LAtitude Change — A Shift in Consciousness
A year of reflection from someone who has changed my mindset from self-inflicted crisis to a firm believer of action. Be forewarned, this isn’t your typical self-reflection epilogue of grandeur. This is journey that we all take when we decide to do what we love. Let’s just say, I doubt you’ll be bored. Every mile on the road spent driving was a mental shift towards the possibility of finding a career that I love.
PDX to LAX: March 30th, 2015 — March 30th, 2016
Part 1: The Drama
Portland, OR — March 30th, 2015
The journey began last year in April when I received news that General Assembly wanted me at their Santa Monica location. My grin was ear to ear when I got the phone call from the General Manager saying, “ you’ve got the job!” My new reality was settling in that I was going to be the first person you see when you walk through the door at General Assembly. The new life would include large dry-erase walls, students from all ages walking the halls talking in code whilst I try to decode their conversations. After months of trying to work in Portland within the confines of beards, beers and alternative indie rock it was time to move on. My destiny was not a barista but a tour guide to web development, business classes, product management and user experience. immersive courses.
While I was hesitant and upset on breaking the news to my trusted roommate that I would be moving, she regretted to inform me she was dating my boyfriend at the time.
News flash, they weren’t just playing circle of death card game and enjoying each other’s company with video games! The roommate before boyfriend thief, thought it would be fun to threaten on calling the cops on me because, “ I hid her cats.” This phone call was made from the person who gave me a one week notice. So let’s think about this logistically. Somehow with one week to find a roommate, I would find time to hide her cats down the hallway.
As a parting gift the new girl moving in decided to moan and groan with some random guy before my bags were completely packed. Let’s just say I felt like I was living in some kind of Jerry Springer episode with commercial breaks from Rick and Morty.
No one should ever try to relive that episode.
To sum up my emotions about the whole ordeal in one sentence:
“Feels like there is a gallon of malicious, victory after you fouled me once probably won't taste delicious.”
As I closed the door of apartment 8N one last final time, I took long strolls in my flat black Doc Martins one last final time with the intention of collecting as many memories as possible. So here is a list of the northwest adventures and the wonderful people apart of my life before I drove into the new one.
PORTLAND MISS LIST
- Sitting in a Hookah bar called, Cow Pied drinking Kava out of a shared bowl listening to the Smiths with my best friend Ory.
- Hanging out with Harrison till 2am on a Tuesday having a bonfire in the rain. All you could smell was gasoline and taste of water on your face.
- Watching Trannies have bible study at Peets for morning coffee arguing about bible verses. I observed for quite awhile.
- Giving high fives to lesbians who had to reach around their gold chains to meet hands whilst on their fixed gear bicycles.
- Watching Stargate with my best friend Bryan and finding something to laugh about while eating Digorno.
- Girls breakfast at Dimes Diner talking about boys aka swipe right.
- Being loud and obnoxious on the bus with my good friend Tyson, walking with gaff cans and half a bottle of whisky to stay warm.
- Having my first SV Coney island with my Thai guy.
- Shooting pool for free in a dive bar because it cost less.
- Trying to give away Chai Tea and my board game of Operation to my favorite goth couple.
In the midst of saran wrapping cheap furniture from IKEA and Amazon, and using the cheap green rope from the dollar store to keep everything, ‘secure’ it was time to say goodbye.
I-5 to the 405
So I cried, pretty hard and sang, pretty loud to let go of my frustrations and left embarrassing voice messages on WhatsApp to people I will probably never see again. To distract myself, all I could do was focus what my nose was smelling. Driving in the mountains passing Medford, the aroma of spraypaint infiltrated my nostrils. In the mounds of Note to self, when you pack Montana graffiti cans be sure to take all the CAPS off!
GA in LA
In the coming months, I got used to the sun beaming in my eyes while driving towards the beach. Set up the monitors for the daily classes, attend workshops and gain as much knowledge as possible. Came the point when I decided Startups were interesting and I just needed to know a whole lot more.
Hungry for knowledge and well, I don’t think being the front desk receptionist with a side hair cut would work. Really it didn’t. Maybe they took it as rebellious nature, well actually I was too friendly with all the students who took advantage of the food cupboard that I was in charge of.
“ Hey man, yeah no worries, you can another bag of Cheetos.”
Anyways, the truth is the staff was intimidated by the fact I got along with everyone and was learning alongside them. Or my brief freak out in front of the laminator machine assisted in the decision to get rid of me. So in so many words, my friendliness and need to be liked led to being FIRED.
So when I realized I was fired, I sat home alone in front of the computer looking for jobs when I came across this platform called Blab. It was like FaceTime but with a chatroom, where I met PuertoRuvian and other live-streamers.
This might be a bit random, but I would freestyle rap to peoples comments in real time and well that was my new found skill set after GA.
In that time I worked for a startup called Boosterfuels under a friend of mine who met me at a @wearelatech mixer event. Sometimes you meet people and you know they are going to be in your life. In any startup you wear a bunch of hats till their is a role that is solidified because there is enough of a heavy workload. So I was customer service, graphic designer, copywriter, assistant and well I’m pretty sure that’s what i did. Oh right, took a stab at video editing so we could have promo material. The Founder didn’t really like my spermatic nature, in fact he really didn’t care for me at all.
At that time, my friend asked me,” What is it that you want in life?” Or rather he said, “ What do you want to be in life?” Either way, it had me paused in that moment to reflect. Then my mind goes to Kevin Spacey in one of his speeches when he said, “ my job was to make my mom laugh.” Or it was Jim Carrey who said either way, I made the decision to pursue that as a career path.
Decision to Act
My friend was sitting at the dinner table that night for thanksgiving when I found myself asking what is the difference between her and I? Besides she’s absolutely gorgeous, tall, blonde and blue eyed? Short answer: nothing.
It all starts with a decision.
“Every diamond on my chain is a milestone” — Logic
