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| The old homestead. |
This blog is actually going to start two nights before California because I have to write about graduation and the celebration cocktail party which took place during my last two days in Turkey and then continue into July and my trip home.
Robert College's graduation took place on Konak Terrace on Monday June 25th in the early evening. Teachers processed in according to their years of service, so I was near the back of the teacher section with the other new folks. Fortunately we didn't have to wear the outfit. The graduates came in after us and sat up on the stage facing the staff and parents. I didn't teach any L12s so I only knew a few of the students from their participation in plays or student government. They were all respectfully dressed, the trend of decorating your cap with the logo of the college you will attend doesnt seem to have caught on here. There were several speakers including the head master, shown below, the mayor? of Besiktas? two students (on in Turkish, one in English) and the faculty speaker, Dave, who was retiring after 33 years at RC. As is typical, the graduates then walked across the stage to recieve their diplomas. It was a pretty nice ceremony, not too hot with the breeze and an absolutely gorgeous setting. They had created a booklet with the translations of the speeches as they were submitted the week before, but after Dave had been speaking for 10 minutes, somone asked where he was in the translation and the responce was that he hadn't started yet. It was fun to listen to the English and try to follow in the written Turkish. I guess I did learn something over the course of the year.
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| Robert College, class of 2012 with 'graduating' head master, John Chandler. |
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| I understand they used to release one dove for each graduates, but one year it was too hot and someone forgot to give the birds water and many of them died before they could be released...oops. |
The day after graduation is the graduation ball. It is held down the road at the Çırağan Palace, which was built 150 years ago by a sultan of the Ottoman empire and is not a hotel. Wikipedia says that the Sultan's bedroom suite is $15,332/night and is number 14 on the list of most expensive hotel rooms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87%C4%B1ra%C4%9Fan_Palace Most teachers were only invited to the cocktail party before the dinner and ball, which was really ok with me. It was great to see all the outfits the kids were wearing (I had been calling it the parade of dresses). I understand that some of them fly to Paris to go dress shopping or have dresses made especially for them by famous designers. It is not really my thing, but I am glad to have had the cultural experience.
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| Teachers and staff dressed up too, although not to the same crazy extent as the students. |
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| Fancy, fancy! |
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| I wish I could make this picture bigger since the dresses are so small. |
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| Your boat awaits ma'am. |
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| Rumeli Hisrı with the sunset behind. |
My flight was on Brittish Air and had a short stop over in London. The flight was fine and I got to watch some movies. I had asked Ann to pick me up at the airport and she said, no problem, I'll come to the cell phone parking lot, just give me a call when you get your bags. Yeah, that works, if you have a cell phone. People did deal with airports for many years without cell phones, but some how we still messed it up. I thought she was going to drive by and she thought she would meet me at the exit of customs. I looked for her on my way out but didn't see her so I went to the curb to wait. I am sure I didn't wait too long, but it had been a long day and I was tired. Eventually I asked a stranger to borrow their cell to call my dad (whose number I know) to call Ann's cell, a number I dont know. She was just inside waiting for me and came right out. It was very good to see her. (-:
I had debated with myself what I would eat first when I got home. It was a toss up between In and Out and Chipotle. Chipotle won and we picked up burritos and headed back to my dad's house to eat. I would do a lot of eating over the summer. I had lists of things I wanted to eat. Types of food, specific resturants, even who I wanted to eat them with. One of the things I missed most about California was the food and I had 10 months to make up for.
Besides food, the other major thing I wanted to do was to see friends. I landed on a Wednesday afternoon, and I already had some things on my schedule, Tahoe with the Ladies, a metal working class and Jerks. I didn't have to wait too long to see the Jerks and fortunately I they didn't need me to play since I was just 24 hours off the plane and still several hours off the clock. For those of you who are confused, the Jerks are actually the Myoclonic Jerks, a softball team in the Stanford medical school intermural league. I joined the team 5-6 years ago; a friend from bell choir was a medical student on the team and invited me. Since then postdocs and grad students have come and gone, but the Jerks have remained a fixture on my Thursday evenings during the summer and I am grateful that they let a lowly high school chemistry teacher hang out with them. You see, the best part about the Jerks is the beer. Not that I drink beer, but that there always is beer. John takes his with him to center field and stashes one with the first base coach to pick up after he gets a hit. The beer sets the tone for the evening. Softball is why we show up, but it isn't important to win, it is important to have fun and drink beer. In fact, we got in some trouble this summer for winning too many games. The typical Jerk's m.o. is to lose all the games in the regular season and therefore be placed in the C division for the play offs. This is when we all put our proverbial gloves on and start winning. I think we have been C division champions at least 3 of the years I have played. This year, the winning started early and they dont let you in the C division if you win 4 in a row. I had already left for England by the time the playoff started, but I understand we were placed in the B division. The Jerks understand that it is better to be the best of the worst than the worst of the ok.
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| A circle of Jerks after a crushing victory. |
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| What a beautiful place to play softball. |
I was able to play five games with the Jerks during the month and even had some pretty good hits. Between games, I had a pretty packed schedule. I had to write it all down to keep track of who I was meeting when and where so that I didn't double book or miss anything. I had two social events most days and as many as three a couple of times. It was really nice to see everyone and get a chance to catch up.
29 June: Friday
Tam just happened to be in San Fransico for the week helping her brother in law. Her husband works for facebook and was visiting the mothership so after dropping him off, she and her son Peter came for a vist. We walked to Greer park and chatted. I had known Tam in Seattle and we haven't seen each other much in the last 11 years, but it was still really easy.
Tam took me up to South San Francisco to have lunch at a noodle and dumpling place with the Ladies. Dumplings are a thing for us, I guess since Lisa's bachelorette party, and they are so tasty. I have known these ladies since I started working at Gunn, but they didn't really become 'The Ladies' until we did national boards together. (If you ask them, it was when I forced them to ruin their lives and be all crazy stressed out for a year giving up Saturdays and family time just to write a lot, reflect a lot and watch a lot of video tapes of ourselves. But it amounts to the same thing.) Perhaps it is shared misery that brought us together, but these Ladies are the reason I want to go back to teach at Gunn.
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| Lisa takes a soup dumpling, careful not to pierce the dough and let the soup out. |
30 June: Saturday
To the beach! I live(d) on the peninsula of the San Francisco Bay area, blocks from the bay, in Palo Alto growing up and then in Mt. View for the 5 years before I moved to Turkey. I went to school in Berkeley, (Seattle) and at Stanford. I taught in San Jose and Palo Alto. The Bay Area is where I am from and there are so many things I like about and one is how close the beach is.
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| During my month in California, I spent most of my time in this box, escaping to the north west for a cheese making class in Healdsberg and to the north east to see my grandparents in Sacremento. |
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| The pacific isn't pacific, nor is it at all warm, the ankles were all I was willing to sacrifice to this photo. |
1 July: Sunday
This was the only day I managed to go to my home church while I was visiting. Unfortunately both Pastor Matt and Tim the organist were on vacation, but I did get to see several folks who have been following this blog and keeping up with my adventures. After church I went out to breakfast to another of my favorite spots: The Original Pancake House in Los Altos (http://www.originalpancakehouse.com/) with Linda, Richard, Ann and Craig.
My favorite thing at The Original Pancake House is the Apple Pancake. It takes about 20 minutes to prepare, (but who is in a hurry on a Sunday morning?) and is enormous! Ann and I always split this and a side of bacon, but this time she let me have 3 of the 4 pieces of bacon since I was still working on pork debt. I found that in my first several days back, I was very quiet. Partly it was jet lag and being out of sync with when I was. Partly I know I was just enjoying back around familiar people and settings. I felt kind of bad about it, though. All sorts of people made space in their schedules to see me and why would they do that if they didn't want to hear about my experiences. It was weird, but I couldn't think of anything to tell them. Of course if someone had a specific question, I could answer and eventually I cultivated a few stock stories that were either telling or funny that I could bring out if someone said "tell me about Turkey." Many people had been reading this, so they knew what I had been up to and most people didn't push too hard, which I appreciate, because I really did enjoy just being around people who knew me and with whom I had enough history that I could coast for a while.
Another thing that was very interesting was what people chose to share wtih me about their year. It was a tough year at Gunn, everyone agreed on that, but the angles each person viewed it from was different and interesting. I had a chance to meet up with a fairly wide cross section of teachers and got to hear the same stories multiple times and of course the emphasis was different depending on the perspective. I felt very honored that people were willing to share with me and being in the unique position of knowing all the players, but not actually participating in the drama, I could be a bit more objective in the listening.
More games this evening with the Vickerys. It was amazing how fast small children grow when you are not watching.
2 July: Monday
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I only got the chance to turn in one of my free breakfast pictures to Hobee's while I was home. (They say one a month, but there are several resturants...) I met up with the Dohner's to chat about their summer trip to Turkey. They were going to be on a tour, but with a few days before hand in Istanbul. I gave them some tips and hints and one of my bus cards. (Which turned out to be very lucky.) They ended up having a fabulous time.
After breakfast I went to the pool. When I lived in California I would swim an average of an hour three times a week, either in the evening during school or in late morning during the summer or weekends. I can go about a mile in about an hour and it makes me feel good for the rest of the day (and makes it easy to sleep!) Swimming is something I really missed living in Istanbul. There is a pool just off campus at Bizemtepe, but it is in the middle of a deck where people sit and drink and chat. It seems a bit too public and I have not mustered the courage to swim there. I wasn't immediately up to my old standards (and I got a late start due to the late breakfast) on my first outing, but by the second week I was doing pretty well.
After the pool I went to Ann's house. Pretty much any time I wasn't doing something else specific, I was at Ann's or out running errands with her. It is so nice to have someone to cook with, read with, shop with (especially since I HATE shopping).
3 July: Tuesday
Maria had arranged to have a gathering of more of the Gunn science department over at my dad's for a mini barbeque. Since several folks were heading out for vacaction for most of the time I was home, this was a good chance to catch people before they left. Unfortunately the only pictures I took were postcard faces.
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| Jack |
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| Lettie |
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| Elana |
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| Shirley |
4 July: Wednesday
After another swim, I had a relaxing midday before heading to Rose and Jeanne's house for their annual 4th of July barbeque. This was the second year I had been invited to this event, the highlight of the summer social calendar. I always feel very welcome by the extended Dominguez family and often feel like I might be just the excuse Rosemary needs for retelling a story for the upteenth time, even if everyone else has heard it before, I haven't. I like hearing all the stories, even now that some of them are coming up again (-: I thought I would be the hero of the sparkler event by bringing some fantastic Turkish sparklers home with me for this very occasion. I even bought some for my sister to bring home with her in June. She, being smarter than I am, looked up the what the airlines thought about this idea. Apparently it carrys up to a $500,000 fine and 7 years in jail, if you consider sparklers fire works, which I guess they technically are. She decided not to risk it and taking her lead I didn't either. I didn't want to be without them however, so I mailed them to myself. When I was relating this story at the barbeque, Jeanne (who works for the post office) gasps when I got to that part and Maria asks her if it was ok to send sparklers through the mail. Before she even answered, the look on her face left no doubt that it wasn't. The sad part of this story is that they arrived on the 5th.
5 July: Thursday
I swam again, spent the afternoon with Ann and then to another Jerk's victory. I was feeling much better this week and I think I even went two for two at the plate.
6 July: Friday
When I called the Stanford blood center earlier in the week to check if I had traveled anywhere that would make me ineligible to donate blood, I ended up talking to the volunteer for almost 10 minutes. He did start by looking up the places I had visited and clearing me to donate. Then he went on to say how jealous he was of my travels and finally he asked me what Istanbul smelled like. huh? I guess he had read something about the smell of Istanbul. I told him it really depended where he was and what he was doing. Sometimes it smells like fish, sometimes it smells like BO, sometimes flowers, sometimes trash, sometimes chocolate chip cookies. I thought it was weird, but he was friendly enough. When I went in for the appointment on this morning they were much less inquisitive. I watched most of the movie Hugo while donating platelets. I should probably see if I can stream it, I would like to know how it ends.
After blood, I went back over the hills, back to Half Moon Bay to have lunch with Trish and Patrice. We walked along the coast for a while, ate at Sam's Chowder house (http://www.samschowderhouse.com/). I had the lobster roll, voted one of the best sandwhiches by Good Morning America. It was good, but not in my top 10 sandwhiches of all time.
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| The Pacific from Half Moon Bay |
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| Trish's dog TJ, was obsesed with this ball. She would put it on the chair next to my leg so I wouldn't even have to bend down to pick up before tossing it again. Unfortunately I was really allergic to TJ to the point where my right eye swelled up almost all the way to closed. Fortunately a really good washing and some visine made it possible to drive home. |
7 July: Saturday
My whole house is furnished with items from garage sales. I closed on my house on my birthday, March 1, but couldn't move in until May 31st, so I had three months to accuire just the right pieces and just the right prices. I made a scale floor plan and cut out foot prints of all the furniture I already had and as I found new things. Ann and I went out each Saturday scouting up and down the peninusula and often had to call my dad to come with the van when I found something that didn't fit in either of our cars. All of this furniture collected in his garage and as it mounted, he was sure that it wouldn't all fit, but I had the plan, I knew it would. It did, with a few pieces to spare which had been duplicated when I found something I liked better later. After the house was furnished, my garage saling dimished, but I wanted to go out for old times sake. Ann made the plan and picked me up at 7. I found some books and a puzzle as well as some cool glass stirring rods. I was careful not to get too much stuff since I couldn't take much back with me, but the hunt is always fun.
After lunch Ann dropped me off at Larry's auto works where I met Maria, Rachel and Nick for a Rallye. (http://www.therallyeclub.org/index.htm) We used to do the rallye every first Saturday and we had worked up to the novice rank. A rallye is like a game of Simon Says. You have several sets of instructions that tell you where to go in your car, at each intersection. Unfortunately these instructions often conflict. Your job is to figure out which set of instructions has higher presedence at any given point. We are always very smart when we run rallyes. It is quite an ego boost, knowing that we found all of the course markers and caught all of the gimicks. It has been suggested that we should just get pizza and go home rather than turn in our score sheet at the end of the night. That way we could stay smart longer. This was one of our better showings, I think we scored sometihng like 940. Unfortunately so did the other folks in the novice class. We ended up tied for third and lost the tie breaker. That memory of being smart for an hour or so will have to last me a year before I can do another one.
8 July: Sunday
Sometime earlier this spring I signed up for a metal working sampler class though one of the coupon sites and it was finally the day to redeem the coupon. I like the idea of working with metal and welding and art and things, but I had another reason to take this class. I collect element experiences. Ever since Maria's calcium anniversary when she celebrated by having milkshakes, I have tried to celebrate each birthday with the appropriate element while working backwards to get the ones I missed. (My first element birthday was kypton and led to the glass bending class in which I made a periodic table light filled with krypton and a goggle lamp out of neon.) According to the explanation of this class I would be able to get two more elements, iron and aluminum.
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| In my welding gear. I wont show a picture of my product. Welding is harder than it looks (-: |
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| I had more luck carving my cast (sand mixed with a binder) for the molten aluminum |
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| The instructor lighting the aluminum furnace. |
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| The 'positive' of my cast. It came out really well, even the very narrow letter. |
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| The blacksmitting section of the class. |
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| My finished project in blacksmitting |
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| Jenny, Graham, Andrew, Carol, Heather (carefully hiding her burnt hand in a cup of ice) |
9 July: Monday
After a swim, I drove up to San Mateo to see Chris, Erin and Henry Stallings for pizza and a chat. Chris started at Gunn the same year I did and some how he got me to help with the trivia club that he started that year. After he left, I found myself totally unqualified, but advising the club for the next five years. Erin and Chris just got back from teaching in Costa Rica for two years. I went to visit during the summer between and asked a lot of questions about the international teaching racket. They were very supportive and contributed greatly to my having the guts to embark on this adventure of mine.
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| He does look just like a baby, but smiling babies are ok. |
Leaving San Mateo, I headed back to Menlo Park to meet some Freaks. There were a couple of seasons when I was a freak on Mondays and a Jerk on Thursdays. Those were the days. The Freaks were a great team, in part because we were good, or good enough and fairly well matched. When other people are playing well, I always felt I got better. The Jerks went to the O after games and the Freaks went to Applewood and this is when you got to find out how fun and friendly the team was. Unfortunately the team disbanded several years ago, but I still keep in contact with some folks and arranged to meet up at Applewood (http://applewoodpizza.com/) on a Monday night just like old times. I had seen Amy and Mack at Mack's wedding the year before (at the SF zoo, where feeding giraffes and petting hedgehogs was part of the reception!) I hadn't seen Derrick since the team split up. Amy brought her boys and we ate Hungarian garlic bread and the Menlo Combo. Eventhough it was my third pizza in just over 24 hours, it was the best so it didn't matter. In an extra bonus, Derrick brought me girl scount cookies (not available in Turkey) that he had kept frozen for me since March. Thanks again Derrick!
One of Amy's boys did take a picture of us that she was going to post on facebook, but last I heard a crucial cord was missing and the picture was stuck in the device...
10 July: Tuesday
So you know that trivia team I was just talking about, well I got to know those kids pretty well over the three years they came to the club and those that took my AP chemistry class (most of them) I knew even better. They have all now graduated from Gunn and gone off to Universities near and far (mostly near) and for some reason all seem to be working at Stanford this summer. I couldn't convince them to give me tours of their labs, but they did suggest that we meet at the student union for lunch. These are amazing kids who will do even more amazing things in the near future and the only thing I require of them is a mention in their Nobel prize acceptance speach.
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| Brian, me, Emma, Rory, Naor, Nikil |
Unfortunately, sometime after I paid for my burrito and before I biked all the way to Ann's I had lost my wallet. I had already been to the DMV this week, so my new licence was on its way. I had applied for a new debit card, so that was coming too, but in addition to regular hassles, my wallet contained my teacher discount bus card and all of my Turkish banking, shopping and identifying cards. Thank goodness for the folks in HR at RC. One email to Dilek and (almost) everything was back in process for me to pick up when I returned.
Perhaps for my first day back on my bike, I should have chosen a shorter route. By the time I biked from my dads to Stanford and then to Ann's in Menlo Park and back to Palo Alto, it was ~15 miles. This used to be no big deal, in fact at one time it was an almost every day thing, but some muscles atrophy with no use in 10 months and I was sore, sore, sore. I did pick up the car to drive to San Jose to see Daisy for dinner at Santa Row.
(NOTE to the reader: I realize I am only two weeks (of five) into my stay in California. I think it will pick up a bit, but you should be forewarned that, time wise, you aren't even half way there yet.)
11 July Wednesday
I had arranged to meet Meg in Morgan Hill at a Starbucks at 9:30. Her email says 9:30, my calendar says 9:30, but for some reason I had it in my head that it was 10:30. I can not explain this, but it does explain why, when I got there, promptly at 10:30, she wasn't there. I waited an hour before checking my email to see if I had a message from her explaining why she wasn't coming. I did have a message, but she was wondering why I didn't come! I felt awful when I realized that I had wasted an hour of her time waiting for me. Thankfully she was willing to come back and try again. All of my other meet ups for this day were canceled, so it didn't matter to me, but, as I found out as we chatted, Meg is one busy lady. It was great to see her and she was very gracious about my mistake.
12 July Thursday
For some reason a seven hour time difference is harder to deal with than a 10 hour time difference and it wasn't easy to connect with Kate in NY while I was in Istanbul. When she was visiting her parents in Oregon and I was at my parents house in CA, we were in the same time zone and using the same country code, we were able to chat before I went to hike the dish.
The Dish was recently featured in Stanford Magazine (http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=54744) although the article lists the hike as being 3.5 miles. The sign at the front as well as Laurie's iPhone agree that it was 4 miles. The article is right that views are stunning and the hills steep. I was grateful to Laurie's boys for keeping the pace appropriate.
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| Stanford campus and Palo Alto from the top of the hill. You can see the bay but it is hard to tell where it ends and sky begins. On a clearer day you can see the other side of the bay as well. |
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| There were 5-6 red tail hawks enjoying the hill as well. |
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| Zack, Maria, Josh, Laurie and Angela. Josh did well to turn around in time for this photo. Note Maria's hat (-: |
13 July: Friday
I met with my tennant this afternoon at my house. I took a look in the storage locker hoping to get some cons out, but it was so well packed and difficult to contemplate, I just gave up. It did look like nothing was getting wet and there was no obvious rat droppings, which was good.
Daphne showed me through the place, which looked to be in pretty good shape. She has decided to stay on alone for the coming year, for which I am very grateful. I had ammended the lease to reflect that and a few other minor changes and she signed it. I also reclaimed my whirly pop as there is nothing like it for making pop corn. Unfortunately she had let all of my plants die in the back yard. I guess that will be a reason to go garage saling when I return...
The afternoon signaled the start of the weekend I had most been looking forward to: Tahoe with the Ladies! The pace was relaxed, it didn't matter when we got there, being together was the point. Maria picked me up at 5, we drove north on 280 (one of the most beautiful highways in America) to get Angela in Belmont and then we all went to get Lisa from her new house in San Carlos.
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| The fog rolls in over 280. This fog bothered Mark Twain because it makes summer cold in SF. There can easily be a 20F difference in just 5 miles because of it. |
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| Lisa says good by to Whitney for the weekend. |
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| Zachary's deep dish pizza, very different from Applewood, but very good in its orthogonal way. |
14 July: Saturday
We had left over pizza, granola and yogurt for breakfast and headed to the beach of Lake Tahoe. If I thought the Pacific was cold, it was only because I had never been in Lake Tahoe. Fortunately, according to Maria, King's beach has the warmest Lake Tahoe water because the shore is so wide here and the water is shallow for a long time. The sun has time to heat up the water. With some encouragement I was convinced to get in up to my neck and it was true, once you are in it isn't so bad (although that maybe due to loss of feeling in ones extremeties). We had snacks and beverages, a couple of beach umbrellas and real innertubes (curtesy of the magic cabin) and spent all day lounging, reading and chatting. There was some sort of craft/art fair going on in the parking lot and there was live music on and off. From where we were on the beach it was just the right volume, pleasently in the background, not too obtrusive. When we were sufficently baked, we cleaned up and walked through the fair, stopping to get Hawai'ian ices of different flavors.
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| Can you tell what flavor of syrup we each had? |
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| Maria says this is a good place for boating and rock jumping. |
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| Creativitity in action |
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| Maria's invention: Four steps along the way of a base into acid titration using phenolphthalien as indicator. |
15 July: Sunday
We didn't rush in the morning and probably left around 10. The goal was to get Lisa home in time to feed the tornado by 5. Traffic was awful. Lots of other folks were coming back. It didn't help that I suggested we have a late lunch at King of Noodle (more dumplings) in SF on our way home. This meant we took 80 home instead of I-5. I think we didn't even get to the city until 5, and we certainly didn't have Lisa home until closer to 7. She was a good sport about it and the dumplings were scrumptious. (http://www.yelp.com/biz/king-of-noodles-san-francisco-3)
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| Coit tower on the way into the city from the bay bridge. |
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| At King of Noodle. Yum Yum. |
16 July: Monday
My time at home was now officially more than half over. It had been a very full 2.5 weeks, but it started to get hard after this. I started to think about leaving, about doing things for the last time, not seeing people again, etc. By this point I had seen most of the people I wanted to see and my last two weeks were not as packed as the first two had been. That being said, I still had things to do and people to see.
After swimming, I met up with Elana and we went out to get some food (Indian for her, PMT for me) and chat about AP chemistry. Elana has taken over the AP chem program at Gunn in my absence and is doing a great job. She is investigating flipping the classroom and has enough sign ups for three sections this fall.
In the evening I went to Chris and Hilary's house for board games. (http://everythingiplayed.blogspot.com/) I can't seem to get a regular board game group together here in Istanbul. I have the club with the students, which scratches the itch and I do get the occasional game with Keeley and Sibel or Lisa and Alex, but I could probably play games 2 -3 nights a week easy at home. Playing with adults is different from playing with teenagers and playing with people who have played these games before is very differnt. Everybody has to learn, I understand, and many people have been very patient with me as I they taught me different games, but once everyone knows how to play, it is a whole different experience.
17 July: Tuesday
A completely empty day! I hung out with Ann. We were reading the Twilight books. I started them in Turkey and finished them with her. I started reading because I was curious what the big deal was, it was a cultural curiosity. They are quick reads and entertaining enough. They weren't really worth the time of reading out loud, but oh well. It does make me wonder about what the target audience (pre and early teen girls) took from it other than it is coold to have a vampire for a boyfriend.
18 July: Wednesday
My behind had recovered enough to venture back on the bike for a ride with Laurie today. We met on the way to Gunn where she needed to drop something off. We ended up waiting there for Brett who had been called away for something, never to return, so we just hung out in the library.
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| I am conveniently missing the construction on Gunn's campus. I think this will be the new Math and English building, although why Math and English should be in the same building escapes me. |
I believe we lost this game, which was good, but it turned out to be to little too late.
19 July: Thursday
Today I drove up to Carmichael (near Sacremento) to see my grandparents. They moved to Eskaton the same summer I bought a house. This was lucky for me since I ended up with some of their furniture, but sad because instead of being a five minute bike ride from school, they are a 2 1/2 hour drive away. Eskaton is a really nice place, though. It is kind of a cross between a freshman dorm and a cruise ship. The food is good, the grounds are beautiful, and there are many activities for all ability ranges. They are happy there and glad that they made their own decision. I got there just after their writing group and in time for lunch.
They had arranged for us to have lunch with some other residents. All the folks at this place are highly educated and they have lead very interesting lives. They may not be able to see, hear or move quite the way they had once, but they are all great talkers and listeners. Both the couple from lunch as well as the other couple they had us meet up with for dinner were very interested in what I was up to in Turkey. They asked great questions and were interested in my stories. In some ways it eased conversation since they could ask anything, but on the other hand I kind of felt like I was on exhibit. It was fine, but I went up there to see my grandparents.
Between the meals while they were resting, I was finishing up my christmas presents. Most of the space and weight in my suitcases coming back was taken up by Christmas presents. I wanted to get them all wrapped and labeled to leave with the appropriate family groups while I was home so there would be something there for everyone in December. Last year I sent things home with people, which worked, but was more of a burden than was ideal. Anyway, I think I got something for everyone and I hope they will be happy about it when the time comes.
After dinner we attended their forum at which a japanese - American resident was going to tell us about his time in an internment camp during WWII. On paper this sounded like it would be very interesting and I am sure it could have been, with a bit more structure and organization. The questions from the audience started livening things up at the end, but unfortunately the speaker was very very deaf and couldnt' really hear the questions so had to guess what they were asking.
It was a good visit and I was glad to see them so well. Granny always wants me to call when I get home, but leaving at 9 that means calling at 11:30, when they should be sleeping. We compromised and I put a note on facebook that I was home safely. If she was up and worried about it, she could check facebook, but if she was sleeping she could find out in the morning. I am very proud that all of my grandparents are technology users and I have skyped with them, exchanged emails and photos. I can only hope that I will be as mentally agile in 50 years.
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| I usually take a picture with or of them when I am there, but I realize I didn't this time and so I had to go back into the archive to find this one from Christmas 2010. Also pictured are my cousin Jo and sister, Carlie. |
20 July: Friday
I had an early lunch with Cora, so no swim for me today. Cora inspires me with all of her travel. She has been to all the places I have, but she went 30-40 years ago before you could book your hotel on line or skype home. She went to Easter Island before they put the head back on the Moai and to Macchu Piccu before it was touristified. I love hearing her stories and she has promised me pictures next summer. Cora has also been a great supporter of this adventure (although she was rooting for Upper Mongolia over Turkey) and it was good to get a chance to visit with her and her friend Margaret (a veteran of several international teaching tours).
In the afternoon I met Mike for coffee. Mike was my second student teacher and he was still looking for a job (a bad sign late in July). Schools are not hiring new teachers since teachers are holding on to their jobs (if they have them) and schools are rearranging classes and increasing class size to cover shortages. Last year he had a long term sub position covering a maternity leave and then continued subbing in the district, which I am sure could have continued, but three weeks after I saw him (and less than two weeks before school started) a school found him! I wont be an easy year, but the first never is.
The night was capped off with a last minute pot luck and skipbo extravaganza at Lynnes.
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| Tarn, Chris, Younger Matchett, Lynne, Young Matchett, Diane |
21 July: Saturday
This was a relaxed day, I finished up the Christmas presents for my parents and siblings and started thinking about what I would take back to Turkey with me. I had bought some key ingredients (pecans, quinoa, corn syrup, salt and vinegar potato chips, etc) and a bunch of clothes (pants, more button down shirts) and it was going to be an issue getting it all across two continents and an ocean.
At 3 I headed to Jimb's house for games. This was the games group that I had been most regular with before I left, almost every Saturday night for 7? years. Unfortunately things change, people move, have children, etc and even before I left it got a bit more spotty, but since I was one of the more regular hosts, when I left it became even less frequent. I will certainly try to revive this or some similar event when I return.
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| Power Grid in the awkward shade of the partially open blinds. |
22 July: Sunday
Ann and I went up to San Francisco to St. Marks Lutheran Church where our friend Tim is the organist (Tim used to be the organist at Grace in Palo Alto and after he left, Grace hired a new organist also called Tim). http://www.stmarks-sf.org/ We got a little lost on the way, and walked in after the prelude had finished and were surprised to sit behind Dale, who we know through new Tim.
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| The organ at St. Marks. |
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| What a coincidence, the church was near Turk street! |
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| Best Ice Cream in Palo Alto, and with good memories from elementary school days. |
23 July: Monday
I am pretty sure I swam this morning before going to meet Sally at Pluto's (http://www.plutosfreshfood.com/) for lunch. Sally was my master teacher back in 2002-2003 at San Mateo High School. We have very similar teaching styles and interests and have been able to share ideas over the last 9 years as well. Sally has had the chance to teach astronomy, of which I am jealous. If I ever do get to teach astronomy I know where I will go for help that first year. Unfortunately I will have to get the earth science credential to do that. I would do well on the astronomy part of the test but the geology, oceanography and meoteralogy parts I would have to study for.
I went to play some more games with Chris. Hilary went off to a pre-baby class. Here is another example of a board game night that is about to change forever due to a small person arriving on the scene.
24 July: Tuesday
Today was reserved for Ann. We used to trade Labor day's and alternate planning an adventure for the day. We kind of worked on this one together. Ann choose the spot for breakfast in an industrial neighborhood of Redwood city, Main Street Coffee Roasting Co. (http://mainstreetcoffee.com/)
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| I dont think the fruit salad was tart, I think I caught her telling me not to take the photo. |
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| Pez used to be just pepermint or PefeffErminZ, but oddly enough, they no longer make any mint PEZ at all. |
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| This guy had one of every pez dispenser ever made. |
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| I wish I could have kept this stamp on my hand forever. |
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| The best picture I could get without looking like a tourist. |
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| Tender Pork Belly with Turmeric Pickled Daikon & Green Shiso |
Our map/guidebook showed several other museums in the neighborhood, so we made our way down the street until we found the Cartoon Art Museum. It was pretty interesting, even for someone who was never that into comic books. What I found the most informative was the process the drawing goes through from the first sketch to the final production. The pictures all start out much bigger than their final presentation. We tried to go to the museum of craft, but it was closed on Tuesdays. Who ever heard of a musuem closed on Tuesdays? Looking through the windows at the gift shop was pretty interesting and it will probably make the list next time.
It having been almost 2 hours since we ate anything, we stopped at Beard Papas. (http://beardpapascanada.com/ this is the link the Canadian site because the US site has been stolen by robots. I am not kidding, look for it yourself. I believe it was originally a Japanese company.) Chris and Erin (pre baby Henry) introduced me to this delightful treat when one opened up in Redwood city. It has since closed (which is probably good) and I thought that the whole idea of custard filled puff pastries had failed to catch on in America.
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| Delicious cream puffs with a weird name. |
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| Ann waiting for me to return with Beard Papa. |
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| Ann probably wished for something noble and altruistic. |
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| This collection of lights were suspended in the entry way and would blink on an off seemingly randomly when viewed from below. When you looked from the first landing, however, you could see that it was playing a movie of a boxing match on loop. Pretty cool. |
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| I liked how this one was a collection of many small things and that it went around a corner. |
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| This was a depection of chemotherapy. What I liked about this one is that the pedistal is all covered with science. I believe the artist was retelling his own battle with cancer and clearly he chose to learn more about what he was taking and what it was doing to him. |
As we left the musuem is was getting cold, not that that means much in San Francisco. We walked back to BART and took the train back to the car. It was a very good day, full of activity and new experiences. Before heading home, we stopped for dinner in Mt. View at CasCal, conveniently located at the corner of Castro and California. (http://www.cascalrestaurant.com/site2011/index.asp) I had the paella, which was fantastic and hot. 25 July: Wednesday
This morning I met Deanna at Jasper Ridge for a hike and a chat. I got to know Deanna in Diane's yoga class and she has been a great friend (and hair cutter!) across campus. She was also the person who most appreciated my halloween costume the year I went as The Son Of Man painting by Rene Magrite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_of_Man). It is important to me to have friends from all disciplines, not just science, it is good to hear from multiple perspectives. Deanna also helped me understand the MOMA exhibit by Cindy Sherman. (-:
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| Along the hike at Jasper Ridge. |
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| Deanna's cat brought her this gift of a baby rattlesnake (some people get all the luck!). She set it up in this position before rigor mortis set in. The rattle still rattles! |
After a swim (I miss swimming!) I met up with Faith at Sumo Sushi in Los Altos. (http://www.sumosushiboatlosaltos.com/) Faith and I started (officially) at Gunn the same year, so we went through all the orientation meetings together and she is another example of a friend from across campus for whom I am grateful. It was good to see her so happy.
In the evening it was my last Jerk's game of the summer, so a bit sad, but it is good to know that there will be more Jerks ball next summer.
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| Don't we look like a nice group of Jerks? |
I think this was another 'indulge Heather' day. Another thing the ladies have done off and one in the past several years is make sushi. This is a whole day's event. We start by going to the Asian market for the seaweed, fish and inari wrappers, then we go to someone's house to make the rice. We always try to make just one rice cooker worth of rice, but it always turns out not ot be enough and we end up making more. We aren't too adventurous in terms of raw fish, but the imitation crab and eel are favorites.
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| Sushi making. Somehow we are incapable of making a little bit of sushi. |
After we ate our fill of sushi we packed up the rest and went to my parent's house to watch the opening of the Olympics. It was nice to have folks to watch it with, but when Lisa kept hitting my leg saying "your'e going to be there, you're going to be there" I got even more excited. I always cry when watching the Olympics and it even happend at the Opening Ceremony. Partly, it is that the atheletes have worked so hard and they are so excited/sad/emotional themselves that I catch some of that, but also I just like to see people doing what ever they are doing well. I thought that the show was good, I especially liked the industrial revolution part but I thought the texting/modern era part was weird. We skipped through it to the parade of nations, which is always long, but I like to see where all these countries are and how many people they sent. This year there were women competing in every sport that men competed in, and some extras. There has also been a woman from every coutry that has ever competed in the Olympics, which is cool. I didn't know then that NBC had edited out the tribute to the London Underground bombing. I dont understand why they did this, I am sure Michael Phelps could have waited. (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=278_1343526996) Watching this certainly helped me prepare mentally for moving on to the next part of my summer.
28 July: Saturday
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| The old homestead. |
We still had plenty of food, but it was nice to be able to talk to everyone rather than splitting my attention between the fairly disparate groups. Again I took postcard photos of everyone, but this time we didn't rush to get them printed and distributed during the party. I did rely on others to distribute them after the fact, but this way no one had to miss the party to work on them. The setting was lovely and the party relaxed. I had pictures to show, but it was too light during the day and by the evening we were focused on other things. Thanks to my folks for hosting, to Ann for working behind the scenes, to Maria for bringing the chairs and Lynne for the fire pit. Again, the party went into the evening and ended with a fire in Lynne's fire pit.
29 July: Sunday
Getting lost was my fault. Somehow I thought I could get to the Golden Gate Bridge from 101, and of course you can, but the freeway dissolves into the city and if you dont know what you are doing (which I clearly didn't) you get lost, or rather we got lost. I had hoped to be able to see my friend Erika in Sebastopol on the way to our cheese making class in Healdsberg, so we left with two extra hours to get there. It was a good thing two, since we needed all of that time just to get to the class on time. GRRR. Thanks to Craig who google mapped us to the freeway after we had gone around the entire city a second time, and good call to my father who predicted I will want a smart phone when I return from Turkey, and much gratitude to Ann who dealt with my frustration and grouchiness with patience and kindness and finally apologies to Erika, who we had to skip all together.
All that being said, we did eventually make it to Relish Culinary school (http://relishculinary.com/) in Healdsberg for a Mozzarella making class I had read about. I was already in a bad mood when we arrived and the pace of the class didn't cheer me up. The teacher/chef seemed like a nice guy and I am sure he had to deal with all levels of expectations and experience, but the class was so slow! It wasn't even making cheese, it was taking cheese and shaping it. The idea was cool, the cheese was delicious, but the class was about 90 minutes too long for the information contained therein. (It was a three hour class.) We did learn that if you have mozzarella cheese curds you can very easily make fresh Mozzarella balls, or mozzarella wrapped other cheese, both of which are very tasty. The best part of the class was making the pizza in the outdoor oven, which Ann demonstrates below. I will give the guy credit for being aware of how frustrated I was and for asking what he could do to make my experience better. (I must have been pretty obvious.) But what could I say? Give me the last two hours of my life back? Learn how to teach a class to relatively intelligent adults? Of course I am pretty sure everyone else was having a good time, so it is clearly my attitude that needed adjustment. The good news is, I now know how to make mozzarella balls AND I know a place where I can get the fresh curds. The only downside is that it is in California. )-: http://www.milkpail.com/ started the same year I did!
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| We cooked our pizza's one at a time for 90 seconds in this wood oven just outside the teaching kitchen. |
Our way home was much less eventfull, thankfully, and we got to go back over the Golden Gate Bridge, through the city and home before dark. We did get one last treat, the driver of a near by car was playing his fugle horn? as he was driving. Before I knew what it was, I just thought someone had their music up really loud to be louder than our music with the windows rolled up. But when I looked over and saw him playing, I was astounded. I had the camera out already for the bridge shot, so Ann motioned to him to play again so she could get a picture of him. I tried to get in front of him at the toll plaza to pay his toll, but at the last minute he switched lanes and was no longer behind me.  |
| It didn't occur to me at the time that this wsa probobably dangerous. |
This day I went to see Katie Morgan and her kid, Ty. I was so glad to get to see them as we didn't overlap very many days while I was home. They were a bit jet lagged from their trip to Hawaii, but we still had a lovely lunch and chat while Ty was doing toddler things in the garden. I took pictures of Katie and Ty, but I can't seem to find them...
30 July: Tuesday
I don't have anything on my calendar for today, so I am not sure exactly what I did. I am pretty sure I spent the day hanging out with Ann, possibly buying more last minute things, pants? sweaters? shoes? I don't like shopping at all and shoping for clothes is really bad. Shopping for clothes out of season really is the third strike, but I can do it with moral support. The bonus about wearing sweaters, is I can wear a tshirt underneath and still be in dress code! We were actually able to find some sweaters for a reasonable price that I like and will wear, which was good.
1 August: Wednesday
I think the only reason I got on that plane was because I was going to the Olympics. I had a truely wonderful time in California. As you can tell if you have made it this far in this epic blog post, I saw lots of friends, ate lots of food, and did lots of fun things. There are many great things about living in California but the number one thing has to be how easy everything is. I am no usually one for taking the easy way out, and when I find that things are easy, I take it up a level. For me in Turkey that means buying cat food at the pet store instead of the grocery store. At home that means taking a cheese making class or learning to weld. I have learned many things living in Turkey, about my self more than anything else. I need a certain level of challenge and adventure in my life and I think I would rather not have language providing them.
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| I appreciated this, just after security, if they are going to make you dump/drink your water, the least they can do is give you the chance to fill it up again on the inside. |
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