Back at it Again

So thanks to facebook's memories function and Aunt Noelle's friendly reminder, I decided it would be cool to get back into using this blog as a means of sharing my life stuff with people I don't get to see regularly. This post will just be catching y'all up on what I'm doing these days.

I still work at Blue Bottle Coffee, as the lead barista at a busy cafe. I'm makin' coffee, teachin' other people how to make coffee, and trying to make coming to the cafe a good experience for people on both sides of the counter. Check out the store on instagram to see dozens of pictures of the cafe, plenty of them with me in them, taken by folks from all over the world. Scroll down a bit and there's a video of me pouring a capp and finishing with a winning smile.

Yizhen and I have been getting more into hiking and camping, trying to hit the trail every weekend and pitch a tent as often as we can. The redwood forests of the central and northern California coast are pretty magical places to be. Being surrounded by trees that were already huge when the first europeans arrived in north america, and will still be standing when my great grandchildren are zooming off to mars, is a pretty humbling and rejuvenating experience.

Right now I'm reading a few books. The first is a collection of three novellas by Jim Harrison, the dude who wrote Legends of the Fall. This book is called The Ancient Minstrel. Really good prose about country life and man living with nature type stuff. I'm also reading Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw and learning a little bit about computer programming.I read the Bible most days: today I'm contemplating 1 Thessalonians. Chapter 5 is full of thought provoking verses.

Musically, I've been really liking Malcolm Holcomb lately, he's a North Carolina songwriter who has a raspy Tom Waitsish voice and a cool percussive style of guitar playing. His album To Drink the Rain would appeal all all three of my readers, I think. I've also been listening to Grimes - Canadian, spastic, dreamy pop - and Mastadon - Atlanta, intricate heavy metal, cookie monster shouting.

Classes fer next semester

Hey everybody!

I got registered for classes yesterday, and I'm pretty pumped about my schedule. I've got Introductory Psychology, which should be interesting, and I think a few psych classes will be good for philosophizing about people's minds. Then I'm taking Basic Latin Grammar, because tons of important philosophical/theological texts were written in Latin right up until a few hundred years ago, and it'll elucidate lots of things in Spanish and English I'm sure. Also most graduate programs in Philosophy require reading proficiency in the language of your concentration, generally Latin, Greek, French or German. I'm gonna try to concentrate on Latin American philosophy, and I can already read in Spanish, but Latin will be cool and useful. Then I've got Intro to Spanish culture, with Profesora Kennedy, who I had for Spanish 102. She's awesome, and this will be the first class I'll take entirely in Spanish. Should be sweet. Then I have Philosophy of Religion, with Ronna Burger, the head of the Philosophy department here, so I'm excited about that. Finally I have Diversity of Life, which is an Evolutionary Biology class and the attached Lab. It'll fulfill my lab science requirement and I think it'll be cool. It's basically a class about cool plants and animals, I think/hope. I also want to pick up a Catholicism class, but for some reason regular college students like myself can't register for it until August. If it's still open in August I'll take that.

Just a week left classes now, then Easter, then finals. Hard to believe I'm almost halfway done with college. Pretty scary stuff.

Edit: I just registered for Readings in Spanish and Latin American Lit, too. Another class all in Spanish! I'm number four on the waitlist, but I figure if I just go to class anyway and assiduously endeavor to get in, I will. Everyone ahead of me on the list is probably a licentious libertine or a heretical innovator, probably with a vein of ignorance throbbing in their breast. (I've acquired some sweet new insults from my Islamic philosophy readings.) In that case I'll probably drop Psych and not try to take Catholicism.

Spring

Hey all,

Unlike Colorado, with all its snow and craziness on Saturday (in Denver at least, from what I heard), New Orleans is balmy and sticky and sweaty. A couple of weeks ago bushes all over uptown were covered, and by covered I mean that the leaves were barely visible, in gorgeous pink and white flowers. It stayed that way for about two weeks, and then last week's rainstorms knocked all the flowers down. It was like the ground was littered with tiny little pink and white dresses, all soaked and forlorn looking. It was pretty wild. But yeah, flowers are blooming all over the city, and it smells awesome all over.

School is getting insane, as is usual at the end of the semester. I'm preparing to write my final three papers of the year, and studying for exams. Classes end on Wednesday the 20th, which is suuuper early, so everybody is kind of freaking out. I'm not too freaked out. The cool thing about Philosophy and Spanish is that I haven't really had any super hard classes yet. All my homies in the sciences are drowning in despair over things like organic chemistry. I won't have to deal with much despair until later when I'm doing 600 level seminars on existentialism and 19th century Argentinian literature, or whatever.

I'm getting pumped up for Jazzfest, I think I'm gonna go the first day, April 29th. Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Mumford & Sons, and JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE (OMG OMG OMG!!!!!11@31231) are gonna be there, among tons of other great bands. Oh yeah, and if you don't know who JTE is you need to go watch this video right now. Great picker, fabulous songwriter, awesome singer, and he's only a couple years older than me. I'm super stoked for his show.

Anyway, hasta luego!

P.S. I had a pretty bad sinus infection last week. The doctor said I probably had strep too, but didn't feel the need to do the whole poke my throat with a huge q-tip till I gagged thing, because the meds he prescribed me for the sinus infection would knock out strep, too. By the 3rd day of antibiotics I felt much better, and now I'm back to 100%.

Midterm Madness

So it's that time of the year again: midterms. That pretty much means that I hang out in the library a loooot. I had three tests last week, all of which I'm pretty sure I nailed big time, and I've had a steady stream of papers ever since week one. I haven't had to write a philosophy paper yet, but five weeks into the semester I've already written five papers for Spanish Grammar and Writing. It's a pretty tough class, but it's definitely improving my Spanish.

I had a pretty rough cold last week, but I survived and I feel pretty good today. I've still got the cough going on, of course, and probably will for another week, but it's not bad. I don't have to carry around a bunch of kleenex anymore and on my three mile run today it only kind of felt like my lungs were going to explode.

Speaking of running, I went and watched two of my friends, Rachel and Lauren, finish a marathon this morning. Those chicks are badasses. 26 miles. It usually takes me about 7 or 8 runs to get that many miles in. The race atmosphere was really cool though, somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,000 people ran in the marathon or the 1/2, and they each had like five people cheering them on, so City Park was pretty crowded. It was a little taste of what Mardi Gras is gonna be like, which is only a couple of weeks away. Krewe du Vieux, the first cool parade, is next Saturday! This should be a fun few weeks. I'll keep y'all posted!

January rules in NOLA

Sup guys,

I'm aware that most of y'all are dealing with the snow and the cold and the horrible northern winters right now, and for that you have my deepest condolences. However, that's not gonna stop me from bragging about how awesome the weather's been down here for the last few weeks. Last week, on a particularly beautiful winter's day, I went outside in jeans and a t-shirt and fell asleep on the grass for a couple of hours. Today I wore shorts, even though it's been grey and rainy off and on all day. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've worn a coat in the last two weeks. After experiencing this January and meditating on Januaries past, I'm fairly certain that I could never experience another Colorado winter and die happy.

I went to a punk show last week, NOFX and Bouncing Souls headlined, and Cobra Skull and Old Man Markley opened. It was awesome. Definitely in my top five concerts. I dunno if it was the pleasant surprise of Old Man Markley's punk infused bluegrass to start off the night, Cobra Skull singing in Spanish about those imbeciles who wear Che t-shirts, the cute girl who agreed to come rage out with me, Fat Mike sipping multiple vodka cranberries from a cup holder on his mic stand while playing bass, a bemohawked girl throwing her arms around my neck while we sang Lean on Sheena, falling down, getting stepped on, getting elbowed all over, getting kicked in the mouth, or Greg Attonito laying on/in the crowd while he sang Anchors Aweigh. It was a sweet show.

Right now I'm sitting in the student center, doing homework, because it's been raining steadily for the past three hours and I forgot my umbrella. Hopefully it'll clear up sometime tonight, because I've got to get up super early tomorrow. (8:00)

So that's what's goin' on with me, I'll catch y'all later.

My new haircut

So the other day, Friday I believe, I went on down to Oak Street and got my hair cut by Bud, this super old dude who tells me WWII stories while he cuts my hair. It's a pretty cool shop, he say's he's been cuttin' hair in the same room since the 50s. It's got one of those swirly red and blue poles out front. So anyway, on this particular Friday I decided I wanted to try out a part. I thought "hey, I haven't actually, you know, combed my hair since I was like 11 years old. Maybe it'll look fresh." And man, does it ever.

When my dogg Kevin saw me he said something like "If you had a letterman jacket then you could totally take Stefany out for a milkshake and a drive-in movie in your cherry red convertible and it would be awesome." That's pretty much exactly the look I was going for. I need to start smoking so I can roll up the pack in my sleeve, and carry around a bandana for when my hands get dirty working on my little deuce coupe.

My classes are going swimmingly, I start work this week, and you'll all be pleasantly surprised to hear that I've gone over a week in New Orleans without getting drunk. Not many people can say that.

Baaack

Heeey kids.

It's been while, I've been drivin' all over the dang country. Nearly 4000 miles in the last 4 weeks! Man, I am sick of driving. Luckily I don't have to do it much for awhile.

So back on December 13 I drove up with my friend Elizabeth to Arkansaaaas. After kickin' her out in Little Rock I headed on up Petit Jean mountain to hang with the Blackman dudes. It was a fun time, really nice to just be able to hang out and chill without having to run around everywhere all the time like a chicken with my head cut off.

After hangin out there until a day or two after Christmas I drove up to Michigan and couch surfed and partied for a few days. Got to see my homies Martin and Bryan and meet all sorts of other crazy Michigan people. Saw Lake Michigan. It's really huge and, while I was there, really cold. Grand Rapids is a pretty cool city, felt kind of like a bigger Fort Collins.

I could only handle like six days of constant partying in the Michigan winter though, so then I headed back to Holyoke. It was pretty cool, about like I remember. Covered in snow, close to Nebraska. Had lots of fun playin' darts with Wilson.

I got back to NOLA on Saturday, and then spent the next day ferrying people back from the airport. It feels great to be back down here. Seriously, I love this place like crazy. Classes started yesterday, and all of my professors seem pretty ballin'. Both my Spanish professors are actually native speakers, de Uruguay y Cuba. It'll be a change of pace to not be taught by a gringa. Not that I don't like the gringas or anything, just sayin'. My Ancient Philosophy professor seems like a pretty awesome gal; History of Ethics is taught by a genius with one of those pleasant German accents, as opposed to the scary sounding ones; and Professor Welnak for Islamic Philosophy seems like I guy I could totally hang out with. He also seems to know what he's talking about, which is good.

So yeah, life's back to normal now. Keep it frosty, y'all.