Keeping busy

It’s been great having lighter evenings. On Monday, we decided to do our waterfront jog rather than go to the gym, which was lovely with the sun setting behind the Golden Gate bridge and the city lights twinkling in the twilight. My work at the nonprofit has been more interesting, as I’ve got more involved in planning the fundraising event at the end of May. We’re still trying to get more restaurants on board to provide food, but a lot of companies have been very generous in donating items for our fundraising auction, examples of which include VIP champagne tasting in the winelands & some bottles to take home, a year’s supply of fresh ground coffee, tickets to the ballet, plus several restaurant vouchers. I’ve also joined the marketing committee and yesterday I went to some free training on “how to market your nonprofit” along with a couple of colleagues. It’s not all work, though – on Thursday I went with the same colleagues to a free lunch at the California Culinary Academy. The academy, a training institute for chefs, was trying to market itself to nonprofits as an event caterer.

After the training yesterday, I hot-footed it up to my school in the Marina district (well, actually I took the bus) for the last forty minutes or so of morning school to teach the kids their first French lesson! It was great to be teaching a class again, to see the kids enthusiastically sticking their hands in the air and smiling back at me. I thought they responded so well, much better than I expected, given that they’re a special needs class with behavioural problems. We’re going to make it a regular thing now, once a week. At the end, the naughtiest boy, Damondre (what a name!) even said “Au revoir Madame Hardwick” – what more can you ask for!

The other day I went to check out the French cultural institute, the “Alliance Française”. After chatting to the chap at the front desk for a while in French, he revealed that he was actually English, albeit with a superb accent! Anyway, I paid the annual fee, because it will allow me to take out books, CDs, DVDs and videos to keep my French up to scratch. The book selection wasn’t all that great, so I’ve actually taken out a novel in French translation, because I had been wanting to read it anyway: Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City”, set in San Francisco in the seventies. I’ve also been reading “The Joy Luck Club”, after seeing the excellent film some years ago. This is about four Chinese women who emigrate to San Francisco and their daughters, who grow up here.

We’ve got our “emergency kit” together in the last week. This is our bag of essential supplies to aid survival in the event of an earthquake, i.e. torch, non-perishable food, water etc., as suggested by the website 72hours.org, which is based on the premise that in the event of a major disaster, it could take up to three days for the emergency services to come through. Not quite sure what we’d do, though. All the advice says to stay in your home, away from falling objects, but if a serious earthquake were to hit, there’s no way I’m hanging around eight storeys up, waiting for the after-shock! This building was built in the seventies, though, so it must have survived the 1989 quake, which was pretty bad.

I was going to book us in to a youth hostel in Point Reyes this weekend, but it was fully booked when I called yesterday! So, I think we’re going to try and head up there early tomorrow morning so that we can explore the northern area. Yesterday was a baking hot day, but today we have the infamous fog, although it’s supposed to clear this afternoon.