#THISIS30: Fhay Arceo

Fhay Arceo is a video producer at Pandora. She is 37.

Tell us about a moment when you felt like an adult.

When I bought my first car with my own money. My first car was a hand me down from my mom. And my second car was a used Honda Accord, white four-door stick shift. The next car was a '96 white Jetta, Volkswagen. It started breaking down. It needed all these repairs, and I was like, I think that I make enough money now that I can buy myself a new car.

I bought myself a brand new car like right off the lot. Nobody else drove it, there were just ten miles on the odometer. I didn't have my dad to help me. Nobody helped with the negotiations through the interest rate or the price. ... I took [the car] all the way from San Francisco to New York with me because I loved it so much.

When you were 13, what did you think your like would be like at 30, and how is it different.

When I was 13 I liked to talk a lot in front of people, so I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. ... Even though I was running around with my dad's VHS camera filming things and putting my younger brother and sister into plays. ... I never thought that I would actually be working doing something that I  love to do, something that is fun for me, something that I'm really passionate about. 

What are you saving up for?

I'm saving up for a sort of wedding. I just got engaged recently. My fiancé and I are not going to do a traditional wedding. We're going to make a Wes Anderson-style short movie about our relationship, like 10 minutes, and talk about how we met―on Tinder by the way. ... Then we're going to plan to show that at a party, maybe next year, that will signify we're married now. ... Instead of spending $30,000 on a wedding, I'll spend that money on making a movie that I'll keep forever.