internship: day one
9 AM: i have to be in the office by 10 am. my mom's warnings echo in my ears: "DON'T BE LATE ON YOUR FIRST DAY!" since i'm taking the bus downtown, and i'm driving to the bus stop on san bruno, i leave about 45 minutes to get there.
9:15: i hop into my car, a little behind schedule, but i can make up the time.
9:16: my ole reliable civic makes a grinding noise when i turn the key. it's a pathetic little whirr that sounds far away. nothing happens.
9:17-9:20: more whirring, and i start to sweat and curse.
9:21: "motherfucker!" i scream at the car, and run down my hill, and the next EIGHT blocks to the bus station. in my business-casual-first-day-of-work outfit. luckily i was wearing flats.
10:00 sharp: i get to the building on market street right on time, thank the lord. hmm, that's strange, the entire front of the building is covered in scaffolding. i check the letter i got about the internship once more, and, yep, i'm in the right place. well i guess they're doing some renovating. i go up to the sixth floor, where i see the magazine's sign. but the entire office is dead silent and empty - no furniture, only walls and carpet, and a hefty construction worker looking at me strangely. man, i guess they are more low-budget than i thought. i briefly consider that the staff are pushed away into the back somewhere, but then i realize, no, it's not here. i call the number on the letterhead, and hold myself back from screaming at the receptionist, "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS????" she says they're at sutter street, and the intern meeting has already started. i run the three blocks to the office, and arrive 10 minutes late, waving the letterhead with the old address at the intern coordinator.

the day couldn't have gotten any worse, and thank god, it didn't. the other three interns are nice. most of the people on staff are from berkeley's j-school, or are about to go there. the office is really big and nice, and everyone seems decently good-natured and relaxed. i already got my first assignment: photocopying.

---

all hail audiobooks!

---
from the onion:

Entire Napoleon Dynamite Plot Pieced Together Through Friends'
Quotes
AUSTIN, TX—Although he has never seen the 2004 indie hit Napoleon
Dynamite, Michael Osman, 23, has cobbled together its entire plot
via his friends' endless quoting of the film. "Well, Napoleon's
brother said, 'Don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with
babes all day,' and then got a visit from his Internet girlfriend,"
Osman said. "Then Napoleon told his Uncle Rico that he could make
120 bucks 'in like five seconds,' and went to work on a chicken
farm. Then Napoleon gave Trisha a drawing, said, 'It took me like
three hours to finish the shading on your upper lip,' and asked her
to the dance." Osman added that he has a pretty good idea what a
liger looks like.