Hello Santa Barbara!

So here's a map of where I went yesterday for a drive :) You can see how I almost made it to LA: it was less than 100mi to the city.

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I must say: the trip was great! It was long and extremely unexpected, but I finally got to put my feet into the Pacific that was not freezing and I get to drive through Santa Barbara - the city whose name I heard from when I was 3-4yrs old. 

There was this american soap opera called "Santa Barbara" broadcasted in Russia in the 80-90's and it was the longest soap opera in history as it kept going for 10 years (oh yeah!). Now I don't even remember what it was all about except that there was a man with a funny name "C.C." (I always thought it was his full name and in my head I spelled it like "Cici") who was the head of the Capwell family, then there was a young woman with really long and blonde hair named Eden and she was married to a man named Cruz.  Cruz always reminded me of a gorilla (probably not too flattering for the actor, but oh well) and I thought his name was ridiculous. What kind of person is called Cruz? Haha, if only I knew then that in 15 or so years for the weekends I regularly would be going to a place with the exact same name in it - Santa Cruz. I never questioned "Cruz" in Santa Cruz though... Strange.

In any case, for me, the "child of wilderness" at the time (ok, maybe not wilderness, but still - those Santa Barbara houses and beaches shown in the soap opera seemed like shots from another planet to me back then), it seemed not possible at all that at some point in my life I would visit those places. That's why this trip yesterday was so incredible.

Oh yeah, and then SB was the first american show ever broadcasted in Russia, so everyone in the country was watching it with open mouths. The name "Santa Barbara" itself became a common expression meaning "something unnecesary long, complicated, and "soapy".

Anyway, so here's what the intro to SB looked like. I still remember that first few seconds with the gates! After 15 years :)

Why do men never wear hats anymore?

Stumbled upon this question when seeing a rare scene at the street: a man wearing a hat in the evening in the city. Why don't men wear hats anymore? Is it because they're tired of taking it off to greet every woman they know?

Forever 21

When I was 16, I thought that in a few years I would have a better idea of what I want to do and who I want to be. Ha! Gonna be 21 in a few weeks and I still got no clue, but now I know that most people are like that. I guess up to my last breath I will keep wondering what this whole life was about.

My good friend once asked me what I thought my dream was. Years pass, but I think it's still the same. I always wanted to make a photograph that would win a contest and get published. Years pass, and I'm still working on that one :) 

Ziehe ich?

Well, since my blog has a little "paper basket" logo on top, I figured I can throw some more garbagé in it. Last yeat I developed this passion for copying photographs from ads in the magazines and then this kind of drawing became my own kind of meditation. Thought it would be nice to post some pictures here for a change :) 

Beware: I do not want my drawing abilities to be criticized. It's the silly thing that I do and silly things cannot be judged. I'm in no pretense that I'm a great artist, so no need to remind me of that :)

So this was sep 08 (this is what happened when I was by myself on a 9-hour flight upset and restless):

    

This was Dec. 08 (in the madness of final projects and exams). What inspired the middle one is pretty obvious if you look through my past blog entries, and the last one was just dedicated to my lovely sis, who loves crows.

   

These 2 are just still shots from 2 Russian cartoons "Hedgehog in the fog" and "The tale of tales":

  

And these last ones were again just from the magazines:

   

The quality of the photographs is not all that great, so my apologies for that. The camera has given up on me in the past few months.

For the first time I went driving today by myself with no destination! At night! It was like a dream. About 100mi after - I am home again, but feel changed :)

For some reason I put my alarm for 7:59 instead of 8. I guess, it's just more fun that way :)

Eifman

Oooh, and on Saturday I got to see "Eugene Onegin" performed in Berkley by Eifman ballet. I was very skeptical at the beginning, because it's modernized ballet and I've never seen a good one from that kind. However, after the first 10min of the performance, all my skepticism has evaporated and then I was just hoping that the dancers would never stop. In all the movements of the dancers there was something so sensual, so candid, that I felt like we, the audience, were almost intruding in their life. 

The choreographer is just brilliant! I didn't think that without the classical moves of the ballet one could make such an enchanting performances. Oh well, in cases like this I'm always glad to admit that I was wrong in my assumptions :) 

It was sad to leave the theater though, because everything there was so magical and the world outside was more trivial. I should learn to make magic myself - there's the plan!

May!

A new month. Once again. For the first time, I'm actually writing from my balcony, where I'm  sitting under the blanket in a chair. Very classy, isn't it? :) I'm thinking that if I make some hot chocolate (I actually got some real Swiss one in the cupboard!), then it would be just like a setting from some book. Hehe :)

Anyhow, what inspired me to write today is the Relay race that I volunteered for. It's a 199mi race from Calistoga to Santa Cruz that serves as a fundraiser for Organs R Us that promotes the need for organ donors. The race is to be completed by a team of 10-12 people, so each of the members runs about 10mi overall, which is not too bad, but through the whole race period (about 30hrs) all the non-active runners stay together in the van and follow the active runner, b/c every 5-6mi the runners must be changed. I've seen those people today after they've been in a race for >24hrs and had 0.5-1.5hrs of sleep max, and they have been extremely cheerful and polite. The mystery of human kind :)

Oh, and then we've seen this man who apparently does the whole race (199mi!) all by himself every year. For some midway points he orders pizza, quickly eats the whole thing on the way, and then just keeps going. Incredible! Such a determination and strength of body!

Together with 2 other people we were helping out at one of the numerous exchange points, so we had to coordinate the arriving/depating vans with the teams and make sure that all the runners cross the traffic safely. Sounds simple enough, but with the rain and heavier traffic it gets a bit tricky :) For the first time in my life I got to direct the traffic a bit though! With just one hand I could actually stop a car on Hwy 9 and with a wave of another hand let someone go :) I felt empowered. To be fair though, I did my best to never stop the cars on the road unless it was absolutely necessary. 

And the moral of the story is..? There are some really great people doing some incredible things out there in the world. I've got nothing more to add. 

Update (May 7, 2009): Dean Karnazes is the name of the man that ran all the 200mi by himself :)