Driving away from UC Irvine’s campus, you only have to take a couple quick turns onto Newport Coast Drive before you find yourself racing down a hill towards Laguna Beach. Within seconds you will come around a bend, and the hills will open up to reveal an ocean so blue it is sometimes hard to see where the water stops and the sky beings.

This is where I live. Apparently this is my new home. With images like these, so stunning they are almost trite, the whole thing is hard to believe, but this is what it looks like. It is surreal. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that it took me about a week after having arrived in Irvine to get to the beach (imagine me under piles of boxes). But as I drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, I grabbed my phone and called Steve.

“I can’t believe I live here…” The sensation was so profound that it had to be shared, however, after stammering out this statement, I found I had no way to express the sensation, not only of being in such a beautiful place, but also knowing that it was my beautiful place for the next five years.

The novelty of the experience presented some problem as well. I still don’t know how to explain the phenomenological effect of an ocean that goes so far that my brain cannot begin to understand it, or the waves whose collective thrashing is so vast that they can only be considered as tranquil. One thing is clear: this is a big change from D.C.

Those last couple months in DC were rough. Between attempts to wrap up projects at the AAMC and in my studio, prepare my condo to be rented (which could be a novel all in itself), and get myself across the USA in a 16′ Budget rental truck… well, it has been stressful.

In contrast, Irvine seems magnificently quiet. I probably have not stopped running since I got here, but between new cars, apartments, roommates, and cities, it feels like I suddenly have time to think. A million things are already happening — orientations, teacher trainings, new research groups, papers, and oh so many boxes! — but it is all so vast, and perhaps so overwhelming, that I find the only option is to swim with the current and see where it might lead me. There a tranquility in sheer newness of it all. It will be interesting to see where the next five years lead me, and who “West Coast Jed” might be.