My First Ride in a Cop Car

No, didn’t get busted for drugs.  Didn’t get caught workin’ the corner.  Wasn’t even caught for smuggling illegal immigrants.  Wait…I got it Trebek: “What is…the vehicle you may end up in if you rush downtown at 11:30 pm on a Saturday night looking at your GPS while switching lanes?”  That is correct.  Let’s add some context now.

So coming back from an hour-long drive from Corona, CA on Saturday night, I decide that I’ll rush home to TRY and make it on time for the On Broadway guest list that ends at 11 pm.  It’s 10:45 pm.  Throw on some party clothes, grab only the necessities and out the door I go.  Enter destination in the trusty Garmin. GO!  Drive drive drive drive (at the speed limit of course ) on the highway and wait…what did you say, Garmin?  Continue on 163-S for another 1 mile?  NOOOO…the highway is splitting and going to the 5.  SH*T.  Must switch lanes or will REAAAAAAALLY miss guest list.  Left signal is on, lane is clear, move towards left lane.  BOOM BAM BOOM BAM #$!^% SWERVE SWERVE SWERVE BOOOOOOOOOOOM.  Car stops.  Car is banked on the brick median at a 45 degree angle.  Yeah, that concrete median….they just put that there yesterday. 

Me being the impatient and not-so-observant driver at night that I was at the time, did NOT see this triangular median that split the highway in half.  Aren’t there normally just painted lines and maybe some bushes?  Hence, why I could get away with that “slick” James Bond move all the other times!  Boy was I wrong!  And I’m certainly paying for it.

I got out of my car shaking like a leaf but still collected enough to check for exterior damages to the car.  Both passenger tires are flat with the front passenger hub cap completely sitting on the brick.  Lovely.  All I could think of was how my parents are going to kill me if they found out.  GOOD THING I’M ON MY OWN INSURANCE!  In the meantime, an extremely kind man had pulled over on the 5, leaving his wife and two kids in the car.  He called CHP and made sure I was “good” as in HAD NOT BEEN DRINKING, which I had not a drop to drink.  I’m sure it didn’t look that way though as I was dressed in my heels and minimal clothing standing in the light of my headlights on the raised median.  I’m sure people made their assumptions as they passed this ASIAN GIRL’s car banked up on the side of the road.  We’ll keep those to ourselves now won’t we? 

Thankfully, CHP didn’t take too long…I could still make it to the club and enjoy two hours maybe.  (Gosh, I’m awful for thinking that at such a scary time.)   After asking if I was ok, I was given the “follow my finger” sobriety test…my first ever…right there on the side of the road.  With no shame, I obliged and passed.  The two cops were pretty laid back and actually started to get a good conversation going with me as we waited for my tow.  They asked the usual — where I’m from, what I do for a living, how I like it out here, yadda yadda.  Officer even almost guessed my ethnicity correctly!  What I found interesting was that while they had a tough guy aura, they seemed to lighten up a bit after hearing that I actually did something fairly respectable for a career.  Guess that kind of relieved how dumb I felt for crossing the median.  Somewhat.

I wasn’t going to let that get in the way of my night though.  Enter: the party girl in me that still wants to head downtown.  IN STYLE.  That’s right, dropped off in a cop car!  Figured I didn’t need to spend any money on a cab after hearing that my tow was $250.  Thankfully, Geico insurance has covered that and so much more.  Full coverage or no coverage is now my motto. 

So what’s the lesson learned, kids?  Well there could be plenty.

A) $25 cover is not worth rushing downtown for and getting into an accident.

B) Don’t become too reliant on your GPS.

C) Snap decisions on a freeway are never a good idea, even when you think you’re SuperWoman and “it worked every other time.”

D) The one everyone loves to hate…ALL OF THE ABOVE.

…and that’s my story of my first ride in a cop car (by choice).  Now I can link to this when people ask, “How are things going in California?”

Update to follow on damage report.  *crosses fingers that car is not totaled*  In the meantime…any Integra mechanics out there who won’t rip me off?

This May Call for a Proper Introduction…

Alas, the major update has finally arrived…four months into the journey!  As most of you already know, I am yet another east-to-west-coast convert.  If you couldn’t tell from the ridiculously hilarious yet very real road sign, I’m in America’s Finest City — San Diego, CA!  And that’s no exaggeration, it actually is nicknamed that and completely lives up to it.  Don’t let the fleeing Mexicans fool you.  :)  In fact, being so close to the border is one of the best perks of San Diego.

Most everyone only knows of San Diego as a city with fantastic weather all year-round, but that is only the tip of the sunshine (no mentioning of icebergs, or anything cold for the matter, allowed in my blog!).  A major misconception (especially by east coasters) is that everyone thinks you can just hop over from San Diego to San Francisco to L.A.  Fact #1: California is HUGE!  I guess it’s the same kind of misconception where when I tell west coast people I’m from NY, they immediately get all wide-eyed and fascinated that I’m from the “big city.”  I go on to tell them I’m from UPSTATE NY and they think Westchester.  *sigh*  It’s no use, so I just go with it sometimes. 

For my east coasters back home, here’s a little crash course of San Diego:

• the most Southwesterly major city before crossing into Tijuana, Mexico (hello, underage drinking)
• for frame of reference, SD is also ~2.5 hrs from LA, ~5 hrs from Vegas, ~8 hrs from SF
• we don’t say “hella” here — that’s a NorCal thang; although “right on” is fairly common
• a California burrito contains french fries; fish tacos are also a regular menu item; Cholula or Tapatio is the Red Hot of the west coast and also my new best friend
• a carne asada plate *MIGHT* be comparable to a Nick Tahou’s garbage plate after a long night of drinking and partying
• the average speed limit adopted by San Diegans is 80 mph
• the male population is almost entirely in the military or working in a defense-related field
• au contraire to my statement above regarding people not knowing the geography of NY, there is actually a very large amount of east coast transplants like myself; come to think of it…hardly anyone is ORIGINALLY from San Diego!
• surfing out here is as common as playing hockey back at RIT — it’s serious business!
• for my fellow YuengLing addicts, sad news but you won’t be able to find anything even remotely close to it out here…but there are plenty of local microbreweries to make up for it!  Karl Strauss, Ballast Point, and Gordon Biersch just to name a few
• on the topic of alcohol, we can purchase all the way up until midnight!  no blue laws apply
• San Diego is a major stop for many tours and shows (who doesn’t want to stop in SD?!) whether it’s ComicCon, Red Bull Air Races, U.S. Open Sand Castle Competition, or famous celebrities performing free shows/autograph signings

So there’s no doubt about it…I’m enjoying life, but that’s nothing new!  Getting to this point hasn’t been easy though, from not having a single person in CA to put down as an emergency contact (quite a depressing thought) to making my first friend: an 84-year old woman. :)  You may wonder why it has taken four months to finally get this post out, other than the fact that I’ve become SUPER lazy after graduating from college!  I can tell you that moving coast-to-coast has a lot of unforeseen overhead.  Dealing with different laws and updating all your information.  Getting set up with insurance for everything…renter’s, car insurance, health insurance..etc, etc, etc.  But once it’s all cleared and finished, I can’t even begin to describe the rewarding feeling of independence.  Picking out my apartment of choice and furnishing it the way I want has been a long dream of mine and it is finally done!  (Pictures coming soon in Flickr.) Stepping into my own apartment and just looking around knowing that everything in there is a product of my own labor is an incredible feeling.

I’ve been on my own completely before during my internships, but moving permanently to a new city is quite different.  It’s now my new home, so I no longer feel the need to jam-pack my time with sightseeing everything possible before the summer is over.  The touristy stuff will still be there.
There’s still much, much more to learn about living on my own.  Aside from the San Diego updates, I’m hoping to revamp the blog a bit and also shine some light on some interesting work that I’m doing for BAE Systems.  As always, stay tuned and…

Feed the Need for Blogging

I finally started using Google Reader and added some good blogs to hopefully give me that extra push to update this more often.  My latest excuse has been that my apartment hasn’t been fully furnished yet and I wanted to take pictures to post up on here, but now that it’s practically done…that  becomes moot.  Maybe just a little each day will help me get back into the swing of things.  Definitely not a lack of material though — lots has happened!

I thought I’d have all the time in the world to blog, read, and explore once I got out on my own, but where does the time go?  I’m online doing web dev at work for 9 hours a day, so I’m constantly knee-deep in this kind of environment.  I think there comes a point where at the end of the day, I just want to disconnect and enjoy some of the finer things like cooking a meal at home for once or walking the pier and watching the waves crash on the beach.  I definitely have not been online (as in AIM) as much as I used to when I was in college.  Feels better actually.  I feel like the quality of my life has increased substantially.  It doesn’t matter anymore if I haven’t read all my facebook updates or caught up on people’s away messages (who does that anyway? haha).  It just feels good to live and that is what I’m doing in San Diego.  Life simply rocks right now and I’m hoping it stays that way.  More on that later.

Ok back to work…

Yep, still alive.

I always seem to pick the most inopportune times to write here, like when I really shouldn’t be blogging, i.e., I’m sick and I should really be sleeping. It’s pretty clear I haven’t been keeping up, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about blogging. It probably crosses my mind every day…what topics I’ll talk about, the perfect title, what images I would load, how to make it sound exactly how I want — which is all very time consuming, partially why I haven’t sat down and just type, as I am right now.

I’m listening to a very interesting podcast that is making me think twice about blogging. To be specific, it features the CEO of Tumblr. Now I have tried to stay away from signing up to a ton of trendy, webby apps that are just another account for me to remember (hell, it took me several tries to even remember my own wordpress password, and no I don’t ever use the save password feature. I’m just that paranoid). Tumblr is neat in that it doesn’t promote the lengthy multi-paragraph format of blogs. It’s concise, users add to it quite often, almost like a Twitter but with more content. I’m debating about this…because yes, there are a million and one things in mind that I would love to share, but they are just stored in the back of my mind because hell, I have this thing about wanting to say it perfectly. WHY?! Which partially ties me back to my last post about just delivering the raw goods. I’m not quite sure if I want to let go of my wordpress yet. I probably won’t, but maybe I’ll switch up my style a bit. This blog post is already getting lengthy, and I do promise actual content about my life as much has happened since the last post. Enough of this meta-blogging. Stay tuned for real.

(One VERY delayed post from 1/30/08) No fluff today, just the raw goods.

For some reason, I had the urge to make a pit stop (total understatement right there) here in the blogosphere to throw some traffic to some notable pages:

• While perusing my beta persai account (it finally launched today!), I created an interest consisting of the keyword “persai” just to scope out how much coverage they’ve received today. I’m still not sure of the quality of the recommendations at this point since I was recommended this link:

  13 Questions To Ask Before Publishing A Post On Your Blog

  But I think persai’s recommendations improve the more you use it to reject irrelevant content. Nonetheless, I found a good read…err list of key points every blogger should consider before polluting the Internet.

• Speaking of good reads/quality blogging, check out one of my favorite bloggers/comic artists/RIT’ers, Dave Morgan (ladies: he’s single — not sure if this is true anymore!):

  www.devmorgan.com/blog
  
  Love the topics and comics. =)

• I am no political junkie, but I certainly got a kick out of this clip of radio host Mark Larsen bashing Mitt Romney after running away from their interview (who successfully got him to change his vote to Ron Paul!):

  http://youtube.com/watch?v=6lAFfLy05_Y

• I’ve always been interested in education and what it takes to effectively teach. In my MBA Consulting class, my team is working on increasing enrollment and retention at an alternative-style school that claims it’s “where children love to learn.” It’s clear that these bright young intellectuals truly love to be at their school. Why so many students dread learning and can’t seem to retain information is a wonder to me. Is it the content? the mode of transferring this information? the student?

  Every week as a CS student instructor, I ask myself how I can present material in a way that students can actually enjoy and grasp. How do you get the stuff to stick? Well one article I found while doing some research, suggested to tell stories:

  http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2003/04/vahdat0403.html

  Thinking back to my own experiences, the most remembered professors always told great stories.

…and now back to what I should have been doing instead of blogging!

Absolutely Enraged.

I don’t understand sometimes why people have kids. What their true reasons are. Supposedly, at a point in your life, you want to pro-create to feel like your life is worth something. So then maybe it’s a selfish reason. I know that in Asian culture, having children means having someone to take care of you, to give back, and it’s expected that this happens. Loving is not enough. The pure emotion of caring for someone unconditionally is just not enough. It has to be proven or demonstrated through the acts of giving either in favors or household chores, or later in monetary means by buying things for your parents. Sometimes it’s by giving your family name a positive reputation by being successful. What the hell is being successful anyway? Having a big house? Making a lot of money? Being on national TV? Playing golf? The Laotian community thrives on gossip and I’m sick of it. I want out.

What first-generation children experience is something that isn’t easily understood, especially if your parents are not native English speakers that constantly rely on you. To interpret everything. To make calls, read mail, be their voice when possible. I cringe at the strong opinions of those who feel that people who can’t speak the language should not be allowed to live in this country. The United States is seen as this land of opportunity. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my parents fleeing Communism in Laos allowing me to have a better life. And here I am, just waiting on the day to flee from them. I am thankful for what I have but sometimes, I wish life didn’t have to be this way.

I constantly feel like I am living these two lives side by side. There’s the free life I want to have, to just do as I please and be an American kid. Is that so much to ask for? But then I’m tied down to this other life that reminds me that I can’t just do that. At the end of the day, I have a home that I return to where I’m supposed to be a good daughter that brings home good grades, cleans the house, and does as told. Parents and kids are never on the same wavelength. For 22 years, there have been arguments, tears shed, and misunderstandings, not to mention the overly-abused guilt trip that gets tossed around. Perhaps it’s true that I will never understand the mentality of what my parents want for me until I have children of my own some day.

I write today to vent and to share a lifestyle that is less common. As always, comments are welcome, but please know I’m not looking for a solution.

Diagnosis: Home-For-Two-Weeks Syndrome

You know what I never understood was the definition of the word “homesick.” Call me crazy, but doesn’t it logically make sense for it to describe the sickness of being home, just like “seasick” is to describe the sickness caused by the sea? No no…of course not. That’d be too easy for the English language and for me to use that as a title for this post. So yes, I’m technically experiencing a sickness caused by my home.

I didn’t have to travel hundreds of miles to experience this. Instead, it’s more like a changing of the guards every 10 weeks: Homework-meetings-projects-espresso-deadlines-sleep at home for 2 hours?-GO! Then finals rape you and before you know it, you’re back at home waking up to the way too familiar sound of vacuuming.

It’s really not that bad, but it’s clear that life wears a different skin once the end of the quarter hits. It’s supposed to be cheery ol’ time right? No more studying or finals. No more projects to half-ass at the last minute. Time to catch up with friends. Certainly I am catching up on looooads of sleep and I’m loving it, but the change is so drastic. Social life has pretty much been a struggle to keep up not because of lack of opportunities, but I feel like I’m 18 again (yes, 18, not like 12. don’t gasp — it’s rude. :P), devising intricate sneak-out plans and coming up with believable excuses that I’d tell my parents for simply just hanging out with my friends. Aside from that, my parents decided let’s not celebrate Thanksgiving this year. Instead, let’s clean out ALL our kitchen cabinets today, and tomorrow we’ll do the rest of the house! What a mighty grand plan that is! BECAUSE I WANT TO SPEND MY BREAK THAT WAY! *sigh* Maybe I’m dramatizing a liiitle, but it really isn’t too far from the truth.

As chaotic and hell-like fall quarter was with daily 8-am classes and the shitload I had on my plate, I did enjoy a lot of it. Lots of memorable nights spent hanging out with friends in the lab and getting to know new people. Now in transit between the two quarters, it’s settled some, but I’m definitely looking forward to my last quarter at RIT.

BUT, between the fun classes and and starting some clubs and perhaps even taking up the Android Challenge, I’m at a part of my life where uncertainty is taking over. I have no idea where I’ll be after graduation. The thought excites me because the possibilities are endless. I could see myself in a variety of places around the country depending on where interviews take me. Yet it’s so nerve-racking to not foresee one’s future. I can’t predict how happy I’ll be anywhere I guess. It’s all just life waiting to happen. In the meantime, it’s cranking up the job hunt and preparing for interviews. And of course, waiting for this Home-For-Two-Weeks Syndrome to wear off.

Sadly, I just realized this will be the last time I am going to experience this. Actually, what the hell…that is NOT sad! Come end of winter, I’ll be packing up and moving awaay awaaaay away from here I’ll be! (If you picked up Yellowcard on that, you think freakishly way too similar to me.) To all my drunkies at the bar on Thanksgiving Eve, cheers to that thought! Aaaand I think I’ll leave it at that. All you’s will either be drunk/in a food coma/or too busy enjoying break to read this anyway.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Express Jeans: $20 on sale. Progress on PLC Coding Project: -4 man hours. Ripping My Jeans to Win Dance For Rent and NOT Doing My Project: PRICELESS.

…and to think I wasn’t even going to go. I guess I can thank GCCIS Senator Paul Solt for that! (V-19! PAULSOLT! haha)

For those of you who aren’t in the know, RIT’s Student Government holds a “Dance for Rent” competition every fall quarter encouraging students to bring their best dance moves to the floor in hopes of winning a quarter’s worth of rent for free or winning $1000 if you live off-campus. The competition involves dancing for an extended amount of time (last year was 6 hours, this year was only 4.5) with 10-minute breaks every hour. Judges rank you on creativity, energy, originality, and your attire. I thought I was pretty lucky to win 2nd place last year, which won me a $100 mall gift card. I personally thought that was some serious weak sauce considering how much energy you expend and also being sore for a week. Nonetheless it was a blast and I got free money. W00t.

I wouldn’t really have guessed that I had much of a chance this year though with all the B-boys that are usually out there, but I was looking forward to it for the longest time just to see if I had the physical endurance still. It was seriously the most labor-intensive thing I had ever done in my life. But this year with a project deadline creeping up, I figured I’d make the wise decision of choosing work over play. HA! So much for that!! After some “serious” debate of “$1000/free rent vs. putting in 4 man-hours on my project” — hmm, tough choice there — I decided to screw the work and live life on the edge. (Now some people define that as skydiving or climbing Mt. Fuji. Me? No, living life on the edge is ditching work. ) Boy was it worth it though, because winning this competition is more than just the money or living for free. It means freedom from my parents earlier than I expected, which — if you know me personally — is a HUGE FUCKIN’ DEAL.

One quarter left at RIT and I’ll be out of the house regardless, but this is a chance to live the college experience that I never got. I had the chance once already in the past, but gave it up to please my parents and help them out at home. It hasn’t been too bad nowadays, but there are times I think back and I wish I had it different. Don’t we all from time to time? Living with my parents throughout college has affected me in good ways and bad. I definitely can save money by leeching off free laundry and food, but I honestly don’t think that’s worth the countless times I’ve wanted to do something, either academic or social, and they’ve prevented me from doing it just because they’re protective. They’ve lightened up a bit but it’s surely affected my relationships and sometimes school work when I have to help out around the house when I could be working on a project. (oh wait, I probably wouldn’t be doing that anyway =P). Bottom line is that winning Dance for Rent and moving on to campus for my last quarter could become a huge milestone in my life. It could also mean severing my relationship with my parents. Or maybe I’ll just play it safe and save the $1000 for relocating to wherever I go after graduation.

How happy could I be? Is it worth the headache of trying to sell this idea to my parents? Should I value this short time I have left with my parents before I pack my bags and tell them Sayonara? Where do we draw the line for being selfish vs. giving back to your parents? Decisions, decisions. That is my crossroads of life.

(At least if I moved out, I’d get wicked fast Internet FTW!)

You-Branding

We do it all the time. We don’t even know it. How we talk, the messages we send, our interactions (or lack of) with friends/foes/strangers. We are constantly building upon an image that we set for ourselves whether we like it or not.

I’ve wrestled with this topic of “you-branding” for the last few weeks now since I’ve been back from co-op. Orientation I guess set it off, mainly due to the fact that I’m witnessing how this year’s incoming freshmen class are embarking on this 4 to 5-year long branding experience. The trends aren’t much different from year to year. There’s the “I’m-too-cool-for-everything” persona and then the super-enthusiastic select few who eat up college life like it’s the next iTouch/iPhone/iWillBuyAnythingApple. These guys are my favorites because they get the slightest kick out of everything. You know who you are. So they’re the cheerleaders of RIT but more power to them. You’re paying $30K a year (or someone is); why not make the most of it? No, this isn’t my extended Orientation Assistant pitch for the freshmen to go join clubs. Just be receptive is all. To new ideas, people, and cultures. Absorb, absorb, absorb BUT reflect. Tweak to differentiate yourself. </preach>

In my fifth year of college, I’m still discovering things that make me appreciate college life and the people we come across along the way. It’s probably one of the most diverse environments in which a person could immerse themselves. Whether it is five minutes of your time that you invest in getting to know someone or five years, all these relationships you build affect you and others in one way or another. I’m sure this one student (a freshman actually!) probably doesn’t remember me sitting in the SAU Fireside Lounge eavesdropping on him playing piano, but I sure as hell will forever associate him with what is likely to be my best homework interruption ever. I listened to him gracefully play song after song on the piano…a conglomerate of classics and contemporary pop songs that I almost barely recognized without their lyrics, all flowing so smoothly into one another. I probably could’ve stayed there all morning.

Point is, you never know who is watching, remembering, analyzing, or what have you. Talented or not.

Although I wish things were sometimes different about my own college experiences, I can only make the best out of what I have left and what I have control over. I’ve entered this final year with a slightly different mindset than those of the past quarters. Instead of just focusing on getting all my degree requirements out of the way, I’m trying to architect my experiences in such a way that I end with a brand of myself that I’m happy with and hopefully, it’ll lead me to a happy post-graduation life. So maybe this includes spreading myself a bit thin with a plate of what was originally 22 credits, but I managed to get my sanity back and am sitting at a now less treacherous 20-credit load. Throw in some 0-credit country line dancing, rock climbing, hip hop dancing, and some wine & food pairing to relieve that stress and I’m golden (for now at least). We’ll see how I fare in Week 9. Be prepared for some major ventage.

Coast to Coast and Back! (Part II)

Next Up: CALIFORNIA!!!

There’s always so much hype about California. There’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers — my loves of course — who dream of Californication. Phantom Planet who rock the beginning of every O.C. episode with their claim of coming to California. Beach Boys have long known about the Californian girls. So what’s the big whoop? Fantastic wine, beautiful shoreline, exquisite food, weather that doesn’t make you suicidal, and breathtaking scenery…just to name a few. Seriously, what’s there NOT to like about Cali? (NOTE: If you’re a CA native or recent migrant and can answer this question, don’t take my sunshine away plz k thx .)

I got quite the whirlwind sampling of northern CA, courtesy of Emily Cohen and family, who were absolutely the best hosts ever. Although, “home” was Sacramento for the time being, we realized we didn’t even spend more than one day there! Here’s a brief glimpse of each stop:

Wine It Up: Napa Valley

You cannot leave California without getting your drink on at a world-class winery or two. For my fellow New Yorkers and lovers of the Finger Lakes wineries, this obviously pales in comparison. Amidst the beautiful golden rolling hills lie endless rows of vineyards just teasing you to come take a taste. After some big pours at Louis M. Martini Winery and Markham Vineyards, we couldn’t resist complementing our burgers with some more wine at the famous Taylor’s Refresher — a Napa favorite according to our food critic friend who accompanied us. Can we say wine buzzzzzzzzed?!

And Now For A Little Un-’Wine’ding: Pacific Grove in Monterey

To be fair, wine was paired with probably every meal we had in CA. Perhaps that’s the secret behind the California high (or should I call it a Cali-dorphin? See windorphins if you’re lost on that. Shame on you if you are.) Moving on.

Cooler, fresher air. Coffee with a view of waves crashing. Pelicans gaze over up above. If you’re really observant, dolphins jumping in the far distance. Ahh…that is the life of a Pacific Grover. I was fortunate enough to get the chance to spend the weekend at the Cohens’ friends’ retirement beach house that overlooked the ocean. What a great way to get in touch with nature. We went tide pooling early one morning and discovered some stunning creatures that got washed up and left behind — an abundance of sea stars, jelly fish, anemones, hermit crabs, and an assortment of seaweed. On a hiking trail in Point Lobos — “the greatest meeting of land and water in the world” — we also spotted some sea lions sun bathing in a private cove! For probably one of the best jelly fish displays, I’d recommend the Monterey Aquarium followed by a soothing sourdough bowl of clam chowder. Oh what I’d give for one right now…

Ding! Ding! San Francisco!

First, the trolleys are so much more fun than they look. Tourist or not, it’s best done hanging half off it breathing in the fresh air from the bay. We got lucky and went on quite a sunny day, a rare sighting for the foggy SF apparently. Started it off with some delicious dim sum at Yank Sing in Rincon Center. Chinatown is by far, the best (and probably most expensive) I’ve ever seen — spoken from a frequent Chinatown-goer of Toronto and NYC. No secretive whispers of Gucci purses in dark alleys there! The very crowded Pier 39/Fisherman’s Wharf is of course mobbed for its street-long tourist shops and eateries, view of the Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, and my favorite: the very noisy but playful sea lions that haul on the dock side.

Last Stop: San Jose/Silicon Valley

After sushi’ing at Blue Fin in Richmond, San Francisco, I decided to shindig it up with some IBM Extreme Blue interns during their last week at a very, how do you say….COUGAR…type bar. Although they were a lively bunch, there wasn’t much to my travels/stay in San Jose except for a quick glimpse of what seemed like a stretch of suburban nothingness. I’ve heard Research Triangle Park, NC being described as the Silicon Valley of the East, so with this in mind, I had pictured Silicon Valley to be…well…a consolidated area of high-tech corporations? Maybe a mini NYC-ish skyscraper type community where you could almost see people leaping from one job to another. Yeah, it’s def not. The companies are quite spaced out with not much of anything else in between. It’s so quiet, I can hear the sprinklers. ‘Nuff said.

To Move or Not To Move?

And herein lies one of the main motivations for my vacation in California: Could I see myself working/living there and loving it? I think for the most part, California has a ton to offer and it’d be pretty difficult to end up not finding something you’d enjoy. It’s almost like its own little country. They say New York City-ers don’t ever have to leave NY because everything you need is there. Well California is that within an entire state! With access to mountains, beaches, city life, good food, spectacular weather, plentiful jobs, and its own culture, could it get much better than this? And so the dream of Californication lives on.