A Day in the Life: Natural Disasters.

So, I'm pretty sure that most of you reading this blog have no idea what I do. I think that a majority of you know that I work for UC Berkeley, maybe that I work in Student Affairs (maybe?) Some of you would get bonus points for knowing that my job title is "Resident Director" or describing it as either "a grown up RA" (my least favorite description ever) or as "the person who supervises the RAs."

Regardless, I haven't been really great at really describing to others what my job is about - what it is that I actually do. And also, why I do all these things. So, every now and again, I'm going to describe a day in the life - at least the interesting ones. Every day in my job is different - while I have the same core duties, my job is basically to respond to all the stuff that comes up in the  lives of the 500 students and 10 staff members I work with. Yeah. Sometimes it gets hectic.

For example, while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago, one of my buildings (I supervise two residence halls - this one is not the one I live in) caught on fire. ON. FIRE. As in, they are still repairing the fire damage. Luckily, the flames were confined to the basement storage area, but the smoke was thick in the entire building. Let's just say it took a few days for the hallways and rooms to air out. Another, extremely different example would be when a student breaks up with their partner, fails a test and comes home to find their roommate has eaten all their granola bars. This pushes them over the edge into a hysterical crying fit. You know where they end up? My office. I stock tissues.

I also thought it would be handy to keep a record of what's going on for me during the year. I mean, the number of topics I'm trained on is always expanding - because we never know what's going to happen each day. I try not to get freaked out by it.

So, last Wednesday was my third day of professional training for the year. (Sidenote - every year, before we start the two week extravaganza that is RA training, the professional staff also have a couple weeks of training to prepare for the upcoming year). Yesterday started off with a discussion about the newest supplies that we would be adding to our emergency supply inventory. This is an ongoing discussion for us because the threat of earthquake is extremely high in this area - and what are we going to do for our students in the case of a really devastating quake? My unit alone houses 1400 students and Bay Area emergency services tell residents to be prepared to care for themselves for 5-7 days with no assistance in the worst case. So we spend a fair amount of time discussing questions like: Where will we go if a building collapses? What will we eat? How will we care for injured students? What if, what if, what if?

New supplies for our RA staff included matching helmets and bright green vests. We got the same PLUS crowbars (awesome!), first aid supplies AND handheld radios. Without feeling too ridiculous, we learned the protocol for the radios: "Kristin to Laura" "Go ahead Kristin" "Kristin to Laura, your bedroom color palette is aMAzing!" "Copy that Kristin" and so on. (Sidenote: We also have another set of radios that are actually police issue radios, connected directly to our university police department, which is...nerve wracking.) We're always adding to our supplies in an effort to feel like we are as prepared as possible for any given emergency.

Lunch break.

So, for all of our discussion about earthquakes or other disasters where we would be forced to evacuate our buildings - we realized we didn't have as much planning done for events that would require us to stay inside. Active shooters, for example. Chemical or hazardous material spills, for another. We realized we didn't know the difference between lockdown (a police order stating no one can enter or exit) and shelter in place (a safety recommendation where you go inside the nearest building, and shut the windows and doors). So lots of planning ensued - how to let students know about the situation, what to do if a student wants to leave the building anyway, how to know when the restrictions have been lifted. Etcetera. The number of questions that come up for us in these situations is sometimes overwhelming - because everything we discuss is one more thing that we need to mentally prepare for, and also train our staff for.

Even though emergency preparedness isn't what I went to grad school for, it's a huge part of my job here, and part I bet you didn't know about.

Maybe next time I'll talk about the stuff you were expecting, hugs and feelings and stuff.

**I started this post last week, but tonight, no joke, there was another fire. Outside of my building, luckily, and this one much more suspicious, but maybe five more minutes and my other building would have been on fire again. Awesome, right?

General Life Update: KK

A lot of our posts of late have been very picture heavy, so I think a "How the heck are you?" post is in order... Most of what we've been doing lately gets posted here, although you all really do get the highlights - our everyday is not quite as adventurous as this blog may lead you to believe. :) Currently, I have a bit more free time because it's summer session here and I'm not in charge of any the residence halls over the summer, and instead my primary responsibility is working on the training team, planning hall staff training in August. While training is a huge task - I'm on a 6 person team working on it, so it doesn't consume my life. I've been reading a lot, I'm up to 30 books for the year. Dana and Larry were here to visit a couple of weeks ago, and we had some fantastic adventures with them - campus tours, wine tasting, SF highlights, Alcatraz, and skydiving, which Dan is going to write a separate post about for tomorrow. Just before coming to visit, they moved into the house they just bought - which is amazing for them! I'm so impressed that they have a HOUSE, like grown-ups or something. I know that several of our close friends have homes that they bought too (Kel/Mike, Mer/Geoff, Chris/Holly, Matt/Katie, Tommy/Kristen) but this was more impactful for me. I think because Dana and I finished grad school at the same time, and so we officially started "being grown-ups" at the same time too. Clearly, we have different paths, but she feels much further ahead on hers. Hmph. Anyhow, it was great to see them. You may have heard in the news lately that California has approximately $13.48 to its name, which makes it hard to pay it's millions of employees, provide decent education, and the like. So, while I am NOT in danger of losing my job (mom, please read that sentence as many times as you need to) all educational institutions in the state are taking big cuts. Because I work for an auxillary unit of the university (which means we have our own source of income beyond tuition - ours is room and board) we aren't hit as heavily as some other campus units. But, the university is considering either pay cuts across the board, or furloughs - which basically amount to a pay cut. If the university enacts either of those plans, we will have to do the same...just because. So, next year should be super exciting! *Heavy sigh* I have had two dreams in as many weeks that my cousin Christine is engaged. Uncle Mike - any news you want to share? Lily and James are doing just fine - although they have developed quite the endearing habit of waking up and then waking us up at 4 or 5 in the morning. We're working on it. The scavenger hunt diamond ring thing continues to be weird. I'm slowly telling my colleagues and people here about it, but it's hard to do because most people kind of stop listening and make their own assumptions about how the story ends. The pictures that the event released (that we posted here after the fact) are not helping matters. And, no I don't wear the ring around. If there is any more related news, trust me, you'll all be the first to know :)

Random updates

So, it's been awhile, and recently the blog has kind of seemed broken on occasion? As in, you come to the URL and there is nothing there? This has happened to me a few times, not sure if that's why no one has been leaving us any comment love, but I will push on! Writing about things no one cares about! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm completely ripping this format from Amalah's last post. Seriously. Click on the link and you will see how unoriginal I am. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lots has happened in the few weeks since I last posted cute pictures of Jean's puppy. That same day we visited, Dan and I went to the Jelly Belly factory which was fun because you have to wear a paper hat in the factory even though you get NOWHERE near the jellybeans in the process of being made. Also, the day we were there they were making cotton candy and raspberry flavors and wow, headache. But, you get to try a lot of flavors you don't see a lot of places (jalapeno anyone?) and new flavors (pomegranate is yummy) and be around too many kids on a sugar high. Exciting. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside the factory, but outside where they have jelly belly motorcycles, a jelly belly car, a jelly belly RV and a huge blow up jelly bean, you feel free to take pictures to your heart's content! But, it was a factory tour, which completely fascinate me, and free, so hooray! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dan is in Austin again for South by Southwest working really long days, and I'm still in Berkeley, sleeping in too late. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Um, this won't be exciting to anyone else, but I'm going to see Dave Matthews in September. This is exciting because I requested my tickets through their fan club system (of course I'm in the fan club) for a venue that I've never been to before but have always wanted to go to where they always do amazing multi-night performances. The trick is, the venue is the Gorge, about 2 hours east of Seattle. So this year, they're spending Friday, Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend there, and I requested tickets for all three nights to hedge my bets and I got ALL of them! Honestly, when I found out I danced around the apartment ala Dana's dance of joy from Sportsnight. No words. Too excited. Yes, I will be making the pilgrimage for a weekend o' dave. Dan is, well, not as excited. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I also have no words to describe how excited I am about this summer (before the concerts). Dana and Larry are coming out to visit in June, and she already has quite the itinerary planned out :) July means Houston craziness with the CC, followed less than a month later by CC craziness is New York. These are good times my friends :) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Finished my second RAD class today! We had 12 students which is a new record for us - woot! Seriously, teaching this is basically the highlight of my job. It's awesome seeing women who don't think they have any strength go through simulation at the end. *smile* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On Friday, I went to the campus production of the Vagina Monologues and it was SO good. The cast did an AMAZING job, I laughed and cried, and cried some more. They also include monologues here that Cal women have written, and the original pieces were really powerful. What was NOT as amazing was the guy who came with his girlfriend sitting next to me who, no lie, brought a bottle of Jack in his jacket and, throughout the show, pulled it out to pour into his Coke and drink. And dropped it on the floor a couple of times. And smelled like I was in a bar, at last call. Then, he would pull his girlfriend over to him at completely inappropriate times and make out. NOT OK. All I could think about was that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry makes out with his girlfriend at Schindler's List. I mean, women are on stage talking about being raped, and you're getting drunk and sloppy. You, my friend, are pure class. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I will be on the East Coast in 9 days! We're going to be doing a bit of a whirlwind visit - up to Johnstown, over the bridge to Maryland, back to DC for a conference, down to Richmond for a night and back to DC. Whew! Dan will be flying directly from Austin to meet me in DC, and he isn't coming back to Berkeley until we fly back together on April 6th. He'll be away from home for about 3.5 weeks, which is sad, because I think Lily misses him already. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Spring Break starts in 5 days! THANK HEAVENS. Time for a break. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fin.

Other California goings on...

I am on a posting ROLL people! I hope you're as impressed with me as I am with myself. So what do I actually have to talk about... *I'm 38 books into my goal of reading 50 books this year. It's feeling very accomplishable at this point. Plus, books are moving out of the house as they're being read, which means I can buy more books soon. (If you haven't heard, I'm currently banned from buying more books. Because they threaten to take over the whole of our apartment.) *Last weekend's adult plans to go to Target and Costco also ended up including Michaels, Office Depot and IKEA (twice). Oh my do I feel suburban. *I'm really enjoying the fact that I've actually gotten to watch the first three VT football games! I didn't think I'd be able to watch many this year since we aren't ranked, so I've been very happily surprised. Dan and I are hoping to watch a couple with the Bay Area VT Alumni Association and perhaps even meet some people. Only took a year... *We did go the first Cal game (Cal/Michigan State) although we didn't buy season tickets this year, as we weren't really feeling the games out here. But, I was really eager to see some college football. So, there we were. The Golden Knights (Josh - is that name right? I know we talked about it while you were here) also parachuted into the stadium at halftime, to the delight/horror of the girl behind us, who kept exclaiming "He's landing too fast!" while not thinking through the fact that this was probably NOT their first time doing this. Student Section: *My staff seriously does love Dan. See below. *Still love the fog. Photo is taken from the Lawrence Hall of Science at night (obviously)

More late night thoughts

*So believe it or not, Dan and I have lived here for a year. Our moving anniversary passed last week on July 8th. Crazy I tell you. I think I missed it because I've blocked the memory of our incredibly stressful moving process.

*Public transportation pet peeves: Missing a bus by mere inches. People who talk REALLY LOUDLY on their cell phones continuing a conversation on a crowded bus.

*I have passed my airline curse onto my loved ones. My mom got stuck in Texas for 10 hours while trying to get to California (for work) and then they lost her luggage for three days.

*My new favorite song is "After Tonight" by Justin Nozuka, who I thought was some unknown guy who was playing on my Pandora station. Then I found out he's all over VH1, but whatever, you can give me the credit when you fall in love with the song too. Go download it! But be warned the chorus gets stuck in your head like a beeyotch. Also, Ro, he's half Japanese.

*Blog posts with photos to look forward to: 12 on the 12th - A Day in the life of Dan, the SF Pride Parade and a city walk.

*The AFSCME (no, I do not know what it stands for) union is on strike here all week long because they quite simply don't get paid enough. This union encompasses our custodians, maintenance staff, groundskeepers, and food service workers. Good thing it's not during the school year because this place would be a hot mess. So, many of the RDs and I aren't eating in the dining halls this week to support the strikers, many of whom we know and work with and interact with every day. So, we're alternating people making dinner for everyone. Tonight Dan and I made breakfast for dinner for about 10 people. Good times. Dan makes killer raspberry chocolate chip pancakes.

*I have read 30 books this year so far. Currently reading: "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston and am about to start "Ship of Fools" by Katharine Anne Porter, and "The Color Purple."

*This blogpost is also the latest edition of the "I am SO EXCITED to see everyone" newsletter. Clearly, there are good times to be had. See exhibit A below.

A year in the life

I was sitting around here tonight enjoying my fantastically quiet evening and realizing that this time last February I was still in grad school. In fact, this time last year I was probably sitting at home hanging out doing nothing (unless Dana dragged me out on the town) and watching TV. Isn't it crazy what happens in a year?


So, here's a year in my life in photos.



Dan, Dana and Larry at the hookah bar in Athens on Valentine's weekend. We're quite the romantics :)



In March, on a visiting trip to SF, Shalina and I are acting like goofballs on the Golden Gate Bridge.




4.16.07





At Dan's graduation from GWU in May. So proud :)




Dana, Laura and I at our graduation in June. Can you believe I have a Master's degree? Clearly, neither can we.




Larry serenading Dana to "I've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" (yes, like in Top Gun) at their wedding on 7.7.07




Hot air ballooning for our four year anniversary in August.




Some of the football spirit at Cal in September (the building in the background is a residence hall)




Ro, Dan and I at the end of our city walk during Ro's visit in October.




Dan's adorable nephew. Thanksgiving in Nashville!




My cooler than ever grandfather. Christmas in PA.





Jellyfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Just a few weeks ago in January.




A couple of nights ago. My cats are friggin adorable.

Not getting better.

Hello world, here I am two days in a row. And for the second day in a row, I am sick. Well, this is actually the fourth day for me of not feeling so hot. Unfortunately, now Dan is getting sick too. While this is not unexpected, it really blows when both people in a couple are sick because no one can take care of anyone. Who knows, our cats may not eat for days. Plus, Dan is kind of a whiner when he's sick. Maybe even more than me.


We did both go to the football game yesterday, and it was a great game. It almost made us forget that we were soaked to the skin because we were sitting in rain. Happily, it wasn't very cold, but it did rain consistently the entire time we were there. We left with about 3 minutes left in the game because I was pretty much done with sitting there being wet while feeling like crap. Additionally, Dan had realized that his jacket was not so much waterproof, which did not fare well for his phone that he had brought to the game. Last night and much of today has been spent on the phone (my phone) with Verizon trying to figure out if there is a way to fix it. Luckily, it is still under warranty, so at least we have that going for us.


Also, I don't know if anyone has had the pleasure/sat through the torture of a game at which the USC marching band is present. They played after EVERY down. They played during punt returns. They played during TV timeouts. I mean, I get it that they're a very good band, and I enjoyed their musicality and their show at halftime but sweet mother of God, we didn't come to the stadium to hear you play the same 10 seconds of songs over and over. So, USC band, unless you start playing "Tusk" at the games WITH all the members of Fleetwood Mac present, I implore you to shut the hell up and let us watch football.


Nice to get that off my chest.


Just for fun picture 2:

Where is Rosa when you need her?

So last month, Ro had to come out from the East Coast to discipline Dan and I into actually posting on the blog, and we did! For like, two weeks. And then Ro went and left the country, anddd it's been what, three weeks since we've written anything? Yeah, so this is, once again, my public statement of "I'm going to try and do better" especially since I recently found out that November is National Blog Posting Month (abbreviated to NaBloPoMo...seriously), in which bloggers are implored to try and post something every day. Clearly, I have 10 days of not really doing this already but...make sure you're sitting down...I'm going to try to post every day for the rest of the month (and maybe I'll browbeat Dan into posting some days too). At least we're not hurting for story ideas since we have three weeks of stuff to catch up on. There was a Las Vegas trip, my birthday, a visit from Dana which included a trip to Napa, a drag show, and some football games. So yeah, it's looking good for the next few days in terms of material.

Today, however, will simply be an update on life. I'm sickly today with some sort of throat ickiness, so I'm not really looking forward to the Cal game that is later today. I know, it's blasphemy really to not be looking forward to a highly anticipated game, nationally televised, you have good seats, etc. However, I'm sick. It is cold. It is probably going to rain. And, as we all know, I'm kind of a whiner when it gets cold. So, please be thinking of Dan today, as he will be getting the brunt of the complaints.

Our kitties are doing well. They have started losing their baby teeth, and looking like cats instead of kitties. But, they're both curled up on the guest bed/couch with me right now, so really I can't complain about that. Anddddd now they're wrestling. Whatever.

Work is going well, I'm starting to get involved with more projects and committees that make me want to stick around and be involved with them through to completion. The students in my unit, however, have very recently begun thinking that what they should do in the evenings is stockpile an enormous amount of alcohol and throw up everywhere. It's awesome. My RAs, especially, are really enjoying it.

In other news, I don't know if you heard about the oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. On Wednesday morning, which was INCREDIBLY foggy - we were actually driving to get Dana from the airport and I couldn't even see the Bay Bridge while we were, you know, on it - a container ship hit one of the Bay Bridge towers and spilled 58,000 gallons of oil into the Bay. It has started spreading into the Pacific and there are 16 local beaches closed, and about 2 dozen birds have died. All the articles about it are talking about the Coast Guard's slow response and blah blah. So, the bad news for California keeps coming.

So, it's time to do a little cleaning, and some tea drinking to contain my cough before I try to mentally psych up to go to the game. Everyone keep cheering for Illinois!

THANK YOU also for all the of the birthday wishes :) More on that to come.

Just for fun:

What involves Sex questions, the theater, football and a sweet concert? Last week.

I never got to update about a fun program that I did last week. Each of my RAs (I supervise 12 of them) have to do various programs throughout the semester - one that builds community (primarily social), one that is educational/academic, and one that either relates to service or leadership. Juan, one of my RAs, decided that for his educational/academic program, he was going to do one related to sexual health. So, for a week, he left slips of paper and boxes out in each building lobby for people to submit anonymous questions, which would be answered in a seminar type fashion the following week. So, he got an OB/GYN nurse practitioner from the school health center to come in and...me. Yeah, my name was on the flyers people, I'm kind of a big deal. The program was really well attended and we answered maybe 50-60 questions? And programs like this not only reaffirm my enjoyment of talking to students about sexual health, but also reinforce my belief that students, in general, do not have nearly enough education about ANYTHING related to sex, sexuality, sexual health, etc. Need examples? Here's a list of questions (I am not making these up) that people wrote down to have answered:

"So...where do you put it in?"
"What/where is the clitoris?"
"What happens if a guy takes the morning after pill?"
"Do vaginas make noise?"
"Does sex always hurt?"
"I can't have an orgasm. What should I do?"
**If you would like any of these questions answered, maybe email me seperately.**

So, that started last week off on a really good note. I love doing programs like that. In the beginning, even saying the word vagina makes people turn bright red and giggle, but by the end, students are asking questions and gettnig involved and ah, the magic of learning.

Since then, we've been really busy taking advantage of lots of events living near a big city and everything. Last Thursday, we went to see the touring production of Sweeney Todd with a group of staff and students. This production is really minimalist and really awesome. 10 people put on the entire show. The ENTIRE show. As in, there is no orchestra. The actors sing, act and play all of the accompanying music for the show. Every person is on stage the entirety of the performance and wow, it makes me tired to even think about. Sweeney Todd in general is a morbid, but fascinating show, but this production of it was really powerful and very very good. Besides the really amazing acting and performance of everyone in the show, the other highlight was after the show after all the ovations and curtain calls and bowing and everything, the woman in front of us stood up and mentioned to her date, "I totally thought there was an orchestra! It took me a long time to realize that what they were doing on stage was the ACTUAL music we heard!" Yeah wow. Sadly, we have no pictures to memorialize this event, which is doubly sad because it was held at a different theater than Avenue Q, and the theater is small and beautiful. Hopefully, we will be seeing more shows there and we will take pictures next time.

Saturday, aka football "what the hell is going on" day, was really interesting. As you may know from reading previous posts, we have season tickets to the Cal home games, and Saturday was homecoming, and Cal was playing Oregon State. Honestly, before the game started, Dan and I were not stressed out about rushing to the game, we didn't foresee any riveting football, honestly. We actually ended up staying home to watch the LSU/Kentucky game until the bitter end, which was an amazing game. I was sad LSU lost, but excited because Cal would have totally have become the #1 team in the country, and that's pretty awesome. So, we got the stadium actually only a couple of minutes before halftime and the crowd was pumped because they had announced LSU's loss. Too bad Cal was LOSING. To Oregon friggin State. They were losing at the half, they were losing going into the fourth quarter and honestly, with 6 minutes left in the game, Cal was down by 10 and I was asking Dan to look up Pizza Hut's phone number to have them deliver by the time we got home (no, we couldn't leave early...I have a thing about it). So, I had kind of already accepted the loss. And then, Cal scored a touchdown. Hope returns. Crowd is beyond excited. With 51 seconds left, they are marching down the field to field goal range to tie the game and send it to overtime. With 6 seconds left, our freshman quarterback called a running play, didn't get the ball out of bounds and the clock ran out. YEAH. Oregon State rejoices. Cal fans are dumbfounded. The girl behind us cries. Seriously, the picture below was taken about 2-3 minutes after the game ended. Notice all the fans still in their seats looking a little lost.



While I share in the sadness of the loss, I maintain my position that Cal, ranked #2 in the country going into the game, should not have had to rally to tie the game with 2 minutes left. They lost the game long before the clock ran out before they could kick a field goal. So, I am simply trying to remember that hey, Tech is still doing well, Penn State put a hurt on Wisconsin and hey, Dan and I still have tickets for the Cal/USC game. Good times.

Sunday and Monday=nothing exciting.

Last night, Dan and I went to go see Missy Higgins in concert in SF. She was introduced to us senior year in college and is a folk singer with an amazing voice, who is actually from Australia. She's released two albums, but you can hear everything for free on her website http://www.missyhiggins.com/. So, we found out VERY recently that she was on tour and would be in SF last night at a bar/lounge called Cafe du Nord and also that presale tickets were sold out. Awesome. They told us that they would be selling some tickets at the door as well. So, last night I made Dan leave all sorts of early to get to the bar so that we could get tickets. Too bad when we got there we joined what felt like a huge line. We then found out that they only had 40 additional tickets available. But, we waited, and being the Debbie Downer that I am, I started making alternate plans in my head. So, as the line moved we got to the front to check IDs.

Bouncer: Did you already buy tickets?
KK/Dan: No
Bouncer: The two girls in front of you might have gotten the last two...we're counting now, hang on one second.
KK/Dan: *exchange horrified look*
Bouncer #2: I have one ticket left.
Bouncer #1: They're together.
Bouncer #2: Alright, you can both go.
Bouncer #2 to Bouncer #1: No more non-presales.

Um yeah. THAT WAS AWESOME. I kind of wanted to do a little dance down the street past all the rest of the people in line. But instead, we went in, hung out and ordered dinner, and had a couple drinks, and got a table with a sweet view of the stage and Missy came on and she sang for a solid 90 minutes. She's just an amazing talent and sounded exactly the same live as she does on her CDs, which is reassuring you know? What has been recorded is actually her voice. Anyway, she just belted out song after song after song. Not any messing around, just performing. I really appreciated it, it's been a while since I've been to a concert in a small venue and it was nice to find a great new place to go for live music. Also, the place was really amazing - it was a speakeasy in the 1920s and has a really dark but classy look to it. The bar itself is all wooden and carved beautifully, they have a lot of small tables and big plush chairs, and the walls and ceilings are covered in crushed red velvet. So, yeah. Enjoyable.









And now, Dan's parents are visiting which is exciting. Tomorrow, Dan and his mom and dad are going to go to Sausalito (I have to work..wah wahhhhhh) so I'm sure there are more posts to come.

Cal vs Tenn.

Yup, football! It was an interesting experience to go, but I was really looking forward to the game. Our seats are actually really good, around the 50th row, to the sides of the endzone. Cal has a lot of traditions and chants and...stuff that we just didn't know about, so we pretty much felt like outsiders the whole game (even though we had Cal gear.) We also oddly felt like we were cheating on Tech by going to another school's game. It was awkward...especially when they played "Enter Sandman" during the first quarter, during a random commerical break. We were confused and sad, for we missed the energy of a VT entrance. Also, the season ticket holding asshats that were sitting behind us are of the loud, vocal tribe who think that every single one of them is on the coaching staff, and should dictate the plays we run, the defensive strategy, and you know, everything else. We're more from the camp that just wants to observe the game, and cheer at appropriate times, so this was kind of upsetting. AND there was some Cal fan booing of their own team, which we could simply not get down with. Ugh. Hopefully, we will be less grumpy and more excited for the rest of the home games (and hopefully the people sitting behind us will be sick).

Highlights though, of the game, the Cal team is friggin good. DeSean Jackson is pretty amazing to watch, especially during his 77 yard punt return (which Dan totally missed!). Also, the student section is really really vocal, and during half time does card stunts, which are fun. (They were started here in 19-something a long time ago). AND the band is really awesome - their pregame show is fun. So, clearly, there will be things to watch.

Cal's masot - his name is Oski.

For all you band people.

Tightwad Hill for all the people too cheap to buy tickets. Yes they really call it that. It's a high point next to the stadium that you can see from (since the stadium was built into the ground...see first post)

Umm, apparently they rush the field whenever they win a game.

Quite the update

Well, it's been a while since I caught up with y'all on the blog, but I've kind of had a lot going on! When I wrote my last very short post, I was finishing up two weeks of RA Training, which means anywhere from 10-16 hour days, which gets directly followed up by move-in weekend, which I'm sure you can surmise is a lot of organization for a lot of anxious parents. Directly after move-in, is Welcome Week. At Cal, Welcome Week is a week purely for welcoming, without classes or anything, where the students mill around, get to know each other and the area and basically get trashed at night. So, not only does my staff have to plan a bajillion events for residents to go to, because they're bored and don't know anyone, at night they have to confront a ot of drunk people and send some overly drunk people to the hospital. Really, it's been fun. But, today started classes, so hopefully, things are actually for real calming down around here and I will be able to occasionally get 8 hours of sleep again every now and then.
In an effort to do so, Dan and I actually tried to get out of the apartment this past weekend. On Saturday, we went up to Golden Gate Park to the SF Renaissance Festival. Who doesn't love a Renaissance Festival? I mean, there is quality fair food, some jousting, some people in clothes that I would never wear out, and usually some sweet art. Now, there were some high points, including a women who clearly bought an outfit for her and her partner to share in the bedroom that she thought would also be appropriate for this occasion, but this Fair has nothing on the Renaissance Fair in the DC Area. If you have never been to that one, and you live in DC, you should defintely go, it's a good time. And you can get your face painted and eat a turkey leg all in the same place. Anyway, there are some photos from our outing below.

Sunday, to continue the festival theme, we went to the Oakland Chinatown Streetfest. It kind of blew. I mean, there were lots of booths, but mostly they were corporations trying to pick up some more business (like Bank of America or Western Union) or people selling lots and lots of socks (seriously...I have photographic evidence). There were however, lots of performances, which we watched a few, because I mean, can you pass up young people who are clearly performing for the first time? I submit that you can not. Well, we ended up in San Francisco again, in the Ferry Building buying yummy yummy foods - seriously, one of the best cupcakes I have ever had - and CHEESE. There is a Cowgirl Creamery out here, and since we're addicted to the stuff, we end up with a lot of cheese in the house a lot. Um, not to get heavy handed with the advice for people in DC, but if you have never been to Cowgirl Creamery (919 F street) GO RIGHT NOW. I don't care what you're doing, if you're fully clothed or not, you have not lived until you've A) tasted their cheeses, and B) eaten all of the other cheeses they sell. The end *steps off soapbox*


And the photos:

Some inappropriate dress, some jousting, a pug/noble steed (loved it!) , and some pretty hair/dress.

And from Oakland:

Orchids, architecture and socks. Quite a day.