Becoming working class

Becoming working class
May 7 - 20, 2001
as we got our work permits and an offer of an interesting job, too.



	Clouds crawl over hilltops

After a social weekend, a time had come to "escape". It has been a while since we last tested stability of our stomachs; and so we tried a trip over the hills again, with switchbacks down to the ocean. Otters probably had a day off, only a few seals hung around on rocks in the sea. We could not even be sure whether one of them was alive or not. Hiking for a while up and down a beach was nice, with a small climbing interlude as we had to scramble in between rocks over a cliff to another piece of rocky shore. Again, I could only admire California children -- wrapped in my windbreaker, I dreamt about hot grog, while those little wet midgets ran in and out of the surfline.

I refused to endure driving back with my teeth clenched, so we went around the worst hills on somewhat wider and less winding road. An interesting weather pattern developed near the hilltops -- clouds and fog were rolling in from the ocean, with portions of them sneaking right along the curved landscape. Yet the Valley below was surprisingly clear, lacking its usual smoggy lid.



	This Eskimo grandma is me, on a particularly windy afternoon

My week brought me its usual fill of things, like going to school. Our professor kept delving into explanations on treachery wickedness of computers and unsolvable mysteries of programmers' motives. Her last marvel was a complaint about Word automatically turning her "i's" into uppercase "I's". One of my classmates countered with a claim that it can be turned off. She admitted it was not a good example, but let us see... this thingy which keeps popping up suggesting that she might be writing a letter and would perhaps need a help, THAT could not be switched off. The poor fellow insisted, so she asked him to see her after the class. Later he only came to take a test, and I have not seen him since. Maybe he was advised to terminate his studies, or take an individual course plan :-) .
I have been studying quite well, both Sid and I get full homework score -- minus one when I turned it in only fifteen minutes after the class started, since I thought better to pay attention to a test first. No matter, my professor deducted one point off my score, for what if I spent by any chance those fifteen minutes copying someone else's homework instead of doing the test??? (I still have no idea how I could print it out right there under my desk, but what do you know, students would do anything to cheat). Our clever professor cannot be deceived by these cheap tricks!!!



	Sid, leaning on redwood, is taking a picture

Still the greatest shock was waiting for me. One afternoon, while running around our apartment with a handset under my chin, I was chatting with Martina and doing superficial cleanup (you can easily manage that during a phone conversation). I was griping about our work permits taking time to arrive, and was getting ready to throw away some envelopes with a P.O. box return address -- must have been some credit card company anyway, I thought, they keep offering us awfully "great opportunities" (like 25% APR and so). They even have the nerve to send those cards right away, which is a hassle, as you cannot just throw it out, you have to destroy it first.

I could not believe my eyes when instead of credit cards, our two EAC's (Employment Authorization Cards) slipped out. Now - thanks to a greenish hologram on them - we really look like aliens (the extraterrestrial variety), which unfortunately cannot be seen on the scan below. Maybe originality (or resistance to copying or scanning) is verified by the level of green tone in a holder's face. We're happy to live in a civilized time, when discrimination based on the color of our skin is no longer fashionable :-) !!!

I still had to show them off. Tomas, who works at a wine bank (I would rather call it wine locker room -- it kind of looks like in a railroad station -- a large hall with long lines of locker boxes, maintained at a constant temperature and humidity), told me during my visit there that now I can work anywhere, and found a job for me already:

As you can see, America is the land of unlimited opportunities!!!

So we're getting greener over time (see our faces above), and the weather is nice, too -- I still have my weekend reflexes: I tend to want to go out every time I look out of the window, for it is sunny and warm outside -- which makes locals shake their heads. This is the weather that will last us till the end of October, and then everybody will longingly await early rains. All our hills only grow "hay" now, so the nature is not getting as green as we are...



	Waterfall at a rain forest



	and sooo big are the trees here...

During Lesley's visit here I fell in love with our redwoods, and since the sun bakes us almost uncomfortably, we planned another trip to a shady rain forest.

This time I usurped the driving wheel -- a map told us quite clearly that the road to Big Basin is full of switchbacks over the hills. Sid kept saying that if he drove the way I do, I would have vomited long time ago, but I think he exaggerates a little -- as soon I am behind a wheel, I don't feel any queasy, which is certainly a proof of my superior driving skills.

At Big Basin we chose a looping train about 6 kilometers long that included a waterfall. Though a parking lot was crammed full, in the end we were not encountering a lot of people, perhaps those four miles would be too much of a load on a family on a Sunday hike. The more we were to smell sausages being grilled on remote, fully occupied campgrounds, and once we caught a whiff of an intense aroma of burned vegetables... well, nothing beats eating out in the wilderness. We enjoyed it anyway, our trail led through a real rain forest, and the redwoods are simply grand.

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