People Who Shouldn't Reproduce

This morning, or afternoon... about Noon, anyway, a Sheriff's deputy knocked on our door.  He looked confused and very hopeful, and he asked me if anybody at our house by any chance maybe had a couple boys... maybe 4 and 5 years old?  I told him unfortunately not, and his face just fell, and he explained that a couple boys had knocked on our across-the-street neighbor's front door.  They thought their grandparents lived at our house (not sure why they didn't knock on our door?), and he asked if I would take a look and see if I recognized them?  I explained that I had just moved in but that I would ask my roomate, who has been here for about a year.  I fetched Amber and, since I had semi-obliged her to get involved, plus I'm nosy, I went out with her.

We met a couple of happy, unconcerned, lost little shirt- and shoe-less boys, with bug bites or scabies or something all over their backs. Amber didn't recognize them, as I had suspected she wouldn't.  We all asked them some questions... their story was that their mom had sent them out of the house while she tried to get a younger brother to sleep or something.  They claimed not to know where they lived, how they had gotten here, their mother's name, what school they went to, their teacher's name... Any question that involved a number got a silent response wherein the older one would hold up both hands with all his fingers splayed out.  The neighbor said she had gotten a "5" earlier, but with the same hand gesture, when she asked the older one his age.

They did know their own names, which I won't include.  The (incredibly nice) deputy told me at one point that he was doing everything he could not to get CPS involved.  Somehow, somebody got a description of two cars they said their parents had, so the three of us (neighbor, Amber, and I) kept an eye on the kids while the deputy drove around the neighborhood, looking for the cars the boys had described.  He eventually came back, having been unsuccessful, and asked us if we knew what reverse 911 was... he had put in a request to call all the houses in our neighborhood and ask if anybody was missing a couple boys.  At that point, we decided to leave the kids with  him and go back in the house.  As we did, we saw the boys, each holding one of the deputy's hands, take off down the street.  I guess he was going to try to retrace their steps. I wish I had gotten a picture of that, it was cute.

 Later on, Amber told me that the deputy had given up and called CPS... apparently they knew the boys pretty well already.  From what she heard, mom is going to jail and the kids are going to be taken into custody.

So, that was a thing that happened today in Baywood.

Wherein I go for a bike ride and discover that people are dumb, even in grad school

Not much of note has happened this week.  I felt a lot more on top of my schedule and the flow of things, although having a Monday schedule on Tuesday didn't help me out any - Mondays and Wednesdays are long, for me.  Having them back-to-back was rough, although after that my week might as well have been over.

This morning I decided to use the break between two storm fronts we were supposed to get (and did, good job weatherpeople) to get some exercise and test how feasible it would be for me to ride my bike to school.  Google says it's 12.3 miles, so I picked a point a little over 6 miles along the way and rode to it.  The round trip would have taken me an hour if I hadn't stopped for groceries on the way home, and I don't feel like total ass so I think it will be a thing that I will do, time and weather permitting.  Then I ate scrambled eggs on toast with mayo and mustard.  So that's a thing you needed to know.

OK, now to probably the only notable thing that happened this week and part 2 of my title.  I have to give a presentation (with a partner) on wednesday on some piece of info (article, radio broadcast, cartoon... whatever) that illustrates a 'definition duality' from the dumb book that my instructor wrote for the (increasingly frustrating) class.  I picked this girl to work with, we'll call her flower necklace, because the instructor suggested we pair up with someone who isn't in the same program and she's nutrition or ag business or something and we've been working on stuff for another class together.  She seems nice if type A and not especially bright which is an odd combination, to me.  Anyway, the thing that jumped out at me right away was a 'definition duality' called "Rationalism vs. Rationalization" which points up the difference between logical thought and trying to twist information to fit your preconceived notions. Now, the prof. told us to "have some fun" with this assignment, and I immediately thought of one of my favorite standup comedy bits.  Watch this video, it's an excerpt of the longer bit, edited for content (swears).

Alright, so, I took ten minutes or whatever and edited the audio for that, and thought about it for a bit, and then I sent it to my partner to see what she thought.  The next day, I got this response:

I listened to the clip you sent me and if it's alright with you, I'd like to keep searching. Religion isn't an easy topic to discuss and I'd prefer to go for something slightly less controversial. We can discuss it more tomorrow. I hope you had a great weekend!

Peace,

(flower necklace)

I talked to flower necklace on the phone tonight, about work for another class, and when we were done reviewing, she brought it up again.  I told her I didn't want to do something she wasn't into and it was fine with me if we picked something else.  I guess she was digging for an apology, because she reiterated her reasoning and then, all in a rush kinda, said "and personally it goes against everything I was brought up to believe ok bye"

WTF.  I don't... You are getting a goddamn masters degree in some kind of science from a public university.  Not Bob Jones.  Not an MA in theology or some shit.  The class we are presenting to has, like, 12 people in it, all but maybe one of whom are doing SCIENCE! for their theses.  This is not a problem.  Except, apparently, for flower necklace.  Something is seriously wrong with the world.

 

First week of school; where I live

So week one is in the bag, and most of all, it just felt wierd. I am the creepy old guy on campus and I felt totally out of sorts almost all the time. I don't remember what college students do all day (when they're not in class) and the first week is always 90% administrative BS anyway. I've been thinking and stressing out about this for so long that I had that feeling like there was something I needed to be doing pretty much all the time.

Also, they don`t exactly hold your hand through the process of admissions, acceptance, picking a graduate committee, drafting a formal study plan, etc... which doesn't help my stress level.  Fortunately I had a couple meetings this week where we talked about those things in a little more detail.

I'm working for Dr. Brian Dietterick, who oversees Cal Poly's ranch and forest in Davenport, which is how I got to know him back in 2004-5, so at least we have an existing relationship.  He has 5 grad students right now, 1 is graduating this quarter and three of us are brand-new.  All the other students seem cool which is great since we'll be working together on each other's projects and other miscellanea.

All in all, I'm feeling good - I'm here, things have started, there are concrete things I can do instead of just thinking and worrying.  But I'm sure the work will start piling on pretty soon so I can go back to being stressed out, which I predict is pretty much  going to be my natural state for the next 2-3 years.


OK, now, where I'm living, in case anyone is curious:
I live on the Baywood side of Los Osos, 13 miles due west of campus. Far enough to feel a little separated but not too far to drive every day, or hopefully ride my bike when I can get it down here, especially since apparently winter was called off this year.

I really like the house, it's a 2 story 3/2 pretty close to the water, which is the back bay of Morro Bay. I have 2 roomates we'll call Bert and Ernie (one of them is a lady which confirms my childhood suspicions), one of whom has a dog we'll call Rico because that's his name and dogs don't care about privacy.

Rico Suave, my new roomate

That's it for the roomates, now the house:

Here is what it looks like from the front:

And the back, with the setting sun providing terrible lens flare:

We have some lemon trees and a couple raised beds.  We're basically on a sand dune so I'm amazed anything grows at all. Here's a less lens-flare-y view of the back yard:

The view from the front, close to sunset. Stupid tree.

Finally, check out what's behind us:

A whole lot of nothing.  Los Osos is unincorporated and has no sewer, everyone is on septic which never should have been allowed since, like I said, it's one big sand dune.  So you can't build anything until the community services district gets their act together and builds a waste treatment plant which allegedly is going in right across the street, in  front of us.  I'm not concerned.  They started working on the plans when I was here as an undergrad circa 2001. No sign of anything happening yet.