Editors’ note:
This is part of an on-going series of posts on the Valley’s creative movement and its counterpart the central valley brain drain.
If you are part of the brain drain and would like to participate, answer the questions you see below and send them to valley.notes AT gmail DOT com. Please give us ideas on how we can improve this series.
Brain Drain Chronicles: Arthur, 26
Name: Arthur
Age: 26
Where did you attend high school? Clovis High School
What is your educational background?
Attended Stanford University as an undergrad, was majoring in English Literature, but I didn’t complete the degree. Maybe I’ll finish it some other time in the distant future.
What is your current occupation?
Administrative Assistant at Space Systems Loral (they design satellites).
Where and how long did you live in the central valley?
I was born in Fresno and pretty much lived there until I left for college. I briefly moved back for a year or so before leaving yet again.
Where do you live now?
After moving to the bay area, Fresno became a much smaller space to me. When I visit home these days, time feels like it’s slowed down and I get irritated by the monotonousness. I prefer to immerse myself within a more diverse environment, which I feel the bay area offers at the moment.
What are the secondary reasons?
Aside from my family, nobody I am close to stayed behind. Most of my Fresno/Clovis friends have moved on themselves. I feel like I have a much more defined social network where I currently live.
Also, I noticed some people mentioned the heat. The heat during the summer is absolutely unbearable for me now that I’ve experienced less scorching summers.
What are the top 5-10 adjectives that come to mind when you think of the central valley?
Negatives: slow, synthetic, lacking. Positives: fertile (referring to the actual countryside), comfortable, homely.
If you do not currently live in the central San Joaquin Valley, what changes/acts of God would need to occur in order for you to move there?
I think maybe with age I’d consider returning to Fresno. Well, maybe I’d just own property that I could visit at my convenience.
I guess also, if any of my immediate family ever required assistance, I’d return.
If you do not currently live in the central San Joaquin Valley, what price would make it worthwhile?
Maybe if I was financially set up that I could travel outside of Fresno with ease and frequency.
Feel free to add any comments.
Fresno will always be home. And I genuinely feel satisfied with my upbringing there. I hope to see it flourish culturally. There’s a lot of potential that just needs to be fully realized.
Valley Notebook 
May 10, 2008 at 2:22 am
You’d think someone who went to Stanford, albeit left without a degree, would know the word is monotony–“monotonousness”–What??? I guess the culture in Fresno is behind the times from where you are and we haven’t learned that new slang yet. Stay up there in suburban bay area sprawl!
May 10, 2008 at 6:48 am
Hi Kristie,
Thank you for leaving our first comment ever! And a first-ever comment on nothing less than word choice, this is an exciting day.
(In case you’re wondering, this is not sarcasm. Mrs. Valley Notebook does love diction.)
Well, as you and (now I) know thanks to the Internet, monotonousness is a word. It’s a noun that generally has the same dictionary definition as monotony.
Now what Arthur meant by choosing the more unusual monotonousness is up to his readers to decide. Who knows, it just may be something those fancy pants Stanford students use to sound special. We at Valley Notebook had the pleasures of attending excellent public universities with actual mascots (not colors in lieu of mascots).
And yes, we agree that sprawl did not the Valley make. Before the Silicon Valley was an enviable region as a whole, the areas outside San Francisco and San Jose were probably just that–plain vanilla suburbs aka sprawl.
May 15, 2008 at 11:23 pm
>>Well, maybe I’d just own property that I could visit at my convenience.<<
Funny, I feel the same way about the bay area, I’d like a home there to visit when I want to get away from the Valley for awhile. Actually, a high=rise apartment on the Embarcadero in SF would be perfect. My daughter lives in San Mateo, and it’s nice to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live IN San Mateo. Maybe Foster City. That is a very interesting prefab town. Nothing gritty about it.
Fresno is going to have a tough time improving as long as our smart young people leave and don’t return.