she's got a new attitude!

good morning! i'm feeling about a billion times better today, and i just wanted to let everyone know that although my past few posts have been fairly bleak i'm still as smiley and giggly as ever.

so, here is a list of this week from the flip side:

MONDAY: i worked on math with one of my favorite people.
TUESDAY: i took a super satisfying nap.
WEDNESDAY: i passed my second set of cume exams! only two more to go! i also received loads of fantastic mail from friends and newly befriended strangers.


today: i'm going to pass this organic chemistry exam and draw comix when i get home.

hooray! feeling good!

love,
kelly

my week so far.

MONDAY: i forgot my keys, and i replied to credit card spam and thus had to cancel my card.

TUESDAY: i suffered from a debilitating allergy attack, rendering me useless all day long.

WEDNESDAY: i caught my pedal on the curb and fell off my bike skinning my knee and scrapping up my hands.

dear god i fear thursday!

holy allergies.

yup, all day my nose was running like a faucet. i am so tired from constant sneezing and sniffling that i can't even focus on a little chemistry now that i am finally home. it's scary being so sick that you are virtually incapacitated. i did an amazing job of just ignoring it though.

here is what i did today:

1. cooked delightful breakfast.
2. rode my bike to school, FAST!
3. sniffled through class.
4. zoomed off campus by 1:30, woohoo!
5. ran around working on a mail project for friends in another country.
6. hung out in line at the post office for a decade. (it was a really quite pleasant decade)
7. installed some toe clips on the pedals of my bicycle.
8. ate some chocolate because i was bummed about being sniffly.
9. took a well-deserved nap.
10. cooked a lame dinner because my farm box (CSA that friends and i were getting weekly veggies from) ended and the farmer's market is tomorrow.
10.5. read one of the new zines i bought up in SF
11. drank tasty tea.
12. tried to start working.
13. started this post instead.


yup. things i'm thankful for today:

down to earth people who help me with my bicycle, and that don't treat me like a stupid person.

thanks bike church

good night!

Why My Life Is Amazing, by kelly peach

lets start at the top!

1. i finished the last set of exams i have to take in this first quarter, thus leaving me footloose and fancy-free.

2. first thing i did after finishing the exam (aside from drinking a glass of champagne with laura) was jump on my bicycle for a camping trip with my new favorite friend, mike millz. i was completely unaware that we were going to be climbing a mountain (empire grade for all you santa cruz savvy folks) on our bicycles with all our camping gear, so it was pretty intense. the crew that rode up with us was full of really rad new folks to meet too. so far i've met a sewing buddy, polo pals, movie makers, music makers, and more!

we all watched the sunset over the ocean (something santa cruz's bay rarely makes possible) while hanging out on a really beautiful outcropping of rock. i couldn't remember the last time i really felt like i was in the 'great outdoors', which is sad and disappointing. so, this was a wonderful refuge from 'the office'. ha.

3. camping was fantastic. my sleeping bag was still pretty playafied, and the damp dew in the morning definitely cleared up all the dust it was smothered in. apparently there was a meteor shower too. i felt like i missed most of the meteors, but there were enough shooting stars to make me giggle. more champagne too. hooray for celebrating.

4. in the morning we rode to the coast and took highway 1 home. it demystified that strip of concrete, which will hopefully encourage me to do more longer bike trips in the future. plus, the ocean is unbeatable. i feel so lucky everyday i catch a glimpse of that gurgling monster!

5. bike polo! last week a bunch of folks showed atop a parking structure for polo and it was a total blast. the brake set-up on the bike i was riding forced me to play right handed (and i'm a lefty), but i figured it out after a few games. i really want to push a regular polo game here, it's such a perfect combination of goofy without losing the potential for a really good competitive match. i love it.

6. the monterey bay aquarium topped off my weekend. a bunch of us went for FREE late sunday and it was amazing, as always. the cool thing about this visit was that we were almost completely alone. as predicted i sat with my eyeballs glued on the jellyfish the whole time. i even got to do a little sketching!

7. thanksgiving! joe took burnsy and me in last minute for his feast. it was a really exciting bustling cooking environment. at one point the oven was belching huge scary flames! at other times it was just full of nice smelling desserts. good friends + fantastic food + fire = fun.

8. i bought stuff on buy nothing day. go ahead, tell me i'm a bad person. i know.

9. burnsy, peter, and i ate cake.

10. i found the san francisco zine shop! i dropped off my zine and next week i'm going to check back with them and see if they would be interested in selling it. that would be a really fun adventure. i also bought a bunch of different zines to fill up the space between now and portland. burnsy may have gotten impatient.

11. bookstore! maybe someday i will read for fun again...

12. tasty meals all day long! cooking for yourself is silly when on vacation.

13. the city! what a beautiful place with too much for one gal's eyeballs to absorb. i love the graffiti. i love the victorians. i love the hills! i love the city hall.

14. bicycling in a foreign city! now that i travel my bicycle i always have a delightful sense of freedom and mobility. it makes me wonder how i explored cities without my bike...plus, there are loads of pretty bicycles to gawk at. pretty fixies everywhere!

15. art! can't wait to make some. i collected a lot of resources this weekend, which is awesome. multi-tonal stencils here i come!

that's good!

love,
kelly

whoa.

i just sat down at my favorite, generally delightful coffee shop only to be sandwiched between two people talking obnoxiously loud on their cell phones. whoa.

anyhow, this week has been total insanity. here are the highlights:

1. crazy hippies have set up shop high atop the redwood tree directly outside my building on campus. the tree is in the middle of a rather unsightly parking lot that the school has decided to tear down. in place of the current pavement paradise they are going to build a rad biomedical building! this makes the tree huggers hella pissed because that means they have to cut down that one tree in the middle of the lot. the tree sitters were fenced into the parking lot by cops. their angry hippie friends pushed through the temporary barricade to give them food. the whole front line was shot in the face with mace. then about a million more cops came with big beating sticks and beat down a few students who were being really crazy and dangerous.
aside from all the violent madness the fire alarm was repeatedly pulled in my building. lucky for me all that meant was escape from a rather dull seminar. unfortunately, however, this resulted in our building being put on serious lock-down for an undisclosed about of time. security guards man the doors, both inside and out, 24 hours a day. even the coffee cart was closed down today. insanity! luckily i just got a new set of keys 3 days before all this happened, so i am free to roam the eerily empty halls all i want.

2. the professor i really want to work for asked me to present on a paper for group meeting tomorrow, which, according to everyone i've asked, basically means he wants me in his lab. woo hoo! unfortunately the paper is almost entirely biochemistry, a course i've never taken before. not to mention the fact that the one and only biology course i ever took was over 8 years ago! so, these papers are about as easy as reading french.

ps. i never took french.

3. i love riding my bicycle. i've just recently tightened the headset on my lovely french road bike, which has unexpectedly enabled me learn how to ride no hands. at first i was all wobbly bits, but now i am so good i am starting to coast down big hills. it's the closest to flying i've ever felt in my whole life. especially with all the foggy days we've been having. nothing but huge heavy clouds of mist to fly through everywhere i turn!

ps. dad i promise i'm always careful.

4. all i do all day long is read chemistry papers. i have another (the second of 12 potential exams) cume exam next weekend. these exams entail a rigorous reading of 12 papers chosen by 3 different profs. the exams are 2 hours long on saturdays. lame. wait, Lame with a capital L.

5. i passed my first set of cumes! if i pass 3 more i don't have to take them ever again! hoo haa!

6. today sucked so i went shopping. weird.

7. i'm going to start another fabulous free fun scheme after cumes. it's similar to breakfast on bridges (a cool event that happens in portland), in the sense that i will be giving away treats to bicyclists to show my support for their choice to ride their bike. BUT, instead of giving away coffee and pastries i'll be giving away pie! we'll be called the "pie pedalers!" ha ha ha. i crack myself up.

8. i met a fantastic man on a tall bike a few weeks ago and sent him my tall bike zine. just this week he replied via snail mail with an AMAZING letter. i hope he will be my pie-pedaler-partner.

9. life feels extreme lately. i'm either extremely cheerful and happy. or extremely annoyed and concerned i've made an incorrect life choice. graduate school is all consuming and that bums me out. i need to hang out with non-students. pronto. last week i was so stressed out i pinched a nerve in my back (again!). i had to go to the health center and get a crazy shot to the hip to stop the pain. then they gave me a bunch of muscle relaxers and sent me home with the advice that i chill the fuck out. that kind of stuff freaks me out. when my body is so tense that it results in extraordinary pain somethings wrong. unfortunately there isn't much i can do about it. i have 21 credits, 4 classes to teach, cumes to study for, and i need to feed myself too! all those commitments chomp up every last hour of the day.

excluding, of course, the time i screw around on the computer or write letters to my buddies!

rant finished! sorry team.

other stuff: santa cruz is a really sweet place to live. once i meet all my new slew of bicycle buddies i'll be snug like a bug in a rug here. hopefully this pie scheme will help!

hoorah!

action shot

business
Originally uploaded by kellypeach

here's me in my new place. i am in this position or one similar for about 2-12 hours a day now that i'm back in school. i've been grading, reading chemistry articles, working on homework, planning lesson plans, and more non-stop. it's finally starting to feel normal again.

i had no idea how much time grad school would actually be. it's really impressive to me. i have, however, chosen to go the 'organic' track, which requires way more work than any of the other chemistry fields here at santa cruz. but, within the next year (hopefully) this photo will be coupled with a shot of me in all my scuba gear in a really warm and beautiful place. hooray for natural products!

this weekend i went to my first ever 'stripper party' for jinsoo's 30th birthday party. it was SUPER hilarious. and SUPER expensive. i am impressed with how little the scantily clad lady had to do to make over $500 in less than an hour. makes me think i should switch my career path! ha.

did i mention that the high temperature for santa cruz today is 82 degrees. it's nothing but blue skies and blinding sun outside. the trees are still full of leaves and i'm starting to believe i live in the bahamas or something. i forgot that it was fall yesterday. i was talking about how nice this summer is and someone said, "kelly, it's november." out of control.

to be honest i kind of miss the rain. it's strange to make soup and drink tea (some of my favorite fall activities) when it's 85 degrees and sunny outside.