Tiptoe through the tidepools

Oh boy, I've been silent a long time... I thought I should probably update for the two of you that still actually read this =). So what have I been up to? Well, there was that final, and the paper. And thus ended winter quarter. Wow. Can you believe that I've already completed 2 quarters of graduate school? I can't... But then, it took me a year or two at Stanford to get used to the idea that I was actually in college, so these things take time to sink in...

Then came spring break. Yay! Though personally, I think one week is just not enough time for spring break =). I didn't really do much for the first half of the break. Read a book or so, watched a movie or two, knitted a potholder. Yep, I was a veritable old homebody. Yeah, and I tried to study some for a qual that's coming up, but more on that later.

Then on Tuesday John and I went to a ballet performance! I love going to the ballet. This time the ballet came to us, so to speak. The Stuttgart Ballet toured through Davis. The show was pretty good. The first piece was pretty moderny, the second very moderny, the third more classical, but exceedingly repetitive. But the third was still the best. I very much prefer classical ballet. It's just so beautiful. I've never understood the trends in art (in all types of art: dance, music, visual arts) towards ugliness. Modern dance seems to strive to ugliness. It abolishes the beautiful lines and seeming effortlessness of ballet. Why? I understand that there are some ideas, some emotions that just can't be expressed through beauty and grace. But those are the concepts that should be swept under the rug anyway =D. Strife? No there's no strife in the world. Only beauty... Or at least, that's what we'd like, so when we go to the ballet (or a concert or art museum or whatever), shouldn't we be able to escape ugliness and disharmony? That's just my stance here. Taken to an extreme. I guess I'm an aesthetic. Always good to discern your philosophy on life =).

From Wednesday through Friday John and I went to the beach. Yay! It was very nice, very laid back. Mostly we walked along beaches and tiptoed through tidepools. With some eating and sleeping thrown in too, of course. We saw all sorts of neat things! In the tidepools there were loads of sea anenomes, some little fishies (sculpins maybe?), snails, hermit crabs, some little blue jelly fish, and the occasional starfish or sea urchin. We saw one huge urchin! It was the size of a softball, at least! On some sandbars just off shore were charismatic megafauna (sorry, can't help the geek in me). These were seals and sea lions. There was one sea lion so fat it's flippers couldn't touch the ground! To travel on land it had to bounce on it's belly! John's into birdwatching, so we also saw lots of birds. Not only saw them, but identified them =). And his birdwatching prowess means he has eagle eyes. Kudos to him. They found whale spouts and a playful dolfin for us! We also went to Ano Nuevo to see the elephant seals. The breeding season's over, so it was mostly just babies and juveniles, with a few young males that had started to develop their characteristic nose. So cute, so cute!

At night we stayed at a hostel that was a converted lighthouse. Neato! I love lighthouses! Luckily, the nights weren't foggy, so there wasn't an uber-close foghorn to keep us awake...