Tuesday in San Francisco with Kate!

Hi Friends!  I got a tuesdays - and coincidentally, it happens to be my favorite day of the week these days (I promise I didn't plan that - I switched with someone to even land on this day!) But, this Tuesday is significantly more low key than my last few weeks have been (which is such a good thing! I've been trying to hard to get more rest and slow down a bit when I can). Right now, I feel like I lead two lives: a monday-wednesday kiva/teaching life and a thursday - friday school life. I am in grad school in San Francisco and am submitting my Thesis in a month! Meaning, I am almost done! So, that part of my life, you dont get to see. The University is beautiful and I have some great classes. My friends are great people and I will be sad to not be in school anymore, as much as I am ready to be done with this all!


This morning I got up a bit early to finish writing this article for Kiva that I have been working on for a while. It was just one of those things that gave me intense writers block and I've sectioned off so much time to do it, but it had yet to be completed! Today was the day though - I had a meeting with my boss at Kiva and I needed to be able to tell her that a draft was done! So... I did it! (with a cup of tea, really early in the morning, sitting in bed)

Here's my daily schedule/desk calendar. Its the only reason I function:

Since it was still pretty early and life in San Francisco rarely started before 10am, I had enough time to still take a long shower and go to the corner market for some fruit and make some juice! I really love market. The owner has become almost a friend of mine - we have wonderful little chats, almost every morning.

Unlike most girls, I'm not a huge clothing fan - but what I do love are jewelry and shoes! So, today is an adorable shoe day! It is also very common occurrence for me to send the second photo here, to my sister, to ask about clothing, jewelry, etc. advice - I am 25 and I still cant dress myself without her! A normal caption would read: Is it alright to wear these earrings two days in a row, or do they stand out too much?

Here's the jewelry selection (I take pride in how international it is! Today's earrings I bought with steph in Seoul), and my bike. My bike is pretty much my best friend.

I left for work. Finally!  Here is the street outside my house. Notice the awesome, wide, bike lanes!

I am interning at Kiva.org, and met my boss of our bi-weekly check in. We met at one of our favorite coffee shops across the street from the office. We go here often. Awesome lattes, adorable baristas, and set in an old stable - could it be better? Yes. Amazing, fresh food, always - like asparagus and goat cheese sandwiches.. 

This is my desk at Kiva (Markie: notice the tub of whole foods peanut butter behind my computer. there's a spoon there too. that is often lunch!). Today there was a ton going on, for some reason. My schedule was packed, I was supposed to publish an article to the blog - it didnt happen, it will tomorrow, and then I had been there a bunch of hours and it was time to go teach! Shoot!

This is the outside of Kiva (the green building). The red corner one is another coffee shop I go to often - not that I'm admitting to how much espresso I drink...  It got rainy during the afternoon - which sucks to bike in. Especially if you are me and you often (read: always) forget your raincoat.

So, three days a week, I teach in the evenings to high school kids, in the only ghetto in San Francisco. Its this super sweet program where kids commit to our intense guidelines (like requirement for college rep visits, tutoring sessions weekly, extra workshops or classes) and get tons in exchange (free ACT classes, scholarships, free tutoring, workshops, etc.) On tuesdays, I teach two classes, an Algebra 2 class and an Economics Class (this one is really cool. I am teaching the kids Business and Econ and we are starting a fake company. I wrote the syllabus for it. I have huge respect for people who write educational course material, now! ) Today we were talking about financial statements. I'm sorry that there aren't students in the photo. Today got a bit intense and I forgot to photograph until the lessons were all over and it was time to leave. 

I have worked at several different after school programs. And I love this one so much! It does so many good things, so well. I don't think I've ever valued really really believing in the organization itself, that you work in, so highly. But now, I do.  


After work, I biked home. Settled in for a minute. Had a lovely chat with some of the people I live with who were just finishing dinner. And sat here at the kitchen table for a while. Sometimes after long days, I like to just sit. So, I did. I drank tea and sat. Eventually, I started some work (oh regression tables for my thesis! - but awesomely, I am getting great results. It turns out that entrepreneurial propensity (factors like being a community leader, having parents that ran businesses, being assertive, etc.) are correlated with taking up microfinance loans, while age, income, religion, and education don't necessarily follow the same trends, or trends we would think - all only in Rwanda, of course.) I've spent a lot of time sitting at this table, thinking about this - and about what to do next.. May is coming up quickly:

A few more pages of data, and I will be off to bed. Thanks so much for sharing my day with me. I have loved sharing the day with all of you.






P.S. For the record. Friends:  I think you are all so wonderful. I have loved getting to see your lives. I think we should continue this, on some sort of semi-regular basis. Thanks for all buying into my crazy idea... You're all such wonderful people. I am thrilled to get to have you as friends.