[ edmondchang.com ]

DECEMBER. I cannot believe that the year is almost over. They say that as you get older your sense of time passing seems to speed up. All I know is that I barely remember this year going by. I mean I am sure I did all sorts of things. But right now I don’t have the wherewithal to summon them up. I guess I will have to wait till I write up my yearly “101 Things I Did Last Year” posts. The last three months have been a blur. I think it has something to do with the fact that I’ve been trying to work on my dissertation and having little success at it. Because my dissertation is on my mind, because it hasn’t been going well, it is just a huge psychic sink. Time, thought, life, energy, and even a little hope just get lost down that drain. I am hoping that the new year will bring some new inspiration and motivation. Better yet: I wish for my dissertation to be done next year.

Meanwhile, I have stayed busy otherwise. Grad life, teaching, life-life are also vying for my attention and devotion. I have been busier this quarter than I have been in past quarters, I think. Even though, technically, I have more time to myself since I don’t have classwork. It’s all give and take. I gain time by being out of classes but I spend that time doing things like committee work, teaching work, or socializing.

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to San Francisco. Greg and I left on Wednesday really early in the morning. And we got back late last night. The purpose of the trip was to get away for a few days, to spend the holidays down in the Bay Area, to see my sister, and to meet up with my father. I had been hounding my father to have a little family reunion this year. My sister and I haven’t seen him face to face in a long while. I think it should become a tradition of ours to meet up once a year. Pick a city. Meet in that city. See each other. Catch up. That sort of thing. Part of the reason why we don’t meet up is because both my sister and I are grad students caught up in the grad vortext. Part of the reason is because it’s just darned expensive to travel these days. And part of the reason is because my stepmother really just doesn’t go out of her way (and hence my father’s way by default) to accommodate us. But this year my sister and I managed to get my father to take a trip out West. Of course, instead of just flying to Seattle or SF to see us, he books a tour of California. Originally, the tour would take him through San Francisco the days around Christmas. So, I planned my trip down to coincide with his trip. Alas, because of wintry East Coast weather and other snafus, his tour got shifted around. So, I got to see Alenda and Brian. And he’ll catch up with my sister later, closer to New Year’s.

It was a jam packed trip, and I always like going to SF. Greg and I flew out of Seattle at like 6:40 AM, got into SFO two hours later, got picked up by Alenda and Brian. We went to walk around the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building. Then we visited Coit Tower and saw the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill. It was awesome (and meant more to me after seeing the documentary). Then we met up with my sister and her boyfriend’s friend John-Mark for lunch at Park Chow. Then we drove over the Golden Gate to go to the top of Mount Tamalpais, to walk around Muir Beach, and to have a drink at the Pelican Inn’s pub. Then we headed back to The City. They dropped us off at our hotel, the Hotel Triton, of course. Greg and I had a wash-up and a rest. Then we bussed down to the Castro, had a burrito, and then went out drinking. It was nearly 2 AM by the time we got back to the hotel to crash. We had been up for almost twenty-four hours. Can you say tired?

Wednesday was Christmas Eve. We got up at a leisurely time, had a quick bite to eat, and then BARTed over to Berkeley. My sister took us grocery shopping at the famed Berkeley Bowl. Then I spent most of the afternoon making dinner: citrus-fennel roast turkey, horseradish mashed potatoes, mushroom stuffing, oven-roasted brussel sprouts and beets, homemade cranberry sauce, and sauteed kale. We hung out with some of my sister’s grad school friends. Ate. Drank. Played PS3. It was a fun night.

Thursday, Christmas Day, Greg and I got up and checked out of the hotel. We headed over to my sister’s place. We hung out a little, ate some leftovers, and then decided to go see a movie. We watched Avatar (in 3D). It was entertaining. Full of issues (mainly that its narrative isn’t really anything new: cowboys and indians, Heart of Darkness, going native, colonization, racism, imperialism, sci-fi Others, and so on). And interesting to think about in terms of telepresence technology, embodiment, and all that jazz. After the movie, we tried to find a Chinese restaurant to eat at in the South Bay. The first restaurant we went to was totally busy and crazy and kind of ignored us. Then we decided on a nearby (slightly dodgy) restaurant called Fat Wong’s. Dinner was okay. Afterward, they took us to the airport, we got on a plane, and got back into the Seattle area around 1:30 AM.

Here are some photos from the first day in San Francisco. Ferry Building. Then Coit Tower. Then lunch.

Then we hiked around Mount Tamalpais.

Then we went to Muir Beach.

Here are some pictures from getting dinner ready on Christmas Eve.

Now I am ready to recover from my vacation.

More soon.