#ihtfp

I didn't want to go to Madison. 

In the middle of nowhere, Madison is the last place in the world I wanted to spend my summer. I didn't know anyone here(literally), or anything about the place other than the fact that it lacked the skyscrapers and urban sprawl that I was used to. But after wrapping up my first week here, I can't be more happy about my one way flight (still have not purchased return ticket, rip school). 

As an American teenager who has lived in NYC for 8 years and Cambridge for 3, the city of Madison offered me a peace of mind that I had never felt before in a city. In New York and Boston, life happened fast. The cars always zoomed by emotionlessly and people preferred to walk fast and avoid eye contact. But in Madison, it is different. After my first week here, I have smiled more than ever at absolute strangers, held the door, and woken up before 7am without an alarm. Positivity is contagious and I think I’m infected. Furthermore, people here are super health-conscious. In the city, I always find a few dozen bikers, runners, sometimes even roller bladers… in every street. As a summer goal, I’m inspired to bike 20 miles to and from work every day and run on the weekends; we’ll see how that turns out. 

Before arriving at my summer job, I was under the impression that the design firm that I would be working for was immensely boring because of the unexciting and un-descriptive projects that were featured online (http://www.design-concepts.com/). Then again, I have always been wrong with my first impression for internships; and that record lived on with this one. During my first week, I also learned about NDA and the reality that we can only publish the amazing work we have done for certain projects at the discretion of our client. So yup, I was wrong. More importantly, my coworkers open-handedly accepted me into their community. We went out to lunch, crawled through bars after work, challenged each other to Ping Pong matches… And since I live 11 miles away from work, some of them volunteered to drive me there (saved me from 2 hours of boredom each day on public bus), and one of my coworkers even lent me a beautiful piece of German engineering so I can bike around (I even got free dinner and met his sweet family)! I can’t be more appreciative of the people I work with because they are the source of my summer joy. 

In other news, NBA finals has kept me on the toes through the past week and I have been enjoying the festivity in nearby sport bars. I’m calling Cavs in 7; and we’re already 1/4 of the way there baby.