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The Zhangs in Cali ep6. GIT!!!Main Plot Starts Here:
Near the end!
3:21 am. I just couldn’t sleep man.
The kitty was purring on my chest. Those 5 minutes were the closest I got to falling asleep, and then I just couldn’t. Almost identical scenario as the night before I moved out of ziv 128.
I suck at saying goodbyes. I hate it too.
Although I’m seeing Jiayi and the kitty a month later, there was something stuck inside that kept me awake. Awake and sober.
Jiayi said I was being “a mouse person”. I hadn’t stepped a foot out of her studio in 3 whole days. I was sleeping after 2 am, waking up during midday, falling asleep again, and finally starting to pick up some work after 4 pm.
…As if I were trying to grasp all the freedom I have before my internship. This would be the only time when I could take a break, but I wasn’t taking advantage of it. I got gigantic headaches when Pauri sent me new Instagram content requests and new emails from Seurat. I couldn’t ghost a company, so I ghosted Pauri for 2 weeks, and when he said he could take over with my design templates, I finally stepped down because I will absolutely not distribute my intellectual property in this particular case.
…And when I saw the latest Brandeis Tennis story being just a screenshot with a red marker circling the girls’ team’s latest ranking on ITA’s website, I felt insanely bad. I was trying to pout because Pauri did not let me send my UAA video, which I spent 4 hours on. But I think he got a lot more on his plate with his new born baby, versus me just rotting in California freaking out about an internship.
I should feel privileged. I got the power to manage the official Brandeis Tennis Instagram account, and I was so lucky to get a paid internship. I don’t even know how I got in. My friends told me I should give myself some credit, but I just wanna shout out to my dad.
I finished making 12+ posters at 1:40 am after 3 hours, blasting Dom Dolla and John Summit.
Joker Everywhere
I was stalking all the other interns for this year:
Sure, a cross-country student-athlete from Tufts, majoring in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in CS, with a 3.98 GPA; a girl majoring in Physics from Harvard; a guy from UMass leading the rocketry club (I don’t even know rocketry is a word before this); some other Engineer majors from MIT and Columbia…
And there’s me silently lying on the email list like a joke.
My plan was to get familiar with 3 coding languages and 3 frameworks within 12 days, and I was around 30% done with 3 days left. Not too bad huh?
Geniunely don’t know what to do. Still got to fly back, move into the new Apartment, get ready for the internship, and prepare for my thesis. The meeting with Dylan earlier today was efficient. The nice prof tried to start some small talks, but I was so nervous so I talked like a bot.
“Heyy✨ how’s it going?” “I’m good! How are you?” “Good! Good! Boston is actually quite hot recently blah blah blah.” “Seems like it is hotter than Cali here.” Pause. Pause again.
“Let’s dive right into it!” My god, my toes were scratching my slippers so hard I thought they’re gonna make a hole. It was not the worst though. When I started enthusiastically sharing my master plan about building a student-athlete-related app, Dylan said, “em.”
I was joking! It was not that bad. Dylan was giving suggestive opinions, and I was nodding like a raver. Hopefully I can make something good, so the future captains don’t need to stress out about ordering lunch for 10+ girls.
No More Mouse Person
Jiayi dragged me outside today because she could not bear seeing me rotting in the corner all day long. We got Korean food, played some good silly tennis, and goofed around in the gym.
“We worked out for an hour. So productive.” Says Jiayi, blinking her big doe eyes.
I don’t know what to say, because we did 10 minutes of abs and spent the rest minutes in front of the mirror, confidently sticking out our asses and ignoring all other people in the room.
Uhhh hello?
We were laughing so hard, definitely attracting side eyes, but who gives a ___. I have never felt so free in a while.
We came home. The kitty was playing with water again. She jumped onto Jiayi’s bed and left a little paw mark. Dishes from this morning were still lying in the sink. We gagged a little from the 3-day-old egg shells and apple cores, and finally took those babies out for good.
Our room is super clean. It’s just that we forgot to seal the trash bags. Don’t judge.
03:48 am. I’m going to bed.
Next Cali Post:
The Zhangs in Cali ep8. Adios Jiayi.🫡🫡🫡
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