3 for Life - Settled in the nest
23:17
Thursday September 12, 2014
Palo Alto, California
On the road, San Francisco
They say you should never start by describing the weather,
but I’m going to start this post by describing the weather.
We’re having the “worst
storms since 1988”, schools have allegedly been closed due to flash flooding
and cars are clogging up the big highways like blocked plumbing. It’s kind of
exciting (floods! Storms! much needed rain in a drought-stricken area! Drama! Exclamation
mark!) but mainly because I know it won’t last for very long. Soon things will
go back to normal.
I’ve passed the half-way point in this internship. This week
has been 1000x better than the last. In retrospect, it feels like week 1 was
orientation, week 2 was idle-thanksgiving-everyone’s-gone-home time, and week 3
things are getting more exciting!
Quick overview of what I’ve been doing since my last post:
- Small restaurant outreach in Cupertino (yesterday): our pilot trip (Angelica & I) went swimmingly well! To be honest, I had low expectations, I doubted that the restaurants would be receptive to our educational materials or even care at all. I feared and felt guilty about wasting their time. To our surprise, many of the restaurants received our materials, were happy to display the hepatitis B posters on walls/counters/doors, took interest in language brochures relevant to their business (eg. Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean) and were overall friendly!!
- Online store for #joinjade: have been trying to develop ideas for starting an online store marketing Jade-coloured products, to raise awareness and donations. Pieces not quite settling in yet, more research to do for that.
- Youth Leadership Conference: putting together findings from 2012-2014 review, researching possible 2015 speakers and developing ideas for 2015 theme. Also not quite there yet, can be challenging as I don’t really have a partner to bounce ideas with.
- Xmas decorating!! Very excite, much festivity J Idea conceptualisation with Jasmine (translation: let’s make a Jade coloured tree!! Let’s get a fresh tree!! Yeah!!), gathering resources/materials with Ken (translation: 2 clueless people wandering through the hideous labyrinth of Walmart searching for obscure coloured decorations that don’t exist), finally implementation with Santana (translation: spraying a bag of clear turquoise baubles with silver glitter, hanging lights, making jade ribbon decorations, hanging it all up). And voila! We had a Jade coloured tree J
We (Santana, pictured, and I) made a dead tree look happy and jaded!
We did good.
There’s a lot of stuff I could go on about Cupertino
yesterday. But let’s just say that when it comes to non-profit/community
outreach – it comes down to people. You can prepare all you want, write out
scripts, but in the end reality is messy and slightly unpredictable. You need
to be flexible, adapt to different people and environments, and this is
definitely something I’m still getting the hang of. Little people skills like
speaking slowly, smiling, introducing yourself, listening, all these things
matter. No one is perfect. But we can try our best to be genuine.
Scenes around Stanford University.
Being able to take part in this internship has been an
incredible opportunity. On one level, it’s given me a huge insight into how ALC
operates, the kind of scale and logistics involved, what public health looks
like in an institution, picking up skills etc. But moreover, it’s granted me
time – time to spend getting to know the other interns, meeting people around
the area (including family!) and understanding life in the Bay Area/Silicon
Valley/AMERICA. Sure, I’m not going out ticking off all the touristy
attractions. But I’m getting a real experience by engaging with everyday people
and their lives here, which means so much more to me.
Carrie
Golden Gate Bridge, in all its Golden Hour Glory. Seen from Fort Point, San Francisco.
Fort Point, San Francisco
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