First Week as an LIA Intern
Welcome, friends, to the most fantabulous, magicalous, bestest Leadership in Action blog ever made. Just kidding I could never get into blogging so don’t take me serious. Wassup. ;D
My name is Steven Marsiglia, and this summer 2014 I am an intern with the Leadership Education for Asian Pacific’s Leadership in Action program. Essentially, I am taking LA by storm, with my internship. Yup.
The first week with LIA was both exhausting and filled with the excitement of meeting all of the other interns and being stuck with each other for a whole week. :D No sarcasm intended.
Monday was honestly a blur full of nervous jitters. I think it’s safe to say that I always stick out in Asian Pacific Islander spaces, not only for my height but my external appearance as well. So I usually always spend the first day of group trainings worrying about having to talk to everyone and getting awkward questions. But what I noticed about this cohort was a little different from what I typically see in other groups and their group dynamics. There was clearly an understanding that this room was diverse, not just in ethnic representation, but levels of varying knowledge on social justice and what our roles would be here in Los Angeles this summer. Basically the day was spent doing team building activities with the ever-knowledgeable consultant Matt, and I feel like I could pick up on a lot of cues on how… different we all are as interns, in all of the best ways possible of course.
Tuesday was a day full of learning. The gallery walk in the morning was a good way to reflect on what we learned on Monday and also to learn about each other as interns. I think what stuck out most to me on Tuesday was the feedback exercise and the group building project. Luckily for the feedback exercise I got to go second (after Kenny went first while Nancy was there and she gave him really good critique kekeke) and so I was able to learn from him and give thoughtful feedback and gave special close attention to how I worded everything. While I didn’t think I would get much from the activity I learned a lot about the delicacy of not only feedback but people as well. To give a philosophical answer I feel like I learned a lot more about the humanity of the office and interpersonal interactions. And finally Tuesday night was spent at Tuesday Night Café, with some dope artists.
Wednesday was my favorite day, of course. The morning was spent building the city that we envisioned as interns. Unfortunately we took the project much lighter than Nancy and Michelle thought we would which ended up in a very lopsided city – housing only available on one side of the city, a theme park but no events center – basically a lot of things were left out haha. But afterwards we got to split up to go to different neighborhoods in order to buy ingredients for dinner at the retreat house later that night. I feel like I’m only just learning to cook, but food will excite me regardless, and so I was excited to think up a dish and to finally have a quick opportunity to relax with the other interns and get to know each other. My group went to Chinatown and we had a lot of fun walking around looking at the city. SPOILER: Compared to what Steve Wong told us at the Japanese American Museum on 06/27 about LA Chinatown not being as fun as SF Chinatown, I have to say I agree after going to both. But I digress, hehe. At Chinatown we basically ate our way through, got our ingredients, and cooking dinner at the house flowed super smoothly, with people jumping on the stove whenever they got a turn to cook their dish.
Thursday was a quick day starting out at the Chinese American Museum with a panel and exploring the museum itself. Afterwards we had the bombest lunch at Parks Finest (dat cornbread doe), explored Historic Filipino Town and broadened our experiences in downtown LA.
Friday was the day we spent with our supervisors and learning our leadership styles. I think it’s funny that after learning our individual leadership letters, we used that as a way to almost group and define ourselves, sometimes subconsciously. I, of course, was an S, an empathetic type of leader who values group dynamics and communication over everything. Later, in a meeting on deciding our community project topic, we rushed through a meeting process that took 3 hours itself, but I’m so proud of what we were able to accomplish and discuss as a group.
Overall the week was busy, passed in a flash, and it’s hard to process everything that happened. But I’m looking forward to working with the Asian Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center this summer with Charles Chang and learning the ins and outs of a firm-like nonprofit. I definitely know I have a lot to learn.
