Southern California, pt. 1

apologies for the late post. it's already been over 3 weeks in california and i have failed to make any updates since my first post. i guess it was partly because of the really long first post that made me want to cut down on the writing or just the simple lack of effort on my part, but if you haven't caught on already, that whole daily update thing won't work out. blah blah blah insert more reasons on why this post is late. so here's what's been going on for the last few weeks:

week 1:

before i start, lemme explain a little on how this internship is set up.  there are a little over 100 undergrads and MBA students interning at toyota this summer from all over the country. the large variety of students also meant there had to be multiple waves of interns to accommodate the various summer schedules. specifically, there are 3 waves of interns: the first started mid-may, the second started early june and the third in late june.

my first day of work was pretty chill. i met a couple interns who were also starting on monday during the weekend and we headed out early on monday morning to toyota headquarters for orientation. then, our respective managers picked us up in their swanky cars (one of the interns got to ride in a Lexus IS-F) and drove us to our departments. according to shaun, my coworker who picked me up, he was supposed to pick me up in his LS460, but he forgot that he had to pick me up monday morning and left it at the carwash =/ so instead, i got a ride in a RAV4 EV (pictured below) like the ones featured in "who killed the electric car?" 

the rest of the week went by quickly. i learned a butt load of TLAs (three-lettered acronyms) and found out that there is always free food to be found. and if you know me, i am the MASTER at finding free food >=] needless to say, i've bought lunch only 3 times in the last 3 weeks. muahahahaha.

the weekend went by almost as quickly. i met up with lauren up in west hollywood and we checked out this church on UCLA campus. the people there were nice and i found out that yvonne, one of the staff members, knows my pastor eugene's wife, esther. the 'they were pretty close friends and lived in the same area" type of know. small world. haha. afterwards, i went over to my cousin's place in cypress and had dinner with his family and watch Game 1 of the Finals. Here's a clip of them trying to distract KG from making his 2nd freethrow. haha, jenny (the one who yells) LOVES basketball and she got really into it.

unfortunately, the lakers lost that game so the rest of the night wasn't so exciting =/ i watched extreme home makeovers with my nieces until bedtime, then headed home for another fun week of work.

week 2:

can't remember much from this week. haha. i met a whole bunch of people, had dinner and beer with the national managers and the VP and watched more of the lakers losing =/ there are a LOT of lakers fans where i work and i tried my hardest not to make eye contact with any of them. i was scared that just being from the east coast was reason enough to hate me, but that was silly because everyone's pretty chill out here. it was father's day weekend so i gave my dad a call on sunday then headed out to a picnic held by my cousin's church. 

the thing about korean picnics is that there a few things that are guaranteed to be there:

-Galbi or Boolgogi

-Hot Dogs

-Watermelon

-Games

-Prizes following said games

this picnic had it all. they even had soccer which i haven't played in ages and some of the girls got yo-yos as prizes and i showed them how to make it sleep (make it stay down while spinning). they spent the rest of the afternoon practicing it. afterwards, we brought all the equipment back to the church and watched Game 5 while eating Ramen with hot dogs in the cafeteria. 

next up: week 3

-birthdays, six flags, the beach and more free food.