by Jane J. Lee | Feb 5, 2011 | Posts
I am an intern at an organization I used to work at as a science graduate student. I was really nervous about seeing people I had worked with again….I would not be talking to them about the latest data points my computer spit out, or the difficulty I was having...
by Melissae Fellet | Feb 4, 2011 | Posts
The Santa Cruz Baroque festival features a glass harmonica player in a February 12th concert. We’ve all rubbed a wet finger around the rim of a goblet just to hear it hum. This instrument works on the same principle. Many bowls, each tuned to a precise note, are...
by Jane J. Lee | Jan 29, 2011 | Posts
A friend of mine died one year ago today. Stomach cancer. It was quick, but not painless. When she was diagnosed it was already pretty advanced, and she wasn’t ready to go. Near the end though I think she was just tired. I hope it was a relief for her. I know...
by Donna Hesterman | Jan 28, 2011 | Posts
“Water vapor is your enemy, heat is everything, and there is always another step,” says Sean. He runs a bronze foundry in Santa Cruz. Bronze casting is a messy, multi-step process that pulls beauty from chaos. And Sean is a chemist, a material engineer, and an...
by Sandeep Ravindran | Jan 27, 2011 | Posts
The internet isn’t exactly known for providing a consistently high quality of writing. And I don’t think most people have particularly high literary expectations of video game reviews. So I was surprised to see a badly-written video game review elicit...
by Nadia Drake | Jan 27, 2011 | Posts
By the late 1990s, my grandfather could no longer read. To be visible, photos needed to hover near his visual peripheries. Then, Jiddou –“grandfather” in Arabic – couldn’t see me unless I stood off to his side. My Jiddou had a growing blind spot smack in the...
by Susan L. Young | Jan 20, 2011 | Posts
The title might be a bit of a stretch, but the punch of it approximates how astonished I was to see the sea lions of the Santa Cruz Wharf this past weekend. [slideshow] Before a sunset dinner on Sunday, I was dazzled by a group of sea lions resting on the horizontal...
by Sandeep Ravindran | Jan 17, 2011 | Posts
I took along a whole lot of books during winter break, and started with The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes. I ended up reading it cover-to-cover during my flight, as I was completely engrossed. This isn’t the first time I’ve...
by Sascha Zubryd | Jan 15, 2011 | Posts
I wrote my first profile as an undergraduate, of an eminent economics professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. I thought it was pretty good. It even earned an honorable mention in a school-wide writing competition. Then a real profile of the same...
by Donna Hesterman | Jan 11, 2011 | Posts
Today I had a conversation with a man who I have read about in history books. I’ve also seen a few movies about him. And the night Barack Obama was elected President; I saw this man’s face on a television set in a bar in Selma, Alabama. He was talking, but...
by Donna Hesterman | Jan 4, 2011 | Posts
Since I was a little girl, I’ve taken what I call “mental snapshots” of moments that I want to remember. I almost always carry a camera now, but back before digital cameras became ubiquitous, I hardly ever had one handy when something significant was going down. I...
by Danielle Venton | Jan 2, 2011 | Posts
I’ve been reading Cronin in Santa Cruz. It’s less exotic than Lolita in Tehran, but more personal. My grandmother, Dinah Cronin, died 15 years ago. During my childhood I visited her a few times in Arizona, but she passed before I got to know her well. So,...
