Belated Spring Poems
Right, so I do realize that the equinox was a couple of weeks ago, but hey, it only just stopped raining here and it's still before Easter, so I submit my annual Spring Poem below. This is one that I used to think too morbid for Spring, but I don't think of it that way anymore. Rather the opposite, eh? "Gather we rosebuds while we may..."

33.

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.


Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

~A. E. Housman

(For an actually morbid take, see this parody by Garrison Keillor (scroll halfway down the page)).

To make up for being late on the Spring poem, here's an Extra Bonus Poem!! It's not seasonal, but I'm finding it highly relevant at the moment. Also, my cousin has told me the story of a peak moment in her life, when as part of a school show she recited this with the finale of Dvorak's 9th symphony in the background. You know the words, so sing along!

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

~Rudyard Kipling
- posted by k @ 9:12 AM

 
The Latest
Well, a lot has happened that I've wanted to blog about, but I haven't had the time since I've been working in the lab full time for the last two months. It turns out that my two months can't be extended, though, so after this week I'll be back to just volunteering there once a week. I did get a part-time job with a tutoring agency, though, and I think I'll enjoy that. AND the pay is good. Now I just need another part-time job (but I have good relations with a temp agency until I find one).

Some things I wanted to blog about were:

• Got a new state quarter this week, Nevada. Also the new$10 bill. Good thing I saw it in the paper before I got it as change, otherwise I would have been totally weirded out.

• So I was on MUNI last week and this guy came on selling postcards of the Duboce Bike Mural to raise money for its maintenance. I LOVE that mural so I bought a set. The cards have facts about the mural and about biking in SF (or something). I am pleased with my purchase. I like that mural so much I had even thought about blogging about it before I got the cards.

• For some reason, PlanetOut is no longer web publishing Alison Bechdel's comic, so there's not much reason to go there. BUT Alison is currently posting them on her blog, http://alisonbechdel.blogspot.com . It's good stuff.

• Last week I also sucessfully used the "lookup" function in Excel for the first time, and also got to use SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) for the first time. That was cool. Hope to see more things like that.

I wanted to listen to something good, so I clicked over to http://www.capradio.org and they were playing Beethoven's Eroica symphony (I was hoping for something just slightly later--maybe 20-30 years, but this is pretty good) , but my streaming audio keeps conking out because I think something on my computer is sending out a lot of unnecessary packets, so I am running Ad-Aware. Grr. I have to say, though, that KXPR's web stream is soothingly high-quality, unlike e.g. KFOG's. I haven't tried BBC yet because I don't have realplayer at work.

- posted by k @ 8:31 PM

 
Holi!
So apparently today is Holi!

Do you know what Holi is? It's only the best holiday in any culture or religious tradition ever. Really. The BBC can tell you all about it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/holydays/holi/

And if you don't like to read, you can watch this video, although it features egregious bhang-drinking, scary mustaches and unseasonal touchyfeelyness:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OXCB4SEm42c
Also, I don't know to what extent it is historically accurate, so you're on your own there.

--------
About the BART/MUNI fire story the other day, a few comments:
1. Glad BG was safe and found the MUNI workers professional. AND check out his pictures. He's a content provider to local online print and television news!

2. Eat Cetera is a good place to get your morning bagel if you have to do it downtown. For downtown it's not very expensive, and they have 2 flavored cream cheeses, and they don't look at you funny if you want sprouts on your bagel. Also I think the owner/manager is Indian and his son works there. Good people (AFAIK). Oh, and if you don't get turned around coming out of BART, it's right by the exit.

-----
In other news, I was at the Berkeley Public Library tutoring today and I found a copy of the Zumdahl intro Chemistry book! Ahh, good times. Couldn't find the picture of the glowing pickle, though. Maybe it's only in the advanced book. My student has gotten A's on two consecutive math quizzes since I began tutoring her!! Yay!
- posted by k @ 10:36 PM

 
Not Terrorism, just operational lameness (subtitle: I was already at work when this happened)
SF BART passengers evacuated after fire
Steve Rubenstein, Bernadette Tansey and Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, March 9, 2006 now part of stylesheet -->


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TRAFFIC, COMMUTING
Fresh traffic reportsUpdates every 10 mins. and public transportation schedules.
SF Gate Weather Page.Updates; personalized forecasts.
(03-09) 11:12 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- BART and Muni Metro riders endured lengthy delays this morning because of a trash fire that started on the BART tracks near the Embarcadero station just before 9:30 a.m., authorities said.
Full BART service between the East Bay to San Francisco resumed about 11:10 a.m., but the Embarcadero station remained closed, BART officials said. There was no word from Muni on when Metro service would be resumed.
Three people were treated at the scene for minor smoke inhalation after the fire broke out on the eastbound BART tracks between the Embarcadero and Montgomery stations, officials said.
BART said a train operator spotted the debris fire at 9:28 a.m. about 150 feet from the Embarcadero station, tried to put it out himself and then helped some passengers evacuate into a station. Firefighters put out the fire in about 10 minutes.
"There was a lot of smoke, and it was hard to walk, but everybody was calm," said Gilda Mendez, a San Francisco resident who was a passenger on a train that stopped in the tunnel. "It was very scary and hard to see."
She exited the train and walked through the tunnel to the Embarcadero station, where she began to have trouble breathing. After paramedics gave her oxygen, she felt better and was released.
Basil Yaqub, manager of the Eat Cetera restaurant in front of the Embarcadero station, said people had hurried up the stairs as smoke poured out the entrance. "They weren't panicking, but they sure were running," he said.
Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White showed up at the scene and said the incident was good training for the department.
"On everyone's mind is Madrid and London, but thankfully that's not what we have here," she said.
Market Street was closed for a time between Davis and Montgomery streets, but police reopened it shortly before 11 a.m.
BART set up a bus bridge between the West Oakland and Powell Street stations while service was shut down.
"This is really hard, but it's not anybody's fault. It's beyond anyone's control," said Jody Michaels, a book editor who was stranded in Oakland. "Most of the time BART is good at being on time, but you've got to expect there will be occasional problems."
T.J. Jones said she was going to be late for her constitutional law class at Golden Gate University.
"It seems like the serious times when I really need to be there on time that something happens," she said.
- posted by k @ 11:22 AM

 
Caffeine Awareness Month
Hey, there.

Plenty I'd like to blog about, esp. career-related. Been getting a lot of good advice and some interesting experience. But no time to blog.

Hope to have wireless router working consistently soon. Works occasionally now.

Meanwhile, be aware of caffeine this month.
- posted by k @ 10:33 AM