i think the best way to describe her -- she is like the energizer bunny. she does not stop. it boggles my mind. i have never met anyone with so much energy. if it were not for the bart schedule, as byron stated, i think we would have taken those meetings on until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. but i mean, it has been truly an honor, and i think it is great to have someone like jennifer retire, and also, i want to thank gary for all the patients that he had throughout the endless -- i think months kiri she has worked until midnight months on end. sometimes i wonder if. it is not humanly possible, but she did it, and we are really lucky to have her, and i am really sad that she is retiring, but at the same time, i think it is very well deserved, and i'm sure that she will tackle lots of other projects with as much gusto as she did with the exploratory and. [applause] >> commissioners, i am one of the project management team -- one of the project managers on the project. with me is the project director for the exploratory him. she will have a few words to say. as want to thank je

i feel honored that we call it those in the know or good friends of mine call at this time energizer bunny. it's the book that somehow kept going all these yeersz. i will tell you up front it was a book i thought that may be they wouldn't publish. my very first book was women of the silk. i knew that i was writing about something that was a little bit different because i didn't know about the women of the silk until i wanted to write something telling their story much the second book is the test book for us writers you hear that a lot where the publishers are wondering if the author has a second book. everybody here i feel sitting here all of you have one book in you. whether it's a family story or your story whether it's ancestors whether it's your history you want to write about. but it's the second one that's hard. i felt that when i turnod the computer and thought, now i have to write book number 2. i had in mind that i wanted to write something very different from women of the silk that was strictly about the feminist chinese women during the turn of the century and i wanted to write

you know jump off, i was samurai's garden, i said it was an energizer bunny. danville shoes samurai's garden the end of last year. they had the danville theatre which is a nice theatre and they were doing roamioand juliette and there was me in the middle of a balcony. it was a nice audience when i walked in my brain was exat that timic, look at the people here. it's almost as good as last years. i said who did you choose last year. and the year before. and told me. i said do you realize they are dead already? >> i'm alive and shouldn't i pull in a little more? [laughter] to go off, thank you for coming. >> my pleasure. i just this month read your book dreaming water. and i was -- i'm very glad to have read it. i'm wondering 2 things. there seems to be more of an advocacy voice in terms of the discrimination of being you know an asian american. and secondly, warner's disease. i'm wondering how you got into writing about that? and the characters were wonderful. >> okay. your first question, first. you know to be totally honest, when i sat down to write dreaming