Birthday Week!

Hello from Silicon Valley!

It’s been such a great ride thus far.

• A group of us (accepted interns) formed a private group on Facebook. As I scrolled through, I would just see Ivy after Ivy and so on. And here I was, attending a community college, while working. My friend told me, just before I accepted my offer (when I was told I was in the last round) that “going from community college to X company is like “ and he motioned his hand in an almost infinity gradient. Shortly after my offer, I was also accepted to grad school (PhD) for Programming Languages research, fully funded. I have a lot of respect for the places that took a chance on me, because there is always pressure to go with what is known. Both events (community college to PhD and community college to company X) are sort of unheard of, which is really fascinating.

• Now that I’m here in Silicon Valley, I’m happy, and I feel like I really fit. It’s been a world of adventure, but I really feel in-tune with this place. Because there is so much going on, I am also better able to say outright “no” when I don’t think something is possible, which is something I really had difficulty doing in LA. Here, time is precious, and people are busy. I also realized that I have a lot of friends here, and it’s really easy for me to make friends here. I’ve met so many people already; it can be a little exhausting.

• Everyone is smart, competent, and supportive, and I’m learning a lot. One person gave me a really great nod and told me that they don’t often see students out of certain other schools (I’m pretty sure community college is not high up there lol), and that it is refreshing. I feel proud to hold my own here, and to bring life experience. I was also planning on cutting my hair at some point (I didn’t have the extra cash to do so initially), but it has sort of become a signature thing around here. All sorts of people have approached me in a friendly manner, partially because of my hair. So I’m going to keep it the way it is for now.

• I also had an opportunity to meet up with Gabe, and am meeting up with my other friend, Robbie (who was poached from our local Santa Monica Haskell group about two years ago), too! It’s just been a really great experience, and something that will be memorable for a very long time for me. In many ways, I can’t believe that this is something that worked out the way it did. But I’m very happy to make the most out of the opportunity!

This is my birthday week

• I’m excited to celebrate my birthday here. I found a Caribbean restaurant, so I’m thinking of going this upcoming Saturday to get some good food there, for my birthday :) I can’t really ask for more.

• I was also able to chat with my dad for a while, which is something that I highly cherished because during parts of my time in LA, I was a bit cash-strapped, and calling my parents and chatting for a long while was just not a thing. How far I’ve come from the times I would (in New York) use calling cards from sketchy websites that would literally dial in a network in China and then send the signal back to New York, so that I would have more minutes…randomly (even though the connection would worsen over time).

Nothing is perfect..I have some tough decisions to make

• Once again, there are some loose ends, so we’ll see how the next few months work out. It will definitely be an interesting ride!

And that’s about it for now