Some Nights

So, to prepare for this blog, I went and googled "Some Nights" lyrics meaning and found a page where people can just write in what they feel like the lyrics to a song mean. This song has quite the range: from anti-war, to post-break-up song, to coming of age, to a same-sex marriage support. I honestly haven't a clue what they're singing about in the song. It's super catchy though, so it really isn't a surprise to me that it ended up on my blog.
I think this is a pretty fitting song to be blogging about on New Year's Eve. I know there's a lot of looking forward to the new year going on right now and that people are making resolutions for what is going to change and improve with the coming year. That is one of the things that I love about today's holiday: it's almost equal parts introspection and party! One of the repeated questions in the song asks

What do I stand for? What do I stand for?

This was a really good reminder for me. I feel like it might be too easy to look ahead at a fresh new year and think about all the things that could be different with the change in a digit, while forgetting all of the past strength and principle which has been built up. I've decided to spend just as much time asking myself what I stand for as well as what I am going to change in the coming year.

One of the sayings that I can't help but respect for its accuracy despite its triteness:

I know who I am.
My family means everything to me.I know my life has a purpose and meaning.
I have been given so much that I feel like I too have to give.
The world is full of people who are really, truly, deep-down good.
Every day is a new day for me to try and grow and change a little bit for the better.

Happy New Year's to you and may this year be full of meaning!

That's How You Know

How does she know you love her? How does she know she's yours?

I love this song for multiple reasons:

1. It's in Enchanted. I love that movie.
2. Amy Adams singing. I'm a fan.
3. There are steel drums in this song=awesome.
4. Central park craziness? Loved it!
5. This song focuses around one of the most central concerns of a relationship.

How do you know if someone loves you? How do you know if you love someone?

I think that there are a bunch of different ways you can answer either of those questions, but my personal favorite is the Languages of Love. 

In short summary, each of us speaks a language of love. They are Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. While everyone can recognize different ways that love are expressed, one is usually pretty dominant over the others. For some, a heartfelt compliment really does mean the world. Another gauges closeness by physical contact.

For me, quality time is how you show me you care about me. If you want me to know how much you care about me, go out of your way to spend time with me and make that time be meaningful. There are several books associated with the Love Languages theory, and I have read one or two of them. It was really interesting to me to see how much I could apply it into my life (and I'm not even dating anyone). 

If you haven't ever looked in to these books, I'd recommend giving it a shot. It really can't hurt, and it might just clear things up so

that's how she knows that you love her

that's how you show her you love her

With Wondering Awe

In case you were so wrapped up in finals that you'd forgotten...
.
..
...
....
.....
......
.......
........
.........

Yeah, there are lots of people out there that are excited that it's Christmas as well. I came across these websites and they made me smile: http://www.whereareyouchristmas.com/  http://isitchristmas.com/ http://heyitschristmas.com/

I had the chorus from With Wondering Awe stuck in my head the other morning. What an awesome time of year!
I hope you're happy. I sure am :)

Everybody talks

So the Neon Trees have this awesome song, Everybody Talks, with a kind of weird music video.

It started with a whisper

I'm a big fan of quietude (I'm also a fan of how awesome that word is!) I got to go camping a lot when I was a boy scout. Because I grew up right on the northern edge of Phoenix, that meant most of our camping trips involved heading up further north towards the mountains. Camping has so many wonderful facets that I enjoy, but I would have to say that high up on my list is the beautiful tranquility of nature. Don't get me wrong, I am most definitely a city-boy at heart. I love a crowded, bustling downtown; a prolific arts scene; a variety of shopping outlets. BUT, I feel like it can sometimes get overwhelming. All the noise, all the lights and the action and go-go-going can distract and drain me. When was the last time you felt the need to whisper? When was the last time you would have been able to hear someone if they had whispered to you?

The irony isn't lost on me that Tyler Glenn belts this line at the start of every chorus. The progression after it is what I think is most interesting, though. After "it started with a whisper", he jumps right next to "that was when I kissed her" and an unfortunate result: "then she made my lips hurt." I've made this disclaimer before, but I'm old-fashioned in a lot of ways. I think that one of the reasons things go sour in so many relationships is the breakneck pace which seems to be everywhere. When there's instant gratification everywhere, when you have to yell to be heard over the rush of the world, there just isn't any time for a whisper. Really communicating is becoming a lost art, and that lack of foundation can be masked for a while with physicality, but that just really isn't what lasts. It's way too easy for someone to get hurt in the world of relationships where the opposite is supposed to be the case.

It's true that everybody talks. I think we're in a time when it's amazingly easy for me to send you a text, or call you, or message you on facebook, or heytell you, or email you, or send you a snapchat, or, or, or... But what is it that I'm talking about? I go through so much communication in a day, but often I look back on a conversation or message and think, "wow. That was kind of empty." I'm making it a goal to try and say things with more meaning more often. It's true:

I never thought I'd live to see the day

when everybody's words got in the way

Titanium

I figured it'd be a matter of time until this one was stuck in my head. When I went and saw Pitch Perfect, one of the most unnecessarily awkward scenes involved this fantastic a capella duet of a segment of it and I loved it. I don't really get the music video for the song, but I still love the music. AND there are a bunch of really awesome covers for the song. My favorite is of course the one by the piano guys.
So the song is one long comparison to being as stone-hard as titanium. I decided to do a bit of research about how hard titanium really is. It turns out that Guetta did his research (or just got lucky that the societal perception of titanium is pretty close to the truth). Titanium really is an incredibly strong metal- about as strong as some steels while being almost half as dense. We've really only been figuring out what we can do with titanium since the 50s, but it's already a staple in everything from airplanes, medical implants, computers,  and firearms to paints, piercings and fireworks. It might be super expensive to make, but its lightness and strength have generally been deemed worth the cost.
One of the ways in which titanium is so much better than anything else we've got is the layer of oxide that it forms when exposed to air. So, quick chemistry recap (sorry, I'm a nerd, I know) goes like this: They mill the metal and do all the fashioning of it that they need to (see, I'm being nice and skipping over like half a dozen super-cool chemistry steps right there) but as soon as they cut it and new metal is exposed to air, the oxygen in the air starts attacking it (when you make a bar of iron, that's what makes the rust). The big deal is that the layer of oxygenated (=oxidized) metal is generally about 1-2nm thick (~8000x thinner than a hair). That means that the insides of the metal (where all the strength is) don't get affected by the environment.
In one of my classes this week, we talked about putting on armor. My teacher (who was a police officer in California for like 30 years) told us a bunch of stories about officers whose lives were saved by wearing armor (or not saved when they took it off). I remember thinking that it was kind of scary how much of you is still exposed even when you are wearing full body armor. Wouldn't it be awesome if there was a way to be completely coated in armor instead.
I feel like each of us has the chance to decide what we're going to be. Everyone gets exposed to the same environment which is going to do its best to wear you down and make you crumble. If you've got yourself a cheaper iron exterior, you'll be able to hold out for a while, but eventually it is going to weaken. On the other hand, a coating of titanium will still get oxidized in the harsh environment, but it'll hold.

Stone-hard as bulletproof glass
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium

Set fire to the rain

I set fire to the rain and watched it burn.

Adele has finally figured it out. She put into the chorus of a song that is insanely catchy song (which was also insanely overplayed on the radio for quite a while) two of the things that I most love. Think about it: watching stuff burn and playing in the rain. It's genius!

I am a boy scout (I get to use the present tense because I am an Eagle Scout [by a few days before my 18th birthday] so I'm a scout for life now). When I went on camp-outs as a teen, we always did a bunch of fun stuff. I have to admit though that my favorite part of pretty much every camp-out was the campfire. I could happily sit for hours and watch fire slowly consume the wood inside the ring. It's a beautiful process. No two flames are ever the same, but the action of burning continues the same.
I am a desert rat. I grew up in the Sonora desert. It doesn't rain, except for when it RAINS. Every fall and every spring, there is always a short window of these storms that are simply fantastic. They roll in with a fury (think post-haboob storms) and the rain comes pouring down. When I was in elementary school, there was nothing more glorious than the rainy day schedule with its attendant puddles and insanity of kids cooped up in classrooms.
When I first got to Germany in April of 2007, one of the few things that I could actually do in German was to pray. When we visited people on my first day there, they asked me to say the prayer at the start of the meeting. I did so, and at the end, I looked up and saw people staring at me with puzzled looks. My heart sank as I was certain I'd inadvertently used some profanity or offended someone. It turned out that they were all just confused because in my prayer, I had expressed gratitude for the rain that had fallen that morning. Growing up in the desert, there is seemingly always a drought. Whenever any rain falls, there was reason to give praise to God for every drop. Germany is not in a desert, and the Germans found my desert rat perspective completely foreign. Old habits die hard, I still rejoice every time rain clouds roll in (I actually started this post before I knew that it would be sprinkling today!).
Those are two of my idiosyncrasies. I hope you enjoyed some of my favorite things. What are yours?

Good Morning, Beautiful

This song kind of encompasses a bunch of different themes that I've blogged about before. I wanted to try and find something new to write about that wouldn't just be a rehashing of posts past.

I blogged about sunrises heralding in a new day full of possibilities and being a comforting reminder of consistency. 

I've written (with some help) a post about the similarities between surfing and finding that special someone.

I have confessed my inner hopeless romantic.

I'm saving "the sun always shines" concept for a specific song (I've got a good portion of the post written [I just have to play by my own rules and wait for the song to be stuck in my head one morning] but this isn't the right context for it).

I know! I'll share a story from when I was in high school:

My freshman year in high school, I also started early morning seminary. At 6:30 every morning, we'd meet at the chapel across the street from the high school and have a class on the history of the church and the revelations which Joseph Smith published in the Doctrine and Covenants. I'm not inherently a morning person, but I have what I like to call consciousness-inertia. It often takes a good push to get started in the morning, but once I'm up I'm up and going for the day. Over the past few years, I've actually developed the ability to nap. Before then, I would just push through until I got to go to bed late that night.

Well, time getting ready in the morning added to time of seminary every morning ensured that I was awake by my first hour at Barry Goldwater High School. I had honors biology, and I made sure everyone knew that I was awake. I was bright and cheery. I was happy to be alive and at school. I greeted everyone and just felt generally wonderful.

It drove people crazy.

I can't tell you how many times in the course of a year I was asked why I was so happy or if I could just be a little less enthusiastic. Granted, I probably did take it a bit to the extreme, but it was a wonderful feeling. That reputation for excitement and energy definitely stayed with me and I'm pretty sure it actually helped shape me as well. When I got to my junior year, was taking a really challenging courseload, working part time, and doing the musical, I didn't have much energy to spare. BUT, my friends expected me to be sunny and happy, and so, regardless my state of general sleep-deprivation, I was.

As the wise father of one of the girls I went to seminary was fond of saying: "Fake it till you feel it." Don't let someone tell you what you can or can't do or be. If today you aren't who you want to be, then today is the day to start becoming that person.

It's a good morning, beautiful day.

Adelaide's Lament

It says here...
The average unmarried female, basically insecure,
due to some long frustrations may react
with psychosomatic symptoms- difficult to endure-
affecting the upper respiratory tract.

In other words, just from waiting around for that plain little band of gold
a person can develop a cold.


I've been sitting on this post for a while, trying to figure out what to do with it. I was in Guys and Dolls my junior year in high school and had a ton of fun in it. In case you were wondering, my roll was billed as "Crapshooter #9" :)
I've long had difficulties with Adelaide. She's... a lot to handle. One of my best friends (and a girl who I'd liked since I was like 3) had the roll and did a fantastic job with it. Interestingly, though, to counterbalance the gung-ho man-hating Sarah, Adelaide is developed as a needy whiner, unable to help herself. If I'm going to be honest, neither of which is really all that attractive of a main character.
As I was buzzing around the interwebs today, I was reminded that a good friend from several years ago is becoming somewhat of a resident expert on a subject that has a lot to do with this. Kylee Shields has written a book "Make it Happen: A Guide to Happiness for LDS Singles". I haven't read it yet, but I've gotten to hear her talk about it a couple of times, and I am really excited to read it. The book started out titled "Single, So What?", but the title has obviously softened a bit since then. Still, the main message of the book is very empowering. Rather than reinforcing negative thinking and descending into an awful Teufelskreis*, the "average unmarried [single], basically insecure" is able to take a look at the surrounding environment, find out what is and is not bringing happiness, and make changes as desired.
It has been interesting to me that this has become a much more common message to the LDS single adults in recent years. I feel like the message has shifted from "if you aren't spending every waking moment trying to get married, then you are going to end up unhappy and alone" to "life is wonderful. Experience every day as much as you can, and be open to going where God wants to take you. What will happen will happen when it's right and if you're living as you should." I love how empowering and freeing that is. You can live your life and get so much out of it.
There are plenty of people in the world who are just itching to tell you how unhappy you should be. I love being happy in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. Why? Because I can.

PS: I have to include a bit of a plug for the upcoming MET production of Guys and Dolls. I almost auditioned for it, but I didn't. I do know General Cartwright in the play and am looking forward to seeing the show once it starts.

*A Teufelskreis is a German term that doesn't quite have a good English translation. "Vicious cycle" is about the best that the internet could come up with it. Literally, it's a devil's circle. It's a negative feedback loop where the devil gets something bad going, and that then fuels an ever-increasing amount of negativity and failure. It's a fantastic term for a truly horrible concept.

Check Yes or No

This song definitely had me smiling as I ate breakfast the other morning. I used to listen to a ton of country when I was a kid, and I've gotta say: country definitely has an interesting view on the idea of love. I'm not going to say that it skewed my perception of love as a kid, but it definitely contributed to some quirks (to say nothing of the damage done to my ability to make real rhymes).
I remember singing along to "Check Yes or No" long before I could date. Looking back now, I smile at how idyllic and simple it makes things sound:

It started way back in third grade

I used to sit beside Emmylou Hayes

A pink dress, a matching bow and her pony tail

She kissed me on the school bus, but told me not to tell

Next day I chased her 'round the playground

Across the monkey bars, to the merry-go-round

And Emmylou got caught passing me a note

Before the teacher took it, I read what she wrote:

"Do you love me, do you wanna be my friend?

And if you do

Well then don't be afraid to take me by the hand

If you want to

I think this is how love goes, check yes or no"

As I thought about it more, though, I felt like little Emmylou Hayes and George Strait (loved the glasses in the video!) nailed it on the head describing love. Love is wonderfully awkward. It doesn't make any sense, and it's foolhardy and nonsensical and full of fun and chasing on the monkey bars. It's putting yourself out there, and sometimes getting more back than you could ever have hoped for.
Is that cheesy?
Yeah, I guess it is.

...but you know what? I think that love is cheesy sometimes too :)

Gloria (My Savior Lives)

As I woke up the other morning, I had three phrases stuck in my head. No words, just three short musical blurbs that I couldn't figure out the source of. I went around, humming the few bars over and over, but I couldn't figure it out. This isn't unheard of for me, I often don't know the words to songs and hum along until I get to the chorus and can sing along again.
Finally, I had a breakthrough as I realized I was humming a phrase which was just one word, repeated three times. It filled me with a warm happiness when I realized that I had been humming "Gloria". It's from an oratorio by Rob Gardner called "The Lamb of God" that I love and would recommend to anyone. I got to go to the premiere of the show at Gammage a couple of years ago and fell in love with the music that evening. I bought the CD recording of it, so if you'd like to hear the whole thing, let me know!
When I realized that, I decided that I would go through and make a Gloria Gratitude List. Here are some of the things that I'm grateful for that make me want to sing out Gloria to God:
I'm grateful for choices, for the ability to choose and the necessity to do so on a constant basis.
I love sunsets. I love how beautiful the day can end in a blaze of color.
I am thankful for my family. My mom just finished a novel (go check it out if you're interested!) about a family who has to deal with some serious loss. Reading it, I thought about just how grateful I am for my family.
I'm grateful for days of health. I'm still getting over a nasty headcold and that has made me realize how important health is and just how much I miss it when it's gone.
I'm grateful for early childhood education teachers. I feel like I had some fantastic teachers early in my education which let me grow and learn about what interests me. That has helped me become who I am today.
Old cultures. Every time I brush up against a culture which is really old, I'm reminded just how little I know and how much out there in the world there is for me to experience.
I'm thankful for the scriptures- for words that I've read dozens of times in the past and the new thoughts, impressions and feelings which come with that simple action.
I'm grateful for hope. Hope comes from Christ and buoys me up and gives me strength when I need it most.

I'll sing Gloria! Glory to the Lord. Gloria! Glory for the life he doth give. 

Glory be to God for every aspect of my life which came from Him.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

A quick post this evening.
I went to bed a bit nervous knowing that I was planning on quitting my job pretty suddenly, but not knowing how it was going to go.
And then I woke up with T-Swizzle's latest song playing in my head this morning and I knew everything was going to be ok.
And you know what, it was more than ok. My boss was super understanding and it wasn't nearly as awkward as I'd thought.

It's the little things :)

Me without You

The professor of my Economic Development and growth class made an interesting point the other day. We were talking about the 8+% growth in GDP that China has experienced in the recent years. After he described some of the policies that are necessary for that kind of growth, I asked if that meant that China wasn't going to be able to sustain growth (before you groan, it's actually a really interesting class and probably one of my favorites this semester). His response surprised me a bit:
Basically, he said "no chance", and that is about as specific as he would get. He promised us that we could come talk to him in about 50 years, and, if China was still growing at 8%, he would apologize. He went on to explain to us that economists are great at looking back on data and saying "clearly this is why this happened and these were the main factors affected", but that any economist who is looking ahead and predicting how policies or actions will affect the future more than a few months or years out is really just giving a best guess or speculation.
I take a lot of the same perspective, but for the opposite direction. I feel like one of the most frustrating things you can ask is "...what if?"
What if I hadn't been there that night?

What if I hadn't kissed her?

What if I had kissed her?

What if I had picked the blue pill?

Personally, any time that I've gotten in to the "what-if" game, it hasn't made me any happier or really given me any sort of beneficial outcome. I know it's a bit trite, but

There is one large exception. There is one thought that I have had countless times imagining "what if?" Part of the reason I think I'm ok with this particular "what-if" is that it is a positive motivator for me. The song for today, "Me Without You", reminded me of that (and is insanely catchy).

I am who I am today (and everyday) in great measure due to my faith. I can look back at several times in my life and say with pretty sure confidence that I was literally saved from myself and who I would have been/become: From my lonesome and unhappy 3rd grade self, from my sarcastic and unfriendly middle school self, from who I might have become after high school.

I can imagine a world that is different from what is, and I thank God from the bottom of my heart that it is what it is today.

Love You Like a Love Song

Wow, I've blogged about a lot of songs.
It's been said and done...
Lots of them have had kind of a consistent theme.
Every beautiful thought's been already sung...
Sometimes I wonder if I have anything of worth to say.
And I guess right now here's another one...

This is a fun (if somewhat inane) song. By far, one of my favorite aspects about it is that it is a popular song with a beat that is fantastically suited for dancing a chacha. Any time a song comes out which is at least dance-able gets a boost in my books.

Turning those lines from the beginning into questions:
Has it already all been said and done?
Is there any beautiful thought that hasn't been sung?

For me, most of the time is seems like there is a song for every emotion and moment in my life. People have been writing music for like 40,000 years. It seems like the odds are that they've probably already covered everything. It's an awesome feeling when a song starts playing that expresses something so internal and emotional. There's someone out there who's felt or is feeling what I feel.

WRONG

Sorry, but I don't buy that. I'm very much a big fan of individualism. While being able to connect with others is one of the most important parts of life, in the end, I have my own personal history and way of looking at things and so do you. We may get close to understanding one another, but it is always going to be through one filter or another.

That's the beauty of interacting with people: everyone is just different enough from everyone else that every interaction is going to be at least a little different.
No one compares, you stand alone to every record I own.
For Selena, this simile-entombed love song love is different from anything else she's had before (even different than the Biebs!) I'm not claiming that Jelena (as the couple is referred to) are (is?) expert(s) on love, but I think the concept is right that love is never the same twice. No matter how many times you fall in love, it's new and it's different and it is its own, special thing.

So find it, and put it on repeat-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat...

The Perfect Wave

Tim and I were boogie boarding in Crystal Cove earlier this week and had this conversation. I tried to recreate it as best I could for you as follows: M- What if my wave never comes?
T- You have to be patient. Your wave will come. You don't want to jump at the first wave, ride it half way to the shore, and then realize that that wasn't your wave. You can separate from your wave, but that gets messy.
All my friends seem to be getting their waves, but I can't find a wave that's right for me.
M- What can I do to make sure that I'm ready for my wave when it comes?
T- You've just for to be in the best place you can and go for it when it's right.
M- How do I know when it's right?
T- It's just a feeling that it's tough to describe. When your wave comes, you'll know.
M- What if my wave never comes? What if I spend all day swimming and I have no wave?
T- Even if you are waveless during this day, we believe in a future day when everyone will get their own wave.
(Dallin chiming in)- Personally, I like my waves all natural. If a wave has been altered, it's just wrong.
M- I wasn't ready, and I think I missed my only chance for a wave.
T- There's not one right wave for every person. Some waves are bigger than others, tall waves, short waves, some that break earlier, some later, you never can tell when a wave will come and surprise you.
T- If you're not careful, a wave will chew you up and spit you out. Some waves are more dangerous than others.
M- Isn't every wave beautiful and perfect in its own way?
T- No. No they aren't.
M- It can get confusing when you're in the bay area- sometimes there are waves that go both ways :/
T- You know, you can't compare every wave to the one that got away.
And Dallin's wise words of wisdom to wrap it up- No man can ride three waves at once. Occasionally two, but never three.

Fine, Fine Line

Last night, I was looking up music on YouTube. I was listening to a couple of songs from Avenue Q, and decided to search "Laura Cardy MIM". I watched her sing a couple of songs, and this morning I found myself humming "Fine, Fine Line" and missing my friends once again.
I've got some of the greatest friends in the world back home in Phoenix. I've really enjoyed living in Berkeley and getting to know people here, but my heart is still back home. I'm really looking forward to getting back there soon :)

The Fortunate

I'm going to be honest for this one- when I looked up the lyrics for the song, I fully expected to be completely wrong on most of them. I figured it is one of those songs that I've heard a bunch, but never really paid that close attention to. And as I was singing to myself in the shower I stopped and thought, "wow. Those lyrics don't really make any sense to me at all."

Turns out I was singing the actual lyrics. If you check out Cartel's "The Fortunate", let me know if the song makes sense to you.

So now that I've established that I don't know what the song is about, what do I write about?
I'm going to choose one of the catchier lines and put my own thoughts into it. Several times, the song goes:

Heyyy don't pay no mind.

We are the second, you're minutes behind

I take that as a call to live in the present. Cartel is being very realistic in realizing that they are a second. Their time is probably going to be very short in the limelight. It's not that they aren't any good, it's just the nature of the music industry. (I also think it's funny that the majority of the comments on the video are people talking about whether or not they found Cartel on Pandora. I did!)

While that is not the most positive of thoughts, it feels like they are saying "it could be worse. We could be minutes behind." There are plenty of groups who hesitated with a fear of the future- I'll probably never know about them. There are plenty of groups living in the past, remembering what music used to be like- if I knew them, I've probably forgotten most of them. 

I wish I knew what the future held for me sometimes. I don't know if I ever would have guessed that I would go to work one day in a suit and tie so that I could have a job interview conducted half in German and half in English where I would be grilled on protein chemistry. Things happen from one day to the next and amazing experiences like this emerge. One of my favorite quotes on this subject comes from the Music Man. It's an awful manipulation by a guy who is a sleazeball, but I feel like it speaks truth:

Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows,

 and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. 

I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering

So I'll turn this manipulation on you :) was there something today that you thought "Oh, I'll do that tomorrow. I can't do that right now"? Well then, pull a Nike, and, "Just Do It."

Or, you know don't. But you may wake up one day to find that you're minutes behind.

Dark Blue

First off, I think I like the music video for "Dark Blue". A lot. But I'm not sure that I get the video. I started out like "wow, this is super cool!" and then by the end I was like "wait... what?" Go ahead- go give it a watch. I'll wait.

Right?


So then, I'm pretty sure this post isn't going to be about a 2 month-long jive competition, but to be honest, when I start typing, I really don't ever know where I'm going to go with it.
I really like the question that gets posed like a dozen times in the song:

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room?

That's the kind of question that sends my mind running and starts all sorts of trains of thought. What does it mean to be alone? When do I feel most alone? What kinds of crowds contribute to feeling alone? Is alone a bad thing?
I don't really have any solidified answers to a lot of these questions yet. One thing I do know is that being able to discuss questions like these is a big part of what makes me tick. I love sitting down with someone and discussing why's and wherefore's. I love getting stumped and looking things up on Wikipedia. I love answering questions with questions, and then making connections to things unrelated at first glance.
The extra-credit question at the end of my Transport Phenomenon II: Heat/Mass Transfer "heat" exam was "why is the sky blue?" There was some outrage among fellow classmates because that was really not an issue of heat transfer and a very vague question. I couldn't have loved the question more. I spent the last fifteen minutes of the exam (at least!) writing the best answer I could. I don't remember how much credit I got, but it was fun if nothing else.
I have to thank my parents, because, somewhere along the way, I never lost my curiosity. I don't think I ever specifically asked either of them why the sky is blue (although that is the classic child-like curiosity question), but I did ask a bunch of questions. I don't really ever remember getting shut down- on the contrary! They moved the encyclopedia set to my room so I could look up "Vesuvius" and "Venus" in my spare time. It was the start of a great love of learning.
For me, the color of curiosity is dark blue.

Lights

As I was showering the other morning, the worst part of getting music stuck in my head struck: I had a song stuck there but didn't hardly know any of the words. I was stuck half humming lines like:

They show the lights are maybe

cold in the stone, show me baby co-o-old.

and:

Cause I'm calling, calling calling you

(repeat ~12x before realizing I don't know the next line)

The worst part was that I wasn't sure enough on any of the lines to really be able to google the lyrics. I tried humming the tune into soundhound, but that didn't work. Finally, one of my searches brought up Lights by Ellie Goulding. Even then, I wasn't sure that I had found the right song as I read through the lyrics. I'm not the most poetically savvy individual, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the song. After listening to it (a very 80's music video too), I realized it was, indeed, the correct song.

And then I had to figure out what sense I could make out of the lyrics to lead to a blog post :/

Luckily, as I was searching for the song, I came across something that made me much more excited: I found out that Boyce Avenue did a cover of her song. It's good (better than the original I would say), but the real reason that I got excited was that it was an excuse to put Boyce Avenue's channel on play and just let it stream.

If you haven't checked out their music, I would highly recommend it. I think one of the most impressive things you can do is take something that is good, stay true enough to it that it is clear that the foundation came from the original, and wildly rethink it to make it better. A great example of this is their cover of "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. By simply changing the perspective and altering a few words, a whole different spin is put on the song and (from my somewhat conservative point of view) greatly improves the song.

One more example:

In 1900, L. Frank Baum wrote a novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" which later became The Wizard of Oz. In 1995, Gregory Maguire re-imagined the world of Oz and destroyed all that was good and praiseworthy in the story. I attempted to read it (for reasons I'll get to shortly) and couldn't bring myself to finish it. There are few books that I have not finished, but Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West was so filled with trash and such a farce in the face of what Baum had created so many decades before.

Fast forward another 8 years. Stephen Schwartz premiered what I feel is one of the best musicals of all time. Wicked tells the story that Maguire was trying to tell: the history of Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West. Their past friendship and the world that Dorothy dropped in on were things which gave the musical purpose and meaning. Schwartz's genius was in making the show funny, quick-paced and beautiful. It was so inspiring to me after I saw it, that I went and checked out the book that it is "based" on to read. That's why I got as far as I did in to the book. I kept telling myself, "the musical is so good, I just need to keep reading, it's going to get better. I know it is." But it didn't. Schwartz really did take something that was awful, keep enough of the premise to have the foundation in place, and then recreated the rest into the musical which is still wildly successful today.

As Ellie Goulding says:

Noises, I play in my head

Touch my own skin and hope that I'm still breathing

whatever that means :)

It's Possible

Anything's possible.
I think I have a hard time remembering that sometimes.
Anything is possible.
I checked out a bunch of music books from the Berkeley library last week, and was playing through some of them this weekend. One of the books I got is Seussical the Musical. I was originally going to audition to be in it this fall at MET, but I don't get back until like a month after auditions. Anywho, as I was playing through the music for this show, the song "It's Possible" really stood out to me. In part, I'm sure because it's one of those songs that drives to the end (I like that), but also because it shows something that I think the world of Seuss tried really hard to foster and champion: Imagination.
Jojo is a Thinker who thinks strange Thinks. They (his parents, an army general, etc.) try to get him to conform, and this song is his secret indulgence in imagination. Taking a bath becomes this epic underwater adventure. In the end, Jojo's Thinks save his entire world.
As I've been at Bayer this summer, I've gotten to see how this same "battle" rages on in the real world. Time and time again, I've heard people praise the ability to "think outside the box" and "be a fresh set of eyes". Concurrently, there are forms to fill out, standard procedures to follow, licenses to adhere to, and acronyms (oh my goodness are there acronyms) to learn. Amid the roar of bustling bureaucracy, the drive of deadlines, and the rigid hierarchy, it seems like it's very easy for one small voice singing "anything's possible" to be heard.
It seems so easy, to me, to let the world wash away the imagination that comes so easily to children. I don't think I ever had that creative of an imagination (I'm kinda left-brained biased), but it's more than just straight-up imagining up fantasy worlds. It's some kind of naivete in which the thought "that's impossible" or "that would just be impractical" is non-existent. It's a willingness to pursue a dream, without an elaborate safety net or back-up plan. It's the confidence that the world is a good place, full of good people. That's what this song stirs up in my memory.
Try to remember that feeling, or, if that isn't what you grew up with, work towards it. Kids are happy, and I feel like it's because they realize that...
               

Part of Me

Whelp, Katy has gone and done it: she made it on to my blog.

In case you were wondering, Billboard's Hot 100 (while interesting [try looking up what was #1 the week you were born. Trippy{which apparently isn't a word in my computer's dictionary}] and comprehensive) is not the true sign of whether or not a song has "made it". No, that distinction actually goes to my blog. That's right- you know it's a good song if I've woken up with it stuck in my head :)

< /sarcasm>

Today's song was really just one line from Part of Me which played over and over in my mind this morning:

You're never gonna break my soul, this is the part of me

that you're never gonna ever take away from me.

I feel like everyone has so much baggage. Call it what you will: layers, or different hats that we wear, or masks, or whatever. I'm going to call it baggage. There are social norms that we conform to, relationships which we mold ourselves in to, defense mechanisms, insecurities, habits. The list goes on and on for reasons why anyone would carry around baggage, and it's as individual as the baggage itself.

What if we could get rid of it? What if we could let go, let the layers simply fall off? Would that be a good thing? I don't know. I've never done it. I like to think that it would be glorious. To see and be seen for exactly who and what you are. So often, I feel like the people that I "know" aren't actually people. They are the layers that I've grown accustomed to. The part of the person that Katy sings about, that is who I want to get to know.

I know that there is some pretty deep (ie confusing) stuff out there about what the ego is, how we define ourselves and such, but I feel like we all have at least a sense of what we are, deep inside. It's easier for me to reflect myself more clearly when I blog, so I hope you get to hear a more baggage-less me in my posts. Someday, hopefully I'll get better at being able to open up in person and share a part of me.

Payphone

This is one of those songs that I get stuck in my head, and it just plays over and over. Despite the fact that that is somewhat annoying by nature, I love the song so much that I don't even try to fight to get it out. I think part of it is the strength of emotion in the song which (even though I think might be taking things a bit too far) is conveyed in (yet another!) break-up song. I promise I'm not hating on relationships or the thought of people staying together! But it certainly seems like my subconscious has been of late.
Anyway, many of my friends can attest to the fact that I will (often at random times) start humming the tune from "Payphone". I thought through the lyrics for this one, and really wasn't sure what I wanted to write about for a blog post. Like I said, it's kind of a depressing, post-break-up song. Last night at the symphony, the theme for the piece I listened to got me thinking.

Change is one of the most powerful (and therefore scary) things I can think of in this world. The song starts out with the lyrics:

I'm at a payphone tryin' to call home

all of my change I spent on you.

What a sad place to be in! I am imagining Adam Lavine standing there on a street corner (the actual music video [with unedited lyrics and the rap bridge included] has this cool comic-book style) realizing that he has invested himself in to this relationship which is now irreconcilably over. In the midst of this pity party, I realized: wait. You spent all of your change on her...? That is a really clever play on words, but it strikes me as entirely and utterly by nature untrue. 

I am a firm believer that you can never be out of change. No matter who you were at one point, what you had to go through to get to this point, or what you think your future may end up holding for you, you can change. And even more-so than that: You will change.

It feels like it very much part of human nature to resist change. Everyone at one point or another can look back and say, "well, that was a change that was definitely for the worse!" Because of that potential consequence for change, I feel like it's only natural to try and find ways to avoid change. 

FACT: Change happens.

Anyone who tells you "my love for her hasn't changed over the last (insert time period here) one bit" is working with a very different definition of change. I would say that, even as each and every one of us grows with new experiences each day, so too must our relationships form and re-form to mold to the continuing complexity that is our lives. 

Now, I'm not saying Adam is wrong for investing change in his now-failed relationship. I'm saying it was wrong to have spent it on her. Like I said, change is a natural part of the world we live in, BUT there is definitely a wrong way to go about it. If he was changing for her all the time, then the relationship may well have become a lie.

One of the posts that I read which got me to really start thinking about regularly blogging myself (and its associated sequel [of which I claim partial credit in the conception]) really encapsulate how I feel change in a relationship should happen and what it can lead to. Rather than regurgitate them, I'll just suggest you read the posts as they stand.

So yes, change is going to happen. Yes, it is going to be an integral part of a relationship. BUT... No, it is not a bad thing. No, it shouldn't be manipulated as a tool to try and force something to work. And no, we should never feel like we've "run out of change."

PS- Thanks to Laura for the Bahama's payphone collage picture!

Going to the Symphony in Flip Flops

After today, I would highly recommend the symphony to everyone. Even if you go in flip flops, go. Allow me to back up and explain how I came to that seemingly unconnected admonition.

Let me start by acknowledging that there are those you have referred to me as "one lucky SOB". While that isn't a term I would necessarily choose for myself, the first half is nonetheless somewhat applicable. I seem to win more than the average individual does. For an example, see this video.
As I was talking with the other interns at work this week, we were trying to come up with weekend plans. They had me look up events going on in SF, and it seemed like everything I could find was somehow connected to the SF Pride festival being held this weekend. Eventually, we decided to check it out (it's part of the local culture, right?) and then go to China Town and hang out in North Beach.

So I met up with Briana, Katee, Chris, Ivaylo, and Chaiwei, and we took the BART to SF. You get a little taste of what the festival is going to be like taking public transit to the Civic Center, but it really can't prepare you for what it is like when you step out of station. There was glitter and rainbows all over the place. It's a poor attempt at showing you what things were like, but this is a picture I took of a group doing Zumba at one of the stages.

As we started making our way through the festival (trying not to make body contact with the more scantily clad individuals), I noticed the SF Symphony booth. They had one of those wheels you can spin, so I stepped up and waited my turn to spin. There were 3 or 4 spaces which had something you could win, and I landed on a ticket to Bartok's "Bluebeard's Castle" closing at the symphony this evening!

Everyone else in my group had come over by this point and were most impressed with my win. Briana spun next and almost landed on the spot with me. The lady was nice and gave her a ticket anyway. As we were walking away, she told me "I don't really want to go to the symphony." So, being the gentleman, I offered to take it off her hands.

Suddenly, I had two tickets to the symphony this evening. I love it when evening plans practically make themselves. I got a hold of the music chairwomen in my ward and invited her to come in to the city and meet up with me to go to the symphony.

Our last event at the Pride Festival was to watch the cheerleading squads perform. At first, when we showed up, I thought, "eh. They're better than my high school was, but I've seen better." And then they brought out their A squad. My jaw dropped at some of the lifts and throws that they were doing. Of course, this wasn't a competition, so the guys on stage were allowed to (and probably encouraged to) be as flaming as they wanted to be up there. Other than that, it was really enjoyable :)

As we were having lunch in chinatown, I realized that I wasn't ready to go to the symphony. I hadn't dressed trashy for the day, but I definitely was going to feel out of place in jeans, a v-neck t-shirt, and flip flops. I decided I would at least buy a dress shirt somewhere before meeting up with Rebekah for the evening.

I didn't find anything in Chinatown on our way to North Beach. We stopped at a candy shop (free samples of anything you wanted = Matt got a bit sick to his stomach) and then went and chilled in Washington Park. We were sitting on the grass chatting when the bells of the cathedral behind us start ringing. At first I thought it was toning an hour, but I looked at my watch and saw that it was 3:24, so that couldn't be it. I noticed that I recognized the tune as "Here comes the bride", so I turned around to look, and there was a bride and groom exiting down the steps. Two weddings that I've randomly seen with the interns in two weeks. What a fun tradition!

We headed back to the BART where the others caught a train heading back to Berkeley, and I started down towards all the shopping of Market St. At first, I was dismayed at the really expensive-looking shops. I didn't want a $125 shirt. I was relieved to look up and see a sign for "Ross" up ahead. Just what I was looking for.

I went and found a dark blue-green shirt that was perfect, so I grabbed that, and changed on the BART as I was heading to meet Rebekah. We met up and then got to see the symphony. I'll spare you my full thoughts on the symphony. Suffice it to say that I was blown away by multiple aspects of the evening and thoroughly enjoyed myself, even though my toes felt very conspicuously bare as I walk next to people in full evening attire.
So, while I may have a slightly above-average propensity for the acquisition of free things, my advice is to get out there. Live life and put yourself on the edge and into the unknown occasionally. 

What do you do with a BA in English?

Indeed, what do you do with life?
The song that this is usually attached to in Avenue Q needs a bit of editing, but I found of version of just "What do you do with a B.A. in English?"
After what should seemingly be four years of intensive training on how to find the best answers, you would think college graduates would find the answer to "what's next?" quite easily. While there are those who do, it seems like I'm talking to more and more people who feel that their path is not only unclear- it's nonexistent. When did finding a career become such a challenge?
I feel like there is an intellectual inflation which has been rapidly increasing in recent years. When I read of the old universities, how difficult it was to get in, and the rigorous training they received, I can't help but be a bit disappointed in what we have in higher education today. Somehow, things have gotten to the point that someone can claim, "Four years of college and plenty of knowledge have earned me this useless degree. I can't pay the bills yet, 'cause I have no skills yet."
I feel like I got lucky with the degree I chose- people have said to me, upon learning that I'm studying chemical engineering, "oh good. You're going to have a bachelor's degree that is still worth something." With that statement comes the implication that there are myriad degrees which aren't. People spending (often times inordinately) great amounts of money and years of their life, to be told that their degree is not really applicable.
One of the semi-solutions that it feels like is emerging is the glorious "master's degree". I can't help but feel like that is just a band-aid for a broken bone. Something is obviously happening to our undergraduate studies, but rather than fix it, we simply have to keep studying. A random man on the light rail told me once "stay in school as long as you can. A master's is the new bachelor's degree." The more that I see, the truer that seems to be.
I honestly don't know what kind of solution is out there for this problem. Heck, I don't even know what the problem really is. Rather than ranting on about entitlement and the decay of traditional American values (which is probably where I would take this), I'll just say that I hope to get a job before things get any more crazy, cause

the world is a big scary place.

San Fran by the Foot

Did you know that the San Francisco peninsula is right about 6 miles across? Neither did I. While that doesn't sound that large, when you meander, that becomes a long way to walk. First things first though.

I went to the Oakland Temple on Thursday. It is a wonderfully gorgeous temple with one of the top 3 or 4 views I'd say I've seen from a temple. It's the temple where my dad got his endowment and that made it extra cool. I love how friendly everyone is in the temple. It could have been because it was the middle of the day on a weekday and there were hardly and patrons there, but all I did was ask the way to the changing room, and I had a bunch of people to help guide and show me the way the rest of the time that I was in there.

After visiting the temple, I came back to Berkeley and met up with a group from the institute to play Ultimate. I'm not the best (I have a tendency to throw a truly terrible pass when I'm under pressure), but I was able to hold my own with and enjoy the group. I love that at 5PM, it's perfectly gorgeous outside, the same as at 8AM or noon. I'll say it again: 

The weather here is ridiculously gorgeous.

So, now to Friday. I checked out the site where I'm working starting on Monday. It's a lot bigger than I expected, so I'm excited for that. I went and parked my car at the BART station in southern Berkeley, bought a pass, and rode in to San Francisco. I hopped off downtown and started walking. I knew the general direction of Chinatown (the first place I wanted to visit) so I headed that way. I had downloaded an app which runs in the background, and when you pass a site or noteworthy place it plays a little info blurb. This picture -> is of the shortest and most narrow street in the city. Lol.

I wandered my way to Chinatown and found all sorts of wonderful junk there. It's like every single 99cent store sent the things they couldn't send to this section of town. Oh, and then there were all the paper fans and zen gardens and other wonderfully stereotypical Asian tourist goods available for purchase as well. As I didn't want to have to carry souvenirs with me for the next several hours, I only ended up buying lunch while I was there. I couldn't decide on what to get, so I got the equivalent of an appetizer sampler.

As I left Chinatown, I decided to head towards Lombard St. I entered North Beach (little Italy) and, fittingly, found the Sts. Peter and Paul Church. After walking around in there (I LOVE stained glass in cathedrals and the like), I looked up and saw Coit Tower just up the way. That was one of the sights that Amanda and I hadn't gotten to go to while here last year, so I trudged up the hill and got too look back over San Francisco. It's a truly beautiful view, and it is so very different from what I'm used to.

Back on foot again, I finally made way way to Lombard St. (the other attraction that Amanda and I didn't make it to before we had to leave). It is truly mind-boggling that they were able to build buildings on that much of an incline. But (as you can see!) they managed it just fine. I'll have to drive in to the City one of these weekends so that I can drive the "crookedest street in the world".

With some time to kill, I went down the hill (thankfully!) to Fisherman's Wharf. Amanda and I had spent a good amount of time there, so I just wandered around, enjoying it. I got to see them turn a cable car (apparently that's a pretty big deal). And went over to Ghirardelli Square to get my free piece of chocolate. Yesterday was caramel-filled milk-chocolate :) I went upstairs to look at the to-go order counter, and they were handing out free chocolate there too! SCORE!

I watched street gymnasts and spray paint artists, sea lions sunning (it's 22 years since the sea lions took over Pier 39), ships at the piers, and a mediocre magic-show. As I was walking around, I got a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to a guy with a pad in hand informing me "that's a violation of code here, sir." I was terrified that I had done something wrong (like, I don't know, drive around with windows tinted too darkly). I looked at his pad nervously as he was writing and realized just as he informed me that I wasn't "smiling enough" that this was just an average Joe looking for money. When he told me the fine I had to pay went to help a soup kitchen I thought: you know what? That's a heck of a lot more creative way of raising money than just ringing a bell or something. So I pulled of some money to donate. It turns out that the pad he was scribbling on was actually the back of a sticker that says "I Luv Your Smile", so I got that out of it too :)

On my way over to a big food festival, I had to pass by Ghirardelli Square again, so I may or may not have stopped in and gotten another 2 free pieces of chocolate (they'd rotated the workers, so I didn't have to worry about them recognizing me).The food festival looked good, but I wasn't ready for dinner yet, so I walked a ways further down the shoreline. They're getting ready for the "Escape from Alcatraz" (I just started typing Azkaban, lol) Triathlon. It really looks like it is going to be a cool triathlon- they start in a ferry just off Alcatraz and then swim to the peninsula to bike and run.

So I got to the Palace of Fine Arts and walked around it for a while. It's a beautiful building that has been without a permanent purpose for nearly a century now. It was built for some expo, and it was so beautiful that no one wanted to get rid of it, but they couldn't figure out what to do with it, so it's done a bunch of random (and sometimes menial) things. On my way from there, I stopped by the shore to watch a bunch of wind-surfers and kite-surfers on the bay. It looked so cold out there, but it also looked like they were having such a good time!

I was finally more than hungry for dinner, so I headed over to the food festival. There was food representing at least 15 different countries there, and I ended up trying a pork-belly burger. It was quite tasty. I had to decide at that point whether to wait and see the next band come on stage at 8, or go next door to this Improv show I had seen an ad for. Improv ended up winning out, so I bought a ticket and headed up.

The format for the show was a version of what they termed "The Harold". I was really interested to see it, but also kind of nervous. I'm used to Jester'z Improv, where you don't have to worry about what's on stage. The first act started with the prompt "Blue" and they started in to 5-part harmony improving a doo-wop song. I melted right then and there. Two scenes later, at the "Blue Moon Lookout Spot" there was a duet just as good as the first song and soo funny. I cringed a bit when they dropped an F-bomb, but then they finished the act with an improvised Shakespearean monologue which was amazing. Act II started after intermission with the prompt "focus" and they actually did the first scene from a suggestion I'd thrown out, which was really cool. Pretty early on in the act, the language started getting worse. I told myself if they used the f-word again, I'd have to leave. The next scene improvised a song which I would assume would have the title (from how often they repeated the line as I was on my way out of the theater) "We're F***ed!"

It was time for me to call it a night, so I grabbed some groceries and hopped on a bus headed downtown. My phone had long since died (I got the picture of the improv theater just before it shut down), so I was pretty much flying blind on this one. I started talking with a group of (very obviously!) tourists from Wisconsin. When they found out where I was getting off, they decided to get off there too, because it was the closest stop to their hotel. The problem was that I wasn't sure exactly where that stop was. And suddenly, the blind was leading the blind. Luckily, as the bus filled up, a native sat down next to me and let me know right when to get off. A quick BART ride, and I was back in Berkeley and home in my bed. Quite an adventurous day, but also most exhausting. My highlights for today are going to be lunch with a bunch of the other new Bayer interns and getting my laundry done. And I am just fine with that :)

Welcome to Berserkeley

Well, I made it? I have moved to California for the summer and am settling in to (as one friend calls it) Berserkeley. It's been a fun and great first few days, let me fill you in on what I've been up to.
I ended up having a going-away/pool party at my house Monday night. It was fun to get to see a bunch of really great friends and have a last hurrah with them before taking off. Of course, my plans for an early bedtime were thoroughly decimated with the organization of that activity, but I think it was totally worth it.
Because we spent a couple extra hours staying up talking, I decided to sleep in a little later than I had originally planned. I still got off at a good time, just a bit later than the schedule originally called for. Between audiobooks and soundtracks to musicals that I wanted to listen to, I figure I could have driven probably for three days without stop and still had more things to listen to. Fortunately, it was only a 12-hour drive, so I didn't have to use it all up.

Right now, I'm playing around with the idea of auditioning for MET's production of Seussical the Musical this fall. That's still a ways away, but it's fun to dream. Anyway, I listened to that soundtrack and that took me all the way to Quartzite. The rest of the trip was spent listening to "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown. I made it about half-way through the book in the remaining 10 hours of the trip, and it really helped the time fly by. Lunch was in LA, and then it was just a straight shot up California to the Bay Area. I looked down at the odometer after coming out of a particularly intense downhill section and my heart sank: I had missed the 100k mile switch-over on my car! Seriously, I've been waiting for this since I bought the car in October. I literally considered exiting the highway right then and driving down some random country road for 5.3 miles in reverse. If I hadn't just gotten a text from my future roommate asking if I was going to make it in time for a birthday celebration, I totally would have done it.
I got in to Berkeley just after 9, and my roommate, Stanley, helped me get all my stuff out of the car. I really didn't have that much to bring for 10 weeks, so 20 minutes later, I was almost completely unpacked. Another roommate, Thor, was celebrating his birthday that evening, so all 6 of us (the guy that I'm replacing in the apartment doesn't leave till the 14th, so he's on the couch till then) went out for some sushi. We met up with another 5 people from the ward, and so I'm already starting to get to know people here. I hope to make a whole bunch of friends quickly, cause knowing no one is kind of sucky.

Slept fine my first night in Berkeley, but I had to get up earlier than I wanted to. The rule for parking around my apartment is 2-hour parking from 8-7. So that means that if your car is there at 8, it has to be move by 10, and then again at 12 and so on. So, I got up and got ready so that I could move my car before ten. I parked then headed up one of the main roads towards UC Berkeley and gave myself a short walking tour of the campus. WOW. The buildings are beautiful, and there's a stream that runs through the middle of campus. I took some pictures, so you can see some of what I found so impressive.

Everything's so green!

Berkeley Bell Tower

From the Tower, you could look straight out over Berkeley into the  Bay. If you look really closely, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge. Talk about an amazing view.

So, I had to go move my car again, and it was time for lunch. I had lunch and lazed around for a bit, then decided that I was going to go listen to some more audiobook while relaxing in a park. Parks are relaxing, right? Well, I headed over to the people's park. Seriously, read a bit on that wikipedia page to get a feel for what I was in store for.

So I park next to the park, and go lay in the shade of a tree with my headphones in and enjoying my book. After three people asked me for money, I got up and walked over to a corner of the park (further away from the "regulars" at the park). I had more success listening to my book in peace, and got to see an "Occupy Road Trip" Bus full of wonderful... free spirits stop at the park to enjoy it. I'm not really sure how effective a mobile "Occupy" initiative is, but who am I to judge? So I listened to my book for a while, and then decided to walk around the park, just to take it all in. I had another request for money, got to see the people from the food bank handing out lunch, and then, the coup de grace: I was offered a wonderful opportunity to purchase weed which I was assured was the finest quality. 

A bit later in the afternoon, Stanley and I went for a run around Berkeley. During the run, he informed me that the People's Park wasn't generally the best park to choose to hang out at. We got to see another city park which looked much more friendly. Stanley is hoping to do a half-marathon, so we ended up running a lot farther than I have in a very long time, but I pretty much managed to keep up (which I was really glad about). Two weird things about running here:

1. There are hills! (I'm used to having to find mountains if  you want an elevation change!)
2. You can run at 5 PM. AND THE TEMPERATURE IS PLEASANT!

I told Stanley that, if you don't finish your run by about 8 or 9 AM in Pheonix, you might as well put it off to tomorrow. It's so nice here though! They don't have central air conditioning or heating, because it never gets that hot or cold. I think I am perfectly fine with that.

After the run, I went down to Oakland and met with Ben and Ashley. It was so great to see them again and sit and talk with them. They're doing great, and we had an amazing mean at Barney's Gourmet Burgers. I went with an avocado and bacon burger, and it was truly fantastic. It's also nice to know that, even if all else fails, I've got at least two friends here in town.

As I was driving home, I realized that it was about sunset. I got a text from Rebekah reminding me that I'm on an adventure. I notice just how beautiful the sunset made everything look, so I decided to see if I could drive up into the hills high enough to get a good view of it. I got there just in time, and when I finally turned around to look, it was definitely worth one last push of adventure that evening:

I watched the sun sink under the horizon then headed back to where I'd parked my car. Along the way, there was this odd creaking noise. Like, you know in the scary movies when a swing is swaying back and forth in a playground and makes that metallic creak...creak...creak? Yeah, that's what I heard. Which was creepy enough, but I couldn't even see any swingset or playground. I went over to look towards the sound, and all of a sudden, a bunch of ravens flew out of the tree above me and started circling while cawing loudly at me. I decided that was enough horror-movie motifs for one evening and booked it back to my car. 

Welcome to Beserkeley