Working the Weekends

The weekend was awful. Stressing about homeworks and projects and not getting half of what I needed to do done. And boring the hell out of C who would rather "do fun stuff" on his weekends than sit home with miserable stressed-out me.

Yesterday flew by again without me getting around quite finishing everything that was due. I was quite satisfied though with the project proposal Ines and I finished. But at the end of the day I'd come down with a fever, out of pure stress and distress. I bailed on the gym (managed to talk C into putting it off 'till today) and collapsed on our couch as soon as we got home. I fixed on getting through the second article we had for operating systems today, but had to give up on it and dozed off as C ate his dinner alone.

Today was better though. Survived through the day and even made it to the gym. Did some new weight exercises. No heavy weights though (and I'm lifting less than half of what C is lifting!) My abdomen finally doesn't feel sore anymore from the shock of the first couple of times at the gym. I can now do my sit-ups without too much pain. But C would rather know me suffering some pain during my exercises, so I'm sure he'll come up with something ...

I have friends ...?

Cynthia, from school, had a dinner party this weekend. She was one of the first people I got to know when I started my classes last quarter. We sat through two classes together, and ended up spending quite a lot of time together, reading, working on projects and preparing for exams. And fooling around, when we found the time. And complaining about TAs and homework and stupid classes and competency requirements and grad school in general and annoying intimidating undergrad overachievers and grades and ...

And then the quarter was suddenly over, and we had survived it, and we both got straight As in all our classes that we had imagined we would fail (or in the best case not attain the f***ing B+ requirement).

We are still sitting in a class together, but don't see half as much of each other though, because she is busy with her robots now, and computer vision, and natural language processing, while I am busy with my bioinformatics seminars and sequencing algorithms and dynamic programming. But she's quite unique. Not so much because she's got pink hair and face piercings and tattoos and collects "Hello Kitty" stuff and walks around knitting socks (although all that definitely helped make her stand out to me), but rather because I find her very smart and genuine and committed and she's got a great cynical sense of humour that falls well with me.

C is vegetarian, and so was all the delicious food that she (somewhat to my surprise) had prepared us, including the yummiest chocolate-pecan pie I've ever had ...

The party was attended mostly by other nerds from the computer science department, and one thing I'm beginning to realize is that computer nerds are actually no less nerds than math nerds are. If anything, quite on the contrary. And I now actually sort of miss the philosophical slant of my math friends. I guess it proves that I haven't really made "the conversion" yet, that I still find more charm in debating "whether real numbers actually exist" than in talking about "water coolers for CPUs" or "security rings" in some obscure OS ...

Not to say that computer science students are boors. The ones I have met sofar have on the contrary usually been extremely knowledgeable, well-read and highly competitive.

And I left the party thinking I better read some Jack London ...

School hits back with force

I foresee now the first "working weekend" of this quarter. Sofar I have more or less had my weekends off, in fact I believe I've been climbing every weekend since we returned from Lake Tahoe after the New Year. But that's over now. Now we're gonna move into fasten-your-seatbelts gear and try to hang on 'till the end of the quarter.

Despite my initial reticences I'm taking two core courses together along with a depth course in my speciality, so, it was bound not to be easy. And the homeworks are lining up now. I have homeworks in Architecture and in Sequence and Structure to finish this weekend. Which would be alright if they hadn't told us yesterday too that we had to write up a bioinformatics project proposal for Sunday too. And one of the articles I have on my desk for the OS class is the one on Sprite, only about 30 pages long!

Too bad! And me who thought I was gonna have fun this weekend. Maybe even go out drinking! I'm invited to a party on Saturday. First time a private friend of mine (all the people I've known so far I have met through C, my only social network node ...) invites me anywhere. (Well, second time actually, she invited me to a beach party last quarter but I didn't make it ...) I feel compelled to go finally that somebody invites me, knowing though that all the people I will meet there will be 10-15 years younger than me!

Tonight we're going out with P&R. They are in town for business and we are gonna do Saska's again and have some "seared Ahi". I cherish the fact that P&R live only 50 minutes away. Almost like having family here ...!

When is it ever gonna rain?

We entered the rainy season two months ago, but I don't think I can recall it raining since November aside from a couple of times I heard rainfall through the night. Not down here in San Diego at least. It did rain heavily though up at the ranch (Central Coast) during the holidays, and in Lake Tahoe. But I think the North is getting all our rain this year.

Believe it or not, but I kind of miss the rain. So, when is it gonna rain?

Hunting again ...

We've started looking for appartments again. Somehow we don't seem to ever follow through though. Maybe we are despite everything too comfortable where we are.

We visited one a couple of blocks down our street. I think it could worked, but I've almost been looking too long to be excited about anything anymore. It's bedrooms are very small, but it spreads out on three stories and thus gives a feeling of space. Has views out the windows. Has a big laundry room, garage and parking spaces. But no backyard, however a small patio in the front, to enjoy a drink in the afternoon.

We spotted a couple of houses too, which we are waiting to visit. But I think we have to remain alert if we are ever to find anything. The properties that are even remotely attractive tend to rent out within the week, whereas the ones that suck clutter the housing ads for months, making it harder to seed them out from the decent ones.

We have barely looked outside PB, although we have been up to La Jolla a few times. We really like our area. We have a fairly short commute to work (ok, thirty minutes at rush hour, but only ten minutes when it's optimal), good access to the I5 and the 52 to get out of town and being sort of midway between La Jolla and the center of San Diego, we rarely have more than a ten minutes drive whenever we decide to go out on the town, should it be for downtown, Seaport village, Balboa Park, La Jolla Cove or a restaurant in the village. Wherever we were to move from PB, we would most likely end up with a longer commute and more traffic jams, something C, the country boy, doesn't cope very well with. Then again, our neighbourhood offers a splendid beach, the gorgious Mission Bay and the views of Soledad Mountain.

There's a fairly large market for renting in PB, but somehow we just don't seem to be able to find the right fit. Gosh, and some of the interiors are so ugly you wouldn't believe it. Step back to the seventies decors and the 2 inch wall-to-wall carpets ... (Not to discard everything old, we actually have at our place now the cutest yellow/pistache kitchen counter that must date from the fifties. But we have tiles on the floor, and berber carpets in the rooms.)

Lets say also we're looking for a little bit of privacy, not an easy mission to fulfill in crammed PB, where houses are most often wall to wall, and the frontyard/backyard if any may often measure as little as 10 square feet. And this close to the beach, parking can also be a problem. Actually, thank god we only have one car yet.

So, anyway, we are looking still.

Out on a mission in Mission Gorge

There is a very convenient climbing area just off San Diego, Mission Gorge, in the back country towards Santee. We were there once the weekend before we went up to Joshua Tree to test my new climbing shoes, so we climbed a little in the Main Climbing Area. This Saturday we went there again to check out some easier routes in the Limbo Area. We found a very nice dihedral with three different 5.6 routes, but it turned out to be anything but easy. Thing is, the bottom part of the rock is very slippery until one reaches the more gramity layers above. I spent an hour working on (what I believed to be) the first part of the route, took one six feet fall (in rope, but for some reason hit the ground) and banged my knees repeatedly. My shoes just wouldn't stick to the vertical rock and I would always loose my holds and glide down. Finally, and only after I had given C a chance to toprope the route and watched him, I came to the conclusion that the route I had been working on was probably a 5.8, but the much easier 5.6 route was more off to the side. I then climbed that route and two thirds of the upper route but didn't even care to finish it because by that time I was quite bored and banged and beaten. And it was getting dark anyway. Promised to come back to it though, and in time do all three routes. The dihedral was actually kinda interesting (it's where two faces meet at a 90 degrees outwards angle).

On the way back we went by this new sushi place that just opened in PB, Wasabi Sushi. They had an opening offer with 30%-50% off all sushi. We stuffed ourselves, haven't been out for sushi in a while.

Then, last night I had C make me his Chicken in Green Curry. He always makes such large portions that we will probably be eating that for the rest of the week. Good for the lunch pack!

Work out plan

I finally went to the gym for the first time. I have been considering taking up swimming again, but I think I'll wait untill they finish the awesome full size outdoors pool they are building just down the street from my office. There is an older 25 meter (yard) pool across the street too, but like I said, I'd rather swim in the bigger pool once they finish it, now that they have been working on it for two years. So, I went to check out the climbing gym, but wasn't completely thrilled by it. It's rather confined, low ceiling, plus it smells of stinky feet ...

I originally meant to sign up for a yoga or pilates class this quarter, but most of those usually fill up 4-6 weeks ahead of time, and thus requires planning that I am visibly not in measure of. So, I opted instead for C's workout plan and accompanied him to the weight room yesterday where we worked mostly on tummy and arms. We'll probably also include some steps to strengthen the ankles, but C is mostly concerned about the mid body part for strength and coordination. We started off slowly, I didn't even get up a sweat, but my stomach muscles are really sore today ...

Catching up on movies

Since I finished last quarter we're still trying to catch up on movies we wanted to see. So we've been to the cinema with a more or less consistent frequency for the last few weeks. When we're too tired to go out (or too stingy, because movie tickets are expensive, even with the student reduction ...) we rent a movie at our local DVD rental joint.

So, driving home from work last night we did Good Night, and Good Luck . That's an excellent low-key (B&W), low-budget movie about talk-show host Ed Murrow at the end of the McCarthy period. C's mom recommended this movie to us a few weeks ago, she had had some acquaintance with Murrow in the sixties, probably through the movie industry ...

C likes political movies and especially movies about conspiracy theories. We saw a few of those last year, including Fahrenheit 9/11 (one that didn't impress me as much as Bowling for Columbine, I thought Michael Moore lacked tact on at least a couple of issues, although I found his revelations on the Saudi relations quite stunning), Super Size Me and The Corporation (which was interesting, although a bit in the super cynical style of Michael Moore too). But I think the best movies I saw were Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (about the better-than-fiction wheelings and dealings of the corporate world and stock markets) and the Control Room (about the news station Al Jazeera's coverage of the beginnings of the Iraq war).

In the documentary category we also saw the lovely March of the Penguins (not much controversy there). We are now eagerly waiting for the (bound to be controversial) Why We Fight.

Among the movies seen recently are Brokeback Mountain (quite touching, actually), The Chronicles of Narnia (a sugar coated adventure story), Pride and Prejudice (big romance and costumes), the Constant Gardener (hey, yet one more of those conspiracy theories) and the 40 Year Old Virgin (not as funny, but also not quite as dum as I expected). We are still waiting to see Capote, King Kong, Syriana, Munich, Memoirs of a Geisha and Casanova (they were filming it in Venice while we were there for our honeymoon ...) As school closes in on me, I'm not sure whether we will make it ...

Climbing in the desert

This was a long weekend. We used the opportunity to go camping at Joshua Tree. We initially had plans of spending a night in L.A. on the way back to hang out with J & M, but then dropped it and spent three days in Joshua Tree instead.

It was a cold weekend and a number of storms were coming up the coast. Maybe that's why the park wasn't too crowded. Still, I'm sure all the camping sites were full by Friday night. We arrived around noon and managed to catch a spot at Ryan's campground, but Hidden Valley was then already packed.

We searched for suitable climbing spots for a while but that wasn't working out great because I was not in the mood for much scrambling in order to reach a climbing route, nor did I want to start out on anything scary. You know, while C is all about pushing his limits, I am all about knowing my limits ...

So, we started out at Head Stone, which although there exists a 5.6 grade route on it, looks anything but approachable. I thought C was pulling my leg. When I realized he wasn't, I thought he'd gone nuts. Hell, I couldn't even picture myself watching him lead that route. We then went from place to place. Must I say, we were all but unsuccesful in finding a wall that corresponded to each of our expectations and ambitions. I tried one, but couldn't even get on to the route proper, as that involved stretching from a ledge over a gap around a corner without rope protection.

The day after we started in Real Hidden Valley with a couple of routes at Cap Rock and Mike's Books. That went well and my new shoes were giving me a much better fit than the ones I had last summer. We then did some slabs and practiced crack climbing at Yoblonski Rock and repelling. None of what I climbed was though as technical as the routes I did in Alabama Hills last fall, when I climbed for example a couple of 5.7. On the other hand, it looks to me as if some of the ratings in Alabama Hills were a little lower than comparable routes in Joshua Tree, probably because the Joshua Tree rock is much more gritty and sticky.

At the end of the day, we barely managed to squeeze in The Cyclope, a funny route in a gully, with considerable exposure. I was too tired to do it, really, but I did it anyhow, cursing and swearing. It did freak me out a little bit, because by that time it had gotten quite windy, and the route was exposed and awkward with corners and side twists, depending on where protection could be put in. Once up though, the views were awesome as the sun was going down. If you take a careful look at this picture you can see that at the top of the route there is a hole (The Eye) you can walk through to the other side of the rock. We could find a way down on that side, which spared me the stress of being lowered down the gully again ...

Saturday night was really cold and windy in the park. There was frost on our car when we woke up. We had left our food box slightly open, to cool it overnight, but the crows had gotten into it and torn out a pack of tortillas and fed themselves on the leftovers of our chicken, much to the dismay of a herd of coyotes whose howling woke me up.

Since we were there, we climbed the rock towering over our campsite. C toproped a 5.10 route on the face, after we had done a 5.6 route that eskews the left side, making use of cracks. The very top part was the hardest, and I was afraid I was going to blow away with the wind. Once I was up, I could hardly make myself go off the edge again to be lowered down. What's with this fear of heights!?

Actually, while C was doing the 5.10 route, it was even worse. The wind tug on the rope so much, that I had to lie on the rope with all my weight to keep it in place. For belaying him I had to jump up and throw myself to the ground with the gri-gri locked. It must have been quite a sight. This was the hardest belaying job I've ever done. Just
look at how the rope is swinging here!

As we left the campground we ventured into the Wonderland of Rocks. We will probably do some routes there next time. We walked up to Barker's Dam untill we reached a point where the dam had flooded the path, then we took another path, explored climbing possibilities and did a little bouldering. Unfortunately we lost track of one another at one point and had to search each other for almost an hour, which ruined our chances of doing Nomad's Dome. But we'll just do it later. The drive back home took us two and a half hours.

Danger Zone

When I arrived this morning, passing by the courtyard of my building, there was a sign on the walkway indicating "Danger Zone" with big letters. They put up these signs every once in a while, for instance each time they hose the walkway. I know why, or at least I think I know why: We live in Lawyers Land here, so everything that we would expect to be obvious must be assumed not to be and must be stated explicitly, in case your attention span was flaky (or your brother-in-law an attorney ...).

So, this morning the sign said: "Careful! Grass is uneven and slippery and can be EXTREMELY dangerous"

Gosh! I better be on my toes today. It's not Friday the Thirteenth, is it, by the way?

There we go again ...

My first day of classes today. This quarter I only have classes two days a week, but then three classes each day. Plus our group meetings and seminar on wednesdays too.

I'm taking graduate classes now (while postponing that compilers' class 'till next fall ...) I'm hoping to have less work than last time. I have Computer Architecture, that will involve a few homeworks and a couple of simulations, Bioinformatics II: Sequence and Structure Analysis, also involving a few homeworks and a project, and Operating Systems, where homeworks and project will be optional(?) but class discussion counts as one third of the grade.

I had excellent teachers last quarter, whereas the TAs were a little lacking. Some were just not very involved, others focused on things that weren't of relevance and yet others seemed frankly just a little bit confused themselves by the course material ...

To note the international flavor of the faculty, two out of the three lecturers I had last quarter were Indian. (This quarter only one of them is! Actually, maybe two, if I manage to audit this extra topics class ...) The third was this all-american jeans-and-sweatshirt, navy-haircut, surfer dude, who had such a nasal accent that I could hardly stand to listen to him at the beginning of the quarter. Fortunately I managed to hang on until his voice started to sound like music to me, because his lectures were really helpful to me.

I believe I have great teachers this quarter again, although I started having doubts as we speeded through some 200 slides during a single bioinformatics lecture this afternoon ...

Reviewing the year ...

It seems that one is semi-expected to look back and review the year that went by. At first thought I don't have much to say about it. I'm not sure if much happened in my life, the last few months have been sort of mellow and uneventful. But, I did move to a new country, a few months - and what seems now to be ages - ago. That is no small thing, I guess. Even if it's not the first time around for me. But I am with my sweetie and we have our little routine and somehow things don't appear all that foreign here.

My moving and packing my life up in boxes and storing or giving away was one thing. Another thing was going back to school. That took a lot of effort and organization. Although at times it thrilled me to by studying again, at other times I was almost tempted to give up on it. I myself was probably my worst enemy, with my doubts and lack of self esteem. My husband was my best ally, lending an ear to my worries and complaints but refusing to pity me. Just as when he made me climb my first route and wouldn't belay me down when I got stuck, but had me hang onto the wall for half an hour until I gathered the courage to finish it.

I've been spending a lot of time with my hubby, and sometimes it feels as if we don't do much else than that. But I love it. I never had a boyfriend before with whom I could spend so much time without needing to get him out of my face ... But I'm also more dependant on him now that I'm so far away from home and my little nest.

"Home" is far away, both in time and space. I miss not hearing more from family and friends back there, but this is how it is. On the other hand, communication and information is readily available, and I now have access to their local newspapers, radio and television almost as if i was there. That is quite different from the last time I was living abroad when I would be glad if I got my hands on a month old paper, shipped by mail. This year I will find out whether it will be possible to maintain contact with my folks back home at all.

I had two longer trips/vacations last year. The first was my expedition down to Mexico where I (maybe for the last time) took part in an IMO with my spirited students. It was great to meet colleagues again. Then, as an aside I got to travel twenty years back in time as I caught up with a lost friend/sweetheart.

My second trip was our roadtrip up California into Utah and back. I was flabbergasted to realize what fantastic sites there are to discover out here. I have now visited 6 (Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Death Valley, Zion, Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon) of America's 56 (?) national parks and can't wait to get on the road again.

We began the year 2005 in the quiet and peace of the mountains of Þórsmörk. We ended the year up in the mountains again, this time in the crazy company of Slavic yuppies.

By the end of this year, I hope we will have made ourselves more of a cozy home here. If everything goes according to plan I will also have finished all the core classes of my PhD program. For the rest, I hope we will be spared both natural catastrophies and personal tragedies this year.

Amen!

A Russian New Year!

After a Christmas spent in family, we went up to Lake Tahoe to spend the New Year with one of C's colleagues from the lab, and his friends, all Russian!

Our main motivation for going up to Lake Tahoe was to get some taste of the winter season, because Southern California is not doing it for me right now. C took his snowboard along, and we had plans of renting cross country skis or even getting ski lessons for me. We were also excited about spending New Year's Eve with a big group of people. (In C's family, they tend to go to bed by 10 ...)

There was a thin cover of snow all over when we arrived up at South Lake Tahoe on the 29th. The day after however it started raining really hard and the ski lifts closed down. The Russians partied all the harder, now that they didn't have to wear themselves out during the day skiing ...

I was a little puzzled as a I realized that at ten o'clock in the morning they were already drinking Bacardi and playing poker. The drinking went on throughout the day, interrupted by sumptuous Russian meals, each time with more dishes than could possibly fit on the dinner table. With dinner they drank vodka straight, but during the day they sipped different combinations and cocktails based on vodka. Each new person to join the party brought a gallon of the magic drink. I was quite intimidated. I don't think I drank vodka straight since that graph theory conference in the Tatra Mountains in 1993 ...

But, it was a lot of fun. We played games at night, usually until I managed to sneak out to go to bed. During the day we went for walks in the rain. On New Years Eve it snowed though, and everything took on a magic white coat. C and I went on a wonderful walk in the woods. As we came back around five in the afternoon, we dressed up and made ourselves ready for dinner, only to find out that according to Russian tradition, dinner on New Year's Eve is served just before midnight!

The girls had been up all day, preparing traditional dishes. Baking, cooking, marinating. Around six o'clock however they all disappeared and for the following four hours we heard showers running, hairdryers blowing and people running back and forth between bedrooms and saw glimpses of them in different outfits. On average, I believe each of the girls changed clothes about three times before they finally showed themselves in their final New Year's dress. And they all looked gorgieous.

For a Russian New Year, you are supposed to wear something red, orange, brown or golden. But that's not all. The end of the year comes with a lot of traditions and rules to obey. Luckily, our hosts were in charge of the protocol and we only did what we were told to do ...

A Russian Feast, like I said before, involves a lot of drinking. It also involves a lot of toasts. Toasts to the year that's gone by, toasts to our successes, our failures and sorrows, toasts to friendships. And toasts to drinking. Maybe the drinking has to do with digesting all the food that is served: Cold meats, rich salads and pickled everything-you-can-imagine. Russians like Vodka, they like toasts and they like pickles!

Once the year 2006 clocked in, I could note a little drop in the tension and the energy. I think the Russians were a little exhausted from drinking. And when I went to bed around 2:30, I could swear they were almost done partying ...

On New Year's Day it rained again. So, skiing never took place. On the morning we left however, on the 2nd, it was dumping snow. We had to put chains under the cars to be allowed through the mountain pass from South Lake Tahoe to Sacramento. The drive went well but it was long and rainy on the freeway. Between Stockton and the Grapevine pass we were attacked by charades of tumble weed and the traffic slowed somewhat down. That was nothing though. Worse was when a traffic sign flew right past our window! I guess we could have been decapitated there, both of us ... I probably never saw weather like this in California. Big areas were flooded, both up by Sacramento and further down in Central Valley. The coast was probably hit even worse. But weather is what I have been missing in San Diego, so I won't complain ...

Happy New Year !