Chapter #20
[1] It was going to cost me 300 dollars to exchange the radiator but I decided that trying to somehow glue the hole was going to be sufficient. The man working at a garage showed me a pile of broken ones from exactly the same model lying in the corner but I preferred not to believe him. My bank account was running low again, every dollar counted and I decided to keep the money I got from my parents. Later, when we stopped about 100 miles from Las Vegas it would remind itself through a hissing sound when we parked somewhere in the sun of the Nevada desert near cactuse for a toilet. We would then spend the remaining distance stopping at every exit or the side of the freeway filling in the water after driving while watching in panic the turning pointer of the temperature gauge. Praying that the whole car is not going to explode but insisting we should keep going. The AAA was free only for eight miles. Eventually we made it to the Monte Carlo hotel and in the morning I found a mechanic who exchanged the radiator on the same day for one hundred dollars more.
[2] The graduation ceremony was over but I still had to pass final exams before becoming a Berkeley graduate. After a couple oversleeps I had finally declared my major. I told Tomek to eat all the strawberries from the reception held by the Campagnile tower as this was going to be the last and only thing that the university was going to offer to us for free. Thansamay had come over from Los Angeles but left a but earlier than planned. We dropped the parents of after visit at Byrans and Kamil. I took Tomek to see Barry and Merylin, we saw David for chicken katsu and then drove back to the Bay Area. There awaited for me a few weeks of freedom mixed with uncertainty of what was going to happen next. Job and money obviously. After Tomek left San Francisco I got a few calls from recruiters. A law firm in San Francisco in a beautiful building with a very comfortable chairs and some financial company run by Russians where I was tested with my compuding interests skills and was asked to tell them a joke. I failed on both accounts. I spent the rest of time with Ken.
[3] Being a lawyer had always been my dream. It started really when I was sitting at my grandfather's room when I pulled one of the legal books stacked in his bookshelf. It dealt with the cases of unlawful arrest and a compensation that a person would be entitled in such a case. Now I was here to pursue and realise my dreams. That's why I'm applying to become a paralegal. Ah, I just love listening to you, interuppted [X] a very nice HR lady. I had read somewhere that you should never cause inconvenience so I had asked just for a glass of water. On the application form I put forty thousand as my desired salary and the lady confirmed it was just the right amount of money to ask. It was hot outside but we were sitting in a nice comfortable and air-conditined office in their headquarters in Palo Alto. I was already figuring out where I was going to live. Palo Alto seemed like the most optimal option. The only problem was now going to be visa issues. My OPT was not going to arrive until August and they needed someone to start working as soon as possible.
[4] I first met Ken at the Borders of El Cerrito plaza. One of his profile photos was a picture of his Prius so I was naturally intrigued. We were browsing through the books and magazines with him making fun of People magazine. It was the same bookstore where I started to read a book a memoir of a blind man. We met again this time near his place in Folsom and then took a walk north through the streets of San Francisco all the way to the Fisherman's Wharf. It was one of a few more walks like that we were going to take together. He liked to talk about his ideas, how Facebook was going to take off to become a place where people share what they do and where they go. And how he was afraid of losing power in his fingers as to not being able to code and change the world. He was serious. We watched movies and played Blokus of Saturday nights. And we laughed. At the end things didn't work out. We were both drifting into different directions, his more clear than mine, but I'm glad we met at that particular junction of life.
[5] I didn't tell my parents that Barbara and Tim would be using my shower. It was a bit embarrassing and I thought they would eventually figure it out. Sure enough, after I came back from the classes Mom mentioned that at some point Tim came out of the shower half naked. They didn't care much spending most of their first they on their own walking around Albany trying to source a plug converter. Everyone was nice and someone even called other shop to see if they have one. Although I did have to get somehow upset that Mom decided to clean my room and close all the books which were open on a particular page on purpose in reality I did not care too much about it. I was just looking to the final exam so we can leave and go on our roadtrip starting via the San Mateo bridge, the coast, passed through highway [X] to [y], make our way to Vegas. Then Grand Canyon, and drive through the night to Palm Desert to finally meet Byran and Akira who happened to lose his dog. Byran drank some vodka with them and cried when he saw my graduation photo.
[6] I met Jan for a coffee at one of the cafes in Berkeley. She must have been in sixties and she had contacted me a few days earlier looking for help in her web design business. We would agree on the price of [twenty] dollars par hour and from now on we would be meeting in the mornings with me teaching her Dreamweaver and then helping her with small projects for her clients. We drank coffee in the morning and then sat at her garage converted into a studio staring at a big monitor screen. She was a writer and an editor so she had many connections to the artistic world of the Bay Area bringing her clients and coming out with design while I would be supporting her on the technical side. It was maybe not enough money in the long term but the deal was a perfect combination. Later when I applied for a job at Google sitting in the interview room for three hours I didn't know it yet that I was going to trade-off that insecure but somehow exciting and quite world to something that was more grounded, predictable, on a bigger scale.
[7] Things evolved quickly from the moment I saw a rejection from Google and decided it was time to go home. With whatever money I had left I got on the [SAT] website and bought one way ticket to London. I had two weeks of my California life left during which I had to sell my car and ship all my stuff to Poland. I sat in the living room on that unfolded coach that Darren left and which I sometimes used to sleep over for a change and I felt sense of relief and yet another change. Another escape and twist in what I saw was an incoming wave of payments and unanswered questions about the future. What exactly I was going to do I didn't know but I was pretty sure that staying here was only going to make things worse. When a few days later [Suzanne] called with news that she spoke with her friend about a job for her I had to tell her that I had already decided to go back. After just a few viewings I sold the car to a nice hippie for four thousand dollars, an initial deposit for whatever would come next.
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