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Ultimate Frisbee Tournament in Santa Cruz

We got there at 6:30AM to help set up the fields. We got to drive this off-roading golf cart around, so much fun!


Me throwing...


To Cassie!

Action Shot, Tosh (in black)

The whole team being silly

My family came to visit!

View from the fields ain't too shabby...

Halloween in Santa Cruz!

Pirate Ship Neighbors

Every year our neighbor goes all out making an epic pirate ship out of their house. These pictures do not do their amazing transformation justice.

Sharks!

Jack Sparrow himself!

The Hippie, The Punk, and the Weirdo

Youtube Videos

I'm famous! Just kidding. I posted some videos of my songs on youtube, though:

Break Away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fySBrCJS_po
A song written for my dad after he came home from a solo backpacking trip to Europe.

Hipster Hipster:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEa25ug-MOc
I wrote this with my friend Skyler about Hipsters, a particular genre of young person. Watch the video to learn more about the intricacies of the stereotype.

Creative Writing!!!

I was just accepted into the Creative Writing concentration! Now I'm a Literature Major with a concentration in Creative Writing. This means that instead of writing essays for my classes, I'll be writing stories! Also in the concentration we have much smaller class sizes and more individualized attention from our teachers and peers.

Here is a piece I submitted with my application. The prompt was "Tell us about the food you ate as a child." I stretched the truth a bit, Kimber was the one to actually invent Lemon Zest.

McConnell's Ice Cream

I am sitting in my mothers lap, a 3 year old naked baby, chocolate ice cream dripping down my body. I scoop it out of the pint with my hands, ready to lick the melting goodness. My expression is serious. I am concentrating. My mother looks to the side, laughing.

This photograph is framed in the office of the McConnell's Ice Cream factory, a place I know very well. Grandpa Jim bought the factory in 1963 and passed it down to Uncle Jimmy in 1999. I recall my grandmother picking me up from surf camp in my swimsuit and pretending to lock me in the freezer. Another time my dad and I slid down the conveyor belt that transports the dry supplies: enormous bags of chocolate chips, rainbow gumballs, macadamia nuts. The factory is a place of fun and enchantment, where mystifying machines combine cream, sugar, and milk – put out your cone and in comes fresh magic.

Ice cream unites my family. At any excuse for a get-together – the kid’s are starting school! It’s the dog’s birthday! – we gather at Grandpa’s house and stuff our faces with it: the sticky sweet gooey bits of liquid mint in the peppermint stick; the chunks of deep, delicious cocoa in my favorite, chocolate raspberry truffle; the tropical creamy texture of island coconut… I would gladly identify any flavor with my eyes closed.

Part of the family tradition is inventing a flavor. At 11-years-old, I stood before a huge metal cauldron of swirling flavor, on my tip-toes, nose barely peeking above the edge. Taste-testing after every minute alteration, I called: “A bit more sugar, Jimmy! A dollop of cream! Just a bit more zest! A little more tang!” Add a little magic, and I had invented a flavor: California Lemon Zest.

Nine years later, I now understand the science behind ice cream. This summer I took my campers on a field trip to the factory. I watched their wide-eyed wonder enviously, unable to recall the days when the mysterious ice cream factory was magic.

Monarch Butterflies on the milkweed next to my room

(At least I think it's milkweed, let me know if it's not or if you know what plant it is. Natalie?)

Protesting Tuition Hikes

Zombies paraded the streets and disrupted classrooms to spread information about the possibility of ANOTHER tuition hike. Here's a link to the City on a Hill Press story.

This is my zombie TA making a speech. A true activist, Brian represents the graduate students and travels to LA to the Board of Regent's meetings to voice his opinions.

Bike-powered microphone! Cool!

Faculty hosted a symbolic pie-eating contest, with The Regents (like the cook in the picture) giving big $$$ pies to "Executive Compensation" and "Yudof's Housing Budget" and little tiny ones to "Teaching Budget" and "Language Instructors."

Pie eating contest in action.

Another zombie with a clever sign: "I like my brains fully develluped"

There was also an article in the Sentinel about it.

Santa Cruz Sunrise

Harvest Festival at UCSC Farm!

We taste tested dozens of different apple varieties. MMMM

And took a farm tour! The farm is 25 acres, there is also a 3 acre garden.

And played with kids/goats

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere

And an apple press for making apple juice! So fresh. :)

Words of Wisdom

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." Oscar Wilde

My dad is living right now. He is so inspirational. Right now he is on a backpacking trip in Europe, by himself, hiking hut to hut.

If you haven't seen his blog, check it out: www.alpinebliss.blogspot.com

Hawaii: Lava

Another Hawaii highlight: Seeing lava flow into the ocean.

First we bypassed the tourists by tagging along with Nairei, a free-spirited woman who knew someone who lived in one of these houses. These lots are extremely cheap. Ten years go, lava flowed here.

We parked our cars and started walking across the lava. We had to cross a portion of forest, so we brought glowsticks and tied them to the trees as markers so we could find our way back.

After trudging along for 10 minutes, heat started to seep up beneath our feet. In the distance you can see steam rising from the cracks.

There's our team approaching the lava flow. From left to right, there's Jeni, Kimber, Chris, and Nairei. Chris is a local 17 year old. Nairei has lived here for 8 years, the first 7 spent living in a tent. A photographer, she makes cards that she sell at the weekly farmers markets.

Stepping across crackling lava was like hiking on another planet, a long-forgotten moon of Saturn. It is beautiful in an eerie way.

Then we reached the lava, and some brave (but stupid) people like me and Jeni went down to the beach to get a closer look. The water was warm.

This is what it looks like from the beach. You can see Chris walking towards it.

Notice all the smoke coming up from it!

Boatloads of tourists came by to view the unification of the four elements. If you think about it, that's what's happening here: fire, earth, water, air all coming together as the lava hits the water. My friend was telling me that the lava comes from the center of the earth. To be in its presence made me forget that I was a human; instead I was just part of the earth.



Chris was a little too close, if you ask me.

It got darker and the colors changed.



We watched for a long time.

Another flow opened up as we were leaving. We stumbled through the darkness with 2 flashlights for 5 people. We found our way back through the forest with the help of our glowstick trail markers.