The Berkeley Experience

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack 

And you may find yourself in another part of the world 

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile 

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful 

Wife

 And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here? 

And you may ask yourself 

How do I work this? 

And you may ask yourself 

Where is that large automobile?  

And you may tell yourself 

This is not my beautiful house! 

And you may tell yourself 

This is not my beautiful wife!

- "Once in a Lifetime", David Byrne/Brian Eno, 1980, Talking Heads

So, I started my day running the oh-so-Berkeleyesque gauntlet: folks striking (AFSCME), people slowing down to show their support, then the tree sitter craziness (check out this Open Letter to the Tree Sitters that I found) to which Thing 1, who is 7, said, "I want to be a tree sitter." Drop him off at camp, go right back through it (this time slowing down myself to honk and show my support for AFSCME.)

Class, lunch, more class, then...

And, then...

I went to the Chancellor's house. Uh-huh. The Chancellor's house. Check it out:

I sat on the back lawn and enjoyed a good beer and fine food, a lovely speech by the Chancellor and a great presentation from two of my cohort members. I chit-chatted with many cool edu-geeks, honored the man who is sending me through grad school (in partnership with my parents), and even exchanged a few words with the Dean of the Graduate School of Education.

Then I came home, put Thing 2 in time out for not helping to clean his room, then helped him clean his room, vacuumed, managed dirty clothes, refereed a wrestling match between hubby and Things 1 and 2, kissed the Things good night and tucked them in, and now here I sit.

In the end, sometimes I feel like it's "once in a lifetime", but it's really just "same as it ever was."