Taking on this internship has been the perfect way to complete my transformative year. I applied for the CASIC program on a whim for the express purpose of having something to do for the summer. There was not much investment on my part in getting the internship, I was perfectly happy with wasting time at home until I flew off to Shanghai. In hindsight, I am glad that I was given this opportunity. Being a CASIC intern has been eye opening and rewarding experience. I cannot imagine having a more life changing eight weeks.

My assignment at Assemblymember Ted Lieu’s office was quite the learning experience. Working with the staffers really allowed me to see what it took to work at a district office. Melissa Ramoso, the intern coordinator for the office, welcomed all the interns with open arms and made sure that we were doing meaningful work. Among the interns, there was a strong feeling of camaraderie, especially since we went to lunch together every single chance we had which made the act of leaving all the more difficult.

In addition to working at the assemblymember’s office, I spent a great deal of my time at the CAUSE office. Throughout my time at CAUSE, the executive director Chris Ige has been nothing short of a great mentor. Chris is chockfull of stories and sage advice that I would have never heard, had I simply stayed at Ted Lieu’s office. In addition, he always took the time to answer my questions, no matter how simple. Through him, I was able to learn the backgrounds of the elected officials that I met, which made it easier for me to talk to them. Most importantly, however, Chris let me have my own projects in the office and asked for input on many of the things that he was working on. In fact, at times it was a bit overwhelming because Chris would ask for my opinions on things that I felt were far too important for me to weigh in on. Every day at the CAUSE office was an experience to be remembered. I am not sure whether it was his union background or just his personality but things in office were always very open. I could always be honest in my opinion around him and if we disagreed, we simply agreed to disagree. There were never any hard feelings. I did not realize the full extent of how much of a mentor Chris was for me until a week before the end of the program, and now that I have, I have come to value my time at the CAUSE office all the more.

The Monday weekly meetings with various famous persons was icing on the cake. In the all star line-up that we met with, John Kobara and Judge Ronald Lew were the standouts. Mr. Kobara’s engaging and high energy speaking style made the whole experience memorable. I took his witty life advice to heart and it was very reassuring to know that some of the advice that he was dishing out, I was already following, especially the part about not listening to your parents. The self help S.W.I.V.E.L. worksheet that he had handed out during his presentation is incredibly helpful, so much so that I have shared it with multiple friends. On the other hand, the meeting with Judge Lew went completely differently. Judge Lew spoke softly and slowly but his words had so much weight that they just stuck to my mind. The judge would often pause before answering a question and during that moment of silence, I could not help but hold my breath. When Judge Lew paused the world stopped and it only resumed once he had found the perfect words to express his thoughts. To me Judge Lew is a real life sage from one of those myths of old. I can imagine him giving advice to a young hero, advice that the hero ignores at his own peril. A large part of what makes the CASIC program so amazing is the fact that we are connected to such amazing people. I doubt I would have been able to meet any of these individuals by myself.

Every week I found myself going to at least one event, often times at the last minute because I would forget that there was even an event that day. The first event I went to was the Lilian Kawasaki fundraiser, which was terribly awkward. It was a very small fundraiser consisting of maybe ten people and all of them were familiar with each other. This made it extremely difficult to strike up a conversation and it did not help that many of them were old white men. However, Lilian tried her best to introduce us to people and facilitate conversation, so all in all it was not a terrible first experience. As I attended more and more events, I became better at networking and so the events became less awkward and more fun. The highlight of all these events occurred at the last event that I attended, at the APALP fundraiser where I found myself having a give and take conversation with LAFD Fire Chief Emile Mack. I ended that night standing next to State Controller John Chiang and just joking with him, completely relaxed and enjoying the moment. I really appreciated the events because it allowed me to see a part of society that I had not seen before. At events, I was finding myself surrounded by the elite of our society. These men and women were the ones who made or broke candidates before the election even started. I stood in awe of their mannerisms and poise, things that I had only seen in fictional television programs.

The greatest irony for me this summer was the fact that this research project was done on social media. After leaving UCSD and working on social media marketing projects for the better half of the year, I was ready to move on and experiment with something else. When my idea for doing the project on examining the relationship between the LAPD and Asian communities received little fanfare from the other interns, I threw my weight behind Kristina’s idea of social media. I gave a direction to the social media project idea by suggesting we make a handbook that taught the basics of social media to small non-profits and politicians. Surprisingly, I was nominated to be leader of the project Kristina and even more surprisingly nobody opposed it. Suddenly, I found myself leading a project on something I had wanted to get away from.

Thankfully, I had a very talented group of people supporting me. I had the vision of the project, but without the help of the other interns, that vision would have never become reality. For the most part everybody worked well together and the team dynamics of the CASIC class were great. Everybody contributed to the project in some way, and some even gave more than was asked or expected of them. To date, I have never worked with a better team.

All the things I learned during my time in CASIC pales in comparison to the friends that I have made. I really bonded with Monica, Kristina and Christian and I think we will be lifelong friends. Christian already tells me that he has my back and to never hesitate to call him if I need help. Even though it has only been eight weeks, graduating from CASIC is a heart breaking experience.