First of all…. Welcome to the Wkender!
Yeah, yeah, yeah we been gone too long. WE MISSED Y’ALL TO!!
This past year was a whirlwind, and yet we were delivert from the clutches of 2019 into a new decade. The potential for growth and elevation is endless; as a result, I stepped out and made a few resolutions. I think we’ll talk through those another time. As for now, let’s talk about me making it an entire year out West. SHEESH. Time flew by! There were ups, downs, fears, failures,
and successes, but what is most important is we made it!
Personally:
How magically daring is the idea that you can pack up everything you own in the world and move across the country in hopes of creating a life for yourself based on an opportunity. Well let me tell you how this all played out:
First 30 days:
Excited and shaking in my boots, I arrived in SF and really had no clue what I was getting myself into. All I could tell by the looks of it was my life was about to change. FB placed me in corporate housing across from the office so life was good. I could walk a mile to work each morning, and I was just a few mins from a decent basketball court. Note: Corporate housing only lasted for 30 days, and the way the housing situation is in SF you can’t really start looking until 2-3weeks out for my price point. At the 2-week mark, I started asking around, and the apartment I was staying in was $3900 per month. Lemme tell you how I’m staunchly against being house poor so I started my hunt for roommate.
30-60 days:
Roommate – check
Sanity – check
Job – check
But lawd, that commute each day was killing me! For context: In the Bay, a lot of big tech companies have shuttles that will take you from a central point in a neighborhood to work. My ride to work was about 2hrs (that’s one way ladies and gentleman), and I was not ready!!!
60-90 days:
First birthday in the bay: Muir woods, Napa, visits from LBs/friends, and we wouldn’t be a goof troop if there were no bottles in rotation at some club.
Also, I’ve adjusted and
started to tap in and build a network, and voila the first Bay Area Wkender
event.
We had 100 RSVPs and 75 people attend the event. We were all super
excited about what we had done!!!
What I decided was I’ll stay as long as it feels right, but as soon as it doesn’t, it’s deuces.
6months – 1year:
Learning where to put my time and how to balance life and work. Slowing down to enjoy the little things.
I think these were the months that I started to appreciate Cali more. I had more people visit; each time, there is a glisten in their eyes that’s mostly the excitement of a new place, but what I find is that their excitement reignites my appreciation for where I am currently.
Professionally:
Facebook is a super eclectic place. The people have lots of different backgrounds, ideas, perspectives and what’s dope is we are all intelligent and looking to innovate.
There’s honestly no way to fully encompass what my day to day is like; all I can say is, no two days are the same.
As the ever looming question, “How are the amenities,” I like to say it’s Disneyland for adults. Mostly because one of our primary campuses, affectionately known as “Classic”, was designed by Disney imagineers.
Overall, it’s been a great experience to date. Love the people, lots of opportunity/room to grow, and in a lot of ways, I get to chart my own course.
The Blog:
This year we have a few key items that we want to address. Much like personal goals, we don’t know if we will get to them all but write the vision and make it plain lol!
- Expand the team: Don and I are in two different geographies and it’s expanded our perspective on how we develop content. Adding new team members could be an excellent next step.
- Stand up The WkendHer: We have been running features for essentially the entire existence of the blog and now it’s time to create a definitive space for the women we feature.
- More consistently diversify the types of content we produce: we have the capacity to do video, podcast, etc. We plan to explore all avenues this year and hopefully you’ll go on this journey with us.
The Wkender is a Millennial Fashion, Travel, and Lifestyle blog and each of those elements are central to the content that we develop.
Welcome back and cheers to a life worth living!
The Wkender