In this captivating memoir Mona Sen talks of current life with multiple sclerosis. In her need to succeed she talks about charting out a plan for graduate school to undertake a very challenging occupational therapy program at a highly respected institution. The rigor and stress that followed resulted in wanting to give up, ultimately breaking her spirit and eventually causing her MS to worsen. She talks of how her dream of a career in her chosen field was shattered but she refused to give up. Mona Sen discussed growing up in many worlds including her extended family in India. Her father traveled a great deal and she talks of India being a challenging existence for the early years of her life as she searched for a sense of identity and a home in one place. After India her family moved to the United States which held more challenges. Her father moved the family around until she finished high school and entered her undergraduate college. She talks of her undergraduate years as being the best years with a sense of identity and home in her young life. That however was to change when she graduated. In the Shifting Creek Mona learned all about true love of friendships including her current partner and a path besides the one she first desired, a career. Her beloved undergraduate college friends have shown her a new meaning of living with MS, what she can do as opposed to what she cant do! In this truly inspirational memoir she shows us how life does not have one path, meaning or direction but many.

A nearly threefold increase in demand for water in the 154-square-mile San Antonio Creek valley in California during the period 1958-77 has increased the potential for overdraft on the ground-water basin. The hydrologic budget for this period showed a perennial yield of about 9,800 acre-feet per year and an annual ground-water discharge of about 11,400 acre-feet per year, comprising net pumpage of 7,100 acre-feet, phreatophyte evapotranspiration of 3,000 acre-feet, and base streamflow of 1 ,300 acre-feet. The base flow in San Antonio Creek could diminish to zero when net pumpage reaches 13,500 acre-feet per year. The environmentally sensitive marshland area of Barka Slough may then become stressed as water normally lost through evapotranspiration is captured by pumpage. The aquifer consists of alluvial valley fill that ranges in thickness from 0 to 3,500 feet. Ground water moves seaward from recharge areas along mountain fronts to a consolidated rock barrier about 5 miles east of the Pacific coast. Upwelling of ground water just east of the barrier has resulted in the 550-acre Barka Slough. Transmissivity of the aquifer ranges from 2,600 to 34,000 feet squared per day, with the lowest values occurring in the central part of the valley where the aquifer is thickest but probably finer grained. The salinity problems are increasing in the agricultural parts of the valley, which is east of the barrier. West of the barrier, stream and ground-water quality is poor, owing to seepage of saline water from the marine shale that underlies the area at shallow depths. A proposed basinwide monitoring program includes 17 water-level sites, 12 water-quality sampling sites, 3 streamflow measuring sites, and periodic infrared aerial photography of Barka Slough. A computer model of the ground-water flow system could be developed to assess the impact of various water-management alternatives.