believe I'm 25. 25. I feel like I should be 17 or something. 25 is too big a number to apply to my age. But here I am, 25 and living in California with my husband. Life is so weird.

Anyway. Here's a picture I snapped last night while walking the dogs. The sky was really awesome.

One of these days I'm going to get a new camera (or more likely find the charger for Roger's digital SLR) because there are lots of pictures I'd like to take that don't quite come out as beautiful as I'd like them to. Maybe that's the nature of pictures... but you'll have to take my word for it that that sunset was much more breathtaking than my picture would lead you to believe. The pinks and oranges were really rich and vibrant and contrasted fantastically with the dark blue.

School goes on as normal, I suppose. I never really know what to say about school in this blog. I like it a lot; I'm having fun reading about little kids' voices and how and why they change as they grow. I have lots of grant applications to hand in in the next few weeks, so I have to figure out what exactly to say about my little kids' voices project. It's going to be really, really fun once I get it going, but I have to make sure I think it all out before I just dive in. It's easy to dive into things when you're excited about them, but I don't want to end up with a bunch of data that weren't collected correctly just because I was too anxious to get started.

I really love my advisor. He had some people over for a "lab hike" and cookout about two weeks ago, and it was so fun. It turns out he's been taking banjo lessons, and his wife was absolutely adorable and a fantastic cook, and she does adventure races on her bike. Such warm, down-to-earth folks. I got to play their piano too! And I don't remember how, but we ended up talking about the Monkees and I told them about how I got Mickey Dolenz's autograph and I used to sing Daydweem Baweebah.

One thing you don't think about too much when you're applying to grad school is the fact that this place is going to be your home. You think a lot about the academics, and how good is the program, and what kind of research do all the professors do, but you don't really consider the fact that this is going to be your social group too. I bet that makes or breaks a lot of people. I can easily imagine going someplace where the academics are exactly what you think you want, but if the people suck and you don't connect with them on a personal level, you're probably going to have a pretty miserable 5 years and not really want to do what you wanted to do anymore.

So I'm lucky. I like my people, and Berkeley's pretty all right, too. It's such a weird town, though. I was riding my bike to school the other day and I heard this bum pan-handling but giving everyone excuses at the same time. It went something like this:

"Can you spare a dime, ma'am? Only if you can afford it, only if you can afford it. Spare change? It's okay, times are rough, you keep it for yourself."

Weird.

The dogs are doing well, Roger's doing great. They put in a bid for a new office in San Francisco last week, and it's looking like they'll be moving in the next month or so. I can't wait for that! That'll shave like 30-45 minutes off his commute in each direction. And then they'll be hiring more people, so he'll have someone to do the crappy part of his job now, and he'll get to focus on the more interesting stuff that he enjoys a lot more. Hopefully (kind of probably) this will also come with a formal promotion, but I'll keep you posted.

Well, it's getting to be that part of the early afternoon where I feel like a bum for not showering and getting dressed yet, so I think that's what I'll do. Love to all, and happy fall.