Done!

Bllllrrrrrgggghhhhh sums up nicely how my brain feels right now. With a month of finals and final projects, back to back weekend field trips and 48 hours in New Haven between exams, I'm just happy I can still form sentences. Mostly.

Such a good semester though! And a great year. It's crazy to me how much I managed to squeeze into my head in the past nine months. I know most of the trees I see walking around town, depending on the street, which I love. And by love I mean LOVE. I'm proud of myself getting in with the USDA peeps and making friends with the Ecology lab to suss out what-all they do exactly. I started a vegetable garden finally for the first time ever. I can make an educated guess about why my chard leaves are turning purplish. Now I'm looking forward to what will hopefully be a somewhat laid back summer to try to sort it all out.

I'm getting cold feet about grad school again. The thought of committing to any one discipline gives me a yucky feeling, but I still really want to go. I just wish I could see something beyond the school part of it. Something beyond wanting a terminal degree as an end in itself. I just like knowing things to know them. And I want to know Everything.

I think my ideal life pursuit is to learn everything and then explain to people why this is this and that is that and what we should or could do about it and how. And ideally there would be presentations and lectures and photographs and writing and traveling and people-meeting and hand shaking and smiling and challenge involved.

I told someone today that I want to be John McPhee. Which is true. I do want to be John McPhee. I want to be John McPhee and Barbara Kingsolver and Jad Abumrad. If I do research, I want the world to be better for it. I think what I'm most best at is being excited about everything. At trying every new thing and remembering it. Or telling stories.

Sorta kinda also toying with the idea of landscape architecture, though. I might see if I can meet up with my Trees prof to chitty chat about what that means exactly and how one makes a living doing it. Hmm hmm hmm.

Today's spark of excitement

A minute ago, the hallways of my building were rife with firemen toting ENORMOUS axes in their belts and firewomen with multiple fire extinguishers strapped to their backs. There were two fire trucks parked out front, and I dashed out to the fire escape just in time to see them pointing the hose up at me.

In fairness, it looks like the apartment enflammé was at the back of the building, and even so, they decided hoses were not necessary, so no actual water came out, but exciting nonetheless!

I took in the scene with a bowl of lemon pasta from the balcony at the front of the building, waiting until the hubub died down to determine who shan't be getting his or her security deposit back. Looks like one of the apt.s on the third floor has had its door pried open. And I thought I'd get a finger wagging for letting the dirty wheel of my bike kiss the newly painted wall today...

Curious seed

I've gone and done it. My affinity for all things botanical has spawned yet another blog. Not only have I succumbed to the societal pressure to specialize, or at least organize, I moved it on over to Tumblr to see what all the fuss is about.

It's still something of a mess, but I'm hoping to use it as gardening journal type thing wherein I wax philosophical about the industrial food system, track horticultural and agricultural experiments, and store what bits of knowledge I pick up.

You can come visit me if you like at Curious Seed.

I also still have my tree id blog, which I'm hoping to jazz up a little once the semester is over and I can make it less a class project and more my own.

Maybe with all this blogging and web-tinkering I'll even learn a little about web design and the good ol' internet.

Movin' and shakin'

So, I killed my camera the other week. It died a painful but instant death when I dropped it on a class field trip. Alas. But! I have seized this opportunity to finally gift myself the digital slr I've been lusting after for years. Man are those things expensive. I got a used one and even that cost a pretty penny. Super excited to try it out and get back into photography, though, so I'm focusing on that, rather than the gaping hole it put in my bank account! I still need to collect various odds n ends to get it up and running, but watch out for new pics!

In other fun, I got an fMRI this morning! I don't know about you, but I've probably wanted an MRI since the first time I saw someone floating through the magic scanning machine watching tv on the internet. The machine they used for the psych/neurology experiment I participated in wasn't as glamourous as what-all they have on tv, but very exciting nonetheless. I just wish they'd give me a picture of my brain as a participation prize.

There was a man handling the apricots at Berkeley Bowl today who started talking gibberish to me today, but the end of the semester has been turning the old grey matter to mush, so I couldn't say for sure. I'm almost done though! Insane as this week (and probably next week too) will be, there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Shutterbug

I am Pretty Sure the guy in the apartment across the little alley way from me was taking a photo pointed my direction out of the corner of his window when I looked up and he scurried away suddenly. If you're going to take stalker photos, I hope at least they're flattering stalker photos.

Spin off

I am tempted to start a new, separate gardening / agriculture / horticulture / food politics blog, but then what would i talk about here??? I am sure I could think of something. Except that this is specifically supposed to be a compendium of every possible interesting thing. Hmm hmm hmm. Would I really be giving in to the societal pressure to specialize at the expense of my campaign for a renascent generalism? I do already have about 14 posts written... Can I still be an ardent generalist by having multiple specialized blogs?

Were you aware of it? vol. 29: Snails & M

I am really loving Isabella Rosselini's Green Porno.