For Tom =P
You asked, I deliver =)
Hmmm....Fall 2007 in DC....where to begin? It all started with Phinn asking, semi begging and encouraging Ben and I to apply for the UCDC program because it would be fun and he didn't want to go by himself sometime in early 2007. Ben and I had already done some traveling so I guess he thought we would be easy targets to persuade, haha. Some of my own reasons: I was determined to do something crazy yet academic before finishing stuff at UCR. Studying abroad in Italy didn't work out so this could be my last chance. Before continuing on a not so serious business career track, I was curious to see how things might be if I were to dedicate time into things that directly helped people. Also, one, if not my best friend resides in Philly. The Smashing Pumpkins were touring and cruising by Philly within that time frame.....it was clear that it was all meant to be.
Once I applied, bugged Matt in the EIC for a letter of recommendation and got into the program. That summer was busy trying to look for a cool organization to intern at that would somehow help both our academic and professional backgrounds. It was funny because Phinn applied to one place til last last minute and got it while Ben and I struggled, haha. From what I noticed, a lot of default internships were doing work for numerous senators from all over. I remember there was this one chick from UC Berkeley who got to intern for Obama. Others for local east coast senators and I think Ben got to intern for some senator from Philly or somethin. Anywho, Phinn got to slave away at the Kennedy center and I settled at this educational branch of a Latino civil rights organization. We mostly took care of scholarships and funding for community programs all over the nation that help boost education amongst minority groups. It's been a while now but the most I remember from interning was feeling lowsy in the morning (y'all know mornings don't like me), calling tons of people from all over the US, and researching grant material for my supervisor. It was neat because I learned about how all that funding stuff works to make non profit organizations work along with all those little community programs. Everyone I worked with was really nice and cool to chat with. Honestly, my only problem was getting my ass there on time, awake and ready, lol. I still feel bad about it.
The fun stuff. Oh we got out.....a lot, haha. At first, the 3 of us kept to who we already knew and then branched out to new people we befriended thanks to group outings and room parties. Most of our new friends and acquaintances were from UC Davis and we still keep in contact. In Ben's case, really close and intimate contact, lol (sorry Ben). But yeah, often times, one of us would get hooked up with free tickets to events in town and were invited to tag along. I think we all spent more money on booze, local traveling and events that we cared little for food. Though I do recall eating some awesome pad thai and drunken noodles w/chicken at this place called Typhoon...or Thaiphoon. They had horrid mojitos, waste of moneys. The most "chic" joint I remember visiting was the Russian lounge. I had never seen a menu with so many types of vodka before. However, the coolest of the kool place to go to was Adam's Morgan. I would still describe it as Tortuga island in Pirates of the Caribbean but in DC, haha. No cover charges, all sorts of music and people. It wasn't all about the neat night clubs and drinking though. Admittedly, I'm a dork so I also had a blast walking all over town admiring the architecture, museums and historic buildings during day time. My least favorite was the Space museum, waaay too many damn kids for my liking. Stuff in there is cool and all, but I recommend not going on a weekend. My highlights were the Lincoln memorial and the Capitol building. Every time I visited was special. The Lincoln memorial is the closest thing we have to the temple of Zeus in Greece. The Capitol building is awesome inside. I remember having a nerd moment the first time I got to see it up close from the outside due to observing its architecture, lol. I don't think I took many pictures of my by these buildings but I do remember taking one in front of the Hoover building (FBI). As an X-Files fan, I had to....let me be. I thought it was funny how one passes by the White House every time they go to the Mall (not the one to shop but the set of buildings from the lincoln memorial to the capitol building) and once you get past the first encounter. It's just another fancy building with people doing stuff outside or asking for money.
The most memorable guest appearnce in DC those months was probably seeing the dali lama receive a medal in front of the capitol building. It had little to do with his holyness, it was special coz of the crowd present. I think i put up pictures of all this on fb, btw.
What else....oh yeah, field trips. Let's see, I went to Philly twice to hang with my homegurl and be a tourist. I discovered this awesome vegetarian chinese restaurant in china town my first day there. Best fried rice ever, I kidd you not. She showed me around a bit, drank and smoked natural things w/her crew before the show. Had a great time at the show then we kinda after partied at her place and stayed up watching Nine Inch Nails dvds all night, hahaha. On the second visit, she took me to the Mutter museum. Awesome collection of nasty human mutations. She also made me look like a fool around this cute dude walkin around. From my brief stays in Philly, I learned that they do have killer cheese stakes \m/
My b-day fell in the middle of a 3 day weekend. So Phinn and I took that opportunity to bus it to New York City and bum and his brother's place. There was no clubing involved, but plenty sight seeing. It reminded me of San Francisco but more spread out. Unfortunately, we couldn't go to many of the notable museums because they were closed. I'm not one for crowds of people but I really liked it nonetheless. The bestest boba milk tea I've had can be found at this one place in china town, btw. Man, it was amazing. The Statue of Liberty, I gotta admit, is disappointing; not as big as you'd think. While I was hoping to get drunk n crazy that weekend, I did get to purchase my first ever bottle of absinthe. The drunk crazyness however did happen earlier in october when I went with our friend Larissa to a b-day gathering of one of her old high school friends in a cabin by a lake in upstate NY. I'll be honest and say I was a bit scared at first coz the only person I knew was Larissa, and I hadn't even known her that well yet. All in all though, it turned out to be an awesome weekend. I loved being surrounded by forest up there. It gave off a similar feel to being in the outskirts of Ontario further up north. Which brings me to sum up our epic road trip to Montreal during thanksgiving week.
Where to start? it started with a bunch of us wanting to do something big but small trip wise. We thought about Boston, Florida, New York, forgot what else came up. But we finally settled on a pit stop at Niagara Falls and Montreal as our final destination. I'd like to go to Buffalo, NY one day just to take a bunch of pictures with one of them fancy cameras. We were in the car all the time but you could still sense its industrialness. This is where we crossed the border. It was kinda magical, to say the least. Not kidding at all here, the second we got in line to go further north, it was snowing. The rest of the drive was cold, sure. But no traces of snow yet. Niagara: it made me think of universal city walk with a few casinos topped with a gorgeous waterfall at its edge. Not to mention the awesomely nice ontarian employees and their adorable accents, haha.
Montreal: to be honest, it was both great and bad some times. There's only so much of your close friends you can take before needing some space and fresh air. That said, I loved it, it's very european and quiet. The docks was probably my favorite part of town besides old montreal. We sure did freeze our asses off being spoiled Cali kids and all.
In case you were wondering, yes, of course I went to a couple of concerts while there =P There was the Pumpkins in Philly, M.I.A., Tori Amos, Alicia Keys, Megadeth---all in DC. Then Megadeth again in some hick town in Virginia. Btw, that last one was the randomest trip ever (besides farming in europe). I made friends with this mom at the first Megadeth show in DC who had mentioned wanting to go to their show in Virginia as well later on that month but didn't want to go alone. So I messaged her and said I'd go if I she picked me up at a subway station closest to her. She agreed and it was set. It didn't hit me til that day of how dangerous this could turn out to be. But you know what? it turned out to be a fun trip and a fun show even if she did creep me out later that night rambling on about one of the band members. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of plenty musicians but this was just down right spooky.
In conclusion. There were other "achievements" I wish I had in my memory banks during my brief stay in the east coast but just didn't happen mostly due to my own cowardice. Even though it was a memorable 3 months, it was also the beginning of an extremely difficult emotional period. I don't know if I mentioned already how sometimes I'd feel so homesick I'd mope about playing Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes in my head, but it happened, haha. Even in Italy or southern France, the closest places to resemble Cali, there's just one Cali.
Hmmm....Fall 2007 in DC....where to begin? It all started with Phinn asking, semi begging and encouraging Ben and I to apply for the UCDC program because it would be fun and he didn't want to go by himself sometime in early 2007. Ben and I had already done some traveling so I guess he thought we would be easy targets to persuade, haha. Some of my own reasons: I was determined to do something crazy yet academic before finishing stuff at UCR. Studying abroad in Italy didn't work out so this could be my last chance. Before continuing on a not so serious business career track, I was curious to see how things might be if I were to dedicate time into things that directly helped people. Also, one, if not my best friend resides in Philly. The Smashing Pumpkins were touring and cruising by Philly within that time frame.....it was clear that it was all meant to be.
Once I applied, bugged Matt in the EIC for a letter of recommendation and got into the program. That summer was busy trying to look for a cool organization to intern at that would somehow help both our academic and professional backgrounds. It was funny because Phinn applied to one place til last last minute and got it while Ben and I struggled, haha. From what I noticed, a lot of default internships were doing work for numerous senators from all over. I remember there was this one chick from UC Berkeley who got to intern for Obama. Others for local east coast senators and I think Ben got to intern for some senator from Philly or somethin. Anywho, Phinn got to slave away at the Kennedy center and I settled at this educational branch of a Latino civil rights organization. We mostly took care of scholarships and funding for community programs all over the nation that help boost education amongst minority groups. It's been a while now but the most I remember from interning was feeling lowsy in the morning (y'all know mornings don't like me), calling tons of people from all over the US, and researching grant material for my supervisor. It was neat because I learned about how all that funding stuff works to make non profit organizations work along with all those little community programs. Everyone I worked with was really nice and cool to chat with. Honestly, my only problem was getting my ass there on time, awake and ready, lol. I still feel bad about it.
The fun stuff. Oh we got out.....a lot, haha. At first, the 3 of us kept to who we already knew and then branched out to new people we befriended thanks to group outings and room parties. Most of our new friends and acquaintances were from UC Davis and we still keep in contact. In Ben's case, really close and intimate contact, lol (sorry Ben). But yeah, often times, one of us would get hooked up with free tickets to events in town and were invited to tag along. I think we all spent more money on booze, local traveling and events that we cared little for food. Though I do recall eating some awesome pad thai and drunken noodles w/chicken at this place called Typhoon...or Thaiphoon. They had horrid mojitos, waste of moneys. The most "chic" joint I remember visiting was the Russian lounge. I had never seen a menu with so many types of vodka before. However, the coolest of the kool place to go to was Adam's Morgan. I would still describe it as Tortuga island in Pirates of the Caribbean but in DC, haha. No cover charges, all sorts of music and people. It wasn't all about the neat night clubs and drinking though. Admittedly, I'm a dork so I also had a blast walking all over town admiring the architecture, museums and historic buildings during day time. My least favorite was the Space museum, waaay too many damn kids for my liking. Stuff in there is cool and all, but I recommend not going on a weekend. My highlights were the Lincoln memorial and the Capitol building. Every time I visited was special. The Lincoln memorial is the closest thing we have to the temple of Zeus in Greece. The Capitol building is awesome inside. I remember having a nerd moment the first time I got to see it up close from the outside due to observing its architecture, lol. I don't think I took many pictures of my by these buildings but I do remember taking one in front of the Hoover building (FBI). As an X-Files fan, I had to....let me be. I thought it was funny how one passes by the White House every time they go to the Mall (not the one to shop but the set of buildings from the lincoln memorial to the capitol building) and once you get past the first encounter. It's just another fancy building with people doing stuff outside or asking for money.
The most memorable guest appearnce in DC those months was probably seeing the dali lama receive a medal in front of the capitol building. It had little to do with his holyness, it was special coz of the crowd present. I think i put up pictures of all this on fb, btw.
What else....oh yeah, field trips. Let's see, I went to Philly twice to hang with my homegurl and be a tourist. I discovered this awesome vegetarian chinese restaurant in china town my first day there. Best fried rice ever, I kidd you not. She showed me around a bit, drank and smoked natural things w/her crew before the show. Had a great time at the show then we kinda after partied at her place and stayed up watching Nine Inch Nails dvds all night, hahaha. On the second visit, she took me to the Mutter museum. Awesome collection of nasty human mutations. She also made me look like a fool around this cute dude walkin around. From my brief stays in Philly, I learned that they do have killer cheese stakes \m/
My b-day fell in the middle of a 3 day weekend. So Phinn and I took that opportunity to bus it to New York City and bum and his brother's place. There was no clubing involved, but plenty sight seeing. It reminded me of San Francisco but more spread out. Unfortunately, we couldn't go to many of the notable museums because they were closed. I'm not one for crowds of people but I really liked it nonetheless. The bestest boba milk tea I've had can be found at this one place in china town, btw. Man, it was amazing. The Statue of Liberty, I gotta admit, is disappointing; not as big as you'd think. While I was hoping to get drunk n crazy that weekend, I did get to purchase my first ever bottle of absinthe. The drunk crazyness however did happen earlier in october when I went with our friend Larissa to a b-day gathering of one of her old high school friends in a cabin by a lake in upstate NY. I'll be honest and say I was a bit scared at first coz the only person I knew was Larissa, and I hadn't even known her that well yet. All in all though, it turned out to be an awesome weekend. I loved being surrounded by forest up there. It gave off a similar feel to being in the outskirts of Ontario further up north. Which brings me to sum up our epic road trip to Montreal during thanksgiving week.
Where to start? it started with a bunch of us wanting to do something big but small trip wise. We thought about Boston, Florida, New York, forgot what else came up. But we finally settled on a pit stop at Niagara Falls and Montreal as our final destination. I'd like to go to Buffalo, NY one day just to take a bunch of pictures with one of them fancy cameras. We were in the car all the time but you could still sense its industrialness. This is where we crossed the border. It was kinda magical, to say the least. Not kidding at all here, the second we got in line to go further north, it was snowing. The rest of the drive was cold, sure. But no traces of snow yet. Niagara: it made me think of universal city walk with a few casinos topped with a gorgeous waterfall at its edge. Not to mention the awesomely nice ontarian employees and their adorable accents, haha.
Montreal: to be honest, it was both great and bad some times. There's only so much of your close friends you can take before needing some space and fresh air. That said, I loved it, it's very european and quiet. The docks was probably my favorite part of town besides old montreal. We sure did freeze our asses off being spoiled Cali kids and all.
In case you were wondering, yes, of course I went to a couple of concerts while there =P There was the Pumpkins in Philly, M.I.A., Tori Amos, Alicia Keys, Megadeth---all in DC. Then Megadeth again in some hick town in Virginia. Btw, that last one was the randomest trip ever (besides farming in europe). I made friends with this mom at the first Megadeth show in DC who had mentioned wanting to go to their show in Virginia as well later on that month but didn't want to go alone. So I messaged her and said I'd go if I she picked me up at a subway station closest to her. She agreed and it was set. It didn't hit me til that day of how dangerous this could turn out to be. But you know what? it turned out to be a fun trip and a fun show even if she did creep me out later that night rambling on about one of the band members. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of plenty musicians but this was just down right spooky.
In conclusion. There were other "achievements" I wish I had in my memory banks during my brief stay in the east coast but just didn't happen mostly due to my own cowardice. Even though it was a memorable 3 months, it was also the beginning of an extremely difficult emotional period. I don't know if I mentioned already how sometimes I'd feel so homesick I'd mope about playing Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes in my head, but it happened, haha. Even in Italy or southern France, the closest places to resemble Cali, there's just one Cali.
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1:15 PM
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