dreamers1982

It wasn't just size of some classes that made it difficult to make friends, the GSI sessions were still in the size of 20-30 people, but it was also the fact that each class was attended by different kind of people. Luckily, the end of 2004 brought thefacebook.com, a website which allow you to list of your classes and connect with your other classmates. Sure, Friendster had been around for a while but this one was more intimate as allowed for search of people that sat just near you. It was also restricted to college students which had its own appeal. It was also a perfect tool for stalking thanks to its search tool. That's how I met Trevor. We met first at the Sproul plaza in front of the admission building. We had bobba tea and sort of talked about anything. It was already late in the evening and the cool air was still filled with the smell of rain. We would meet regularly and as he was a psychology major, Tolman library became our usual hanging out place. We would study for hours, exchange gossips on a piece of paper and then drive across the bridge to Castro.

200 words created on 14 Feb 2025

I woke up feeling hungover, so I tried to remedy it by texting Avi and asking him to meet me for dinner. Avi is a friend of Yiwen and Yiwen is my old friend from London. I only met Avi twice, years ago at a house party and recently when Yiwen visited Berlin. I planned to show up at the dinner place earlier and order a beer to feel fresher when Avi arrived. Unfortunately, as in many places in Berlin, the service was slow, and by the time the beer arrived, Avi had already been sitting at the table. Luckily, he was taking his time studying the selection of schnitzels from the menu. I took advantage of the opportunity and quickly finished my beer, which seemed to have brought me a bit closer to earth. After the food, we walked around the area looking for a place to drink and settled on a small Italian bar. There, we enjoyed a couple of Negronis, which I followed up with a shot of vodka. The vodka put me in the right mood for the night, and it allowed me to sleep through with no major disturbance.

194 words created on 28 Jun 2021

Most of the people at Miko’s party spoke German. At first, I was sitting quietly but after a few glasses of wine, my confidence and perceived fluency of German dramatically improved. The thing is that I didn't know anyone at the party and I didn't really know Miko that much. He just invited me out of nowhere and I said yes. After everyone had left, Miko offered me a cigar and we smoked them while watching some Polish movie. I left his place while still holding a bottle of beer in my hand. Nothing works better for a hangover than a good portion of Ramen, so I took the U-bahn to Kreuzberg to check out the place I was originally planning to take S to. After lunch, I walked along the canals taking in the sights and colours of the now ever-present Berlin's Autumn. I ended up at Tipsy Bear again that evening, chatting with a beautiful Russian guy. We came to my place to finish the bottle of vodka that S’s date left a few days earlier. He had a beautiful soul, so we drunkenly continued talking about life while listening to Chopin's nocturnes playing in the background. 

200 words created on 28 Jun 2021

I said goodbye to my new friend at Friedrichstrasse Station and went to Dussman to pick a copy of Alexander Platz, which has kept me a companion ever since I left Berlin. I finally finished packing in the evening and decided to take the U8 Bahn to Kreuzberg to have a last solitary beer at one of the nearby bars. I arrived at Kottbusser Tor, had a kebab and just as I was about to enter the bar, I changed my mind and boarded a bus that had arrived at a nearby stop. It was a dark and rainy evening and I wasn't exactly sure where I was going. I finally got off at Potsdamer Platz and walked towards Mariott Hotel. It was there that I spent a weekend with Flynn a few years earlier. I sat in the lobby, ordered a glass of wine and thought of all the memories Berlin had brought me. Each had been different, but this one had been quite extraordinary. I took an S-bahn back to Oranienburger Straße station and walked home along Kastelene Allee. The streets were filled with tables full of people having their last drinks before another lockdown begins again…

199 words created on 28 Jun 2021

A much better place, which I had only discovered a few weeks earlier, was a bar called Tipsy Bear. It was just a ten-minute walk away from my flat, and it was where Miko was waiting for me on Friday evening. Miko was also Polish, and we first met three or weeks ago earlier - I was sitting by myself at the table, and he started chatting with me, so we became friends. The bar was holding a drag show that evening and the only seats available were at the front of the stage. I felt a bit too exposed, so I started drinking my beers a bit faster than usual. I suddenly received a message from S. He was also at the bar, sitting at a table around the corner. He was on a date, but that did not prevent me from ordering a round of margaritas for the three of us and drinking together. The show turned into Karaoke, and then everything came to an abrupt end in line with new health regulations and closing times. We stopped by a local Spati to get more supplies and ended up in my place along with a couple of strangers.

200 words created on 28 Jun 2021

I slept through most of the day, and I left my house for a late evening walk, during which I met a young guy standing with his bicycle in front of one of the nearby bars. He observed the police telling the owner to shut down the place as it was already an hour past the curfew. I started talking to him and finally proposed that we should come over to my place to have a drink. To my surprise, he said yes. He seemed different from others. He didn’t drink alcohol, and he was one of those few people that couldn’t wait to get out of this city. He was using his bicycle to distribute flyers for one of the pizza joints, and at the same time, he used this opportunity to act as a freelance journalist. That was why he stopped by in front of the bar, curious about the presence of the police. It was past two in the morning when he informed me that he had to shoot night photos of the new airports. I accompanied him to his bicycle. He promised we would have breakfast someday, and then he departed.

195 words created on 28 Jun 2021

I woke up at the edge of my bed. The last thing I remembered was drinking wine and talking to someone. I looked to my side and saw that the date was lying in the middle of the bed and S was squeezed in between us. The three of us were naked. The whole situation was slightly awkward and S saved it by getting up and declaring that he needed to attend a brunch. The date followed and after they left, I proceeded back to my bed and decided to simply sleep everything off. I didn’t have much time to dwell on the experiences of the previous night, as I needed to attend another party. I ate a burger and then jumped on the M10 tram, my favourite one in Berlin, heading to Friedrichshain. I ended at another house party that night. It was held in a flat in one of the high rises somewhere near Kreuzberg. Towards the end, I felt so exhausted, that after watching a fifty-year-old woman hypnotically shaking her naked breast to the sound of techno music, I decided to go home. The clock was showing six in the morning when I left the place.

199 words created on 28 Jun 2021

After the beers, we proceeded to a Peruvian restaurant, where I continued to dispense my life stories over a plate of ceviche and a very inviting glass of pisco sour. We then moved onto another place, the Green Door, a cocktail bar to which my good friend Ben introduced me when our lives were still careless, and a mid-life crisis was just an abstract term. Ben had moved to Switzerland and has two kids, so I don't see him that often anymore. Nevertheless, I still remember all the good times we had spent together. I'm sure the time will come when we will party in Berlin again, ending the night at KitKat or another similar local establishment. Because of the pandemic, the place was closed, so we found another bar nearby. There, we had two cocktails each (one of the cocktails had lettuce in it) and four (or maybe five) shots of vodka. Eventually, S announced that he had to depart to meet some other friend. I wasn’t overly pleased about it, but I had already accepted that this rollercoaster of excitement and disappointment was just an integral part of trying to become his friend.

195 words created on 28 Jun 2021

I still struggle to describe the nature of my relationship with S. We first met over six months earlier when I had just arrived in Berlin. I waited for him at a small Korean restaurant. All I knew about him when he walked in was that he was studying to become a doctor and that he had a tendency to reply to my messages at about three o'clock in the morning. I had suspected that he was not as innocent as his photos would have suggested. We had kept in touch since then, but now it was the evening I was finally taking him out. I tried to play it cool when I saw him walking towards me, but I could feel my eyes filling with excitement. We got a quick coffee and then caught a U-Bahn heading to West Berlin. After stopping by a street art museum, we walked to a bar with its floor covered in sand - this is where, apparently, David Bowie used to hang out during his Berlin years. We ordered two beers while looking over a lady mannequin sitting next to us. She looked like she could make use of a drink as well.

200 words created on 28 Jun 2021

I spent the next morning in Factory. I had not had a proper job since Covid started, so I needed to introduce some professional structure to my life. Factory is a co-working place with people full of dreams and unrealised business ideas, so I felt I fitted there perfectly. It is also a place where you can take your laptop and have a coffee without fear of being surrounded by a bunch of crying babies. And the music coming from the speakers is pretty good as well. I spent the evening at Betty F, this time just having a beer and a chat with the bartender and a couple of surrounding guests. Betty F is one of those places to which you always arrive with high hopes only to leave a few hours later, or early in the morning, with a promise never to return. In other words, it is a bit of a shit hole. Yet, I admit that it had somehow become a place where I would gather my thoughts, reflect and plan the next steps for the upcoming days.

182 words created on 27 Jun 2021

On Wednesday, I jumped onto the U2 Bahn and went to Kudam Strasse. I first came to Berlin with my parents, when I was six years old and the wall was still dividing the city into two. I still remember the graffiti on the wall and the bright colors and lights of West Berlin. These days, going back there is like pushing a reset button. Walking out of the U-Bahn station always takes me back to the feeling of excitement when I arrived there for the first time. These days, I can afford many of the things around, so I stopped by a department store and bought myself an eighty-euro sweater. The days had been getting shorter and I could already feel a chill and a slight gloom of an autumn chill. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and taking some photos. I knew it was probably going to be a while before I came back there, so I somehow wanted to preserve the memory of those last days. When I got home later in the evening, I put a bottle of Riesling in a bag and took a U2 Tram to attend Miko’s house party.

199 words created on 27 Jun 2021

I arrived into the 42nd Street just before five in the morning. It was still dark outside.  I had spent the last five hours on Greyhound from Boston and I was tired. The man seating to my right kept snoring and falling asleep on my shoulder so instead of getting some rest I had to stay vigilant trying to direct his head towards the window. The Natural History Museum was going to open soon so after absorbing the morning air of New York and figuring out how to use subway I made my way to the place and took a short nap in a dark room projecting a film about worms. Boston had been great. A bit foreign at the beginning but then more friendly, especially having found out that half of the population seemed to have some sort of Polish connection. I did the Red Trial, saw Boston Commons and took a ferry across the bay. The hostel owner's father was of course Polish as well. I talked about war in Iraq over a bottle of beer with one of the guests. He called me a scholar and claimed to have been a former speech writer of Bill Clinton.  

203 words created on 01 Sep 2020

His first suitcase was full of socks and Colombian coffee. The second one was full of hopes, optimism and a couple of bottles of Aguardiente for the nights of celebrations and for the evenings of reminiscence. He approached passport control. "Que pasa. Colombia! Medellin! Escobar" Smiled the officer. Another one that just seen Narcos, a self-declared expert on the trafficking business, shady deals and shipping industry. Another idiot. A true "imbécil". De nada, señor. Es is none of your business. He passed through. Outside stood a bus full of pre-covid tourists. Waiting to get to the centre for their portion of overpriced tapas, cheap beer, wine and anchovies. Another city that looks better on postcards that in real life. His hate towards the city was growing. He pulled out his hand and hailed the taxi. It was going to be better that way. His name was Santander and his house was Bogota - a place with streets full of joy, lost dreams and crushed souls. Not a city you will see on many postcards but one to fall in love with instantly. That is if you arrive in the right time. In the right place. And with the right attitude.

200 words created on 29 Aug 2020

There I was, walking in the cold Berlin mid-November wind. I felt nervous, even though I had done this at least thousands of times before. We had never talked much online, but it felt interesting, like a spark. I walked into this old Viennese style coffee shop, same way as I had many times before. I approached his table, full of fake confidence, putting the usual attempt of a friendly smile. He was sitting there with his phone, unaware that I had just arrived. When he saw me, he stood up and smiled in a polite and genuine way. The way I hadn’t seen in a while, the way that reflected honesty. Our conversation followed the usual dating script - we talked about our jobs, our basic life routine, interests. And yet, it didn't feel like any other date. It felt different, similar, but different. I hadn’t felt like that for a long time - seen, heard, and not invisible anymore. I was more than just a smile, and this was more than just a coffee. I can’t say that I understood how that short time with him would change my life. It was the beginning of a new chapter.

200 words created on 18 Aug 2020

I was just tired and really exhausted so I walked to the cinema on the 2nd street to see Valentin. It was a movie about a kid who wanted to become an astronaut. I watched him walking in a uniform and I cried. I guess it made me miss my childhood. The arrogance of it. I had no idea what I was doing. I took a bus, the one that I would always take, and rode to the UCLA campus. I walked around and touched the walls as if it to apologise for not following up with my plans. For the betrayal. I sat in silence for a while. It was finally time to say good bye. Good bye to the school, good bye to the ocean, good bye to the past. I then walked to Starbucks and read a newspaper. Something about Colombia. Finally, Joe called me to talk about his upcoming eye surgery. In a few weeks I was going to graduate from college. Amy would show up with Isan. Kamil, Joe and Akira will come by as well. Ronald Reagan has just died and the commencement speaker will be telling us not to forget how to dream.

200 words created on 11 Jun 2020

Marilyn is very happy for me and she gives me a hug. She tells me how much I'm going to be enjoy hanging out with people of my intellect. Barry is happy as well but at the same he keeps saying that I should join his university and he is only half joking. I think he's feeling bad about all the money that he owes me and he's maybe hoping that he can offset it with waiving the tuition fees. Not a chance. To be honest, I haven't fully checked how much Berkeley is but I had already accepted the offer so I'll worry about the details later. The only downside is that I had to cancel my trip to Poland and I won't be flying with my parents to Turkey. I spoke to them about it from the payphone by the college and Dad said that I shouldn't worry about them. I am also taking a summer class which I can transfer to Berkeley and will help me keep my student visa status. It's a class about diversity in media. I will also finally get to spend a summer in Los Angeles and I'm planning to fully enjoy it!

200 words created on 11 Jun 2020

UCLA said yes but they sent their decision in a regular white envelope. No poems, no bells, just a generic letter. Amy had intercepted the letter and she is over the moon. I don't know what to do so I just go for a walk to the ocean. There's a bar by the entrance so I walk in and order a Heineken. It reminds me of my trip to Amsterdam with Akira. I have never been in a bar by myself so I order another beer and talk to the bartender. I know it's an important decision and I want to make it look like I'm in a movie. A drunk character at the crossroads of his life. After the third and a visit to the toilet it all becomes clear. There's no other choice but the signs, the envelope, the name, everything tells me that I need to get out of this place and go to Berkeley. I go home, it's chilly and I can barerly hold my pee. As I'm unlocking the door I sober up realising that I have no idea how I'm going to tell the news to Amy. This is going to break her heart.

200 words created on 09 Jun 2020

Berkeley has finally sent their decision. I got in. The message came in a large yellow envelope with a letter enclosed in a nice blue folder. They're asking me if I can hear the sound of toiling bells. So far I can hear the sound of money. This is getting real and I am panicked. What the fuck did I do? Of course I knew it was going to happen. I sent my Berkeley application only because it cost me fifty dollars more. I dared the destiny, put myself again into "let's see how it goes" mode and here I am staring into the future with my eyes wide open. I can't sleep. I'm already anticipating that UCLA will say yes so I draw a list of prons and cons. Berkeley accepted me for the spring semester so that buys me some times. Time but no real job prospects. But again, can I really hope that I will get a job in Los Angeles. I called Mom at about 3am and she can't really help me much apart from listening. It's a big hole I'm jumping into and there's no way I'm coming out of it neither dead or alive.

200 words created on 09 Jun 2020

The reason why Josh seems frustrated is because he constantly changes his mind and now he's asking me to have previews of clips moving on the screen in a perfect circle. I'm not a web wizard. I know how to upload videos, compress them and fit them into TV frames and add things to them. I told him that for thirty dollars per hour he is still getting a good deal. I know I'm happy with it. I had a free day a few days ago so I took a bus to hang out around UCLA. I sat on the stairs and was sort of trying to fit myself into the campus life although I still haven't received the admission decision. God knows how I'm going to pay for it. Amy told me I'm her best student and if I get accepted she will lower my rent by one hundred dollars. She's already assumed that I'm not going to move out. She's probably right. I can take the Blue Bus from Santa Monica. It is sometimes tiring to live there but I can at least save up some money. I know, it would be pretty cool to live in Westwood.

200 words created on 09 Jun 2020

Last weekend I hang out with Tommy again and we drove to San Pedro to see a massive Korean bell. It was pretty cool. We also checked some of the rocks at a nearby beach. A few weeks ago on our way to San Francisco we stopped by in the middle of the way we stopped by to take a break by a stretch of a green area. He asked me whether I was confident I was going to get into the university and I said yes. I'm not too worried about Long Beach and I'm pretty sure about UCLA. We will see about Berkeley but I don't even want to think about it. The movie I'm working on is about a legendary comedian who ended up going to prison for his son's trade with drug perephinelia. Apparently, the actor pissed off John Ashcroft so they made a deal that he needs to go instead of his son. Anyway, it seems that I'm the only one not smoking marijuana in the whole crew. The director, Josh, is seems to be getting suspicious that I'm not as good with websites as he thought but he likes what I did for Barry.

200 words created on 09 Jun 2020

Life Three: Money is not a problem so I now basically live on a boat. I wear boat shoes, flowery shirts and shorts and I look good in them. I don't have any permanent location but I spend some time in St. Tropez. I get off of my boat and go to a local casinos. I speak some French and the locals like me. We exchange stories from the past and the future. My poker play is so good now that I know sometimes I lose sometimes I win but I don't have to stress about it. Hangovers don't really exist. Afterwards I go to a local bar and always find someone nice to talk to. Bartenders like me not because I sometimes give them a bit of a tip but also because I do give them a good advice. Sometimes I don't wake up alone but there's no awkwardness and no problem if we go our our way. I still look good naked in the mirror.

167 words created on 07 Jun 2020

The sun has come back. David continues with our routine of calling me late at night and then driving to random places in Los Angeles. We drive all the way to downtown either to Tofu House where he ceremonially eats an entire fish including its head in front of me or to another Korean spot, a small place filled with smoke which serves an amazing barbecued squid. On the way back we listen to the love songs from the Coast 103.5 and we either stop by West Hollywood or Ralph's. At the end of the night, often after 2am we finished with Banana Split from Denny's. We sit in on of the booths and flirt with the same waiter and we leave him a nice tip. My craigslist ad got some traction and I am now working on a website for a documentary movie. The 'studio' is based in one of the Santa Monica's apartments just down the road from the college by the 4th street. The evenings bring mist from the ocean - something to do with the sun. I still go to Barry's afterwards to continue working on our projects so I'm usually exhausted when I get home. 

201 words created on 07 Jun 2020

I wake up late now and show up in the 'office' also later than expected. I only have to study for the international relations class now and show up at the club meetings. It's the nights when I enjoy staying up. The silence of it. I did post some craigslist ad and I got some requests from an actress that lives in Venice Beach and needs her portfolio, some make up artist and a composer who paid me upfront and now complains that I cashed the check before doing any work. I take the bus to Santa Monica and go to the cinema on the 2nd street. I watched Dogville and I loved how immersed I become into the movie although some people started leaving in the middle of the screening. Sometimes I am the only person in the room. I also walk along the third street promenade and enjoy the more quiet and cool days of winter. I'm trying to learn some Japanese and to get motivated I convinced myself that I'm a CIA agent on a mission. I'm not really in rush to do anything else. Oh, and it's been rainy and cloudy in the last few days.

200 words created on 07 Jun 2020

I spoke to Mom and Dad and Tomek to let them know that things have gone bad and I basically lost my income. Tomek promised to help financially. He is now in London and he can send some money in for the time being and we'll see what happens next. In the meantime I became the president of the International Student Forum. I started attending it in the last semester just to make some international friends. We actually went on a trip to San Francisco, drove by a Dutch village, stayed in San Luis Obispo in [Madeleine Inn], drove by Big Sur and Nepente restaurant with its great view and also visited the Hearst Castle spending the second night in one of the hotels in Downtown San Francisco. I wanted to go out by myself but at the end I just ended up hanging out with the rest of the group by Fisherman's Wharf. They liked me and voted me to become the next chief. To be completely honest, it has been a bit of a disaster. I am supposed to be preparing topics for discussion but people stopped showing up. I'm not sure next trip will happen at all.

200 words created on 06 Jun 2020

I am just now mostly scared. Of course I saw it coming but it was convenient just to push it off, fingers crossed and see if anything good happens. But things don't miracleously get better. And I am pretty much with my own. Whomever I talk to I can't really complain because it was my choice to come here and I do have to face the consequences. Ok, David does listen. There is still some time until I have to pay for the tuition and in the meantime I can turn to Tomek. But that was not the plan. I was supposed to live of savings, blah blah. And I'm going to push for it no matter what, I will keep going. In the meantime I choose to believe Barry that the money will come and then get impatient and dissapointed if they don't or worse keep my hopes up when occasionally some money shows up if they're not spent on something else. I am no longer the priority. Fang Choi basically resigned and need to look for a new job. I'm still sticking in because of the convenience and need for companion but I know I should break free.

200 words created on 04 Jun 2020

The flight back was ok but changing the terminals at Washington DC during the orange alert was not a great idea. Long queues for custom searches and not a super nice experience with one of the officers. I had to run through the whole terminal for my transfer but here back on the streets of Los Angeles inhaling the spring air. Taking deep breath before the reality of what's next kicks in. I'm supposed to organise a transport of motorcycles to Poland. I had spoken to Barry and will go to the 'office' tomorrow. 'Office' because after our eviction we have been back to the house in the last couple of weeks. I know that those Christmas shopping were probably the last time I felt comfortable about money. Especially now with Barry's brother gone and no cash in the bank. Luckily I am only taking one class this semester so I didn't have to pay much for the tuition and I can maybe focus on finding another source of income. But first I want to enjoy some of that nice weather. And I also need to start working on editing the footage I shot in Poland. It's warm in here!

200 words created on 04 Jun 2020

The train compartment was empty and I was listening to the [x] from the local radio trying to pass the time and not to fall asleep. It takes [5] stations to get from Wroclaw to Leszno and if I could I would just fall asleep to wake up at my destination. It was very dark and chilly outside. My flight went well and I spent the four hours in Munich airport by walking around and playing with the video camera on the moving sidewalks. It's a new airport, clean, quiet with huge windows letting in lots of warmth from the sun. The guys picked me up from the station and Ada drove me home. I joked that she should turn off the lights just like George Bush who has just landed in Iraq on a surprise visit. My was pretty much speechless although she did manage to let me in so I could drag my suitcase into the elevator. She was of course concerned about the food and lack of gifts and it all still feel a bit surreal. It snowed heavily on the way back to the airport and I worried that I was going to miss the flight.

200 words created on 04 Jun 2020

Christmas is coming and I am now constantly playing Queen's Greatest Hits III on my old grey CD player. Akira is coming to town and we will go to the third street promenade so I can buy gifts. I can now afford them so I will get something nice to take home. A bathrobe from Banana Republic for Mom and something from [B B] for Dad. My trip is still top secret and only Tomek knows and Dominka plus a few others who will come to pick me up from the train station. I don't really have any winter clothes so I also need to buy a jacket. 'Under Pressure' is now on repeat. It takes my mind away. I spent my last Christmas at Byran's place in Palm Desert. This when I met David and I even brought him to our Christmas party. It wasn't really a proper dinner but we had good time having drinks and laughing a lot. I still miss the desert. I have rented an Enterprise car to visit it once but I am now getting more comfortable living here in Santa Monica. It's more intense but once you get used to it it's fun.

200 words created on 04 Jun 2020

I want to walk around Santa Monica and take pictures and stories of the homeless people hanging around the Ocean Avenue. That's the part of the scenery that does not get included in the postcards. Barry thinks it's a good idea. He thinks that everyone is miserable and that if you looked at any car exiting the freeway you would only see a sad face. Barry is very distracted by everything and always forgets where he put his keys but when it comes to editing his focus is absolute. He sits in that semi lit room in the office in sort of semi-trans editing his clips on Final Cut Pro. He's also talking to himself, a lot, but his conversations are much more intense and fun and involve lots of characters. He records them and then mixes the voices with sounds and visuals on the screen. To Marilyn's concern, he doesn't seem to sleep much. One of his ideas is to have a mannequin greet you when you enter a room and play whatever show best suits your mood at the moment. Sometimes when he's bend over the keyboard I am not quite sure whether he is working or nodding.

200 words created on 02 Jun 2020

I talk to myself whenever Barry asks me to take his Toyota up to Burbank. It actually happened only once but I would like to make it into a recurring event. Anyway, coming back on the 110 approaching Downtown I almost hit a car stopped in the traffic in front of me. I was busy. Not just talking to one of me but to four combined together. I was busy and distracted and the argument was very heated. This is the theme here. It's actually pretty lonely and somehow tough especially compared to the comfort of the desert. People are sort of on the move and maybe not everyone has a time to sit down and talk. Maybe no one seems to care that much. Even Ferdy or Manuel eventually have to get on the bus and head back to Downtown LA. That's why I keep going back to Barry, Marilyn and their family. They're normal. Marilyn is a lawyer and they do say grace before the dinner. There's of course the ocean to remind me of why I came here. And that little luxury of Starbucks white chocolate mocha late at night when the musician is finally packing up.

200 words created on 01 Jun 2020

Ocean is my magnet so whenever I get a chance I go there even if it's just between the classes. Mornings are very quiet and pretty chilly. There is something cool about being able to be on the beach and look into the side of Malibu. It sort of makes everything more real and enviable. I've also learned to go to watch movies by myself. Not that I want to but ever since I took Kevin to see the Dreamers he resists to watch any other independent movie with me. Ok, he did go to see me that movie about an Italian porn star but that was in Hollywood. Because now I consider myself working in the media world I insist on staying until the end so I can study all the credits. I look at all the names as if I knew who those people are. I almost got into argument with Tommy about it. He still doesn't seem to accept that my job is not a joke. He still keeps saying that we are going to work out. We don't really go out drinking but I like being around with him although his defensiveness can be really annoying.

200 words created on 30 May 2020

My Monday mornings start with a slow walk to school via the 23rd Street to eventually turn left into Pearl. That is the quickest way. I pass low leveled buildings or more like bungalows built for the veterans of World World Two which remind me of Wharton's sequel of the Birdy and my summer house. It's just before 8 am so still early and I am very sleepy. I passed by few school kids who with their mothers also head to their schools. My first class is a biology class at a newly build science building located just at the back of the campus. The teacher is a young Armenian, well built a PhD graduate of UCLA. He is a bit scary and quite demanding but I like him because he is one of those teachers that demands more from himself than others. After the quiz I get together with Emanuel, Ferdy and two other girls and we work on our lab assignments. No, we don't dissect frogs but we do play with samples of DNA. At the end of the semester we are going into the ocean on a boat trip to catch some sea animals and watch dolphins.

200 words created on 30 May 2020

There was another bedroom in the apartment and this one was occupied by Amy's daughter Zola. She was exclusively using the other second bathroom adjacent to her room while Amy and I continued sharing the one near my room. Amy would sleep either on the couch in the living room or in a makeshift bedroom in a closet underneath the building stairs. Zola at first was quite distant and kept referring to me as a student but eventually she warmed up a bit and called me 'Jack'. They did not seem to be close together. Amy was still very much Turkish, she watched her Turkish comedies brought by the satelite dish installed outside of the apartment while Zola worked in a local hospital and was all American. The father, now dead, was an American solider being stationed in Turkey and that was how he met Amy and eventually brought her to America. We had never talked much about him. On the first night after I moved in I showed Amy pictures of my father and seeing that he had a big of a belly, her eyes widened up, she smiled and unanomisaly declared that he must be a rich man.

200 words created on 29 May 2020

While Tommy was still trying to decide whether he wants to commit to anything more serious or not I continued my voyages into the journeys of finding the real love from the local library just opposite of the dry cleaners. Amy kept refusing to let me use her washing machine, in fact she acted as if the machine did not exist, so every weekend I had to continue dragging the white basked full of clothes to the establishment located two long blocks away. And while my socks were getting dry I continued my desperate attempts of finding love on the computer terminal across the street. Sometimes I would also go for a walk in squares taking different combination of turns to eventually end up in the washing place only to do the journey again. Amy continued to smoke and my clothes continued smelling of cigarettes. That was not the only issue with the house. Apart from having to tell the Korean landlord that I was Amy's nephew from Turkey I also had to walk to a payphone located near the campus as Amy didn't have wifi and it would be too expensive to use cell phone to make international calls.

200 words created on 29 May 2020

Barry never left on that trip. My plan was to have Tommy over while taking care of the dogs. But every day Barry would postpone his departure - he was supposed to leave to the northern California to join Marylyn and the rest of his family. In a way it didn't surprise me that much. I still enjoyed staying over at his beautiful house in Brentwood, surrounded by trees with streets patrolled by security. I still got to use his car and then play on Final Cut Pro or photoshop just being an artist with no school and no worries. The movie I was working was a clip of me waking up early morning in my the San Bernardino place in Palm Desert to catch the SunLink connection to Riverside, glimpses of Los Angeles and then finally Akira picking me up from the Starbucks with shots of him driving us back home. It was done to the background music of 'Shiny Happy People' and I recorded it on a video camera I got for Tomek just before flying back to Poland for the first time. I worked on it the whole week and then proudly uploaded it onto the server.

200 words created on 28 May 2020

There was a burning void that I needed to fill so while Sadam Hussein was being transferred to a prison, where he eventually was going to be hanged, I was getting ready for a date with Tommy. We met at the third street promenade and watched Last Samurai with Tom Cruise. He seemed neurotic and quite distant so I immediately fell in love with him. We would hang out usually on weekends with him telling me that he was not the right person for me and when he drove away to Santa Barbara for another week of his studies I sat on the bed and at my Santa Monica room and missed him terribly. I would call him before he even left the city limits just to talk to him for a bit longer. He always seemed cold but I knew that eventually he would be coming back. Finally, when in desperation I copied and pasted lyrics of Madonna's 'Crazy for you' addressing them to him in an email from one of the computers in the library, he suggested we should go for a trip. We drove to Palm Springs to visit Byran and spent a night at his house.

200 words created on 28 May 2020

I loved texting David from the library bathrooms. It was there that I was writing my diaries. About everything. Frustrations with Barry. Dreams. Hopes. What would happen once I'm finished with my studies. Done with the university. Once I made the dream come true. It was always a quiet one, silent, maybe upstairs that I chose. Then I would continue pushing my thoughts into one of the computer screens downstairs. It was a new building, one of those with walls made of concrete. I loved it. And it was also there that I would read about different lenses we learned to look through at the world. And what was not to like. The sun was shining and once the classes were over I would jump on the bus and head to Robertson street. Stay there again late at night working on an animated eye with a looping videos in its pupil. Listening to Barry's complaining about how no one understood us and how once we made it how we would buy everyone and take them over. The clips were of different channels and would start playing by scrolling over a link with a title. It was a pretty cool eye.

200 words created on 26 May 2020

Until now. The geologist yelled from behind the closer "Am I still here?!". It was an 8 o'clock class, big exercises book with quizzes that were just too difficult to be bothered to learn and to memorise. There was also a history teacher who among other things forbade balancing checks during the class. His was the class with paper assignments and black and white videos on riots featuring violence, transvestites and the analysis of hierarchies within a gay community. There was Connan O'Brien with his late show on a small tv set at the Ocean Park apartment, to close up the day. I did not mean to be offensive and ungrateful when I threw Amy's bolognese into the trash but I just could not stand another meal featuring overcooked spaghetti with a watery tomato sauce and a suspicious pair of meatballs staring at me from the plate. What still remains a mystery to me was how the discovery had been made. I had been careful to cover the meal with layers of trash. Her eyes were upset, hurt even, when she confronted me on why I had wasted the meal. Despite that I remained her favourite student until the end.

200 words created on 25 May 2020

"I'm gonna pick you up". David would call late at night and pick me up from across the street. We would sometimes drive to Hollywood or sometimes to Denny's. Eating banana splits under the cover of the night making friends with the waiter. We never really hang out much during the day. I really met him only once in Palm Springs and other than that I didn't really know much about his life. I wasn't even sure if I knew his name. He worked somewhere in Los Angeles during the day. But I also didn't care. It was just nice to be with someone and the ambiguity didn't bother me that much. It was a good break from the anexieties of the evenings, due papers or money thoughts. He was always on my unconditional side. We didn't cry but we sang to the songs on the radio. He ate fish heads at the Korean place. We both loved examining spanking at Mickey's on Wednesday nights. With the woman lying on the slide and a man lashing her with a whip. To the background of the old man sitting on his cane pulling out his hands to tip the go-go dancer. 

201 words created on 25 May 2020

Pepsi was Barry's feature. Despite all the financial difficulties there was always money somewhere for a trip to seven eleven and a twelve pack of canned Pepsi. Cold. Sweet. Better than Coke. I enjoyed when he gave me ride back home at his Toyota's SUV. Stopping by gas station to get a few gallon of gas and a pack of American Spririts. We would be heading west into the night on the Freeway 10. Feeling free and somehow forgetful that all of that would need to pass at some point. There was no TV station, no accountants and no investors. But the mice were real and the cash somehow always showed up. So I just kept coming in and driving back enjoying the ride. Sometimes I would even ask for a raise. Maybe there was something I didn't know about. Maybe the eviction was just a phase. I didn't mind anyway coming to anywhere whether it was Robertson or Sawyer Street. It was just nice to be away somewhere where I felt I was needed and I could do whatever was fun. To smile sometimes. To be someone. Even if it was for a lost cause. Because maybe it wasn't?

200 words created on 24 May 2020

The poets always win. And the poets have the sea. And the oceans. Walking with your bear feet, holding shoes in your hands and swinging to that rhythm along with the breeze. To the sun. To the wind. And it's free. No charge required, no transfer tickets accepted. When you lay in the sun and the world goes by but you don't worry 'cause there's no moment to miss out. Bring a book, get a story of a man who got younger 'stead of older. Meet a friend and have a walk. Love the presence. Connect the senses. With the cover of the night through the mysteries of the thy. When the wave breaks in half. To the sound. You're here to love and to live it out. To the memories of the sight. Of those eyes. Run the sun through your fingers. Breathe and wonder in your dreams. Now is only here. Nowhere else is to be. Over there is Taiwan, behind the line but not for now. And when your senses calm are and when your body tenses out then respect. This moment is to be lived not to be written down. And the poet is always right.

200 words created on 23 May 2020

And respect the sun on the pavement. Let's start with Barry. Doesn't pay on time then when I call he makes it as if it was my fault for bothering him. That is only if he picks up the phone. It's also my fault because I really don't want to / I really can't find another restaurant job. Amy is all right. She cooks me a dinner and she cleans up my room. She does make me carry my laundry two blocks down the street even tho she has a laundry machine in the back of the building. Plus she makes me close my blinds so no one can look into my room from the street (as if I care). Plus she smokes a lot so all my clothes smell of cigarettes but that somehow I don't really care so much about. Then there's David who yes, picks me up but sometimes not really on the weekends. And then there's that bitch at from Urban Outfitters who just threw my card away when it bounced. Just when I was shopping for my date with a guy who told me to smile. So yes, it's all nice but not perfect either. 

201 words created on 22 May 2020

So what goes up keeps going up. Yellow trainers buy I had to by the Ross the shop. That was the dream the deviation. Hoping on the 30, jumping off the Venice. Dreaming. The balance on the account, catastrophic but Barry said all will be fine. The grove played on the radio, the screen radiated the future. And the fish kept fishing. In the dormitory, in the stories. Maybe too good too be true but we kept pushing because what other choice did we have. The dreams, changing the world with one embrace to another. And who wouldn't want to be us anyway. Sat at the library and wrote a letter. Things were not going the way that should. Was it all just the dream. Those few blocks away from what what the paradise was supposed to be?T hostel, the bus. No other place to go. Jump into the car and drive back to the desert? We just got out of that town. So the choice was one. To keep going. To take walks. To inhale the breeze. To take a photo of the sunset. To step back to the past and find the clues into the future. To live.

200 words created on 20 May 2020

When you cross the street you see a palm tree. A man with a guitar. Playing that late night song before the street goes to bed. Hey, get a cd. 10 dollars. My greatest hits! For-get about it. Pull out a gun, cross the street. Or don't. Put up your hand and hold them up. That's right. To the right is your white chocolate mocha. The treasure. The skarb. The left, the Thai placed you applied to. Un-sucsely. The library you wrote the begging letter so they would let you in pre-time. No, the doors are shut. You wait here. For what? For that feeling it breeze bringing the story from the far ocean. The plane taking off, the look on your face. The love. The love can't wait. Anymore. The Warszawa restaurant you are no Grata. Go back to your mama. She's got you some food, she got you some juice. TV dinner. Serial TV from the satelite dish. The Volkswagen that stands but does not drive. Anywhere. In that dark parking alley where you'll pick up the car. Your freedom. The 101. Toxic Britney. The dawn. The calm. The chill. The awakeing senses. To the love. To you!

200 words created on 11 Mar 2020

The chronicles of Los Angeles. Where is the start and where is the beggining. I first met Barry at a shack on the corner or Robertson and [X], just of the exit of Freeway 10. His wife Marilyn was not there but the present were Fong Choi, Barry, [Doug], a manequinn and a few mice. What were they there for to act. Hollywood baby! The street of Pico Boulvard was filled with Black Eyed Piece. They asked were the love was. Was it on the bus number 7 heading West to San-ta Mon-i-ca? Or was it with the driver lady taking photos of the sunset? Or a guitar man at the back sin-ing 'Education education' to a group of small brats? It was not. It was here at that shack at Robertson Boulvard. With the fish in the frame flying in the clouds. Was I d-r-e-a-m-i-n-g? No, I was the fish with a head bandana building the city. Changing the world. One frame and one mouse at the time. Welcome to L of A brother. Take a seat, enjoy the ride. The chronicles of Los Angeles are starting. Buckle up, open the roof. And change  no lane cause we driiiivin'!  

203 words created on 03 Mar 2020

So when do the stories end and where they begin? The plane was full of rugby players heading for a game in London. My hand luggage was full to its capacity and with the hold holding everything that I did not pack into boxes and shipped to Poland. The lady at the post office in the morning insisted the the weight could not exceed an allowed limit. We flew above the desert and plaines only to enter the Atlantic ocean. I did not remember the movies played nor do I remember the book I read. I had boxes full of memories waiting to be processed and made the sense of. And a bank account full of debt waiting to be cleared. Just maybe in one year, when I get a job job, live like a monk and pay everything off in a year or two. But first a trip to Berlin and then Amsterdam with Tommy. And Kevin was going to visit as well. And even some day so will Akira. What I was going to do next I had no idea but it was probably nothing nowhere close to what I had planned for myself. Or maybe was it?

200 words created on 01 Mar 2020

So when do the stories end and where they begin? The plane was full of rugby players heading for a game in London. My hand luggage was full to its capacity and with the hold holding everything that I did not pack into boxes and shipped to Poland. The lady at the post office in the morning insisted the the weight could not exceed an allowed limit. We flew above the desert and plaines only to enter the Atlantic ocean. I did not remember the movies played nor do I remember the book I read. I had boxes full of memories waiting to be processed and made the sense of. And a bank account full of debt waiting to be cleared. Just maybe in one year, when I get a job job, live like a monk and pay everything off in a year or two. But first a trip to Berlin and then Amsterdam with Tommy. And Kevin was going to visit as well. And even some day so will Akira. What I was going to do next I had no idea but it was probably nothing nowhere close to what I had planned for myself. Or maybe was it?

200 words created on 01 Mar 2020

The Barnes and Nobles at the corner of Union Square had now become my refuge. I would go there every time I stayed over at Folsom Street. Walking there and enjoying free injections of Paulo Coelho's '11 minutes' and anything else I could read for free. Once I met Trevor and we got drunk and a sort of plump wine which we drank from paper cups taken from a hotel nearby while lying on our backs looking at the skies and laughing. The school was done, the sun was shining and I had nothing else to do with myself. In the evenings we would go with Ken to the Borders where he would be working on his new startup idea and I would be reading books on economics and anything else that I thought should impress him. On the weekends we would play [Goku], watch Desperate Housewives. Once we drove with Justyna to Los Angeles watching the Cars, enjoying the sands of Santa Monica and the peace of the ocean breeze. Not doing that I would meet Flynn for a Pitts coffee behind the Ferry Building where we sit on a bench and stare in the Bay planning the future.

200 words created on 28 Feb 2020

I sat with Kevin at the Pier 7, an old wooden structures with lamps and benches lined up along. It was just near the Ferry Building and I was looking both in the darkness of the water and the planes taking off from the SFO. It was the same bay that I would be looking at the passing ships from or at the time when I came to visit the city with Diego and we took photos with the arrow. I was just finishing packing, putting all the memories from the last five years in boxes and shipping them off to Poland. We were going to keep in touch. Kevin was just a simple guy who learned how to speak English from an electronic dictionary who would buy me a coffee and accompanied me to the top of the Campagnile while a nice lady would tell us the history of the building. I was more focused on how to sell my bed now that I got rid of the golf clubs. We talked about the future and the law school. I took a coin from my pocket, tossed it in the water and promised that I would be coming back.

200 words created on 28 Feb 2020

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.

200 words created on 27 Feb 2020

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.

197 words created on 26 Feb 2020

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.

200 words created on 25 Feb 2020

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.

200 words created on 24 Feb 2020

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.

200 words created on 23 Feb 2020

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.

200 words created on 19 Feb 2020

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.

200 words created on 19 Feb 2020

Tomek had arrived a few days after my parents made their first landing in the United States. I was so excited about their arrival that after drinking a coffee at Berkeley's Starbucks and using the toilet I drove straight to the airport expecting their appearance in the door. I even cleaned up the car finally taking out the Coca-Cola stains from the ceiling. We drove past San Francisco, the Embarcadero boulevard with me proudly showing off the places I was now calling mine. The next day I still have to go to work so I left them near my office for them to walk around and see the lions by the pier. We took an old tram and I got them tickets as seniors, we went to the Chinatown where Dad got a toilet key attached to a wired basket. We drove to Napa, Berrineger winery, where Dad tried on hats and Mom was complimented for her nails. In the evening I took Tomek to the campus where in front of the Moffit we met a guy from the Political Economy glass. He gave me a donut and I wished I had more time to hang out more with him.

200 words created on 17 Feb 2020

Czesław Miłosz was a distinguished poet, a Berkeley lecturer and a Noble Prize winner. Justyna and I decided to pay him a visit or rather drive by the house he had lived for years before his death. I had found the address somewhere online. We climbed the Berkeley hills in my Honda (always on the lowest gear yielding to the oncoming cars as they did not have to stop) and parked outside. I was going to just stay there for a few moments, look at the building, pay my respects and leave but Justyna had different plans in mind. She got out and proceeded to walk to the front door. Before I could stop her she knocked and after a few moments a young man turned out at the door. When asked whether 'this is the house where the famous poet lived' he confirmed. He did not let us come inside as the house was now of his friend's but he did invite us to walk around the garden and look at the views. The very same views of the Bay area that inspired many other philosophers and scientists before the poet. We let a few minutes pass and left.

200 words created on 14 Feb 2020

Five page papers and unreadible notes I'd what the semester now looked like. 'Your whole life will consist of five page papers' whether it was to be a memo or a book. Times New Roman, the font size twelve, double spaced, margin of one inch. That's what we were supposed to squeeze the hours in library and studying in. As for the notes, I had to borrow a typed in ones from Jana as I had been using the old school method of just writing things on paper, never to be fully deciphered by anyone, filtered by the passing time, association and memory. At the end of Political economy class someone wrote in the feedback to the teacher that he wasn't as big of an asshole as he seemed to be at the begining. The professor took it as a compliment. For the final paper we were tasked to write a research about the international system. I guess that most would choose United Nations so I wrote about planes. How the aviation became an international challenge which over time grew into bringing countries together and setting wildly recognised rules. It wasn't all complete but the originality got me an A.

200 words created on 12 Feb 2020

I discovered the great grandpa's book by an accident. I had to walk to the DOE library so it could be retrieved from the archives to be picked up the next day. It was a sunny day and to make it to the library I walked in front of the Le Conte building with its view across the bay onto the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the same building I had my Eastern European history class and the view would always somehow [force] me to remind my myself why was I really here. The purpose of life that soon, in a few months, would be gone and in need of an urgent replacement. Like the radiator under the hood of my car. The book was thin, a thesis all written in German. I scanned and copied that over and sent back home. Grandpa said it dealt with medical observations from the time of the world war I. At the end of the book was a dedication and thanks to the great grandfather's family. How it ended up in Berkeley library was a mystery but after few weeks of holding onto it I returned it figuring that was where it belonged.

200 words created on 11 Feb 2020

The office of the congress lady was located in the north part of San Francisco, in the quiet part of the piers, on a second floor of a low rise building. There was a restaurant downstairs, Phoenix, which would serve free coffee to all of the employees. The regular tasks would be to sit answering the phones and assigning cases to the appropriate case workers, after entering details into the computers. It also required noting down the topics that constituents would dial in about. The more regular ones would receive their own topics on a piece of paper in front of me and a tally of sets of five crossed lines to give an idea of how much interests each attracted. We would be told in advance, if because of debate on the floor, we should expect an increase number of calls. Those were usually more about passionate ones. Other than that most people called with their health problems and once in a while someone would to offer a vhs tape of sighting an UFO or asked to speak directly with the president. In the afternoons I would help Nicole to politely call various organisations and politely decline their invitations. 

201 words created on 10 Feb 2020

By the time the spring arrived I met Alvin, a PhD student living just down the hill, and I was fine again. But I knew I wanted to leave and I would find myself driving down to Los Angeles more and more often. I would continue picking up craigslist people but once I took Ryan, a student from the national security class, with me. He was visiting his girlfriend. We had good time talking about politics and his experiences of war in Iraq. We stopped to get some gas off the Freeway 5 and got a portion of the Famous Star and fries and fries. I liked Alvin because he sort of put up with me and I could tell him whatever was on my mind. I talked about the theories I learned in the political economy class, drew charts on the board and then we would continue conversation in his room. The relationship was in a sense of an abusive character most of that was, deservingly so, probably coming from me. He was there for me when I needed him and it was working for me just fine. But we laughed a lot and shared many fun memories together.

200 words created on 09 Feb 2020

The Monday morning routine was now an early BART ride to the Embarcadero station and then transfer to the F line going along the piers to the office. First answering phone call and then a half an hour or so lunch break. Just enough time to walk to the Pier [39] and watch the [sea lions]. Then back on the F line via an old Milan tramcar if I was lucky and back to Albany. On Wednesdays it was back to Berkeley just in time for the lecture on what makes countries competetive. Wearing a blue shirt, black trousers and a tie. Darren had been long gone, Vu was in San Diego and Trevor wasn't really talking to me due to the Thai soup incident. My classes were Eastern European Politics who a professor who converted from Physics into Politics, the Chinese Law with a half lawyer half philiosopher, Intro to Statistics with professor Stoker whose lectures were true art and Political Economy with a guy who prominently displayed his CV on the syllabus but eventually turned out to be quite all right. I knew Jana from the previous semester and got to know Justyna who looked like a drinker.

200 words created on 07 Feb 2020

It was all Brian Lin's fault. I arrived back into San Francisco and I quickly felt into a sort of depression. No one would answer my calls and it was raining outside. At least Tim and Barbara would now go out for most of the weekends so I had the apartment all to myself. With the balcony overlooking the hills. I watched the Terminal with Tom Hanks and I thought I could somehow relate to him. Stephen, or Esteban, invited me to his birthday party. I wore the stripped pink/salmon shirt that among other things I inherited from Darren. The party was good. There were people gathered around the table in the kitchen talking politics. As now an intern of the federal government, as well as a student of the subject, I thought that was the right place for me to be but I quickly realised there was not that much I could contribute. When I first met Brian, he came over to my house and then we drove to an Asian supermarket in his Toyota Tacoma truck. It was not going to work out but it was nice to have someone around to put his finger in my ear.

200 words created on 06 Feb 2020

My inadequacy would deepen during the Chinese Law class. It had too many smart and committed students taking the average class up. The teacher was an older law professor starting the class with a local folk story about a horse or other subject and then jumping into the subject of the day. I liked the class. It was after one of them that I discovered that Berkeley had my great grandfather's book. A medical thesis all wrote in German from his time serving as a doctor during the first war. I found it in the records out of boredom. Judge Dee was the book I decided to write a paper on for one of the final papers. I drove to San Francisco on a rainy days to a really old bookstore and to my surprise discovered it was there. Professor's Bering's comment was that I was too harsh and idealistic in regards to my ideal type of the judge. I didn't mind. For full disclousure, I was making most of the things up putting as much of my opinions and referring as little as possible to the substance of the book that I only had one afternoon to read anyway. 

201 words created on 22 Jan 2020

There was an anniversary at the Trannyshack and the Sun Machine is Coming Down was a song that could best describe my mood. I was comprehensive, scared, and the zeros from the loans and other obligations were slowly started to making an appearance again. And the radiator, for as long as tried to pretend the problem did not exist, was surely not getting any better. I would take a walk in the morning to the Pol Sci 3 discussion and played the Precious moment on the mp3 player I brought in from China. Original Sony heckled at the Silk Market to twenty dollars or so. A bargain packed in a generic box. I brought myself cigarette to mark the moment to which I told myself I was surely going to be coming back. On Monday morning I would take BART to San Francisco and transfer onto a tram heading to the congress lady's office. Answering calls from people complaining about UFOs, medical bills, too many Mexicans and, on occasion, a PATRIOT act. At 11 o'clock Mark would call just to check in. Wednesday was my afternoon shift after which I would go to class wearing a tie feeling slightly depressed.

200 words created on 22 Jan 2020

I finished my trip with a visit to Shanghai. I went this time by myself taking an overnight train from Beijing falling asleep to the sounds of the American ringtones from the phones of my Chinese cabin companion. I stayed at a hostel, shared a room with a few others guys. One of them was Tom who kept writing in his notepad all the new words he learned and asked me to accompany him to Hyatt. I walked along the Pund to the offers of cheap Rolexes. On the last night we ate the best noodle from a man with a wok attached to the front of his bicycle. I visited museum in Shanghai. When I got back to California I helped Flynn moving some of his furniture to the storage and then move the rest to his new place in the Sunset District. The IKEA had accepted the chairs without any questions asked. He kept the bar stool. On the way back, driving through the Bay Bridge, I saw steam coming out from the front of the car and the gauge of the temperature rising. The radiator finally needed fixing and money and I could no longer deny that. 

201 words created on 16 Jan 2020

My Grandmother died when I was twelve years old. I knew it when Dad, after driving to a telephone booth to call my Mom who was with her in the hospital, parked the car outside of the gate of our summer house rather than coming in. Things went on as they always do but nothing was really the same from then on. It was during the funeral that I saw my grandfather cry for the first time. Still, at the end he came to us, a group of cousins, and squeezed my small hand into his large palms. Now he was dead and I could not attend his funeral. The same day he died I bought him a Chinese hat. I looked at it and thought of how much he was going to like it, picturing his smile upon receiving it. It was the first time I felt so remote and isolated from everyone else. I kept writing emails to my parents, to my Mom to tell her how sorry I was. I still went to the Forbidden City and kept telling myself to enjoy Beijing. This was what he would have wanted me to do, I kept telling myself.

200 words created on 14 Jan 2020

The same day I visited the Summer Palace while still wearing a suit. There were just a few of us getaways. Rather than staying in the building of the Beijing university we decided to explore what the city had to offer. We took taxi everywhere, felt the freeze of Tianman Square, visited a bar with whiskey and Chinese rock'n'roll karaoke. Being driven back by a lady in white gloves. Melanie, one of the girls with us, used to study in Beijing and spoke great mandarin so she first managed to convince the taxi driver that she was his cousin and then made with him a twenty dollar bargain to drive us for an all day trip to the remote non-touristy part of the Chinese Wall. We heckled at the silk market and dined the best Chinese food around. The Olympics were coming soon and the old buildings, their rumbles, were giving a way to the new modern ones. When I phoned phone late at night from the hotel lobby still being slightly drink from a mix of Chinese brandy and coke, Dad asked if I hadn't checked the email. I responded in silent anticipation of the news. "Grandpa had died."

200 words created on 13 Jan 2020

The conference was taking place at the Beijing University and the best thing about it was the breakfast. With a punch card you could go to different sections of the counter and order whatever you wanted. To get to the campus we would get on the bus from the nearby Peace Hotel. We stayed there traditionally sharing two bed room among four people. What we did fail to realise at booking was that the definition of a single baed in China was strictly different to the ones in the US so half of us took turns sleeping on the floors. It was in the second day of the conference that I realised there was not much reason for me to be there. First of all I was representing Germany at the committee in charge of Rwandan genocide, and secondly I realised that the loudest of the speakers (a lady representing Japan, I think she was from the Netherlands) had the least idea of what they were talking about. I didn't feel like it was the right crowd for me so after the lunch break I stood up, thanked everyone, praised the food in the cantine and never showed up again.

200 words created on 09 Jan 2020

I had to park the Honda somewhere by the curb of the El Cerito station and hope that it would still be there when I got back. I was running late, my clothes in the suitcase were still wet and I knew that if I missed the next train I would not be able to make it to the next flight. And I agreed to find Adrian at the airport and give him back his jacket. Out of nowhere I also met Denys. We had a quick chat but I forget where he was going. I panicked when I saw the check-in at the United's flight to Beijing was already closed. Somehow I managed to convince the nice lady to take in my suitcase. I cut through the security and ended up at my gate just in time for the boarding. The flight was long and I kept myself entertained thinking about Mano. Upon landing I saw some blue roofs and finally got to the arrival building after a lady came in to the plane and sprayed the air. I crossed the border to the sights of Starbucks and Vodafone commercials. It did not look like a communism at all.

200 words created on 08 Jan 2020

The Model UN conference was taking place at the Hilton Hotel by Union Square. I was now officially given the title of the chief of staff and along with other guy called Rob was effectively in charge of the whole logistics. We bought lots of paper from Staples, secured copy machines, printed out placards for the attendees, set up the room, etc. At our disposals were other several volunteers who would be typing resolutions and other documents. Everything started on time and with just a few bumps such as missing ids or delegates not being on the list. First day into the session I felt I didn't really have that much authority, after all we were all just being here in our free time, so I didn't mind if some of the drafts were just being copied straight into to the copiers. We appealed to the people to use clear handwriting as only the main resolutions were to be typed. It was the violation of the previous practices but who cared. I converted a corner to a meditation room so people could relax. The atmosphere of an impending disaster was fun even if not everyone got their certificates on time.

200 words created on 07 Jan 2020

All of those electric bulls and hanging out with Trevor buying him dinner was probably just a deferral to an important question looming closer and closer - what was I going to do with my life post college. Firstly, I had a loan to pay off which would kick in automatically six months if I did not continue my studying. I was still determined on going to a law school but it wouldn't happen after I had gotten a job as a paralegal and saved up some money. The math still didn't quite work but at least it was some sort of answers to my problems. While everyone around me seemed to be going to various fair jobs, I had attended one or two where former Berkeley students were praising their current employees and encouraged the room full of seniors to apply for their entries position. The whole experience was somehow intimidating so after a few applications with no successful outcome I decided to send my resume to an unpaid internship at an office of an Californian congresswoman. While I knew what my ultimate goal was here in California I wasn't really quite sure what I wanted to do afterwards.

200 words created on 06 Jan 2020

I couldn't really afford the trip to Beijing but I figured it was probably the only opportunity to go there with other people so I booked the ticket and put it on my newly acquired credit card. The occasion was the World Model UN which was going to take place just after my first (and only) gig as the Chief of Staff for the conference hosted by Berkeley. I was no longer intimidating to deal with people from Harvard especially after I had already gone to Boston to take as a delegate. I don't quite remember which country I represented. In fact, I was so intimidated by the guys from West Point that I only made one speech,a passed notes  hung with Laurel and then hung out with her at Boston Common drinking wine from a plastic cup. The weather suddenly turned into a cold snow. Laurel left prematurely without any explanation either because of the hotel fire alarm or because she just had enough of the whole thing. I was in love with Alvin then and made a mistake of drunkenly making a call to tell him I missed after which he took an overnight plane destroying my weekend.

201 words created on 30 Dec 2019

It was vodka and tonic that I drank during the party. Something to do with Jesus, Easter and the simplicity of life. We took the chairs back to IKEA (Flynn decided to keep the bar stool) and got our money back. All of that dancing and drinking was to mark his departure from the current flat. SOMA was going through a development so the building was being bought up and Flynn paid to vacate it. It was close to Starbucks and the Borders that later I would be coming back to with Ken. My trips to Trannyshack and Heklina continued now often just with Trevor. We would park the car by the [motel inn] and walk to the bar. San Francisco was now mine. One night I saw a guy in the Stud standing and enjoying the show. I immediately fell in love with him and later wondered how the universe conspired for me when I met him online. His nickname was Wanderlust, he also lived near the 5th Street exit and he gave up smoking for lent. It was to his place I went after the last night of the Model UN rather than staying for the final party.

200 words created on 29 Dec 2019

We sat on the roof of Flynn's soon to be former house. There was a party going on downstairs. Flynn and I had driven to IKEA to buy fifteen white folded chairs (and a plastic bar stool) so we could accommodate all of his guests. He also asked one of the bartenders from Cafe to come and serve drinks. In the morning we picked up some of artswork from Jacob's boyfriend (?) house. By this time there were people in the party that even Flynn could not recognise. I was drinking the vodka with Mano which was going to make coming down the ladder more challenging. It was Easter so which I used as an excuse to get people drinking more. At the end we took a Taxi, took the exit on the [26th] and arrived at an illegal rave. It was past 2am but because we had raspberry juice and even more vodka we got in. There were people inside queining to get on an electric bull. Flynn didn't mind the queue. At the end we dropped Mano by his house near the 5th and I crossed the Bay Bridge to the sight of steam from a broken radiator.

200 words created on 27 Dec 2019

Trevor called me Tato and as a Christmas gift he gave me a stripy pale blue scarf from Gap. This was when I went to visit him in Militipas and briefly met his Mom. His down was close to where one of web clients lived and where I once met Kai, the guy that took me out for a diner and fixed his tire at a parking lot when it got a puncture. Just down the freeway 880. My last exam, the analytics, was on the same day as I was supposed to fly home. The gap was long enough to give me time to finish baking ginger cookies. With [maleases]. Granda would comment on them they were just as good as his Grandmother would make them. San Francisco International Airport seemed like a magical place in that time of the day. Vast, bright and feeling very empty and quiet with some art being displayed on the wall. The flight was what it became now the usual ten hour journey to Munich before another two to Poznan. The layover would be additional two hours where I would be trying to imagine what it would be like to finally be home.  

202 words created on 21 Dec 2019

I slept on the half of bed that was not covered with books. Studying and reading had never been my natural inclination but I was always thrilled with inhaling new knowledge. What Berkeley added to it was looking at the same things from a different perspective. At ethics' class we watched a movie about Rwanda and that changed my view on Bill Clinton. At Weber's class we talked about world war two and it was almost as if my seat had been changed from the victim to the observer. There was always pressure, more readings, more assignment but it was something I quantify in terms of time blocks and the number of hours I needed to catch up. Where I saw I lost interest or couldn't keep up, I learned I could just convert my grade to pass no-pass and that there was no shame in it. But where it was possible I would push for the A especially now when I saw it was not something I could take for granted. In a way it took away the pressure, the curse of being a straight A student. That warm blissful feeling of flow on the flight back from Chicago.

200 words created on 18 Dec 2019

I missed Los Angeles and long weekends now meant that I could jump in my car and drive down to Southern California. I would usually choose Freeway 5 to save up some time. It was a usual tour - visit Santa Monica, Palm Springs and stay over at Kamil's in Riverside. I would still visit Barry, just to remind him of my presence. Once or twice I stopped by Michael's, a young inspiring musician who lived in Beverly Hills and who wanted to have his website look exactly like the one of [James Grobyn]. This allowed me to make some money so the trip would pay for itself. Later I figured I could just place an ad on Craigslist and have offer a ride share so someone else could pay for the gas. I became a driver of a guy who swore to never get a health insurance, a lady surprising her mother who once got caught up speeding over 100 miles per hour while being high and a young hippie couple who I picked up in Long Beach and dropped off somewhere near San Jose. Coming back I wondered what this place must have looked like in the sixties.

200 words created on 12 Dec 2019

With just two full days of school I now had much more time on other activities although most of it I still spent on studying and the three clients I had. Dennis was a photographer living in San Francisco. Unlike the technoman, or others I met on my journey, he was successful and had money which he didn't mind on spending on Dreamweaver training. Every Wednesday I would get up to a cooling air of the Bay Area, turn on to the bits of [the morning radio] and drive across the Bay Area to SOMA. I would park at the private garage of his house and walk upstairs to share my knowledge. The task wasn't too hard. If anything it required some patience as Dennis liked to forget what we discussed last time so we spent the first half going over the material and the other on learning things like creating tables so he could post there his pictures. That was also when he would usually get a bit bored and pour himself a glass of wine which more or less was a guarantee that he was going to forget again what we were talking about. I enjoyed those days. 

201 words created on 11 Dec 2019

Darren took an U-Haul down I-80 towards Chicago and I continued my Berkeley life. With a B+ on the transcript, my streak of perfection was over but I didn't care that much. By now I already knew that I was not going to pursue my life in academia. It wasn't unusual, like in the case of Vu, that students after getting their BAs would go straight into PhD program. I didn't see myself doing for that. For once, it was probably financially impossible. Also it seemed to me that everything that was there to be said about politics was done so in ancient Greece so what was I going to add to it? Because of my senior status I now had more freedom of choosing my schedule so I packed in two days with International Relations Ethics, Empirical Analysis, Eastern European Politics (that was supposed to be the easy one), European Integration and a class National Security. A brilliant and fun Prof [xyz], an amazing and energetic Professor [Staker], a former physists turned a political science professor, a proper ex Harvard lecturer with a gentle personality, and a new professor, an Italian man, who always wore [Fruit Looms] polo shirts. 

201 words created on 10 Dec 2019

When I arrived back in the Bay Area there were two things waiting for me. [Kalea] did not pay for the second month of the rent and despite her strong promises over the phone I knew that I was not going to see the money ever again. Second thing was Tim and Barbara, my new roommates who Darren found as his replacement as the last ditch attempt. I can't pretend that I wasn't happy with that forced choice. In their forties, or maybe even fifties, they were not demographically near being students and they were a couple. But I did go off for two months to enjoy London and my abilities to interview anyone were remote plus it was still probably better than having to pay the whole rent for the whole place (which I would not be able to afford) or move out. So I accepted the situation as it was. I knew I was going to miss Darren. Maybe we had not established the quality of household that we aimed for at the beginning but we did have good time, he did on occasion give me a ride to the campus and did put on with my sublet.

200 words created on 09 Dec 2019

I had already decided to pack four semesters into three. That was the big advantage of the system in Berkeley where you paid for the school a flat fee per semester rather than paying a fee per unit. The second thing was to call Byran and ask him to cosign my student loan. Two years earlier he mentioned that whatever he can do he would help me and this was one of those times. We had tried to get me a loan before the summer but because of some problems of his credit history the loan for declined. This time, for some reason I thought we would succeed. I filled out a form with Wells Fargo and they sent the cosigners forms back to him. Later that afternoon, while waiting for the Bart at El Cerrito Station, I saw his name appearing on my phone. I sensed trouble. "What's going to happen if you die?" I remembered an offer of life insurance my bank had send me a few months earlier. I bought a policy and put Byran's name on it. A few days later the loan got approved. My financial worries had finally been sorted. At least for now.

200 words created on 08 Dec 2019

The panic set in when I received an email from the international office that informing me that due to a non payment of my fees the immigration authorities will need to be informed and my visa status would be revoked. That meant I would be going back to Poland and whatever I had been up to so far would have no meaning. At first I sent an email back waiting that I was just about receiving money from my parents and would sort the payment out. Then I went for a long aimless walk around the campus trying to figure out what to do. The entry to the campus was lined up with tables for the club run and I said hello to some people from Model UN. I was emailing but deep inside I was flooded with panic and confusion. This was the time I had to face the truth and once and for all sort out my financial problems. I wrote Tomek, my now sponsor, an urgent email asking for some more money. We talked and he agreed to lend me some more as I saw no way that my website business was ever going to take off.

200 words created on 08 Dec 2019

I didn't fix the wipers long after the trip. We drove the 80 up to Reno when it started to snow. It was dark and two lanes seemed to be blending into one. I couldn't see anything and all I could read from his eyes was a sense of panic. "Did you bring snow chains?". I never thought we would need them. All that had to be done was to keep driving and get to the destination. And that was what we did. Flynn got us a free room at Cal Neva. We went to see a magic show (also using his coupons) and then played blackjack. By then I had already learned the basic strategy so I knew that at least I could maintain myself at the table for a few hours and enjoy free glasses of wine from one of the waitresses that called my 'honey'. Later that night we took a trip to Tronics. The driver, a man with thick accent, blamed the west coast, was a fan of conspiracy theories and sweared at the dispatcher. The morning felt cold and desolate in Reno. On the way back we stopped by the last gas station in Nevada.

200 words created on 05 Dec 2019

The plan was to come to London, stay with my brother and find a temporary job (preferably legal but anything will do) and make a few thousand pounds to pay off some of the money I borrowed from Tomek. Maybe save a bit more to for the upcoming semester. The reality was that everyone was looking for someone already with 'city experience' and the name Berkeley on my CV did not seem to make the desired impression. In other words, no one in Britain seemed to care. I would look with envy at the people with suits on the tube. At the end I found an unpaid work experience at a charity running a development program on Madagascar. I was in charge of research which meant that I was compiling a list of email addresses of universities and organisations we could target for volunteers. The office was small but people were very nice and at the end the boss wrote me a nice recommendation letter. The rest of my time I spent on enjoying London nightlife and the distinct smell of the city in summer - a mix of heat, smell of sewage and beer. I was broke but happy.

200 words created on 04 Dec 2019

It was time to get back home. Vu and I walked around the campus with me standing on the stops of the library or sitting on a bench making a pose. It was important to make a permanent record that I really was here. I didn't quite feel like it. It wasn't all the hippies and revolutionaries. In fact, there were not too many revolutionaries at all apart maybe from a group of students who interrupted professor Janos' class for him crossing the picket line of the university workers. The lady kept yelling at him. He kept saying that he was under the contract to the university to provide knowledge to the students and he would remain so. It was an intense exchange but Janos kept his cool. The class (or whatever number of students appeared) was united behind him and eventually the screaming lady left. Darren was going for his master's to University of Chicago. He would still be there when I came back and in my absence he would be looking after our apartment and my car along with Clarissa, a subletee I found in the last minute of a desperate Craigslist search. Vu was transferring to [Scripps].

200 words created on 03 Dec 2019

A few days in of my stay I would learned to listen out the sounds and the watch out for the surroundings and maybe a neighbour would stop by. I read the Birdy and transformed myself to a different world for a now. Sometimes I would take a bicycle down the hill to the only market in town. I called the house my own Camp David. My retreat and getaway from the real world until the neigbhours and cousins started to arrive and I had to say goodbye to my new friend. Such was Berkeley. With its wooden desks down in the library, the smell of books and mugs of coffee being brought up to the bucket at a cafe on the Telegraph and [Durant]. With heads laid down over the books and studying for the next exam. Opinionated and always a bit impatient trying to push just those hundred few more words to get to those five pages. Always feeling a bit bellow the water but always somehow making the way out on the surface. With the hot dog stand guy without a fail standing in front of the campus with salsa music telling everyone about the world outside.

200 words created on 28 Nov 2019

I was probably one of the oldest in Prof Janos' class. And I didn't raise my hand pretty much at all. I kind of sat there and nodded my head inhaling the knowledge that was coming my way. Everything made sense so I thought there was no reason to ask any questions. Sometimes I would start working on the homework due to the econ class only to finish it at the terrace of the FSP. The weather was quite often chilly and cloudy. The northern California didn't have the warm of its southern part but at least it was more green. The roads seemed to be more homely, more continental. Like the stretch of the Highway twenty four connecting two sides of the hill via [alternating] tunnels. Back at home, in high school, I would convince my Dad to drive me to our family's summer home in Boszkowo where I would spend the first one or two weeks by myself before everyone else arrived. At first I would have hated it because it felt very boring and sometimes lonely, even scary. The soil still wet and the weather was cloudy, windy and cold. But then I learned to enjoy it. 

201 words created on 27 Nov 2019

"This is just the accessory to the iPlayer" - Professor Weber was pointing at his laptop. His was my favourite class. It always took place at the [Life Science Building]. Although political science department had its own building we had to 'borrow' others' lecture halls as it seemed no one thought it was worth to build one dedicated just to the social sciences. The lecture hall had seats for about four or five hundred people. I would always sit on the back looking down on the stage with Weber behind the pulpit explaining via microphone one of his slides. Some students had laptops with them, some played games but I stuck to my notebook, or more like a bind folder, writing down all the notes. I knew I was not going to be able to decipher most of them but somehow they would be helpful in my future studying. Weber always had some anecdote and tended to praise the GSIs as being smarter than him. He was relatively young. maybe in his 40s, and still wore Converse shoes. Originally, a student of Medicine, he decided to change his major in the middle of the studies and become a political scientist. 

201 words created on 26 Nov 2019

My first model UN conference took place at Hilton hotel at San Francisco's Union Square. I was assigned to help in the operations and the chief of staff in generally running all kind of errands. I got quickly involved and soon my tasks revolved around copy machines, running notes between the rooms and answering questions from delegates. It was a pretty big deal as the people participating in the conference came from all over the US, including Harvard, University of Pensylvania or Westpoint. The delegates were representing assigned countries and each of them would be assign to a different committee where serious topics would be discussed with the delegates passionately making their points and drafting resolutions. We would stay at the hotel for the weekend. Together with Laurel I was also responsible for patrolling the corridors at night and making sure that the noise was kept to the minimum. That mostly resulted in us coming to the loud rooms, having some coke and whiskey with the party participants and moving on to the next one. At the next club meeting I was elected the Chief of Staff meaning next year I would be in charge of running the whole operation.

200 words created on 24 Nov 2019

Chaos, long night, books spread on half of the bed. Constant feeling of catching up and being behind. Glass desk. Flying simulator while drinking Pepsi and Flat Tire. Occasional memos from the ground control. Quick naps on the lawn before moving onto an exam. Dividing readings into blocks. Closing the car boot of the station wagon. Carrying my books and heavy laptop to the library. Readers with weights of bricks. Late nights in the library trying to expand seven pages into ten just to be over with it. Nights expanding and merging into days. The concrete tables and racoons on the terrace of the Free Speech Cafe. Coffees at Milanos, online chats, meeting Laurel at the Reading room. Studying with Chris at Denny's. What have I learned from Weber. A missed call, rushed panic looking for a parking spot and driving over the red lights. Then the exam, lecture hall, the final words and the freedom. Last minute searches and subletting my room for two months. Time to leave everything and fly to London to find the solution. July the 7th, no work prospects and back to the California reality with no money in the bank account and no solutions.

200 words created on 23 Nov 2019

The underground of the Moffit Library was my usual studying destinations. Wooden desks, computer lab, late nights, all underground. The collections of books were measured in millions. The Polish section seemed to have more books in the langage that I had ever seen or heard of. The final exams period was a time of studying when library (and the Freedom Speech Cafe) were opened for twenty four hours. There was a sense of comerady and of almost a social event. Because of the parking times I could now park the car on the [Hears] avenue and walk in through the Northern Gate. My method was quite simple. Read as much as possible on the topic, take some notes, do not return the source books before the grading and then finish the actual paper on the night before it was actually due. I could do it on my oversized Sony laptop (and upgrade from the old Compaq) or on one of the computers in the lab. Then there were the final exams. Three hours of non stop writing. Putting down on your thoughts on the paper as quickly as possibly so you could just be done with it and go home.

200 words created on 21 Nov 2019

One of the main differences between college and Berkeley were the open ended questions. No more quizes with the green answer slips and [HB] pencils. The system of grading wasn't that disimilar except that almost every question on any exam required a written answer. And then there were papers, the one or two pagers written overnight usually with a minus added to an A for the various typos and gramatical mistakes. The good thing was that most of the grades were 'curved' so the final scored were adjusted to the class average. Unlike in college, the final grade would come with a minus (or plus) and looking at my results from the Middle East History class, my straight As streak was coming to an end. As for my econ class, I decided that it would be safer to take it on a pass or no pass basis. At first I felt defeat and internal dissapointment. Later however, I felt a massive relief that I could just sit at the class and inhale all the knowledge without the pressure of the judgement. After all, as the only political science major in the room, the material was a big enough challenge already.

200 words created on 19 Nov 2019

Berkeley was a validation that being a nerd was ok. Marilyn was extremely excited when I told her I got into the school. She said I was now going to be surrounded by people just like me. Barry said I should have enrolled in his university instead. I calculated my average pace of reading and understanding as twenty pages per hour. That included scribbles on the page margins. Most of them, just like the notes I took during the class, I could not read but it didn't mater. The fact of writing my thoughts alone seemed to be enough for the information to sink in. There were classes I enjoyed the most, like International Relations with Professor Weber, and the ones I felt like I was always behind. Like the Middle East History, a class I took to understand the region better but seemed to be lost in bunch of complicated names to which many people in the class nodded their heads and I didn't have time to retain before the name ones came in. I borrowed most of the books from the Moffit and one or two I managed to buy only to return them twenty four hours later.

200 words created on 18 Nov 2019

That felt like we were going to a wedding. Vu, Lean, Laurel and myself in the 1996 Honda Accord. A grey station wagon with manual transmission. Small scratches on the bumper but by now I had mastered the parallel parking. In the rain. Up the hill. We passed through Santa Cruz and stop to take photos. We saw the rock in the ocean. The windows had to be cleaned manually with a sprayer because the wipers still didn't work. Around the Big Sur I let Laurel drive on the curvy roads of the Pacific Highway. The rocks, the ocean, the breeze. I was wearing my Berkeley hoodie, Vu smiled in the camera and sang a Vietnamese song. Laurel was playing guitar. I think she did wear a flower in her hair. Photos of Lean in wearing a hat at the toy shop. Laurel posing at the gas station. Stopped by Nepente and sat on the bench overlooking the Big Sur. Silence of the smooth ocean underneath us. We kept driving. When we got all the way to San Luis Obispo. We stopped by Vons. I sat down with a can of pears and reminisced my great grandmother's garden and tree. 

201 words created on 15 Nov 2019

It was early in the morning and I was sitting outside of Starbucks sipping my cooling coffee. I was thinking of my Dad, how at the age of maybe three or four we drove up the railway bridge. He talked about the hills of San Francisco and how much steeper they were out there. "One day I would go there visit" I thought. And here I was, sitting in the middle of the city. Darren was in Napa Valley. This was a day after I met Flynn. We met online, of course, and we chose the El Cerito BART station as our meeting spot. I picked him up from the curb on Saturday evening. We drove up the Freeway [80], passed the [San Rafael] bridge and arrived into Cache Creek Casino. First we played black jack and then, after losing the money, we ate at the Filipino buffet. I didn't know where the things were going. The school had been great, the finances more than poor. The silence of the moment however, was to be frozen, preserved and to stay with me forever. I walked back to the car. Maybe there was still enough time to drive to Napa Valley.

200 words created on 14 Nov 2019

Turn right into Shattuck and drive ahead. To your left is a church where a priest dies during a sermon. The Pope is dying. To the right a CVS with cigarettes waiting to be bought. Pass the tunnel, stop at the traffic lights. Enter Albany. To the right a Starbucks with a puking girl. Wells Fargo with no money. A gas station to the left and Safeway with ice cream. Solano Avenue, a cinema with the Fallen. Pass San Pablo, slow down for the stop signs. Turn right into Jackson. Darren's car parked in the garage. Neighbour with his underwear. Walk downstairs. The laundry is to the right. Rest. Go back to the car and drive down the hill. Right and left into the Freeway 80. Fifth gear. Take the exit onto the Bay Bridge. Pass through the toll and soak up the view. Slow down before the curve. Exit onto Folsom. Or the next exit if you're heading to Castro. Find a parking spot. Get a rice cooker at Walgreen's. Or drive to the Pier 7. Go to the end and look into the dark sky. Splash a coin in the water and promise you will be coming back.

200 words created on 13 Nov 2019

Asian Ghetto was a small set of restaurants located on the south part of the campus. The university was not the only source of life in town but it certainly in its centre. Because of its student population many of places, like the Thai Basil, was tailored to the low budget of the student body. You could get a good Pad Pai Prik for five dollars and have a free tea with it (but you have to pour it yourself). Telegraph Avenue was the main streets leading to the campus. There you had pizza shop, a shop with vast collections of CDs, some clothing store, Cafe Milano to the right and a Mexican hot dog man just in front of the campus. The first buildings to the right was the Sproul Hall. To the left a student cantine with the chai tea and honey. Wheeler Hall to the right and then Campaignile Tower overlook the Bay Area and the Golden Gate Bridge reminding me to appreciate the place. DOE library, with its beautiful reading room, connected via a tunnel to Mofit with its computers and Free Speech Cafe. Pass LSB downhill to Oxford Street lined with parking meters on coins. 

201 words created on 12 Nov 2019

There was a cloud hanging over those experiences that could not be further deferred or ignored. I did bring some of Barry's money from my last trip in Los Angeles but that was probably all I was going to see. The time was running out and the reality was that I wasn't not sure how I was going to pay for the rest of my semester not to mention the rest of my studies. I did get some web customers in San Francisco - a Techno Man who wanted to promote his business, a hybrid between circus and a dj, and [Manuel], a Nigerian man needed to learn how to develop a website for his boss's website. But the grand plan was failing and all I saw was that wall of uncertainity which with every week and month was getting closer and closer. And I was scared to see what it was behind. I sat in the Middle East history class telling myself that it was the experience I was supposed to enjoy the most. It was gloomy outside. I could've called Barry but it was probably going to be just another promise. It was just me and that classroom.

200 words created on 11 Nov 2019

I met Lauren on Tuesday evening at a meeting of Model UN. My birthday was coming up, it was dark outside and I was heading for a depression. I needed new friends. It turned out that we were taking the same PS2 class with professor Janos - an old Hungarian man who spoke with an accent and still used [foiled slides] for his presentations. It was an introductionary class and I was one of the older students but I guess because of that Lauren thought of me as a sort of political science guru. We would meet at a library and I would try to explain her what we were talking in the class about. Her plan was to get high one day and smell every book in the library. She had tried other clubs. The Christian meeting was good for the free food but the Model UN was much more interesting. After the club meeting I would drive back home. Darren and I would cross the Bay Bridge to see a midnight transvestite show at the Stud bar on Folsom and [8th]. We would be home early enough to finish my two pager for my morning session with Jessica.

200 words created on 09 Nov 2019

I wasn't sure I belonged to the campus but when I read that ten percent of the grade is due to active participation I decided it was time to start speaking up. The class with Professor Weber was held at the Life and Science building and it was always a treat. I would get myself a hot chai tea with milk and head for eighty minutes of enlightment. The discussion session was held just after the class and this is where all topics related to the world were discussed. Elections in Iraq, China, whatever came to mind. We would sit in a circle of wooden chairs at the Wheeler buildings while it was already dark outside. When I handed my first two pager I was scared. Speaking was easy but getting your written thoughts validated was a different matter. A week later the paper had some marks on it but overall comment was 'nice work'. That was good enough. I was slowly starting to feel like an insider. Milano or Free Speech Cafe was where I would now treat myself a white chocolate mocha. I made sure to return the glass to the collection bucket. It was Berkeley after all. 

201 words created on 09 Nov 2019

The assignments consisted of books and readers which were chunks of photocopies assembled together from various sources. They often exceeded one thousand pages. Darren and I had just enough connection to establish a sort of functioning households without necessary calling ourselves best friends. We shared his couch, watching his DVD sets, using Karren Walker's one liners while drinking rose wine and pretending to be reenacting the household from Friends. He had introduced me to some of his friends and we would drive in his car to hang out in San Francisco. At parties we would talk about electricity bills. My morning routine involved driving the honda to the bottom of the hill and then getting bus 43. On Monday afternoons I would drive all the way to campus and then hunt for an empty spot on Oxford street. It was important to be there to hit the window between 4:00pm when people were finishing a class and 4:10pm when new ones like me would arrive. My room had a desk, the new bed and a wardrobe. It also had an in-suite bathroom but because it was the only one with a shower Darren would have to use it as well. 

201 words created on 08 Nov 2019

The first lecture took place in the Pimentel [Hall] part of the science department. A few days earlier I walked around the campus trying to memorise the position of the buildings from the maps as not to look lost and new. It was a grey morning and there were already people congregating in front of the lecture hall. Inside was a place that looked like an auditorium with a podium in the middle. There must have been more than two hundred people in the room. It was the American politics and the teacher talked about how the shape of politics had changed and how campaigning for a candidate never stopped. The lectures were to be conducted by the professor himself but the discussions group was led by a Russian-American PhD student. She lived with her parents in San Francisco, used the word lame quite a bit and while nice seemed to project a level of toughness and hard work. I went to see my major advisor and managed to convert the credit for the class I took with Ms. Scarfee. The gsi replied to my email saying there were better classes to take and wished me luck with my studying.

200 words created on 08 Nov 2019

We first met online and then in San Diego. Vu was staying at his parents' place over Christmas and we were going to drive back to Berkeley together. Us, my new station wagon 1996 Honda Accord, the boxes, the golf clubs and the bear. Before the departure we saw the Sideways and then went for a meal in Hillcrest. He kept asking me what I thought about the movie. He was a future scientist and I was just one of those romantic majors. "It was good" I answered. We drove to LA by the coast. We didn't get to the Bay Area until late at night. There was snow on the freeway so we had to take a detour via 126. Or the other way around. I dropped him off at his place in the hills and rolled back on a neutral all the way to Albany. We hang out almost every evening. We would go to get spicy chicken from a Korean place on the North side and then take a bus to his studio. We chatted, laughed and drank Vietnamese coffee. Once we drank wine at the bus stop. Vu was the first friend I made in Berkeley.

200 words created on 06 Nov 2019

The Bay Area was not that much warmer than Poland. I was picked up from the curb of the arrivals of the SFO by Darren Yip. He drove a dark [Honda CRV] and we had never met in person. He was an international student from Hong Kong and also used to study in Santa Monica College. That, and a few chats, was all the connection we had. Despite that, I was going to spend the first few nights at his place in Oakland and then we were going to move to a two bedroom apartment in Albany. There we would become roommates for the foreseeable future. The place was on a hill overlooking a town and the BART overground tracks. Darren's room was going to have a balcony and mine will have the bathroom with shower. We met the landlord, a young Chinese guy, in the living room. We went over the contract and the place was ours. The apartment was bare. Daren was going to rent a U-Haul and move his things to the living room. I had to get a bed from a local store on the University Avenue and fly to Los Angeles to get my car.

200 words created on 04 Nov 2019

One of the conditions of being accepted into Berkeley was that my semester was not going to start until Spring. I did try to negotiate by writing an email from Santa Monica Library but the response had never come. I didn't want to seem ungrateful so I humbly accepted the offer. That meant that I was going to spend the next three months in Poland and not come back to California until early January. The autumn in Poland was rainy, dark and cold. I spent the days between reading the Count of Monte Christo in Tomek's old room (mine had been converted to a bedroom) and the living room. There I attended a daily ritual of drinking coffee with my parents and reporting on the daily movements in the stock price of Google. The TV was filled with the pictures and sounds of Ukraine's Orange Revolution. I was lying on my bed staring at the bill that had just arrived from Berkeley. [Fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty two] dollars. Tomek had volunterred to lend me the first ten thousand and there was an option of instalments which meant that at least I could survive for the first few months.

200 words created on 02 Nov 2019

It was a movie called Vincent that I watched when I decided to choose Berkeley. A young boy who dreamed of becoming an astronuat. I traded one dream for another, a bigger one. After leaving the 2nd street cinema I took the Blue Bus to Westwood. It was already dark when I got to the campus. The same place visited with Akira on our first trip to Los Angeles on that autumn October afternoon when the sun was slowly getting ready to set. I walked around the buildings and touched the walls as to apologise for the choice I had made. This was the place I dreamed of when picking up my high school diploma. The same place I was trying to project my body to. I had come here with Ranier to take a photo in front of the Bruin and with Diego when we sat in front of the library and he would tell me about the zombies walking around the ground ahead of the final exams. I came here with Thansamay in those days when Reagan died, when he pulled down my trousers and tore them down. The red brick buildings I was not going to attend.  

202 words created on 02 Nov 2019

The Zoot Suit Riots is what I learned about during my last months in LA. Because I couldn't leave the States for more than six months without losing my visa rights, I had to take additional class and stay in Santa Monica over the summer. It was the outfit I suggested to Barry we should be wearing once we get the funding. He tried to convince me to stay and enrol into his own university. I kindly refused and instead took from him a check, with eleven thousand dollars written on it. A check that was never going to clear. Amy was gone to Turkey and I shared the place with Zola, her daughter who lived in the other room. She once fed me Mahi fish inspired by the South Beach Diet. For Amy's departing flight we drove to the airport in a taxi but now I could pick her up in my new Honda. On the way home she would leave forward and then backwards every time it lost the monumentum while I changed the gears. I never told her about being accepted to Berkeley. I feared the disappointment so instead, I said I needed to go back home.

200 words created on 31 Oct 2019

I packed the car with boxes, golf clubs I bought with Diego and that bear that Tommy got me for my birthday when we drove to the Grand Canyon. It was late when we entered the park so we slept in the car at one of of the parking lots and arrived to Las Vegas one day late. Two years earlier, I drove the same route with Akira. Late at night we drove through Highway 89, managed to get to Prescott before running out of gas and later, when the sun was already up, we got pulled over by police for driving four miles per hour too fast. On those two occasions it was a rental but now I finally had my own car. Kamil wanted to get rid of his Honda Accord so he convinced me to buy it from him for five thousand dollars to be paid in instalments over the next ten months. A silver station wagon with a manual transition. We stood in at the back alley of Amy's place admiring and testing my new acquisition. On my first ride I took the [101] to the valley to see Eric and show off my new acquisition.

200 words created on 30 Oct 2019

The work at Barry's continued as usual. I would come to his house and sit at the table in the living room. I would still be working on Flash and also doing some edits in Final Cut Pro. A year or so earlier Tomek had asked me to buy him a video camera so I had some old tapes from where I lived in Palm Desert. Me waking up early to catch the SunLink to Riverside or Akira looking at the camera driving me back from Palm Springs. Scenes from Los Angeles, Universal Studios. Rainer driving from Manhattan Beach to the sounds of Foo Fighters. Happy people. I had met Witold and Marek, two Polish entrepreneurs who were going to make millions selling diet pills and I was going to help drive the sales through a website. They were very impressed by the ease of my English conversations. Barry would occasionally come out with some money from his brother in Victorvile or an old aunt from Marilyn side. But the clock was ticking and that Romanian bank manager from Wells Fargo, Snejana I think was her name, was just a character that we all wished to believe that really existed.

200 words created on 28 Oct 2019

Sean I think was his name. We met an evening before and headed to get a dinner and some pretty expensive wine. I wasn't paying. I wore a white dotted shirt and fully enjoyed absorbing all the compliments coming my way. He worked in Delaware, something to be with banking. Later on his friend would join us making jokes about smoking pot. When the bill came I didn't even pretend to try paying. Triple digits was all I saw on the bill. When the train stopped at Washington DC all the headache was gone. I was going to stay at a hostel again and meet Ania, my high school friend who was doing one of the work holidays programs at a nearby theme park. We walked around downtown DC in the middle of the night and drank wine of the stairs of the hostel. The next day I took a train to Baltimore and caught a plane back to Los Angeles. We drove straight to West Hollywood after David picked me up from the airport. I had to stop by Wells Fargo to get some money. When I checked my account balance it showed exactly zero dollars. I was broke.

200 words created on 28 Oct 2019

Sean I think was his name. We met an evening before and headed to get a dinner and some pretty expensive wine. I wasn't paying. I wore a white dotted shirt and fully enjoyed absorbing all the compliments coming my way. He worked in Delaware, something to be with banking. Later on his friend would join us making jokes about smoking pot. When the bill came I didn't even pretend to try paying. Triple digits was all I saw on the bill. When the train stopped at Washington DC all the headache was gone. I was going to stay at a hostel again and meet Ania, my high school friend who was doing one of the work holidays programs at a nearby theme park. We drank wine of the stairs of the hostel and I headed back to Los Angeles the next day.

143 words created on 27 Oct 2019

The next time I fell asleep was the subway heading to Wall Street. I woke up in Brooklyn and ended up walking by to New York by the bridge. I was going to spend my first night in New York at a hostel close to Harlem. It wasn't too bad apart from a distinct smell and the sounds of human bodies. The next day I was moving to Hilton just opposite of the former site of the World Trade Center. This is where Tommy joined me and we moved to our room on the 30th floor overlooking what was now a concrete whole left over from the buildings. Tommy was tired and needed to sleep so we didn't get to see the Empire State Building until late at night. Of course, I did not find out what happens to the ducks in winter. With Tommy gone I boarded a morning bus to Philadelphia. I had the Philly cheese and walked to the site where Tom Hanks used to work as a lawyer. I woke up to a humming of air conditioning and the sight of cloudy skies outside. My head hurt from all the wine I had a night before.

200 words created on 26 Oct 2019

At the end I chose Berkeley was because of money. Or rather lack of them. Being admitted as a transfer student gave me a few extra months to figure out what I was going to do. Barry kept saying he was finally going to get a loan so he can repay me the rest of the money he owed me. About fifteen thousand dollars. Apparently, he found a bank manager at Wells Fargo he was going to approve it in just a matter of day. Or weeks. The amount would be enough to pay for the first semester and leave some more for the living expenses. Later, once he got back on his feet I could be driving back to Los Angeles and work remotely from Berkeley. Of course, none of that was going to happen and that check for eleven thousand dollars was never going to clear. But I decided to ignore it and continue living the dream of an artist. For the work that I did get pay I booked tickets to Boston. With Barry's camera in hand, to the sound of Raspberry Beret I waved Tommy goodbye and departed on my first trip to the East Coast.

200 words created on 22 Oct 2019

I was at the pay phone by the college explaining to Mom and Dad about my dilema with going to Berkeley and potentially having to take a summer school. The ticket with LOT had already been booked and we were supposed to go on our trip to Turkey together. The ticket was refundable but the trip was symbolic. Dad promised to take me to Ankara once I get my first tooth. I didn't want to hurt Mom's feelings. "Don't worry about us." A few days earlier I had three Heinekens at the bar in Santa Monica pier to mark  thedecision that I decided to accept Berkeley. The acceptance letter came with a blue folder stuck in a large yellow envelope. It had been what I dreamed of and I couldn't say no. I didn't have a heart to tell Amy about it. She had hidden the letter from UCLA under the table and waited for me when I got back home. I took a bus and sort of touched the walls on the UCLA campus. Another move, another uncertainty. Delayed by a few months so I could go home and think about how I am going to pay that all.

201 words created on 21 Oct 2019

Amy came to my graduation with Isan. "Jack, my best international student!" she proudly boasted to anyone. The other one was a Korean guy who now was at UCLA and didn't call her as often as she would like. If I were to get accepted to UCLA as well she would offer me a one hundred dollar discount and I could take the bus to the university. Arkan, her other frequent Turkish friend, was not invited. His feet smelled which deemed him unworthy the visit. The speaker on the stage was [x y], the former secretary of transport under Clinton. Ronald Reagan had just passed away so there was a sense of nostalgia. There were also some references to Dean's campaign. The speaker was an American Japanese who spent his time in the internment camps and who spoke to his friendship with other white professor who was present in the audience. At the end he told us that the only words who wanted us to remember was to "dream, dream, dream!". Afterwards we went to the Polish restaurant at the [6th] street. Kamil insisted that I shouldn't pay. We took a photo and ended up at Mickey's in West Hollywood.

200 words created on 20 Oct 2019

My Criagslist business brought me a few more customers. There was Alfred, a man from Mexico, who I would meet at Starbucks or once at Santa Monica Library to help with design of his business. There was Jan, an owner of a computer store in Marina Del Rey who I would teach Dreamweaver for his classes. And there was Josh, a movie producer who I helped designing a website for a documentary he was making about Cheech and Chong. Others were a movie music composer, a model, a makeup artist. Also a restaurant booking table entrepreneur (a rocky relationship) whom I wish I had the the technical skills to help out. There was also a guy I didn't show up to meet because I was enjoying creative break at Barry's house which I was supposed to be taking care of while the whole family was gone. Except that Barry never got to leave. There were the movies I saw. The Dreamers, Lost in Translation, Last Sammurai, [Dogville] and, finally, the Vincent. Three bones Tony at the beach. The geologist in the closet. The hike I didn't do. And then the peaceful drive at dawn. Downtown LA, the 101, heading north.

200 words created on 17 Oct 2019

Barry took out a riffle and said he was going to find the perpetrators and serve them the justice. We were standing at the living of his house on the Sawyer Street. The riffle did not have any bullets but he had already triggered some concern from the security when he left the door opened leaving the gun in plain sight. Marilyn, did you hear what happened to Jacek last night? He got robbed by some schmacks in Hollywood. No harm had been done. When the police officer asked me what gun was used my response was silver. It was not the only reason I was there. I also needed some money and the incident seemed to be a good trigger to bring the issue up. We went to the other room, which now became the permanent studio, and Barry took out the checkbook. There was the usual feeling of impatient and suspension when Barry was writing the numbers down. One thousand dollars. That was going to be enough to get me through my East Coast trip. He didn't ask me to wait until a week from Tuesday which meant that this time the check was not going to bounce.

200 words created on 16 Oct 2019

Khan and I decided to meet at Santa Monica Promenade. I sort of imagined we were going to spend a day like in the [Day in Paris] I saw a few days earlier. We had a meal at a Thai restaurant. He was wearing a black polo shirt. We walked to the beach. He was from Orange County and it seemed for him and Thansamay beach was part of the life. I couldn't understand why they didn't enjoy California even more. They lived there. After Santa Monica we drove to Hollywood to the Pink's to get the famous hot dogs. I think Tommy had mentioned them earlier. It was the place where celebrities would go to get their hot dogs. Then we walked to Abby's to have a drink. It wasn't a date or anything but it wasn't just a friends-to-friends encounter either. We didn't kiss and didn't hold hands. At the end, when we were walking back to the car parked on the La Cienega, "three suspects" walked out of a car, pulled out a gun and made us give them our money. I only had seven dollars but luckily Khan had over one hundred. He saved our lives.

200 words created on 15 Oct 2019

Apart from school, my social life was limited to David, with whom I would visit West Hollywood on Wednesday nights. We would drive at his Toyota and then Lexus and stop by Mickey's to a see a guy whipping a woman on stage and an old man sitting on a folded chair and sticking dollar banknotes of what we suspected was his pension behind a thong of a go go dancer dancing in front of him. We once decided to drive along Hollywood Boulevard just to see if there were any prostitutes around. Failing to find them, David decided to stop by a bar and ask one of the patrons where we could find them. We were told to look for them on the side streets. Still, with no success we drove home, stopping by Ralph's on the way listening to the romantic songs on the 103.5 FM. At weekends we would stop by Denny's in Santa Monica for banana split from a friendly waiter. We didn't have that much in common. We once saw the Dreamers at the 2nd street cinema and along with a movie about a porn star those were the only cinematic experiences we shared together.

200 words created on 14 Oct 2019

With the university applications sent out, this was going to be my last semester at a community college. I could now only take one class and enjoy the life of Santa Monica. That would save me quite a bit of money but as the life has it, it was also exactly the moment when Barry ran out of money. I sat there thinking about what my next steps were going to be. I excluded the option of working in a restaurant. I spoke on the phone to my parents and informed them the the good times were over. Luckily, Tomek had moved to London earlier last year so I could rely on him to lend me some money. He was always a much better saver than me. With no other alternative, I decided not to worry about the future. I would watch late night Connan, [j c show], and reruns of Oprah. I wake up late. With no money I felt no obligation to be on time but I still showed up at Barry's. And the cinema on the 2nd had now become my white chocolate mocha. And I even found a small gig with Josh, a documentary movie producer. 

201 words created on 10 Oct 2019

- Jack, Jack! Jack, they got Sadam! I ran to the living room to see what was going on. Amy was standing in the living room staring into the TV with a celebratory grin on her face as if it was herself that dig out the man from the hole. Sadam Husein had been captured and we could now all live in peace. At least that was was probably going on with Amy. Living with her was an adventure. Her dinners were all right but the meatballs were quite runny and on one or two occasions I had to throw them into the trash until she once discovered it and grimly asked me why I had done it. She cared for her students, with her cooking, orange juice that she would keep in the freezer so I apologised and never threw the food out again. Other than that the household was mostly conflict free as long as the rent had been paid on time. Amy would keep my room tidy. She was of a slightly paranoid type. Once she almost accused a neighbor of stealing her tooth implants only to discover that she had left them somewhere in the garden.

200 words created on 09 Oct 2019

The wind was blowing and the sun was shining. I have just landed back in California after the two week Christmas trip and this was what it felt like to be back home again. The future was bright and I was enjoying that vast difference between the biting humid cold and snow, the morning of boarding of the ATR42 to Munich and now being back on the California land. We almost missed the flight. The grades had been posted already, all As. My job was maybe not that secure, we did have to move to Barry's office and I knew the money was going to be the problem but I decided not to think about it for now. I was just glad to be back. Before leaving I had to finally apply to universities and I just knew one of them had to accept me. UCLA, Long Beach or Berkeley. Regardless, I knew that I was not going to be able to afford them. I promised Mr. M to take care of his motorcycles. But for now I wanted to just enjoy that moment of walking on a street in Venice Beach inhaling the ocean breeze and feeling absolutely free.

200 words created on 08 Oct 2019

The money now kept flowing in. If things continued that way I could afford the university and I would never have to work at a restaurant. I could finally afford ticket to Poland. I decided to surprise my parents and flew in to Poland for Christmas. It was a cold winter night when my plane had finally arrived in Wroclaw from Munich. I sat by myself in the train compartment listening to, with my red bag, thinking how improbable that was. Barry lent me his camera so I could film everything. Dominika, Ada and Kaziu waited for me at the platform. Ada drove me home with 'dimmed' lights. Mom just let me in when I dialed the intercom. Tomek had moved to London so it was going to be their first Christmas alone. I spent the one two years earlier with Akira in Tijuana and a one a year later at Byran's with Kevin. I had nice bathrobe with me, the one I bought at Santa Monica Promenade from Banana Republic. That was when I walked along the street with Akira, finally enjoying the lifestyle I could afford. It was just two weeks of what it felt to be rich.

200 words created on 05 Oct 2019

When with cash Barry liked to just give me a pile of money and make it count. We sat in his car in front of the bus stop at Pico Bouelvard waiting for the bus. I saw the bus coming in but I let it pass as I did enjoy speding time with him. Sometimes he would give me a ride all the way to Santa Monica. I would drive and Barry would take his guitar making up words on spot as other cars were passing us by. I would love to say we were driving towards the sunset but usually those were late hours. Once Em ran to my room screaming that there was a stalker outside the apartment and she was going to call the police. I looked through the window only to see that Barry never took off. He fell asleep behind the wheel while the car was running. His movies were not just of mice but also of a sleeping guy behind the counter at gas station. He would talk to trash cans. He captured those scenes on his small [HDI] video recorder. People came and went but I stayed. Out of desperation. Out of enjoyment.

200 words created on 04 Oct 2019

Barry created a black and white video clip with scenes of Los Angeles from I guess 1920s. Amanda's Groove is playing in the background coming out of those futuristic looking speakers - long slightly rounded with small silver plates attached to them. If you see the sand dunes... The landlord is taking us the court for the three month of overdue rent and Barry's plan is to use the video to settle the bill. At some point the sheriff will get involved and order Barry out of the office. In the meantime, the money suddenly is still there but it continues to be a problem. It sometimes takes me a few phone calls to finally get Barry say he will pay me. But eventually he does and I keep coming back. He sees me as a person that will make things happen. At least that's what he tells Merylin, his wife, when she shows up. Her face carries concern every time she stops by our shack located at the exit from Freeway 10. She is a lawyer. I am working on embedding talking mannequins into an old TV frame. I am thinking of buying myself a pair of yellow shoes.

200 words created on 02 Oct 2019

Barry's office was an Apple computer, big screen, a lamp that would turn itself off or on with a touch. Three rooms. A living room with a couch, old radio set and a painting. A kitchen with mice, those were the actors. Smell everywhere. In the adjacent room there was another room where Fang Choi would work on his graphic design. At the beginning there was another guy. I once gave him a ride back to Downtown Los Angeles in Barry's Toyota SUV. My job was to come every evening and design new Flash animations. To create an interactive website that would bring Barry's work to the world. He was a former commercial director, a member of Director's guild. His neck was damaged in a helicopter crash while filming. There were fish flying in every part of the animation. And mice. And mannequins with voice overs and music mostly done by Barry. There were also some clips that were more structured. There were a few ideas. Create a mannequin that responds to your comment, play TV programs that would respond to your mood (intuitive TV) and mod-u-larity, a website to create movies. And we could write you a personal symphony.

200 words created on 01 Oct 2019

There were two bus networks I could use to get to Barry's office - Los Angeles' Metropolitan Network and Santa Monica's Blue Bus. You could change from one to another with some extra transfer fee so I would sometimes combine the two on my way back from work. The bus number 30 would take me from a stop at Venice Boulevard all the way to Santa Monica. There I could change to number Blue Bus No.8 which would take me straight to Emmy's place. Before getting on board I would take a bit of break and walk around downtown. Evenings were cool but still nice, the ocean waves and 3rd Street Promenade with the sounds of last musicians and occasional White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks to reward myself for the day. The sweet taste would add to the feeling of being there and then. There was a man in a suit sitting on a bench near the bus stop having a friendly conversation with a homeless man. Even when the MTA buses went on thirty day strike I would still take the Blue Bus's number 7 from Pico Boulevard and didn't get off until downtown just to smell the ocean.

200 words created on 30 Sep 2019

On Saturday mornings I would pack my clothes into a basket and carry it under my arm into the laundromat. The Ocean Park Boulevard was located on the south side of Santa Monica so it was missing some of the glamour of its northern part filled with nice restaurants and coffee shops filled with people relaxing in the sun. There was a liquor store in just next to Emmy's house, further up a motel. The laundromat was one block down towards the ocean. The air would occasionally be punctured by the sound of engines coming from private jets taking off the nearby airport. The breeze would often bring chilling mist and overcast. There was a library located just opposite of the laundromat so after putting the coins in the laundry I would head there to read books or browse the internet looking for love and new connections. Later I would take the bus down to the beach and walk from Santa Monica to Venice while listening to my CD player listening to Perfect. My room had a terrible reception and no wi-fi so in the evenings I would walk back to the college to a pay phone to call home.

200 words created on 27 Sep 2019

Emmy would cook dinner on a daily basis. It wasn't too great, usually spaghetti with some meatballs and running sauce, but it was food after all which helped me to save some money. The rent was 600 dollars and my room was quite spacious. There was a nicely sized bed in the middle, and a wooden desk in the corner, built-in wardrobe and a small TV in the corner from which I would be watching daily night shows of Charlie Rose, Connan O'Brian or Oprah. The other bedroom was occupied by Emmy's daughter and Emmy herself would either sleep on the couch in the living room or a made up bed place in a small closet underneath stairs leading to the second floor. She would either watch Turkish comedy shows, often with her Turkish friend Arkan, coming in through the satellite dish located in the front garden or listen to one of those talk radio stations with conspiracy theories. All of that accompanied by a constant smoking, smell of which was sunk into every corner of the apartment. There was a laundry place but students (me) would need to pack their clothes and walk down the street to the laundromat.

200 words created on 26 Sep 2019

I missed the simplicity of the desert. Monday mornings would always start with the lab and I did remember getting to school going through the 23rd then left at Pearl passing through a few kids that were on their way to school too. There was a campus police department building, international student club where I would pick up ads to look for a new place and then cross the street and straight to the class with Biology lab. There I made some friends, my lab mates Freddy, Emanuel and Kinga. Freddy would take bus from downtown Los Angeles and he wanted to get into UCLA. The bio teacher was a young guy of Armenian descend who would specialise in Marine biology. There were going to be quizzes every week. Then there was a pol sci class (Ferdie was also there) with a teacher who did seem like he rather be somewhere else. At his first class a man started shouting that the teacher was hired by the CIA to indoctrinate the students. On the way back I would pass through [x] street with sidewalk made in parts of sinking rubber tiles to accommodate overgrowing roots of the nearby [x] trees. 

201 words created on 24 Sep 2019

- My accountant was addicted to cocaine. I'm sorry. I will pay you in cash. That was Barry. I had just left the 1st Federal Bank conveniently located on the Ocean Drive just down from my new house. A few days earlier I had deposited there a bounced check only to just discover that my account was overdrawn. I had spent the money already on the rent and the bank manager was furious. Barry kept saying that everything was fine and those were just small cash flow issues. He would be paying me in cash from now on. When he tried to pay the landlord for what turned out to be a three month overdue rent in a movie clip, I knew there were reasons to be worried. But Barry did pay me back and I wanted to believe in the vision. I did not want to go back look for a job in a restaurant and I did enjoy taking a bus to be part of the studio at Robertson and Freeway 10 filled with actor mice, mannequins, flying fish and an old TV set. Fangchou, Barry and I. Changing the future of the internet. We were finally somebody.

200 words created on 23 Sep 2019

The best part about living in Santa Monica was that for seventy five cents of a fare and a fifteen minute bus ride, I could be in downtown Santa Monica. I could walk along the Third Street Promenade and then head to the ocean. With my Sony CD Player I would just walk through from the pier all the way to the Venice Beach. My feet cold from the ocean water. This was how I imagined this place when a few years earlier I sat down in front of my computer trying to find out online the names of hostels or details of the transportation. It was a different place from its photos. None of them showed the homeless but also none of the photos could reflect the chill of late night breeze of the smell of the ocean. The pier was not an image anymore but a living thing with its people, a man drawing your name in fancy fonts for or a one-man orchestra. They would for the next several weeks become my stopover on the way home, a moment of reflection, escape and a hope that at the end it was all going to be worth it.

200 words created on 20 Sep 2019

The best part about living in Santa Monica was that for seventy five cents of a fare and a fifteen minute bus ride, I could be in downtown Santa Monica. I could walk along the Third Street Promenade and then head to the ocean. With my Sony CD Player I would just walk through from the pier all the way to the Venice Beach. My feet cold from the ocean water. This was how I imagined this place when a few years earlier I sat down in front of my computer trying to find out online the names of hostels or details of the transportation. It was a different place from its photos. None of them showed the homeless but also none of the photos could reflect the chill of late night breeze of the smell of the ocean. The pier was not an image anymore but a living thing with its people, a man drawing your name in fancy fonts for or a one-man orchestra. They would for the next several weeks become my stopover on the way home, a moment of reflection, escape and a hope that at the end it was all going to be worth it.

200 words created on 19 Sep 2019

The best part about living in Santa Monica was that for seventy five cents of a fare and a fifteen minute bus ride, I could be in downtown Santa Monica. I could walk along the Third Street Promenade and then head to the ocean. With my Sony CD Player I would just walk through from the pier all the way to the Venice Beach. My feet cold from the ocean water. This was how I imagined this place when a few years earlier I sat down in front of my computer trying to find out online the names of hostels or details of the transportation. It was a different place from its photos. None of them showed the homeless but also none of the photos could reflect the chill of late night breeze of the smell of the ocean. The pier was not an image anymore but a living thing with its people, a man drawing your name in fancy fonts for or a one-man orchestra. They would for the next several weeks become my stopover on the way home, a moment of reflection, escape and a hope that at the end it was all going to be worth it.

200 words created on 29 Dec 2018

I would love to say that I lived in one of the houses by the beach but that would be a lie. With my limited budget I managed to find a room in an apartment building located near the Ocean Park Blvd and the 23rd. My landlord (and roommate at the same time) was going to be an eighty year old Turkish woman. The house smelled of cigarettes but when she told me I could have the place for six hundred dollars, which included food, I agreed without any hesitation. It was ten minute walk to the college and was still considered part of Santa Monica - two conditions I was not going to compromise on. The bus from outside the house could take me directly to downtown and if I wanted to walk to the ocean it wasn't more than fifteen minutes. My room was quite spacious with a big bed, a solid desk and a small TV. The street outside was a bit noisy but overall it wasn't really bad at all. The chill of ocean breeze coming through the opened window was enough to convince me that I had made the right decision.

196 words created on 27 Dec 2018

The check from Barry bounced. I guess everything was too good to be true after all. "I'm so sorry. My former accountant was addicted to cocaine and he messed everything up. I will pay you in cash". Barry sounded very relaxed when I immediately phoned him. Now, in the normal circumstances I probably should never step my foot back in the office. But this was not a normal situation. My bank account was now officially overdrawn and I had no choice but to believe Barry. I wanted this whole thing to be real. I did like coming to that office. It took almost an hour and about two buses but it was worth it. I was working on something that I really loved. Deep inside I knew, even when I was telling the bus driver about my new job, that it was a bit too good to be true. Yes, Barry was a former movie director but it was probably going to take us a while before we could claim to have changed the world. But Barry kept paying me on more or less a regular basis so I thought I would stick around for however long I could.

199 words created on 27 Dec 2018

I was sitting in the front seat of the Blue Bus Number 7 riding down the Pico Boulvard towards my new home in Santa Monica. I had already phoned Mom to tell her that I got a new job. Not just any job but a work in an office with people that appreciated my talents. It didn't matter that the building smelled of mice and my new coworkers were slightly strange. This was what America was about. I was going to be making more money than I ever would working at Michael's putting up with constant screaming. And that was just the beginning. I was looking at my advance check looking forward to deposit and so I could finally start paying rent with my own money. There were not too many people on the bus and the driver started asking me how my day was. I told him that I got a new job. "What's the job?" "I'm going to work in Hollywood" "Working on a movie?" "Something like that" "Wow, good luck!" I knew I was slightly making things up but the driver was very happy for me and the future looked so wonderful on that warm California night.

200 words created on 03 Apr 2018

Within minutes of our conversation, Barry was showing me some of the movies he was editing. Many of them involved mannequins and mice. There was also a floating fish (sometimes dozens of them) with voice over what it seemed to be a modified voice of Barry in several pitches. Everything seemed so bizarre. I was fascinated. Barry then started to explain to me that his goal was to finally create an internet TV channel responsive to needs of individual users. There were actually a lot of other ideas that we discussed. The overall message I took out of the conversation was that eventually we were going to rule the world. The conversation became very interesting when we finally started discussing how I could make the websites more interactive. YouTube was still an unknown word so my ability to upload movies and then add some graphics to it became very valuable. When the conversation shifted to the number of hours per week I could commit to working in the office it was hard for me to contain excitement. Barry then asked me if "five hundred dollars per week would be ok for now?"

192 words created on 03 Apr 2018

'Mystical' was probably the word that came to my mind when I saw Barry for the first time. He was sitting in a big office chair facing a large Apple monitor. The blinds in the rooms were closed and there was only a dim light coming from one of the standing lamps. When I entered the room there was just a silence (with Barry staring at the screen) as if Barry was not to be interrupted without him speaking first. He was intensely looking at the screen and finally turn his entire body on the chair to face me. I couldn't tell how old he was my my guess would have been somewhere around fifty. He had long hair and I noticed that there was a mouse sitting on his right shoulder. His voice was very warm and friendly. After the initial awkwardness he started asking me where I was from and what I was doing in California. My every answer met with his enthusiasm and he was soon telling me that we should start making TV shows in Polish. Fong Choi had already explained that Barry was a movie director so I began to inquire how I could help.

200 words created on 03 Apr 2018

The breakthrough came a few days later when I received an email from someone named Fong Choi. He needed to learn webdesign and Flash to help his boss with uploading his movies online. The trip was going to involve an hour journey (and two buses) but it seemed to have a potential to bring some stability to my life. The 'office' was actually a one story building near an entrance to the Freeway 10. Fong Choi was a graphic designer from China living and studying here for a few years. The building seemed to smell like a pet shop. There was an old couch, some painting and photographs hanging on the wall and the whole place seemed to be slightly disorganised. We sat down at one of the computers at the hall and I started giving him introduction to web programming. When I started to explain to him how to create a movie clip he seemed to lose his attention and said that I should probably meet his boss. He went to the room next door and came back a few minutes later announcing that Barry was ready to see me.

191 words created on 03 Apr 2018

The whole incident put me in a good mood and when I arrived into the pizza joint I must have been radiating with confidence. There were six or seven other people who like me were looking for the job. At first it felt comforting that I wasn't on my own and that others were also in my situation. However, it quickly struck me that all of them were my potential competitor. We sat in a semi circle and were first asked to introduce ourselves. Then the manager conducting the interview asked us to describe a difficult situation with a customer and how we dealt with it. I knew I had to stand out. "One evening a customer called me an asshole for no reason. I spoke to the owner of the restaurant and he asked her to leave and never come back." It was indeed a true story except it didn't happen to me but to Ron, the waiter who kept calling me 'Polska Duma'. Against my expectations, the manager didn't seem to find it amusing and moved on to the next person. I had never heard from this pizza joint again.

192 words created on 03 Apr 2018

The old man never called back but he gave me some hope. I knew that occasional lessons or projects probably won't be enough to pay for more studies and rent. I didn't have a choice but keep going. I did call Dad and asked for a loan towards my rent. Kamil also gave me a few hundred dollars. I was very grateful for the help (which I accepted without feeling any shame) but it was obvious that something had to be done about my cash flow. My enthusiasm for restaurant finding a job at a restaurant completely faded after attending a group interview at one of the pizza joins. It was held at downtown and I took a bus there. The driver was a trainee and he was driving under a supervision of a big black man who kept constantly kept yelling at him. It only made things worse because at some point we turned into a wrong street which drove the trainee and the supervisor into a meltdown. When we finally found the our way back and arrived to a bus stop an elder woman told the driver that he did a good job and not to worry.

199 words created on 03 Apr 2018

Angus was one of two people I knew who lived in Los Angeles. I had met him a few months earlier and we would visit each other quite often. He was a student at University of Southern California. Not only did he agree for me to stay over at his place while I was searching for a new apartment, he even picked me up from the airport. The USC was based in downtown Los Angeles and apart from the dorms and a few restaurants and cafes outside the campus there was not much to do. Luckily Angus didn't mind dropping me at Santa Monica beach during the day so I could walk around the area and look for jobs. It wasn't easy. The seasons were in total reverse to Palm Springs so while the desert was getting ready to get busy here everything was slowing down. I had a new resume now bragging how I was 'enticing' customers at Michael's restaurants but the responses were all too familiar - "we will call you back". The phone never rang and I was getting worried. Was this the time I was finally going to run out of luck?

196 words created on 02 Apr 2018

All I wanted to do was to finally enjoy the sun. The ocean. The pier. All of those things that were passing me by while I kept worrying. I was by now so confident with school that I hardly noticed when it started. The buildings of Santa Monica College seemed more modern than in the desert but the campus was also much bigger. The college was one of the most popular school among the international students and suddenly I felt a bit out of place. The teachers were of course smart but the place was missing the slow-pace and friendliness of the desert. It even had its own police department. I was suddenly finding myself missing the old school. I phoned David as soon as I moved into to Emy's place. We had been exchanging occasional SMSs ever since he visited Palm Springs the previous Christmas. I even took him to Byran's place where we celebrated Christmas over some snacks and beer. He picked me up the same evening. We parked outside a Japanese restaurant. I looked at the electricity lines above us and wondered if life wouldn't be easier if they simply fell and electrocuted me on spot.

199 words created on 02 Apr 2018

David didn't save my live but he did pay for my dinner that night. Sometimes that's all you need to do to change someone's outlook on life. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw some flashing lights outside. I peaked through the blinds and saw a police car behind other vehicle, a few cops and a man sitting on the curb. I wasn't sure if he was getting arrested but it didn't matter because suddenly it occurred to me that I could start doing websites. My cousin had taught me some HTML a few years earlier and I thought that surely in a city like Los Angeles someone would need help. There was no wi-fi at Emy's house so in the morning I walked to the college library and posted two advertisements on Craigslist - one for teaching and for designing websites. The model seemed to have a potential. My first inquiry was from an older man from West Hollywood. I took a bus there and we met at one of the cafes. It turned out he was running a porn website and needed some help with updating it. Sounded like a good deal to me.

200 words created on 02 Apr 2018

If I was serious about moving to Los Angeles I needed to make some connections. David, a guy I met while he was visiting Palm Spring for Christmas break, was the only person I knew who lived in Santa Monica. He had his own life and although we stayed in touch I didn't feel we were that close to call ourselves best friends. I turned to an old tested method, internet chat. I would use the opportunity of being in Los Angeles and finally met Angus who not only would visit me in Palm Desert but would let me stay at his place while visiting Los Angeles. He did study at USC and lived in downtown Los Angeles but at least I now had some sort of anchor and what was first just a rough plan slowly stared taking up some shape. Changing school was the easiest part - all I had to do was go to the international office and my papers and course credits would be transferred to a new college. Of course, I had to figure out how to make a living once I got there. I decided to leave this worry for after I had arrived.

200 words created on 22 Feb 2018

The story about Michael's restaurant would not be complete without special mention to all the kitchen staff and busboys. People like Miguel who would come every shift to make salads and still put smile on his face. Or Jose he would work two jobs and all he wished for was for his sons to go to school. They were all immigrants. The sweat on their foreheads and swearing was the other side of the American dreams. As for Michael, yes he was scary and tough but it's hard for me to find anything bad to say about him. To run a successful restaurant for twenty years did require a personality. But I also got to see a soft side of him when I told him I had to leave. He was genuinely moved. On my last evening he took out bunch of banknotes and just handed it to me - over a hundred dollars. Not a bad bonus for otherwise a boring shift.

165 words created on 12 Feb 2018

It was the comfort zone that kept pushing me away from the desert. At Michael's I was already properly set in. It was not the most peaceful place to work at but I discovered that my position did have certain leverage. I could make some of the dishes appear at the table faster than others so when I suspected that a waiter was under tipping me I would hold the orders for a bit. If the waiter complained I made sure he knew the reason. Of course I had my favorites. JC could be really harsh (he once literally made me cry when the order I sent was too cold) but he could be also very generous. Ron (the Polska Duma) was always kind to me and often would give me a ride home. Keith the bartender liked to talk about politics. I couldn't really talk much about with Javier and other dishwashers but with my basic Spanish I could at least make them laugh with all the new vulgarities I had learned. I once even met them at Carl's Junior and that's all our 'conversation' was about. I even liked Gabe although he annoyed me with his ass kissing.

200 words created on 12 Feb 2018

Although not living with Akira was a big push to go out and make my own friends I still enjoyed his friendship. It was probably even better and it removed arising from two pretty self-centered and motivated individuals living together. While now Los Angeles was going to be my territory to discover I could not forget out first trips to Hollywood and later venturing out as far as Grand Canyon (where for the first time I got pulled over by a real American police officer for speeding - I got away with a warning). It was natural then that it would be him taking me to the airport so I could fly back to Poland before moving coming back this time to Los Angeles. We ate a meal at the same Japanese place at Tom Bradley's terminal and while I was happy to be going back to Poland I was also sad leaving a part of my life behind. There is no doubt that without meeting him my life in the desert would not be the same. Sure, we were going to keep in touch but I felt that a big chapter in my life was coming to an end.

200 words created on 07 Feb 2018

Another person that wrote me a letter of recommendation was Byran. For the most part international students were not eligible for any scholarships or financial aid but College of the Desert set up three one time awards for outstanding students. The first prize was a thousand dollars and the two remaining places would receive five hundred dollars each. I had never seen what Mrs. Scarffe wrote but I suspect her letter mostly focused on my academic record. Byran's on the other hand was a description of my "modest background" and the hard work I put into being a "good immigrant" in the United States. "Please help him!" was how the letter ended. The call from Christina, the head of the international office, came while I was walking to a golf class (physical education was part of the college requirement and I conveniently chose the class that required the least amount of movement). I won the highest prize. "I am the smartest international student in town!" - I celebrated the news with Akira over lunch at a Thai restaurant. The sight of the kitchen's door made me grateful that my career of a dishwasher never had a chance to take off.

200 words created on 06 Feb 2018

The fact that school like College of the Desert had so many good teachers could come as a surprise considering that it was located... well, in a desert. My guess was that with its slow pace and weather it was an attractive place for academic minds who wanted a bit of peace in their lives. Also, it was the only college around so if you happened to live there and wanted to teach (whether full or part time) there were not many other options left.

86 words created on 06 Feb 2018

"You need to do whatever it takes to get into Berkeley". I had just met Professor Scarffe while walking toward the library. It was one of those nice winter sunny days with fresh and sharp air. Sort of how you would feel in the mountain resort in late spring. A few days earlier I had been awarded the highest scholarship available for an international student (a one off thousand dollars) and I was thanking her for writing me a letter of recommendation. She had graduated from Berkeley herself and then London School of Economics. There was not a single paper I wrote that wouldn't have some critical comments. I really liked that. And now she was pushing me to do something impossible. I had kept my promise to Akira to keep my straight A student status so I knew I had a real chance to at least get into UCLA. The problem, of course, was the money. The tuition in those universities was around 25,000 dollars a year, four times my college fees. An impossible amount to earn. I thanked Mrs. Scarffee for her nice words and continued walking towards my destination. Berkeley, what a lifetime opportunity that would be!

200 words created on 05 Feb 2018

Greyhound became the key to my paradise. Everyone seemed to have a story about the quality of the service or the companion you could expect but for someone like me who didn't have a car it didn't matter. For several bucks I could board the bus in Indio and after a few hours of drive and some stops on the way it would drop me in Downtown Los Angeles. Then all I had to do was figure out public buses and get to the beach. That was a journey in itself, a real treat for people watchers. The reward was the cool breeze of the ocean and the sense of freedom in front of you. In the morning I would hop back on the bus which eventually would pass through the electric windmills and drop me off in Downtown Palm Springs. I would get a frapuccino (Chocolate Mocha - yes, cream on top please) at Starbucks by Palm Canyon Drive and wait for Akira and his Honda Accord to pick me up. He would drive me to Michael's just in time for the Friday's evening shift. By the time the night ended I would be already plotting my next trip.

202 words created on 05 Feb 2018

The truth was that now with all the pressures behind me the desert began to be a bit boring. Of course, I did enjoy the sunny winter with over 20 centigrades outside and cool mornings but I also felt it was time to move. Money was not such a big problem anymore but to be prudent I decided to take only twelve units per semester which meant I would take me at least a year more before I could transfer to an university. That was not a problem for me. The issue was whether staying another year in the desert made any sense at all. And the answer was no. I fell in love with Santa Monica even before coming to California. It must have been the impact of the Beverly Hills 90210 which I would watch religiously on my small colour Elemis TV back in Poland. Who wouldn't want to drive to school in a convertible or live in one of those houses by the beach? Now of course I knew that it was a slightly (to say the least) exaggerated image of Los Angeles but that did not prevent me from visiting it as often as I could.

200 words created on 30 Jan 2018

I prayed for the call to be transferred straight into the kitchen. Unfortunately, it was JC, Michael's brother and now also the floor manager, who picked it up. "So, what happened last night?" he asked and I immediately just started apologising for my "immature behavior". I just kept repeating how sorry I was. He finally got me to Kurt. It didn't look good. Apparently, I was so drunk that at some point I sat down at a table full of customers, looked at them and asked "What's up?". Sal, one of the busboys, somehow made up an excuse that I was a diabetic. I couldn't really move so JC decided that I had to go home. My only luck was that Michael was not in the restaurant that evening and that JC generally liked me. When I showed in the evening "buracho" was probably the nicest thing. That was deserved but the worst was still ahead - I had to speak to JC in person and beg him to keep my job. I apologised again. "I don't want to ever see you with holding a drink". "Does it mean I still have the job?". "Yes. Now go fuck yourself".

200 words created on 25 Jan 2018

One Thursday evening I got into a bit of a confrontation with Kurt, the sous chef. Kurt had a specific sense of humour which I didn't always understand but overall he was nice to me (by the restaurant standards) - he would make sure that I was properly fed not just by pasta but also by such specials like pork chops with delicious carmelised apples. The topic of the discussion was drinking and whether Polish people can drink more than blacks. When I showed up the next day I found a glass filled with what looked like vodka on the counter. "Are you ready?" Kurt asked. Of course, I had to take a challenge. I don't remember much about that evening apart from the constant supply of refills showing up at my station. When I woke next morning in my bed with a pounding headache I knew that I was in trouble. I met Byran in the kitchen who described to me that I was brought in by two people from my restaurant and he then led me into my bedroom. My voicemail had a message from Akira telling me not to worry. It was time to call the restaurant.

200 words created on 25 Jan 2018

Although many teachers insisted on calling me by my Polish name on most occasions I would use 'Jack' when introducing myself. It was cool - it sounded natural, American and much less demanding for others to pronounce it correctly. My vocabulary had been expending quite quickly. All of the new concepts, whether in psychology, economics or sociology would come to me in English so the language of my thinking was also slowly starting to change. I would still find it intimidating to speak up on the spot and raise my hand, speak up and make my point during a debate at Dr. Rios' class. It was frustrating but I found it extremely thrilling to be able to write something in English and still score the top grade. I also had become a local. I caught myself using the word 'we' whenever I spoke about California. The desert had a communal spirit and I did feel a part of it. But I also never minded being a foreigner. I liked my accent and by the time the next year started I retired Jack and switched back to my old name (softening the 'c' for easier pronunciation and its new American feel).

201 words created on 19 Jan 2018

The flexibility in setting up your own schedule was one of the main differences between a college or a university in Poland and America. I loved the system - it gave me the feeling of being in charge and for many students ability to fit school into their working lives. The slight downside was that every class consisted of different students. Most people were friendly so I would chat with some familiar faces but there was never much time to develop deeper connections. Now, with Akira not being in my life all the time it was time for me to make some new friends. Being an international student automatically gave you some sort of identity (a 'legal alien' was the official term). College of the Desert was not the most popular destination for foreign students but that turned out to be its advantage. The International Office, with Carolyn at the front desk always smiling and ready to listen to your problems, really seemed to care about you. I joined an International Student Club and it was nice to see that it brought together not only students from abroad but also locals who wanted to learn something about other countries.

200 words created on 10 Jan 2018

September would probably be not very eventful if it wasn't for a visit by Tomek. I borrowed Byran's Toyota pickup and drove to the airport. There was not much space in the car so we kept the suitcases in the back. We first drove to Santa Monica to get a burger and see the ocean. We would be sharing the same room for a month so there was some potential for tension. I was also worried that he could find the place a bit boring. Luckily, Tomek got along with Byran so when I was in school he would be helping him cutting trees in the backyard, swim in the pool or occasionally enjoy the wonders of all-you-can-eat buffet. As for any quarels we might have had, we quickly erased them with humour. We also rented a car to visit places around. The highlight was our journey to San Francisco. We drove all night, spent a day there and drove back - almost 1,000 miles in less than 30 hours. I was so excited by the sight of the city from the Bay Bridge that I almost crashed into a car driving next to us. It was a great trip.

200 words created on 06 Jan 2018

I wouldn't say that people working at Michael's were my family but with so much time spent in the restaurant they involuntary had become a part of my life. It certainly did feel feel like a reunion when we all showed up a day before the opening to clean the place up. It was the most relaxed we had all been, Michael kept telling jokes and no one cared to wear a shirt or even shave. Of course starting tomorrow it was going back to the normal - Michael yelling about garlic bread being cold, Gabriel complaining that the trays had not been cleaned properly, Jose inventing the most elaborative Mexican expletives directed at me. And of course Ron, I think I miss him the most, joking around and calling me Polska Duma (the Polish Pride). Everyone was back for the new season except Mark, the floor manager, something that no one seemed to be sad about. I was going to retain my position of expeditor although I'd be getting some assistance from one of the bus boys if things got busy. I was happy to hear when JC, Michael's brother, complemented me on my performance in the last season.

200 words created on 06 Jan 2018

I didn't live with Akira anymore. Our lease at St Gorgonio's place expired in June. Rather than extending it (and paying for my empty room in the summer) I spoke to Byran who agree to store my stuff and let me officially move back to his place when I returned from Poland. Akira quickly found a room with one of his Japanese friends. It was a good deal - Pawel and Cielina, the Polish roomates, had moved out a while ago so for fifty dollars more I could take over their room. It had a much bigger bed (I had never upraded myself from the foam mattress), its own bathroom and a direct exit to the backyard with a now fully functioning swimming pool. I was looking forward to returning back to my duties of expeditor and finally starting to make some money. After paying for the next semester my bank account was almost dried out. The tourism in the desert was supposed to bounce back to the pre-9/11 levels but I now knew it would still take some time for people to start arriving in the restaurant. I knew I needed to buckle up to survive the coming days.

200 words created on 05 Jan 2018

We arrived just before the new semester started so I didn't really get a chance to get homesick before being sucked into my California life. I needed to get clarity about my job situation so I phoned Michael straight after lunch time. "Jackie boy!", he seemed to be in a relaxed mood. I imagined him sitting at the coolness of the restaurant's bar watching a game of poker or golf. We spoke a bit about holidays. There wasn't really any concrete reason why I wouldn't be hired back. I guess insecurity was part of the job. In either case, I was relieved when Michael asked me to show up in a couple of weeks. I now had the desert finally to my own. The classes were just starting so I had some free time to just walk around and enjoy simple things like the sound of sprinkles watering the grass or just hanging out in the college library. While I enjoyed the time in Poland I realised there was a part of me that equally missed the desert. Yes, there were still a lot of unknowns ahead but for the moment I decided to enjoy what was around me.

199 words created on 04 Jan 2018

Two months later we were back at the same spot as a year earlier. This time the atmosphere was much more relaxed. It helped that I was going to fly back with Akira. He came over to visit me in the middle of the summer. We traveled a bit and I got to introduce him to my favourite places. Before the trip he died his hair to blond. Leszno had not seen a lot of Japanese in its history, especially blond ones, so he got quite a bit of attention - something he seemed to enjoy a lot. He brought some gifts and everyone in my family loved him. Aware now of some cultural differences, I told Grandma Maria not to hug him too fondly and maybe eleminate kissing him in cheeks from the greeting (advice she completely ignored). Granda Bronek kept speaking Polish to Akira but much slower as if that somehow made him easier to understand. "I'm glad you have a companion this time", Mom said when we were saying our good-byes. Without the stress on not knowing what was ahead I had enjoyed the carelessness of the summer and I was actually really sad to be leaving.

200 words created on 03 Jan 2018

It was pitch dark around me when I woke up. So quiet. My nostrils were dried out from the air around me. Everything seemed so serene and peaceful. I recgonised the smell almost instantly. I was back in the desert with the now more familiar feeling of jet lag. I allowed myself to enjoy this careless moment for a bit longer. Soon the familiar sense of panic would begin to creep in. The familiar what ifs. What if Michael doesn't hire me back? What if I run out of money? What if the last year was just a pure luck? Fully alert now I woke Akira up and told him we had to get something to eat. The excitement of landing in Poland was hard to contain. My luggage got lost so I had to fill out some forms before I could continue my journey into the arrival area. It had been almost a year since my parents dropped me off just on the floor above. And here we were again! We hugged and when Mom stopped crying we walked to the parking lot. All the cars seemed like a miniature version of what I got used to seeing in America!

200 words created on 28 Dec 2017

There had been days when I would lie in bed, close my eyes and imagine walked myself through the streets of Leszno. I would usually walk along the 'planty' but sometimes went as far as the railway bridge. So often when spoke to my parents I imagined them sitting in the living room with a big pot of coffee in the middle of the table. Those little things were what I had missed the most. The classes had ended and the traffic on the streets had started to ease out. With the temperatures going up again, the desert was preparing itself for the dead season. As most places around, Michael's was going to be closed for the summer. That meant no prospect of income or any jobs for the next few weeks. The good news was that I could spend two months in Poland without worrying I was missing anything out. "In twenty days I will be in the skies" I kept telling Gabe, one of the assistants, while killing boredom in the kitchen. I couldn't wait. The day had finally arrived. The plane took off, made a big U-turn over the ocean and I was on my way home.

200 words created on 23 Dec 2017

The system was simple. You started with a 5 dollar bet. If you won you kept everything for yourself. If you lost you just doubled the bet to recover your losses. If you were still out of luck doubled to 20, then 40 until you finally won. And the win would eventually happen. It was simple statistics. Our hair were full of gel and we both wore sun glasses. Akira even put on a Hawaiian shirt. With hundred of dollars of us we saw ourselves never having to work again. Yes, sitting at the table repeating bets did seem tedious. But it was much better than running around a restaurant balancing a tray trying not to drop the plates. And at first it all seemed to be working fine. The noise of the crowd was loud and exciting and we even managed to hit a blackjack. And then the bad streak happened. Once the forty dollars becomes eighty you are in a dark territory. The power of compounding numbers. If the bad luck continues you hit the maximum bet and then run out of cash. Your three hundred dollars is gone. There is no such a thing as easy money.

200 words created on 21 Dec 2017

There were many international students who didn't work and could focus on just studying and enjoying their lives. I envied their freedom. I know, nothing was supposed to give you more satisfaction than becoming a self-made millionaire. There were many guests at the restaurants who were rumored to make millions completely from scratch. Most of them were always very polite and happy to chat with you. They carried this aura of ease, self-confidence and success around them. Sometimes one would ask where you were from and when told that you worked to make money for studying they wished you good luck. You were happy to serve them but really, I wouldn't have cared if instead of the encouragement they stood up and handed me a cheque for ten thousand dollars. But that was not going to happen so I had to think of something else. Michael's was probably as good as it got when it came to jobs. And that's how I came out with another option - winning money at a casino. There were a few of them in the desert and one in particular didn't care about your age as long as you turned at least eighteen.

199 words created on 21 Dec 2017

I was now working six to seven shifts per week. With the restaurant opened up only for dinner most of my time was split between college in the daytime and work in the evenings. The job was demanding. Although the shift wouldn't usually last more than four to five hours I could feel every cent earned. Most of the employees were well natured but in the midst of peak time and orders flying around the communication was mostly limited to yelling or swearing in Spanish, something I was getting better at. I felt mostly scared by Michael but I also felt a lot of respect towards him. Yes, he liked to yell ("Jackie boy!") and god forbid a customer had to wait for their garlic bread for more than five minutes. Still, if he felt I did a good job he wouldn't hesitate to slip an extra twenty bucks in my pocket. For most people working there Michael's was their second job. They still had to wake up early the next morning to work at some other place. I at least could look forward to the attending classes which I actually enjoyed. It was a compromise worth putting up with.

200 words created on 19 Dec 2017

Probably in Montana he thought recklessly. On a farm. Next to... His thoughts scared him. "There is an airport in Galway. There is an airport in Galway." - the words bounced in his head. And that's when his journey towards the lights began...

43 words created on 19 Dec 2017

The ocean worked like a magnet so a few weeks later I decided to finally take my first solo trip. To get the most out of the day I had to get up at 5am to get a Sun Link bus connection to Riverside. There I changed to a local train which took me to the Union Station at Downtown Los Angeles. The ride took over four hours but it was worth it. I was wandering around the downtown exploring the streets and the lobbies of the skyscrapers. Los Angeles was such a mix of contrasts. You could walk a few blocks east and suddenly streets would line up with boxes filled with people living inside. Walk back west and you were surrounded by people in suits. It wasn't my first time here but it was different exploring things completely on my own - there was no need to compromise. That was what I had always wanted to do from the moment I started exploring California from my PC back in Poland. The sight of the desert with its wind mills warmed my heart up but I now knew it was Los Angeles that I wanted to call my home.

200 words created on 18 Dec 2017

The desert could get monotonous. I didn't play golf of tennis so there was not much to do. Akira had turned 21 at the end of March but to me the bars were still shut. Hanging out at Starbucks in Downtown Palm Springs and watching people became one of the few entertainment options available. To get to Palm Springs we would usually take Highway 111 passing through the towns and car dealer shops along the road. Up in the hills you could see Bob Hope's house. Freeway-10 was faster and became our preferred route back home. We stopped in front of the junction ready to follow the 'East' sign. It was midnight and my classes would begin in eight hours. "Should we take the left for a change?" I asked. We were both hungry for adventure. One hundred and twenty miles later the coast welcomed us with the sound of breaking waves and the chill of the Pacific Ocean. Fully awake, I stood in front of the dark vastness trying to imagine what would it feel like to suddenly sail into the sea. "We are too crazy" I said to Akira. We walked back to the car and drove home.

200 words created on 17 Dec 2017

Thursdays became the favourite part of my week. Our classes started at the same time so Akira would give me a lift and drop me off at back of the parking lot. The feeling of cold in the mornings were in contrast with a sun and clear sky above us. The American Politics, taught by Mrs. Scarfe, was super stimulating and demanding at the same time. By the time it had finished the temperature would rise to a level comfortable enough for a sweater. I would then meet Akira again and drive with him to Carl's Junior. Over those months we had developed our soundtrack. This really started back in the summer when we would drive around Palm Desert, windows rolled down, singing (screaming?) Wham's "Last Christmas". Now if you sat in the back of the Honda you would be probably be subjected to listening to Enrique Iglesias and, on occasion, some Japanese Pop. Our standard Carl's Junior order was now a 99c Spicy Chicken. There was always a group of retirees reading morning newspaper sitting just next to our usual table. After the breakfast we drove back home, take a nap and continue with the rest of the day.

200 words created on 17 Dec 2017

The recent developments had flooded me with a wave of optimism. If I could carry on with my studying UCLA did not necessary have to be a distant dream. The only problem, of course, was the money. My short term worries were going to be paid off by tips at Michael's. But what about the long term. Schools such as UCLA cost four times as much as a community college so even with all the earnings I couldn't save enough. Sure, a cheaper state university was still an option but that suddenly seemed like a waste of opportunity. Studying also required time and now I had to juggle between a new semester at school, morning at Athena's and increasing number of shifts at Michael's. Yes, I enjoyed the money but I also wanted to enjoy life. It was during one of those beautiful crisp and cool winter desert morning, while riding my bicycle to the Greek place, when I made up my mind. "I got a new job" I explained to Brenda when she asked why I wouldn't be coming back the next day. At the end of the shift I put down the sign and I never looked back.

200 words created on 14 Dec 2017

Another piece of good news came one day in a thin envelope. The semester had been now over and I was anxiously awaiting for my grades. I knew that I had done OK at Dr. Rios' classes. Introduction to Art was relatively easy as long as one showed up at the class. For the final paper I wrote about "The Battle of Grunwald" by Jan Matejko, a Polish painter. I chose it hoping that no one had never heard about it so I could use my artistic creativity to describe it. The gamble paid off and my essay had been mentioned as one of the best in the class. I wasn't too worried about U.S. History taught every Thursday evening. General Psychology however had always been a struggle - I enjoyed the class, learned so many unknown concepts but I still wasn't sure if my enthusiasm would translate into top grade. I opened the envelope. Four As! "Wow, straight A student. Now I want you to get As all the time!" Akira seemed to be more excited than me. A few days later I received an invitation to join other top students at a tea reception organised by the dean.

200 words created on 09 Dec 2017

One Friday evening he Andy simply didn't show up at work. Mark, the floor manager, kept searching for volunteers to help me out with my duties. This was a golden opportunity of my career. If I could become a full-time expeditor I could finally stop worrying about money. Hell, I could even afford summer holidays in Poland. I went to Mark, looked at his face and told him "I got this, I can do this!". He was looking straight into my eyes. His face looked wild and desperate. "Are you sure?!" he now yelled. "Yes. I got this, I can do this!". "I'm going to fucking fire you if you fuck it up! You understand?!". I sure knew he would be happy to deliver on this promise. He was one of those guys. "Mark, I got this!". The night was exciting and scary at the same time. The plates came flying from all sides. All I could see was a long line of slips with orders. There were moments when things stalled and Kurt had to yell for help. But at the end I managed to keep the job and all of the tips. I had claimed my territory.

199 words created on 07 Dec 2017

It was my first time outside of the US and it felt strange. Here I was, an American student ordering drinks and giving large tips to the bartenders. The roles had suddenly reversed for that one night. I gave one of the bartenders my phone number and asked him to visit me. "One day I will" he replied pointing at the lights in a short distance. Over there was America. His dream of getting there was no less stronger than was mine a few months ago. It was probably even more desperate as America was literally within eye sight. Akira and I spent the night at one of the local hotels. On the way back there was a slow and long line of cars waiting to cross the border back into the States. I thought of my parents and that first trip to Berlin. How before getting back to Poland we stopped at a parking lot to eat all of the Salami we had bought so they wouldn't get confiscated by the border patrol. But that was a fun memory. Here, we were surrounded by small kids knocking our windows begging for money. It didn't really feel like Christmas at all.

201 words created on 04 Dec 2017

If you ever need to go from Palm Desert to San Diego, Route 74 (South) will offer you the best views. Drive a few miles south outside of the city and you will notice a sign advising you to turn off the air-conditioning. This is where the climb starts and the road becomes curvy. Slow down! You will pass through a Vista Point to your left with some great views (and bunch of intoxicated teenagers if you happen to be there on a weekend night). The climb will eventually become less steep and road less curvy. The temperature will drop down and the plants around you may trick you into thinking you're in the Mediterraneans. Continue onto Highway 371 and then Highway 79 which eventually merges with Freeway 15. Keep driving south and the road will take you to San Diego. Or, if were driving with me and Akira on a sunny Christmas Eve (and happened to miss the 'Last Exit in the US' sign), all the way to Tijuana, Mexico. If that's the case, walk along the main street and you will soon find yourself at a bar where no one check your ID and happy hour never ends.

200 words created on 03 Dec 2017

One day Akira suggested that we should look into an apartment that soon was going to be vacated by a pair of Japanese students. We had been talking of moving together for a while. The place was not too bad - it was a two bedroom apartment with a living room and swimming pool. With the price of 350 dollars each (and a communal pool) it was a pretty good bargain. We decided to take it. I told Byran about the news the same evening - he seemed to be understanding although did warn me about having potential roommate problems. "Remember you can always come back" he assured me. I felt bad about leaving but I was also pretty excited. It was going to be my first real student accommodation! The previous tenants didn't leave much apart from a couch and an old TV in the living room. We bought a DVD player so we could enjoy watching movies. For my bedroom, I bought a desk and a folded chair. A bed would need to wait until I had saved enough for my next tuition. Until then a simple airbed should be more than enough for a comfortable sleep.

199 words created on 03 Dec 2017

Byran would always start his work early in the morning and by the time he came I would now be most of the time working in the restaurant. I could count on four to five shifts a week. My favourite time with him when we would sit at the kitchen table. He would occasionally pull out a bottle of Grand Marinier. The pouring process was in itself a ritual. Byran would raise his finger for silence and we would listen to the 'popping' sound made by the drink leaving the bottle. "So what natural resources does Poland have?". He had a tendency of asking this question to anyone that visited the house. The answer did not matter as he would ask the same question in the future. We would talk about anything. If you had any worry Byran might have not the answer but you could always be sure that he would listen to it with full attention. The evening would usually end at the backyard where someday the middle in the ground would turn into the pool. We would sit in silence looking in the stars on a clear desert sky wondering what the future was going to bring.

200 words created on 20 Nov 2017

Andy arrived an hour later and after a five hour shift I had finally learned what the role of expeditor involved. There were over fifty tables at the restaurant and all of the orders would come to the kitchen through a small printer on Kurt's side. He would take two slips, hand one of them on his side and then hand over the other to Andy. The expeditor was responsible for picking up a tray and putting the orders together, make sure the plates were clean, steaks had proper knives. Then we had to find a runner who was assigned to an assistant which who was then assigned to a waiter serving particular table. Sometimes we would also need take 'to go' orders directly to the bar. On top of that, the responsibility also involved making sure coffee pots behind were always full and shelves fully restocked with glasses. All of that while people were running through the kitchen screaming both in Spanish and English and cooks shoving plates and yelling for someone to make room for more. I was exhausted but at the end I held twenty dollars of tips in my pocket and there were more to come.

200 words created on 17 Nov 2017

When I showed up back at the restaurant Brian wasn't there. Instead, I spoke to a man in a immaculate suit standing at the front desk greeting me with his smile. The place became intimidating again. I explained to the man that I was there to start my work. "I thought we already had an expeditor" he responded. My heart was sinking while the man picked up the phone. I just stood there with my fingers crossed. After a short conversation, I assumed he called Brian, the man went through a door to the left and came out with a tall guy in a white outfit. "Kurt will show you the kitchen". It turned out that the man at the front was Michael - he and his brother owned the place. Kurt shook my hand, smiled and led me inside. The kitchen was much bigger than the one at Athena's. There was a partition running along the room with cooks on the other side. The kitchen was separated into three areas - salads and deserts, pastas and meat dishes. At the end there was a dish washing station and a big refrigerating room and an exit door leading to an alley.

201 words created on 10 Nov 2017

I rode back to the restaurant a few days later. It was empty this time but the front door was opened. The inside was much bigger than what I expected. I noticed a man in a white outfit sitting at the bar. I asked for a manager and he replied that he could probably help me. I explained that I was here to study, that I worked hard and was desperately looking for a job as a waiter. Surprisingly, rather than just sending me away he asked about my current place of work. Brian, his name was engraved on his pocket, had heard about Athena's. After making some jokes about Greek food he explained that as the chef he was not in charge of the the floor but there was an opening in the kitchen. His current 'expeditor' was getting busy and they were looking for an assistant. I was not quite clear what my responsibilities were going to be but when I heard I would be getting a share of tips from ALL of the waiters I immediately said yes. I was supposed to report back on Friday at 6pm wearing a white shirt, black shoes and black pants.

200 words created on 06 Nov 2017

My hope of working full time on the floor of Athena's was completely lost when shortly after firing of Juan and Rosa I saw a new waiter serving the table. Brenda didn't even ask me to help him out. She kept saying that everything was going to be fine and not be worried but I knew she wasn't honest. I'm not sure whether she didn't think I was good enough or somehow was an accessory to the whole money affair. It was time to start looking for a backup option. My corner job was pretty stable and the money was going to be enough to pay for the rent and bills so I could take my time and quit when needed. One evening Akira and I drove to a Carl's Junior to get our traditional order of a Famous Star burger. As the refills were free we would always share just one Coke. There was an Italian restaurant across the street so on the way back I asked him to drive by it. With all the expensive cars parked outside it looked intimidating. I doubted anyone would ever hire me there. I could only imagine what the tips must have been like.

203 words created on 06 Nov 2017

Suddenly the speed limit signs seemed not to be large enough. Traffic lights would switch from red to green without any yellow in the middle. There was a 'dip' warning sign before intersections which ignored. From the sound of undercarriage hitting the surface I quickly discovered it meant to slow cars down. Luckily the air conditioning in the car was working properly because it suddenly became very hot. We continued towards the freeway. Kamil instructed me to take the entrance. Soon we found ourselves merging into a lane just in front of an oncoming truck. In panic I seemed to have lost my vision so I took the next exit completely ignoring Kamil's instructions. We drove back home in silence along Gerald Ford Drive, one of many streets names after desert's famous residents. The temperatures at night were now dropping to below 80s so you just wanted to open a window and let the air blow in your face. Those were those 'balmy nights' that the brochures were talking about. My adrenaline levels were now coming down and I could finally indulge myself in everything around. Needless to say, a few days later I passed the test with no major complaint.

201 words created on 04 Nov 2017

Getting a driving licence was one of the keys to finding a job in America. It was a form of an ID and a proof that you were in the country legally. The test consisted of two parts - a written and a practical one. I had passed the written test not long after my arrival. In Poland in order to pass the test I had to take several hours of practice under an eye of a certified driving instructor. Here all I had to do was to show up with my vehicle on the day of my appointment. I could pick for an instructor anyone who was over eighteen and had a valid licence. Since I was going to borrow Kamil's car it was only natural that I would go with him for an evening ride just to get a good feel of the vehicle. It was late in the evening and I immediately tensed up when we entered the road. Kamil decided to take his role seriously and rather than making it a pleasant ride around town he simulated a real test asking questions about traffic rules, current speed limit and commanding me to turn left or right.

200 words created on 04 Nov 2017

I entered Athena's one afternoon and to my surprise neither Rosa nor Juan were in there. Over the last weeks I had grown used to both of them - Rosa always greeted me with a smile and Juan explained how I should encourage customers to buy more alcohol so they would tip better. One evening Brenda left us to host a private party and both of them had highest praises for how I handled customers. Brenda was next door talking to her friend gesticulating with her hands. She was upset. When she saw me all I was told that Rosa and Juan were not working there anymore. It did remind of one of the calls from Brenda after a night shift. There was some money missing and she had asked if by accident I took some with me home. I thought it must have something to do with this. My second thought was that I could start working inside full time. But those hopes melted when Brenda pointed at the sign and balloons. I was back at my corner. The temperatures dropped so I didn't need iced water but I knew that I was not coming back inside anytime soon.

201 words created on 04 Nov 2017

During the class taught by Dr. Rios one of the students in the front row suddenly raised his hand and asked what was the difference between words 'subjective' and 'objective'. What surprised me the most was not necessarily the simplicity of the question but the time the professor took to address it. It seemed that no one was afraid to ask questions. The classes were taught in relaxed atmosphere but there was amount of respect between students and teachers. Students were supposed to do their readings and teachers would help guide through the material. Ethnic and racial relationships in the United States was a huge and very sensitive topics in the States. The consisted of many backgrounds and ages but Dr. Rios' open and friendly attitude moderated the discussion in a way so all the opinions were welcomed as long as people were respectful of each other. After getting first two As on test and exam that my I could raise some valid points. For the most part I was active in discussions but there were times when I didn't raise my hands out of fear that I could not articulate myself well enough in English. It was frustrating.

199 words created on 01 Nov 2017

I would now hang out with Akira almost on a daily basis. With gas costing just over a dollar per gallon we started taking more trips outside of Palm Desert. We would discover the nearby Big Bear Lake or Pasadena. The trips, when we didn't fight about directions or my style of driving, were great but what I quickly started discovering that apart from friends and family I was also missing simple things. Back in Poland I would have often walked to the train station to look at the schedule and train destinations. Knowing that I could just jump on any of those trains would give me a sense of freedom. Public transportation in California, especially in the desert, was lacking that magic. With some effort I could probably catch a Greyound to Los Angeles but if I wanted to come back the same day I would need to catch another one to get back as soon as I arrived. For now I would need to stay happy with occasional trips on a local SunBus which would at least take me to Palm Springs where I would sit outside of Starbucks with a Mocha Frapucinno studying for my classes.

200 words created on 31 Oct 2017

In a simple restaurant the tasks on the floor were usually divided between waiters who took orders, talked to customers and busboys (or busgirls) who made sure that tables were clean and you your drinks were constantly refilled (refills in America were free). Tips were the major part of income - waiters would keep majority of them and share the rest with busboys. Our restaurant was run by Juan (the waiter) and his wife Rosa (the busgirl). One Saturday evening customers started pouring in so Brenda also started to serve customers while almost simultaneously taking reservations from the headphone attached to her waist. Originally I was just supposed to watch and learn but seeing so many impatient customers I jumped into the action and started taking orders as well. This time I knew to present myself better. I had a nice chat about Poland with an older couple while they waited for their food to finally arrived. At the end of the evening they left the table with a 20 dollar bill which was way above the average fifteen or eighteen percent. I almost ran to Brenda to share the news to which she responded that maybe it was just a mistake.

202 words created on 21 Oct 2017

The day in the restaurant was divided into two shifts - lunch and dinner. The lunch shift was all you can eat buffet. That's right, you paid a fixed fee at the entrance which entailed you to loading on your plate as much food as possible. It was a bit more expensive than Home Town Buffet where Kamil took me a few weeks earlier but Brenda hoped that it was a good way to attract more customers with not too much effort required - all you had to do was to make sure that there was enough food in the warmed up pots and the drinks were constantly being supplied to the table. I was pretty nervous when I was finally allowed to approach my first table. It was occupied by two ladies. My opening line started with 'Hello' followed by 'What do you want?'. It was obviously too late to take it back but rather than apologising and acknowledging the mistake I gave the ladies my best smile. 'Are you still on training?' one of the ladies asked me and proceeded to order two ice cold cokes. If in doubt, always smile. Lesson learned!

196 words created on 20 Oct 2017

Although my financial outlook was now much better I was quite eager to finally start working inside the restaurant to finally start making tips which would greatly boost my income. I was now able to afford rent but there was soon to be tuition fees to be paid and at some point I also had to start making savings for the future. Being placed in air conditioning and around people wouldn't hurt as well. It was getting a bit boring - I would count down towards the end of my shift counting the number of songs of albums to play left. Just eight, seven, six... I tried to do some reading which made Brenda remark I should've showed more enthusiasm. Occasionally a car would stop by and ask for a menu or a bus school (a yellow one, just like in the movies) full of kids flipping me a middle finger would pass by. One day a drunk guy was walking by wrestled my balloons and went away with them. He did stop by the restaurant the next day and apologised. Finally Brenda asked me to buy black shirt, nice pants and shoes. I was finally starting my training.

200 words created on 04 Oct 2017

My 'Magnesia Falls' corner was a good to watch the traffic and see how quickly it was picking up. The three lanes were now full of cars which one could divide into two groups - nice American shiny ones and trucks belonging to the lawn movers and construction workers. American invasion on Afghanistan had been on its way for the last few weeks and more and more cars kept carrying small American flags. Byran was a veteran of Vietnam war and seemed to have a distant approach to politics. In fact, I don't think we ever really spent much time discussing the events of 9/11. He was then at Salton Sea, a nearby lake which with eastern winds would bring smell of dead fish. By the time he came back home there was so much that had been said that there was not much to add than express our amazement at what happened. But he was becoming a great host father. The whole house had very informal atmosphere and while other American host families would host polite barbeque parties ours were filled with music and the sound of crashed ice in a blender filled with triple sec and margarita mix.

201 words created on 04 Oct 2017

I had my first drink at the age of fifteen as back in Poland no one really cared to ask my ID when I wanted to order one at a club. So it was quite a surprise where Akira and I were standing in front of a karaoke bar in Palm Springs (we drove there with our windows rolled down letting the warm wind in) being refused an entry because of our age. To a karaoke bar! It was going to take me two more years to finally become legal again and in the meantime we just had to stick to private parties. With Akira's good proximity to make new friendships that wasn't much of a problem - soon I would find myself surrounded by other students - both international and American ones. What I did like about Akira, and which was probably a reason why we met, was his curiosity and ease at which he would approach new people without any obvious bias. He in return saw in me inspiration with my drive to look for a job and better knowledge of English. We were both looking for an adventure and we found ourselves perfect companion to start it together.

201 words created on 03 Oct 2017

Psychology was going to be a challenge. Most classes were held twice a week and lasted about ninety minutes but this one was to be held on Friday morning and would take three hours. As with all of the courses we were handed out syllabuses and were told that to make sure we keep up with the material every class would start with a quizz from the material covering last week. It was going to be a big part of the score. To make it a bit worse, most classes would finish on Thursday and that's when a lot of house parties would start so while I would love to join Akira I would end up cramming up for exams. With the vocabulary it was going to be a challenge so I decided to keep up with the material carefully translating all the words before the class began so at least I had some idea what the teachers was talking about. The effort seemed to be paying off when I got an A from my first quizz. First test I took at American school and a boost to my confidence that I could actually compete with others.

197 words created on 03 Oct 2017

Standing on the side of a major highway with a big sign hung around my neck and helium filled balloons floating above was not how I had imagined my first job. The sun would never go away and the constant exposure to it quickly turned into a deep tan. Because the sun was always to my right the tan covered mostly just one side of my body - Byran thought it was hilarious. I now fully understood why the construction workers putting new surface on the highway would wear long sleeve shirts - the heat was still so high that it didn't matter anyway. With my first savings I went to the Westfield shopping mall and bought myself a brand new CD player. I also refreshed the playlist although I got so used to the Japanese music that I decided to keep it as well. Every shift would start with the same ritual - I would ride a bicycle to the restaurant, pick up the sign, the bottle with frozen water and then walk to the corner. Brenda kept assuring me that as soon as customers started showing up I would be able to finally start my training inside.

200 words created on 19 Sep 2017

We dropped Brenda at her home in Westwood. With sun going down it had become chilly. The leaves on the street were a reminder that autumn had arrived in the coast. Our drive continued. The UCLA campus was close by and I insisted that we had to at least pass through it. The place was so big it even had its own police. I couldn't take my eyes off the red brick buildings. How would I ever be able to afford to attend there? We drove around Beverly Hills with its huge mansions and behind huge bushes and drove towards Hollywood. It was getting dark so after a few attempts we gave up trying to find our way to the Hollywood sign. We walked along through the Avenue of Stars and the Chinese Theatre. Hollywood was not that impressive - just a bunch of shops hidden behind aluminum shutters. We sat at a diner drinking coffee at one of the booths. The invasion on Afghanistan had began a few hours earlier. This was my first road trip with Akira. I asked him for a cigarette. It was a moment to celebrate. That was what living one's dream felt like.

199 words created on 12 Sep 2017

On a Sunday morning Akira and I were driving up the the Monterey Avenue towards Freeway 10. Soon we would turn west and pass a sign "Los Angeles 109 miles". We were going to see Brenda - one of the friends I made online before my arrival. I had promised her that I would come down to visit Santa Monica where she was attending a junior college. We parked near Third Street Promenade - a long shopping street. With a cool breeze coming from the ocean it seemed like a perfect morning. It looked just was one of the dream places I had spent so much time learning about. It had a wide sandy beach with houses lined up opposite the ocean, a pier with a small theme park and wheel on it. Just like in movies, it was a place with palm trees, bicycle lanes and the volleyball nets. But among them it was also difficult not to notice a homeless person lying on grass or sitting on a bench asking for a 'spare change'. This place seemed to perfectly represent some of the social imbalances I had already been learning about at Dr Rios' class.

197 words created on 12 Sep 2017

My first trip to the ocean was with Kamil and his friend just at the beginning of my stay there. We went to Hunington Beach where I tasted the Pacific ocean for the first time. With volleyball nets and palm trees around it looked just like at movies. The weird thing was that everyone seemed to be wearing beach shorts and there were no speedos around. It was just not acceptable. America, with its freedom, was also quite a prudent country. Although it was a perfect and memorable trip but I still somehow felt like a guess. Now I had a new friend, Akira, who bought a used white Honda Accords. The car was quite old but it had lights that would come up and down. We would hang out quite often and Akira was slowly becoming part of my household. He had lots of Japanese friends - they all seemed to be equipped with electronic dictionaries. They gave each other rides on cool bicycles. A few of them lived close to Byran's place. We would visit them, sit by the communal pool drinking beer or Dr. Pepper. I could finally start fully enjoying those balmy desert nights.

199 words created on 07 Sep 2017

With over thirty dollars in my pocket I headed straight to the college library. This, and the international office, was how I would stay in touch with my Leszno. I emailed Mom to share the good news. Yes, maybe it wasn't the dream job. With the sign hanging off my neck and the balloons it felt more like working at a theme park. The temperatures were still high. So high that the only way to keep the water in a bottle cool was to freeze it first and watch it slowly melt in the sun. There were no milk shakes after work. It was boring. But it was so much better than standing in the wet steam coming from a dishwasher. And I didn't get fired after first day. There was free food and unlimited amounts of lemonade. Being left alone meant no one would bother me. Akira's CD player came with one album - it started with a nice piano introduction followed by several high pitched and emotionally charged Japanese lyrics. I had already listened to it four times. With more and longer shifts on the horizon I already knew the first gift I was going to get for myself.

201 words created on 06 Sep 2017

The miracles do happen. I was heading towards my Introduction to Arts class when when I received a phone call from Brenda, an owner of a Greek restaurant. I passed through her place a few days before and dropped my CV. She seemed nice and even said that she preferred hiring immigrants than 'lazy' locals but I was already used to keeping my enthusiasm down. She asked whether I had time to come back to her place preferably as soon as possible. Of course. She also asked me to bring sun glasses and a hat as the job will be mostly outside for now. And maybe a CD player. When I showed up an hour later she handed me a big arrow shaped sign with "Greek Food" letters written on it and dropped me off at the corner of Highway 111 and Magnesia Falls. The sign has also helium balloons attached to it. My new job was to stand at that corner and attract attention of the passing back drivers. It paid eight dollars per hour. Brenda promised me that once traffic started picking up I would be able to start my training to become a server and work inside.

200 words created on 03 Sep 2017

I loved my classes. People would come from different backgrounds and ages. And there were nice and relaxed. During one of the classes taught by Dr. Rios we sat down to talk about diversity. I said that it was obvious from my accent that I was foreign. "Oh, don't worry. We all have accent" responded one of the students. That was the thing about community colleges - some would just come here to finish a two year degree. Some, like me, wanted to transfer to university. And some would attend classes just to refresh their memory or learn something new. It was also relatively cheap for local residents. Unfortunately for international students it was much more expensive but it was still more affordable option than four year university. To get a bachelor's degree you had to earn in total one hundred and twenty units with each class giving you 3-4 units. Hence, the strategy for people like Kamil, or me, would be attend community college for first two years and then apply to transfer to a 'normal' university and continue education there. Opportunities were endless as long as you had good grades and, of course, enough money.

198 words created on 03 Sep 2017

It had quickly become clear that mine was not a normal household. Most new international students had been assigned to host families - American families who wanted to rent out a room to newcomers and help them transition into new lives. They were nice, would host a barbeque and ask questions about how we were. Byran was a different case. First of all, it was Kamil who arranged for me to live with him. He took an interest in you. Shortly after my arrival he took out a big atlas in which I were to mark the place where my city was. That's how Leszno became part of the diary. There were places from Bulgaria, Korea, Japan. He treated his tenants like roomates. He talked about them and wondered where they were now. He would also ask me what the natural resources of Poland were. As I would find out later, it was his standard question to any new comer. He was a Vietnam war veteran and with his long hair he looked like a proper hippy. He owned a proper Volkswagen xx (no seat belts) and it was always a joy to ride with him to the grocery store.

200 words created on 30 Aug 2017

The flags were still half mast and there were going to stay so for a few more weeks. For most of the people in the desert the trategy was unfolding on the screens of tv or in classrooms. There was a talk about a need for revenge. What a lot of people feared was the effect of the 9/11 attacks on the tourism. People put off their traveling plans which could heavily affect the desert so dependent on the visitors. Besides that life had been going on as usual. I was now fully focused on my classes. I would go to the International Office to send email updates from computer there. It was a place staffed with a few advisors and Carolynne, or really a second Mom who was always smiling and asked about how we felt. At the first week of classes I was approached by a Japanese guy. "So, Disneyland. You go?" he asked. It was clear that English was still something to work on but he was nice and as he went on explaining, he wanted to meet some 'non-Japanese' friends to practice his English. The trip to Disneyland never took place we decided to become friends.

200 words created on 30 Aug 2017

While working in front of the machine sweating I kept making calculations in my head. This was not a dream job but if I could say get five shifts per week with 4-6 hours per evening I would make around 150-200 dollars per week. That would total to about 1,000 per month if I was lucky so I should be able to make just enough to put aside about two and half thousand per semester for tuition then three fifty for room. It was not enough but it was something. The only other issue was that I knew right away I would hate this job. But if I soldered on maybe I could find some other location. Of course, my vision had been quickly abrupted. But there was something better waiting for me down the line. My mood had shifted. Of course I was still worried about the money was running short. But at least now I had a proof that it was worth something. Walking on the streets of that hot desert had started to resemble looking for water on Mars. But there was no way I was getting on a plane back home so I just kept walking.

201 words created on 30 Aug 2017

The good news was that I finally got a job. For one day. It was a few weeks after Kamil took me to a Thai restaurant for lunch but also to ask the manager if he had any jobs available. I learned not to expect much so I was a bit surprised when on a Saturday morning the manager called me. One of the kitchen employees got sick and he asked me if I could come for the evening shift. I agreed with no hesitation. "You do know how to use dishwasher, right?" Of course I could - aunt Grazyna had one at her house. It was only when I was led into the kitchen when I realised the difference between industrial and home use equipment. There was a lot of steam, everyone in the kitchen spoke Thai, rice kept sticking to the plates. I was desperately trying to keep up with the piling plates. At some point one of the waiters step in to help me out so he could serve his customers. Finally the shift ended. The manager handed me some cash. He smiled and thanked me but I knew he would never call me back.

198 words created on 07 Aug 2017

And then a couple of weeks later my phone rang. It was very early in the morning so I was a bit surprised to see Kamil's name show up on the screen. "Turn on CNN. Terrorists attacked New York". It sounded like something from a movie but when I went to the living room I saw that he was not kidding. There were two towers burning and lots of of confused voices. Soon the images of the collapsing towers would be replayed on every possible channel. Dr. Rios asked if anyone wanted to voice their opinions about the events. There were voices about need for revenge. Later on Kamil picked me up to donate blood in the medical centre but the queue was so long we were asked to come back the next day. Everyone wanted to help. With the air traffic put to a halt the usual blinking lights of planes were all gone. I woke up the next morning still on the couch with the TV on. No, it was not a dream. I had no idea what the future was going to look like but I knew that nothing was every going to be the same.

199 words created on 31 Jul 2017

The remainder of the classes would start in a similar way. The teacher would read out the name of students and then always hand out a syllabus. It was a detailed plan of the semester with every topic of the lecture listed, required reading that needed to be done and exam dates. It was basically almost like a contract and students still had time to drop out of the class for a period of few weeks in case they did not feel the class or the teacher suited them. In addition, there were also going to be regular, in some cases weekly, to test the knowledge from the previous work. Also, the participation was mandatory and would become part of the grade. I thought college life would be mostly based on a lot of free time and cramming for a final exam. Although I knew it was going to be a hard work I suddenly felt just in my element. That was exactly what I was looking for and my determination to stay here, to make it happen grew even stronger. "I'm going to realize my dreams because I've got a lot of them" I wrote in my journal.

199 words created on 31 Jul 2017

My first day at school was just a few days after the orientation session. With new books in the backpack I headed to the campus. It was a beautiful sunny morning. Architecturally College of the Desert was quite a modest with mostly one level stories concrete buildings connected with each other by covered pillared passages. There were a lot of date palm trees outside of the buildings and a big fountain with a pool in front of the Hillb Student Center. My first lesson was taught by Dr. Rios, a professor recommended to me by Kamil. The classroom was not very big few five or six rows of tables accommodating maybe about forty people. There were more people than seats - as I found our later those were people on the waiting list hoping for someone to drop out. The teacher called the names of students and then asked everyone what we thought the origins of our names were. It was the first lesson and right away I had to speak in front of group. It was intimidating. "Pole in Polish means field so I guess farmers" I improvised to a reassuring nod from the professor. Everyone was so nice!

200 words created on 31 Jul 2017

Well, whether it was my smile or just general knowledge of English I passed all the tests without problem which meant I did not need to sign up for the ESL (and as a result saved myself at least a 1,000 dollars. I needed it. The school would start in just a few days and I had never been so much looking forward for it to start. The whole registration process was slightly complex but what I loved the most about it was that students had a complete freedom about what classes they choose at what time and what day. The only downside was that as a first year student I was of one of the lowest priority which meant a lot of courses were being taken by the time I managed get to the registration desk. But I was finally feeling optimistic and was looking forward to this part of adventure. As for the courses I ended up taking Sociology class on minority relations, the US histoty, General Psychology and finally a history of RockÃ¢â?¬â?¢nÃ¢â?¬â?¢Roll. It was part of the curriculum that students were supposed to take a lot of general education requirements and with the last one ticking boxes for the Arts.

204 words created on 29 Jul 2017

The introduction started in a very well air conditioned room. We listened to stories about living in the United States, cultural shocks, differences in measures systems. My biggest shock so far had been seeing water in the toilet filling up the entire basin before finally flushing down. As for the metrics everything here seemed to extra sized and sold in gallons. Including milk that somehow stayed fresh forever. The adviser also mentioned emotional roller coaster - moving from excitement to homesickness. That also sounded familiar. After few more talks we were led to a computer room. We were told to relax and do our best. I thought I did all right but I was most nervous about the second part - the verbal test. This one was done on a one to one basis. I walked into a small room where I was greeted by a nice old lady. She asked me about my family and life in general. My plan was to show off all my knowledge of different tenses I learned from Mr. Piotrowiak. I expected lots of tricky questions but the lady stayed extremely nice and finished interview telling me that I had "very nice white teeth".

200 words created on 29 Jul 2017

English was going to be another battle to fight. Yes, I had a great knowledge of grammar - the result of hours spent at classes led by Mr. Potrowiak, my high school teacher, who would constantly torture us with Murphy's rule on grammar and never ending tests. I loved knowing what was happening around the world so back at home I would watch CNN on daily basis and read Newsweek. I knew my knowledge of vocabulary was all right. But nothing could more damage confidence in my conversational skills than my first visit to Subway a day after my arrival. The speed and the accent of the American language was so overwhelming (plus I wasnÃ¢â?¬â?¢t familiar with the whole system) so when asked what I wanted all I managed to say was 'everything'. English test was going to be a part of the two day introduction session. It would decide whether I could attend regular classes or would need take English as a Second Language program. The second option was according to Kamil, a "complete waste of time and money" to be avoided at any price. With that in mind I reached the sunny campus of College of the Desert.

201 words created on 29 Jul 2017

The orientation session for international students of College of the Desert marked the official beggining of school end the end of summer. I had been quite looking forward to it. Apart from occasional trips with Kamil outside of Palm Desert, local bus trip to Palm Springs with my new Polish roommates or visits at the nearby mall there was not much to do. Byran, my new landlord, tried to be as helpful as possible taking us for grocery shopping or correcting our English wherever he detected bad grammar. We would also hang out at Kamil's place whenever possible, sitting by his swimming pools enjoying the warm nights. Night was really the only time when one could enjoy the outside so I would sometimes take Kamil's roller blades and ride around the neighbourhood - the college of the desert was just five minutes away and there was also a small park outside. I started understanding the meaning of those balmy nights the the college brochure was talking about. But the truth is that we spent many of the days sitting inside the living room with the blind closed watching TV and drinking Jack Daniels with Coke and slices of orange.

200 words created on 29 Jul 2017

It was strangely quiet even. It was a place that in theory was probably not supposed to exist. Despite the high temperatures and desert climates there were over twenty golf courses and most of the houses had green lawns in front of them - all thanks to the water stored underground and ever present sprinkle system that would keep ground irrigated. We were looking down at the valley. Down one of the main roads (all of them crossed each other at a perfect 90 degree angles) I noticed blue lights of ambulance. "People's everyday problems seem so small when you look at them in the distance. We are here just for a blink of a second anyway". It was one Kamil's moments of wisdom. And looking in that way I knew he was right. The words in the emails or phone calls sent back home telling about my first trip to the ocean or huge houses were not exaggerated. But it was also true that I had spent a lot of time worrying. I had already known that this fear of unknown combined with crash of expectations with reality was something I had to learn to live with.

198 words created on 29 Jul 2017

I was just taking a hike with Kamil on one of the nearby hills and looking around one could easily see how the geography of this place contributes to the heat and drought. Palm desert was part of so called Coachella Valley community which we could now clearly see looking down the hill. To the left was a range of relatively high mountains which were a natural mark of the desert keeping the moist from the West Coast away. This was also where Palm Springs stretching to the east joint with Cathedral Mirage, Rancho Mirage and finally Palm Desert. The cities were roughly enclosed within the boundries of highway 111. Traveling further east on the highway you would pass La Quinta and eventually Indio and the rest of the valley. The highway would eventually merge with freeway 10 which stretched all the way to Florida making it one of the longest route in America. The valley was roughly divided into West and East. The former was a home of many celebrities and homes of 'snow birds', second home owners, and potential source of my income. The Eastern part was mostly inhabited by citrus fields and immigrants from Mexico.

198 words created on 29 Jul 2017

This is not how this chapter was supposed to begin. According to the plan I was supposed to be already working in a restaurant, have my friends come over after work and drink milkshakes. Instead, I had spent the last month walking through almost every street of Palm Desert dropping my resume (with Paradise Pub listed as my last place of work and Dominika as the manager) at every restaurant I could find - Mexican, Japanese, Italian, Greek. I would always try to talk to the manager and convey my sense of enthusiasm (or desperation) but the conversation would pretty much always end up in the same way - "we are still waiting for the season to start but we will call you whenever we have something suitable". It was still summer and it would be a few weeks before tourism started picking up again. With the dry air of the desert everywhere and the temperatures reaching almost 50 centigrade the search was starting to resemble looking for life on Mars. Dad had told me there was no shame if I decided to come back but there was no way I was getting back on that plane.

197 words created on 17 Jul 2017

dreamers1982

Stories (28)

Scraps (217)