Tuesday, August 07, 2007

A Year

Well, I guess I dropped the ball with the blog. Just because I'm not doing something fantastically exciting anymore doesn't mean I'm going to stop writing...although I imagine my readership will drastically decrease. I will say this - it shouldn't be long before I start doing something else ridiculous, so if you're interested in that sort of thing, I recommend checking up here periodically to see where I've flown myself.

I've been in California for about a week now, and the Mexican food is as beautiful as I remembered, as is the Jamba Juice. My arrival in LAX was only slightly marred by my ONLY luggage mishap of the year - and a fairly minor one at that. They managed to send my camera gear to the wrong part of the terminal. It is miraculous that my luggage and flights this year have all essentially been made intact.

The week began with a slew of doctor's appointments, luckily curing me of my Siberian deafness (yeeeah...I had lost my hearing in one ear, but no worries, we're good now) but unfortunately not killing the everlasting pain in my foot. It seems heat makes it significantly worse, rather than better. Ah well. The weekend was spent in Claremont, home of my alma mater, attending the Watson conference. Essentially, a bunch of brilliant amazing people gathered in a shell-shocked mass to talk about their utterly priceless years while attempting to empathize with 50 other people who did equally insane, yet totally different things. AWK-WARD! I kid, it was awesome, there was free food. But especially after Siberia, I'll be honest - I don't really deal well with people yet. One on one I can do, and nameless crowds are ok, but constant cheerful chattering and smiling...not so much.

Ergh, that doesn't sound so nice, I'm sorry. I'm actually liking it here better than I thought I would. I've just never been the socialable one. And then theres my consistent shock to overhear people speaking English. I'm starting to learn how to drive again (it was only a little...eh...the first time). After getting back from the conference, I took myself to the beach on a cloudy day, fell asleep, and promptly earned myself one of the worst sunburns I've ever had in a long, painful history of horrible sunburns. My skin really was built for northern fashions. I seem to exist in a permanent state of red now. Not attractive, but just wait for the itchy flaking leper stage.

WELL, on that note, let me apologies again for not emailing/calling/blogging anyone and everyone that I was so excited to be able to contact again. I seem to have lost the ability to communicate to anyone not within 5 feet of me.

Patience, my good people.

Are you wondering what wonderful thing I will do next? That, it would seem, is the question of the hour. A mystery to us all.

3 comments:

Antonio said...

God morgen.

One more time a give you an A+. I think I feel something similar to you about to speak and relate with "the others" (ups! to much "LOST") but for me is in the opposite way... There is so many places to go (e.g. courses, workshops, congress, etc) and people to speak (professors, colleagues, friends, etc) that I can not handle it at all, specially for my bad English skills (easy to note here)... well nothing new under the blue sky (or gray sky in Norway)

I've been in Barcelona last weekend eating excellent food... next saturday I'll go to Maine (Bigelow Lab) for a one week course... there are 100 lobsters waiting for me :) Good food is one of the best things in life... at least for me!

Enjoy the summer! & ha en fin dag & of course we're waiting for your next step

A Laurel's fan

Alan Parkinson said...

Glad to see you got back safely.
Another year group will be introduced to your travels and pictures when we start the new academic year in September.
Svalbard in the news in the UK today as some calving ice apparently hit a tourist vessel.

Enjoy the sun !
Alan
http://kespilotgeography.blogspot.com

rater said...

Well, well, I guess that this was the one of your worst power nap you did in a while... after a year in the Big North your skin must not be used to this abuse of sun!!

Hope that you take full energy for your next aventure... and hope that you will continue informing! You have a great blog, do not let it die!