So Frontier is not allowing anyone to buy any more tickets on the flight we have to Costa Rica.
they like to be mysterious, because they tell me no more tickets could mean:
1) They are sold out
2) They have pulled all the other avaliable tickets

Number two, translated by me, means they are not allowing anymore because they are about to cancel the flight. Number one would be good news. Flip a never landing coin: Is how I translate it.

They have canceled four of their other routes. Not Costa Rica. Not yet.

They sure are sneaky... or so they think.

The death cab for cutie concert last week was amazing. It was a week ago, but I can't stop thinking about it. Their new stuff it so good. I can't wait for the new cd to come out. I already know my favorite new song: Grapevine Fires. I like their new stuff, because they are like stories...or poems. And Grapevine Fires reminds me exactly of one of my stories I wrote this past winter about the Southern California fires. I like it when artists write songs that remind you of their stories. It is sort of like hearing a song and thinking it was written specifically for you. I hear a song and think it was specifically written as the sound track for one of my stories. Wouldn't it be cool if all stories had a soundtrack to go with it? A suggested song to listen too while reading?
Maybe if I ever publish a short story collection I will have a suggested song for each story in the index.

I am enjoying my new camera. Here is a video clip, done by my new camera, during the concert.
A little shaky at first...but it gains strength. :)

I'm actually starting to like writing poetry. I'm far from good at it, but to me they are mini-stories waiting to be written- new material. Here is another one:

"Intention to Steal Culture"

Magdalena clutched chili peppers, basil,
And twine used to intertwine the two together
To sell on Del Monte Street for seven pesos
To tourists who wanted to buy a piece of Mexico
For their all-American families who buy lemonade and curls
Sold by neighborhood girls once a week
With change fished from behind couch cushions.

Magdalena bought bloodlike vampiro juice
For her children that picked fermented figs
Off the ground to trade in the market
At Chichicapa for razors to carry in their hands
During the eight hour ride in the covered van
Past omnipresent sniffer dogs and guards
Into the beat of the American streets.

And I got my new camera just in time for the Death Cab for a Cutie Concert tomorrow night- I am so excited and can't wait.

Picnic Day was grand fun this weekend. I have to say Caroline's dad (the beer man) was the high light. His lecture was pretty much hilarious. Afterwards I needed to drink budwiser in honor of his lecture. The weather wasn't rainy, like usual. Palina came home which was fun.

The weekends just fly by. I wish they were 3 days long. I have 5 poems due on Tuesday. I am not much of a poet. I try and am finding that they take longer than stories, even though they are shorter. Stories give you the space to build up to things and make mistakes or buy white paper. Poems. You have to carefully sit there and think about the meaning and significance of each word. Then it has to sound right too. Quite the challenge. Here is my first completed poem:

Forbidden City

When I drive with my eyes closed

I think of October 3^rd 1990

When I went to a party

On the Great Wall of China

Lanterns illuminated the sky

Like technicolor fish waving in the wind

Tiger beer dictated my mind

Zhuang girls smiled at me from the edge,

Took cigarettes from the hands of German college boys.

Blue smoke twisted into the sky

Shadow mountains swallowed a dissipating wall.

No pause in between

The music beat into the dirt ground,

whispered into space like echoes quieting in a tunnel.

Glitter necklaces glowed

onto a penny a Zhuang girl stuck into her shoe.

Black ink tattoos dipped down her chest

Onto her breasts

Like ivy leaves consuming a brick wall

Converse shuffled across the dirt floor

Sweat caught on my upper lip

Her cheeks flashed pink

Hast Du etwas Zeit für mich?

No one would believe me

If I told them I drive with my eyes closed.

I have never met a dog that loves the water as much as Jaime...

Camping at the Indians during Spring Break:

I can't stand the stress of this airline thing....

So I used some of my tax refund and I (pre-ordered) purchased my new camera this morning. I needed something concrete to look forward too. I am excited. It will be released on April 20th. I can't wait to have a camera again:



I also ordered a waterproof Costa Rica map....It will be my string of hope. I will study it and map on it and have fun.

It can't be...

Frontier has declared bankruptcy today

We have 9 tickets booked for Costa Rica with Frontier in August

The tickets are non-refundable unless they cancel the flight....which they have not done yet....but there are still many months left.

I swear this trip better not be canceled. I have been planning and working and getting so excited about it since December.

On their website they declare they will be "reogranizing for 9-18 months" whatever that means.

It better not effect our flight.

Course work is light this quarter, but I have been working more on campus and then at city hall. When I work more it is almost like I am busier, but not as stressed and not as tired. Classes are moving along. I am enjoying poetry and grammar more than I ever thought I would. I struggle with the homework during the week, but then in class it just makes sense and I finally am grasping concepts and ideas I never could understand.

I've been accepted to the Mendocino Writers Conference for the summer, so I will be traveling to Mendocino on a fully paid trip by the english department. I liked the author's at the conferences in Napa and Portland better, but the conferences were both so much longer. I just could not afford to be gone longer than a long weekend in the summer, so I stuck with a shorter one. Which isn't bad, because if I am going to be submerged in writing nonstop for three days straight I couldn't find a more inspirational place than Mendocino. They have a contest I'm going to enter. The first place person wins money and will be published. I just need to decide which story to submit. It is hard because so many of my stories take place in Mendocino. I can see this being a good thing and a negative thing. I don't want to offend anyone, but then again they might like to see their location in a story. We'll see.

The city of Davis gave my name to the executive director of the Davis Art Center. I guess the Art Center is looking for an office assistant. I wish I had the time to take the job. It probably would be perfect. I'm going to go and meet with the director next week...and see what she thinks. It is crazy how networking and connections just allow things to fall into your lap. I am becoming a firm firm believer of just working hard and being happy along the way..then success will find you. If you become to desperate and depressed with what you're doing then nothing will happen.

Yesterday I was walking on campus and said hi to a professor in passing. He told me every time I see you, you are always so happy.

I don't see why you should waste time not being happy.

I did it. I accomplished a goal I have been at for the past 5 years.

I got my first 4.0 ever at UC Davis. Not only did I do it as a grad. student, but I did it in the hardest classes ever. I worked my butt off this past quarter and I completely deserve every thing I earned. I have never worked so hard in school. I am so happy. It was so worth it.

The crazy undergrad professor who had it in for me gave me the best grade: an A+ (I guess she recognized that I really did try and put all my effort into her class)

Then I got two A's in my graduate seminars

I am so happy. Really. This is a feeling that is unexplainable and better than anything. Everything - the exhaustion, the pushing- all of it was worth it.

We went camping to the Indians last weekend. It was beautiful. I will post photos soon.

New quarter, new classes started today. I wrote my first poem in my poetry class. It was about mushroom hunting. I had to read it out loud and was a little humiliated. I'm no poet. But hopefully I will learn.