Notes from Bodega Bay: Part I

“We’re so far away from everything!”

It’s the first day of our Marine Biology Quarter (MBQ) here in alternately sunny and foggy Bodega Bay. The housing isn’t quite what we’d hoped (no internet at the dorms) and we’re way way out on the UC Reserve on a spit of land far away from even the town of Bodega Bay itself (pop. 940), but the research building(s) are right on the coast, and there are deer napping right outside the library windows, so I guess you could say that it isn’t all bad. It seems to be one of those places where you just have to love being in natural surroundings. Don’t get me wrong, the landscape is beautiful out here, if in a bleak kind of way.

We had a couple of orientations about and around the facilities this morning, and unloaded the lab equipment from the vans after lunch, but aside from that we’re free until we meet up with the professors again at 7.30pm. One of our professors looks like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus were perhaps a grubby Vietnam vet. The other one wears his pants very high and has a slight stoop. They’ve been teaching together since 1982 apparently, and I have yet to figure out if this is a good thing or not.

Don’t get me wrong, this quarter will probably be a nice change for me – I am, after all, always complaining about Los Angeles. Still, while thoughts of daily runs along the bay and biking the 1.5 miles to class through pretty coastal scrubland sound idyllic at best, I already feel more isolated than peaceful.

I’m exhausted for no reason. The 5 hours on my new computer battery and the comfy chairs in the library tempt me to stay all afternoon and relax, just like the deer sitting in the scrub outside.

Post-Thailand Post

I've just finished this ridiculously long post-program survey for the Thailand program (only 1 week late!), and although I was lovely and loquacious for most of it, I thought you all might enjoy the slightly tired, slightly snarky slide show I had to put together. The general theme was "Demonstrate, with photos or video, your Academic, Social, and Personal learning." Or something like that.



It's late and I'd go to bed but it's Thursday night in Westwood which means the drunk parade will be shouting outside my window for quite a bit longer. Just the other night some dumb people decided to have an impromptu late night bonfire, made of cardboard boxes and various pieces of discarded street furniture. I heard the strange noise through my open window, and deciding that it wasn't rain (too much of a point sound source) and not smelling the smoke yet I wondered, "Why the hell is someone rolling around in bubble wrap?!" such was the snap-crackle-pop of the event. Your mind makes strange conclusions too when it's tired, I'm sure. Eventually, though, the smoke drifted through the window, and I was reminded of Christmas and Wintery things while the firetrucks rolled up, bleeping and flashing their lights. Ah, the smell of summer, or at least stupidity.

I shall be quite glad to move out of the more populated side of Westwood, when that time comes in about a week. My other ongoing gripes about LA aside, it's noisy, dirty, and quite shoddy. Parking's a nightmare, homeless people rummage through the recycling bins, brown water comes out of our faucets in the morning, and we have cockroaches in our kitchen. Stylish student digs, indeed!