Take a bite out of summer

That spray-painted mural above (with "the decisive moment" positioning of the artist's head) was one of the many displays at the third annual SubZERO Festival in downtown San Jose's SoFA district. On the first Friday of every month, there's an event called (surprise, surprise) First Fridays, where the art galleries in this area are open late, and people are free to check out an eclectic mixture of artwork. The SubZERO Festival adds to First Fridays by having a street festival that closes off part of San Jose's South First Street and includes vendors, artists, and musicians. It's not every day that people can sit in the middle of a downtown street so casually like this:

The small group in the left foreground was waiting with a friend and me for Corpus Callosum. What the heck is that? Well, the literal meaning is it's a thick band of fibers that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain and allows for communication between the two. In this case, though, it's also a musical/performance art group that plays instruments, including guitar, accordion, mandolin, flute, and glass goblets' rims. The group really knew how to make an entrance by approaching the stage through the crowd like a parade, with one of the members as a stilt walker and others manning a giant dragon puppet.

I took some grainy video on my cell phone, and the quality doesn't do this unique band (and my experience) justice. Here's a link, though, to the first of four videos that someone took of the group performing in the same spot in San Jose last September (you can skip three minutes ahead to the start of the music, if you'd like). You can also download mp3 files of the band's music here.

Prior to this event, I was invited to a little neighborhood porch party. It's not what you may imagine, though: Most of the guests were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, etc., and they live near my dormitory. However, the food was good and so were the conversations. All in all, it was a nice evening, and in a way, it reminded me of last summer.

It's still sinking in that earlier this week was the one-year anniversary of the start of my Pennsylvanian internship and my time living in Philadelphia. Last summer, after a 40-hour work week, I would spend the weekend exploring different parts of my adopted city, Philly -- and I have hundreds of pictures that document those memories. Going back to this evening, I found things to do besides sit around in an empty bedroom, and you know what? I did them and had fun!

This summer, I'm staying in another adopted city of mine, San Jose, which is where I am a graduate student when school is in session. There's no 40-hour internship to take up my time this time. While I am doing some work at my dormitory and should also work on my thesis, my time is pretty flexible. It'll be up to me to find things to do, to get out of the house, to occupy my time possibly alone (e.g. if my beloved boyfriend is busy and relatively far away from me), to find adventure, etc.

Basically, it'll be up to me to take a bite out of summer (not to mention update this blog)!