Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

11 Jun 2006, 8:52 a.m.

MC Masala on Being From Elsewhere

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2006 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

One always feels like a country rube in a new place.

Paradoxically, my new colleague said, everyone knows someone from Sunnyvale, but no one actually is from Sunnyvale.

We kicked this idea around near the office kitchen, arranging ourselves in the automatic hacky-sack circle of spontaneous conversation.

Does Sunnyvale really exist?

How many Sunnyvalians have to leave Sunnyvale to ensure that any random New Yorker knows someone from there? When does a person stop being from Sunnyvale?