I love San Francisco

There seems to be some confusion about how great of a time I am having here in San Francisco due to my last post. Let me put it in no uncertain terms that I am having the time of my life. I love this city and the people in it! However, I do appreciate the outpouring of support that came from that post. It is comforting to know there are people out there who care how I am doing.

The truth is that the post about my first day was written 3 weeks after I landed in San Francisco. Since that time a lot of things have happened:

Drinking all day everyday

My first three weeks in SF, I was drinking close to everyday. Whether it was a beer at work, some $2 wine at the hostel or happy hour at a bar, there always seemed to be someone courting me to drink. The best part about all this alcohol is that most of the time it is free. In addition, to the quantity I am also really impressed by the quality of the free alcohol served. On the third week, I had to make a conscious effort to to stay sober for at least two days, in order to recover. Ofcourse, after four days of sobriety I quickly went back to drinking everyday.

Startup House

The fleas, flooded kitchen and all around dilapitated nature of the building has brought all the residents together. I cannot imagine a better place to start off my life in San Francisco. Startup House has brought me many friends, including some that I may live with come September. I have learned a ton about startups and web technologies from the other residents at Startup House. Steeped into the startup scene.

More importantly, I have found two friends at Startup House who I feel have my back.

Ashley
An eccentric non-traditional student, Ashley gave up a paid internship in Shanghai to pursue an unpaid one at the Hub, a co-working space for startups with social missions, for her passion in social entrepreneurship. Ashley is a hilarious drunk, terrible joke teller and possibily the most raunchy girl I have ever met. She is a great joy to be around and despite know me for just a month already seems to really care.

Jonathan
A wandering developer from Diamond Bar who seems to know about every single startup event in the bay. Jonathan was the first person to greet me at the startup house, and we have not parted ways since. He is my go to guy for most of the spare minutes I have.

Jonathan is my foil in San Francisco, we disagree over everything from tech to politics and even girls. Yet, somehow we still get along very well, to the point that some people have hinted that we act like a couple.


All for one and one for all
The three of us all get along extraordinarily well together. We have an interesting dynamic where, Ashley is the hippie who believes in humanity, Jonathan is the cynical and despairing wanderer and I am the calculating and practical one who reconiles the other's two world views together.Ashley endearing calls Jonathan and me, .5 (me) and 1.0 (Jonathan), it was annoying at first but I and everybody else at Startup House embraced it. The quirky nicknames really fit this group, where despite our huge differences we have managed to take a lot of comfort in each other. With Ashley and Jonathan, I feel that they have my back at all times.

The best times I have had in the city have been with these two, which is why I dread the day Ashley goes back to college. Jonathan and I can certainly entertain ourselves, but San Francisco simply will not be the same without Ashley.

Random reconnections

In addition to new friends, I have reconnected with a few old ones. One day at work, I was alerted by my Banjo app that Max, a friend I studied abroad with in Shanghai, had just checked into the building. Turns out he works just two floors above me. Later I discovered that Alison, a Shanghai friend from another semester also resides in San Francisco. Lastly, my high school friend Jennie just moved to the city two weeks ago. It seems San Francisco has brought to together friends from all walks of my life.  I just need a good UCSD friend to move up to complete the picture.

Work

I had envisioned myself becoming a workaholic in San Francisco and that has somewhat come true. I do spend over 60 hours at the office every week and am often the last one to leave, but I cannot say that I am always working at the office. Work, however, does consume my thoughts outside the office and I have most of my new ideas during my time off. I do not think it is a problem because I am getting in a lot of play time. Also did I mention I LOVE my job? I love the company, people and product. I love that I get to do pretty much whatever I want with minimal supervision and that the CMO respects my opinion. I love the advocacy play that the CEO wants to make in the future. I super love that I am treated like a full time employee and that the company has been very transparent about its activities, answering all of my questions and even giving me access to financials! Yes, I want to work for this company forever and strongly believe in its success.

Bottom line, I want to stay here forever...

Interning in Los Angeles (Part 1)

Taking on this internship has been the perfect way to complete my transformative year. I applied for the internship program on a whim for the express purpose of having something to do for the summer. There was not much investment on my part in getting the internship, I was perfectly happy with wasting time at home until I flew off to Shanghai, though in hindsight, I am glad that I was given this opportunity. Being an intern has been eye opening and rewarding experience. I cannot imagine having a more life changing eight weeks.

This in no way means that the internship went perfectly. On the onset there was the problem of my less than ideal office assignment and later there were some problems of team dynamics. I realize now that a big part for the success of this internship was because I went out of my way to make it my own.

My assignment at the assemblymember's  was the biggest disappointment of the internship. For the first two weeks I was stuck doing calls for inviting people to an intern reception. My only escape from calls came from a staffer who wanted to get away from the office and took pity on me. Melissa, who was the intern coordinator for the office, had very little to offer besides a nice personality. She did not have much experience with politics, since this was her first full time job out of college. I am at a loss at how the assemblymember's office was so highly praised by chair of the non-profit. It had probably something to do with the fact that the Assembly member was terming out, and everyone in the office was looking for a job.

Being allowed to work at the non-profit office really salvaged this summer for me. I am glad I stepped up and complained as loudly and ardently as I did, because throughout my time at the non-profit, the director was a great mentor. His eagerness to share his experiences in politics has been nothing short of enlightening. The director is chockfull of stories and sage advice that I would have never heard, had I simply stayed at the assemblymember's office. In addition, he always took the time to answer my questions, no matter how simple, and because of this, I was able to know the backgrounds I of the elected officials that I met, making it easier for me to talk to them. Most importantly, however, the director let me have my own projects in the office and asked for input on many of the things that he was working on. In fact, at times it was a bit overwhelming because he would ask for my opinions on things that I felt were far too important for me. Almost every day at the office was an experience to be remembered. I am not sure whether it was his union background or just his personality but things in office were always very open. Many times, office behavior from both of us deviated far from professionalism, but that was what made it so great to work with the director. I could always be honest in my opinion around him and if we disagreed, we simply agreed to disagree. There were never any hard feelings. I did not realize the full extent of how much of a mentor the director was for me until a week before the end of the program, and now that I have, I have come to value my time at the non-profit office all the more.