If you're my age and still going to school, you still glorify the summer. Even if there's not 104 days of summer vacation, it means no classes and no finals. But if you're even more like me, you can't go home during the summer, you have to stay in the city and work to pay for your new lease. Let's not even talk about how much I miss Florida, and that it'll be a year before I can even think about visiting home, let's talk about how hard the "real world" is.

Because rent and debate camp aren't gonna pay themselves, I knowingly signed up for as many hours as I could without being a full time employee -- not that a fast food restaurant is jumping at the chance to pay for my benefits anyway. A couple of hours into my new job, and a couple of facials via toilet water splashes later, I knew that the family atmosphere they so strongly advertised was gonna be of the dysfunctional variety. But this also isn't about how I hate my job. This is about how physically exhausting a job like this is, even though I'm supposed to be at the peak of my physical fitness.

Now lets zoom out, imagine I was a couple of years older and with two kids added to my current zero. Imagine I was my mom. Earning a minimum wage job, working a whole two hours more than me, a change from her current job in Miami where they've kept her at 38 hours for 10 years to avoid giving her benefits. As I am now, after a night of closing, I struggle to wake up in time to have more than one meal before I've got to go to work again. Except if I were my mom, I would have to wake up at six to get my kids ready for work and then drive them to school. Then, come home and cook dinner for when my kids get home later, because I won't be there for it. But it will be worth it right? When the pay check comes through it will be worth it.

Working forty hours a week at $13 an hour means $2,080 a month before taxes. That's not enough to pay for my $3,200 rent for a two bedroom. We would have to live in a one bedroom for $1,800 and use the remaining $100, if anything, to buy groceries, clothes, and school supplies -- assuming that the US government continues its trend of denying my mother aid.

Now I know that San Francisco is on track to raise minimum wage every year, but that is not enough, literally. While the upper class complains about having too many taxes taken away from their six figure salaries, the lower class is struggling to even put food in their fridges. I also recognize that I'm writing this from a privileged position, I'm attending a private university (on scholarship of course) and typing this out on my MacBook (purchased with my reimbursement) but I'll be damned if I'm not a part of the solution as well.

I would like you all to take this as my formal acknowledgment of the problem; take some time to reflect on the privilege you possess, if any, and stay tuned because my suggestions are on their way.