our day

View from my roof

It's the truth.

New House on Haight

Thursday December 15, 2011 I moved to a new apartment. That marks the date of my official staying in San Francisco, the closest place to a European city that I can get in America.

Like many people I found this apartment on Craiglist. I went to the open house. Left a bit skeptical but was getting desperate because I needed to move out of my original place in less than a week. So I told them I was interested and they offered me the room. This was on Thursday, they told me on Friday and we arranged a hang out at the house on Sunday. We all had a great hang out sesh and my skeptisism was gone, they are a great bunch of people and friends.

The roommates:

Brett

Mike

Arvell

Sara

Lilly

Sara and Arvell are a couple and share a room. We have two living rooms, one with a big table for dinner parties and one with couches, a projector screen, a RECORD PLAYER, and one hell of a view of Haight St. Oh, and both living rooms have working fire places. We have an amazing rooftop that looks over the city. The longest people have lived here is 5 years and they really put their souls into the house. There is art all over the house, books all over the shelves and records in abundance.

The room was white when I looked at it and the walls were dirty. I painted it blue. I am in shock that I did it but it was so worth it. Now my room has a dash of color that I picked out and I painted and I can have pride in it. I have slowly started decorating and getting pieces.

So now I have 2 jobs, a wonderful apartment, some cool friends, and amazing San Francisco to keep me busy.

moving, changing

I have been working for a couple weeks now. I didn’t want to write about my jobs when I first got them because in some way I thought by writing about them and publishing it on a blog would somehow jinx the good luck that I have been having. But it’s been two weeks and I must tell.

I have been applying for jobs online, making calls, sending hard copies of my resume and cover letters all around, researching, and craigslisting non stop ever since I came To San Francisco at the very end of September. Well, actually I gave myself a week to make an imprint in San Francisco a little. It was a feverish and frustrating process. I even began volunteering. It was a work exchange program at this great dance studio called ODC Dance in the mission. I started helping out at the dance companies events and donor events and for every hour I helped out I received a free dance class in return. I banked up quite a few and enjoy a free ballet class every so often, and I’m learning how to salsa at that studio as well.

So I finally got two amazing jobs!

The first one is a fitness instructor for a new fitness regime called ballet barre. The studio and brand is called Pop Physique. Jennifer is the owner. She used to be a professional ballet dancer, a Pilates instructor, and now she is a mom and wife who has created her own type of work out. Its made to shape your muscles like a dancers. The same muscles and exercises they do in a ballet class, Jennifer has tried to mimic and re work for this non-impact, one hour, work out class to high energy up to date music. She already has seven studios in southern California and is building one in San Francisco. It will open in January and for now we have been training in the space with the builders building around us, and no heat.

She picked about eight girls and one guy to start training to become teachers. For a week we trained four and a half hours. We were given a booklet with all the exercises and how to teach them, basically a manual of pop physique. The girls are great, all in their 20’s, all dancers of some sort and fun.

http://www.popphysique.com/

My second job is at an online marketing company. I found the add on craigslist, responded to it and had a phone interview that week. I had an in person interview the week after that. It was tough, I could tell they were serious about picking the right person. I found out that the guy interviewing me also went to Burning Man and he has become my mentor. The third part of the interview process was an assignment. They told me to write a newsletter and email it back to them in a day or two. The next day they called me up and offered me the job. Its 20 hours a week, so it’s great for my other job. It’s a 6-month internship program, paid internship program, “At the end of 6 months there is the possibility of a hire.” So for now it’s great. The office is amazing, right next to Union Square on the fourth floor of a great building with beautiful windows all over the office and a fully stocked kitchen with very nice people.

I don’t know how I got so lucky. Things keep changing and I like it.

Lounging with a purpose

I went back to Long Beach for Thanksgiving. It was great. I spent time with best friends and danced and had a great time with friends and family. One extra special thing I did was pose for an artist.

Greg is an abstract, surrealist, awesome painter. He painted a picture at my friend Yan’s festival, Unravelyoumind (unravelyourmind.com), that’s basically how I met him. He wanted a ballerina to be his muse or what have you so we made plans to do some sketch’s when I returned back to Long Beach, this was in August. He wanted to practice his drawing and I am happy to help people that are using their creativity and imagination. So I went to his brand new bought warehouse that he is turning into his home. It was bare, bare walls, dusty floor, it did not look like a living space, no kitchen even. But after he was telling me what he was going to do with it I could see how it could be very nice and liveable.

We did a few standing poses, nothing intense, just very natural looking. Then he brought out a leather chair and we did a few on the chair. 4 hours of posing then I went to have dinner with my family. The next day I came back to get paid and he whipped out his record collection. He is early 40’s and he has 3 boxes of silent striking records. Some I haven’t heard of like Chicago but some I have like the Police, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin. His record player was not hooked up yet thought so all I could do was imagine.