Boring new school post.

I started school and everything is new and I don't feel too stressed out yet. This is partially due to the fact that I decided to limit my work load, which was partially due to the fact that I hadn't realized how involved my teaching responsibilities were going to be.

Whats really nice is that I already feel like I have a home at the school. I have office space complete with two huge metal desks pushed together in front of a frosted window and a crappy wooden chair with a chartreuse velveteen chair pad, and some bookshelves. It is huge and on the 9th floor adjacent to the planetarium. Everyone is very warm, in fact I feel most times that I am the one who is the most cold and reserved. I am shy because I am straining to try not to feel intimidated by all the brilliant people and research I see around me -- its hard to see them as peers but I'm getting there.

So far everything is tenable, although tomorrow whose to say? That's my current philosophy. This weekend is going to be swallowed up with preparing for my first week of lectures, (preparing notes and making hand-outs). I had been told that I would be conducting a discussion section but after meeting with the professor I was told that the structure and composition of the class merit an "old school" resuscitation section where I do a pared down lecture on the sticky points and allow for more questions and participation than can be permitted during the large impersonal lecture. This also means at least for this term, (I'll be doing this same course all year), that I will be required to show up for lectures for the class. I found out that it wasn't the Air Pollution course like I had thought but instead is the general meteorology course. I would have been happy with either of these but maybe this course will help me cement the basics. I've had a tendency to flub them up when I am flustered lately.

Home

Sharin came to visit and she had a car so we went to the San Gabriel Valley and I got to see where I grew up for the first time since I left.

The view from my front yard.

My house is transformed and is going for 2200/mo.

It wasn't quite as much of a powerful experience than I had expected it to be. The man that lives in the house saw us walking around the cul-de-sac. He came out and asked us what we were doing. He said he almost called the cops.

On friday I went to graduate orientation and I found out that I am T.A.ing a class on air pollution for three terms. This is great news, I was fearing that I would be saddled with a class I wasn't prepared for. I have T.A. training on Monday.

It rained last night and it shut down the city. It was only half an inch but it was enough to cause black-outs and mudslides. I discovered that when rain hits my apartment it sounds like i'm in a tin can. I spent the night reading about cloud seeding and cloud physics. The book was originally published in the early 1960s and it gives a lot of mention to Kurt Vonnegut's brother who was a pioneer in silver dioxide ground based cloud seeders.

I'm back from Northern California and I had tons of fun. I love my friends up there so much. We went bike camping in Sonole and there was tons of old oak trees and huge hills. Everything was perfect.

Yesterday on my way back to Los Angeles I just sat and stared out the window and tried to make sense out of the geography. Subdivisions a hundred miles north of Los Angeles. Brown hills increasingly denuded southward. My friend Jill told me that Wanda Coleman, an author and L.A. resident, calls Los Angeles "the pit of hell". A bit dramatic, but it seems fitting sometimes. Everything is so hopelessly disordered and the progress and public awakening I can see as feasible in other cities becomes unfathomable here. Urban design as a form of planning, something that raises the collective quality of life... is anathema to what L.A. is. It is even arguable that it is impossible for only the logistic reasons related to infrastructure, but still somehow it retains its appeal to me. It rewards my patience - a two hour commute home from a show, five months without a drop of precipitation. The arrival of the bus and the raindrop. A cloudy day, a kind open stranger, a new friend... all unexpected some due to the simple facts of location others due to the sometimes ubiquitous shallow consumer culture and the weight of 20 some million lost souls.

Upon waking up this morning I received a present in the form of a forecast from the NWS forecast:

Tues: 73 cloudy
Wed: 72 cloudy
Thurs: 67 rain?
Fri: 67 rain?
Sat: 67 rain?

This is unheard of for this time of year. Strange. The rain will probably amount to nothing. Even still the temperature is very anomalous for the season. Just minutes after reading this I heard a story on the radio about how a key indicator of a La nina year, a tongue of cool water protruding westward of the coast of Peru, was observed alongside a one degree drop throughout the eastern Pacific has signaled the likeliness of yet another drought year along with another potentially horrendous fire season. Hopefully the drought not as bad as last year, which was the worst on record. Combined with the recent court rulings that have decreased some water withdrawals from critical environmental areas, real conservation efforts may be necessary.

The unseasonably cool weather in addition to all the orientations, meetings, and workshops will probably send my head spinning as soon as I have the time to process them. I'm excited to be at a time in my life when there is so much to look forward to and there are so many clean starts to make.

worries

Happy patriot day everyone! Lets celebrate jingoism, a deepening collective amnesia and miniature car mounted U.S. flags! Enough about that though.
My preoccupation with environmental degradation has led me to some conclusions. I have gotten to the point where I am confident we are on a crab-walk towards self destruction as a species. The question that remains is whether or not we will take all other biota on the planet with us. Dramatic? Yes, but truthful. Every species goes through this cycle and human history doubtlessly will be a short one in a geologic context. What now weighs heavily on my mind is nuclear war and waste. I do not have faith that we have the knowledge or the willingness to responsibly deal with nuclear power/weaponry.

So for me, nukes are where it's at right now. Every other worry I might have pales in comparison. It's too bad that it is one issue where individuals are largely powerless. Perhaps I will take this as a cue and become more frivolous in my thoughts.

I leave for the bay area in two days. I have been eating horribly lately. Grease and sugar do not make for slender hips.

I think I'm channeling Dr. Bronner

I can't wake up early anymore. I made a first attempt at seven, back to bed at nine... woke up at two to hear a man's voice fill the court yard in a short punctuated, "tone it and bone it". Laughed a little, made some coffee, and read more of "The World Without Us". It's so nice to be able to be so leisurely. It helps having nothing but a cd-clock-radio and a laptop to distract me. It's amazing how people can be so occupied by doing nothing at all if given enough toys and errands to run. I really like having little, little apartment, little things, little to do. I'm making a conscious effort to enjoy the feeling while I can. In two weeks I will be immersed in a busy world of tackling new, complicated and hopefully interesting topics. Grad school and all the dedication it might demand of me and a long term plan coming to fruition. It all adds up to make me almost feel spoiled... I feel as if I'm getting everything I want lately. Well... leave it to me to find guilt in there.

Anyhow... the amount of free time i'm sitting on gives me a lot of time to think and read up on things. Like how in Norway they're banning claims by any car manufacturers of "clean", "green" or "environmentally friendly" cars. It's dishonest in part because it gives people a feeling that somehow these lesser evils are somehow helping to counteract damage done by other cars and trucks when in fact the only claim these corporation should be able to make would be comparative to other cars. Now is not the time to be smug and complacent because you dropped down a few extra thousand for your Honda. It is encouraging to see a more centered and realistic approach being taken at a time when greenwashing seems to be in full swing everywhere. It's not so much that everyone and everything needs to be perfect starting right now... that's unattainable and unrealistic, however if we all could just see the effect of our daily actions in more tangible terms -- even if we all continue to go about our days unchecked -- we would still manage to ground ourselves in the reality of what it means to live where we do when we do.

A good example is plastic. I will doubtlessly continue to accumulate plastic bags to some extent despite half-hearted attempts to the contrary. I will throw my garbage away in these plastic bags and every time I do I think of the plastic polymers that will someday enter the biosphere, the marine ecosystem, the animals that will ingest them the small piece of havoc I create. I am aware even though I continue to do so. The point is not to change all your actions as much as it is to be able to fess up to them and understand your place in all of it. Personally, I aim towards lessening the damage I own, but I am also beginning to realize it as a symptom of being human. Maybe then the goal is to become less-human? The argument could be made but it is nothing more than an exercise. We are highly conscious creatures, with the ability to think, plan and regret. These qualities can make us innovative, while at the same time lending towards destructive acts and excess. Yes, that is all human and that is all we have at our disposal to bring lessen the guilt we all must feel for the damage we cause to other organisms, (people included).

It would make sense to believe we can be happy this way. The first step might be by really truly understanding your place in the world, then being able to accept it and then being able to love it--the world in all of its flaws and complexities. That might be my goal in life. To really feel that in myself.

This is honest but the cynic in me says, (not audibly), that I sound new age and that I am a pretentious fuck and that I sound like I'm trying to sound like I'm so fucking enlightened... blah, blah, blah. I'm just thinking aloud, (or rather silently through keystroke).

Yesterday was my last day! I will no longer wax poetic about serving coffee too fifteen year olds with nose jobs and cranky rich people. Last night after work I went out for sake and sushi with one of the servers from my work, following that we went to see, "The Eleventh Hour". As much as I can see almost the entirety of the celebrity environmentalists as shallow and short sighted, the film was actually great. It didn't try to give people too much hope and what it did give was honest. It actually made me feel better than I have been about the state of the world.

That and I've been reading this book called The World without Us, which basically describes what would happen to the planet if every person on earth were to die tonight. The process which nature would take back cities, the geochemistry behind decomposition of synthesized materials, the continuing breakdown of plastics in our oceans, and what lasting artifacts we would leave behind and what plants and animals would take our place. This is one of the first popular works I've ever seen that actually makes the point that anthropogenic (people-caused) environmental change has an inertia to it. Nearly one hundred years from today we would still be causing minor reverberations in natural systems due to our activity following the industrial revolution. Even one thousand years from today there would be minor reverberations.

There will never be the sort of return to Eden, rocket to the moon, zero impact hydrogen panacea that many hope for but that's okay. The conversation today should focus around planning, mitigation, and personal responsibility. The last point here is the most important but also the most far-fetched. People are fucking lazy and they are happy being miserable as long as they maintain buying power to shop recreationally, wants become needs as long as your wants are accessible and people are selfish and lazy and that's okay. Despite the fact that attempts by movie stars to address shit like this bothers me, I enjoyed it. It tried to criticize consumerism, bravo 4-stars. Also Thom Hartman was in it, he was great.

short update

Second to last day of work is today. There will be no mylar balloons for me tomorrow. I will come in the next day to pick up my check. The weather seems to have let up a little for the time being. I woke up without an alarm at ten and there was a nice breeze blowing through the blinds. A total of 14 people died due to the heat wave. 14.

It is official so it seems. September is here and the last days of summer are here. I am going to have a ton of shit coming up in the next few weeks... mostly fun stuff though. I am going to quit work (6 more days, I am in the midst of working a nine day streak, [overtime??]). Mariel is going to come to visit (9 days). Jill and two friends are going to stay with me while they go to a queer women of color conference (7 days). I am going to take a bus to san francisco to hang out with friends (12 days). The day after I get back from the bay area Sharin is coming to visit (16 days). Right after she leaves I have an appointment with my advisor and I have to go to a campus wide workshop for teaching assistants. School starts and then it will all be over. My first weekend of school I am going camping with a bunch of other grad students from the department somewhere on the ventura county coast. I am happy to make the most out of these last days. If all goes to plan my life will be about 99% school oriented for the next two years at least so I might as well.

I am kind of obsessed with impending natural disasters lately, whether it is ecological collapse and large scale flooding from global warming (see: Flood Maps), the potential for tropical cyclones in southern california, or the imminent event on the eastern extent of the san andreas which will likely reduce the los angeles basin to rubble. Just when I though I had heard it all I was talking to my ex-boyfriend on the phone and we were having our normal geeky conversation when he started talking about the New Madrid Fault. My mind is blown. The fault runs along the mississippi basin. Yes, and it's centered right over Memphis. There was a large event in 1812 that rang church bells in Boston. The thing about an intercontinental fault line like New Madrid is that the event could be felt throughout the continental plate (easily 90% of the continental U.S., whereas Pacific coast earthquakes take place on smaller plates and hence have more of a localized extent. To make matters even more pseudo apocalyptic there is no infrastructure to manage such an event in the areas that would be most affected. Lots of old houses with basements.

It is a very interesting time to be alive if only for the fact that we as humans can surmise on the unexpected more than ever before. Environmental changes that are perceivable, anthropogenically forced and quantifiable. There is some pretty horrid shit masquerading as environmentalism these days. It's pretty awful. The worst would have to be this carbon capture technology bullshit that has been hinted at throughout the media lately. At best it is still in its most nascent of stages at worst it is just a shiny distraction and a window of opportunity for a new coal boom. From the mouth of George Bush we receive new phrases like, "clean coal technology". China and India are both on the brink of an industrial revolution, (India more so), and the only major hurdle to a complete and total transformation aside from cultural factors is increased power production. Both india and China are building coal plants at breakneck speed. Clearances are even being made for new coal plants in the U.S. and U.K. (goodbye Kyoto, what a commitment!). The greenwashing has already began, the plants are being put online and the technology to make them "green" is always forthcoming. Forget emissions from combustion for a moment. What about extraction what about the carbon reserves that are released from extraction alone?! The new coal plants are being rushed into completion while a cooperative government is still a guarantee. Guilianni is already making the media circuit telling the American people that, "we need to increase our reliance on coal".

It is all horribly irresponsible and short-sighted. Oh well what effect does two hundred more coal plants have on the world really? It's amazing to me that the same attitude that disables individuals from taking personal responsibility for their lifestyle choices can be effective on such a large scale. What difference can one nation of only 300 million make while India and China are just beginning to catch up. Just a drop in the bucket... I wonder how long we can disable ourselves from making any sort of significant progress? Will I be an old and grey muttering angrily about Leonardo DiCaprio's private jet. I hope not.