Willow and Juanjo's SplashBlot

I am sitting in the common area in Haas on the Berkeley campus, and Juanjo is in class. I walked over here after my class ended at 7pm and sat with him while he ate dinner. Such a novelty! It’s fun to be students on the same campus together, and this was the first time that we got to see each other on a day we both have class.

The view above is from my office on campus. There’s an even nicer view on buddingscholar. You can just see the bay in the distance. It’s nice to have an office (though it is shared) on campus, a place to work when not in class or at the library.

We are so lucky to be here!

We hadn’t been up Twin Peaks yet with the new bikes (replacing the stolen ones), and found a new route that takes a little longer but is easier at the beginning, so on Friday afternoon Juanjo picked me up from the train and we got the bikes and went up. It was a rare afternoon in San Francisco, actually feeling like summer with a mild instead of whipping wind and not a bit of fog anywhere. The new bikes do the job (mine’s not nearly as nice as my old one, but probably just as well because if it gets stolen again I won’t be heartbroken), and the day was so glorious that the stress of the week quickly melted away as we rode up the hill. Not that it was easy, of course! I don’t think it matters how in shape you are, those hills are brutal. But the late afternoon light cut across the golden grassy hillside on the west side of Twin Peaks, blackberries hung heavy from a few brambles along the road, and the temperature was temperate and enjoyable. We enjoyed the ride so much that we then headed down Market all the way to the Ferry Building at the end to extend the fun, enjoy the afternoon, and eat dinner (burger and shake) on a bench by the bay.

I’m a total fair-weather fan of baseball, but this was pretty darn exciting. Bonds hit #756, breaking Hank Aaron’s record of 755, and we were there (well, outside the ballpark) when it happened!

My brother and his new girlfriend were at the game, and Juanjo and I took a bike ride along the waterfront and, as we often do when there’s a game, stopped to watch a bit. There were tons of people with nets and kayaks in the freezing cold water trying to catch the home run ball if it went out of the park.

Then, Bonds came up. Tons of cameras going off every time he swung the bat. The whole stadium on its feet. Then he hit in on the 4th pitch, and almost 50,000 people went nuts, screaming and cheering. They let off fireworks, the fog horns went off, thousands and thousands of cameras were flashing. Wow.

So he probably did it with the help of steroids? Still pretty damn cool to have been there with the energy of that crowd!