The O.C.

I'm spending some time in Orange County, CA (perhaps you've heard of it? apparently there was a TV show...) before leaving for Hong Kong.  Having spent just one full day here so far, I now have a great deal of sympathy for anyone who left Orange County to spend their time studying law in a city where the winter lasts for eight months.  That's dedication, or maybe madness.  Then again, I don't live here, so maybe having beautiful weather more or less year-round and living right by the beach gets a bit monotonous.  For my part, I'm not sure I could get any serious work done out here.  I suspect that, not having grown up out here, I would have trouble shaking the feeling that I was, in some sense, on vacation.

Anyways, it's been great so far.  Brunch on the beach, drinks on a pier, spending the day wandering around a boardwalk with no real plans other than enjoying the weather.  Good to spend some quality time with the roommates (two of them, at least) before going abroad.

RETRACTION: I'm ashamed to admit that after just one post I'm already compelled to issue a retraction.  However, accuracy is important - after all, if people could just post whatever they wanted to on the internet, what kind of world would that be?  So: in my posting of January 2, I said that I had it on good authority that there were "peeps on call" in Orange County.  It has been brought to my attention that this is inaccurate; in point of fact, I was told that there were "peeps on alert."  I apologize for the error, and for any resulting confusion.