530. Annals of the Random Day Syndrome (abbreviated as RDS)

Definition: A Random Day or Random Event is an unexpected day or event that occurs within a more predicted course of action as constructed by the author's mind, that brings a sense of pleasant surprise. Though these events are tiny affairs in the grand scheme of life, they bring such a sense of delight that they are worth documenting!

June 5, 2010 ~ I wake up to noises next door, which turns out to be a yard sale held by Lily (counselor at UCSB), Dr. Bearman (ran for office locally), Benji, and Sam. It was the first time in my three years of living on Hillview Drive I ever was able to directly and personally interact with the family. Before it was distant hellos. I ended up buying a brand new anatomy set for Dr. Jen Jen (physical therapist now)... a cooler that can carry rock crabs... a giant crayola coloring pencil set $3! a brand new orange beanie (flaming orange!) some tie dye socks personally made by Sam $1 and a beanie dinosaur brown $1, who doesn't go near Mr. Bun because he's a giant herbiverous stegasaurus...

(Maybe one day in a future blog I can discuss a brief personal and collective history of yard sales and gleaners... especially through my Aunt Jean and Uncle Chuck in Corona...) (I should also make a collection of blogs that document super-crazy random days in my life)

June 11, 2010 ~ Today and yesterday have been excellent, yet very overwhelming days! First of all, within just ONE day, I was approached by two professors for teaching-like positions: one of them is potentially TAing Environmental Studies 1 (I think), and the other position revolves around helping design an upper-division undergraduate course in marine environmental history... which my brain is already buzzing with ideas.... I have come to realize that my "academic life" is not moving forward, simply because I have not been TAing... I need one course under my belt, at least! I was thinking how fishing and teaching were one and the same: if you give a man a fish, his belly will be full for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he will have food for a lifetime. If you teach students, they will be full for the day, or the quarter. If you teach students how to teach themselves, they will feed themselves with knowledge for a lifetime. And then there's a lot less work for the teacher... he he he... and that's the point. Less work for me, watching student be their own energizer bunnies... I hear Dennis Divins (my scuba diving instructor) echoing in the back of my head--he really emphasized that I need to express my enthusiasm (for nearly everything) to students; undergraduates need this kind of exposure. The issue is, nothing is set in stone, so don't think too much about it. I just consider this an amazing compliment... I'm thankful for even being asked...

The day before the Younglab at Bren had a superb gathering at Oran's house (which has a view of Santa Barbara and the ocean!). Everyone was in great spirits, and we had a chance to talk a lot more than the more rigid confinements of a restaurant, like the Beachside Cafe. I remember a fond moment when I asked a whole table of graduate students (all natural-social science mix), that if there were an eighth continent on Planet Earth that we had an opportunity to colonize, and if biologists, earth scientists, and environmental scientists had the ability to draw the political boundaries, where would they draw them? And me and my father's arguments were based on physical barriers (mountains-oceans) and for me, watersheds. Dr. Alagona pointed me toward a book entitled Shaping the Sierra, in which a planner fantasized how the county lines would be re-drawn such as to consider environmental factors of the landscape (besides usual human-oriented, arbitrary-lines drawn). Fantasy, science fiction as it is. So my asking that question created a lot of hub-bub around the table, and I was happy. Thanks to Jaime's project about matching scales of ecosystem and governance! It was his fault I got that idea! To top it off, Milton (Love) showed me his latest flick on the Homage to Pruest on the life of a research cruise from a mock Cousteau French documentarian. Flat out, Milton is hilarious. One day I will be his camera and audio girl, and editor, at least for some project.

Before that, I went to Carla Guenther's talk on the socioecological impact of marine protected areas (MPAs) of the Channel Islands, which ended up being very controversial research because the findings were hard to swallow for all those "pro-MPA" scientists--seemingly permanent income losses combined with fishing behavior of "fishing the line" of the MPA does NOT exist (in which fishermen would supposedly benefit from "spillover effects") because the opportunity cost is too huge (at least from an environmental and legal point of view, e.g. El Nino storm pushes trap into an MPA or sportfishing boat misplacing the trap after looting it). I could say that Carla is very quoteable. Here are some cool quotes I picked up from her: "Our knowledge of human behavior changes when we observe humans rather than make assumptions about humans in a math model." and the other quote was "You know you are at the Frontier when you and no one else really knows what the hxll they are doing. That's when you know for sure you're at the Frontier." The composition of the audience was extraordinary: a packed room full of fishermen, a shxtload of natural scientists (marine ecologists), a few social scientists, and a few folks from the DFG and consulting agencies. David Carr introduced Carla as someone who not only knows how to read and work with the literature, but she has an extraordinary sense of social intelligence." The best part was I was able to interact with a lot of the fishermen afterwards! They were so encouraging! It really pumped me up... I was so excited to see them all again. It reminded me of what made me happy and relieved me from the anxieties of being around too many academics too much of the time...