Wednesday, March 25, 2009

exhaustion & lions

I’m beat. I’ve worked many 12+ days but not so physically demanding since my Kennywood days. I've been waking up between 3:30 and 4:30 and not being able to go back to sleep and then running around the convention center from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in heels lugging a heavy laptop and going to different sessions to take pictures and notes on technical topics of which I have only the faintest grasp. And then among the noise and constant activity, I have to write. I am used to writing in my own office with absolutely no noise! It feels a little like working in a newsroom--I know I have to take the files to be printed by a certain time, and I need to do all my edits and lay out the photos right up to the minute then run three blocks to the nearest Kinko’s to have the newsletter printed. I would not like being a journalist.

After finishing work late yesterday, I went out to eat on my own. What’s up with the aggressive homeless here? Three separate times, grizzled homeless men not only asked me for change, but started following me when I ignored them (I had the phone to my ear pretending to talk to someone.) Luckily I walked faster than they did.

And cable TV sucks! After watching a show on DeDe, a sweet guy in the Phillipines who developed such heavy warts that he looked like a tree, and shows about crazy couples who have eight and 12 children, I tried to think of which I'd prefer: looking like a tree or having a gaggle of children. Maybe the kids if they went to boarding school in Switzerland and were shipped back when they were 25 or so.

Is it Thursday yet?

More pictures….San Jose University campus.

Our reception kicked off with a performance by Chinese Lion Dancers. It was awesome! I’ll have to post a video after I figure out how to compress the files so it doesn’t take 10 hours to upload.