I guess I do mean to be all high and mighty about this. I'm taking time away from earning real money to do this, to be there in that classroom and I resent the hell out of a kid who thinks he can just copy my answers when he's made no effort to pay attention. I realize that at his point in life, he doesn't have a direction, a focus, but I do and please get the hell out of my way while you talk on your cell phone.

Another weird thing at school, people who step inside to talk on their cell phones. Why? Did you need better acoustics?

But, last night I had the best class yet, with a guy who works for a county Parks & Recreation department. I started to see that there are more jobs out there than just ranger jobs, that the *and rec* part of Parks & Rec really appeals to me. There's a graduate program in it at San Jose State, I may start looking into that for the fall, hopefully after I land some kind of part time job with this guy's agency.

Yesterday, I learned how to use PowerPoint and to add myself to a listserv. Never mind that I've been supporting listservs for the last 1.5 years as part of my (now former) job. All in all, school is okay, no, good. I'm looking forward to being done with it and having a nice job as a ranger but for now it's certainly way more interesting than working. I did not anticipate being as tired as I've been but today I'm more rested and ready for a big day of Geology (which I love), Badminton and Park Planning, the night class that does meet today.

Tuesday was the first day of allegedly introductory badminton. I walked in expecting a bunch of badminton novices like myself. The room soon filled with Chinese people, all of whom look very serious when it comes to badminton, and their high-quality racquets. It could prove to be a long semester...

Textbooks are even more of a ripoff today than when I was an undergrad the first time. I just bought one that was $75. $75 for ONE BOOK! It doesn't even include a password to free porn sites. Sheesh. This book better change my life.

So far, everything seems doable, hopefully I'll feel that way later in the semester as well.

• Meeting some very nice people who are also getting started on a new life
• The woman in front of me who sat with the look of rapt attention through the entire 2 hour meeting
• Learning about every program available for people with every issue under the sun. Have issues? Community college is the place for you!
• Taking the campus tour. It's a very small campus and yet some of the brand-new-to-college folks forced our tour guide to turn back to see the building we'd just passed and re-confirm what it was
• Getting the skinny on how to blend in with the kids (don't sit in the front row, make sure you wear a backpack, don't raise your hand for every question). I have to ask, why would I want to blend in? I'm not like them, it doesn't make sense to pretend to be.
• Utter horror as they discussed why taking math is necessary for the degree
• Utter joy when I learned that my BA means I just need the classes in my program and I still get the coveted AA in Park Management.
• Mild joy at paying only $2.50 for a gigantic burrito in the school cafeteria.
• A sense of wonder at how damn pretty the campus is. If you always lived in California, you'll think I'm weird for this, but if you ever lived in a place devoid of scenery (aka Ohio) you might understand how I'm continually amazed at how pretty this place can be.
• Seeing the cool party hats that rangers wear on display outside the Park Management room and thinking hey, hopefully one day I will wear one of those myself.

I still look at web jobs but in the end, I would've had to make a decision about going to school right about now anyway. For what I do, it seems expected that by this point I'd be more of a programmer, know some Java or some other language that doesn't interest me. So on almost every level, a career change makes sense, seems inevitable.

This time, it's a matter of re-thinking my life. Yes, I have a plan, I know what I want to do but getting to the point where I'm ready to go ahead with that plan has taken some time. Tomorrow I return home, ready to do some serious housecleaning in the week before classes start, then to dive into my exciting new life as a community college student. It will most certainly be odd to be almost 30 years old and spending so much time among kids fresh out of high school but I imagine the years I have on them make me grateful to at last, have some idea of what I want to be when I grow up.

When I started working on the web, it was partially because it was interesting but mostly because I knew that I could make decent money without requiring a lot of extra training. For a short time, I loved it, but that quickly wore off as every company I worked for went out of business and the people I knew became arrogant despite the great decline on the horizon. At first I thought of being a firefighter, but I knew the EMT portion of the job was not for me. A cop, maybe? Sure, except that I do not want to be the one who goes running through backyards, chasing after criminals. When I saw the words 'Park Ranger' it was the proverbial light bulb coming on, yes, here's the right blend of not being behind a desk and intelligence. I only hope that my instincts are correct and I enjoy this new career even half as much as I hope to.

I don't want a job
Building web pages all day
Let's work in the park

I really don't know
How to entertain myself
While waiting for school.

I signed up for the Intro to Park Management class and the Commuications class. I assumed that the second one would be park-specific but it seems to be a general communications class. My biggest risk is getting too cocky and flunking because I think I know this stuff already. Let's hope I keep my mind in the game.

Just when I think I'm getting ahead, something comes along to blindside me. Sigh.

Vegas, here we come!!

Ha! Drivin' me nuts! Hey clown...

• Getting the upgrade to World Business class from Seattle-Tokyo, which included free booze
• Picking Andrea's dad out of the crowd at Pudong airport after a very long day of travel
• Our first sighting of Western products, when we emerged from the subway station into downtown Shanghai the next day, feasting our eyes on Pepsi Plaza, with a KFC in the background
• McDonald's, ambassador to the world.
• Pizza Hut, a place where I never eat in the States, but where I welcomed everything they had to offer, except escargot. No, I'm not kidding about the snails.
• The Tours that saved the trip.
• Winking at every man who stared at us.
• The train from Hangzhou back to Shanghai, where chippies wander the aisles selling everything from stamps to meat buns and expired Coke.
• The Metro, where shoving is an art form and Andrea is the master.
• The Buddhist temple at Hangzhou, where I had some sort of epiphany about getting on with my life after Alice.
• The gigantic group of Iranians who spent the entire flight on our way home yelling at their teenage son for taking a sleeping pill. Asking them to keep it down got this clever retort: "if you wanted a private plane you should've gotten a private plane." Thanks to their antics I'm still wiped out, 2 days later.
• Hearing people speak accent-free English and only English upon our return to LAX.
• Asking a little boy to stop yelling so much in the LAX lobby because we'd just come from China and were very tired.
• Amy's skill in finding the only western toilet for miles vitually everywhere.
• Indoor skiing. Nope, I'm not kidding. For about $10 we got equipment and free run of the 'hill'. Ski lift? Nope, a gigantic conveyor belt. Nobody there looked like they'd been skiing before so we looked like pros. I snowboarded for the first time and only fell down a few times.
• Riding in our very own love boat in Zhouzhang. Our driver sang for us, then asked for a tip. If only it had been a singalong.
• Jo, our tour guide, who punctuated everything with 'okay' and 'you know'
• Hearing Andrea's parents call the Shangri-la the Shangrilla.
• Returning home, having seen an entirely different life than I'd ever imagined.

"At another point, he was asked if his group had simply gotten away with a great publicity stunt. Rael, speaking from Canada via satellite, said his earpiece was having technical difficulties."

"I am so sorry, but the sound is so bad. I cannot hear anything," he said.

Morons. Or are we the morons for even giving their claim a second thought?

2 years ago, I had no inclination to have not only one, certainly not 2 baby bassets. Soon we realized that adopting a pup out of rescue, a dog who we know where they've been every day of their lives was a miracle that wouldn't likely pass our way again. Adopting Rainie in May of 2001 is a decision I've not regretted. When Patrick's family decided to return him in May of 2002, we struggled again (we already had 3 dogs!), but knowing the bond her littermates Rockie and Lexie share, we knew we couldn't pass up the chance to give Rainie a peer.

Patrick has helped me start to move past losing Alice, the greatest of all beagles, he's truly a gift that Alice sent to get me through the hard parts. Enough like her that I don't forget, yet so unlike her that I see clearly who Patrick is.

We celebrated a day late by coming home and sitting with them but their birthday and every day we have with our Roos is a tremendous gift. Our thanks go out as always to Dena, Walt, the Holders and everyone else who had a hand (or rather, a handful) in bringing all the Roos into the world.

So to all the Roos, Happy Birthday, a day late but never more heartfelt than now.