I have not been on top of writing daily highlights. I was intended to offline my highlights into a private journal, but now I’m realizing that it’s not really keeping me accountable for writing daily positivities. So I decided to go back, glean my calendar, and write the highlights I could remember. I know I missed a lot of stuff, especially the small stuff, so my apologies in advance I also made the effort to include photos. Serious photo creds to all the Pintern photographers, including (but not limited to) Raymond Shiau, Anastassia Kornilova, Austin Louden, Tim Koh, Lindsey Pogue, and Alice Yuan
May 17th: Having Kimeya and Krissi let me start my internship two weeks early with two day prior notice. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made all summer since it allowed me to make friends quickly and also because I had nothing planned for the two weeks of vacation
May 19th: First day at Pinterest! Everything is so exciting! They gave us all the goodies and I got a chance to meet and hang out with all the other pinterns
Lindsey and I on the Hammock!
May 22th: I invited Robyn to the Pinterest housewarming party. Another pintern and I tried to sneak some liquor in on our 4th day of our internship. She passed with flying colors. I went up and asked for a drink. “You look awfully young.” “I get that a lot, it’s the acne.” I shamefully took my drink.
May 24th: Bumped into Hannah Kim. Pleasant surprise!
May 24th: Purchased some books at Half-Priced Books in Berkeley. It was so pleasant and calming
May 25th: Played basketball with Jessica Chang and then ate lunch with her.
May 26th: Hung out with Pinterns in Japantown. Played Escape the Moon Base with other people. I showed strong leadership skills in the game.
It almost happened
May 27th: Tea Time with Strangers! Only 3 out of the 5 people showed up, but we had an interesting conversation nonetheless. One of the strangers (strangers no more!) was an art teacher. She asked me how to get her students to take more chances with art. “They’re all so self-conscious that they aren’t willing to draw anything from their imagination.” I comforted her by telling her about my experiences in art camp, and how I was taught to never experiment, and how I turned out fine now. She didn’t look that comforted.
May 27th: Bumped into my mentor while heading back. He was heading towards the liquor store
May 28th: Engineering Offsite. We went a Giants game. They won! Also we were on the big screen!
May 28th: Marty quotes: “My family is on the whole gluten-free trend. The nice thing about gluten is that it somehow explains everything. If your kid is behaving poorly, it must be all the gluten products he’s eating. You see, I’m on a gluten-free-free diet. If I don’t eat gluten for an extended period of time, my body starts reacting.”
May 28th: Alice Oh came to visit! She waited 30 minutes for me because I don’t check my email for the notification and her phone battery on her journey here.
May 29th: Dinner with Robyn. We ate at Palomino. We argued about the proper pronunciation of “salmon.”
May 30th: Played Escape the room with Carl Shan, Alice Oh, Gerald Fong, Max Song, Tony Ho and other people. We were really close! And it was super fun! We ate at this korean place called SO for dinner. Ironically, the weekend before I was playing escape the moonbase with pinterns, and afterwards we also ate at SO.
May 31th: Pinterns and I went to the Academy of Sciences with expired tickets. We initially persuaded Alice Yuan to use her charm the ticket person to overlook the expiration date, but she got too nervous that I had to step in to clear the situation. The academy of science was fun. I spend excessive time in the aquarium section, often staring at the fishes there and pretending I was one.
We were reuniting Pangea!
May 31th: Dinner with Robyn at Angeline’s kitchen. The reservation was at 7, but we met up at 6:30 with 30 minutes to kill. I made her assemble my futon couch with me. We both failed and killed 20 minutes before giving up and heading for dinner. We saw some unexpected company and we had to hide behind our menus.
May 31th: Went to Jennifer Dai’s 21st birthday party. It was super dupes fun, and I’m glad she invited me despite our competitive history.
We look so cool!
June 1st: Golden Gate Park picnic with pinterns! Hosted by Krissi. We played frisbee golf. I was too arrogant of my prior frisbee experience and kept chucking the disk at the nearest tree.
Me throwing the disk
Me Heckling Lindsey. Poor Girl.
June 3rd: Coffee with Whintey Flynn of Sequoia capital. Very nice conversation at Pete’s
June 4th: Visited Ruby for her graduation ceremony. Family had seafood at the Chinatown there because seafood was the cheapest there. Lobster was so amazing.
June 4th: Tried to crack the hotel wifi because it would only give you a 24 hour trial period. I realized certain parameters were getting passed in in the url and wrote a python script to try to crack the free wi-fi with no avail. It turns out after the 24 hour trial you could just retry the trial.
June 5th: Family lunch with Ruby’s boyfriend Josh. I texted her that Josh looked like Michael Cera. It was also interesting to note Josh was a foot taller than Ruby.
June 6th: Ruby’s commencement! Freddie and I were on our phones the whole time. The commencement speaker was the CEO of Dupont, and her speech was so dull. She spoke like a recruiter trying to funnel MIT grads into Dupont. Ruby texted me, “If we made a drinking game out of how many times she says ‘Dupont,’ we would die before we got our diplomas”
Woo Congratz Ruby Maaaaaaaaa
June 7th: We all went to Quincy market. It turned out to be pride week, and we just wandered around the area being stereotypical tourists.
June 7th: Mom, Ruby, and Freddie left early to go on a cruise. I was left with my dad. We decided to have another go in Chinatown with cheap seafood. My relationship with my Dad had significantly improved since adolescence.
June 8th: Bumped into Victor Zhu on the Caltrain. Had good conversation about Berkeley and Pinterest.
June 10th: New refrigerator! The guys who moved it were super nice.
June 11th: Went shopping with Robyn, then went to a Pinterns giants game.
June 12th: Played ping pong with Julia Oh. Had interesting conversation. Confessed to her that she was my CS61A lab TA.
June 12th: Moved into the tech hostel. No one said hi to me when I moved in, and finally two people approached me to talk about what I was up to this summer right when I was brushing my teeth.
June 13th: Spain vs Netherlands game
June 13th: Board game night. We played Resistance. I sucked. No one trusted me.
June 14th: Meeting with Jessica Hische with Shana Hu at Pinterest. Food was exceptionally good. I even got to talk to Jessica, who was super cool but swore a lot.
June 15th: Little griddle breakfast with Raymond and Alice. I got to meet Raymond’s roommate, Andrew.
June 15th: Mission Bowling club with the pinterns. I brought Serina Gee to come hang out. She had fun and made friends. I was proud since she was not a techie person.
Woo Pinterns!
June 16th: Wrote an email that sought out people who liked math at Pinterest. It was very well received.
June 18th: Had lunch with Jessica Chang at Pinterest. Rodney showed her around the office.
June 18th: Intern poker. Alice and Austin played well.
June 19th: Hung out with Robyn. There was a salsa lesson thing but it was just old people and music, so we wandered elsewhere.
June 20th: My landlord lent me a powerdrill to assemble my futon couch. It was finally finished that day.
June 21st: Tech shop event for Pinterns! We made jenga blocks for the team. We then played team Jenga. Alice Yuan, who was on my team, pull a block under my advice, collapsed the tower. And we lost.
Alice Yuan Messed Up So We Had to Do This
June 22nd: Lunch with Robyn, Shana, and Peter Gao
June 22nd: Intern picnic was super fun only because everyone went. I got to meet lots of cool people, including bumping into Merry Mou. There was also an incident in which someone recognized me from my blog and approached to talk to me. “You’re James right?” “Yeah? Sorry, do I know you?” “James Maa?” “Yeah? Am I suppose to know you” “Oh, no, but I know you. You have that blog right?” “Yeah…” “Oh cool, can I have a photo with you?” “Uh… sure”
It was really flattering for me. Everyone made fun of me for being “famous” though.
June 22nd: Dinner with Alice Oh at Angeline’s. We had an intense discussion about relationships, religion, and self-awareness. At one point we’re talking about what it means to be in a relationship, and the next I’m prodding her to find her next suitable mate.
June 23rd: My summer subletter moved in, and I came by to run a couple errands before heading back. She really changed Dylan and my man cave into “her own.”
June 24th: Cooked with Robyn. We made 20 minute pasta!
June 25th: My friend Elissa Lee invited me to “meet Ben Horowitz.” After some initial reluctance, I decided it was worth it to meet one of the most influential man in the United States. The event was held at a church, and I realized I’ve been conned into church service. After an hour of Ben Horowitz giving a talk about Glide (the organization), I told Elissa we would hang out some other time and left.
June 26th: Midpoint Review. Marty said I did great. Yay!
June 27th: Alcatraz Tour! A stranger approached our tour group and said “So do you guys work at Pinterest?” “Yeah?” “The site Pinterest right?” “Yeah.” “Cool! (to his family) yeah I told you they worked at Pinterest!”I learned lots about Alcatraz. It was the first time I listened to and followed the audio tour.
June 28th: Biked from Mountain View to San Francisco. The view was beautiful and the experience truly positive. It was so meditative even though I struggled so hard during the ride.
The Bike Gang
June 29th: Pride Parade. I met up with Jeffrey Zhang. He completely blew me away with his getup. He got a dress and wig from H&M, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he was a boy or girl.
I wasn’t too shabby either
June 29th: Watch the Lego Movie for the first time. It was so hilarious!
June 29th: Dinner w Alice. I forgot where we ate.
June 29th: I was at Target with Raymond. We were talking about our personal relationships with the background music playing “Talk Dirty” By Jason Derulo. Ever once in a while during our conversation, he would sing the chorus, maintaining uncomfortably strong eye contact. I kept laughing.
June 30th: Meeting with Sebastian to plan future H@B stuff. It was great to see H@B’ers during the summer.
July 1st: I went to visit Merry Mou at Twitter. I also bumped into Lance Cummins there, whom I haven’t seen since high school. The food was delicious, and I had a very insightful conversation with Merry.
July 1st: Watched Shaun of the Dead
July 2nd: First time someone commented on the Pinterest shirt I’ve been wearing. It was a cashier at target!
July 3rd: Went to the 9:20 Special, a swing dancing venue
July 4th: Fisherman’s Wharf. Fireworks! Bootleg fireworks!
July 8th: Brazil vs Germany game
July 8th: Graffiti Workshop for Pinterns! I got to make my own tag! Also first time I realized Canadians pronounce ‘tag’ weird.
July 9th: Anastassia Kornilova and I had a deep conversation about the nature of questions. What is a question? How does one define it?
July 10th: Had a phone call with a recruiter from Jump Trading. The guy on the phone said he would seriously consider any referral I gave him. I was flattered
July 10th: Swing dance round 2!
July 11th: Beach Bonfire for Pinterns! I befriended a native there who was pretty good at volleyball. He thought I played club when I didn’t. I borrowed his frisbee. I also invited Ruby and Alice Oh to the beach thing. They both handled themselves well, which was fantastic.
July 11th: Several employees and pinterns screened It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia at the office after the bonfire. It was so funny, we watch “The Gang Buys a Boat” and “The Nightman Cometh.”
July 12th: Lexity Reunion! Most of my past coworkers (Maliena Guy, Alice Oh, Ed Schmerling, Will Tang) met up at City Sports bar in San Fran to watch the runner-up game of the World Cup. It was so great to see everyone’s faces again!
Most of the Gang is Here!
July 12th: Went shopping with Alice afterwards before heading back to the office to sleep
July 13th: World cup final at the office. Woo Germany!
July 13th: Jeff Warren told me that I always bring a different Asian girl to every Pinterest event that he couldn’t tell who’s who.
July 15th: Trampoline dodgeball with Pinterns! After the first two rounds, it was clear that I was taking a lot of people out. So when everyone was setting up for the 3rd round, I could see another pintern, Dragos Oprica, clearly going around to each and every teammate, whispering in their ears, and pointing at me. Clearly, they were gunning for me first. And it worked too! I got out in like 30 seconds! Dragos, the tactician haha.
July 16th: My family came to visit Pinterest. It was kind of awkward showing them around. My mom was taking photos of everything
July 16th: Went to the tech carnival. I bumped into Jasmine Lee and her friends Carlo and James Sun. Jasmine was such a chill person I’m so glad to have seen her there. It was great to catch up with her.
July 18th: Played Ping pong with Dragos. I think we really became good friends after the events of the past week
July 19th: Tried to go to the ramen festival with Robyn, but it was way-way too crowded. We ended up meeting up with Tiffany Ko and Darren Tsung for tea and crumpets. It was so fancy, and it was great to see Tiffany again, mainly because I missed hearing all the dumb things she says.
July 19th: Had dinner with Ruby in Berkeley. Woo she liked it! Also bought her Asha tea. Dylan was in the apartment too so we all got to chat and talk. They seemed to get along well.
July 20th: Dylan, Ruby, and I went to workshop cafe to get some work done, but couldn’t due to wi-fi issues. We tried to find a ramen place to eat and ended up in the one of the lower quality ramen places (Ajisen in Westfield mall).
July 20th: Had dinner with Jump Trading. I saw Alon Daks and Jimmy Wu there. I had Filet Mignon for the first time. Dinner was probably super expensive ($160+/person), but I Jump Trading paid for everything!
July 21st: Hung out with Sunny and Nikki at Pinterest. We just talked about random things at Pinterest.
July 22nd: Went jogging with Raymond. Surprisingly, I kept pace with him!
July 22nd: Lauren Wong came to visit Pinterest. Like my mom, she took lots of photos. Then I went to visit Zynga (where she worked)
July 22nd: Swag distribution. I got a sweet laptop case and a nice glass water bottle. I was going to get another moleskin because the recruiter mistakenly thought I never got one. Raymond injected, “Hey James didn’t you already get one during orientation?” Kimeya, the recruiter, realized her mistakes, and snatched my moleskin out of my hands.
July 23rd: Explore Pinterest! Lots of my friends came to this event, and I had tons of fun talking to everyone.
I love you all! Including the ones not in the photo!
July 24th: Had dinner with Elissa Lee at Pinterest
I’m not a very good host
July 25th: Makeathon day! I won the hula-hoop challenge. I told Layla (one of the employees) that I didn’t want to be known for the guy who won the hula hoop challenge.
July 26th: Went on a bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge with Alice Yuan. We went on this windy cliff where Alice spent 30 minutes or so sketching in her sketch pad while I froze in the wind with my thin jacket.
Ughhhh….. At least the sketches were nice
July 27th: Pintern beach party! I invited Robyn, Justin Fang, Catherine Blair, Ruby, and Dylan. It was really fun. We had tons of fun playing frisbee, kicking soccer balls, skipping stones, and messing around with the weird jellyfishes that swept ashore.
I liked skipping stones and stuff
Catherine Blair came too!
July 28th: Raymond and I starting seeing good signs of progress! We were pretty stressed the past couple weeks to complete the project, but now we’re hitting the targets :)
July 30th: Pretty much got no work done. Had an informal meeting with Michael Lopp, head of engineering, followed by a meeting with Ben & Evan, founders of Pinterest. At 5 we had a mentor mentee happy hour where all the interns got superlatives given to them. I got “Most Likely to Have Fun at the Beach.”
July 31st: Had lunch with one of my favorite Pinterest employees, Haruka Dykstra. She hails from Japan and is on the internationalization team at Pinterest. I was delighted listening to her story and how she came to the United States and how she met her husband.
Aug 1st: Open mic night was so awesome! Raymond Shiau and Victor Zhu sang “A Whole New World” together. A subset of the people went down to the basement to sing more karaoke.
Aug 1st: We played some intern poker after karaoke. I won $10!
Aug 2nd: Alice Oh and I went to get some work done at Cafe Yesterday. We spent about an hour or so proving that a Koch curve had a finite area with infinite length. Super cool to re-use math I learned in high school. I also had to brush up on statistical procedures for my work. The barista there was so genuinely nice he gave us a free cup of espresso. It was so bitter when we tried it but no one wanted to throw it away in fears of looking rude. So we rock-paper-scissor’d for the loser to drink the rest. I lost both 2 out of 3.
So much math!
Aug 2nd: I watch Code Geass all night
Aug 4th: Invited James Sun to come eat lunch at Pinterest. He told me about his newest startup idea. I was impressed.
Aug 5th: Invited Merry Mou to come eat dinner at Pinterest. Afterwards she was about to go home when we heard on the news that there was a bomb threat in West Oakland that delayed the BART. Merry had to use to the BART in order to get home so I conned her into joining the rest of the pinterns for karaoke at Yamasho’s. We had tons of fun. Vicky made me drink, and Raymond and Victor sang this chinese song that I haven’t heard in forever! It was beautiful.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Raymond and Victor were so adorable
Aug 6th: Raymond and I deployed our project! It had massive impact!
Impact! Hwa!
Aug 7th: Went on a cruise ship with Pinterns. It was super windy but overall it has a fantastic view. I ate a lot of this amazingly delicious spinach/sourcream dip
Aug 8th: Last day of my internship! So sad. Raymond and I demo’d our project twice today. Once during lunch and once during Q&A. It was pretty nerve-racking until we started presented. Of course we knew what we were talking about!
Aug 8th: Went to a Tech Mixer with James Sun. We played various games like arcade basketball, dodgeball, and foosball. We had an interesting conversation about wearable devices.
Aug 8th: Raymond was awesome enough to host a fantastic BBQ! I went to the party late because of the mixer so the grill was off at that point. I was hungry so I decided to grill my own burger. Austin Louden wanted one too so I was going to make one for him too. Because the grill was outside, we all used aluminum foil to cover the top so our food doesn’t get dirty. I tried this new grilling technique that made perfect sense in my mind. I was going to wrap each patty in foil and throw it on the grill. Because the meat is wrapped, the moisture won’t escape and the patty won’t dry out. After 10 minutes of grilling I opened the foil to find this dirty mess of a patty, with juices settling around the patty. I concluded that the experiment was a failure, and unwrapped the foil. I think in midst of my unwrapping, I poked a hole in the foil, and the fat flowed into the flame. Before I knew it, the tame fire grew into a blaze, and now my patty and my foil were on fire.In bad timing, a security cop showed up right behind us. The light probably drew his attention and he come about to see what going on. I panicked, and closed the hood to the grill, hoping to smother the fire. But it didn’t work. I didn’t have any tongs to maneuver any objects. All I had were two plastic forks that acted like a crane. Tim Koh, in a sudden trance, decided that he was put out the fire by repeatedly bashing his plastic fork on the fire. When I realized what he was doing, I yelled at him to stop, and he heard me. Out of the flame, he pulled out a melted, distorted plastic fork with one of the prones missing. “Sorry” was all he said.The flame is died out by now, and I couldn’t really make out the mess of the remaining carcass. I identified the patty that wasn’t plastic-poisoned by Tim’s fork, and handed it to Austin. “I hope you’re okay with a well done burger.”
Miscellaneous:
Every Uber and Lyft driver, especially the one who was deaf and extremely positive. He gave everyone fist bumps and we got to communicate with him via macbook air like a chatroom
Watching some of the best anime I’ve seen. Code Geass and Madoka Magica
Thanks to every pintern I’ve had the pleasure of working with. I know we’ll all stay in touch :)
We’ll miss Lindsey!
Thanks Raymond for being my summer project partner. I seriously could not have done it without you nor had as much fun without your personality!
Thanks Pinterest for giving me such a wonderful summer and hiring such wonderful interns!
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