the sun returns to the foggy city!

Has it really been over a month since I last posted? I guess so. Bad Jessica bad! Then again, internet connection at this apartment is awfully spotty. No excuse, really, I know.

The sun came out in SF! The youth went on spring break, and so did I! We may have long hours at this job but there certainly are some perks ... and flex time is one of them.

Monday I took my youth to Crissy Fields/Ocean Beach for a "poetry writing workshop." Which is really to say, we had lots of bonding time together and wrote some poetry on the side.


Mine is the bare foot with the skirt attached to it. That would be me, skirts all the way, running barefoot in the grass. I love my youth, I really do. With teenagers you just have to remember to not set out with an agenda firmly grilled into your mind, just go with the flow and meet them where they're at. They've shown me so much, taught me so much. We laugh together and I love watching them grow and develop, opening up to the rest of the group and to each other. I can't wait to see where they are in ten years.

A teaser shot, I know. I love the chemistry in the group.

It was such a beautiful day. And here I am, snapping more shots of nature. At least there are some constants in life.

And because I'm a real narcissist sometimes, here's a picture of me that one of my youth snapped. It is one of my more favorite photos of myself ...

I love that I don't have my usual 'smile for the camera' smile. So this is what it looks like when I smile at you. No, this isn't some awesome action shot - we were playing Red Light, Green Light, and I have this habit of being a little ... overdramatic ... at the most ridiculous times, like, say, when you're playing a game where you have to freeze all the time. In all the other photos I'm half falling over or have my arms swinging in the most wild directions, feet all up in the air and sticking out at odd angles.

And you know, I love that I work with teenagers who are more than totally willing to play Red Light, Green Light with me, they get EXCITED about doing so. I sense tomorrow's leaders in this group today.

The following day J and I went hiking at Mt. Tam. J is a coworker, but really that doesn't do her justice, because she is a coworkers AND a friend, just like so many of my coworkers. I tend to strongly compartmentalize the different parts of my life, and so while my coworkers mean so much to me I still refer to them that way, because that is the niche they occupy in my life.

Mt. Tam was gorgeous that day.

Both the large and the small pieces of nature.

And the super large.

Not even an hour outside of SF you can find such lovely wilderness. We have mad dreams of returning, or of future escapes. Now that is something to look forward to.

Encouraged by my favoritest Amoeba in the whole wide world, I did go ahead and sign up for the On Assignment: Portraiture photography course at the ASUC Art Studio in Berkeley. I have very little formal knowledge of photography so I thought it might be fun to take a class, see where that takes me. I'm very unaccustomed to thinking of photography in very formal art-critic terms, and probably will never do so, but anyways the class has been good for the stimulation and challenge of weekly assignments.

Week One: Self-Portrait.