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| ...to my new apartment!  
I live in Grand Terrace, which is at the base of Blue Mountain. It used to be blue in the spring from a flower that grows all over it, sadly, now it's all brown... I hiked to the top once (left pic), from where I can see my apt and my office building. From my apt, Blue Mountain is prominently in the skyline (right pic).
 
My apartment is in a pretty nice location, right next to the pool, clubhouse, fitness center, and laundry room. pretty sweet deal. My apartment is the second floor one in the right pic. on the apt website, a whole bunch of the pictures have my apt in it, so i guess it must be a good spot right? 
 
Here's my balcony, and the staircase up to my door! when i moved in, they painted me a free accent wall. I picked an "exciting" color, but i'm not sure whether it actually looks like the color of poo... *I* still like it.
 
My living room... you may have seen something similar in an IKEA showroom  . Yep... i'm pretty shameless with the ikea stuff. see i'm not actually cool enough to look for real cool furniture, and ikea is cool stuff for dummies... you just go and you can buy anything and it'll be pretty cool and it'll match with everything else.
 
kitchen and dining room. it's really nice having my own kitchen for the first time! and i really like my dining room table and chairs. the table expands, and the leaves are stored right in the table... really clever. i tried to design a similar thing for a caltech class, but my design was really awful. go ikea. you win.
 
here's the hallway to the bathroom and the bedroom. i'll forgo the bathroom pictures . i have a nice big closet. now i have two distinct sections: the work side, and the non-work side, and i hardly wear the "normal" clothes anymore.
 
bedroom. i've adapted my multipurpose ex-bunk-bed-ladder into a tie and belt rack (it used to be a towel holder). [pats self on back]
 
and finally, bedroom window and balcony. not too shabby right? 
come visit! | | |
| my car (turning 5 soon!) hit 20,000 miles today, exactly when i got home from work. i had the urge to go out and randomly drive tonight. yes kids, there comes a time in your life when you become so domesticated that the most exciting thing you can think of is to just drive somewhere for no good reason. ok maybe not really, but i just wanted to anyways. tonight, I wanted to drive up to the top of Box Springs Mountain, and see the view of the city below. sure on google maps it looked easy and pretty close: a mere 7 miles one way. but en route it was realized that the road was closed for construction, and this being a mountain, the only other way was all the way on the other side. also, i had not studied the alternative route before i left. i was lost, a mere 10 minutes into the journey. nevertheless, i decided to press on, without returning home for directions. 2 hours and 45 miles later, i was on my way back home, victorious. somehow. i may have felt smugly ecstatic the moment that i found my destination. but now that i've studied the map and my questionable route, i realize that i really had no idea what i was doing. i was pretty much completely wrong about where i was and where i was going the whole time. it's extraordinary that there were several places where if i had made a different turn, i would have been completely gone. and so... the mountain was ok... couldn't really drive to the top and couldn't really see most of the city below. a foolish venture, with gas prices and staying up too late (although not as foolish as the ruddock small group finals hikes). but regardless, it made for a memorable evening. and even tho i proved to myself that i could brute force it on my own, i probably would prefer a better way next time 
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| ok, i'll be honest. i've been waiting a long time to use this song. jon foreman wrote it on his twenty fourth birthday (and i'm writing about it on MY twenty fourth birthday!) twenty four. it feels vaguely monumental. it feels like the edge between youth and adulthood. when I was little, I used to wonder how kids became adults. not in terms of height or physical maturity, but in way of thinking, living habits, likes and interests, responsibility. adults seemed so different from what I was. when and how does the switch flip, that I would become like that. well it is happening now. more and more, i could see and understand how my parents became who they were, from someone more like me. maybe many years down the road, life will be stable and unchanging. but it certainly isn't yet. right now i'm in this turbulent estuary between im- and -maturity, and every day brings change to my life, and to me. Life is not what I thought it was, twenty four hours ago.
and I am not who I thought I was, twenty four hours ago.
I'd say I'm doing a relatively good job as an adult. i'm at a good place professionally. i've got a wide range of life skills. i've got great friends, in many places across the country. i can take care of myself pretty well. but underneath every thing that i'm good at, hides a thing that i am bad at. i'm still twenty four failures away from being that adult that i imagined when i was little.
Twenty four reasons to admit that I'm wrong
With all my excuses still twenty four strong i'm not big on authority figures and seeking help. attempts at mentoring me have been made, and appearances have been maintained to a believable level. but make no mistake, I dwell and thrive on self-sufficiency and competence, and the first place I turn to has always been myself. for the most part, it's worked out pretty well. but while I've been able to keep a good grip on the more mundane aspects of life, my self-reliance has not been healthy. the Bible warns against trying to stand on your own. and its words are wise, much wiser than me. I've now realized that self-reliance is a wily way of copping out. it's easier. dependence has a weighty price: uncertainty, vulnerability, fear, and pain. self-reliance is the path of least resistance, but a sly and slippery one: the more I depend on myself, the less I become capable of turning to others. a faustian cancer with a gilded surface, while the fractures spread beneath. I don't think i've ever "had it together" as much as I do now. and yet perhaps i am more fragmented than i have ever been. the price that self-reliance exacts. Twenty four voices
With twenty four hearts
With all of my symphonies
In twenty four parts Twenty four. I want to be one today. Centered and true. Not copping out. Let that be what it will take for me to become who I thought I would be. Spirit take me up in arms with You. Raise the dead in me | | |
| i remember seeing this comic about the DMV, where there's a sign on the wall that says "9 pieces of ID required, plus one document you didn't bring". wow how true. i went to the DMV today to get driver's license and vehicle registration. I brought EVERYTHING i could think of, including gas bill and apartment lease! and i STILL was asked for something (passport apparently!) which i not only didn't have with me, but was in my office. so i had to go home, get my badge, go to work, and get it. and even then, i was still missing a smog test (for my SULEV - super low emissions vehicle). and after an entire morning which i had prepared for all week, i still failed to get my registration. in "real life", too often little things take a long time and a lot of effort and are hard to get done. the DMV for instance, won't be open on saturdays again for another 3 weeks. every weekend now, i've had fantasies of all the chores and tasks i could achieve, and have consistently failed. miserably. aiya. and i got my first paycheck! it's really scary how much gets taken by taxes, fees, 401k contributions, etc. dang i'm talking about all the things i rolled my eyes at when i was a student. i'm continuing the queue of lemmings jumping into a cliche. i started cooking again! here's a lovely golden toasted french baguette topped with melted mozarella cheese... 
...plus an extra 40 minutes in the oven. | | |
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