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September 2003

A Fortnight in No. Cal

Thursday Jul 15, 2004

A tick tick tick tick tick tick tick...

Consider this entry the two minute warning in the football game of San Francisco life. Even though mathematically I really only have about a minute remaining in this game (2 weeks out of 100 = 1/50. There are 60 minutes in a Pro Game. Therefore I have 60/50ths or 1 minute 12 seconds). Anyway...I thought it appropriate to use this time to reflect on my two years spent in the land of the left instead of focusing on what's left of it (horrible pun).

I arrived in San Francisco August 17, 2002 without a home, a job, and at that point a car. I had joined Teach For America and had just completed 6 weeks of hellacious training lovely Bronx, NY. With just three days to skip all the way across the nation I stopped back in Chicago, filled my car with boxes, and put it on a shipping truck whilst I got myself on an aeroplane...I like the word aeroplane.

Me and San Fran didn't start off the best of friends. Good ol' TFA couldn't find us jobs which meant we were going to have to commit to an apartment and have to just take it on faith that we would eventually be employed. Meanwhile it was freezing everyday and I was wondering where the hell California had gone. My car wasn't exactly making tracks across the nation. It barely got here before September...Bastards!

Eventually though I got my final assignment as a 7th grade math/sci teacher, Evan, Nichole, Meghan and I settled on a 4 Bdrm place in lovely Cole Valley, and "I'm not gonna lie to you" Joe finally got my car out in one piece. Life in San Francisco had begun and with time for little else we all began growing up faster than we ever had before. With over 100 kids my sole responsibility in the fields of mathematics and life science I experienced new thoughts, concerns, and levels of maturity that I was unaccustomed to. Instead of chatting football over the phone, Gabe and I will talk teaching strategy and would congratulate each other on accomplishments.

As time passed, exhausted I still longed to do more with music. I began focusing on playing as much as possible after work and started writing the music that would become the Goodbye Project. After a few open mics at Rockin' Java and Nickie's and getting bit hard by the performance bug when seeing the "Pop Rocks" at The Red Devil Lounge, I began to recruit for a music project.

Stay tuned for....OSU wins the Fiesta Bowl I, Eric Y, Jon B, Jerry B, and romance at school....