Why Yes, I Would Like To Work

Inspiration is a curious thing.

When it hits you and you start writing, your words can flow out like rapid machine-gun fire, rat-tat-tat-tat!  However, lately my muse seems to have gone dumb and won't get up to nudge me in the right direction.  You see, unlike Muffinman I haven't been able to take great adventures to far reaching places, meeting people at orientation banquets and so forth.  I'm confined in the office, seated at my desk in front of my company-sponsored computer, click-clackity typing away and sneaking moments to check out Facebook.  And if I had gotten any kind of substantial work at all, I could be blogging about it.

I've been here at my internship for about a week and a half now, and so far 90% of it has been at my desk browsing the internet the whole time.  My subscriptions on Google Reader keep me busy until about lunchtime; the rest of the day I am stuck finding various new ways to pass the time while looking like I'm doing legitimate work.  There are two ways I accomplish this: I only browse sites that mainly have text (unfortunately that means no YouTube or Flash games), and I always have an Excel document open that is crammed with random numbers for me to Alt-Tab to.  And of course, I always have my forehead scrunched up and slightly purse my lips, as if I were either mildly confused or thinking hard about the difficulties of the new "project" I have undertaken.

It's not that I want to avoid doing work.  In fact, I would love it if I could stay in the office overtime, but the staff here rarely give me anything to do, and if they do it's usually a menial task that takes about 30 minutes.  I ask if I can help with anything, yet they don't give it to me!  Sure, I'm an intern and I'm probably useful for nothing at this stage of life, but really guys, can't you give me at least something I can put on my resume?  Maybe I can spin this by telling people I got really good at sitting in an office chair.  I certainly can't put down "Actively sat at my desk executing make-believe work," or "Seized opportunities by taking advantage of the free coffee near the water cooler".

However, despite the lack of projects I am given I try my hardest to be a good intern by showing up to work.  I am usually one of the first people in the office, which is pretty easy considering the fact that people start to trickle in at around 9:30 and the last workers finally arrive around ten.  I also try to leave last as well, despite the fact there is nothing for me to do here (very difficult!).  At around six, as if on cue, loud banging noises come from cabinets opening and shutting as employees get ready to leave the office.  By 6:15, only a few people who have been assigned an exceptionally large amount of work are left.  I ask them if they need help; again they say, "Thanks, but there's nothing you can do.  You can leave now."  And of course, I leave.

So far, I have been a little disappointed with what I have been doing (or not been doing), but perhaps I was expecting too much.  I had visions of the managers grinding me down, but it's been quite the reverse instead.  I was initially uneasy about not doing anything, but after talking with various people who went through the same experience as I am going through now, I have accepted my fate and resigned myself to refreshing my email, Google Reader, and Facebook periodically in the hopes of finding new content for me to read.

Hopefully, they'll let me do something cool.  Like work.  Before I leave Korea, please.

-Emoinacloset

First Day on Assignment

Tuesday was my first day at the elected official's office that I was assigned to and what a disaster it was.

I arrived an hour early to the Assemblymember's office fearing traffic and being late for my first day.  Turns out there is no traffic at 9pm so when Google maps told me twenty minutes, it really meant twenty minutes.  With an hour to kill, I ended up taking some pictures of the surrounding area and lounging in my car.  


My assigned office


Yes, it resides next to a liquor store!


...And a decent Mexican Restaurant


... And a high end stroller store that has one of the coolest looking offices inside.


Upon entering into the office, I was greeted by one of the staffers who told me that the head of the interns would be in soon and that I should go sit somewhere and start my work.  Confused, I told her that it was my first day and she laughed and apologized and told me to sit and wait at one of the many desks.  While waiting, the head of the district office introduces herself and calls me into her office where she gives me the "facebook" talk.  She told me that I was now part of the team for this Assemblymember and that I represented him wherever I went for the next two months.  She stressed that it was important I do not do anything that would tarnish his reputation and that this was true especially for the things I post on facebook.  A couple of times, facebook was substituted with myspace so I did not take her too seriously, she seemed out of touch with social media.  Just in case however, I double checked my facebook privacy settings while waiting again for the intern head and made sure that all my content was still accessible by "friends only."

When the intern head came, she gave me a quick orientation and interview, then set me off to work.  Well that is what should have happened if this was a legitimate internship.  Instead, I needed to wait for Sacramento to create an email and computer account for me before I could start doing anything.  When I borrowed another intern's account, the computer kept freezing while using outlook meaning that once again I was not able to do much.  I had a ten to five work day, and for most of it I sat in the chair staring at the ceiling.

This lack of work can actually be explained.  For whatever reason, my organization decided it was a good idea to put me into an office of someone who was terming out.  The Assemblymember I was interning for had run for attorney general and got slaughtered.  California has term limits for the Assembly so this was going to be his last term and the office was going to be shut down in November.  To highlight how depressing this fact is, right after my interview and orientation, the five staffers had a meeting.  For half of it, they discussed logistical things about the office, like how to best use the limited mileage they were given, but then the meeting took a turn for the depressing.  The last half of the meeting was spent talking about where to find jobs, which politician's office to ask and whether to use sick or vacation days for interviews (sick).

It was clear to me by the end of the day that this was a dying office.  The fact that there were nine other interns combined with a closing office meant that I was not going to be doing much over the next two months.

-muffinman

First Day of the Internship

Monday was the first day of the internship and the first time I really got the chance to talk to all but one of the interns.

We were supposed to come prepared with research project ideas to propose at the meeting.  And of course I waited till the last minute to start drafting ideas.  My plan for that day was to head out at around 10am and go to a cafe near the office that we were supposed to meet at and come up with a rough plan of my LAPD idea.  There was just one problem.  Monday was the Lakers' parade and the cafe I had chosen to go to was in downtown.  When I came up to my exit on the freeway, it was closed.  "No worries" I thought to myself I can just take the next exit and reroute on my iPhone.  I exited the freeway among swarms of Laker fans in yellow and purple, traffic was jammed and when I arrived at the street I needed to be on, that was closed too!  Very annoyed, I headed over to the meeting place and found a Starbucks where I quickly sketched out my ideas in my notebook. Little did I know that this would turn out to be a colossal waste of time.

The place where we were meeting really surprised me. It was right in the heart of an industrial area and probably the most run down place I have been in awhile. I parked my car and started wandering around with my camera.


I love graffiti.



As I was taking pictures I heard somebody call out "Jonathan!" and when I turned around there was this girl in a purple Honda Fit behind me smiling and waving. Barely recognizing her as one of the interns I smiled and waved back all the while trying to remember her name (I never did).


The head of our non-profit owns a toy company.
We were both an hour and half early so we toured the building a little. Inside was the biggest collection of cheap Chinese toys that I had ever seen. Row after row of shelves were filled with brands that I had never heard of. The toys reminded me of the ones that you find in Chinatown or the flea market.


Once we got bored with the toys, I suggested that we go to a cafe nearby that I had spotted on my iPhone. She agreed and we walked into a small charming cafe complete with white table clothes and waiters that was located at the end of a pretty sketchy looking alley.  I am saddened by the fact that I do not have any of the cafe.

The chair of the non-profit opened up our first internship meeting with suggestions on how to deal with the press.  He advised us to always ask what newspaper the reporter was from, what story they were doing and to always answer in complete positive sentences so that the reporter would not be able to take things out of context.  I found the whole guide to the press very interesting and above all else very cool because I took it as a sign that I would be talking to the press throughout the internship.

During our introductions, I mentioned that I had helped start a social media marketing program at the TV station that I worked at during my time at UCSD.  Upon hearing this, the chair said to me, remind me to ask you to help us with our social media stuff.  Just like that I am now back in the social media marketing scene.  They handed me the login details for all their social media accounts and basically told me that if I helped get them into the top 200 organizations for the Chase Community Giving Event (Help Me!) that I would be their hero (not in those words).

When we got to the ideas for the research project, a few things became clear.  First, was the fact that my LAPD idea sounded cool but that was about as much interest as I got.  Everybody liked the idea of going on a ride along, but besides that nothing about my idea interested them.  Second, it was obvious that the hot topics for this group of interns was education and social media, especially since we had one girl who aspired to be a principal and another who wanted to be an educator.  Lastly, nobody had a plan about how they were going to execute their idea.  I had sketched out an action plan to examine the relationship between the LAPD and Asian community that included ride alongs, interviews with officers and community leaders, social media surveys and analysis of statistics.  When I pressed the other interns for their action plans, it became apparent that they did not have one.  They just wanted to do something about the ideas that they had.  I was sort of skeptical about the education idea from the beginning due to the large scope of the topic and when I heard that no one even had a plan as to how to tackle the subject, I rejected education as a viable topic.

After the meeting and the rejection of the LAPD idea, I thought about it and decided that I would throw my weight behind the social media idea.  Think of it as a return to my roots.

-muffinman

Amateur MMA

The Saturday after the Internship Kickoff, I attended an amateur MMA fight card with my new apartmentmate, which I had heard about on facebook from someone in the UCSD muay thai class. This was going to be his first MMA fight. I am not sure why he thought that he was ready to fight when he was just training with friends. During winter quarter, I had sparred with him in muay thai and he could not touch me, and the same thing happened when we rolled in jiu-jitsu. So it came as no surprise that he lost his fight, the only surprise to me was that he did not get knocked out.

The rest of the fights ranged from bad to decent. It went to the ground too often and there was always a large discrepancy in grappling skill between the two fighters. However, the skill difference was never enough to end the fight, so what ended up happening fight after fight was that someone would just lay on top of the other guy for the whole fight. In addition, there were only three 2 minute rounds which is a lot shorter than the usual 5 minute rounds I was used to. The short rounds and lack of a submission game made all but two of the eight fights end in a decision.

Overall, it was worth the $45 dollars that I paid for "ringside" tickets. I put ringside in quotes because the whole venue took place in a community center/gym where it was so small that anywhere you were was basically ringside.

Pictures of the event


Game face on.


This is pretty much how each fight went.


That guy I know.


Story of his fight.

Amateur MMA Album

-muffinman

Internship kickoff

Last Friday was the kick off for my internship and the reason that I cut my stay in San Jose short by three days.  I was promised pictures, press, and lunch for the event.

Since I had kind of turned in my biography a little late, I saw myself as not being seen in the best of light prior to the press conference, which is why it was imperative that I turned in the release forms on time.  However, the universe that day seemed bent on keeping me from accomplishing my goal.  It started out with the fact that I did not have paper for my printer (even though I later discovered the next day that I had actually a lot) so I figured I would arrive at this restaurant, where the event was held, a two hours early and find a place to print two pages.    

As I arrived at the restaurant, I realized that I was smack dab in the middle of Chinatown.  At this point my adventurer spirit took over, and I wandered the streets taking pictures and sort of looking for a place to print.








This is where the kickoff took place

I managed to find a printing store, but the owner just kicked me out, telling me he was too busy.  My last hope that day was the library, but when I got there it was closed and was not opening till 1:30 pm, two hours after the kickoff would start.  So yet again I was going to turn in something late.

The rest of the day went pretty well. Before the kickoff, when all the interns arrived, they gave us our business cards.  Despite the fact that I have had business cards before,it did not make it any less exciting to be receiving this new set. It even had my Chinese name on it! We were shown how to hand off business cards (done with two hands and card facing towards the person) and receive them (two hands in receiving and making sure to read the card).

There were some VIPs at the event and I managed to talk to a few of them. The most memorable was definitely this man who was a Deputy Chief in the LAPD. At the end of the kickoff I managed to sneak in a word with the Deputy Chief and I found him to be very interesting. He mentioned how the Asian community perceives the LAPD differently from the other communities and that only four percent of the force was Asian, while the city was made up of 17 percent Asian. This got me excited, as I thought there might a be a problem that could use some investigating. Thoughts of going on ride alongs and interviewing officers filled my head as I thought about how I could do my internship research project on the relationship between the LAPD and Asian communities.

Interestingly, I met the photographer for the event, since he sat next to me at lunch and I think we started connecting over photography. I asked him what I should do in LA and he told me that every once in awhile when he has a whole day off and he goes on the subway and just rides the whole loop and takes pictures of people at every stop. This sounds like a great idea and I just might do it when I have the time. I added the photographer on facebook, after some minimal stalking (I did not even remember his name) and we have been talking ever since. He has amazing profile pictures by the way.

- muffinman

It's Called A Visa (Part 5)

Hopefully this is the last post on the subject.

By the beginning of last week it was pretty much unspoken that I wasn't going to be working at the company.  There was just this huge obvious silence coming from that general direction.  First of all, the boss-man referred me to HR and let them deal with me, so I rarely talked with him on the phone anymore.  And then, the HR guy in charge of me seemed distant every time I tried to call him for an update. Our conversations always ended with, "We'll call you."  The calls never came.  I was always the one who had to initiate the conversation and call them first, even if I gave them the benefit of the doubt by waiting an extra day or two.  I felt like a spurned lover who keeps thinking, 'she'll take me back,' even when the door's been slammed in his face again and again.

I was disappointed, I was angry, but most of all I was frustrated.  If they weren't going to let me work, they should have come right and said, "Sorry, but we can't offer you a position," rather than lead me on with empty promises and no call-backs.  I think I have some idea now of how it feels to be unemployed.  It's so demoralizing -- all you end up doing is lying on your bed with your laptop in front of you, left with nothing but your own thoughts and the hope that someone will post something on your Facebook wall for you to comment on.

However, this story has a happy ending.  Fortunately, I was able to find another internship -- unpaid, but it also means I won't have to apply for another visa.  Thank goodness I can do some kind of work now. It's all I've wanted to do since I got here, and now I'll be able to do it.

-Emoinacloset

Oh the people I meet!

Over finals week I met Max's cousin Andreas who was in the process of traveling the world.  He had worked three years at a newspaper in Zurich and saved up enough money so that he could travel for a year.  With just his back pack and duffel bag, his plan is that there is no plan and he goes where ever he wants until the money runs out and he needs to go back home.


Living vicariously through this guy till Shanghai


On Wednesday night, right as I was about to start on that seven to twelve page paper that I had been neglecting, Andreas walks in and notices the youtube video I was watching (so maybe I was not ABOUT to start) and asks if I was watching UFC.  At this point I smell alcohol in the room and I ask him if he was drinking and Andreas lifts up his cup and asks me if I want some whiskey.  Of course since I never turn down a free drink down I gladly accepted.  The next thing I know, it was three o'clock in the morning, the bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label was gone and I had just had one of the most interesting and enlightening conversations ever.

While slowly sipping good scotch we talked about all the places that we had been, the cultures we encountered and what we thought of them.  Before coming to San Diego, Andreas had been travelling Asia for five to six months and he absolutely loved it.  He meant to stay in Hong Kong for a week but for some reason ended up staying a month and a half and just fell in love with the city.  I think he likes that city even more than I do, not sure how but he managed to find other things to do in Hong Kong besides shopping and eating.  It was very interesting to hear that he thought Hong Kong English was very hostile and snappy while to him Cantonese was not.  Usually, or at least for me those perceptions are reversed.

During his stay in Hong Kong he became good friends with someone he met in the city.  This guy was from a rich family and he invited Andreas to his family vacation in Macau.  The guy's family paid for all of Andreas's expenses and Andreas estimates they spent about $2000 U.S. on him.  Talk about a generous family.

The most interesting part of the conversation was the discussion about being friends in different cultures.  Andreas liked the fact that Americans were very friendly and took the idea of becoming fast friends.  I agreed with this and noted that I had many personal experiences with Americans who told me extremely personal information about themselves upon the first meeting.  Andreas contrasted the American attitude towards friendship with the European, noting that it was much more difficult to become close friends with Europeans than Americans.  He talked about how Europeans immediately throw up a wall on the first meeting, which I found interesting.  I believe Andreas noted a similar problem with Asians, but my memory is hazy because of the alcohol.  During his time in Malaysia and Thailand, he would talk with people on the street and they would just invite him over to their house for dinner.  As friendly as the people on the street were, the level of conversation would not go beyond that of casual chit chat.  Hearing this from Andreas reminded me of the Japanese who are always courteous and sincere but would never let a foreigner in too close.

At the end of the night he gave me his email and told me that if I was ever in Zurich, Switzerland I was welcome to stay over at his place.  And since he is basically living my dream right now, I am most definitely going to keep in touch with him and live vicariously through his emails until I do my own traveling in Shanghai.

Andreas left San Diego for Las Vegas the next day and after Vegas he is flying to Santiago, Chile.  After that he will go where ever the wind takes him.        

Andreas, you must send me all the adventures you are having because Los Angeles is just not cutting it for me.  Next time we meet, the Black Label is on me.

- muffinman

It's Called A Visa (Part 4)

The devil is in the details.

After going through this whole visa crisis I have become an expert on short-term employment visa issues for Korean-Americans in Korea.  Last weekend I was able to meet with my uncle, a lawyer in Korea, who had taken some of his time to find out what the exact legal situation is, for which I am very appreciative.  It is all pretty convoluted and at times just plain ridiculous.

As it turns out there is a visa (F-4) made especially for foreign-born Koreans (교포).  My uncle calls it the visa of all visas because it would allow me to work wherever I wanted without any obstacles.  Unfortunately, I am unable to apply for this visa because I hold a dual citizenship -- I was born in the US, but my grandparents also registered me as a Korean citizen when I was born.  Since I also hold a Korean citizenship, there is no reason for the government to give me a visa made for foreign Koreans; after all, why should they.  The story makes sense up to here and that's as far as it goes.

I've mentioned before the problem with working for a company as a Korean citizen is that the military offices will be alerted of my situation and they will whisk me away to my mandatory military service.  The funny thing is, I can't even renounce my Korean citizenship on my own initiative.  The government basically tells dual citizens "you can give up the Korean citizenship but only if you serve your two years in the military first."  Utterly ridiculous; if I serve there is no point in having to give up the citizenship any more. Fortunately, I can get a military service exemption (which would enable me to drop my citizenship) by fulfilling a strict list of requirements, including but not limited to: being born outside of Korea and raised there, parents who are permanent residents or are citizens of that country, and less than three years residence in Korea.

My uncle went to the immigration office to find out exactly what these requirements are, but they wouldn't tell him unless I am present and divulge my personal information.  The trap is if I go, give them my personal information, and it turns out I don't meet one requirement, I may not be let out of the country.  I have this image of the immigration officers inputting my information into the computer, seeing that I don't meet the requirements, and then pressing a button under the desk to alert the military service men hiding in a closet nearby to drag me away to the nearest army base.  It must be government policy to be really shady about military service related citizenship cases.  In all, it's too risky to attempt anything like this here but I can try getting this issue out of the way once I go back to the US.  "Besides," my uncle said, "your mother would kill me if I let you take a risk like that and you ended up having to serve in the army and not see her for two years."

This is why the only other option is either finding an unpaid internship or a short-term employment visa.  The problem with the latter is that it's a hassle for the company to sponsor me because then HR has to go through the process of drafting several documents, and no one really wants to do all that extra work for an intern.  This is probably what happened with the company I was supposed to work for -- I have basically given up on them.

-Emoinacloset

My lack of Family Relations: Revisited

To understand this blog post you are going to have to read My Lack of Family Relations

Remember how I said I was going to cut it off with my family and that was that?  Well things just got a whole lot more interesting.

While I was at the doctor's office I was talking with my mom about Shanghai and somehow it turned into an argument.  Something about how I was not taking her advice on connecting with family friends while there and just a whole lot of miscommunication.  Once the argument started, I refused to keep on arguing and instead chose to point out our terrible communication without blaming anyone.  Suddenly the conversation changed to how I felt that there was a widening gap growing between myself and my family.  My mom started tearing up, right when I said that and as the conversation continued and I started telling her about the things that I had written in that blog post, she seemed to get more and more sad.  She blamed me for lack of communication and I agreed, sometimes I am difficult to deal.  These admissions, I believe shocked her a great deal.  When we got back to the car, she started crying.

While in the car, my mom asked me if I thought she should have divorced my dad.  Shocked and dismayed by this question, I quickly told her that I was not going to answer that.  The she told me that if it were not for me and my sister, she probably would gotten divorced.   When we were eating lunch and I mentioned how I thought my dad was more interested in fish than his own children, my mom added "and his wife too."  This was some truly disturbing news because now I realize that my dad is not just disconnected with me and my sister but with my mom too.

I heard from my mom that my sister was heading down the same path that I was.  My mom could feel my sister distancing and isolating herself from the family.  I really do not blame my sister for this, after all I did it and things seem to have gotten worse since I left.  In the lobby of the doctor's office, my mom called my sister to see if she wanted to get lunch with us.  That phone call ended in a heated argument.  Relations between my mom and my sister were visibly strained.

Towards the end of lunch I told my mom that I believed the only way I could experience a sense of family was through in-laws.  To which my mom replied, well why don't you do something about it then.  She suggested that I try connect with my dad, something that she is not even able to do.  My mom also told me to talk to my sister more, which I have started doing since I left for LA (this post is for her benefit and she is the reason why I am up at 3am writing it).  Lastly, my mom suggested I talk to my cousin while I am down in LA because apparently my uncle went bankrupt recently and could not pay my cousin's tuition.  One of my aunts had to send money to keep my cousin in school.  My mom suggested that I help my cousin with financial aid, as he did not seem to understand how it works.  I basically got handed the task of creating the family I never had.

The most surprising part during that afternoon was that for the first time ever, my mom tried to understand me.  When I explained to her how her dismissals of things that were important to me made me not want to talk to her about anything important, she agreed!  My mom told me that she realizes her problem and will try to be more understanding in the future.  I cannot emphasize enough how monumental of a change this is.  The main problem I had with my mom was that she never tried to understand, but now that she has shown a willingness to understand, it changes everything.

However, despite these developments and revelations, I am still deeply skeptical about this mission I have been handed.  I can see myself reaching out to my sister, because I do not want her to go down the same path that I have.  Sometimes, I see my sister as the only family relation that is possible.  As for my parents, the jury is still out over whether or not it is possible to reconnect.  I am 99 percent sure that my dad is a lost cause, I mean if my mom cannot do it, why the hell does she think I can do it?  Though my mom is showing a willingness to change, I cannot help but feel that she lost her chance many years ago.  Connecting with my cousin also seems very unlikely.

In the back of my mind, I keep on thinking that this mission my mom has handed to me is complete bullshit.  Children are supposed to be born into a family, not be forced to create one 20 years later.  I feel angry that my parents have put me in this situation.  It makes me even more angry that my mom told me that since I wanted a family so badly that I should go and connect with these family members myself, as if it was my responsibility to create a sense of family and not hers.  So yes, this whole mission is bullshit because I should have never been in this situation in the first place.  In my mind, it is much easier to just stick to the original plan, just cut and run and find another family to be a part of.  However, there is a part of me that wants to accept this mission despite how unfair and taxing it is.

Right now, I am still trying to decide whether or not this endeavor is worth the effort.

- muffinman

Stay in touch Ellie!

The closer I get to leaving for China the more amazing people I meet, it is almost as if San Diego is trying to keep me here. A mere two months ago, I started talking to Ellie, this amazing girl who happened to be in two of my anthropology classes.


I needed a picture to finish this post, but it was well worth the wait!

Ellie's small frame hides the biggest heart and personality that I have met to date, and the more I discover about her, the more amazing I find her. My interest in her first started in one of my anthropology classes, where her unique story instantly drew my attention. In class, the professor had all the students draw maps of a place that was significant to us. Ellie drew a Christian school with a lot of little kids, explaining that it was her grandparents' school in Taiwan and every year she flies back and helps run the school. 

To get a sense of how nice she is, you should know that she was voted "the person most likely to give you their last slice of cake" in high school. Though she has told me that she was trying hard to stop being such a people pleaser, her constant willingness to inconvenience herself to help others has convinced me otherwise.  Her willingness to buy me a cup of coffee, or pay for my meal while at the same time refusing my attempts to pay her back make her more generous than my own coffee group. I have to say, being around her this quarter has actually made me nicer.  Nowadays, when faced with a situation where I am unsure about what to do, I ask myself "what would Ellie do?" because I know that is always going to be the kindest act.

During midterms week, I put myself in an extremely precarious situation where I had a midterm in six hours and had not yet started studying. Half expecting Ellie not to come, I texted her to join me at Peet's, even though I knew she did not really have anything to study for. She came, and I would have been more excited had I not been severely sleep deprived and on my second cup of terrible coffee in three hours. The entire time she was there, she was enthusiastically encouraging me to study and reassuring me that I was not screwed despite having just started studying. Ellie kept me company till my midterm came and then once again reassured me that I would do well. Thanks to her, I managed to get an A on that midterm.

When she told me how she adopted her dog, it reminded me of those stories that you only hear from a friend of a friend or through a magazine story. The kind of story that makes you wonder at who could be so nice and understanding, and if there really are people like that around you. I do not wonder anymore, because I was talking to such a person. Ellie had received an email forwarded from a friend about a soldier who was going to be deployed and desperately seeking someone to take his dog. Upon hearing that the dog was going to be put to sleep if no one was going to take him in, Ellie immediately adopted him. She arrived back at her apartment with a dog none of her roommates were expecting and she still has it to this day.  

As amazing as she is, she is an absolute nightmare in terms of keeping in touch and meeting up.  I try to talk to her as much as possible because I never know next time that I will be able to. Ellie has the tendency to drop off the face the earth.  She will not respond on facebook, email or the phone for days at a time. I have coined this phenomenon as going "dark" a term that I picked up on the job while talking to director who's station was shutting down. Ellie usually starts going dark on Friday and stays dark throughout the weekend. The fact that I am writing this after being flaked on by her again further reinforces this to me.  So yes, nobody is perfect.  

Sadly, as you can see in the picture, Ellie has graduated, meaning this summer might be the last time I see her.  However, there is hope since she will be spending time in China during the fall and/or winter.  The thought of meeting up with her is just too exciting!

Ellie, since you kept going dark, we never got the chance to bake éclairs in San Diego so lets just do it in China!

-muffinman

First night in LA

After talking with my new apartmentmate I went out to eat by myself at a pita joint I had found on Yelp, a mere .3 miles away! On the way there, I heard much cheering and screaming for the Lakers coming from apartments, which reminded me that the final game was happening. The place was good, nothing to really brag about besides the fact that it had a really spicy sauce.

While exploring Westwood, I noticed that it was quite quiet and empty which I figured to be unusual due to the high number of students in the area. After running into a donut shop and ingesting a terrible donut, I realized what everybody was doing. They were watching the Laker game of course!


This scene at Jerry's Deli tipped me off to where everyone was.



Everyone was focused on the game



Lakers win! 2010 Champions!



Things were a little more wild in a bar down the street.

Overall, I thought the celebrations were pretty tame. There was no flooding of the streets or destruction of property. Just some screams of go Lakers as everyone went home.

Not a bad first night in LA.

-muffinman

PS Nearly forgot about this.

Saw this guy on the way back home. Seriously weird.

519 Glenrock Ave: my home for the next 2 months

I just moved into my new apartment next to UCLA and damn is it nice.

This apartment is a steal for $500 a month.  Barton the subleter  is a nice guy who just graduated in political science  from UCLA.  He gave me some places to check out while in LA and even gave me his membership card to a hot dog place that does $1 hot dogs on Mondays.  Some place called noodle hut or shack was supposed to be amazing, but I am suspicious because Barton is white and he did not seem to be able to tell me what kind of Asian place it was. Barton also left me with a lot of food which was great, except that I did not have any pots or pans to cook with. Probably the most important thing he left was two handles of vodka, well at least I think he left it for me...

The downside to this whole situation is that my original roommate bailed on me the night before we were supposed to move in.  I received a text around midnight the day that we were supposed to move in together, telling me that his parents were not letting him take the place.  The guy had commented on my facebook status saying how we were going to celebrate with my bottle of black label just 30 minutes before bailing.  I am pretty pissed about this last minute bailout, since I might end up having to pay more if the people subletting cannot find another person.  However, I understand it was my original roommate's fault but rather his parents, so I am not holding this against him.  He seemed to want to move in with me and was pretty set on it.

Of course this opens up the possibility of Robocop coming to live with me which would probably make it the most epic summer ever.

Update:  Just met Alec who lives in the other room and he seems cool.  He is a UPenn junior who is interning at demand media, the company that owns ehow.com, where he is helping the company go public.  Basically he is a financial analyst for the company but without getting paid a financial analysts's wage, though he is getting way more money than I am!  Sigh, I just cannot escape these finance kids.

Pictures:

My room after unpacking


Living room


Kitchen


The apartment building


The street


The street again

Robocop, you have to come down here! Staying in San Jose will kill your soul.

-muffinman

Saying goodbye to my first job

The Friday before finals week I said goodbye to my first real job and with it came mixed emotions.

Overall, it was a great first job experience.  I learned a lot about television on my short 7 month stint, especially about community stations.  The bottom line is that community television is completely under funded and that people actually do watch public broadcasting, which was definitely news to me.  Though I messed up a lot and I was forgiven for it, well mostly forgiven.  I swear the secretary still holds a grudge against me for messing up so many DVD orders before finally getting it right consistently.  My boss was super understanding and had a great sense of humor.  Also she forgave me for my first innocent blog post about work.  From my coworker who works behind me, I heard many fascinating stories about UCSD and also a lot of not so interesting and rambling stories.  On top of all that the pay was great for the amount of work I was doing.

Wednesday before finals week was actually my last day, but Friday was the day that I picked up my last paycheck and said goodbye to my coworkers.  Christina, the girl who I replaced, after three years on the job, earned herself a farewell office lunch and even tears from one of her coworkers.  On the other hand, my meager seven months got me some hugs and  few sincere goodbyes.  There was a definite difference between how close I was to the office compared to Christina, which was to be expected.

As great as work was, I am glad to be leaving.  Towards the end of this quarter, I felt that I had gotten everything I could out of this job and that it was time to move on.

Next stop LA!

Some pictures of the office:

An is my coworker and she also hates it when I take pictures of her.






Look at all those Emmys in the display case.  The San Diego Emmys that is.

-muffinman

Music Core

Fan girls await

Last Saturday, I was able to get tickets to a Korean music show, Music Core (쇼!음악중심).  I figured while I'm not doing anything I might as well take the opportunity to see one of these things live after I've spent countless hours watching artists perform through YouTube.  Unfortunately, I was not able to achieve one of my goals for this Korea trip: seeing SNSD in person.  They are no longer doing live performances in Korea, and on top of that, they are out of the country!!!  I knew they were no longer performing their latest song, 'Run Devil Run', but I was at least hoping to see Tiffany and Yuri (Two out of nine SNSD members) because they are the regular MCs for the show.  Alas, I was disheartened to learn they would not be there.


Stage with Camera Crew

After seeing these shows only through YouTube, it was really interesting to see how they actually produce the show.  Most of the performances are live and go straight to broadcasting and the live performances all use the same backdrop you see above: a oval screen looking down upon LCD columns interspersed about the stage.  Every group that comes on gets different colors, lighting effects, and sometimes fog machine stuff which gives each performance a distinctive theme.  I would have loved to take more pictures of the different groups performing, but there were security guards around the whole theatre deleting pictures and videos off of people's cameras -- I didn't want to lose the few pictures I had.

Because all the performances are live, the artists need to get on and off very quickly so that they don't cause a gap in show.  However, they often put pre-recorded performances in between the live ones so the artists can take a bit more time to switch places (you can usually tell if there is a backdrop in place of the pillared stage seen above, but not always).  During a pre-recorded performance, the group will usually only be able to perform part of the song, or just introduce themselves to the audience -- the stage crew needs enough time to set up for the next number.  Finally, it was cool to see the cameras all moving around to achieve the dynamic effect you see on TV.

It was also fun to see those crazy fans scream the names of the various groups that performed.  It was kind of sad to see the newer groups not get as much attention as some of the better established groups like Super Junior, SS501, f(x), 4 Minute, and MBLAQ.  When one of the MBLAQ members took off his shirt during their performance, all the fan girls started screaming their heads off -- I thought the roof would cave in.

Like I said before, I was initially disappointed to hear Tiffany and Yuri would not be hosting the show that day, but I was somewhat consoled by the fact that Hara (하라) and SeungYeon (승연) of the girl group Kara were hosting that day.  I couldn't help but notice that every time an unknown artist came up on stage, my eyes would drift over to where the MCs were sitting.  ㅋㅋㅋ~


MC booth

P.S. How about Korea in their first World Cup game? Excellent game 2:0 against Greece. Korea Fighting!!!

-Emoinacloset

It's Called A Visa (Part 3)

The story thus far…

Our hero, Emoinacloset, is at risk of having come to Korea in futile. At first excited about the prospect of interning in Korea, he hears on the first day of duty that he cannot work because of problems with his visa. The boss-man tells Emoinacloset he will look into their New York branch to see if they can accept him as an intern but there is no guarantee.

Part 1
Part 2

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For the past week I have been sitting in the house with nothing except a computer for company. Thank God my neighbors haven’t set up a secure wi-fi connection. When I first came to Korea I was so excited for my internship I carefully watched how much I ate so I could look good in my suit, despite the fact my grandmother here spoils me with food. However, when I got the initial phone call telling me I would not be able to work there I gave up hope. That day I gorged myself with Korean rice cakes I had been abstaining from to fill up the despair I felt inside.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. It’s frustrating to come all the way to Korea for a no-show internship and be put in a situation where all I could do is wait for the company to call me back with some kind of news, good or bad. I felt like punching someone in the face could tip the world back into balance, at least a little; at least that way I’d be doing something. Is it strange to feel like this? The only thing that made me feel somewhat better was lying on my bed, staring into the fluorescent light above me, listening to Amy Winehouse, and slitting my wrists.

I couldn’t sit around doing nothing. I started to look into other internships I could apply to as a contingency plan in case things didn’t work out for me, but then my mom said she was willing to let me come back to the States to get a visa and then go back to Korea. She had calculated the cost of a round trip ticket back to the states vs. the cost of living and rent doing an internship in New York and it was about the same. Besides, it seems like such a waste to throw this opportunity away just because of a visa problem. With that knowledge, I told the company I was willing to go out of the country and do anything to get the visa I needed.

So after telling HR this, I went to the immigration office Wednesday morning to figure out exactly what my situation was and it turns out I might be able to work with a C-4 visa (for short-term employment). On top of that, I don’t have to go all the way back to the United States to apply, I can just take a short trip to Japan and go to the Korean consulate there. I told the company everything Wednesday, but it's Friday now and I don't know what's going on.  I just called them and they said they haven't started processing the documents I need yet, and that I should hear from them sometime next week.

There’s a sliver of hope, yet at the same time I can’t help but feel uneasy.  If I’ve learned anything from what’s happened thus far, it’s that Korean companies are shady.

-Emoinacloset

A Lesson On Family History

Last Saturday my grandpa, uncle, aunt, and I went to the family burial ground in the countryside, about 3 hours away from Seoul by car.  My grandparents usually go about seven times a year here to take care of the graves -- specifically, the one of my great-grandfather.  We go and pay our respects by doing a "deep bow" -- getting all the way down on our knees -- and then we tidy up the grave site by pulling weeds to prevent it from getting overgrown.  We spent a good two hours pulling up weeds under the hot sun.

A little lesson on Korean culture: All Korean names are derived from Chinese characters (although if you translate them into Chinese they might not make much sense).  You probably know the more common last names such as Kim, Lee, and Park, but just because they sound the same does not mean they are equal.  The combination of the underlying Chinese characters as well as the the family's origination denotes which "clan" you were from.  Traditionally, two people in the same clan could not marry, which tells you how serious Koreans are about this stuff.  I am part of the Papyeong Yoon clan (파평 윤씨).

I had come to the countryside two years ago, the last time I was in Korea, learned a little about my family's history (I also had to pull weeds that day).  I guess my grandpa must have either forgotten I had come here last time or he wanted to show me again, so I got the full tour. This time though, I had my camera with me so I took lots of pictures.

Traditional School for the Yoon family





Memorial Service House



The tables where food offerings to ancestors are placed



Burial grounds



Lunchtime



Traditional Korean House
(Also where my grandpa was born)



 
 
 
 

Additional Pictures

-Emoinacloset