Sing From the Mountaintops: Hello from a Californian...

I think I just ate some bad pistachios. Okay yeah I'm sure of it. Bummer. I'm sitting in Old Town Coffee & Chocolate drinking some cold coffee and eating some delicious baby carrots. Sounds like a bad combination, I know, but it's actually quite pleasing. There is a beautiful man who works at this coffee shop with the bluest eyes I've ever seen. He looks like this actor I'm sure you've heard of but I can't remember that guy's name or anything that he's in. Anyway, he's not here right now so it doesn't really matter. That was just an aside.

The reason I write today, dear friends, is to update those who care on my current status way out here on the Pacific. My other goal was to upload some pictures of my new home but I seem to have forgotten my camera, yet somehow I remebered to bring the data cable. hmm. Anyway, I have a few pictures of Zoe that I'll include so you can see the absolute adorableness (if that's not a word, it should be) that I get to hang out with all the time and then a few shots of the trip back out here since Eagle miserably failed to digitially capture America the first time around and I was too busy driving my little heart out last week to do it on the way home. But, Martina came through and there are some truly beautiful shots. Anyway, enough of that. Onward!

I started class at College of the Redwoods on Tuesday. I'm taking Environmental Geology and Intro to Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The first one's a bit sophomoric, as in, sophomores in high school would laugh at its ease. We spent the first week going over the scientific method and how to derive percentages. This is, word for word, one of my homework questions for Tuesday: If the US has a population of 300 million and the world population is 6.7 billion, what percentage of the world population is the US (hint: divide the US population by the world population and multiply by 100). I'm thinking.....is this a joke? Yes, it certainly is. But I think once we get off of scientific method and simple division and multiplication it'll be pretty interesting. I don't know a thing about geology. My GIS class is a little more complex and college-level, whatever that means nowadays, which is great. Bad thing about it is it's a night class, from 5:30 to 8 so once the year goes on it'll be dark when I get out. I don't know how I feel about that. I made a map last night and it was pretty sweet-Amelia Earhart's Last Flight. I've also gotten a work-study job at the college farm for 20 hours a week at $7.50 an hour so I should be starting out there soon. The sooner the better, cause this little cowgirl hasn't got any money! And the bills are a startin' to creep up. My loan won't come through until a month from now, I'm told. September will be tight, to say the least. But I'm not worrying. What's the point of that?! Nothin'! I still haven't heard anything about the park but I'll be seeing Jason this weekend sometime so I'll check in on that. I could definitely use the extra cash that would provide. Enough about money.

Well since I'm not working right now and I've only got two classes, what the heck am I up to?? Not a whole lot. I watched Zoe on Monday and yesterday afternoon as well. Tuesday I ran around all day at school tryin' to get stuff worked out. Oh, yeah I almost forgot about this: I got my truck stuck in some sand and the farmer who gave me a job had to pull me out. It looked deceivingly like you could drive on it, you know, all packed down and stuff- and I was just trying to turn around cause I had taken a wrong turn- anyway, after I released a few choice words I tried digging myself out and putting some boards under my tires but I'm just not good at that kind of thing so I had to walk a mile to this farm. And that's the end of that story. It's pretty funny. I wasn't really worried about it at the time. It's so strange how everything goes so much more smoothly when you just step back and breathe and say to yourself, "there's nothing more I can do about this; I'm not going to worry" and then let it roll.

Alright that's about all I've got on my first day of school. Wednesday I didn't do anything. I cleaned at home and just kind of sat around all day and got a bunch of business taken care of as far as my old phone, getting a driver's license here, paying some bills. Today I just had to get out of the house so after I dropped Zoe off at her friend's house I cut my hair (no worries, only a trim!), bathed, babied my bike, and zipped on down here to the coffee shop so I could sit and not really do anything in a different place. Ha! The logic. Supposedly a game of ultimate frisbee is going down this weekend but I don't know when. There's a pretty sweet bluegrass band playing on Sunday at noon in Arcata at the I Street Block Party - Check them out: www.myspace.com/thebuckywalters- I think that link works. Just search for them on myspace if it doesn't.

All in all this place is workin' out all right for me. I haven't really met any people to hang out with yet but I've only been here for a week and you can't expect everything to just come flyin' at you right away. I actually enjoy all this alone time I have-it's nice to just chill and read or ride or do whatever I want. So, kids. I'm doing well. But I still miss you all terribly. Come visit?

Picture time, picture time. I'm tired of writing. All you need to know: I'm alive and breathing properly and there is a beautiful pidgeon outside the window. Man he's a fat one.

Peace!

Zoe and the Garden