meisa's lagoon

today is the first day of my month of vacation. woohoo! i'll be spending a lot of my time off working, but i think i'll be working from home for the most part. no need to make the trip across the bay every morning and evening during rush hour.

after my first week of growing increasingly tense driving in and out of the city and sitting through traffic, i finally figured out my commute.

morning
walk ten minutes to BART station
stand in casual carpool line and get into stranger's car
ride 20 minutes in stranger's car into the city
get on free shuttle which takes me straight to work

evening
ride free shuttle to BART station
ride BART back over to berkeley
walk ten minutes home

i'm so much happier now that i don't have to drive. it takes the same amount of time, and it's so much calmer to sit back and let someone else take me to and from work. plus i get to walk, and then i don't feel like my rear end is getting larger and larger and fused to the car seat. plus, after seeing an inconvenient truth, i'm really happy to do my part in taking public transportation and carpooling into work. if you haven't seen the movie yet, please do.

so the casual carpool...i'd heard of the concept before but it is so beautiful to see it in action. it's an amazing system. random people stand in a designated spot, random cars pull up and pick up two people, and then they ride across the bridge together, skipping over paying the $3 toll, but more importantly skipping over all the traffic of people waiting to pay the toll. and the whole thing works without any organization setting it up. it's beautiful. i've been both a rider and a driver and i love it. at first i thought it would be a little weird sharing the ride with a stranger, but it's not at all. part of the whole culture is not to speak. which is fine, cause then there isn't any awkward small talk. love it.

by the way, i'm pumped to go see step up, the latest in the line of cheesy dance movies i love. i only wish i had a girlfriend here to see it with. something tells me khalid is not going to be so excited about this one.

Posted by Meisa at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

1. The book nearest me:
general chemistry textbook

2. Stretch your left arm, what do you touch?
general chemistry textbook

3. Last thing watched on television?
the movers broke our tv, so i haven't watched for about a month now. but i guess i did watch the world cup finals at a bar.

4. Without looking, what time is it?
11:52 am

5. What is the actual time?
11:52 am (damnnnn...i'm good!)

6. With the exception of the computer what can you hear?
air conditioner

7. When did you last step outside?
this morning on the way to work

8. Before this survey what did you look at?
requirements for an advanced chemistry class

9. What are you wearing?
green skirt, black tanktop, and jean jacket

10. Did you dream last night?
not that i can remember

11. When did you last laugh?
20 minutes ago at an email

12. What is on the walls in the room?
windows

13. Seen anything weird lately?
what hasn't been weird? i live in berkeley

14. What do you think of this quiz?
a little bland

15. What is the last film you saw?
devil wears prada

16. Tell us something we don't know.
i bought 3 kinds of pluots, 2 kinds of plums, and 1 kind of nectarine yesterday...the variety is incredible!

17. If you could change one thing about the world, what would you do?
one thing? too hard.

18. Do you like to dance?
love it

19. George Bush?
is an idiot

20. Imagine your first child is a girl...And?
she will incredibly spoiled by me and my parents...especially my mom

21. Imagine your first child is a boy.
he will incredibly spoiled by me and my parents...especially my mom

22. Would you consider living abroad?
the thought has crossed my mind, but even california is too far from home...i don't think i could handle it

23. What would God say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
how do i know he'll be there?

24. List 6 bloggers to carry on this meme.
i elect to let this meme drown in meisa's lagoon

Posted by Meisa at 01:49 PM | Permalink

the other nite, i had my first true berkeley experience. i read a book awhile ago, tender at the bone: growing up at the table by ruth reichl, where the author described her experiences living in a hippie commune in berkeley. i had a very vivid image in my mind of her commune life and on tuesday nite, that imagery came to life.

one of khalid's coworkers invited us to a weekly potluck she hosts, and we decided to explore and see what it was all about. i felt a little weird at first because i didn't want to be the only one walking into a party where everyone else knew each other and i knew no one. but then we walked in and just started chatting with random people..."oh, how do you know amber [host of party]?" we asked. "i don't know her. yeah, i don't know anyone who lives here. i came with a friend who knows someone who knows someone who lives here" over and over again, everyone we spoke to had the same response. so at least i wasn't alone. oh yeah, that and everyone was named david. bizarro.

we explored amber's garden where they grow a million types of vegetables, raise chickens for eggs and meat, and have the beginnings of a rabbit farm which they will use for food. the fish they fried that evening, they had caught the nite before, they baked their own bread every day, made their own yogurt weekly, had an entire wall of canned goods that they canned themselves, and sewed their own everything.

for the most part, although it's not really my style, i thought it was pretty cool. But the whole environment did feel a little dirty. maybe if she hadn't mentioned their rat problem...

Posted by Meisa at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

that title there is in reference to mojan...the lovely lady i have to thank for the masthead you see before you. isn't she talented? thanks mojan!!!

i've decided my layout now, while not exactly what i was after, is quite nice and i'll be happy to stick with it for awhile. i think the accidental colors that came out of it work quite nicely with mojan's design. as soon as i get a stylesheet back, i'll do some tweaking. but for now...take a splash in the renovated lagoon!

Posted by Meisa at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

in case you couldn't tell, i'm having some issues here. i was inspired by a recent gift from mojan to update the look of my blog, and as i was experimenting, i did something i can't seem to fix. eeek.
let's hope lacey comes to my rescue soon before any of us have to look at this any longer.

update: i did nothing but something changed anyway, and now it doesn't look as disastrous as before. i still did something i can't fix, so it's going to have to look like this for awhile still anyway. oops.

Posted by Meisa at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

man, have i been having some internet issues. i now have two laptops (at the moment, i have them both open side by side) and while each one could do a variety of different things, it seemed that i could get neither one of them to blog. until now. not really sure what is different now, but it works. khalid claimed he fixed it. if fixing it means doing nothing, that sounds about right. thanks khalid!

so we've officially been here 2 weeks now. i had written a "officially been here 1 week entry", but it got hopelessly lost in cyberspace. so now i'll have to share an update of the last 2 weeks in california (pronounced as i like to say califor-ny-ae). we've finally got our house in order. with the exception of a few random items here and there that we don't know what to do with, it looks pretty great. as soon as we figure out what to do with those things, i'll post some pics. so taking care of that took about all the time we both had off for vacation, and then we started work last week. interesting and all the people are really friendly, but i feel like i am in waaaaaay over my head.

favorite thing about california so far: the massive amounts of wonderful cheap fresh fruit. let's just say that my digestive system is learning to accomodate the obscene numbers of plums i've been eating.

worst thing about california so far: the hour long commute across the bay bridge everyday. traffic sucks.

Posted by Meisa at 06:19 PM | Permalink

tester tester

Posted by Meisa at 02:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

when instead of asking for the grilled chicken breast sandwich, he asks for the breast sandwich.
hah!

Posted by Meisa at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

well, these last few weeks have been a blur of stress. last few months actually. khalid writing his thesis and defending, me finding a job, finding a place to live, me writing my thesis and defending, packing up our lives, saying goodbye to everyone and leaving town. i haven't had a spare minute to do anything, and now i have all the time in the world with nothing to do.
our last two weeks in town were pretty bittersweet. it's hard to beat the feeling of finishing grad school - packing up my stuff, passing on the random chemistry good luck charms i've collected, giving away my lab space and projects - all wonderful feelings. wonderful, but strange. i spent the last five years making a ton of molecules. i've scraped away at flasks and saved even milligram amounts of things, they were so precious. and then i found myself simply putting them in the waste...i was the only one who found them special. no one else even cares about them - there was no reason to save them.
so while it was so wonderful to finish my work at northwestern, it was the extreme opposite to say my goodbyes to the people i love out there. after they took our stuff away, we spent the last week with andrea and lived together one last time before heading our separate ways. saying goodbye to her was one of the hardest things i've ever had to do. i know we will be friends forever, but i also know that it will never be the same again.
our house here is beautiful...i really do love it. so spacious and really cute. i only wish we had someone to show it to. as much as i like it, i'm having a hard time appreciating it - i'm just so sad. i don't want to be here...i don't know anyone, i don't know anything about this place, and it's so far from everyone i love. i just want to go home - but i don't even really know where home is.
i suppose everyone moves on and finds some sort of happiness where ever they go. i have a lot to be thankful for, but i think it's going to take a little while to stop being sad about the life i said goodbye to.

Posted by Meisa at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)