417

Work has started to pick up here, partially due to the sudden realization of deadlines not vanishing just because you didn't think of them, and partially because this last week has been filled with start of term events, information meetings, and meetings with people who work here (who I'm talking to to try to get a feel for how my and their research fit into the big picture of things). The weekend was spent in SF with some new friends, I tagged along with a group of new international grad students and did the tourist thing again. If you're proactive, there is no problem at all finding things to do around here. For the coming week or two I think I will mainly focus on getting a bit more ink on paper though. The update frequency of this blog will most likely suffer, but I will try to at least haul my camera with me when I venture out for some vitamin D fixes in my new shades. 417? The number of steps you have to climb to get from campus to LBL building 50B. Don't worry, there are also lots and lots of hills without steps, a brisk 30 minute walk if you start at the south-west end of campus. Today's illustrations include a funny traffic sign, a really big bridge, a few shots of the SF skyline, Pier 39 (a tourist area in Fisherman's Wharf in SF, the guy with the bushes makes his living from sitting there and jumping out scaring tourists), a few shots of campus (recruitment stands and fliers everywhere), some of the steps I walked to get to work after an early lunch at campus, and one of the natives.

Welcome week

While the term officially started last week, this week is the first week of classroom instruction, and thus also the first week where the majority of the students can be found on campus. In the US, undergrads, or undergraduate students, are students who have not yet received any degrees. The most common path on college here is to first go for a Bachelor's degree, which in many cases is required to move on to grad school, or graduate school (Master's degree or doctorates). Most Bachelor's degree programs are four years, and students are called (after the year they are in) Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior, or as I like to call them young, young, young, and young. As undergrads make up about 75 percent of the Cal student body, they are also the most visible group on campus. At least I'm not the only one walking around looking confused. Anyway, back to the topic. This is the first week of classroom instruction, and also Welcome week. Welcome week is basically just the first week (which this year is three days due to budget cuts, as a professor half-joked yesterday) of the fall semester where all the student organizations organize welcome events and parties. Or as some like to call it, free food events. Here are some pictures from a Christian group's welcome show (music, skits, inspirational talks, and free Korean BBQ), a couple of groups practicing drumming on campus, and the golden bear statue outside of the Bear's Lair.

Work

From now on I'll probably blog a little less frequently. I've settled in at LBNL, got all accounts set up and have started working. It's amazing how much there is to do around here you want to. If I wanted, I could probably spend all my time here just attending the presentations, meetings, and seminars that magically appear in my schedule here. In addition to that, today I attended a couple of mandatory information meetings for international visitors, and learned (in addition to how to get a social security number, Californian driver's license, VISA extensions, etc.) that UCB offers over 7000 classes a year, all of which I'm welcome to audit if the teacher allows it. Don't worry boss, I won't, not more than one, or two at the most. But I'm settling in at work. And actually getting some work done as well. Impressingly much actually, considering how hot it is outside! And inside. Really hot! Summer has finally arrived someone said, after a long cold spring. I didn't respond as I was too busy crawling around looking for water. Really hot! A few illustrations; normal foggy day, non-foggy painfully hot day, and an Eucalyptus tree that I included just because I felt like it. All seen from the LBNL cafeteria parking lot.

Service

I've mentioned the exceptional service you get in stores here before, but thought I'd illustrate it a bit. Yesterday, a woman repeatedly apologized to me for not being able to find me any shoes I liked. I'm fairly certain that would not have happened in Sweden after trying about 15 pairs on and buying flip-flops. Today, when scouting headphones, I ended up talking to a guy working in Radio shack. He lead off the conversation with "don't buy those, they're crap" and followed up with "I'm sorry, but I don't think we got anything for you" after I said wanted something better than the cheapest ones. Honesty, also not really that expected (he had about 4 models he saw I considered). I'm starting to see how people can get addicted to shopping here. If you walk into a store feeling lonely you'll have a new best friend within minutes. At least in the right stores (that nameless guy singing along to the reggae tune in the sports store was a few yards beyond creepy). Service here is exceptional, and most often also honest, direct, and professional. With the obvious exception of walking into a car retailer wearing college gear, the reception you get when shopping is close to amazing. I hate shopping, and yet I see how people can get addicted to it here. Might be why shopping is considered a hobby, or even a lifestyle, here. Weirdness. But in some strange way, understandable.

I need a hobby

I need a hobby. This realization have hit me before, but having a little extra time on my hands (without access to my usual distractions) have put the topic into focus over here. Without one, I'll end up either working too much or with serious TV withdrawals around Christmas. So far I've mainly entertained myself by walking around and discovering the area, which is fun but also starting to wear on me. Today started out quite cold, or what would be described as chilly with a high humidity in northern Europe. Imagine an early fishing trip in the mountains the morning after a rainy night and you'll get the idea. Anyway, seizing the opportunity to wear my incredibly nerdy hoodie in public, I did what I've done quite a few times now and took a stroll around town. The local Brazilian sandwich stand celebrated its ten-year anniversary with a street party. The Hawaiian BBQ joint grilled me some mightily good sesame seed bagels. Staples (a chain of office and school supply stores) sold me some headphones. And after lunch the sun came out, like clockwork, and scorched me to the point of going back indoors again. After picking up yet another box of fresh strawberries of course. It was a great day, but the rest of it has been spent reading and watching TV. I need a hobby. Any suggestions?

Work work work

Today I saw the inside of LBNL (the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or just "the lab") for the first time. To be honest I wasn't sure what to expect, except yellow warning signs cautioning people about wet floors and some bureaucratic overhead before I got my pass (neither of which failed to disappoint). I guess I have been looking forward to this for quite a while and have tried to reset my expectations the last couple of days. Given how much I managed to annoy myself with the noise from the coffee room in my last office back at UmU, I probably should be a bit worried about sharing a cubicle with a printer (which I can't print to). And I'll admit, at first I was a bit, I am physically located under the printer after all (no earthquakes please :-). But after giving it some thought, I have reached the conclusion that Berkeley is all about the people. To grossly oversimplify things, one could phrase it like "in Sweden people are expensive and housing cheap, and in Berkeley it's the other way around". It's not entirely true, and full of trade-offs, of course, but Berkeley is still all about the people. The entire city is full of really cool people that dress, express themselves, live, study, and work exactly how they feel like. Earlier today I ate lunch next to a wall full of pictures of Nobel laureates, and when fetching some Chinese food for dinner I passed a woman who dressed like she just stepped off the set of Fame (the 80's movie, not the new adaption). It feels really good to be in an environment which is bubbling with ideas. Here are a couple of pictures illustrating the fact that half of the people on campus speak Chinese, the fog, the LBNL shuttle buses, and the sign in the hallway that reminds me why I'm here. :-)

Eeeeeeearthquaaaaaaaaake

I'll start off by defusing the headline, there has not been a big earthquake here since I got here. But that being said, that does not mean that there has not been any earthquakes in the Bay Area. In fact, by lunch today, there had been more than 50 earthquakes in the Bay Area just this week (since Monday, the week starts with Sunday here)... That is close to one per hour. The Bay Area is a seismically active area, and smaller earthquakes are quite common. Small is a relative term of course, none of the ones I've seen tracked this week has scored over 2.0 on the Richter scale, and as can be seen on the map below, most have hit further north. But for an seismically inactive area that would be quite a lot, if memory serves the one that hit Umeå last year was about 3.4? A better measurement might be this; since I got here there has been at least a couple hundred earthquakes and I can't honestly say I've noticed any of them. Ground shaking news? Not really. Map courtesy of the US Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program.

Ps. Tomorrow is my first official day of work over here, looking forward to it! :-)

IKEA strikes again

It's an interesting phenomenon, how cues from our surrounding affect our language. I hitched a ride with a friend of a roommate to IKEA today, and inadvertently studied the phenomenon. Admittedly I was a bit sleepy as I woke way too early today, and had a hard time getting back to never never land to the tunes of garbage collection, but I still attribute speaking Swedish to being surrounded by a familiar environment and all the signs. Being in IKEA is the same regardless of continent, in fact it looks so much the same that hearing English spoken feels out of place. And it is always humorous to hear Americans pronounce the name of the bed frame "Fjellse", even if the song of the day was "I'm sorry, that is out of stock Sir". Guess I should have gone for the cheap single bed frame a little bit earlier than two days before the start of the college fall semester. Ah well, at least I got an apple cutter. The true beauty of IKEA. The on ramp in the background is the the Cypress Street Viaduct to Interstate 880 by the way. If you have seen aftermath imagery of the big earthquake of 1989, you may recall an on ramp to the Bay Bridge being shattered. It looks quite different now, having been remodeled for better seismic tolerances, but I think it's the same one. I included the picture as I thought it was pretty cool with an IKEA lined with palm trees though. Good stuff. :-)

Europe vs the US

Last night I was talking to a house guest and we ended up talking about differences between Europe and the US. Being new here, lots of things about the US and California seem strange to the point of absurd to me. But I like it, at least experiencing them. I'll be the first to admit that I look humorous when I once again forget to look twice for cars that legally get to turn in intersections despite having red lights. If pedestrians didn't have the right of way here, I'd probably been served up as roadkill by now. But there are also differences here that make me wince. Homelessness is a real problem here. I'm not sure how much this is an effect of the current economic recession, the recent subprime housing scandal, or just that the California climate and social benefit system are survivable. Probably a unique combination of all factors in each case. I'm aware that there are homeless people in Europe as well, but I'm not used to being confronted with it at this level. Hmm, I'm getting off topic here. Anyway, the discussion turned to what is better on each continent. My first thought about what was better with the US was the spirit of ambition here. Europeans mock it as it sometimes takes absurd expressions (and it's fun), but seriously, it is something almost palpable here. People work to make it happen, invest time and effort, and follow their dreams. Sure, it might be more common around a world-class university and the capital of the IT revolution, but it is really inspiring. Which is a large part of why I'm here. But today I realized once again what really is better here. Much much better. TV. It's just ridiculously much better. Take the best shows you've seen on European TV, multiply their number by 10, and air them back to back in 5 different languages on 500 channels. Even the commercials are better. Commercials here are researched, budgeted, themed, shot, and targeted in superior ways. Sure, most of them build on faulty premises and attempt to create artificial needs, but they're just better. Even less annoying! Unfortunately, the products are not. Ah well, can't have it all I guess. At least I can drop into the couch and channel surf a couple of hours if my back goes out. Not very inspiring though. Luckily other things are.

The Cheese Board Pizza Collective

Starting from downtown Berkeley and wandering north on Shattuck Avenue will after a couple of blocks get yourself into an area colloquially named "The Gourmet Ghetto". This area is filled with restaurants and food-related shops, and home to such classic establishments as Chez Panisse, the first Peet's Coffee, and of course, The Cheese Board Pizza Collective. The Cheese Board Pizza Collective is a cheese shop, bakery, and pizza place cooperatively owned by the employees that specializes in a serving pizza in their own way. Actually, the collective runs two businesses door to door, the first being the cheese shop and bakery (which currently seems to be under reconstruction), and the other the more recently (early nineties) opened pizza place. So what makes the collective famous, apart from being one of the establishments that helped name the area? Well, the collective has a unique philosophy on how to do business. They expand through helping form new collectives rather than opening more shops, are only open a few hours around lunch and dinner a day, have Jazz musicians or a DJ playing in the pizza shop, serve only a single, vegetarian pizza type a day, and often have unique pizzas celebrating occasions from around the world. Today's pizza honored India's independence day, and was topped with curried roasted potatoes, onions, mozzarella and feta cheese, garlic olive oil, key limes, cilantro. Pizzas are available in slices ($2.50) or whole pizzas ($20), and a long line outside the collective, as well as people sitting all around the place eating pizza, are common sights. Do they live up to the hype? Yes, very much so. I threw in a few pictures of yesterday's meals as well, in a vain attempt to fool the casual observer that I do eat a few healthy meals every once in a while as well.

Fooooood

Food food food. I've touched on this topic before, but it's worth revisiting again. Having too much time on my hands, I often find myself trading the local monopoly money for bagels, sushi, and other delicious energy sources while walking around town. It's actually way too easy to find something to eat here, and cheap too. Restaurants are everywhere, and if you're not in the mood for a full meal, fresh delicacies such as fruit smoothies, yogurts, and berries are readily available on pretty much every street corner downtown. Usually draped in sugar. Originally I chose "quater in die" as a quip at the blog's update frequency, but I'm starting to realize that it's actually an underestimation of how often I end up eating over here. Sure, my eating habits are likely to normalize next week when I start working and get back into my routine again, but the fact that today was the first day I cooked since I got here speaks volumes. I move around a lot, walking and running, but I'm starting to doubt it's humanly possible to burn all the calories I'm consuming. It's not all bad though. The fruit selection in the local grocery store is quite impressive, and is complemented by a full wall of trail mixes and nuts. Apparently the season for fresh blackberries and strawberries is close to 12 months long here (as if I needed another reason for loving the climate), and I'm dropping about $3-4 a day in that jar. But yes, most of it is as bad you'd expect. As an illustration, here are some pictures of the delicious sushi rolls ($2.95) I've mentioned, a very interesting orange-flavored chicken ($5.65), and the bad-ass California Club bagel ($5.25) I enjoyed earlier today. So go ahead, start the betting pool on how much weight I'll gain before Christmas, if you haven't already. And put me down for 4 kg. 3 if I find a closer running trail.

Home sweet home

Recent comparative studies indicate that assembling IKEA furniture is equally annoying and energy-consuming on both sides of the Atlantic. On the bright side, now that I have two pieces of furniture, I officially have a home here. Ok, so it coincided with an official statement to the US authorities that I have entered the country and settled on a residential address, but still. After having assembled a dresser (with the standard 17 extra pieces being left over) for nearly two solid hours, I'm calling it home. I guess you could say that the reality of waking up in California in the mornings is starting to set in. Without counting the new personal record I set for jet lag semi-coma, I've been here a little over a week now, and it's starting to get long enough for all the quirky details to start to feel a bit more familiar. Foggy weather, non-native palm trees, weird door knobs, delicious bagels, even more delicious and cheap Sushi, green groves mixed with concrete, homeless people begging next to Porsches, and martial arts dojos run like businesses. Home. Yesterday a latino dressed like he was about to step into a gangster rap video very politely asked me for a cigarette, and the thing that surprised me was that he smoked. Home. There are so many contrasts here that you can get dizzy just by watching the scenery. A little bit of everything seems to be designed to stick out. When talking about my efforts towards bettering my conversational English I was advised to try to keep my Swedish accent, as it was original. Home. I can see why some people consider California, and the Bay Area in particular, to be something of another planet. It's weird. I know I just got here, and haven't even started my work yet, but it actually does feel like home. A different home. A weird, alternative home, but a home. Home weird home. Home sweet home. At least for now. Oh yes, as I didn't feel like lugging a camera around to capture my day today, this post is illustrated by the instrument of my torture. Devised and manufactured by the big yellow and blue. Enjoy.

The city by the bay

Bad ideas come in many forms, and not often without company. Running on concrete, running in unknown residential areas, and of course being stubborn enough to keep running until you find your way home. All good ways to generate sore backs and stiff legs. So what better way to get back on track than to take a day to walk through the most hilly city available? San Francisco is a fantastic city in many ways. Personally, I'm still most fascinated by the fog and the effect it has on the climate in the Bay Area, but if you're interested in history, culture, alternative culture, fine dining, music, or almost anything else, the city by the bay has something for you. For my legs today, it certainly had all the steep hills and streets I needed to forget all about my back (and focus on my brand new leg pains). It is also quite confusing to freeze and sweat at the same time.





It's like the rest of California (the parts I have seen anyway, which admittedly is a quite limited selection), incredibly green and undulated. When it comes to city layout, architecture, and landscaping, I find that I really like being surprised every now and then. And SF will do that to you. You're walking yet another hill, swearing, grunting, and cursing whatever shoe salesperson has appeared in you personal history, and all of a sudden you find a vertically (un)challenged garden.


Also, big bridges. Good stuff. Sorry about the golden gate being fogged in, but the bay bridge looks nice, doesn't it?


In case you would like to do the tourist thing in SF, the obvious place to start is Fisherman's Wharf. Once there, you will be able to take pictures of motives like sea lions (well, some kind of large amphibious mammal I'm unable to classify from ocular inspection), the bay city silhouette, an old and cult classic prison, and the crabs that people fish (for fun) from the pier. Please note at this point that I successfully resisted purchasing a t-shirt embroidered "Alcatraz swim team" despite multiple opportunities.




Finally, what would California be without sweet sweet rides?