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| It's been a week since I've arrived in Seattle. Overall this week has a had a feeling of adventure, exploration, and loneliness, sprinkled in with some fun at work.
Apartment is very nicely furnished, and the location is only like 2 blocks from the skyscrapers and down town. A view of the skyscrapers from my apartment, the harbor is just past them.
The Amazon building which I work at (they have like 5? buildings in Seattle) is actually visible from my apartment. Pretty cool...walking to work takes like 15-20 mins, which often turns out to be the same amount of time if I walk to the bus stop, wait for one, and walk from the bus stop.
So Amazon is really nice to work for. They treat their interns like real employees; Software Developer Engineers (SDEs) get two machines: a linux desktop and a windows laptop. My desk has two 17-inch LCD monitors, plus a third screen from the laptop connected to a dock. All of the team members work in the same cubicle area, and everyone gets the same amount of space. I actually get a window this time, compared to dim fluorescent lights of NIST's inner offices.
The culture and environment are great as well. Everyone is really motivated to get stuff done, yet at the same time it's a very flexible and relaxed culture. There are no rules governing how many hours I need to work during the week or when I need to come in, so long as I get my work done and don't hold up other people. Ironically, this way it seems that I tend to stay at the office longer...work doesn't really feel like work.
People in the office seem to be having a lot of fun and there is often laughter and a general mood of good cheer. My mentor and manager is pretty cool as well. Fortunately, my mentor loves to play table tennis, so we go take a break every now and then. Sweet. Another good thing is that the office is in the International district, so there's plenty of good Asian food around.
Even so, life outside of work is pretty lonely so far. The interns are scattered over a ton of different locations, and each team probably has 1 intern at most. So, it's kind of hard to meet people. It should get better in the coming weeks.
More photos to come
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| Month = 3
Date = 29
Year = 2007
What does the following expression yield?
Year - (Month*Date + Last"Teen"Number*100)
Please perform without a calculator and do not post the value. | | |
| Got my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday, and I must say it was quite an interesting experience. I was not allowed to eat or drink 6 hours before the operation, I ended up not eating anything for 15 hours and not drinking anything for 12 hours. Wow I was hungry.
Anyway, full body anesthesia, first time. All I remember was getting the IV stuck into my arm and trying to relax myself, then just feeling some strange, warm tingling around my neck. The next thing I remember is some random bits of memory, like one of the nurses coming in and asking me whether or not I was alright. I don't remember exiting the place, or getting into the car, but I do remember like a half-second of being in the car. The strange thing is that I know I was conscious during that time, but kind of in a half-asleep state.
I think the guy did a pretty good job, I'm under heavy pain killers, I have this nice self-adhesive bandage which holds two ice packs tightly against my swollen cheeks, and apparently he used dissolvable stitches to close up the holes.
So just to chill at home for a few days and sleep, read, watch movies, and play games.
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| Apparently this will be my second time updating this entire semester, in which classes just ended last Friday, which goes to show how instantaneous its passing was.
In retrospect, this has been my most relaxing semester here. No doubt due to the least amount of units I've taken (56 -> 54 -> 51 three units = one credit hour), and the taking of only 1 CS class. While I thought that some of the other classes would be somewhat difficult, all of them turned out to be ridiculously easy each requiring like maybe 1-2 hours outside of class during the week.
The cognitive psychology course was no doubt bothersome because the tests were not curved and the amount of details to be recalled was painful. However, the professor only takes the best 3 out of 4 exam, meaning that I've been able to sneak by without taking the final with a low A average.
15-213 Intro to computer systems has been the best and most fun class I've ever took. I can now say that I know how to write log2(n) using only bit operators, read x86 and x86-64 assembly code, dissemble programs from object code, execute a buffer overflow attack, improve constants of a calculation algorithm by 10 fold, understand how virtual memory and caching works, write my own unix shell, write my own malloc package, and my own web proxy server. What the heck, we did that in one semester and it was fun?
Another strange thing is that I've consistently gone to the weight-room 3 times a week. No doubt thanks to some buddies in ACF such as Alan and my roommate. I've also cooked for more times than I've remembered, but still basic stuff. I've mastered bagel-egg sandwiches with ham and cheese, and fried dumplings.
I'm wondering if I had too much free time or if I was just better at managing my time or because of both. Even still there were some weeks that were extremely stressful still, but not hardly as bad as last semester's 15-251 and 15-211 combination of pain.
How do I aim for a balanced life and yet at the same time complete all the course work I want to do? 3/8ths of my college life is over already and yet I am still largely unsure of what I want to concentrate in, whether or not I should branch out into multiple areas such as with a double major in Human Computer Interaction, or whether or not I should focus on a specific area and become an expert. Similarly in extracurriculars, my time is limited, do I focus on something I can improve and develop skills that would help me find an internship, or should I just relax and practice my guitar more and play some more basketball?
The pattern I find myself in is that depending on what is the demand, that is the thing I improve. Yet by the time the demand comes, my skill is too lacking to be effective and cannot be trained quick enough. My efforts are too divided over multiple areas. Job fair comes and all a sudden I decide to go on a spree to try to learn Directx or like OpenGL or something in my free time. Clearly I don't get to far when school work becomes more demanding and I am exhausted of energy. Or when I play guitar at ACF, when the demand comes I start practicing like crazy, but later I can't maintain that practice until the next demand comes.
It seems that those that are successful, the guy who gets the amazing internship is the guy who only had one passion and focused all his efforts in that one area to become a valuable asset to the company. I can only promise to learn things quickly, which is certainly a weaker indication of my ability than the person who can demo his project. But should I be aiming for these aspirations? Should I be a better steward of my time to improve things that I am the best at?
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| So it turns out that my new place (Doherty Apartments) has a pretty big kitchen. Full size stove and refridgerator, some counter space and sink. It has a table for 4 people too :D. This has highly encouraged me to cook, so I actually went out and bought real groceries independently for the first time in my life. As in real I mean like, fruits and vegetables, meat, bread, cheese, milk.
First day of class was ....short. I had two classes and by 11:20 am I was done. Wow, it didn't feel right, even with the cancled recitation at 11:30, it's still way shy of the 6 hour straight classes of last semester, 10:30 - 4:00. Maybe I should add something? But if I add another CS course it's going to be as painful as last semester...
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