Back in Berkeley
Yes, I made it back. The people at the airport seemed to like the gigantic color pictures of my id and passport quite a bit, and merely demanded a credit card and a full-on "we think you're a terrorist" search before letting me on the plane. The last time I had a SSSS search was at JFK. They sort of scrabbled through my bag a bit, looked suspiciously at my shoes, and sent me on my merry way. At TRI, however, a single-terminal two-gated airport served by the prop planes and small jet "connections" of two airlines, the search was much more thorough. They opened my camera, my glasses, my flute case, took my laptop away and did something weird to it, flipped through all of my books, even popped the umbrella. The guy doing the search told me I should do my hair in Leia-buns. I smiled a lot.
On the plane between Atlanta and San Francisco, I sat next to a woman who liked to touch my hair or slap my thigh for emphasis. She told me how morally corrupt our day and age were, and said if she had a beautiful young daugher my age, she wouldn't let her leave the house. She had just escaped the hurricanes coming into Florida.
Since arriving in Berkeley, I've been hard at work doing as many anti-Tennessee things as possible. I had vegan sushi at Cha-Ya. Sushi! *Vegan* sushi! At a restaurant patronized by short-haired women in bicycle leathers and tables of snooty intellectuals discussing feminism! I went to Gaskell's and danced all night. Adults who play dress-up for fun! An overabundance of extremely long-haired women! People I've never seen outside of Victorian costumes! Sunday morning, Kevin and I crashed Tobin's reunion breakfast/lunch party and lounged around in the grass under the ugly trees and listened to someone messing around on the campanile. Everyone seems to have returned from various adventures and REUs all at once.
I get to go to Montana to give a talk on the summer's research. I used to freeze up giving class presentations. I'm excited anyways. And then I freak out and worry that someone will point out that our proof is based on a misunderstanding of the ideas we're using, or that the problem I'm working on won't be done in time to present.
There still remains quite a bit to do in the next two weeks: writing of applications, chasing down of letters of rec, finishing of problems and proofs, polishing of papers, training of kitchen managers, eating of fine cuisine at Vik's and Cheeseboard, walking of hills up and down to re-condition my atrophied thighs. Oh, and finishing of books, taking of vacations, and socializing.