Where did October go??

Seriously! How can it possibly be October 22nd?? Time goes SO much faster for me when I'm in school. The year I was in Urbana after college felt like it took forever (partially in a good way, mind you; it was a very relaxing year in a way), and I'm somehow most of the way through this semester already! It's unreal.

I'm pretty much done with mid-term season now, I think. Not that I really had any midterms, but I did have a lot of stuff to do these past few weeks, and I think I have a bit of a break for a few weeks now before my end of the semester stuff will be due. The main thing on my mind right now is still my National Science Foundation fellowship application. It's almost done, but once I get it handed in and it's completely out of my hands, it'll be a minor weight lifted off my shoulders. And it's due November 6th, so I don't have too much longer to wait! I'm hoping to finish it up this weekend, actually....

Hmm, what else... things are pretty good, really. Roger hasn't been hired on anywhere yet, so we're both frustrated and anxious about that, but we'll be okay on money for a while longer since I just raked in some birthday cash last week! (Thanks again, everyone!) The weather is fantastic, and I've been squeezing in about two runs a week with the dogs. It's funny; they're not in as good a shape as they used to be! I used to have to do at least 7-8 miles with them to even put a dent in their energy for the rest of the day, but we did 6 on Saturday and they napped the rest of the day. It's ok - race registration just opened for next year's San Francisco Marathon, and I'll probably try to train for it and actually run it this summer. :)

I'm getting excited about my classes for next semester, too. I'm only going to take four, I think, and I don't think it will be nearly as rigorous a semester as this one. Which means I should be able to run more regularly, which is what brought me to this paragraph. Anyway, I'm taking a MATH class, and I'm very excited about that. I haven't had math since calculus in my senior year of high school, and I miss it! It's so concrete and unarguable and black and white. It's a puzzle where your answer is either right or wrong - no discussion needed. So that should be fun.

Well, I slept on my back funny last night and it's been bothering me today, so I think I'm going to sign off and go stretch it out a little. I'll leave you with some pictures from the past few days.


Boys asleep on the couch.

Saturday Downtown Berkeley farmer's market. Clock tower on campus in the background, through the trees.

Cute sleepy Huckleberry Hound.


Rye-dog on the lookout. He's decided the picnic table on the porch is his.

I can't figure it out.

There's like, four categories of people in this town. There's looks nice, is nice; looks nice, is actually crazy; looks crazy, is actually perfectly nice; and looks crazy, is definitely crazy. I suppose you could break the whole world up this way, but I think it's a more appealing system for Berkeley in particular because I haven't figured out a reliable metric for putting people in each category yet, so it seems like it would be a very useful system to master here. Let me give you an example for each category, ending with the one that happened to me this morning.

1) Looks nice, is nice. Our neighbors. They're originally from Wisconsin. They say hi to us when we run into them. 'Nuff said.

2) Looks crazy, is actually perfectly nice. Old black dudes with no teeth. I say this because I ran into one with my friend John a while back, and while I was initially a little concerned when he rushed up and started lisping at us, it turned out he just really wanted to find a butcher shop nearby so he could cook up some ox tail. Weird, yes, but also perfectly nice and not necessarily crazy.

3) Looks crazy, is definitely crazy. All the bums on Shattuck Avenue. The ones that gather to sing karaoke are kind of cute, as long as they don't sit down too close to you while you're waiting for the bus, but they're still definitely crazy.

4) Looks nice, is actually crazy. This is the one that gives me the most trouble. I was walking back from the grocery store this morning with a gallon of milk in a plastic bag. I'm strolling along thinking, "Man, this milk is pretty heavy," when I smile and say hi to a woman in her front yard. She smiles back and says, "Boy, that milk sure looks heavy."

Slightly weird thing to say, especially since I was just having that thought myself, but I just say "Yeah, it is!" as I'm walking by. She keeps talking to me though. (This is how these interactions generally go.) "Oh honey, you better be careful, those plastic bags are cutting into your hands!" And she's right, they are. But I think of it more as a temporary inconvenience than a real liability. "Those bags are so thin and that milk is so heavy, you're going to really hurt your hands!" At this point, I've stopped and turned back a little to say something to her. That's the problem with category 4 people; if they were definitely crazy, you could just keep walking, but when they seem like nice normal people at first, it seems so rude to just ignore them.

So I say something like, "Oh, it's ok, I don't have very far to walk." This is also true, but not a satisfactory response, because she replies, "Oh but honey, when you get older, it's gonna be a real problem. You should really think about getting some gloves for that. When you get older, you'll be sorry. So much damage to your hands. Your joints-"

At this point I'm getting a little concerned, because now I've stopped to talk to her and she's clearly not going to stop talking anytime soon, and now I don't know how to gracefully exit this conversation. I say something indistinct and noncommittal like, "Oh um, it's ok..." and smile politely as I try to back away. She's yelling after me though! "Oh honey, your hands, you really need to be careful..."

In retrospect, I suppose a nice way to end things would've been to start screaming "OH GOD I'M BLEEDING I CAN'T FEEL BELOW MY ELBOW I THINK MY FINGER JUST FELL OFF" etc. and run away. As is, I'm just left wondering: will I ever figure out how to avoid the loose screws?