I actually live not in San Francisco but in Daly City. (Pronounced like "Daily.") I rent a room-plus in a house with a very kind Christian family. Genentech, where I work, is in the city of South San Francisco. They're all only a short drive from each other.
On this map, I've circled SF, Daly City, and South San Francisco in red. My house is near the cyan circle. Genentech is near the green circle. My alma mater, Cal, is in blue.
I live very close to this shopping center, which has a Ranch 99! (Ranch 99 is a Chinese supermarket. They usually have live fish in tanks!) If only I could read/speak/cook in Chinese! I will try to boil dumplings again, at least. I took this picture the first day I arrived. Isn't the sky beautiful?
At Genentech, 
everyone's first day is on Monday, because they have orientation only every Monday. On my first day, about thirty other people were also starting. That's about 1500 new employees this year! (There are currently ~13,000 employees in all of Genentech.) It's practically impossible for any one person in the company to know everyone else, but we're still on the same team. :-)What do we do at Genentech?
Genentech's mission is to develop drugs to address significant unmet medical needs.
That's short but consistent with what I've seen here so far. Later, I hope to talk more about Genentech's products and my research.
On my first real day at work, I was walking down from one of the parking lots and took this picture. A glass hallway separates two research buildings; I work in the left building. But do you see what's behind the glass hallway? IT'S THE OCEAN!!!
