PRIDE (And Other Weekend Festivities)

Last weekend was yet another great one. I rested up Friday in preparation of a weekend in the city (“the city” = San Francisco, just to clarify). Then on Saturday I met up with Kevin and we went to a birthday party in a park for one of the other Pixar interns. The birthday boy had gotten a bounce-y house, which got taken over by some local kids, but since the guests were all 20+ (Kevin and I were actually the youngest… most people were mid 20s) there was more interest in the BBQ, beer and whiskey. The day was perfect for a picnic in the park – the weather was gorgeous! In addition to the food and drinks, they did a piñata (I underestimated just how hilarious it would be to see tipsy and blind-folded men take huge swings at a piñata only to have it lifted out of reach) and we played soccer. Even though I only knew Kevin and had met the birthday boy once, I really felt like I could build a new life out here. Maybe it was the whiskey, but I felt like I really want to try living out here. (Sorry, Mom and Margaret.)

After the birthday party, I took BART into San Francisco and met my friend Dan (another hapa who graduated last year) in the Marina District, where he lives. He showed me around the area, which is one of the hubs of the mid-twenties set. One of the bars we went to really just felt like a slightly more grown-up version of a final club since the boys were pretty fratty. There was one major difference, though: the male:female ratio was inversed, with the men vastly outnumbering the women. (Coincidentally, one of my friends had recently told me that apparently San Francisco has one of the most favorable gender ratios for young single women.) At this same bar, I saw Ben F., one of the contestants on The Bachelorette (which I do not admit to watching…). I stood next to him in line for the bathroom and our shoulders were touching, making it my first (literal) brush with a reality TV star. He was much shorter and sweatier than on the show. But he is a winemaker so I’ll cut him some slack. I think he’ll get voted off, though, because he’s a slob – he didn’t even close the door when he went in the bathroom so I had to do it for him! Ew!

Civic Center at night

Sunday morning I went down toward the Civic Center to meet Kevin for the Pride Parade (celebrating gay people). All my gay friends at school had told me I really had to go check it out, so I was prepared for it to be wild. I was still shocked at how totally crazy everything was, though! There were no rules… anything goes. I saw people wearing the craziest costumes (lots of men in drag), and also people wearing nothing at all. One guy was literally running around butt naked. Not to be outdone, there were lots of topless women, including one who had painted “Touch my boobs” on her chest. (I told you it was crazy.) Some other interesting attire (or lack there-of) included ass-less chaps (excuse the language, but “bottom-less” and “butt-less” sound funny) and these men in pink (below).

Kevin somehow ended up walking with the Google trolley float in the actual parade, so I had to run along the parade to meet him, and then when I found them I had to climb over about 7 rows of bodies and over the barricade to join the parade. After all this effort, I was really hot (it was an unusually sunny and hot day in the city) so decided to embrace the spirit of Pride and change from jeans into a skirt… in the middle of the street. I think that’s the closest I’ll ever come to streaking. (But people cheered. Kevin got the crowd going. Haha!)

Here with some Googlers and others.

At the end of the parade, I ran into two friends who work at Google (one from Chinese class, and one from the Seneca who graduated last year). I’m meeting tons of people from Google this summer, so I’m trying to learn more about the company from them because I would LOVE to work there next year.

Introspective Musings

(Warning: I’m sitting in my favorite Berkeley writing spot – a bench next to the campus bell tower in Memorial Grove – and it’s very peaceful so I always get introspective when I sit here. Bear with me.)

To start, I’ve been thinking a lot over the past two weeks about how I’m not lonely here. I’m actually pretty surprised that I’m not lonely, because I basically live alone (which I’ve never done before) and I don’t really have friends at work because there aren’t other people my age (but lots of great mentors!), and I only really get to see the few friends and family I have out here a few times a week. However, I’m really not lonely at all. I was a little at first, but now I’m much happier on my own than I thought I was capable of. Don’t get me wrong, I am still a highly social being and would prefer to be less alone more of the time, but I think it’s significant that I’m content and happy by myself for now. I’m definitely appreciative now of having “peace” so we’ll see what happens when I need to readjust to less peace.

One thing I appreciate about not having a lot of friends out here is that I can focus on myself. I don’t mean that in a self-absorbed way, but rather I can do whatever I want. I have very few obligations, whereas at Harvard and, to a lesser extent, at home I have so many social obligations that on one hand I love but on the other can get tiring and restricting. I also LOVE being able to eat whatever I want. Cooking for myself has given me so much dietary freedom and is so much more tasty and fulfilling than dining hall food. I am NOT looking forward to going back to that…

YUM!

San Francisco and the Bay Area are just so much less socially restricting than Boston/New England! Nowhere is this more evident than in fashion. Out here there are no expectations about what you should or shouldn’t wear. Most workplaces have very loose dress codes, and people are more adventurous dressers. Or rather, they aren’t adventurous in that they all dress totally crazy (although some do), but people just wear whatever they want and their wardrobes seem less dictated by society or trends.

In the spirit of adventurous fashion, I decided to go hat shopping after work today. (This was also inspired by our night on the town at Teatro ZinZanni, because it was so fun to dress up and not look so conventional.) I walked to Gorrin Brothers Hat Shop (which had a grand opening for its Newbury Street store that my roommate and I happened to stumble upon before exams this spring), and luckily the lady working there lent her stylist’s eye and consulted with me to pick a nice cloche. I had never even heard that word before today, but I like it! She had me trying on hats for the better part of half an hour, patiently walking me through which way the hat went and coaching my through my first excursion into the world of hats (not counting ball caps or ski hats).

What do you think? Take a look:

Lots of Updates

So… I am finishing my fourth week in the Bay Area, meaning I’m already halfway done with my time here (for now!). It’s been a busy two weeks, so I’ll try to get you caught up.

After my fun weekend with family, my good friend Taylor visited me in Berkeley. (She graduated last year and we became very close while both being on the board for HAPA.) Since she recently got back from India, we went to a very authentic and off-the-beaten path Indian place called Vik’s Chaat House. We avoided ordering the usual Indian in America fare (chicken tikka masala, samosas, daal, etc.) and I’m so glad we did, because it was all delicious! At this point, I completely forget what everything was called, but now I want to make myself try more new foods. I’m by no means a picky eater, but even in exotic cuisines I have my go-to favorites. Time to be more open to new foods!

Last week a boy moved into my apartment (don’t worry… he’s a harmless rising sophomore CS/chemistry kid), so now I have a roommate, which is kind of weird. I had come to enjoy having my own space, but we are rarely in the apartment at the same time so it’s like living alone for the most part. Sometimes when I don’t feel like talking after work, though, I come and find a nice space to hang out outside. Berkeley has such a beautiful campus that it’s not too difficult, and I’m glad I’ve been forced to venture out of my apartment more often.

After work on Tuesday I went into the city with my friend Liza (who is also in the Seneca). We wanted to go to a movie screening at the Top of the Mark (check out how steep the road was going up the hill!!! Good thing it doesn’t snow here), but so did dozens of other people and we didn’t get there early enough to get in, so we walked around and enjoyed each others’ company over a glass of champagne at Gold Dust.

Finally we reached the Top of the Mark!

This week I also read Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food. I LOVED it!!!! (I highly recommend it to every person who is at all interested in health and diet!!!! Seriously, you HAVE to read it!) Between this book, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, and the food-related environmental research I do for work, I’m becoming so so interested in and passionate about environmental health. Hmm… is that my calling that I hear? Maybe… we’ll see ☺

Things at work have been going really well over the past two weeks, too. I’m so thankful that my supervisor was so thoughtful in choosing projects that are meaningful to me and to the organization. This week she sent me to the County Board of Supervisors budgeting meeting so I could see more of the inner workings of the public sector. A few things really struck me. First, the board was INCREDIBLY diverse: two women (Latina and Asian) and three men (two black and one white). To me, it was so meaningful and inspiring to see that out of the 5 board members, only ONE was a white man!!! The second thing I observed was the extent to which the County is subject to the decisions of the state government. There were multiple cases in which seemingly minor changes in policy at the state-level caused huge changes in requirements and/or budgets of the County. Lastly, I realized how much we take for granted the services of local governments. The County here is responsible for so many important things that don’t usually cross my mind. For example, not only law enforcement, but also jails and probation. It’s easy for our highly-capitalist society that lauds the private sector to dismiss and criticize the public sector, but the truth is much of what they do nobody else can or even wants to.

A Crazy Weekend (June 17-19)

This weekend started out stressful and ended out awesome. Friday I was really tired after work and got home hoping to unwind by watching some TV on Hulu. Instead, I realized that the power was out in only my unit, not the whole apartment. The land lady came and resolved things fairly quickly, so then I set out to meet a friend at a BBQ I was looking forward to. On my way, I passed a couple of sketchy looking black guys loitering on the sidewalk. However, I didn’t want to racially profile them so I just walked past. When I was 20 yards or so past them, I heard a crash and turned around and saw that they had broken a parked car’s window and were stealing things from inside. Naturally, I was really rattled. It was still broad daylight out (only about 6:30pm) and on a well-traveled road, so I was shocked that anyone would break into a car then and there. Since they saw me see them, I was also really worried they would come after me or something so I rounded the corner and hid in a store for a while. What was supposed to be a relaxing weekend definitely got off to a stressful start.

Once I got to the BBQ, things started picking up. As it would turn out, I was the only person with any grilling expertise, and cooking food over open flames made it feel like it was actually summer (although the chilly weather that took over as the sun set begged to differ). After dinner, I hung out with my friend watching College Jeopardy, of all things. I was pretty skeptical about whether this would be fun or not, but Jeopardy is surprisingly addicting!!!

Saturday morning Polly and Bee picked me up and so began two amazingly fun days with family. We met everyone else at a dog park in Richmond. It was a riot! It was really just like a town for dogs – they walked (or ran or swam) wherever they wanted and socialized with each other, and just generally had a good time. There were more dogs than people it seemed like.

After, we began a 24-hour long Culinary Journey. We began with lunch at Fish in Sausalito and shared some delicious (and hopefully sustainable…) seafood. My favorites were some excellent fish tacos with salsa verde and the crab roll. (I will spare you from the now-clichéd food blog photos of everything I ate.) Over lunch we got into a very interesting discussion about dietary habits, including a debate about the degree of individual vs. societal responsibility/blame for eating habits and knowledge. As a sociology student, I was in my element ☺ Nermie and I kept referencing watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. (Yes, I’m fairly obsessed with him…) This is one of the many things I love about spending time with our family – there are always interesting conversations and lots of different viewpoints from people I really respect and admire, and think are really smart (and I’m not just saying that to get brownie points!).

The girls with their rootbeer floats at Fish

On our way back to Polly and Alex’s we stopped at Cibo, a café/bakery in Sausalito and got some pastries that we were way too full to eat at the time, but will make an appearance later on in this Culinary Journey.

Before we could even finish digesting our late lunch, it was time to get ready for dinner. Polly planned an amazing night at Teatro Zinzanni, a theater/dinner place. Their website encouraged patrons to come in costume (think old-school glamour), so Bee was of course very excited. On our way into the city, we stopped at a crazy costume shop in the Haight. Once we were outfitted with hats, boas, tiaras, long gloves, and a mustache for Alex, we set off to the theater. I was surprised (although after a month out here I really shouldn’t be…) that we didn’t get weird looks from other people on the street wondering why were outfitted as we were.

We got to the theater, which was a specially imported big top circus tent (think Water For Elephants, reminiscent of the days when circuses were luxurious outings), and realized we were among the very few who had heeded the instructions to come in costume. All the better to stand out, though. Dinner was a five-course meal, and everything was delicious! (Spiced almonds and brie crostinis, some delicious cold soup – asparagus maybe?, a really good salad that I forget what it was but was delicious, a choice of entrees (I had the pork chop with peach compote and mashed potatoes), and a dessert that was just okay.) Frank generously got us some cava to go with the meal, so it really did feel very glamorous what with our crazy costumes and all.

The show was also amazing! I thought it would be a bit hokey, but cute, but instead it was all at once hilarious, impressive and creative. It was the perfect mix of little comedy bits (hosted by a brother/sister pair of Mexicans who would get audience members to come do crazy things, making fun of them all the while) and impressive Cirque de Solei-esque acrobatic performances. (My favorite stunts were on guy who climbed up a poll and then could hold his body completely rigid and horizontal, as well as a team of three French guys who all stacked up on each other’s shoulders and then to get down had the whole line fall toward the ground while maintaining the straight line and then at the last moment let go of each other and rolled on the ground to land. Scary but impressive!)

We got home and fell asleep quickly (or at least I did!), which was good because the 24-hour Culinary Journey continued in the morning. We woke up and it was a beautiful, sunny, and almost hot day in Marin, so we headed to the huge farmers’ market. First, though, we finally ate those pastries from Cibo. I tried the chocolate chip scone and it was seriously the best scone I’ve ever had!!! Usually scones are so dry but this one was so moist and delicious even though it was a day old. (Or maybe it was just that I had barely eaten any chocolate or butter in a few weeks? No… I think it really was an amazing scone.)

At the farmers’ market, we filled up on fresh produce samples, and also had some of that delicious all-natural, organic dim sum and the best smoked salmon I’ve ever had (YUM!!!!!!). I really love this farmers’ market. It would be so amazing if your life was such that you could come here every weekend with your family and do your grocery shopping and eat lunch and enjoy the live music and nice weather. I’m becoming a Bay Area convert!

Since Melissa had to go down to Stanford to start summer camp, Polly, Alex and I decided we would head down for the day with them. The girls and I rode down with Alex, and it was so nice to talk with him. He had really insightful career/life advice, and is always fun to spend time with. I’m so glad that he’s joined our family and I’ve gotten to spend more time with Polly and him this summer!

The Golden Gate Bridge was shrouded in fog when we crossed it going to Standford. Looked so cool!

In Stanford, it was REALLY hot! We ate outdoors at The Counter (a design-your-own burger place) because Spirit was with us and had to fight for shade under the umbrellas. We were finally starting to hit a wall in terms of food intake, but Spirit scarfed down a huge 1-lb (after cooking!) burger. After lunch we checked Melissa into camp and then saw a really nice outdoor mall. Spirit apparently really likes to shop, and has his own favorite stores that he’ll drag Alex into every time. (His favorites are the Apple store – I guess it runs in the family – and Abercrombie.) This day he discovered a new fashionable menswear store that he really wants Alex to get outfitted from.

All in all, it ended up being a great (and filling) weekend. I feel so lucky to have such great family and to have the opportunity to spend more time with the West Coast bunch.

Week Three: It’s a Whole New World

Even though the Bay Area and the Boston area are similar in many regards (i.e. small-ish cities with lots of young, well-educated and liberal inhabitants), it’s really a whole new world out here that is opening up a wealth of possibilities.

I was talking to one of my good friends back home, and realized that this summer is definitely helping me figure out my direction. Specifically, I’ve become increasingly interested at the point where health and environmentalism/sustainability intersect. At work I read some articles by Ernest Callenbach, a Berkeley resident who wrote Ecotopia, an extremely influential environmentalist novel. I was most interested in his idea of the Golden Triangle, which positions health, wealth, and the environment on the three corners of a triangle. According to his theory, actions that help foster one corner will spill over into the other two corners as well (i.e. promoting things beneficial to the environment, are also in the best interests of health and economic interests). For example, biking to work improves your health, reduces pollution, AND saves money. I think that in coming years, as Americans struggle with their health, pending environmental crises, and economic woes, this Golden Triangle will see a resurgence in popularity and give way to all kinds of successful policy and business opportunities!

(Now for a visual interlude: below are a bunch of photos of my office and the surround area, as per Dad’s request.)

my office building

the chalet restaurant and greenspace across from my building

uh oh... i see a sprinkler running in the heat of the day... wasting water b/c it's just evaporating. tsk tsk.

another nearby park

nearby plaza

another view of the Chalet

people meditating or something

historical house across the street from my building

This week I’ve also realized that I am becoming much more okay with letting go of things in the past. Over the past couple of years, I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with the reality that I can’t maintain all of my old friendships, and really struggled with growing apart from almost all of my high school friends. As more and more of my college friends graduate (this year there was an especially large number of them to say goodbye to), I found I was having the same struggle: not wanting to let go of those close friendships, yet finding it too difficult to really maintain our relationships. However, this summer I’ve gotten to see friends out here and while it’s sad I don’t see them every day, it makes me the time we do spend together that much more special. Plus, I’ve had fun meeting new people and getting to be better friends with people I didn’t necessarily know as well before.

All this is making me much less afraid to graduate next spring. It turns out, there IS life after college! (And beyond Harvard… who would’ve guessed?) I feel confident that I’ll stay in touch with those closest to me (I’ve even been receiving texts from a close friend who moved to Australia… so with modern technology you really can stay in touch!). Even though graduation will still be bittersweet, and I’ll really miss Harvard, I don’t think you’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming. I think I’ll be ready.

The other new world I explored this week was that of artistic creativity. My main project this week was making a video clip to educate County employees about a new waste reduction policy for office meals (basically instead of ordering boxed lunches – lots of packaging waste and unwanted food thrown out—we want them to serve food buffet-style; additionally, drinks should be served from pitchers instead of in individual cans and bottles). This involved writing a script and then acting in the film, as well as making little animations and then editing the video. I haven’t really ‘done art’ since middle school art class, but spent the better part of two days drawing animations! I felt so productive because I got really focused and into the project, which felt good. It was a refreshing change of pace, and also nice to see that I’m not completely creatively inept. For some reason, the past year or two I’ve been in doubt of my ability to be creative… I thought that my talents lied in taking an existing idea and implementing it or making it better. I think (hope) I can do that, but also be inventive in coming up with the original idea in the first place. Here’s to hoping!

(Note: I’m not posting the video because it’s for internal use, but the animations were of trash piling up, food getting eating, etc. Fun stuff.)

view from my cubicle

some animations

Work Hard, Play Hard

Working 9-5 hasn’t been bad, especially because I’ve been fortunate enough to balance out the work with fun stuff!

Wednesday after work I met my newfound Berkeley friend, and he gave me a tour of UC Berkeley’s campus. The campus is so pretty (but very hilly!) – I really like how Cal has its own campus and then a separate little college town, whereas Harvard Square and lots of big roads run directly through Harvard’s campus. The weather has also gotten much nicer – the rain stopped and now it’s 68-71F and sunny. Much better! We stopped for dinner at this pizza cooperative (owned by the people who work there) called Cheeseboard. They serve only one kind of pizza per day (all vegetarian) and it’s apparently very popular. The line went way down the sidewalk, but because there’s only one thing to order it moved very fast. We ate on the grassy median in the middle of the road outside, because that’s apparently the Berkeley Hipster thing to do. (Don’t worry, Michael – I’m not going to go hippie on you!)

Thursday is apparently Berkeley Bar Night (as in a big group of the Pixar interns all choose a bar in Berkeley to congregate at, which is very convenient for me to get to see Kevin and some of the other interns who are more new friends). This week we were joined by a Harvard hapa who graduated last year (and whose cousin is one of my closest friends at school!). As this hapa left the bar, one of the (Asian) Pixar interns was overheard commenting, “I hope my babies look like him.” Flattering, yes, but perhaps a bit creepy.

This past Friday was probably one of the most fun days I’ve had since I got here. Alisa, Polly, and I all met up for lunch in Downtown Oakland at a farmers’ market. We got some delicious tamales and (perfectly seasoned and moist) rotisserie chicken. We walked over to a nearby park and sat in the sun while we ate. Alisa had to run off to work, but I was lucky enough to get some quality girl talk in with Polly J

some weird performance art outside of Alisa's office. the theme was about slowing down

After work I took BART into SF’s Mission District to meet up with other girls in the Seneca (the social org I am a member of – www.theseneca.org) I was SO excited and SO happy to see them! I’ve always had a tendency to have male, more so than female, friends (maybe because of my brothers?), but I realized that I really really missed having girlfriends around all the time.

we looked at the goodies at Tartine's but wanted to save our appetites for dinner...

We went to Morac, a Moroccan restaurant/lounge that Polly recommended. We shared some really delicious entrees, my favorite of which was the za’atar chicken. (I don’t think I’ve ever had Moroccan food before. It might have also tasted really good because I haven’t been eating meat here, except for the infrequent times I go out to restaurants.) After dinner, we hung out and caught up over cocktails. The consensus was that the Que (a cucumber drink) was the best. I liked that the drink had texture because every now and then you’d get some little cucumber seeds.

After dinner we still weren’t ready to part ways, so we headed to a tapas place to share some sangria. The place was in the Haight, which is apparently a very desirable neighborhood, but I personally didn’t get what was so great about it. It didn’t seem that nice to me, but I guess that’s not the point… the point is that it’s the Haight. Whatever!

Marianna stayed over Friday night and we walked around Berkeley a bit in the morning, then I spent the day lounging around (plus going for a run to compensate for those cocktails… yikes) and catching up on thesis stuff and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution TV show. And Gossip Girl…

Saturday night Kevin came over and we cooked dinner (I’ve gotten him hooked on nian gao). Then we went to listen to Dispatch (a band). They were playing at the Berkeley Greek Theater, and while we didn’t have tickets, we heard that you could go up on the hill behind the theater and listen. It took us a while to figure out how to get around behind the theater, but once we did it was really fun! We could hear perfectly, although the stage was too low for us to see anything besides the lights. The weather was perfect (thankfully not too cold like it had been last week)!

It’s crazy how quickly weekends seem to fly by…