nawl

You know when a relationship ends and you don't see each other for a while, and you decide to have lunch or dinner or something to catch up, and things are just so slightly awkward because you remember exactly why you fell for them in the first place, and everything is just so familiar, but at the same time you notice the little changes they've made in the meantime, and you're reminded of the reasons it never would have worked out in the first place? Yeah, that.

It took three hours and three separate public transportation systems to get to Berkeley on Tuesday. They've built an apartment building where the farmer's market used to be in Los Altos. VTA has new buses. Caltrain has new trains and new ticket machines.

Late lunch with Alexf and eigenvalueKevin and Chris at Vik's. Samosas and puri with chana masala. It wasn't as transcendent as my memories had made it out to be, but still, if you're ever in Berkeley, go. Allston and 4th. Order #8 and #9.

Stuck my head in the CSUA office while there happened to be a meeting going on. Discovered that Alex was also at Burning Man. I didn't know anyone else. A guy looked up from across the room and said, "Nadia? I read your blog!"

Dinner with Danny in SF, soyrizo tacos from a tiny Mexican place by his apartment in the Mission, then back to the east bay where I crashed out on the red couch which now lives with Sarah and Elliot in their quirky apartment in Oakland (and has--gasp--been steam cleaned in the recent past!).

How many of us has the red couch lived with? Oracle room, MVHS. Anthony and Dave's room in Unit 2. Marissa and the Andreas' room in Cloyne. Loth? Andrea's room in Ridge. My room in Ridge. Sara's room in Ridge. Marissa and Hunter in Oakland. Sarah and Elliot in Oakland.

Walked down Shattuck in the morning, stopping in Berkeley Bowl for peaches and strawberries.

Wandered through Evans, ran into Emily, ended up going to lunch at the Cheeseboard with two random math grad students. The day's pizza was the same tomato-with-lemon-zest one that I made in Hungary. The city put a sign up on the median that says "Stay off median", but someone almost immediately covered the n up with a sticker.

Ran into Morgan on my way across campus and we sat in the sun while she ate her fruit.

Went to Moe's and sat on the floor reading books. I missed Moe's. Bought Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Mr. Tompkins in Paperback, and Les Fleurs du Mal. Books are a bad habit.

Vegan sushi at Cha-Ya with Jack, then walked back to Sarah and Elliot's place just in time to watch them eat their super-gourmet homemade tapas meal.

Back to the south bay the next morning to have lunch at Google with Josh. The place is *insane*. It kind of looks like a kindergarten. Google's business plan was diagrammed by the community on a couple of wall-length white boards and involves sharks with lasers and self-replicating robots. Also, I learned that the secret to their success is the lava flow. I could never work for Google because all the free food around would make me fat.

Home, packed, homemade pizza with mother and rest of family.

Bab5, where I played DDR and sat on the foof. Some people have left. Others just got back.

And then I flew away.

And landed in Princeton.

I arrived at the graduate college during their weekly happy hour. Free milkshakes and cocktails.

Some very nice students (and a random airport shuttle headed the same way I was) helped me with my (own weight's worth of) luggage. Chatting with the students later, someone from CS commented "Hey, you're the one with the blog." Oh, dear.

I'm living in a two-room walkthrough double in the Old Graduate College. It has a private bathroom. The outer room has an awesome wooden bookcase-chest thingy, but the fireplace has been closed off and (according to friendly grad students) costs $2,000 to open and clean for use. The roommate just arrived.

The whole campus smells like beer and grass.

The "Graduate Student's Guide... To Everything" has some pretty choice sections:

"To discourage the unsanitary habit of picking through garbage cans, the Dining Hall will be open for breakfast (only) over holidays and breaks, except during Christmas break."

"For the first two years [the undergrads] are coddled, watched-over, consciencized, overfed, and they are counseled and programmed for by a small army of staff at each college. ... If you love or think you'd love working more closely with the raising of the ruling class, do contact the Assistant Master(s) who could then find a place for you in the firmament of Res. Life."

"Princeton undergraduates go on in life to be successful in life and in their professions. They are interesting, ambitious, and smart kids - worth getting to know. The fact that you are a grad student doesn't matter much in the end. In fact, our status has a certain allure to it and you may be peppered with such questions as 'where do the graduate students live?'"

"By 1913 graduate students had a Gothic home in the Graduate College, a spectacular pastiche encrusted with curlicues and moldings by the influential architect Ralph Adams Cram ('as much like Oxford as monkeys could make it,' said Bertrand Russell. Princeton stole more than an incongruous building style from the Brits. For decades, residents of the Graduate College wore gowns to dinner, recited a Latin grace before meals and sent a committee to discuss problems with the college's resident faculty Master."

When I woke up in the morning, there was a cat on my bed. It slept with me through the morning and followed me out the front door. I investigated and discovered that the screen in the bathroom doesn't close properly. I'm not sure how well this bodes, giving the number of warnings about aggressive squirrels around.

Got the rest of my luggage this morning, wandered around, ate a sandwich, learned about dissections and groups. Ran into Boris from Berkeley.

Time to clean room and self. Will post pictures of stone curlicues and ivy-covered walls in near future.