One of the perks of going to grad school near where you grew up is having your old high school teachers buy you alcohol. Yesterday was the Cal-Illinois game, and although I usually don't give a crap about football, I met my science teachers Mr. Kishler, Mr. Burns, and the husband of Mrs. Wendell at the Bear's Lair on campus for some beer. Both Mr. Kishler and Mr. Wendell were undergrads at Berkeley and told me a lot of stories about what the place used to be like when they were my age, and Mr. Burns was bravely wearing a bright orange Illinois shirt. I was taken past the Nobel laureate parking spot ("Parking for NL Permit holders only") and up to a tennis court by the stadium where a mostly alumni tailgate was in full swing. It seemed like most of the people swarming on Telegraph, at the Bear's Lair, and walking up to the stadium were alumni, but on the way back down to my apartment I saw where a lot of the undergrads were: drinking at 2 pm in the front yards of their frats.

Yesterday we fed the giant water bugs a bunch of goldfish and watched one seize its prey and stab it repeatedly with its needle-like mouthparts. Jennifer, Zack, David, and I had an unusually cheap dinner at Tuk Tuk Thai and Asian Market, on University. In addition to tons of Southeast Asian foodstuffs, they also serve surprisingly cheap and authentic (according to Jennifer) Thai food in huge portions. It tasted a lot more like the stuff I ate in Thailand than in any other restaurant I've been to in the US, and for half the price. Sadly it's not the kind of place you can take someone out to eat...

I saw the trailer for "Memoirs of a Geisha" yesterday. Although as someone who lived in the city next to Kyoto for a year and a half, I can't quite suspend disbelief when I see non-Japanese actresses pretending to be Japanese speaking English with Chinese accents, I'll still have to see it. If they were able to cram in enough shots of places I know well--Arashiyama, Gion, To-ji--in the trailer, it'll still be worth watching, once, on rental DVD.

This next weekend I'm off to Santa Catalina Island, in the ocean south of Los Angeles, as a chaperone for the AP Biology class from Los Gatos High School.