I’m heading down to Juticalpa, in Olancho state in Honduras, for my second trip with engineers Without Borders, this Friday night. After assessing a school system’s needs in the spring, we are providing teacher education in technology and pedagogy, installing a computerized library system and bringing a bunch of laptops. I’ll be gone from Friday to Sunday the 17th, and will have some stories to tell aftet I return! Check out my blog postings and photos for the last trip. For the past couple of months I’ve been teaching two classes at City College, English 93 and 96, and planning a new world literature survey course that I’ll teach in the spring that covers 1650 to the present. At USF, I’ve been taking Research Methods, and Anthropological Research, both classes that are introducing the dissertation, so I’ve bben writing a lot of the introcuctory chapters.
I’ve been rehearsing with the Andy Dudnick Quartet once a month and played a few gigs, one at Café Socha with tenor saxophonist Scott Silverburg, one at a private fundraiser for Jerry Brown in the Oakland Hills, and one an annual jam session, barbeque at my friend, bassist Marius Zaugg’s (the videos below are from the jam session). I got to shake Jerry Brown’s hand after he approached me at the buffet table and he asker, “are those sandwitches cheese or tunafish?” and then, “what’s your name?” He then started to give a toast/speech, as I was standing right next to him! I will say, Jerry Brown stuck me as a down-to-earth, concerned individual who deeply loves California. Here’s a video of Brown and Whitman on immigration. Check out the other videos as well. We have a lot of issues in California, and this campaign is heating up. They will be debating at Dominican University, just across the higheay from me in San Rafael on the 12th.
As far as events go, I caught My Morning Jacket at the Ouside Lands Festival in the Golden Gate Park with Branko, and also heard Gogol Bordelo (thanks for the tickets and passes, Eric!). Branko and I also caught The Birth of Impressionism, a collection from the Musée D’Orsay. By the way, check out the latest interview with Eric, which is the most comprehensive yet.
