Hi guys! I would like to show you some pictures I took during my trip through the North Californian Coast. I hope you enjoy them.

Gay pride parade in SF Sunday - June 27th

http://www.sfpride.org/

I hope some of you will check out this quintessential San Francisco parade!

field trip, Thursday, June 17th - cheese board pizza - rose garden - coffee houses

http://www.berkeleyheritage.com/berkeley_landmarks/municipal-rose-garden.html

Hi everyone, so tomorrow we are going on a field trip - we'll leave school around 11 and walk over to the gourmet ghetto in North Berkeley.  The plan is to visit Philz, http://www.philzcoffee.com/ a new coffee house everyone is raving about and then go have some pizza the Cheese board collective. http://cheeseboardcollective.coop/   Hopefully we will also hear some good jazz there.  Afterwards we'll take a look at Peet's coffee house on Walnut Street, the original Peet's http://www.peets.com/ and then we'll walk over to the Berkeley Rose Garden.

Wear comfortable shoes, a hat and bring water.  If you use sunscreen, make sure you apply some to your skin.  If you don't like pizza, bring something to eat.

If you're a student who has left our school and you're reading the blog and would like to join us, please do - meet us at school just before 11 a.m.

See you tomorrow - Denise

How can walking a dog rescue a life?

Since my boss's son went back to Thailand for vacation on May 26th I started to take his dog, Nin for a walk on campus. I do that when I get off of work at three in the afternoon. On wednesday my husband and I always walk Nina, his friend's dog, but now her owner is taking care of her old cat closely so she doesn't have time to take Nina to us. So we do Nin instead now. Poor Nina. :( Ok back to the story. On Thursday I usually walk Nin by myself on campus. And the rest of the week somebody else take her there. The first place we go is the eucalyptus grove. If you enter the campus from Oxford you'll walk pass a big lawn and then get to a road, cross the road and you'll see that grove I am talking about. This grove is always quiet, away from everthing else on campus. I feel isolated when I am there. There are strangers sometimes. Strangers here mean marginalized people. Nin loves it there because there are always some squirels to hunt. I always feel kind of nervous there because it's very quiet. There are hardly anybody walking by. People always walk on the other roads nearby. And if you are not literally in that grove you can't see what's going on inside because it's surrounded by trees and bushes and there is a stream along most of it. Sounds like a nice place to meditate, I guess.

On Thursday (June 10th) my boss and I went back there again with Nin, of course. My boss wanted to know where exactly it is that Nin likes to jump down the stream and drinks out of it becuase I always tell her how much Nin likes that part of the stream. There we were at the eucalyptus grove waiting for Nin to do her business. She likes to do it there, too. There was this black guy with his black dog. He started the conversation by asking us "Was it here that a student got robbed?" I said "Oh there was somebody gttingt robbed on campus? I didn't know that. " He said yes but he wasn't sure if it was there. We moved on to show my boss Nin's favorite stream farther up hill.

A day later, my boss took Nin for a walk by herself because I had to work. She came back about an hour later with a backpack and a wet dirty tennis ball. I asked why she took the backpack with her on this walk. She said she didn't take it she just found it in the eucalyptus grove covered with leaves next to a big log. I know exactly which one it is. She brought it with her because she found a camera, an Ipod, a cell phone and something else. The backpack looked like it was used recently beacuse there were some drinks and new letters inside. I checked the camera first cuz I like this stuff. There were some pictures and two of them I think are the ones of himself. My husband said I shouldn't tell people that I looked at the pictures in the camera. There are two pictures of himself. My husband said I shouldn't have looked without permission. The guy looks good. ;) I checked the cell phone to see if I can call somebody that can contact him. I called the person who sent him a message but it didn't work. I went to recent calls and the last number was named "mom". I called that number and nobody answered until they heard what was going on when I was leaving a meesage. His mom said her son has diabetes and he might have had low sugar problem and walked off. She also asked if we found his computer. At the moment I thought that sounded bazaar because if he had that problem how would he move away from the spot? Well she is the mom she should know better. So I said I was gonna call the police because we can't take care of that at the moment. The mother couldn't do anything because she lives in Arizona. We know where he lives by reading the address on the letters and it's only a few blocks away from the restaurant but we were all working. After I hang up my bosses said they would bring the backpack to the guy themself after work which is sometiimes 10.30 or 11.00 at night. I can't say anything about it, she found the thing and she is my boss.

About 20 minutes later his mom called us and she said his cousin would come pick it up. An hour later the cousin came. (Man, he is a handsome young man.) After making him verify himself I gave the backpack to him and called my boss to come say something. The cousin said they are worried about him so much because he has diabetes. The cousin already checked at his apartment but the manager there said they haven't seen him. The cousin asked if we found his computer. So appearantly he has a computer and he uses it a lot. My boss said please let us know if he is ok. He asked where we found it and if the leaves looked like somebody put them on the backpack to hide it. That was also my first question to my boss when she told me how she found it. She said she couldn't tell. He said thank you, took a business card and left. About fifteen to twenty minutes later, the mother called again. She asked where exactly did we find the backpack. Then she said her son likes it there a lot. He took her there once.

His mother called back gain 2 hours later. She said her son was now in the hospital. He was found in the creek cut and briused all over. I was so shocked. She was crying and thanking us for doing such a good thing. So we assumed that the guy was in the grove using his computer and got robbed there. I hope the next news we get from them is that he is doing very well just like nothing happened because we don't know how long time he was in the stream before he was rescued.

The lesson from this story for me is. If my boss was just a little greedy. If she just wanted that camera which cost only about 200 bucks and the Ipod and that cheap cell phone. If all that happened is she kept those for herself. We would have lost one life. And that would have been too cheap to be worth a life. Somebody might think it's just a cheap camera, and ipod and a free cell phone the owner won't feel so bad about losing them. I wouldn't. But who knows that only the cheap stuff can lead you to the point where you can save the owner's life.

And for me the whole story happened because of this sweet sweet dog. I wouldn't start walking her if she is not sweet enough that I can't stand seeing her getting bored behide the restaurant. And my boss and other people woudn't follow what I do. (before that my boss took Nin for a walk only around the block) . There you go. This is how walking a dog can rescue a life. Thank to sweet Nin and my sweet boss. :) Be very thoughtful before you do anything. I love this class. :)

Our new kitty cat.

Just so everybody know the origin of the story. Since I moved in my boyfriend's house I met this cat named Loodie. A very very shy black cat. She lets us pet her and comb her in the bed room but not in the other rooms. The closest she comes to us in the other rooms is just barely enough for her to reach her treat. Whenever we go out of town we have friends come over to take care of Loodie. But Loodie doesn't only need food. We think she needs company, too.

After the fire at the Berkeley East bay Humane Society my husband and I talked about volunteering at the place. They don't need that kind of help yet. All they want now is adoption. After dropping by last week I came out of the place with tear. They are so heart breaking. Some of them the owners just have to give up the pets because they lost their houses. What a shame. You lose your house therefore you can't have your best friend next to you. :( What about the poor animals? They have plenty of love at the shelter but the people at the shelter work so hard and some of them don't even get paid. They are there because they love the animals. I don't love the animals but I love the people's hearts. The only thing I can do to help them is to share the work.

Today (Saturday 12th) we went back to the place and just got a kitty cat. She is a cute and sweet one but that's not the reason why we chose her. We got her because adult animals seem to be harder to get adopted. I would love to get a kitten but what if nobody is interested in the adults? So here we are with Hanna. We have to keep her seperately from Loodie for about two weeks. But after that Loodie will have a kitty cat friend. I hope she likes her new friend.

There are a lot of lives waiting to come with you at the animal shelter. Just give it a try. Go visit them and take them for a walk at least. They need you. And you will love them. I actually have a great story caused by walking a dog to tell all of you. Nobody can miss this story. See you guys.

I like the new backgruond.

I don't know if it's new but hey I haven't been here for forever. I'll be writing a lot about my boss's experience. I hope that sounds good to everybody. :)

Culture And Customs

Before I left Korea, I just heard about cultural shock and difference of customs between Korea and other countries. However, I hadn't experienced those things even though I came to U.S. I think the reason why I didn't feel cultural shock and difference of customs is that I have already experienced those things indirectly by media, such as TV, films, news papers and magazines.

I thought I wasn't going to face any cultural problems before I visited my girl friend's house. If someone visited their girl friend's house in Korea, they would have to be polite, considerate and nice. Therefore, I tried to be polite and considerate in a Korean way. As a result of that attitude, I remained silent, and I was super nervous. I didn't know American customs at that time. I didn't have to be that polite, and I shouldn't have followed Korean customs. I could do everything within a limit and not make problem, but I was too polite. I didn't eat more food when I finished my meal, even if I wasn't full, and I tried not to make noise. It made me me a boring guest. When I realized American people like fun people though that is their daughter's boyfriend, I finally realized I had been too reserved. Now I know what I can do when I visit my girl friend's house in America. If I go to her house again, I will enjoy that visiting without making an effort to be too polite.

When I had a Bad Day

Once people make a mistake, we call it a lesson. The second time it happens of course, you are stupid. Unfortunately, I always tell my friend that she´s stupid when she gots a notice of an overdraft statement from her bank. She had nothing to say after reading her mail, it seems like she got use to it already. "It wastes your money, why dont you check your account before shopping?" She replied that I was not in her shoes, so I wouldn´t know how this bad situation could happen.

Last week after working, I stopped by the mail box and, one of the letters was from the bank. "Oh-my-goddddd" this was a phrase that I could say after reading the letter. It was a notice of overdraft mail the same as my friend got last time. Absolutely, I never missed to recheck that mail sent to me however, I saw my real name on it. In addition, I couldn´t sleep that night because of this situation.

A day later, I went to talk with a banker about my statement. He showned me how many times I used the card, how much I spent and, how much I had to pay for the overdraft fee each time. I was very very very shocked knowing that my statement revealed a zero balance and I had used my card 5 times for shopping, total amount of appx 150$. More than that, I had to pay overdraft fee 34$ for each I shopped. So, can you imagine how much I paid totally? 150+(34*5)=? Yessss!!! 320$ is the correct answer.

"Stararchitects"

Yesterday I read an interesting article in a Catalan newspaper. The article talked about all the building projects that the Catalan government had to stop because of our bad economic situation. All these projects are important buildings in the city, huge projects that will be a reference point in the city, like university buildings, parks, museums...

The main problem that the article talked about is the huge cost of the construction of these buildings but in my opinion, the problem comes from the desire of some politicians who want to have buildings in the city designed by famous architects. They want iconic buildings in the city that will become famous around the world, buildings as merchandizing products, designs for magazines and tourists not for the city and the community's needs.

I'm not saying that the "stararchitects" don't build great buildings, I'm saying that there are a lot of good architects who can build more affordable buildings because they have lower fees. Also sometimes these famous architects design projects like a brand to sell because it is fashionable and modern. It's like wearing a Louis Vuitton coat instead of hand-made coat. The first one is more expensive and it is fashionable but that doesn't mean that it is more comfortable. What I mean is that local architects can make great buildings, affordable and serving the community needs and that is better for the city and the economy.

http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/

check out this funny video!!! we need to learn english quickly!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT86iWiH2mI

check out this funny video!!! we need to learn english quickly!!

Guys, check out this link!!!!

Guys, check out this link!!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/081222_download.shtml

http://www.grassrootshouse.org/

http://www.grassrootshouse.org/

Hi everyone, this is an interesting house for anyone looking for volunteer opportunities.  The house is located at 2022 Blake Street in Berkeley, between Milvia and Shattuck.  I spoke about the Prisoner's Literacy Project to you before and it is here that they operate out of.

Remember tomorrow - UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens - leave at 10:00 a.m. from school.