Melinda Woodley, M.A.

Oh good lord, it's been two months since I updated? That's ridiculous.

I have excuses, though, I assure you. Like for one thing, I have an M.A. from UC Berkeley now. Isn't that crazy? I just took my exam this past Friday - a two hour long oral exam that consisted of me standing at a chalkboard being asked questions by three professors - and despite the fact that I felt like an idiot, apparently I did pretty well! So maybe I do know something about linguistics after all, although I'm not sure the three days straight of studying really paid off...

Here I am with my honey and my hood!

And here I am with my M.A. graduating class. I love these guys!

I also churned out a 20 page paper that needs to be revised and beefed up for next week, so that they'll actually give me my master's, but I don't want to think about that just yet.

Let me tell you about the Oakland Half Marathon, even though it was almost two months ago now. It was great! I decided I really like Oakland. It's definitely the red-headed stepchild of San Francisco. Not to be a hipster or anything, but it's a very... real city. The race was weird because it started downtown, which was great, but I can't think of how to describe downtown Oakland. There are a few tall buildings, but none of them are that tall, and they're all pretty concentrated in one little area. Parts of downtown look kind of old, but in a quaint, turn-of-the-20th-century way. Like you can imagine Jack London sitting in a cafe and people driving by in Model-T's or something, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, it was weird because we did a loop downtown, then circled around by Jack London square, but didn't actually go through Jack London square, and then we did this loop through West Oakland that might have been a little scary if there weren't several thousand other people and police escorts around. West Oakland is totally bizarre. There are lots of rappers from there, if that tells you anything, but it's in the beginning-ish stages of urban renewal and gentrification. So there are lots of old black people who have probably lived there forever, and then lots of hipster barrista 35 year olds who finally settled down and have toddlers with mohawks. That sort of thing. So we did this long, very industrial loop, and then we eventually hit the yuppier part of Oakland, just north of Lake Merritt. Lake Merritt is gorgeous but also totally weird, because it's this huge lake that sort of comes out of nowhere just north of downtown. But it's beautiful - it's a very nice part of town, lots of cute little bars and restaurants and lots of folks out riding bikes and walking around, and it was a very sunny day, so the water was sparkling and the sky was bright blue. Very nice. But I was hurting pretty bad by the time we got there. The last part of the course was a loop around the lake, so you're thinking, okay, just one loop around the lake and I'm done. But the lake is pretty big - the start of the lake part of the course was around mile 10, and it's easy to think you're almost done when you hit mile 10 in a half marathon. But I guess it's kind of like mile 20 in a full marathon; that's really where the race starts, in a way, because that's when you're fighting your body to keep going. It was also kind of mean that the half marathon course was very flat except for the very end.

Now, usually when I do a race, I have a realistic goal and a secret goal. The realistic goal is one that I can probably make, and the one that I tell people about if they ask. But the secret goal is one that I don't like to say out loud, because I don't want to commit to it. My realistic goal for this race was to come in under 1:50. I ran my first half ever in Mahomet in 2005, and I finished in 2:08. I ran my second one in Valparaiso in 2007 in 1:48, and I was totally stoked to come in well under 2 hours. I haven't been doing any speed work or timing myself at all since we moved out here, so I really have no idea how fast I usually run. I figured if I could come in around 1:50, that would be great, because that would put me at the same level of fitness as the last time, when I had been doing speed work. But my secret goal was to be faster than 1:48, and my secret secret goal was to come in under 1:45.

Well, I didn't wear a watch for this race, but I periodically asked people what time it was along the course, and I knew I was going to come in under 2:00. When we hit the lake, though, I realized it was a possibility that I could meet my secret secret goal if I really pushed it. It hurt, it really hurt, and I felt like I was going so slowly no matter what I did. But you know what? I rounded the last corner as we turned off from the lake and went back downtown, and I saw the clock, and I was so close to 1:45. I sprinted the last straightaway, and I was so close to coming in under 1:45. So close. So for a minute I was a little disappointed that I was so close but didn't quite make it. And then I remembered that I was going by clock time, not chip time, which means that I did make it. I made it! My time was 1:44 something, and I did the math and found that I averaged a 7:59.99 minute mile. So WHOO-HOO!! No wonder it hurt!

If I could run an 8 minute mile for 26 miles (which I won't be doing any time soon), that would be a 3:30 marathon, and that would rock and qualify me for Boston. So naturally when I got home, I started figuring out what marathon I should do this year. I think I really must be a masochist; that's the only explanation. Painpainpainpainpainpain where can I sign up to do that again? Anyway, I decided to put my name in for the San Francisco Nike Women's marathon in the fall, and I got picked! It's a lottery system because it's such a popular race, but I will be running my next full marathon on October 17th. Cripes, I need to get together a training plan.

There are lots of other things I need to do this summer, too. I'm taking Spanish, which starts in about a month. Before then, I have to finish that paper I mentioned, and I'm volunteering for this workshop at Berkeley called Breath of Life, where Native Americans from all over California come to learn about their native languages and the resources we have at Berkeley for learning about them and keeping them alive. The language I'm working on is Cahuilla, which is still spoken by some people in Southern California, and we have three speakers coming up to learn about the Cahuilla resources we have. So I need to learn lots more about Cahuilla between now and the first week of June.

For now, though, I really want a shower. So I'm going to leave you with some good pictures my mom took when she was here over the past week. The first one is the Golden Gate on a typically foggy day, and the second is me on the beach at Monterey. We drove down to see the aquarium, and it was a gorgeous sunny day, and the aquarium was pretty awesome.

The Year of 10,000 Miles

I've been a horrible delinquent blogger lately, and I really do apologize profusely. It's funny; I love reading other peoples' blogs, and when someone doesn't update for a while, I think, "Jeez, why won't they hurry up and update? I want to know what's going on in their life!" And I do realize that anyone who actually reads my blog has probably been saying that for weeks now.

It's just that time goes by so quickly! So very, very quickly! February was over far too soon, with the big conference we hosted on campus, and then me getting to deal with organizing and filing receipts for us to get reimbursed from our various sponsors, and now suddenly it's March and the rain is probably over until November, and I have to start really actually studying for my M.A. exam, and soon it'll be graduation, but I have so many papers to write and things to do in the meantime, but it'll all get done somehow. In other words, the rest of the semester is going to be busy busy busy.

There's lots of good news to report, though! For one, Roger finally got his raise! It's been so great having some spending money the past few weeks. I do really know that money isn't everything, and I really don't want to sound like I'm complaining, because we've been getting along just fine for past 18 months. But we have furniture now! We got an extra bed for our guest room, and some book shelves so we can put some things away and have some surfaces to set stuff on. I also got a weed whacker and went to town on the front lawn, so we didn't have a replay of last year. :) Although I really don't think the people in this neighborhood would care if our yard got a little out of hand.

Sidenote: our neighbors were blaring Michael Jackson today. Nothing like people rocking out to "Man in the Mirror" at 2:00 on a sunny Sunday afternoon! I like it that people around here do things like... play music. And have cookouts. And say hello to people walking by on the street. I think gentrifying areas are the place to be... such an interesting mix of all kinds of people, all living in the same few blocks.

Anyway. In addition to getting a raise, Roger's company is settled in San Francisco now, so it only takes him 40 minutes to get to work instead of an hour and 40! His commute is now a 10 minute walk, a 20 minute BART ride, and another 10 minute walk. That certainly makes me feel better about it, and I know that aspect of work is less draining for him now at least. This is not to say that I've been seeing him any more; on the contrary, they're working on signing another big contract, which means he's been getting home as late as ever. (I'm pretty sure he didn't make it home before 9:30 at all last week.) But I guess I should be getting more work done anyway, so I'm trying to just roll with it.

This past week was fun for me because we had our prospective students visiting. The people who were admitted for the incoming class in the fall were here, checking things out and seeing how they like the department. I really enjoy prospie week because I really like it here, and it's fun to meet new people and be able to honestly tell them that this is a great place to be. We had a girl from the U of I staying with us (which was the major impetus for us getting a guest bed last weekend), and I think she had a really good time. We also had a few people visiting with interests quite similar to mine, very lab-by types, and it'd be great to have more of those around. There was also a really sweet French guy who speaks a ton of languages, and I told him somewhat sheepishly that I selfishly want him to come here so I can keep my French up. His English was really phenomenal, too, and he seemed like he liked it here, so we'll see. I may be able to go back to actually actively improving my French instead of just trying to maintain it as best I can, and that would be nice. I feel bad for talking about him like he's some French language robot, though! He was actually a very nice guy with like, a personality and a sense of humor and everything. Not just a little help-Melinda-improve-her-French automaton...

Okay, that paragraph got away from me. Time for some running talk. I'm running the Oakland Half Marathon two weeks from today! It should be really fun, I think. I haven't done a race in a few months, and I haven't done a half marathon in a few years, and it's such a great distance. You're totally spent afterwards, but not totally trashed. It's a really satisfying level of exertion, as opposed to a crippling one. :) I guess I also need to hurry up and decide if I want to run San Francisco again this year. July will be here before I know it... maybe I'll wait and see how Oakland goes, and then sign up if I catch the Big M bug.

But running. While I was running yesterday, I realized that this summer will be my 10th anniversary of starting running. I've been at this craziness for 10 years! With varying degrees of intensity and commitment, of course. That first summer I ran every day. Then I kept it up regularly throughout high school, then trailed off for little spurts at a time during college, and only managed to run once or twice a week while I was in France. Then of course I got back from France, and we got Huck, and I started running with that little bugger alllll the time and ended up doing my first marathon.

So I was thinking about my mileage over the past 10 years. It definitely varies a lot... generally creeps up into the 30 miles per week range when I don't have anything better to do (over breaks, the summer), tends to sink down around 12-15 when I'm really busy or fighting a cold. But my guess was that I've probably averaged about 20/week over the past 10 years. That might be a little on the high side, but we'll go with 20. For 50 weeks a year, that's 1,000 miles per year! And for 10 years... that means I've run somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 miles!! Whoa. I mean, whoa. I really don't mean to toot my own horn (although this is my blog, so I guess I can say whatever I want and all), I just had no idea I was anywhere near that. I had no idea I'd been running for almost 10 years now, either.

Which brings us back to the fact that time is flying. It is freakin' flying, and I'm going to be 26 this year, and I already have little smile lines around my eyes and gray hair, and before I know it I'll have a PhD and we'll be moving away from California to god-knows-where.

Ferris Bueller totally had it right: Life moves by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.

The last good news thing I have to report is that I'm finally starting to run some subjects on my first real, full-scale research project (the one with the kids' voices and looking at the differences between boys and girls). I already have 7 people scheduled for this week, so I think I'll have fun data to play with really soon! (Yay data!)

Well, I have lots of reading to get done, so I should probably call it a night. I'm thinking about going home to Illinois in June before my crazy five hours-a-day Spanish class starts, so I'll keep y'all updated on that. Much, much love from the Golden State!

Before and After: the Bedroom

I'm back! And it's time for another edition of "Before and After"!

Here is the before shot of our bedroom. In case you can't tell by the photo, it is rather small. Just enough space for our bed and two dressers. The dressers in the first picture are against the wall that you can't see, opposite the side of the bed. Now, as I think I said before, when we first moved in, our room was quite zen, and I actually liked it that way. No clutter, no distractions. Just sleep space.

But I'm pretty sure I like it better now:

It doesn't even look like the same room, does it? I had to move the bed and dressers while I was painting, and I decided I like them better on opposite sides of the room. (Also, I didn't feel like swapping them again. They're heavy, and the room is tiny.) All of the walls are that light brown color, except for the purple one. I was a little concerned it might be too dark, but really, it just feels very cozy. And I think I like cozy better than zen.

So I'm done painting for a while. I finally used up all my paint, and with classes in full swing, I should probably be doing other things besides painting anyway. Our big conference is this weekend, and I cannot wait for it to be over. Well... I can't wait for like, a week after it's over, when I will have organized and filed all the receipts so we can get reimbursed from our various sponsors! It will be so so nice to not have that hanging over my head!

In other me news, I signed up for the Oakland Half Marathon at the end of March, and I am very very excited. I did 14.5 miles today, to make sure I could, and I can. :) It definitely wiped me out a little bit more than it used to, but that makes sense, since I haven't done over 10 in one go since my last marathon, and that was a full 6 months ago now. (Crazy!) I think I'll try to do San Francisco again this summer; it was a great race, and I don't think that course will ever get old.

In Roger news, his office is moving to San Francisco in less than two weeks! I am so excited for him! No more leaving home at 7:30 am and getting home at 9:00 pm! (Well, that should no longer be the norm, anyway...)

I want to tell you about my new foam roller, but really, I should finish folding laundry and actually use my foam roller instead of telling you about it. So I'll have to save that for next time! Adieu, bonne nuit, et tout.

Before and After: the Entryway

Here it is, the piece de resistance:

Do you love it? Do you hate it? I feel like it will be one of the two. I also feel like this room kind of grabs you by the hair and screams "CHEERFUL, DAMMIT, CHEERFUL". But I love it, and that's almost all that matters. Do you see the red kitchen wall peeking through the doorway?

Roger is pretty indifferent. He said he thought it would be too orangey with all the woodwork, and he might be right. But I like the contrast with the white baseboards and other white walls, and I'm going to do the rest of the room (decorations, slip covers for chairs) in cooler, non-orange colors.

And please excuse the ladder and other painting supplies. I just finished and I wanted to hurry up and put up pictures.

Trust me, the first few swipes of paint were kind of scary. But then it's too late, so you might as well keep going! I loved the color on paper, especially next to the red of the kitchen. They're both very saturated and kind of like, grown-up kindergarten colors. Then when I started on the wall behind the coat rack, I thought, "Uh-oh, this is too much." But I kept going, and I'm glad I did. It's not too too much when there's stuff on the wall. And when the initial shock wears off. ;)

Rye really liked the plastic drop cloth, for some reason.

Several times I heard lots of grunting and rustling sounds, and he was just jumping and playing around in the plastic, balling it up, rolling around in it, etc. I guess he's easy to please if you don't mind him destroying things once in a while.

And Huck, well, he just loves his dog-dad.

That's all for now! I have enough paint for one more room, and I have lots of ideas but no more money for the other two, so it might be a while before I finish any of them. And painting takes forever! And I'm kind of tired of it!

I got a bunch of books and posters for Christmas, so I might move on to other endeavors for a few days. Plenty of stuff to read, pictures to hang, and cleaning to do before classes start back up again!

Before and After: the Kitchen

As promised, kitchen pictures! Unfortunately I don't have any "before" shots for you because my computer is off in Apple never-never land, where computers go to wrack up ridiculous and obscene repair charges that their owners can't afford.

Anyway. The upshot of sending my computer out for repairs is that I have very very little to do. Except paint! Here is my beautiful new kitchen:


Well, beautiful except for all the crap on the counter, but let's be realistic, that's just part of my kitchen. Look at the pretty red!


Oooooooh, ahhhhhhh.

I'm very pleased with it. It took way longer and way more coats than I expected, though. I kept doing one more coat, thinking, "well, surely this will do it". But no, 2 days and 4 1/2 coats later, I'm finally done. I think it was worth it, though!

All of my painting made me work up an appetite. And plus now I have this lovely background for food porn. So here is what I had for lunch just now:


(Are you reading this, George? That one's for you.)

I think my next painting project may be the entryway, but I don't quite feel like starting in on it yet. That's going to take the longest of all, and I kind of need a break from the painting for now.

So, this morning kind of sucked. Well, first, some background. I took my computer in to the Apple store on Monday to have it "diagnosed", because the screen recently started doing this weird flashy thing. Not a huge deal, but somewhat annoying. The guy there said he couldn't tell if it was the graphics card itself or the connector between the graphics card and the screen that was acting up, so he'd have it sent in and replaced and I should get it back within the week. And it would all be covered by my warranty!

So great, excellent news. No computer for a few days, but the flashing would be gone. Fast forward to this morning, when I check my email and get this little gem from Apple saying they found "evidence of liquid damage" on the inside of the computer, which is not covered by my warranty, and which will cost no less than $755 to fix.

Excellent.

I begged, I pleaded, I cried a little, all to no avail. I told him to send it back unrepaired because I don't have $755 to spend on a problem that's only moderately annoying.

But jeez! I was so mad!! Mostly because I KNOW there has NEVER been any liquid anywhere NEAR my computer, unless it is carefully and entirely stored within a container.

Except then I remembered that one day when I got caught in a light rain without an umbrella. :( I guess that's got to be it, right? Gah, I don't know. So I was already bummed about that, and then I moved on to our heating bill...

I will spare you the gory details, but let's just say I had to go for a long run this morning. I wasn't planning on it, either. I was planning on taking the day off from running, because my legs were feeling kind of tired. But I realized I had some stress issues to work out, and absolutely nothing to do today anyway.

And you know what? It ended up great. I went up into the hills, and the ground was wet from the rain last night, and the sun was peeking through the trees, and it just smelled fresh and new. I was looking down at the Bay, and I ran down this road I've never been on before, and there was this amazing canopy of twisting branches with a backdrop of clean winter light, and I just thought, "okay, life is good". I mean really? Life is pretty darn good. So I have to wait a little longer to get my computer back in tip-top shape, and our heating bill was higher this month. I still have a perfectly fine computer, and a roof over my head and a heater to keep me warm, even if our insulation is pretty worthless. No, I don't like spending money, but really, it's just money. Just. Money. And I have a family and friends who love me, and two crazy dogs that get me out the door every morning, and a month off of school, and a bright red kitchen. So what's not to like?

I also was reading this book yesterday that my friend Michelle got me for Christmas, called "Zen and the Art of Running". It talks a lot about how the only thing that is responsible for your emotions is your mind. There is nothing inherently frustrating about having to pay $755 to repair a computer. That is simply a fact, a state of affairs. And I can choose to act with frustration, or I can choose to be kinda bummed out and move on. My reaction to the situation does not in and of itself change anything; the only outcome of me being frustrated is... uh... me being frustrated. So why not stop being frustrated?

I know all of these things, but I think it's handy that I happened to read part of that book last night, before I got the Apple email. It can be hard to be zen-like in the moment, when you're getting yourself all worked up. I'm not saying there aren't things that are worth getting upset over. But most of the time they're not. Life is way too short.

On that note, I shall sign off. A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! Check back in a few days for more crazy paint colors!

Before and After: Bathroom Edition

I guess there are lots of things I could tell you, but the only thing I really want to say right now is, look at this! The Before and After Bathroom Edition!

Before:

After:

I love having bright colors around me, and I've been gathering painting ideas for our house since we moved in. I finally got the okay from our landlady this past week, and my mom got us a gift card to Home Depot, so I picked up some awesome paint yesterday and started in!

So far I've only done the bathroom. But I bought the colors I want for the kitchen and entryway, and I finally decided what I want for our bedroom. So, good thing I've still got some money on that gift card and another few weeks to burn. :)

Merry Christmas to all!

Before and After

I've been a busy bee around these parts! Let me show you what I've been up to over the past few days!

First, Roger's uncle Steve gave us this bench when we first moved out here last year. He had a bunch of furniture and stuff to get rid of, and we had literally nothing, so we took it and have been stowing it for over a year. It's mostly been used as a surface for holding boxes up until now.

Basically I decided that I would start making our house into a home over break. The problem is that we still don't have a bunch of money to go out and buy furniture. We're doing okay, don't get me wrong, but when you move across the country with nothing but a mattress, it costs a lot of money and takes some time to re-accumulate the amount of stuff you take for granted when you've been somewhere for a while.

Anyway, I decided to reupholster the bench. I was intimidated by the idea at first, but it's really not hard at all. You just need a staple gun, fabric, and something to pry out old staples with. And some time. It takes a while.

I found some nice, slightly funky but classy fabric. To complete the look, I decided to also paint the legs, put on some cutesy trim, and use mismatched buttons for the top. The buttons are what's taking forever. I'm almost done threading them through the fabric and cushioning, but each one takes a few minutes. After I get them all threaded, I'll have to secure the cords underneath to get that nice dimpled look on top, but you can see how it's going to turn out:

So yay for that!

Even better, though, is that I decided to finally do something with the front entry way of our house. Until today, it's just been a coat rack with some boxes that we didn't know what to do with. We still don't really have anywhere to put the boxes, since we don't have any cabinets or shelves to store things in/on, but I hid them somewhere else and went to town on the front room. Here it is in its "before" state:

I guess I should note that we moved that big table and chairs in from outside for Thanksgiving. It's really more of an "outside" table, and we've used it for grilling up until now, but we needed more seating/serving space for guests, so we brought it in and it hasn't made it back outside yet. Anyway, here, look at the after shot:

I haven't decided what to put on the wall above the chairs yet, but it's sure crying out for something. I might be adding more snowflakes to the ceiling as time goes on, but what I really want to do is paint. I have all these really great ideas for painting, but I haven't gotten the go-ahead from our land lady yet. I think she'll be okay with it... I hope so! I'm getting really excited about it, so I hope it works out!

Well, I'm tired, for some reason. I think I'm going to sit in my new sitting area and watch TV on my computer or something.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Much Ado About Nothing Much

Partially against my better judgment, I'm going to make a blog post! It's almost 10:00 a.m. as I sit down to write this, and I have to leave to go to Phorum soon (our weekly phonetics-phonology discussion group). Today is going to be weird... I have a weird schedule lined up. I already did my morning run with the dogs, and I normally have French practice on Mondays from 9:30 to 10:30 or so, but my conversation partner canceled on me today, and I now I don't quite know what to do with myself.

I have a ton of reading to get through this week, so I should probably be taking this 40 minutes to get to work on it, but I don't know if I could really get into a concentration groove enough to make it worth it. Phorum is 11:00 - 12:00, then I guess I'm going to come back home and do some reading, then there's a talk this evening from 4:00 to 5:30, followed by a wine and cheese reception. It's always hard to sneak out before the reception, so I'll probably hang around at that for a while and then come home to walk the dogs and do more reading.

I have a big paper due in the next two weeks that I'm so not ready to write. That's what all the reading's about. If I actually do background reading this week, writing the paper next week won't be quite as painful. I hope.

I had a good long weekend. Hardly did any work, which probably wasn't the greatest idea, but it was nice to just hang out. Roger picked up a new router and two new video games at Best Buy, so he hooked up his Xbox to the router and the video projector and played video games all day Sunday. It was strangely comforting, having video game background noise!

I wasted some time at Barnes and Noble on Saturday, stopped by Joann Fabric and bought some new yarn, and started making myself a hat. This was probably also not the greatest idea, because now I'm slightly obsessed with finishing my hat (and scarf! and gloves!) right when I should be doing a lot of reading. But it's going to be so pretty and match the raincoat Roger got me for my birthday...

I also made a huge pot of chili yesterday, which totally hit the spot. Unfortunately, we're out of saltines, but it's been pretty darn good, just the same.

I kind of want to talk about running, so bear with me. The weather here is so unbelievably fantastically perfect for running, and I've been doing a lot of lit lately. Well. "A lot" is all relative, now isn't it? My mileage is still considerably lower than when I'm marathon training, because that one 15+ mile run every week makes a big difference in total mileage. But I'm doing 5 or 6 days a week, usually 4-6 miles at a time with one slightly longer run of 7 or 8 miles. Yesterday I did just shy of 7, and it was so nice. The fall leaves are just now starting to be really vibrant here, and the mornings are crisp and chilly, and something about the low angle of the sun just makes me feel... special when I head out for a run. I know that sounds really weird, but when I'm running with my dogs through the chilly, leafy Berkeley neighborhoods in the early morning, when hardly anyone else is out and I can see my breath and feel my skin tingling, I kind of feel like, "All of this is mine," like the fact that I'm out appreciating the beauty of it all means it belongs to me, and like I could conquer the world one run at a time if I really set my mind to it.

I'm getting much better at the hills, too. I used to avoid the hills at least a few days a week to give myself a break, but that's really hard to do around here. The only way to avoid them is to stay within a half mile radius immediately north and west of here, and that gets boring pretty quick, let me tell you. Also, all the rich people live in the hills, so that's where all the nice neighborhoods with the pretty leaves are. It also means fewer major streets and less traffic up there. So anyway, I've been hitting the hills almost every day, and I can feel it working different muscles and slowly getting easier. On the way up, I can feel it in my calves and my hips (running uphill strengthens your hips, isn't that funny?), and on the way down I feel it in my quads, since they do the bulk of the shock absorption.

But it's kind of like starting running all over again; maybe that's why I'm learning to love the hills. Running is hard at first. I remember starting out and only being able to go for about a mile at a time, and then being so sore and even sick to my stomach afterwards! I'm so stubborn, though. When I first started, I went every single day, which is pretty much the opposite of what you're supposed to do when you're starting out, but I was 15, so the rules are probably different. I would run down to the end of the street, which was about a mile, and then walk back. Then I got to the point where I could run down, turn around, and come back about halfway. Pretty soon, I could run all the way down and back, and then I had to start branching out.

I remember what it's like when you first catch your breath while you're running. When you first start out, it's miserable hard work, and you can't fathom how anyone could ever enjoy it. And then, one day, you're running, and you realize you've managed to catch your breath. And suddenly it all makes sense - this is why people can keep going for so many miles - they're not completely miserable the whole time!

It's easy to become complacent, though. On the one hand, I still love it that I can just head out for a run, and I feel very lucky that I find it so enjoyable and easy. On the other hand, it's very easy to quit pushing yourself. You find a comfortable pace and a comfortable distance, and that's where you stay. I put in my 4 - 6 miles every day, right around an 8:45/mile pace, probably, and that's that.

So the hills are good for me. Working different muscles and getting out of breath (even though I'm starting to catch my breath on the hills too!) is good for me. I am a big proponent of shaking things up.

Well, it's time for me to get ready to go. Lots of reading to do this afternoon, lots of chili to eat and tea to drink. I hope you're enjoying your fall too.

(micro-post)

Since I don't have time for a proper post, and I wouldn't know how to organize right now anyway, here are some things on my mind right this very second:

- I'm so glad my grandpa is doing better. He's been in the hospital for almost two weeks now after having a heart attack and maybe a small stroke, but last I heard, he was recovering very well and will probably get to go home soon.

- I like that the sun rises earlier now, but it is a little bit of a bummer walking the dogs in the dark at 5:30.

- I am living off of cream of broccoli and leek soup, and it doesn't show signs of getting old anytime soon. Yay food processor!!

- I have way more reading to get done tonight than I'd like to think about right now. Monday evening through Tuesday evening are usually pretty hectic.

- I still don't know what I'm writing one of my final papers about. Ugh.

- Our house is so warm and toasty right now. Must be the contrast caused by the fact that it's finally somewhat chilly outside - 45 degrees this morning! Fantastic!

- I didn't ride my bike today because the back tire keeps going flat. I should test it out tonight before I try to ride it to campus for my 9 am class.

- Thanksgiving is coming! Roger's birthday is coming! They're on the same day! I think that means I have to make a pumpkin pie and a key lime pie.

I guess it's time to walk the dogs now...

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.