knowitallgirl

It's raining in the Bay Area, which as one of my professors put it today, is the equivalent of six feet of snow falling in Chicago. Everything grinds to a halt in California, as we slip and slide across the highways and into one another. I mistakenly took Muni today to avoid the rain, emerging nearly forty minutes later at Civic Center. While on the J, a gentleman sat down in the seat in front of me who was completely bald except for his eyebrows and a goatee. As I was zoning out, my eyes settled on the back of his left ear, which had what looked like a sac of spider eggs attached to it -- small, fuzzy, white. I took a deep breath. Wisely, before I started freaking out, I realized it must be soapsuds, leftover from his morning shower. This must be why our mothers always told us to wash behind our ears.

Legitimate Peripheral Participation

Per one of my professors, I must attempt to use the phrase 'legitimate peripheral participation' in conversation this week in order to prove that I'm a Berkeley grad student. Hmmm.

"Why Deneb, your apprenticeship with Dominatrix Deelicious on the finer points of using riding crops for humiliation and profit is a fine example of legitimate peripheral participation!"

Neb - happy anniversary!

Off The Hook

Happy belated 30th to the drunk of the week! Isn't he cute?

I've been hanging on to this quote for months, and tonight's the night to finally post it: "The subordination of women is brought about by countless small acts." - Dr. Benjamin Spock, on work and family, in "Baby and Child Care"

Finally

Yes, yes I know. It's my seventh week of school and somehow in those fifty some-odd days I haven't found any time to do an update. Pathetic, yes, but I am getting my ass kicked. Rest assured that the California taxpayers are getting their money's worth out of me - I am a reading, note-taking machine. I could go on and on about what I'm learning, but rest assured, you truly do not wish to know how search engines *really* work, or how it is you can find anything in an online database. I do enjoy discussing how cell phones are changing society, but you probably know that yourself.

One thing I've been trying to spend some time on besides school is the upcoming election, and after weighing my options I decided to sign up to be a poll worker in San Francisco on November 2nd. I figured one way to truly understand how the system works would be to work an election firsthand, so from 6am to 8pm on election day I'll be manning a polling place here in the Castro. I'm curious to see how my own perceptions will change after election day, but I can tell you thusfar after attending my training session (as well as two panels now on the possible perils of e-voting) that:

• San Francisco uses optical scanning machines, which are reputed to be one of the best systems in use today
• Touch screen voting should make you nervous, if not out and out terrify you, and thankfully our somewhat disgraced Secretary of State forced all the California machines to be recertified
• SF calls their optical scanning machine "The Eagle"
• My fellow pollworkers are an insanely diverse bunch of folks, some of whom scare me. More on that one after the election.

Last Saturday I managed to tear myself away from homework for a few hours to enjoy the end of our summer (October is sooooooo wonderful in SF) and Neb and I took a brief hike around the Marin Headlands. As it happened, it was also Fleet Week (or in this case, Fleet Saturday) and the not-the-Blue-Angels (I think it was a Canadian regiment) were pulling off some mad crazy aerobatics above the bay. The shot below sadly doesn't capture any of the planes, but you can see the massive numbers of boats on the bay that day to catch the show (and some contrails in the sky, says Deneb).