I'm afraid that I do not have much to report from the Bay Area. I’ve just had finals so I didn’t really do much for weeks except sit hunched at a desk pouring over anatomy, psychology and chemistry books. I did really well (I got straight A’s), but seriously, I cannot continue to work that hard. I must get a life! I still have a lot of pre-requisite courses to complete (physiology, physics and biology) but I actually begin the history and fundamentals of Chinese medicine next quarter so I'm really excited about that. Not quite so excited about the prospect of learning medical Chinese. It will still be a while before I do any points and even longer before I'm let loose on the general public with needles: still knowing my tendency towards 'near-disaster' perhaps that's for the best.
David came up from LA for three days at the end of February and we had a lovely time wandering and NOT thinking about school at all! He thought San Francisco was 'the bridge' and that would pretty much about be it: so he was very pleasantly surprised. It's a very small city, 49 square miles, somewhat akin to the size of a park for us 'Larnderners' used to a whopping 650 square miles of city to explore, but it's very accessible, quite diverse and very pretty. I think he's a bit fed up with LA and the fast-paced sprawl. How does the song go? "LA is a great big freeway?”
David basking in the warm February sunshine on Chrissy Fields.
Someone kindly left a comfortable chair, pouffe and drinks table.
It was very strange waking up yesterday realizing that I had nothing to do. Well, nothing pressing at least. I still have to sort out a bank account which is pretty shameful considering I wrote that over 3 months ago. So care-free and without a thought of bones, muscles or cell mitosis in my head (which is unfortunately exactly where those thoughts have been for most of the term), I wandered into town for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. I think you only have to have been there on holiday to count as a paddy here. So having an Irish-American father and some great-grandparents makes me as good as born there.
One of the wonderful things about being abroad is that one loses one’s shame, among other things. So here you are…a picture from yesterday’s parade (me and the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsome).
