Half my time is spent focussing (or trying to focus) on work, getting as much coding done as possible, liaising with the rest of the team back in Bristol in the early mornings and then bashing away at the keyboard for the rest of the day. The other half is thinking about the upcoming trip to Australia; planning, researching, plotting routes on charts, reading about other peoples’ experiences, running scenarios through my mind. Context-switching between the two is quite a challenge. Sitting down all day is making me all antsy. I’m the only one in the office today due to a protest on the BART (subway), and I’ve been running up and down between the desks to spend some energy.
We’ve been in San Francisco for a week, and I’ve not traveled more than a mile or two away from our apartment and the office. Fortunately I have no real desire to get out and explore, for me a city’s a place I stay in not out of choice but necessity. Noisy, busy, smelly, intense. We’re staying in a tiny 300 sq ft studio with windows that look out onto a blank wall, in the Tenderloin district – not the choicest cut of meat when it comes to SF neighbourhoods. But that’s all we can stretch to with the rent being so ridiculously high, and it’s convenient. I thought that the fridge cycling on and off on Rafiki was noisy, but it’s nothing compared to the aged monster of a machine sat in the corner of our room that rumbles, grumbles and grinds through the night. Last night I shuffled it around a bit to stop the reverberation which I think has improved things a bit.
If we were going to be here longer, I’d be keen to make friends and feel a bit more settled, but only being here for 6 or 7 weeks, with a lot to do, I’m at the computer pretty much all the time. Rose has been out and about catching up with buddies, and getting on with her research and art, leading up to her next Big Leap in Colorado and Canada.
So, much of the same for the next few weeks I suspect.
Road and Ocean 