Moment in the Sun Gives Way to Day in Trenches : Memories: After the pomp and a night of galas, a young California woman shifts her attention to finding a job in the new Administration.

By Thursday afternoon it all seemed a bit of a blur. But Gia Daniller felt as if one chapter of her young life had closed and another had opened.

On the first full day of the Clinton presidency, Daniller looked back on the highlight-packed inaugural week with giddy euphoria. And she began to focus with determined optimism on the task ahead: plunging into the brutally competitive job market here.

Most of all, the 22-year-old Los Angeles Democrat took great pleasure in the knowledge that she was living in the same city of monuments and marble corridors as the man whose election she had worked so hard to assure. She sounded almost worshipful.

“I’m wondering if I’m going to see him jogging on the street,” said Daniller, who first encountered the T-shirt-clad Bill Clinton when he ran past her at the University of Pennsylvania one memorable morning last April.

“I’m going to scout out the best viewing place. You know he’s going to do crazy things like that just to keep the Secret Service on their toes,” she said.

Daniller’s whirlwind week climaxed with Clinton’s inauguration and the Youth Ball on Wednesday. After assisting in getting 10,000 Southland students to register to vote and then helping to raise more than $75,000 at a Santa Monica event during the campaign, she viewed the stately passing of the mantle of national leadership as a kind of personal achievement.

And view it she did. Despite waiting until the eleventh hour, Daniller secured a highly coveted seat smack in front of the podium only hours before Clinton took the oath of office. The ticket had been promised by a Los Angeles congressional office to a constituent weeks earlier, but the constituent failed to pick it up. Daniller, whose parents live in Tarzana, was able to obtain it through a friend in the office.

“I must have seen the Capitol from that view before, but I can’t remember it,” Daniller said, reflecting on its majesty. “It just seemed like something I had never seen before.”

She was close enough to witness Clinton raise his hand behind the bulletproof glass and to tell that Hillary Rodham Clinton was dressed in blue. When Al Gore took his oath as vice president and, again when Clinton followed suit, her eyes welled with tears.

“It seems corny to say, but I very much had the feeling that this was a moment in history,” Daniller said. “It was an ending of one cycle that I felt very involved in. And it marked a new beginning: to be proud of my President and liking the person who’s in the office, and knowing that I’ve met him.”

She was most pleased to hear Clinton reiterate his call for a national service program, aimed particularly at young people like herself and others who had been inspired by his candidacy and generational appeal.

She had spent much of the last few weeks helping to organize an event on Monday that called attention to this part of his agenda.

“The 20-something generation has been tagged with being apathetic and less idealistic than preceding generations,” Daniller said. “I think there’s an extent to which that’s true.

“We came of age at a time when how much money you make and not how much of a difference you make is what you’re judged by. And the people who were supposed to be our role models weren’t. Clinton expects us to make a difference, and he’s calling on us to do so.”

That evening, after entertaining friends at her new apartment, she attended the Youth Ball at the Old Post Office--decked out in her newly purchased and very grown-up Oleg Cassini dress. She danced to the rap of Salt-n-Pepa and dined on pizza while waiting for Clinton.

The new President and First Lady arrived after midnight, and Daniller joined in chanting, “Bill, Bill, Bill.” The 42nd President asked the young Democrats if they were ready to serve their country and help make the changes that are needed. Daniller was very much part of the chorus that responded: “Yes.”

Once again, Daniller got to bed after 2 a.m. She awoke Thursday with the realization that the partying was over. A business major, she had moved here last month to find a job--she hopes doing research and policy work--in the incoming Administration, on Capitol Hill or with an interest group. Now, settled in and inaugurated-out, she would have to hunker down and look.

“Yes, there are tons of people just like myself, and more qualified, looking for a position, and there’s more people than jobs,” Daniller said. “But I’m confident that something will work out because I’m going to make it work. And I’m not going anywhere.”