First day of class

Okay so for those not up to speed. The Wu's (the family I'm living with) are very interesting people. The only time English is spoken in the house is either when it is directed at me or when their daughter is at home. So for me it is a rather "quiet" house. Other wise its noisy as all get out, is just that its all in Chinese :)
The house is located in an area that feels very much like North Fresno. There is a large shopping center just down the road. Its not quite river park sized but it does put a sizable dent on each corner. Grocery shopping is also close by. The hardest park about the City of Walnut is that they have a no-parking-on-the-street-between 2-4am rule. its supposed to help reduce crime but with 5 different cars at the house they don't all fit in the drive way. At the moment myself, the other renters and their daughter take up the tree drive way slots and the Wu's park on the street with permits.
My room here is very comfortable and large enough to not feel cramped with all the time I spend in it. The down side to my lovely east facing room is that I am also the farthest connection from the wireless hub making my signal rather doubtful once everyone is home at night.
Now the good stuff. I started class today! Yay! It is going to be a bit intense because it is a 4 unit class crammed into 2 weeks but since I was somewhat on it and did most of the reading in advance I can do more reviewing for retention rather than blasting through it in one night.
We began with introductions there are about 14 of us in the class, coming from a wide variety of backgrounds. There is a good sampling from PoliSci, a few biology, theater, communications, architecture and others I don’t remember. Our reasons for being there are also just as diverse. It was very exciting hearing about the reasons people are entering the program. We got a full tour of the RS (Regenerative Studies) campus. There is so much going on and the impact of just a little consideration is huge. They have landscaped almost entirely with useful trees and shrubs. There are banana trees, apples, peach, nectarine, Chinese dates (like mealy apples) and so many more, all food bearing. Then lower lying things are herbs, vines, and veggies. There are more traditional gardens, but just the landscape produces an excess of food so they can send it so a local food distribution center. The agronomists guess was that it was in excess of 1 to 2 tons a year.
Buildings were built for experimental purposes too, on stilts, buried into the hill side, with allowances for prevailing wind, passive solar and so on. The original plans called for much more intensive work and design but money and conventional planning rules got in the way. The best example is the AC. The main building dosen’t need it. But since there is a communal kitchen the are a was deemed a food preparation area and there fore had to have one. Setting them back something like $100,000 and that was 10 to 15 years ago. The MS (masters of science) only began 5 years ago. So things are still new but have been hard fought through the planning stages since the 80’s at least.
Well I’ll take my camera tomorrow and try and post some pictures here. Until then you’ll just have to do with what’s on the CRS web site.
Time to do Homework!