I’ve finished my four weeks of back and forth between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. It was very rewarding, although it (of course) meant that I had to make several adjustments to my usual routine, putting aside a number of things (including and consistent work toward moving The Project forward). This is fine, as it was part of the plan to put things aside somewhat and focus on the visit. It meant an interesting process of trying to put most of my Los Angeles business (including teaching and any meetings, etc) into Monday and Friday as much as I could, and catching up with reading and lecture writing in the in-betweens, often on the three to three and a half hour journey on the train. (People universally assumed that I’d driven up, and were mostly surprised when I mention I took the train. One person even inquired as to whether I don’t have a car. I politely explained that I do, but I don’t feel compelled to drive it everywhere. One person could not understand how I would get to the train station in LA without a car. I explained there was a subway system… Others talked about how they never visit LA from Santa Barbara because they can’t get around without a car and the traffic is terrible… They prefer (in one or two examples related to me) to go all the way up to San Francisco where they can just leave the car and explore without it. I smiled politely and mentioned that you can do this in Los Angeles too. This had no effect on their belief system, as far as I can tell. I am constantly amazed at the incredibly limited images of Los Angeles that people hold in their heads. In all cases, we agreed that getting to work on the train was in fact a good thing. I explained, as a bonus, that I get over the business that the train takes twice as long as it should be simply pretending it is twice as great a distance than the 95 miles it actually is. This is true.)
So anyway, sad as it was to leave the KITP behind, with all the stimulating conversations, great talks to attend, friends old and new, and so forth, it is time to return to a routine here back in LA. I’ve missed it here a bit, including the wandering to work by foot or by bike to the bus or subway, drinking in the gardens, people, storefronts, and so forth along the way. I’ve also got very far behind with the garden, and so yesterday began a huge project to remove a huge amount of vegetation that I think is being used as cover by various rodents that attack parts of my garden. It has already meant more light is now appearing in the corresponding part of the garden, which I think will be a good thing, on balance.
I’ve had too many research project ideas over the month (partly as a result of visiting the workshop), and need to try to figure out how to prioritize them, given that I’ve so many other things to do and only so much help can be relied upon in collaboration at this point in time. My main collaborator has his own ideas and projects to be getting on with as well, and while I’ve a new student interested in this area, it will take him a while to get up to speed. Anyway, it is certainly better to have more ideas to work on than time available vs the other way around….
-cvj
