Multiple Updates

(Waiting for the kettle to boil…)

It has been a rather hectic week for me here in the city of Angels. It is difficult to pull it all together in my mind and recall all the contributing elements, but they have been varied and more or less interesting and useful activities, ranging from various committees, teaching issues, research issues, event planning, event attending, and of course, the Project.

(Kettle’s boiled. Water poured on tea. Assam/Ceylon blend…)

I want to work for a bit before going to bed, although I’ll knock off early (midnight) because I’ve got to get up very early in the morning to get prettied up a bit, walk to catch the bus to campus, and get there by 8:15am or so. This is so I can get to my office and put on a cap, hood and gown and play dress-up (remember last time?) with hundreds of colleagues and so forth. The event? The inauguration of our new University President.

I’ve just returned from a long afternoon and evening in which I appeared in two of the classes of my colleague KC Cole (the science writer) talking about the issue of science, and how I do various aspects of communicating it to the public through various means (writing, film, tv, radio; factual, in fiction/drama, through blogging, in speaking engagements), and the broad issue of writing and journalism in that area. Two groups of extremely engaged and bright students in a row, separated by a quick early dinner at the new fancy restaurant and bar at the new Campus Center (which is impressive – the pulled pork sliders rock!). The glass of wine at dinner made me a bit more wordy and rambly for the second one than perhaps was ideal, but I hope the students got things out of it nonetheless.

Big news in all this. The Project was publicly discussed for the first time ever. Still not ready to go live with it here yet, but I expect I will start talking about aspects of it soon. Please be patient. (But yes, given the context, it indeed has something to do with science and communication thereof. That is new information, yes.)

After finishing at KC’s classes at about 7:15pm, two buses in quick succession saw me downtown, wandering the Artwalk (recently saved from death) for a while. Actually, there was some good stuff there in places (loved the sculptures by Gerardo Hacer and by Ryan T. Schmidt – one of the Dogami series of the former is pictured above right), and I had a good time walking, looking, and reflecting on various things (stopping for my usual mini-cupcake at Big Man Bakes, and an espresso or two at Banquette (where for a bit I engaged in a conversation with an interesting woman about Sherlock Holmes stories and Gabriel García Márquez for a bit).

So after the subway ride home and wander back to base, I’m quite tired, but before sleeping I’m going to work for an hour on the Project. As a result of an experiment, I had a breakthrough last night that I want to capitalize on a bit, and I’m simply too excited about it to not start yet. The inauguration day will keep me away from it all for another long period and so I want to explore some more before that happens.

(Tea finished…)

-cvj