HiBAiSHi

Four years ago I turned 16. My friends and I had a picnic in the park. I was slightly smaller back then, Aaron was skinnier and a lot cleaner cut, Norman was still chubby, ate meat, and had just met a friend of mine named Sophia and they started dating. Jay turned 18, and it would have been illegal for him to go out with any of my friends, even back then. Jehhal looked the same, and wore something eerily similar two years later. Joy kicked a baby in the head that day on the swings. This was the last laser tag birthday that I had, and it was memorable because we took pity on a homeless man and Frank. Both claimed they “had no money.”

Three years ago my friend Jay just moved into his new house, right before he was leaving for college and we played in the pool. Norman walked in on Allen and saw little Allen. I was about to turn 17. We went out to dinner, stole leftovers from Buca di Beppo, and ended up eating them in a parking lot off of someone’s car. We went to this douchebag’s house and urinated in cups so we could throw it at his door. On my birthday, my friend Angela took me, Craig, and Brenden to a transvestite club called Lips. Years later, I would give my mother my old laptop and she interrogated me about going to a strip club in the middle of the Duke Lacrosse scandal.

Two years ago I moved into school the day I turned 18. Before I left, LeeAnn was really sentimental and called Frank, and I remember that was the last time the group collectively made fun of him and his new rim job. She also called Zach, who took a few pictures with us before he left as well. At this point, Brenden was going out with Zach’s ex-girlfriend Nicole. A few months later, Jay started “going out” with her. I had just graduated that year. We went out to eat japanese food, go bowling, and play cranium afterwards. I can remember moving in to school on my birthday and realized how hard it was going to be to make friends again, even with a line like “it’s my birthday.”

In college, I changed my birthday on Facebook to January 14th, a day after Lauren’s birthday. It was her idea, but she forgot anyway. My friends took me out to dinner that day. Ironically, when my real birthday came around my friends at home took me out to dinner. I remember walking down the beach to Bryce’s new house, I knew him because we used to have Karate lessons together. A couple months ago it was the second anniversary of my Facebook birthday. My friends who used to live substance-free drink Bacardi 151 and throw little parties every weekend now. A different girl named Angela called me because she was celebrating her birthday that would come up in a couple days and was partying up until the middle of the week. Ironically, a third Angela from high school shares the same birthday as me. It would be the first night that I puked after consuming too much alcohol.

I don’t really celebrate my birthday anymore. My friends are older and busy, we don’t get together anymore. Anand decided to fly back from school, but Allen and Wayne are the only other people still in town. Norman is in Ohio at a tractor pull with a girl he met at an airport. Jehhal moved into his new house at school. Aaron and Jay don’t get along anymore. Aaron is the type who e-mails me pictures of a bong he made of a bell pepper and his experiences in Hollywood; Jay just gets excited about underage women he met on cruises, pornography, coding video games, and Norman’s ex-girlfriend Sophia. I don’t keep in touch with anyone else, they don’t associate August 24th with my birthday, and it’s good that way.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I do keep some bridges intact. I received a package today from Joy, in college across the country. There’s a Let’s Go! Western Europe on a budget guide, a “totes” umbrella, a graphic arts ruler, and a kelly green t-shirt that says “Hey, where do the dogs go!” You can find the answer on her matching wife beater. On a side note it is not cool to be mean to dogs right now.

I still like San Diego. I love being able to go see amazing concerts for free, engage in a diet consisting only of California burritos, listen to beautiful music on the ukulele, and play scrabble. But one thing is true, it never rains in San Diego. And I really want to use my new umbrella.

Since this summer happened to be the summer of the big trilogy in the motion picture industry, I thought this installment ought to have a third part. After spending my first two weekends of the summer amidst boring trips to the mall and lame barbecues, I finally decided to hop in my car and hope that I wouldn’t get my third flat tire.

Well, unfortunately I did get another flat tire on the drive down to Durham and spent an hour in a Wal-Mart in Henderson, NC. One of my prouder moments. I arrived and met up with friends who I had seen recently and found that two of my friends, Logan and Nico, called Logan’s mother while inebriated and begged and pleaded with her to send little 14-year-old Zach to Duke so he could come play. Lucky for me I showed up that weekend and watched him do a little bump and grind with the girls while they desperately tried to friend him on Myspace. Life is good as a teenager.

The following weekend, I decided to drive to Philadelphia to meet up with Norman on the first leg of his East Coast trip and found my favorite family friend who struck it really rich, Barry An. He was so excited to see me that he ended up throwing up later that night (one of many) after he couldn’t rhyme like a king. Oh yeah, Joy and her friend Lea also happened to be in the city that weekend. Coincidentally. We spent a day at Ikea measuring ourselves and a night dancing in embarrassing ways. A good time.

Two weeks later I was suckered into going to New York City for the long 4th of July weekend. I promptly called up all my friends last minute and got two confusing replies from Victor who in his sleep-deprived, investment banker life didn’t realize I was even coming. But he still managed to have an extra bed. We walked around the city the next day and found one of his friends from work and I really learned to appreciate the mindset of someone who is able to put private equity on his business card. Slightly ridiculous. The next day I ended up finding Joy in Chinatown after she subconsciously hopped on the wrong train… then walked to the wrong bridge… then couldn’t navigate across a street… Lucky I found her, she could have been lost forever.

We ate lunch in Chinatown, walked to central park and saw butterflies, went to the Met, and walked around the city that day. Swell. The next day we went to the MOMA to appreciate and understand modern art while we made wishes and were fearful of old wives’ tails. After she left, I ended up watching Les Miserables that night with my friends from work and spent the next couple days walking around window shopping during the day and going to sketchy bars and lounges at night. Ah, New York City.

Two days later I left Richmond again to take a long drive down to Myrtle Beach as one of the interns had an empty condominium that his parents just moved out of in North Myrtle. We arrived so late at night that our dinner was pizza and beer on the curb and the only thing we could do was dash into the water at two in the morning and hop into waves. More fun that it sounds, trust me. That weekend I spent a lot of time in the sun getting my skin dirty and we played a lot of Mafia. The next night, we somehow ended up eating pizza on the curb again and awkwardly went clubbing. Very awkwardly. But all in all, it was a good beach weekend and we even got to pose in the air jumping in typical beach style.

I decided to “work from home” at the request of my new editor Varun and came to Duke on Thursday night the next weekend in order to take an Indesign course, only he didn’t bother to tell me that the guy cancelled and that nothing was going to happen on Friday and I was going to waste a lot of time. For a design weekend, there was a lot of waiting around as articles and photos never really came together until I was almost gone. The good news is that I had the fake, sexy version of HP7 and was reading through all the snog-y details without suspecting a thing. Despite getting to see my friends for the last time, I went to a party on Saturday and had my drink spilled by this obnoxious black woman who danced with umbrellas indoors … to umbrella, eh? Ridiculous.

The weekend in between Lauren begged and pleaded with me to come see her once again because she had such a great time that weekend, so I hopped in a rent-a-car with four of my intern buddies and they dropped me off in the city of brotherly love where I stayed with Anand. Unlike Southern California, they make it rain on the east coast so much that it was about to flood and i needed a boat! I didn’t own an umbrella, unfortunately. But the next day it was nice and sunny and Lauren greeted me in a familiar green dress (it’s as if she was the Same Girl) as we rolled down South St. toward the Condom Kingdom. I went to the famous Pat’s (the one next to Geno’s) and unfortunately, due to being in the midst of a pescatarian diet, I followed the orders of “american, with” and “provolone, without” with my “Can I have a large fish cake sandwich?” Blasphemous.

That week at work I had my last fun day, a day at Lake Anna. I managed not to embarrass myself too much (other than having the jet ski in reverse when i backed into a boat … ). I managed to wakeboard for the first time after a few tries and tried to jump but landed on my butt, over and over again.

The next weekend I had committed to attending a convention in Washington, D.C. and decided to “make a weekend” out of it. I went to visit my friend Dave who recently graduated in the spring and is currently hobbling around in Arlington working for a top 50 strategy consulting firm. He invited me to a birthday party for a person who used to work there, whom neither of us have ever met, and I proceeded to talk to his friends as a mature, recent-grad, working as an internal consultant in nearby Richmond while drinking way too much of his Spanish and Portugese wine. I went to convention the next day getting some swag and special ribbons, then enjoyed a little bit of D.C. at night but realized that I would rather play scrabble. After a gigantic omelette at the THOP (The Original Pancake House) the next morning, I drove to Richmond finished with my last trip.

Unfortunately after all of this, I feel as if my car is on its last legs (or wheels). Shortly after a rainstorm that occurred during the night that I returned from D.C., my car no longer can shift out of park after ignition. To drive, I have to use the shift-lock and manually place the car into neutral, that way I can start and then shift gears. Also, the tachometer, heat gauge, and clock have stopped working. Unfortunately, this means that the odds of another big east coast trip is unlikely, but I’m very glad that I had the opportunity this summer.

I was shopping at a Dillard’s, or rather, standing around watching somebody else shop… and I was about to leave when this middle-aged black woman stopped me and told me to turn around so she could look at my hair.

Then she asked: “are you chailoke?”

And I stood there confused and looked at her, “…what?”

“Chailowitky?”

By then she could tell I was really puzzled, but then a light bulb went off and she said, “Oh! It’s a mohawk!”

After that I smiled politely and nodded, left as quickly as possible, and my friend had to tell me that because of my dark complexion (read: dirty skin) and new haircut, she was asking me if I was a “Cherokee.”

Lauren left her intentions very clear: she wanted to make me look like Maddox. I agreed to it because, well, I don’t care what my hair looks like most of the time and I thought it would be fun. Plus I was hoping, since it was the night of his LA Galaxy Debut, that she would cut it like Beckham!

At least people notice, right? Another woman at Macy’s later talked to me about it too, saying that “young people these days…” It was like the time when this 300-pound, 50-year-old man saw me standing around at Myrtle Beach waiting to take a shower and asked me if I worked out. I guess it doesn’t matter who notices, just that you get noticed, right? Sad.

For a little background information, around the middle of second semester I decided to apply for some work for the summer. Being a sophomore I literally got turned down at every table I went to during a career fair in January, got extremely discouraged, but felt that I ought to do something and dropped my resume at every place online that did not need a cover letter (not very many places). I ended up getting a couple interviews, two on-site ones, and accepted an offer as a Business Analyst at Capital One Financial.

The weeks before I left school I tried really hard on craigslist to find an apartment, but apparently no one wants to live with a 19-year-old college student and definitely not rent out an apartment to him for three months. A week before I left they finally sent out information for other interns and a junior from UVA, Richard Maltz, offered me a place to stay. He’s a fratboy type of guy, and his only furniture concerns revolved around a piece of plywood where we could engage in athletic competition. I arrived and found everything fully furnished because he lived in apartment only 50 miles away in nearby Charlottesville. Well, everything except my room. I bought cheap furniture (a desk, a lamp, and a chair) and slept on the floor for a couple weeks before I borrowed a mattress from a guy at work.

Oh, work. After onboarding filled with awkward activities and painful presentations, I was assigned into the Small Business Card, Customer Acquisitions, Products division. Basically my team focuses on product innovation; it’s an element of the company that my manager, Terry Thornton, described as “traditionally weak.” He’s a really laid back guy and on some days when we are supposed to have meetings, he just tells me that he would rather go walk outside and sit on the swings and listen to why a San Diego native would possibly want to spend his summer in Richmond, VA. I am grateful to be part of this team and in this role, because the work is much less number crunching and much more thought based.

I’ve been on two work related trips so far. The first one was to downtown Richmond where I spent two days in an ideation session; essentially, outside “inventors” are hired and they force us into coming up with ideas for new card products, this one for a high revolving customer segment. The first day I did well and managed to win a free bottle of wine as a reward. Unfortunately, my success did not last very long as I fell asleep listening to presentations the second day and ended up getting pretend-squirted by an empty watergun. Next, I was fortunate enough to get to go to Baltimore for concept refinement. Those people behind the two-way mirrors writing down everything you say? That was me. Definitely a very cool experience.

One of my favorite Richmond experiences so far was a scavenger hunt throughout the city. I’ll spare you the suspense and tell you that my team won. The first half had us scramble around to different landmarks and take photos with a disposable camera. This included bagging groceries at a Richmond based supermarket chain, helping deliver UPS packages, standing next to statues, playing musical instruments (thank god i had my recorder…), and posing on swings. We also won the best creative photo when I decided to leave my car in a construction zone and ask the workers if we could pose on a backhoe.

Unfortunately my navigators were terrible and they forced me to turn left into a one-way where I ended up holding up all of the incoming traffic and make a 3-point-turn to slowly get out of there. I bumped into an old car backing up, but luckily his metal bumper probably did more to my car and he was nice enough to forget it ever happened. Near the end of the journey, the car was in such bad shape that the engine would turn off as I was slowly driving; the first time this happened, I was so confused that I couldn’t even brake because the car was not in park and I thought I was going to slowly collide into the intersection in front of me.

Eventually, the car overheated as it was so hot outside and I was blasting the air conditioning. It unfortunately delayed us 20 minutes for the second-half of the event: the item portion. I also managed to make some key contributions: finding a lobster bib at a seafood restaurant, picking up a mcdonald’s fries container from a trash can, running down to the riverside and bottling up some nice river water, and xeroxing my hand.

Our other intern event involved us going to Busch Gardens. We arrived so bright and early that we could run around the Apollo’s Chariot line and get to the front in 10 minutes. I also rode the Griffon, where I was suspended up for a 90 degree drop in the front row.

The company also did a great job of connecting the individual interns and I found myself making friends with the group of individuals who lived around me. Many of them are international students, coming from all over to work here for the summer. Weeknights are filled with group dinners movies, and the occasional bowling or lazertagging experience. Oh, and waiting for the weekend. They also set up activities for us and signed us all up for a community of young adults called “YRichmond.” Thanks to YRichmond events, the few weekends I’ve spent here have included kickball and Shakespeare.

Apparently they really like my presence at work, because when I was in the McLean office near D.C. one afternoon photographers hired for marketing the company pulled me out of the lobby and marveled at my gray shirt, smooth skin, and cultural background. The makeup artist told me I looked twelve, especially when they made me jump in the air with my hands outstretched. Thus, the end of my modeling career.

My only visitor this summer was Miss Lauren Tam, who rode a 4.5 hour train to come see me for the weekend. I rewarded her by convincing everyone to cook dinner in my apartment that evening. Again, I made some key contributions. We went to Carytown that day and I bought her a bathbomb entitled “warm and fuzzy” and ended up going to Maymont Park where we climbed trees and wondered silently why there was a Japanese garden in Richmond, VA. She also turned out to be a pretty good volleyball player, if a poor guitar hero rockstar. Too bad they don’t have Promise.

She also gave me a haircut.