August = bad weather in California

I had a great time at home but the last couple of days have been pretty blah around here. Last night it even rained. I suppose reading a book about a man in the camps who is separated from his family doesn't help with the intense feeling of alone-ness I've been feeling of late.

I met someone and I sort of think he is amazing but lately I feel like he's been avoiding me. I think I said some things that made him back up, which hurts because I trusted him enough to tell him in the first place. This makes for sad Katies. I don't have too much time to worry about all that though because life doesn't stop to throw me pity parties. Work is crazy - we have Street Fair on Sat and Sun and next week is the NCI closing luncheon. Intern day is a crazy-long 9-to-6 tomorrow as well. Friends are starting to trickle back into town for the fall as well and I am so happy about that.

Anyway, I was talking with a friend I went to Italy with and she's going to Japan next week. I've been wanting to go to Japan for the past few months and I have decided I am going to try and make that trip possible. I want to go right after graduation - before I have to start paying back loans. I think May is a little late for the cherry blossoms, but I am hoping it is still nice then. I don't know where to go in Japan so I guess I should invest in a book to figure it all out.

Now that I've been all over Europe, I am not as apprehensive about going to a country where I don't speak the language or know the customs. I don't know if I want to go see family there or not. I know my baachan's entire family is still in Japan but other than that I don't know much about my relatives there. I should ask my dad about it. Perhaps if some of the younger ones speak english we can start exchanging emails or something. I sort of wish I had the opportunity to do an exchange program in high school. Now, it looks like I will be relying on friends and self-education to navigate the "fatherland". Anyone want to join me on this trip?

Back to It

Well I think I am back to posting on this blog now that I have been in the states for over 3 weeks.

I'm trying to adjust to being back here. It's all very different. Some of my friends have changed a lot and I can't understand where they are coming from anymore. In some cases it is easier to get along with people I am just meeting here, there are no previous expectations of how my relationship with them is going to be. I know that isn't a nice thing to say because most of my old friends have re-welcomed me back into life. But, I am not as good at adjusting as I thought I was.

I'm going to run myself ragged this summer if I'm not careful. I don't think one person was meant to take on NCI and represent NSU while catching up with family and culture, re-starting life, etc. It doesn't leave me with any "me" time, and I just don't feel like I can do it all anymore.

For some reason I don't feel like I can tell anyone all about the crazy mix of things that are going through my head, heart, and soul at the moment. And that makes me sad.

Packing List

Briefly, this is what I've packed so far:

clothes
towel
small but warm quilt
toiletries
stockpile of OTC medicines I may need
shoes
books
empty scrapbook

I wonder what I've forgotten? I haven't weighed my suitcases yet but they aren't completley full yet. If I didn't totally mistrust airlines I'd only bring a backpack as far as carry-ons go, but my mom thought it might be a good idea to bring a carry-on suitcase with things that I want on hand in case my luggage is delayed/lost - some clothes, etc. I don't wanna bring most of my OTC drugs though because I'll probably be under enough scrutiny w/my prescriptions.

I actually haven't taken packing very seriously - an hour here, an hour there. I can still function just fine w/o any of the things in the suitcases. I hope this doesn't mean I'm trying to throw crap in last-minute or that I find myself in Italy going "I don't have this, this, and that...and I really should have brought them." My biggest thing is being COLD...even in Berkeley I had 3 blankets, a quilt, and a comforter in my apartment!

The next thing I want to do is figure out how to transport mementos and whatnot because papers, posters, etc, don't travel so well in suitcases. Anyone have any suggestions?


PS - I think it's a no on the Vitamin Water. Too damn heavy. It's not like I'm going to Mexico or something.

I belong in Milano

A friend of mine is studying in Bologna and she took a trip to Milano recently. I have decided that that city is where, out of all of Italy, I truly belong...sigh. Think the EAP guys will switch me? HAHA

The streets of MILAN

The xmas lighting in MILAN

The beautiful architecture and people of MILANO

I feel like I have a fever

Which in my experience, tells me I don't actually have one. Oddly enough though, I have had zero appetite this afternoon/evening and I think I'm going to bed at like midnight. So I probably am getting sick....sigh. I need a freaking break from school and instead of getting one I just decided to flake out on everything tonight and not even attempt to be productive.

Well, I am planning to buy a train ticket to go home the 20th-24th so I suppose that is productive.

Going home got me thinking about high school friends. I am so very disconnected from so many of them because three years after graduation I've put a tremendous distance (physically and otherwise) between me and a lot of them. Sometimes I wish I was still in contact with some people, even though I know that's not realistic. High school people are thrown together and they're stuck there for four years beacuse their parents had the great idea to settle down in Nipomo of all places. College friends are here because they want to be and there are 30,000 potential friends running around campus, so it's a bit more self selecting. I also feel that no matter how close I get to my friends, they will never understand me because they don't know everyone/anyone from my time at NHS. It's pretty ironic, considering I didn't think I liked high school all that much anyways!

Sigh. I guess I'm still looking for someone who gets me and can understand the many, many sides of me...I guess I'm still looking for someone who will never exist.


I downloaded I-Empire today (got tired of going "I will make it down to the record store *tomorrow*") and I think I've found my new airport soundtrack. That is to say, I really like the record despite the fact that it is far from perfect.

I still find it incredibly amazing that there exists a city where your front door is the water and your car is a canoe.

Good news!

According to my BPSA General Orientation Guide, writing about my experiences in Italy and once I get back will help me cope with "culture shock".

I love how they explain culture shock in great detail (even including a letter from a school psychologist) in this thing, as if we don't know what it is and have never experienced it before. I have mild symptoms EVERY TIME I move back home or back to Berkeley (I usually need 3 weeks).

And um....moving to a city of 100,000, giving up my car, and living in a high rise matchbox with another chick at age 17? Yeah, I might have already experienced a bit of this "culture shock" they speak of.

Update from Nipomo

First, some backlogged things to say:

My 20th birthday was pretty danged awesome. I took a midterm, tabled for the Count Me In! campaign in the rain (twice), was bored to death in Rosa's lecture......ok so after that it is when it was awesome! Some friends and I went shopping in Emeryville and then more met us at Elephant Bar where they lost my reservation and my food was dry, but the drinks were yummy (yay for Annie's nonalcoholic drink recommendations) and the company was even better! I got some spiffy gifts too, like MUFFINS and a lite brite pen. After that I went to dance practice (the end of it) to meet up w/a friend and we went to papamingos (first experience!).




Then on Saturday I had myself my first (and probably last) party. It was a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but I am not the setting up and cleaning up and hosting people type of gal...it happens not so often. Major props go to my roomie for dealing w/everything, being 21, and cleaning up when I was feeling like SHIT (I know I didn't have it that bad but seriously next time...can I have fun WITHOUT throwing up? I know that it is totally do-able.) At any rate it was good to see people and chill and to see some friends from out of town (SJ and SF specifically).





After that the world lit on fire, school turned into a MAJOR bitch, and I still haven't caught up on anything...but that's ok. Or at least, I'm dealing!

Back to THIS weekend:

My neighbor went home for her birthday so she gave me a ride! Mama bear and papa bear are in tahoe for my uncle's birthday so it's just the two of us. I got a little car-sick on the way home but it was very mild, just this headache that wouldn't go away till I got out of the car (wierd huh). I went to Santa Maria and picked up fabric for thursday's rally (quite the steal - $5.98/yd, a lot less than what everything else was going for), then went to the store and picked up a bunch of salad stuff cause I felt like cooking. Then I came home to an empty house. 2000+ square feet of empty house is WIERD, let me tell you. Staying by myself wasn't as wierd/scary as it seemed when I was 17, but it is just a lot of space. I'm freezing because the rooms are giant and I would feel bad turning on the heater just for me...ha ha. My sis came home around 10 (after cheering) and we had an uneventful evening.

This morning a good friend came over and we ate breakfast and then my sis and I went to Cambria to THE TEA COZY!!!!! It is officially my favorite tourist spot in the county (besides grover beach). I ate WAY too much as always - mushroom bisque, a sausage roll thing, the chutney + cheese tea sandwich, bread, and Victoria's sandwich (a dessert that has devon cream in it that the owner/waiter called "eating a cloud"). For those that are curious, we had the Autumn tea because my sister didn't know what the hell kind of tea to pick and I liked it last time (though, summer pudding is still my fave). I bought tea to take back to berkeley with me and then we drove around cambria a bit and found a really cool cemetary way up in the trees. I totally would rather be buried there than in a formal one....it'd be more fun for people to visit my grave there!!

Driving back through Cayucos, it started raining...and it didn't stop the further we drove =( I always seem to come home when the weather is SHIT...but later driving around in the rain was kind of fun. Sister and I went to Old Navy and I bought $10 shoes (annie style shoes haha), then stopped by the aforementioned friend's mom's coffee house, then went home. I dropped my sister at home and then went to dinner at McCLINTOCK'S cause even though lunch made me full I REALLY LIKE THE BEANS! (I wonder if Risa reads this?) It was good to see one of my close friends cause I haven't seen her since...July? Wow, a LOOONG time. I also saw a guy I went to high school with who works there (wish I could have caught up with him after work but he went to SB tonight) and a girl I golfed with (daaaang I can't believe she graduated!). Instead of going to target w/the sis afterwards I just decided to sit around and then watch Old School, cause it was dark outside and i was hella cold and sitting sounded nice.

After writing this whole thing, my time at home seems very busy but it was actually very relaxing because i haven't been doing homework, and i've been driving along the ocean and I haven't been sitting in traffic...so driving has been nice =)

Now I'm going to do my homework? My housing application for when I go to Italy? Watch THE OFFICE? Fall asleep? We'll see...

Twice in SF in as many weeks

Yeah, definitely getting close to a record for me. When I'm in school I don't often go to San Francisco and I take BART to get there even less - up until this year, anyways. (I freakin miss Chris' red Honda...)

At any rate, I made a trip to Daly City tonight to catch a high school friend who was in from out of town. I kind of regret going, and it's not because I had to take Bart/AC Transit back by myself at night, though that did tick off a couple of other people I know. It's partly because I was left out of the loop on the whole decision-making process, meaning I ended up going MUCH later than I thought. Also, while on my way there I saw something that caught me off-guard and made my heart stop a little.

And to top it all off, the one person I wanted to talk to wasn't around when I finally did get home.

On the flip side, I finished my Arch 110 reading for the week. Now I only have like 12 summaries (wtf are we in high school again?), a couple hundred pages of reading for CP 110 and Arch 120, a paper proposal, a chapter of grammar exercises, and a bunch of Italian reading to do...

MASSIVE POST: San Diego Trip w/o pictures

I debated whether or not to post this because I came home and I was incredibly busy - now that I'm not in that moment I didn't want to post it. But I did write it, so it's going up on here. How else am I supposed to keep a blog current if I never actually post to it? No pictures because they're on my other (new!) computer. More on that...later.

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MISS YOU – Blink 182
Don’t waste your time on me, You’re already a voice inside my head…I miss you

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Blog post, 19 August 2007

Currently I’m riding along on a full Amtrak train from San Diego. It left at noon and I’m supposed to be arriving in Guadalupe around 9:45pm…I’ve never been on a train that’s been on time, so I’m assuming that I’ll be getting in closer to 10:30 or 11. Oh joy. Hopefully the trip isn’t too bad; I’ve never been on a train that’s remotely full before, and I had some hassles getting my ticket (WTF man…..its FURUKAWA not Surukawa….I mean…even if that’s how you were to pronounce my name, it would be written “Tsuru” instead of “Suru”. This will be the last time I reserve my ticket via phone.) but as Clark would say most of the people on the train are pretty Bougie and I don’t see/hear any small children, so it should be more pleasant than Thursday’s flight.


So, my trip to San Diego. I decided to come to SD one day in July when I was sitting around in Berkeley, absolutely hating summer studio, lonely, devoid of contact with friends outside of Wurster Hall, and complaining to everyone I could find that “I WANT MY SUMMER BACK!” I decided that after summer school, I needed to get the hell out of Berkeley and was persuaded to fly to San Diego instead of going home, getting my car, and driving to the Tofu Festival in Little Tokyo. The environmental impact of me taking a flight instead of driving probably wasn’t very sound…but I’ve only worked six weeks this entire year and money won out on this one. So that’s how I ended up on Southwest Airlines flight 659 last Thursday.


My trip did not get off to a very auspicious start. I woke up half an hour before I had to leave to the airport, stood in the wrong lines and got yelled at for it, set off the metal detectors at the TSA security checkpoint, and left my debit card at home…I think. God I hope I haven’t lost it again for the second time in a month – it pisses me off to know that I basically need someone to follow me around and make sure I don’t lose my shit all the time when I haven’t slept. I’m supposed to be semi-independent after living away from home for two years…supposed to be. The actual flight wasn’t horrible – no delays or anything – but there were several screaming little kids around and the guy sitting next to me was acting oddly. I think he was afraid of flying to a certain degree. I got in a little bit of sleep – 25 minutes worth, but it was energizing enough – and the flight was just long enough to get that “zomg please hurry up and get there already” feeling. I suppose I was a bit anxious to get out of the Berkeley mindset and have some fun.


A friend from high school picked me up from the airport and was waiting for me inside the airport – I assumed he’d just wait at the curb in his truck, but I should have known he’d be nicer than that. We cruised toward downtown, which is bigger than I had expected it to be. Perhaps it’s because it wasn’t foggy, but downtown San Diego seemed less…oppressively crowded compared to Oakland, even though the buildings were probably about the same height in both cities. It’s also a bit more modern. Professor Wright was right (no pun intended) – international style and modern architecture is shitty in Northern California. Maybe I won’t mind grad school at UCLA or (gasp!) SciArch as much as I had thought?

We ate lunch at one of the malls downtown – Horton Plaza - because my friend said I might be able to appreciate the ridiculous architecture. I wish I had taken pictures of the place. It was the most ridiculous, confusing, cartoony piece of postmodern-style design I’ve ever seen. It’s like being in Disneyland or Vegas and nothing is the right scale, the colors are loud and clashing. Ananya would call it CRUDE for sure and I totally agree. The only (and I mean only – we got lost and turned around three times while we were there) nice quality about it is the views it succeeded in framing. Nothing of the beach panorama sort, but it did do a nice job of showing off the surrounding area in a nice way; an international style building and one done up in a Neoclassical façade were showcased thoughtfully. The parking lot that was attached to it was a nightmare too; the “fifth” level started in the middle of one level and went up not one but TWO levels – making trying to find my friend’s truck quite a nightmare!

We left downtown and headed to my friend’s place near SDSU, and I really got to see how large San Diego is. The Bay Area seems to be so much more compacted! As it turns out, the housing stock in the Bay is also the same way; my friend’s room was nice, newly painted, and opened up to a huge backyard w/a nice deck and Jacuzzi. The actual room is probably a tiny bit bigger than the one that Kim and I share, and it had it’s own bathroom that was pretty large and actually had outlets in it (not something you normally care about…but you don’t live on Dana Street, now do you?). Oh, and did I mention it’s practically on the SDSU campus? I really love my new apartment, but it is definitely NOT new, probably not even up to code. I always feel like I’m living in my great grandfather’s place up on the mountain. I’d forgotten that college kids could live in places that aren’t substandard and old.

So yeah, you could say that I’m jealous of San Diegoans to an irrational degree in terms of their housing. AP once told me that it won’t matter if I spent a lot of money or a little bit of money in college, I’ll still have tons of fun either way, but once I get out….if I have any money saved up I would thank myself big time. So, I guess I’ll try to remember that every time I pass by Stadium Plaza and try not to wish I lived somewhere like that.

Okay I’m getting bored of blogging and staring out the window is somehow mildly interesting. I didn’t get to go frolic in the Pacific while I was in San Diego, but the train runs right next to the coast so it’s pretty to look at. I’m thinking that San Clemente would be a nice place to live…I wonder if I’ll ever live my beach-living fantasy. We went to Balboa Park which was pretty (the plant building was this gorgeous work of wood that somehow managed to look delicate but solid), but also boring because everything was closing for the day. Hung out at my friend’s for a while till we got hungry, so he took me to this really nice Mexican restaurant – mariachi band and the whole thing, a lot nicer than most of the hole-in-the-wall taco stands I’d seen around the city. I wasn’t sure how good the food would be since the sketchy places are usually really good, but it turned out to be delicious. My friend treated me, so that made the meal even better. I hadn’t had a real meal in, like, a week. One of my friends in Japan requested that I airmail him a taco…but the food was too good and I finished it all, so my apologies, Chris.

After that more hanging out, a shot or two of everyone’s favorite poison (the one synonymous with TJ), some high school friends came over (one lives at UCSD and the other near La Mesa) and hung out. We didn’t really drink enough to yield any effect, but it was a nice time and we talked about people from home, high school, and what everyone’s up to now. Pretty tame compared to what I was hoping for (and what everyone stereotypes the SDSU area for)…but life’s just full of disappointments.


FRIDAY

I woke up ridiculously late, late enough to miss the tour of the Salk Institute that I had talked my friend into taking me to; but somehow it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to miss. Lying around and doing nothing all day seemed like an okay thing to do; I still hadn’t caught up on the 40+ hours of sleep that I lost over studio in August, and hell I was on VACATION. The whole point is to relax, no? I always hated family vacations when we would just sit around and do nothing, but maybe that’s because I’ve been sitting around doing nothing in Nipomo with my family for the first 17 years of my life…

At any rate, the whole day wasn’t gone, and I was looking forward to going to dinner with one of my Berkeley friends that lives in El Cajon, whom I probably won’t see again until we meet up in Europe this spring. Unfortunately she forgot about a couple of obligations that she had, and basically triple-booked her Friday evening. Kind of a bummer, but I would live; one of the friends that I had met up with the night before had the day off of work, so I figured we could go eat dinner somewhere and wander around the beach during sunset. Then she calls and lets me know that she’s been called into work, so that plan was dead.

This is when I started to freak out, because all of my friends in San Diego were at work until at least 10pm; the friend I stayed with on Thursday had to leave in an hour to go home to Nipas for a family thing. I tried to contact everyone I could think of, but with no luck; so in the end I was forced to chill by myself at my friend’s place until 10:30 when a friend in La Jolla could come pick me up. I generally dislike having to mooch off of people, and I really don’t like burdening people like that, but what else was I to do? My friend was happy to come pick me up and reassured me it was totally fine, and I’m sure he was fine with it, but nonetheless I still felt badly.

Cable TV, internet, a few books lying around, and a comfortable couch made the time fairly pleasant, but the problem was I hadn’t eaten all day and there was nothing in my friend’s fridge besides some tequila, coke, and Gatorade. Being hungry sucks. So does High School Musical 2, which I had on while I was surfing the net until I just couldn’t take it anymore…because it was so horrible and contrived. And horrible. I spent the evening perusing this book that my friend had lying around, attempting to start a web design, and mostly telling some friends in Berkeley how I wasn’t having such a great time because traveling had been a hassle, I was inconveniencing everyone left and right, and now starving. I could have been doing the same thing I was doing at home in Nipomo (family went to Ventura for Friday night and Saturday) and nobody would have been bothered. It was an overall exciting evening…not. By 10:30 I had had enough of the whole “relaxation” idea, and was seriously wondering if it wouldn’t have been better to stay in Berkeley for the weekend.

After my friend got off of work, he took me back to his apartment on the UCSD campus and I met his roommates. Once again, I was a little bit jealous over the quality of housing my friends had, especially since it was University-owned. Why the giant matchboxes known as Units 1, 2, and 3 are still considered a good place to live is beyond me. We made our way to a movie theater not far from campus and watched the 11:25 showing of Superbad. Initially I wasn’t thrilled about going to see it (movies are hella expensive, and I had promised one of my old roommates that I was gonna go see it with her next weekend), but it was definitely worth my $9.50. Clearly everyone else came to see it for the same reason as me, because at one point when Michael Cera’s character was running away in a very awkward manner, the guy behind me exclaimed “Run George Michael, Run!!” The characters in the movie were overdone to a certain extent, but it was an entertaining movie that took my mind off of things, which is what I was paying for. I noticed that Michael Cera looks a lot like this guy that was in my AP stats class back in high school, and a couple of other people agreed with me.

SATURDAY

I spent Friday night on my friend’s couch in his common room, and once again woke up late. I have got to do something about my sleeping habits; going to bed past 2:30 and waking up at 10 is not really what I want to be doing this semester. I made plans to go to lunch with the guy I was staying with and two other girls I went to high school with, took a shower, and hung out with my friend’s roommates a little bit before heading to the SDSU area where we met up w/the girls. Guess what? They have a nice place to live too. That’s all I’ll say about it cause I know you got the point already. We went to this place....I’m not sure where it’s at. Somewhere between Mission Valley and Downtown. It was called Bronx Pizza, and it was fabulous. San Diego seems to have a lot of good eateries, and a lot of them are pretty cheap. SF has tons of great food…but damn it’s expensive a lot of the time and the portions are usually small. Silly fancypants cuisine….that reminds me though, I want to go eat at Butterfly Bistro in San Bruno SOON. Maybe when I hang out with an old friend who’s living in San Jose for the summer we can go there.

We proceeded to go back to my friends’ place, chilled and caught up on more stuff, and then everyone had to be at work by 5pm…so I went back to UCSD and hung out by myself again.

I’d kind of run out of timewasting internet activities to do, because the wifi was kind of slow (no youtubing!), so at one point I actually accepted a random IM invite from some guy on AsianAve. I’m not a fan of the site, but I was just that bored. He’s probably an okay guy in person, but I got annoyed when he asked what nationality I was and assumed I was white when I replied that I’m an American. I was then further annoyed when he asked what I look for in a guy, how come I was single, blah blah. Over IM it seems even more superficial than in person. Later I realized I was more disgruntled over all that though because I truly don’t know what I want in a guy. I want an ideal that’s been embodied in several forms of mass media: movies, tv, and especially music…or that’s what this book I was reading on Friday night informed me.

Luckily my friend’s roomies invited me along for dinner, which was very nice of them. We tried to go to some dining hall, but it had closed 20 minutes earlier so we decided to get into one of the guy’s Honda and go to some sushi place in La Jolla. I remembered when I was downtown and the friend I stayed with the first night pointed out a Japanese place and told me that if I wanted good sushi, that’s where it was at, and instantly wished I was going to dinner with him instead of two people that were pretty much strangers to me. I would have killed for a couple of hours to just have a real open and honest conversation with him.

There was an L&L Hawaiian Barbeque next door, and it reminded me of the time I went to the L&L in San Pablo with the Luau guys. Things have changed a lot since then. These guys weren’t too bad though and we had some semi-awkward but interesting conversations. I didn’t know what to order so I took one of the guy’s advice and ordered the Hawaiian Roll. It was alright, but it had crab in it and I don’t care for crab (esp. the fake kind), so it wasn’t as good as it could have been. The presentation was nice though, and the salad one of the guys got was HUGE and smelled really good. The other guy had spent part of his summer in Japan, and we talked a little bit about Japan. Of course, it made me wonder what the JET kids were up to. I probably came off really weird to these guys cause I spent half the evening thinking about other people and remembering memories, instead of living in the moment with them. I tried to shake it off though, and we went to Ralphs to bug my friend who works there. After picking up a book on Vodka (one of the guys decided he’d like to become a bartender, haha) we headed back to the UCSD campus. Instead of partaking in a game of Risk, however, they had to get back to studying Chemistry because they were both still in summer school. I guess the stereotypes about UCSD weekend nightlife is true…I would be a completely different person if I had gone to school at UCSD! SD’s not all bad though; everything is less than 50 years old most of the campus is newer than 15 years old, and its close to the beach. It’s car friendly too…which is good, because the campus is waaaaaaay spread out.

After my friend got off of work, he informed me that some of his friends were having a party that we had to go to. We also got a call from our friends at SDSU that we’d seen in the afternoon, and were invited to one of their co-workers for a bit of fun as well. We went to the UCSD party first, where I didn’t know anyone. It wasn’t too awkwrd though; I knew their type – most of them were student body senators, RAs, tour guides, or otherwise affiliated with the university, so I just tried to pretend I was with the ASUC crowd. One of the guys I met looked like my friend’s little brother…it’s weird how familiar looking people pop up all the time. After a tall screwdriver we ventured back to SDSU area, where I met my friends’ apartment-mates. I took way too many pictures because it apparently gets easier to take pictures when you’ve got some Captain in you. We laughed about a bunch of stuff, talked, and had a generally good time, and I definitely got my drink on.

SUNDAY

At some point I went back to UCSD with my friend, and I woke up at 10am again…too late to go have one last meal with my hs friends. I was disappointed, but more worried about getting to the train station and all that jazz. At the expense of NO breakfast of any sort, I arrived at the station about 35 minutes before my train was scheduled to depart. The station was FULL of people – something I’ve never seen at Amtrak – and I had a hard time getting my ticket, so it’s a good thing I got there early. I said thank you and goodbye to my friend, got on the train, and hurried to find a seat on the “standing room only” train. Critique of the train: It’s slow, but at least you’re not sitting in traffic and it’s a more enjoyable way to spend 8 hours than if I were on a plane for 8 hours. Seeing all the beach towns between the OC and San Diego was nice too. The food was way shittier than on the Capital Corridor trains, and I have a feeling the interiors hadn’t been redone as recently as the CC trains. Plus, there’s no freakin internet!

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This is the first trip that I’ve taken where most things were un-planned. I did that on purpose cause I didn’t want to have to rush and fit too much stuff in. Lesson learned: planning SOMETHING out is a good idea. Oh well though. I definitely forgot about school, got out of the fog, and was able to relax amongst friends and new acquaintances. Spending time with my high school friends made me realize all over again how alone I get to feeling in Berkeley. NOTHING replaces these people…I almost wish I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out of town and off to fancypants school two years ago. I wonder how much of that mentality - the academics – was pushed by my teachers and family. Is it possible I’m a victim of the stereotypical asian parents too??

I also spent a good deal of my alone time trying to insert myself into different lives – or rather, a massively long game of “what-if”. I did this after my first trip to Cal Poly, and concluded that there was no way I’d have liked it as much as Cal. Could I have been happier in San Diego? Probably not. But damn that grass on the other side is so green….