current events

It occurs to me after having left a comment on someone else’s politically charged blog entry that I haven’t written anything even remotely polemical in my blog lately. I definitely used to write more about my thoughts on current issues. I wonder where that all has gone. It’s not that I’ve become apathetic; really, I think it’s the opposite. Am I afraid of alienating people? That’s ridiculous, because I pride myself on being able to say what I believe. So… what’s going on here? Is my blog becoming just one of many “here’s what I did today”-type journals? I must think about this.

In other news, here’s what I did today… just kidding. One thing you may notice about me if you spend a lot of time with me is that my sense of humor has degenerated steadily in the past couple of years. I blame it on Erik: his elaborate drawn-out puns, his willingness to laugh with me at sometimes very stupid things. Together we will become only more and more unfunny. On the one hand, we only have more and more fun because more stuff becomes funny. But on the other hand our poor kids will suffer greatly. Someone with a biting sarcastic wit will need to take them in during the summers, a sort of enrichment program. Okay that was random.

I’m not going to work today because I suddenly realized the semester is over on Saturday and I said I’d do some transcribing at ROHO before I left, and now I only have a few hours. That is not, not good at all.

The last week has been fun, and I intended to write multiple long journal entries detailing these fun times. But now I’m not sure if that will happen. So I will write multiple short paragraphs instead.

Last Thursday I had my last meeting with Kerwin (Prof Klein) and that made me sad. His mentorship and friendship has been important to me this year and I will miss him very much. He’s taught me more about studying history than anyone else in the past four years. Also, his unfailingly gorgeous apparel (before you ask, no, he’s not gay) has permanently corrupted my own shopping habits. After my meeting with Kerwin I watched Mean Girls with Dana, Margaret, Jennifer and Menzies. I thought it was hysterical and absolutely worth $7.50.

On Friday I baked all morning and then went to my printing class potluck at Peter’s studio. Best party I’ve been to in a long long time. We made wonderful food and beautiful art. People brought their families, so I got to meet the coolest twelve year old ever (besides my own sister) and the cutest four year old (besides my cousin Albert). I will miss the people in that class, but we made a beautiful hand printed short book! Pictures of the party here. If you want to see the book, ask me. [I’ve re-uploaded a small selection of the party photos, below.]

P5140001.Stacking the papers

P5140007.Leah punching holes

P5140025.The table

P5140039.The Koch Studio Art Show

Saturday and Sunday Erik and I were in San Diego for the Third Annual Undergraduate Research Conference, hosted by the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD. I was presenting my thesis and Erik was my moral support and partner in adventure. The conference was a lot of fun, I met cool people, got great feedback on my research, and I learned a lot. Since the topic was immigration, it was a nice break from my usual historical (as opposed to current) dabbling. My presentation went well considering I didn’t prepare until I was on the plane that morning. I was running of five hours of sleep, too, since I’d had the printing party the night before. Don’t let me do that in the future. Preplanning is good, yes it is. I took pictures of San Diego that you can see here. [I’ve re-uploaded a small selection.]

P5150017.Tree

P5160041.Cliff

P5160043.Grass and sea

P5160050.Lisa on the shore

P5160059.Erik profile

P5160081.Lisa climbing

P5160089.Twobugs

The CCIS people took photos of the conference itself, but they’re not on their webpage yet. But let’s share anyway. Click

From Carmen-group

From Carmen-me

Sunday was also Margaret’s birthday. In the morning she ran seven miles in the Bay to Breakers, and I am so proud of her! So I took her out to dinner that night at À Côté and we stuffed ourselves on pommes frites. Nice place, big portions and reasonable prices.

Yesterday Margaret and I did some shopping in San Francisco for graduation. We both got funky tights and cute shoes to wear under our graduation gowns, and I got some nifty eyebrow stuff too. After I went home, I had to say bye to Tina, which was sad but we will keep in touch. Tina’s going to China next year for study abroad so even if I were still at Berkeley I wouldn’t be able to see her. After hanging out with Tina I went to Margaret’s apt and she made me this fabulous and humongous dinner with Korean rice rolls (like sushi but nothing raw), Korean pancakes, and noodles. Then we had melon bars and strawberry cheesecake. She had to roll me home. Well, almost. I took pictures of the rolls but I don’t have time to upload and edit the pictures now.

So that’s my quick update. Next time expect more photos and deeper thoughts as the next time I update will probably be after my graduation!

[This post was imported on 4/10/14 from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]