Not quite as bad as Amelia Bedelia

Today was my first day of work. Tuesday was orientation: I had lots of safety lectures and filled out forms, but today I actually got badged and started doing things. Unfortunately, the people at Livermore care about keeping national secrets away from terrorists, so I don’t have any pictures of my new boss or my office (my office!) to show you, so instead here’s a picture of me eating at In-N-Out on Monday.

Anyway, the lab is very exciting, but it is also very tiring trying to be an adult all day, so when I come home I have to collapse and act like a silly girl with Little Sis again. Both of my mentors are really nice, though I’m a little (a lot) worried about whether or not I’ll be able to handle what they’re expecting me to do. I’m worried about a lot of my job actually. It’s just hard, because I’m so much younger and less experienced than everyone else. One of the most difficult things for me is just calling adults by their first names. But I will overcome or whatever. And there’s a supply closet! Beautiful beautiful supplies! (no, I’m not pilfering any. I just like looking at them).

Anyway, I’m working with NIF, in the Optical Inspection area. Basically I’m helping analyze flaws in the lenses etc that they use to focus and shape the lasers, and trying to make the computer better at doing the same thing. It’s interesting, if confusing. I have to learn new programming languages, which is...good I guess. I always wanted to be multilingual...

Not much else has happened in the way of life. Most of the exciting incidents here revolve around food––I’ve discovered the deliciousness of Caesar salads (well, my mother says that they’re what used to be called ‘chef’s salads,’ and aren’t ‘true’ Casesar salads), we’ve bought sugar cubes, and I have a new water bottle. not so exciting, but fun all the same.

This was a boring post, but I want to keep a record of what I do this summer, so you’re just going to have to deal. To make up for it, here are some pictures my family took while hiking yesterday.

California Gurls

(that is, my mother, my sister, and I–though we don't wear Daisy Dukes with bikinis on top)

So here we are in sunny California. We’re staying about an hour outside of San Francisco, and it’s pretty awesome. I neglected to take pictures of the plane, so here’s a generic one for you:

During our five hour flight, I amused myself with knitting

(Three hour sweater, with some kind of wool-alpaca mix that I have lost the ball band to)

and Yale iTunesU lectures––I’m not quite sure what my family did, except that it involved a lot of rolling of dice.

Once we got off the plane (and were spoiled for the results of the Germany-England soccer game), I remembered to take pictures: mostly because waiting at the car rental place took forever.

Although there was a woman with cool hair,

Little Sis and I were bored. So we played Slide and took pictures of ourselves being fabulous.

Our new car is SO CUTE that I want to eat it with a spoon. Or change its diaper. Or just feel really cool and hip driving around in it (despite how long it took us to find the trip meter reset button).

One thing about California is that they’re way more intense about rules and regulations, so we had to be very careful not to break some rules that were ‘photo-enforced.’

The extra precaution-taking was more than made up for, however, by our excitement at being in a place with LETTERS written on HILLS. And for me, seeing the completely different vegetation was a personally awesome experience.

Of course, being in California, the first thing we did was go to an In-N-Out.

I’ve (obviously) never been to one before, but I liked that the menu was very basic.

It made choices easy and also in this case, meant that the food was very good. Well, the burgers were. The fries, not so much (we still ate them all).

Overall, Elevation Burger is still better––their shakes are more drinkable and bigger, as well as having a spoon for when your straw gets clogged, and while their burgers are smaller, their fries are far superior.

After lunch, we were pretty tuckered out, so we headed to the hotel. Livermore is about a 45 minute drive from San Francisco, but with the amazing scenery, it felt more like ten minutes.

Although there was some confusion.... We thought this was the San Mateo Bridge.

No. It was this.

Unfortunately, my camera skills aren’t great, so I couldn’t capture exactly how pretty everything was, but I did my best.

There was some interesting algae growth––the result of eutrophication? in the part of the bay we were driving over, as well as some white stuff that we assumed was salt.

Eventually we reached our long term residency hotel. It matches our car in its adorableness, and we couldn’t wait to get settled in. Our new home is small, but cozy, and I think there’s enough space that we won’t all be biting each other’s heads off. At least let’s hope so.

It may be only 5:00 here, but for me it feels like the end of the day, despite the heat of over 100˚F weather. At least there aren’t many mosquitoes. So here we are, in California, eating samosas and excited for the summer. How are you? Where are you? I bet it's not as cool as here.

7 Things

Based vaguely on Miley Cyrus' "Seven Things," but mostly on Feast on Scraps' "Ten Things I Love Sundays."

1. Communal timed writing prompts

2. Roomba photography

3. Photo tag free association

4. Trompe l'oeils (trompe les yeux?)

5. Toys you can print

6. Cupcakes!

7. Fantastic animations

(no pic :C but this is probably the best of them all so click the link)

"Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable." ~W.H. Auden

My blog is called “Caer Paravel.” Cair Paravel is the castle in Narnia. I didn’t choose the name because of some spiritual connection (I don’t even know what said connection would be. My knowledge of the manner in which The Chronicles of Narnia connects to Christianity extends only to the fact that theoretically there is one, nothing more), or even as a tribute to a beloved book of my childhood. I chose it as a blog title because of the Decemberists' cover of the song “Bridges and Balloons.”

It had been running through my head all day on the day I created this blog (which technically is today, I suppose), specifically the lines “and I / can recall our caravel: / a little wicker beetle shell / with four fine masts and lateen sails, / its bearings on Cair Paravel.” It’s a good song. But so is Of Montreal’s “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse,” but you’ll notice that’s not the title of this blog.

I want my blog to feel like a place, somewhere you can visit and immerse yourself in before leaving again. Maybe that’s not what you want, but that’s the way I always feel when I read the best books. I forget the outside world, and all I see or hear is the fictional one. I want my blog to have the same kind of staying power. If any of you have read Pamela Dean's Secret Country series, I want it to be a bit like that, or have the same feeling evoked by the Secret Country. A place that's special and private(esque), that you've known since you were little and play in with your oldest and closest friends.

I also love old legends and myths. My blog only barely escaped being called “Cantre’r Gwaelod.” First, my mother told me not to name it some ‘weird Welsh thing,’ and my mother is generally a pretty smart lady. And second, the url was already taken. But The Chronicles of Narnia were some of my favorite books growing up, and Cair Paravel is the kind of place I used to dream about going to––just listen to the description and you’ll understand why:

“The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and sea weed, and the smell of the sea, and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking forever and ever on the beach. And, oh, the cry of the sea gulls! have you heard it? Can you remember?

That evening after tea the four children all managed to get down to the beach again and get their shoes and stockings off and feel the sand between their toes. But next day was more solemn. For then, in the Great hall of Cair Paravel––that wonderful hall with the ivory roof and the west door all hung with peacock’s feathers and the eastern door which opens right onto the sea, in the presence of all their friends and to the sound of trumpets, Aslan solemnly crowned them and led them onto the four thrones amid deafening shouts of, ‘Long Live King Peter! Long Live Queen Susan! Long Live King Edmund! Long Live Queen Lucy!’”

Finally, you’ll notice that my blog’s name is spelled “Caer” rather than “Cair.” The real reason is that was taken. The secondary, fake justification reason is that ‘Caer’ is the generally accepted spelling of the Celtic word. Places like Caer Arianrhod, Caer Bran, and Caer Caradog are in the Mabinogi, and it is that sort of place from which (I assume) C. S. Lewis drew his Cair Paravel. So yes, my blog is “spelled wrong.” That’s because this isn’t the Narnian castle of kings and queens. It is the more humble home of a young girl. Aaaand that sounded pretentious. But whatever. Calling my blog Caer Paravel and then pretending I have a reason to spell it that way is pretentious too. So shut up.

Genesis

Hello there. Welcome to my blog. I’m Cottia, and while I could describe myself using adjectives––brunette, loud, aspiring engineer, I think the best way to discover who I am is to get to know me. And that’s the purpose of this blog. It’s going to be about writing and reading and knitting and baking, because those are all things that I do. But what it’s really about, at its most basic level, is me. Who I am as a person, what I think about the world, what I think about myself. Probably it’s going to be rambling and ranty and a little bit incomprehensible. That’s unavoidable, partly because I’m young, partly because I’m inexperienced, and partly because I’m just me. Cottia. And that’s what I’m like. I can’t promise to make this blog funny or deep or meaningful. I can almost promise it will probably have cool pictures and possibly have exciting links, but I can’t say for sure. All I can say is that it’s going to be honest, to the best of my abilities, and that it’s going to be about me.

So here we are, companions, with few expectations and the whole wide internet before us. Will you sally forth into the darkness with me? Will you take my hand, the night grows ever colder...no wait, that’s Les Miserables. Well. Let’s get on with it, shall we?