March 31, 2015

I have written a poem and I decided to share it here because it has been a long time since I wrote a good poem.


Ode to Oranges

The orange is the greatest of all fruits
Its tidy packaging contains both food and drink
Such a cheerful bright colour meets your eye
To peel an orange is to unwrap a gloriously messy ball of sunshine.
Every squirting bite of an orange is a mouthful of happiness.
Who could fail to be cheered by the juicy sweetness of orange flesh?

March 29, 2015

You'll be pleased to know that I accomplished everything on my Spring Break To Do list.

On Monday I took care of some errands and other business that has been weighing heavily on my hands. I also went to school and saw that major preparations were being made for some sort of gala event, including the following:

On Tuesday I went to Bernal Heights to get my 50th multi cache and a few others.

This and below are shots of the self-proclaimed "Nice Neighbourhood Garden"

On Wednesday I went to Kite Hill to get a puzzle cache that I didn't solve but that one of my caching buddies had figured out the approximate location. I've never been to Kite Hill before, but I enjoyed it because it is not quite as high as the surrounding hills (Twin Peaks, Corona Heights etc.) and so it gives the impression of sitting in a big bowl, with houses lining the sides of the bowl in rows all the way up.

Kite Hill

I didn't know Amazon sold harmonicas

Guys I bet that sidewalk block is a trapdoor that DOES lead to someone's house.

On Thursday I made a recording of myself playing violin while someone else played piano. Afterwards I gave a box of chocolates to the piano player as a reward and I took a trip to the Presidio as a reward to myself.

These used to be the officers' houses, in which they would live with their families.

And these are houses people DO live in today, on the same base.

Trois beaux canards s'en vont baignant...

On Friday I slept in, hung around and did laundry. I also walked to Alamo Square to get a recently-published cache, but I do not have any pictures as I spent most of the time lying on the grass.

On Saturday I went to Rodeo Lagoon. I had planned to go with some friends, but they bailed, so I went alone and unhindered by the various "needs" of neophyte geocachers. I walked all the way around Rodeo Lagoon and studied the rainbow pebbles at Rodeo Beach and found a couple of rare translucent carnelians. I also found a spot that looked like someone had taken a giant bite out of the gentle green hills and exposed their rusty red ribbon chert innards.

I do not have many pictures from this trip as my camera was low on juice, but here are the ones I do have.

Rodeo Lagoon

The ribbon chert

Three types of pebbles: green chert, red chert and a carnelian in the middle.

The second carnelian

This morning at Palm Sunday mass I helped read the Passion - I was the "Speaker(s)". There was one line where the high priests say "Aha! You have heard the blasphemy" or some such and I guess I said "Aha!" very enthusiastically and the priest and others commented on it and laughed: "AHA!!! That was very dramatic!!"

Tomorrow school starts again.

- Antisocial Violinist

March 23, 2015

The five weekdays were just hanging in there, waiting for Spring Break, so I'll just tell you about my weekend outings.

On Saturday I went hiking on Mt. Tamalpais with a church group. At first the trail wound through dappled forest on the roots of the mountain, and then it burst out into meadows full of sunshine. We ate lunch by the side of a little creek in Laurel Dell and then followed the creek through patches of open and wooded areas til we climbed up to a point that was almost the peak of the mountain. I also managed to find three geocaches, one of which was the oldest cache in the Bay Area, placed in October 2000.

California poppy, the state flower

So this guy was running along the trail with a huge stuffed animal under his arm

Motivational rock

Fog settling over the ocean

Good spot for lunch

Yesterday I went on a geocaching trip to Glen Canyon, Mt Davidson and surrounding areas and found twelve caches with my buddies.

Mt Davidson

I hope whoever designed this sign doesn't teach at the school

Little tiny sidewalk decorations

Enjoy spring break.

- Antisocial Violinist

March 16, 2014

Please accept my lack of apologies for the day-late blog post. I am finally getting better, but things are still stupidly hectic around here. Also, some of my computer keys have stopped working and so I cannot unlock my computer anymore and have been using school computers for homework and leisure for several weeks (otherwise I would have had the post up by now). Here are some pictures from a somewhat fruitless trip to Dogpatch and Potrero Hill.

Don't I wish...

Nice house

The crookedest street in the world (really!)

M and I spent most of Saturday helping to build houses with Habitat for Humanity. Here is a picture of M at the construction site.

Next week is spring break, so I hope to go on some awesome trips and make better blog posts.

- Antisocial Violinist

March 8, 2015

I have been sick all week. Here are a few pictures from a trip I took to Mission Bay yesterday with M. I felt well enough to go and was glad I did.

- Antisocial Violinist

March 1, 2015

I was sick all week and spent most of my time lying on the couch and coughing. Besides that I had a Music History exam, a German test, a performance with my quintet for the Telegraph Quartet masterclass, and two orchestra concerts, one of which involved a runout to Las Positas college in Livermore. I have only one picture from that runout unfortunately.

Here is a green hill behind Las Positas, and I climbed to the top of it with two trumpet colleagues.

Here is the sunset sky outside of my school, sometimes the only really beautiful thing I see all day.

And here is something that just looks wrong

- Antisocial Violinist