where is the weather is really no good, but most everything else is

i've only been at cambridge for a little over two weeks, but i have already made quite a mental compendium of all the strange inefficiencies of the institution. i have not seen enough of the rest of the island to allow the following generalizations to carry over to the rest of england.
1) muddled in unncessary detail
2) cumbersome/inefficient
3) hell bent on ritual

you see this at:
- the bank--HSBC, Lloyd's TSB (my bank!), Barclay's, etc. the queue is just massive, at all hours of the day, and not even just the line for new accounts...
- the dining hall aka the "slops" where i always feel like i am speaking a different language.

i have quite a few annoying stories. they're not at all funny, so maybe you'll just be annoyed if you choose to read any further, so perhaps i'll spare everyone.

but, i attribute england's inefficiencies to:
1) the lack of sun
2) the rain
3) the incessant blowing of the wind

in fact, everthing can be in some way or another attributed to the weather. it has shaped an entire culture!
- I walk into Marks and Spencer the other day, looking for a pair these so called tights/hoisery/stockings/leggings that i see all the women wearing (you see, this is how one manages to wear shorts and skirts all year around. and here i thought that stockings and its close cousins were a thing of the past, and that women just wore pants when it got cold. but really, where's the fun in looking like men?). the department store (which is a grocery store as well...strange, no?)

the following are pieces of british words vernacular that i've since or soon will (inadvertently and maybe even unwillingly) adopt:
- rubbish-- used extremely liberally, good for replacing all sorts of words and phrases including: nonsense, stinky cheese, dirt, trash, low grade, bs, bad prices on foodstuffs, or just plain bad.
- keen-- eager. "get keen"
- dodgy-- shady, sketchy, questionable, dubious. can be used to describe anything from a bad ankle to a bad character
- balls-- fancy word for dances
- knickers--undies.


but then again, if cambridge were not all these things--the good, the bad, and the just plain funny--would it still possess it's old school charm? unlikely. take this as a lesson in appreciating something/someone for what it is/who they are. =D the finer qualities of life are not so conveniently had.

Anyways, life is good.

long overdue

so i haven't posted a single entry since august, and that post wasn't even about events that occured in august. anyways, everyone knows i'm awfully bad at this blogging business so i won't continue to state the obvious.

recap of August: visited Anacapa island (one of the five Channel Islands off the Southern California coast). 

here is a lovely photo at sunset overlooking the two western islets of the three-islet island. needless to say, it was absolutely gorgeous. the only area available for camping was on eastern-most island, which was only about 1.4 mi long and 1/4 mi wide, meaning not very much land at all.  a volcanic island, the waves erroded its edges, creating a steep (and precarious!) "cliff" island with no beach access except the port and landing dock through which we arrived by ferry. to make a long story short: the experience was certainly all you would expect from being on an actual island, where at certain points, you could see clear across to the other side and feel the confines of the vast, engulfing ocean. but the sunset was the most marvelous and sublime, and really, no picture can do it justice. for perhaps a couple-hours time, i felt an astounding out-of-body experience that was both pacifying and invigorating. the timelessness and fleetingness of such powerful displays of natural forces was perhaps the most elegant paradox. oh, and the stars, did they put on a dazzling show. with the light pollution of the LA basin kept at bay by the ocean's divide, every celestial body stepped out for an evening's stroll. and that was that. 

continuing through august and september: I hit every beach along the coast this summer. i know i'll miss them all, even some of the dreadful ones like huntington, with a fine backdrop of industrial plants and smokestacks. my cousin and i, on the day before his triathlon, managed to bike a good stretch of the pacific coast highway--from venice beach to a bit beyond malibu. IT WAS SPECTACULAR. sometimes i forget why i love california, but seeing the ocean at about 25 mph, with the wind in your face and the taste of salt on your tongue, it is transforming. i wanted nothing more than to spend my days doing this very thing: cycling along the coast and feeling absolutely ageless. speaking of biking, i am missing my bike sorely at the moment. 

what else...ah, more beach. this time with friends and surf and lost frisbees in the tall grasses of the marshes. celebrating amber's farewell at newport was a great opportunity to re-live the high school years. it definitely felt as if we never left the Heights, the way we laughed, bantered, and threw each other into the pool. yes, nothing has changed one bit. except, a few of us were more adventurous with trying vegan sausages that didn't actually taste like sausage.

wwoofing on Harmony Hill, Exeter, CA

So i wwoofed (world wide opportunities on organic farms http://www.wwoof.org.uk/home.html) for two weeks in september, in a bold attempt to accomplish a myriad of things: 1) get away from my over-bearing father; 2) learn some permaculture; 3) be around "hippies" (i use this term loosely, and NOT at all in the pejorative sense) and like-minded individuals; 4) milk goats; 5) feel the earth between my toes and smell the manure in the morning air; 6) meet quirky new people; 7) exchange ideas; 8) eat, drink, sleep and be merry

luckily for me, i accomplished a great many of those things: 1) i got away and was able to appreciate home for what it was even before i returned home (afterall, it is too easy to take luxuries and love for granted); 2) i saw some amazing gardens brimming with nature's bounty and discovered that jerry baker (http://www.jerrybaker.com/) is a funny guy who knows a lot about organic gardening and whisky; 3) i got to know an amazing woman and keeper of the farm/ranch, Elena Broslovsky, who once attended Pitzer College in the early1960s and has since lived a most abundant and extraordinary life (more about this later); 4) i certainly milked some lovely goats, or at least assisted in the process, since contrary to whatever popular belief circulates amongst city-slickers, it is not a piece of cake; 5) unfortuately, i did not run around barefoot, but i scooped several pounds of horse manure every morning at dawn with the morning moisture still lingering in the air. 6) oh, i met tons of quirky people and got to see small-town living in Central California. 7) ideas: harmonious living is a beautiful thing, simplicity, contentment comes from within; 8) i was, for the most, happy. spending a goodly amount of time to properly contemplate and prepare the next meal is a important exercise. for some (and a historically dwindling number), this is done daily, for others--those dwellers of a more heavily "built" society--it ought to be done occasionally, lest we forget that our breakfast does not come from the supermarket shelf or freezer section, but from the hearth of our fire and the backwoods of the country, to very loosely paraphrase Aldo Leopold.

so just randomly: i learned how to prune trees, make goat's cheese (even though i abhor goat's cheese, i still ate some of it), make all sorts of things out of prickly pear fruit (which have nasty microscopic pricks), make fig jam, cook GOOD meals, groom horses, put the saddle and bridle on a horse, pick horse crap and rocks out of horses' hooves, find live music on a saturday night, lure alpacas, chase chickens, find chicken eggs, plant garlic, hull almonds, etc.