5-6-11 0720 Muir Beach. The Poster Session that I was scheduled to present at was set for Monday, and the latest program I found on line indicated that its start had been moved to 4 PM. So getting finished, and getting back to Berkeley in time for dinner with Annie, Peter, and Sala was a bit more problematic. The first step, as Sala pointed out, was for ME to email Annie to explain MY mistake.
Well, its true, It was my mistake, although at the moment I can't remember whether the mistake was systemic (not remembering I had the event at Stanford aka The Farm) or strategic (the poster event will be over in time to get to Berkeley for dinner). In either case, faux de mieux, and I must be vigilant in such cases not to blame-shift. That's true, as well; I do enjoy or at least utilize a blame shift or two in my usual day in the world. And so Sala is being a friend and a true help mate to remind me.
So I did email Annie, and thus with a clear and blame-accepting consience, got out into the gorgeous misty wisty day last Monday to travel to The Farm and the WGEA meeting (a branch of the AAMC, what is the governing body for us medical academics). Walking along our street (which to the user is more like a very long driveway with speed bumps) in the crepuscular glow, with birds really tweeting and twittering and the Internet fading like the stars, I reflected that this trip was really all about self agrandisement, getting our stuff into the public arena, making an academic mark. On the other hand, I knew that once there, I would have no trouble using all the time and wishing for more to yak with my fellow academics about their views, and plans, about teaching medical students.
Sunset way is a bench road, cut along the side of the hill, not trying to make progress up but rather to avoid sliding down. This Western side of Muir Beach is basaltic rock covered with a relatively loose veneer of mud temporarily dry enough to hold houses, like most of the California coast...the parts that arent pure sand desert at least. About 200 houses cling to various parts of it. This is not intentional community; it just growed as people bought, divided, and sold. The latest arrivals have to have access to a chunk of change to afford the prices, but the second and third generation folks own their often very modest houses outright, and have only the taxes to pay (remember California passed Prop 13 and so taxes don't grow as big as pumpkins here. As a result, our childen don't get an education. So it goes).
The mist was moving out of the valley that holds Green Gulch Zen Monestary, and out over the mildly surging sea. It was full light by 6, easy to see my hitchiking sign 'Tam Jxtn", and I was picked up by Greg the carpenter rather than Mike the painter. There is no bus from Muir Beach to the Junction where I catch the number 4 to the financial district in SF, so I appreciate my regular drivers and can usually get a ride with one of them. The two anesthesiologists who live on Sunset and also were reliable seem to have drifted into different schedules.
Greg doesnt like hanging drywall either("we're too small for that!"), and is mostly framing these days. Of course he prefers cabinetry. Up the twisty hill, pausing where the road has washed out half way across. They are setting up safety signals to start repairing, which will add half an hour to the commute soon. The mists are gone as we cross over the Miwok trail, and the Bay shines brightly ahead. Another day in paradise!
The 4 financial district runs about every 10 minutes during the morning commute southbound; it doesnt run at all out of commute hours. Soon we are roaring across the Golden Gate Bridge, the coiling muscular waters far below, an enormously large container ship dwindling less to less as it heads out into the Pacific. Only the gulls and pidgeons on the Bay Street near Fishermans Wharf, but the souvenir and crab cocktail stores are washing down sidewalks at pier 39.
I am not sure if the F trolly goes to CalTrain over on 4th and King, so decide to walk there. That includes cutting through Yerba Buena, and admiring its pleasant villagey feel, very like comparable developments in London, New York, or Barcelona. Sleepy homeless folks are rousing up, their dogs yawning in the pleasantly temperate morning air. I am not sure if the place named 'The Creamery' is a gay bar or a breakfast place; the line for coffee is too long anyway, so I get my decaf and scone in the CalTrain station.
My Senior Clipper Card works on CalTrain, and as long as I remember to tag the electronic base when I get off, the trip costs $2.55. The whole setup brings faint pleasant memories of the TGV to small towns in Brittany, but of course when the train gets under way, the lurching and screeching reminds me these rails are made in Amurica. Still, its public transport and its full!
The South SF scene rolls by. Graffiti, but all tags, none of the major art you might see in NY or Amsterdam. Stretches of wetland, stuck in that land between preservation and exploitation (the frogs dont care what you call it). The tickytacky houses Malvina immortalized, and many more, now more likely blocks of cave dwellings concreted into solid rows along the hillsides.
The Cow Palace, still there, still hosting cows, gunshows, and the occasional circus and Republican fete. The train is making good speed now, and the larger houses of Hillsdale are flowing past. And very soon with no driving depression, no road rage, we are slowing down for Palo Alto.
Margurite is the name of the Stanford shuttle bus, and Margurite X and Y take you to and from the Medical School.
And in that regard, the visit was depressingly beautiful, sadly well kempt, and tragically well supported. I wandered into Beckman Hall, and the the Hughes Research Institute. The pickup frisbee game on the well mowed lawn was light spirited in a way that I havent seen on the Cal Berkeley camus this year. Public education is starving. Stanford is thriving. The rich get richer, and the rich pay for Stanford. The poor apply to Cal.
It cost me $450 all in to print the poster and pay the registration fee. No funds for faculty support this year, particularly for Emeritus faculty. The discussion was well worth it; I like this poster format where you stand next to your poster and discuss you work with whomsoever comes around, rather than having to rush around between many simultaneous meetings to find the people you want and to listen to them cram their discoveries into 7 minutes of Powerpoint. It's just that I wish Cal wasnt facing a $17 million dollar deficit.
I took down the poster while discussion was still going on all around, rolled it back up and caught Margurite back to CalTrain. This time I connected directly to BART at Millbrae (previously, like Houndslow or Rockaway, just a name on a map) and was texting Sala to come pick me up at Rockridge in the East Bay in time for dinner. Viva La Transporte Publica!!
No comments:
Post a Comment