Reunions

At some point in the last few years, I think it finally sank in for me (and likely for my parents) that "settling down" was something that would not happen for me in the near future, if ever. When I told my mom I had the best offer for continuing my PhD in California her response was something like "Well, if you have to go far away, we will just have come to you sometimes." Thinking back to when I was in high school and wondering if I would even get the chance to get out of the small town I grew up in for college, I feel incredibly fortunate to have such supportive and caring people in my life, my family chief among them.

So come to me they did, this past weekend -- some of my family, that is. Through a series of happy coincidences and last-minute decisions, my mom and her two siblings, as well as my uncle's wife, my cousin, and his fiancee, all trooped (some via car, some via plane) to southern California from various parts of the country and we had a multi-day mini-reunion. It was such a good feeling seeing all of them at the same time -- that hadn't happened since I could count my age on two hands. My uncle's family was only in town until Sunday, but we got a good three days to spend with them. My mom and aunt and I had more time, and we put it to good use. It's kind of fun being a sight-seer in your own city, particularly when you're new to it. We made it to see the seals in La Jolla Cove, to the gliderport up Torrey Pine Road and to hiking in Torrey Pines State Reserve, to the San Diego Zoo, to lunch at Harry's diner and fish tacos at Oscar's, and to shopping at more places that I knew were good including my favorite eclectic jewelry shop in La Jolla, a very girl shop in Pacific Beach, and the tourist-y yet diverse shops of Old Town.

In the midst of all of the chaos my mom managed to squeeze in a business meeting and I managed to finish writing a paper on methodologies in language research, take a final exam on behavioral genetics, have meetings in both labs (EEG and eyetracking) that I'll be working in next quarter, and (briefly) have a visit with a friend who was in San Diego from Boston for an interview. Not exactly a full work week, but it's spring break now so I have decided not to feel too guilty about it all.

Now it's off to Boston for some more reuniting. Not quite the confluence of people that so serendipitously occurred in San Diego this past week, but it does involve the arrival of another friend from Spain nearly simultaneously along with the return of yet another from Atlanta and yet another from a conference in South Carolina. As lucky as I am to have folks come visit me, it's fair enough that I should repay the visit once in a while.