Week Two

I had a really fun and refreshing weekend. Friday night I hung out with a friend of a friend (and the only person I know in Berkeley…) at the fraternity he lives at. I was shocked at how different this party was from parties at Harvard! It’s a different world out here. People were very laid back, although I did get ragged on a bit for being from New England. Luckily one other girl was a huge Sox fan and came to my defense. J Brett, who is now my first Berkeley friend, was nice enough to walk me back, so don’t worry – I was being safe!!

Saturday I went for a nice run around Berkeley, but got a bit lost, so I’ll have to get a tour! While I had a quiet evening at home, my blockmate Kevin was partying it up at an extravagant wrap party for Pixar’s new movie. We later realized that the interns could have easily snuck me in, so it’s too bad I missed that. Instead, I watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution show. Earlier in the week I watched his brief TED talk about how food education in schools is the only way our society stands a chance in the fight against obesity. He’s really inspirational, and such a visionary! I’ve really been loving his show; I strongly recommend watching it! (It’s the first thing that’s gotten me feeling really fired up about our education system, which is saying a lot given the many flaws in it. Watching how much resistance he deals with when he is offering to make great improvements and little or no cost is just crazy!)

On Sunday Kevin and I went into San Francisco for the day. We went to a farmers’ market and got some to-die-for cherries. We also found HUGE grapefruits (check out photo below). We walked all over the place: Chinatown (where I introduced Kevin to tsapaos (don’t know how to spell that… but the cha sha bao, sweet pork buns we love)), back to the Ferry Building, and hung out at a little park with a weird looking industrial water sculpture (Alisa told me what it was called, but I forget already).

This past week at work was good, too. I’m finally settling in, and my direct supervisor, Emily, returned from a weeklong environmentalist forum. I’m so lucky that Emily and I get along so well. She’s a Harvard grad and used to run the Resource Efficiency Program that I work for at school. She’s one of the few people to actually understand my career goals (granted, I’m not very articulate about them), and I think she’ll be an excellent mentor for me.

Thursday at work there was a big meeting with team leaders from each agency in the county to prepare for the launch next month of the county’s Climate Action Plan, so everyone was in a whirlwind preparing for that and I was mostly left to my own devices working on my projects. I’m really glad that this summer I feel like the work I’m doing at my internship actually has an impact and helps the organization I’m working for, whereas last summer I felt like I didn’t have much of an opportunity to actually contribute.

I also discovered that the (manmade) lake next to my office is perfect for running around. It’s about 3-4 miles and really pretty, so I’ve been bringing running clothes and going around after work a few times a week.

some decor for my apartment :)