Summertime

Today is also the 21st of June, or summer solstice. Celebrated as the longest day of the year among some, as the beginning of summer for others.

I wonder if summer arrived here. We have now had sun for three days in a row. And I can smell "glimpses" of that warm, pungent summer smell. But it's still quite windy, and most of the time actually it feels like a chilly Icelandic summer day, even if it looks different. C. says I shouldn't be too impatient for summer temperatures. "It's gonna get warm enough soon enough." That's probably right allright ...

Birthday

Apparently it's my birthday today. Woke up to the smell of breakfast being prepared to me by my dear clean and shaved husband (isn't he handsome ...!) He actually prepares me breakfast every morning, if you count his famous breakfast quesadillas, but that's another story ...

So my man really wanted to set me up right today. He also wrote me a card that made me shed tears over my eggs. He there reminded me that this is the first birthday I celebrate since I "married to the man [I'm] going to spend the rest of [my] life with." "It's awsome when things work out so well." That's true ...

First Earthquake

Experienced the first earthquake since I moved to California this weekend. I was up at the campground in Idyllwild, just walking to the tent from our car. Heard this noise all of a sudden and wondered where it came from. Didn't expect so much noise from traffic in a place like that. As it came to my mind that the noise wasn't caused by a parade of trucks but coming from the earth, the earth started shaking and shaking hard. I kind of lost my balance for a second, looked up at the trees above me, looked down on the ground that was moving under my feet, then pondered for a second whether I was in a really save place and decided that unless a tree was gonna fall on my head I was ...

Apparently the earthquake originated just east of Anza, or 17 miles from Idyllwild where we were. It was a 5.6 quake and it was felt all throughout Southern California and as far as Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. This is the biggest earthquake I have experienced since the earthquake in Iceland on June 17th 2000. It's bigger than the afterquakes I experienced up in Templeton during Christmas 2003 after the disastrous earthquake of Paso Robles. And it's the first real earthquake we have here since I moved to California.

Idyllwild

I discovered a new place this weekend: Idyllwild. Less than two hours from San Diego we found a campsite in idyllic settings, mountain peeks, pine trees, little creeks and lots of hiking trails. At the root of the mountains there's this quaint little town, Idyllwild. On Saturday and Sunday morning we walked in the woods, slept out in the open, barbecued, then strolled through the village, had frappucinos and blueberry scones with clotted cream and lemon custard, then drove back through Temecula where we stopped for a dinner with Rick and Pene at the Mekong restaurant.

Light

I badly miss one thing from home: the light and the bright summer nights. There's no evening hours here. You come home from work and it's usually dark within an hour. Makes the days feel shrunken and short, brings you down and hinders you in getting things done. No sooner am I home that I'm almost waiting for it to be morning the next day. Well, I guess that's what it feels like at home in wintertime, but in winter you're also allowed to take it easy in winter. We're in summer now, thus a need to be on the move all the time, doing lots of activities ...

Boxes Arrive

My belongings have arrived. No sooner, no later than I expected. C helped my unload the palettes out in the street, then I divided them into three categories: boxes to open, boxes to go out to the storage room and boxes to go in to be opened some time soon. When I told my mom the boxes had arrived she asked me whether C was shocked there were so many of them. I was shocked there were so few of them. Heck, this is my life!

Well, now that the boxes are in house, our appartment has shrunk quite a bit. The need for a bigger appartment is now pressing. I did manage to unpack almost all my clothes and fit them into closets, but everything feels cluttered and it takes so little for the flat to turn into total mess.

Routine

I never thought I would say that, but I think I miss not having a routine yet. I'm not really much for routine, but it is good to be able to rely on a schema for organisation. And to know that your day is going to have some pleasant bits, some good parts, some fun parts and some not-so-fun parts. I spend my workdays now in a rather monotonous fashion: I drive to campus with C, I kiss him goodbye, I walk to the library, I look for a seat and access to an electricity plug, find one, plug in, battle with my connection sometimes (if it's not working, then half a day or a whole day will probably be lost), sometimes not, then try to immerse myself in my project, although I'm still sort of getting used to the laptop, the screen, the keyboard, the mouse, and I often feel very disoriented. I'm a little frustrated not to be able to print out schemas, lists, codes and documents I'm working on. I try to visualize them in my head as I jump from one screen to the other, but I'm beginning to take the habit of jotting down notes of what I'm doing. But anyway, I still feel very inefficient, unorganised and slow. I don't have good focus. Somewhere between noon and two C. will call me and we will meet up and eat our lunch bags. Then he will go back to his work. If I'm very generous with myself, I will have a coffee at the cafeteria or at one of the stands on campus. Then I will return to the library and look for a space somewhere, etc. During the day I will schedule two toilet breaks that I will try to fit in as I come and go, depending on where I'm working, how long the wait for the elevator is, where C. wants to meet, what time he calls me, whether I've had tea for breakfast and whether or when I have a coffee. So, my day, while not allowing for much variation, still doesn't feel very organised. Or maybe it would be more exact to say that I don't feel completely in control. And the fact that I find myself anticipating going to the restroom, implies to me that I could do with a little more excitement or interaction during the day.

All in all, I realise that my lack of routine and fixed points in the day makes me waste a lot of time and feel very inefficient. This should be fixed!

Bike and Stuff

There are a lot of opportunities for outdoor activities here in San Diego. For those who like water, there's surfing, whether it be on traditional full size surfboards, boogie boards, kite-surfing or plain body surfing - that I actually see a lot of over by Oceanside and by the birdrock in La Jolla. Also, Mission Bay is the perfect spot for activities like rowing, kayaking and sailing. C. has already suggested I take sailing classes, and I just might. And Mission Bay is just blocks away from where we live in Pacific Beach. Along the bay, all the way 'till the entry of the harbour, practically, and also all along the beach line, up to La Jolla, there's a great biking path that's actually also crowded with joggers, roller-bladers and walkers. C. likes to go roller blading after the usual day of otherwise inertia and I come along on his bike. If we take part of the Mission Bay path and then cut short to the ocean side and follow the boardwalk up to the pier, that makes for a good hour of exercise. We can just manage to squeeze that in before sunset if we're home before seven. It's kind of regrettable that the days up on campus should be so long, but on the other hand we haven't put enough emphasis on leaving early for work, in which case we could more easily justify going home at five.

So, that's for the biking. May not compare to the seaside at home, but there's definitely less wind here!

We visited the Torrey Pines park for the first time this weekend. It's dead close to campus and it's great for a little walk/hike if only for the smell of pine and herbs there. The drawback being though that it seems like you can only enter the park from the north side, so you have to drive almost all the way up to Delmar, then there's a steep, refreshing hike up to the Torrey pines plateau, from where you can make different little walks to the edge of the cliffs. The forest may not be anything to write home about, it's kind of sparse, but the scents are marvelous. Maybe good for biking as well, if you can make it up that hill ...

Thank God it's Workday!

I'm finally working now. I'm so relieved that I can finally concentrate on work and make some advances, yet at the same time disappointed in the amount of time wasted waiting for my connection to work. Finally, nothing big needed to be fixed. They needed to update the operating system on my desktop computer and to adjust some settings, but once they knew what to do it could easily be done, and it could easily have been done weeks ago, had they only been motivated. But I guess the only one who was eagerly waiting for the remote connection to work was me, and nobody else felt all that concerned.

Well, they say: Better late than never. And that's all you can really say. (And I don't know who's gonna pay for all the lost workhours. But I hope it's not gonna be me ...)

Anyway, I found a new spot on one of the top floors of the library. It's much more quiet, and it's much more confortable and pleasant (I can even see out the window, and gosh, the view!) And it's not nearly as cold and gusty! But I haven't found a plug for my battery, so I can only sit here for so long at a time, then I need to go downstairs and recharge the battery.