I går cyklede Eli og jeg ud til det, der hedder East Beach som ligger lidt væk fra Downtown. Det er en rigtig flot tur, fordi man kan cykle på den her cykelsti, der går hele vejen langs stranden og det var rart at få rørt sig lidt, da det ikke ligefrem er det jeg har gjort for det meste på det sidste pga. min fod, der har gjort rigtig ondt og fordi busserne går hvert 10. min. Dog går jeg en del, hvilket de fleste amerikanere finder enormt mærkeligt, men lidt motion skal man vel have :) Man skal bare lige vænne sig til at cykle herovre. For det første fordi man skal standse ved hver ny vej før man må krydse. Det er en ret underlig regel. For det andet, så må man jo dreje til højre selvom der er rødt lys, så når man f.eks. cykler ned ad hovedgaden i Downtown, State Street, så kører man på cykelstien, som så pludselig går ud midt på vejen, sådan at man cykler midt på gaden med biler på begge sider af sig. Det er lige noget man skal vænne sig til, men ellers er det fint nok. Men Eli og jeg cyklede som sagt ud til East Beach, hvor vi spiste frokost. Det var rigtig hyggeligt, men vi fik desværre selskab af den her enormt irriterende måge (og måger i Californien er ikke bare måger, det er monster-måger på størrelse med strudse... Eller de er ihvertfald meget store!), der konstant prøvede at komme hen til vores bænk og som begyndte at stå og skrige, når vi ignorerede den. Det lykkedes os dog at ryste den af os. Bagefter satte vi os ud på stranden og snakkede og det er utroligt lækkert bare at kunne tage på stranden i solskinsvejr og 20'C og se folk bade og nyde vejret midt i oktobermåned :)
I dag tog vi så ud til noget, der hedder Montecito der ligger lidt udenfor Santa Barbara. Vi tænkte at vi bare ville tage ud og kigge lidt på byen derude, da det er derude alle de rige bor og alle de kendte såsom Oprah Winfrey, John Cleese, Kevin Costner, Steve Martin og mange flere, så vi hoppede på bussen og kørte afsted. Det viste sig så at der ikke rigtig var nogen by derude, så vi endte med bare at køre tilbage, så det blev mest af alt bare en slags sightseeing tur, men vi fik da set lidt andet end Santa Barbara selvom vi bare sad i bussen.
I morgen står den på lektier hele dagen, jeg skal aflevere en artikel på mandag - en anmeldelse af en kunstudstilling fra et galleri på college - og så skal jeg forberede en anden artikel som jeg skal skrive om, hvorfor der er så mange svenske studerende på college. Men søndag regner jeg med at tage til Hollywood og kigge. Leighton og David har spurgt om jeg vil med ned og se Hollywood og det kunne jeg jo kun sige ja til, så det regner jeg med at gøre der. Skal nok blive spændende.
Jeg har endelig fået redigeret min artikel om surrogatmoren, så I kan læse den nedenfor, hvis I er interesserede.
Der er som sædvanlig lidt billeder på: http://katrinesbcc.bilddagboken.se/
Katrine :)
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SBCC student pregnant with brother’s quadruplets
This would make the perfect scene of any college class with students just out of high school. However, it’s not. Despite the whispering chit-chat, paper-throwing, and laughter in the back of the room while a stuttering student tries to read her essay aloud in front of the class, one student doesn’t have time to talk about the parties in the coming weekend. She seems just as anonymous as the rest of her class mates who barely know each other yet, but if they knew Robin Wilson’s story they would probably assume that her thoughts would be anywhere else, but in that room. Not only is she the mother of her four biological children and a student at SBCC, but she is also a surrogate mother for her brother and pregnant with his quadruplets!
“I never had a big family,” Robin Wilson, 32-year-old nursing student at SBCC, says. “So I knew right away that I wanted to help him.”
Robin, always casually dressed, looking relaxed in flip-flops and a ponytail, and always with a shy smile on her lips, is due in March and will soon begin to show. When her brother asked for her help she had “absolutely no hesitation,” and the prospect of being pregnant with quadruplets while attending college didn’t concern Robin as much as the fact that she could make her brother happy. “I only have school twice a week,” Robin says. “But I take time off to study. If I have to stay up late, I will do that. College is really important to me.”
The fact that college is an important thing to Robin is also something she tries to pass on to her kids. “My family is very encouraging,” Robin says. “You are never too old to learn, and I want my kids to see that.” But an encouraging family is one thing; people who might judge are another, and Robin says that she understands that some people find it a little unusual. “But I don’t care,” Robin says while smiling bashfully. “I just make sure not to put myself around those kinds of people.” But how many will judge Robin will all depend on how fast the rumour about her will spread.
“It’s a personal choice, but it’s a very unselfish thing to do,” Robin’s English 100 professor, Vail Dinkins, says as she passes the story on to a colleague in the hallway. She puts up four fingers to emphasize that Robin Wilson is pregnant with four kids, and the co-worker places her hand in front of her mouth to show her surprise.
But as far as statistics show, surrogate mothers are no longer a rare thing. One of the newer types is called gestational surrogacy and this process involves a surrogate mother who has no genetic relation to the child she carries. Robin will be the quadruplets’ aunt, but the children were conceived by the sperm of her brother and the egg of his wife. The fact that Robin is not the biological mother of the quadruplets reassures her when it comes to the question of giving away the children as soon as they are born. “I might get a little depressed, but I’m expecting it,” Robin says while sending a thoughtful look out into the room. “But I’m sure I will have a special bond with them.” Also Robin’s biological kids seem to be bonding with the still to be born quadruplets as they constantly want to rub Robin’s belly, but as one of her children says, she is happy that they are not going to live with them – four more kids would just make the house even busier.
Robin’s day is long in the first place. She gets up 6 am, sends her children off to school before driving for over an hour to get to SBCC. When she gets off school, she has to go grocery shopping and make sure her children get dinner, a bath and a proper bedtime. Sometimes she sends her children to her grandmother’s place which gives her a couple of hours for herself.
“But Robin believes in family,” Deidre Jones, 32-year-old psychology student at SBCC, says. Deidre, who has known Robin for eight months, says that she is sure that it really takes a special personality to do the thing Robin does. “She even gets super grades, too. She could easily take off the semester, but school is important to her,” Deidre says as her eyes light up when she talks about Robin. And the fact that Robin manages to do the three things that are most important to her right now – attending college, raising her family, and making her brother happy – makes it all worth to her. In ten years she sees herself done with school and having even more kids of her own in order to get the big family she always dreamed about. “Kids are just my world,” Robin says.
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