I was so worried about making friends. If you have been here since my first post, you already know that—It was my greatest fear. I wasn’t sure how I would convince myself to get out of my room and get out into the world.
Now, I’m a month in, and I’ve had a lot of meals. Most of them were by myself. But a lot of them were with other people.
I still don’t know about life-long friendships. Honestly, I could never see anyone I have met here ever again. Maybe that’s an ADHD, we have issues with object permanence. That includes people. But just because it’s not life long doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. I have been able to make connections. I have shared meals with over fifty different people now.
For me, that’s a huge number.
Of course, there are some of them that I already know I will never meet again. There are others that I know I will meet a few times over this internship, and not again. There are more that I am pretty sure I won’t see after this internship, but honestly, who knows? I would be down for a chat and a meal if I there is the chance for our paths to cross once more.
Maybe I was a little too focused on friendship. Maybe the friendship isn’t there. But I think that the connection is. I have been surrounded by people, and for me, that alone is new. I’m not talking about things opening up after quarantine; I never went out to meet people before that either. Or went out at all.
So I think I’ll take my victories where I have them. I love the time I spend in my room, talking to people I meet online. I love the time I spend outside my room, talking to people I meet in person. I think I will have to get a little bit richer in order to travel and ‘get out there’ nearly as much, but in the end; I feel a little less scared.
And that’s a good first step.
So let’s jump into it! First, we have the people who I have spent the most time with, my fellow interns. I am a little wary about holding faces in images, so despite the fact that this is literally about the people and not the food, you won’t get to see them. Sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable exposing faces. But don’t worry, I will still talk about everyone!
This picture was taken in the Spice Jar. I was with Aidan, Garrett, Katy, and Siqi. We were told it was a good restaurant, so we went to check it out. I forgot to take a picture of my food, so here was the beer instead. Only two of us got one, but it was cute since none of us really drink, so I wanted to record the experience.
This is a take-out meal from Eat-sumo, a Japanese resteraunt. It’s a really cute name, and I ate this in the office with my colleagues. This was eaten with Xyrus, Peter, Joy, and Ange. This week, there are more people, but I don’t remember their names yet. We all eat together, though, and it is fun.
This was taken at Siqi’s supervisor’s house. He invited all of the interns to his house to have a big party and a meal. It was the first time most of them had been around so many people since quarantine. There were a total of 25 people there. I didn’t individually interact with most of them, but I definitely interacted with over half of them.
Also, I drank my first beer there. Apparently, I’m a lightweight, because that was enough for my head to feel weird. But anyways, this was absolutely delicious.
This was taken when I went on a trip with my fellow interns to the beach. We met a group of Filippinos there, a basketball team, and ended up spending some time together. They invited us to join in the meal, and sadly I forgot to take a picture after the actual meat was added, but this is the set up. I’m not sure of the numbers, but I think there were 20-25 people present there as well.
So yeah, lots of meals. Lots of people. It was incredible. I am going to try and remember this kind of stuff for as long as I can.