Introduction.

I'm terrible at these sorts of things, and I always think they're really lame, but for lack of a better first post, here we go.

On August 27th, 2008, I bought a one-way plane ticket to SFO. The ticket was for September 1st. I have absolutely no job, no savings, and didn't have an apartment until September 3rd.

Why San Francisco? Let's start with the cliches and then move on to reasons that might actually be convincing. First of all, I'm a recent college graduate who wasn't having any luck finding a job in the city I lived in. So, yes. I'm one of those stories: graduated college, "moved west in search of opportunities". Second of all, it seemed a logical choice for me. I have friends in the Bay area, I'm a cyclist, and I simply needed something new. I made the decision that I was unhappy with my previous life and I needed to make a change. When I started searching for plane tickets, I found one for $143 that was five days away. All the surrounding tickets were more expensive. September 1st, indeed. 

So I packed up everything I could fit into two checked bags (thanks, $75 luggage set from Kohl's that has moved me across the country three times!) and two carry-ons (thanks, Timbuk2 bags, for already making me look like I live in San Francisco!), and got on a 5:53 a.m. flight. Nine hours later, I was in San Francisco, homeless, jobless, and with no prior experience in the city save 32 hours with my boyfriend back in the spring of 2003. 

I'm a motion graphics designer. The easy question now is "Why not L.A.?" The answer is relatively simple. If I lived in Los Angeles, I'd probably have to kill myself. I just dislike it and really didn't want to live there. In terms of making decisions to change my entire life because I was unhappy, I probably should select a city I actually, you know, want to live in.

How do I know I want to live in San Francisco if I've already admitted I don't know anything about it? It's kind of a hunch. Lots of friends with lots of experiences here, people I trust, who tell me it might be a city for me. I'm a New York girl. I'm a little high-strung. The other day, flying down Mission, someone started to open their car door and I screamed a string of obscenities that would hardly be out of the ordinary in New York. This is not quite part of the San Francisco culture. I'm trying to adapt. I'm hoping that I become less high-strung as the days go on. (Getting a job would probably REALLY ease that stress. I'm talking to you, Bay area.)

Now that we've got the reasons, here's a little more about me. As previously stated, I'm a designer, predominantly 3D animation but with some 2D mixed in on the side. I'm a newborn cyclist. I moved from a city that's decidedly not cyclist-friendly, but with the college graduation and whatnot, paying $4+ a gallon for gas didn't make any sense. I was friends with a lot of cyclists. I spent $75 on a bike instead of a tank of gas and never looked back. That story may be discussion for another time.

I'd like to refrain from getting too personal here, mostly because I'm looking for jobs and I know how easy it is to find people on the internet. It's not that I'm attempting to create some sort of secret identity, just that I'd like to be able to actually document the journey of moving to a completely new city with 150 pounds of luggage, no job and no home - and the job search is a very big part of that. Networking is everything. While I have no plans to slam some company that rejects me, you better believe I'll have words for it if I go on the worst interview ever. I am also friends with a number of people in my exact situation, and I have no interest in naming them by names, because they'll get hit in google searches too, and I don't need their potential employers knowing that I watched them pass out on a pool table the night before.

So, welcome. Hopefully this'll be a fun ride. (With no more flat tires, because I already did that yesterday, on a newly-acquired bicycle.)