It was the first week of spring, so naturally . . .

I went to the beach. During the first month of school, I picked up a slip of paper in the school rec room entitled "From PLNU to Mission Beach." That I was actually going to a school that close to the place I spent most of my childhood dreaming of, the place where my fabled Uncle Ric had comfortably lived thirty years maybe three hundred feet from the sand's edge, the place where I first touched the Pacific Ocean, inspired me. I pinned the directions on my bulletin board and resolved to bike there one day.



And I finally did it yesterday. My plan was to bring some reading homework and chill solo, but happily some girls from my hall had planned an outing there as well, so I just met up with them. The ride took less than forty minutes, most of which was coasting. I got a lot of talking and sunning and a little bit of reading. I finished off the rest of the homemade wheat thins my dad had made me, which were even more delicious by the sea.




Awww, look at my freckles. The ride back was great until I hit Point Loma, which ran entirely uphill, of course. I made it, though.



I also got to bypass a ton of traffic and ride along this nifty bridge. I'm still awed at how cycle-friendly San Diego is.



I got back to my room, looked at that paper on my bulletin board, and felt like I accomplished something. Then I made a lovely dinner of steamed caf vegetables and whole wheat couscous in my rice cooker. I love that little pot.



I followed that up with brown bag microwave popcorn. Alton Brown, Food Network personality and self-styled food scientist, created a method for making popcorn with nothing more than a paper bag, kernels, and a couple of staples. Yes, that's right, staples can in fact go into a microwave safely. They're actually too small to cause a reaction or spark. So if you're trying to avoid popcorn lung and you don't have a stovetop handy . . .