Year in review

Mei Zhu style, month by month.

January:
- Went to Hawaii!
- J and I start going on dates
- School starts up again. D: Always a bad thing.
- My favorite arcade closes down, which was just downright awful.

February:
- For the first time, I drop a class
- J makes me dinner for Valentine’s Day
- Missing the weather of Hawaii

March:
- I start seriously hating my probability class
- Register for classes for summer and fall
- I find an apartment to live in next semester

April:
- J and I start officially “going out” on Facebook (hahaha … ha …)
- It’s a very happy time for me
- Playing way too much The Sims 2

May:
- Get all As and a B
- My brother’s undergraduate graduation with highest honors
- Only a week or so vacation before summer school starts.
- I get my review at work, which is good but I feel unrecognized for my hard work, so I decide to quit
- J and I get our kitten Augustus from the Humane Society

June:
- Summer school starts - studio art and networking
- Still working at the same place (tech support) - haven’t found a new job yet
- Move in to live with J (and Augustus) for the summer
- Working and schooling from 8-5 is tough. D:

July:
- Summer school ends - I’m sad for it to be over because my classes were fun, especially art
- Augustus is a huge brat but we love him anyway.
- Happy birthday to me! I turn 21!

August:
- I finally know what I want to do with my life - become a graphic designer/web programmer
- I move in to my first apartment!
- Playing way too much Mass Effect
- Find a new job finally as a Web Applications Specialist in the College of Education at the university

September:
- School starts up again, and grad school starts for my brother
- The semester starts off with a bang, and as I’m taking 5 classes plus a lab, it’s insane
- My operating system projects nearly kill me
- I attend the career fair, and it is an enormous letdown for the most part

October:
- Microsoft Interview is the crappiest interview ever
- Exxon Interview goes okay
- Optaros Interview goes well
- Seriously stressing about school
- I went as a fairy princess for Halloween

November:
- J turns 22!
- Augustus turns 1!
- My brother and his girlfriend move out into their own apartment
- Nanowrimo starts and ends! I hit about 52,000 words.
- Extremely stressful month
- Second interview with Optaros

December:
- My friends and I start a game of Mage: The Awakening
- My brother turns 23!
- Finals~
- I receive an offer from Optaros
- The semester ends, and I miraculously make four As and a B
- My grandparents come to visit
- Christmas happens
- Playing way too much Fallout 3

Resolutions for the new year:
- Handle change better
- Keep my head up and looking forward
- Have more fun - it’s my last semester at university!

December 31, 2008 @ 12:46 pm . Comments (4)

General — Tags: change, living, nostalgia

Overwhelmed about changes

This semester has been by far the most stressful semester I’ve ever had, but I realized today that it’s because so much stuff has happened.

This semester, I moved out on my own for the first time. It’s really made me so sensitive to the fact that I was alone. I realized I hate being home alone. And then my brother moved out, and I wasn’t ready for that to happen. And then this is my last semester of school for quite possibly ever, depending on whether I decide to get another degree or go to grad school. But for now, this is it. And then I had to start interviewing for jobs for after I graduate.

Everything has been so fast this semester. I’ve been so tired and overwhelmed lately and I realized that it’s because all of this has been going on.

I did end up getting a full time job as a developer in a web consulting company. That’s why J and I are going to start looking seriously for a decent flat downtown, or a cozy little house or duplex in north Austin. I’m scared of the future but I’m slowly accepting that things have to change. I’m at that stage in my life where everything changes.

Slowly I’m accepting everything that’s been going on. It’s been hard but it’s been… okay. No one ever told me that I’d still be learning about growing up when I’m twenty-one.

December 28, 2008 @ 8:49 pm . Comments (3)

Future — Tags: change, Future, real life

Yayyyy!

School is over! Done! Finished for the semester! Only one semester left forever! My life can go back to normal! I can write blog posts again! I can write, I can read, I can play DDR (it has been seriously forever - my muscles are all gone), I can (finally) play Half Life 2: Episode 2. I hate finals so much just because they’re so spread out - I’d much rather get them all over with, but at the university we have three dead days (plus the weekend) after classes are over, and then finals start, but finals are spread out over a week (including Saturday). So you could potentially have two finals, and one is on the first day of finals and the other is a week later. I suppose all that time is good for studying, but c’mon, we don’t seriously study. I mean, we do, but it’s like … goof off until a day or two before the final, but with that feeling of dread that you have a final coming up and should be studying. Two days before we sort of look at our notes over again or read a few chapters. Then the real studying starts just one day before the final exam.

So you can’t properly enjoy the time you have or study during it either. It sucks. But now that it’s over I seriously feel like I’m having a tough time settling down and just relaxing. That’s what happens when you’ve been working your brains out for an entire semester, harder than you’ve ever worked before. No, seriously. This is the busiest semester I’ve ever had. I don’t remember what it’s like to actually have free time. I’ve had some crummy semesters before, and I wouldn’t say this one tops it, but I would say that this is definitely the busiest. It’s been fun, though.

I was looking back, thinking about all that’s happened in my life, and I realized that high school feels like a dream now. It feels like it almost didn’t happen. So much has happened since high school that it’s hard to think back. I remember doing some really stupid stuff but beyond that … I dunno, it’s weird.

So, I think I’m going to maybe start Final Fantasy 8 again, or start Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines (best first-person shooter ever. Seriously. Play it.). Either way, I desperately need to just … chill for awhile.

Oh, and by the way, since the URL of my blog changed (from just lunsh.net to tasty.lunsh.net) you may have to subscribe to the feed again (not quite sure - someone let me know if you have to do this).

December 15, 2008 @ 12:05 pm . Comments (4)

General — Tags: relaxing, school, stress

Looking forward

My life is seriously taking off. Within one day I feel like I’ve grown up a lot. I can’t give too many details right now, but I feel like I’m on my way.

Also, J and I are looking for Really Nice But Not Insanely Expensive Apartments downtown. So far they’re pretty pricey but we’re willing to pay a little extra for something that:

1. Allows pets. Period. There is no compromising on this because we are unwilling to even think about giving up the cat.
2. Has either big windows or hardwood floors, ideally both, because of Augustus and because I just like lots of sunlight (in Texas hardwood, even fake hardwood, is good because it gets so hot, and Augustus likes to lay on the non-carpeted floor when it’s summer)
3. Has preferably either a washer/dryer or a washer/dryer hookup. I hate doing laundry in laundromats. It feels so college-y.

We’ve already found a few contenders and we don’t have to move out until next year. I know, I know, it’s early, but we really want to start looking (not seriously) to see what’s generally available in what areas and at what price. It’s been interesting and kind of fun, actually.

Anyway, this is short but I’m so tired. I’m hoping for a redesign of this website soon - I’ve already got the layout, I just need to code it up. Alright, time to go snuggle with my boy and my cat.

December 9, 2008 @ 8:15 pm . Comments (4)

Future — Tags: apartment, Future, real life

Interviews

It’s been so long. More than half a month. But I can’t even tell you how busy I’ve been. I finished Nanowrimo, took three finals (so far), finished going to all my classes … It’s weird thinking about how this is my last fall semester here at the university. It’s weird to think that next semester I won’t be registering for classes. It’s weird to think I’ll be graduating.

Speaking of graduating, I’ve obviously been going on lots of interviews for lots of different companies. Full time interviews are scary, especially for computer science. You have to say the right thing, write the right code, and smile in the right way. Interviews, quite frankly, are a really bad way to find out whether a person is a good fit for the company and whether the company is a good fit for the person. But it’s a necessary evil, I think, because how else would we do it? You know how in high school, those college baseball or whatever recruiter people come to sports games and watch people play for awhile? I feel like that’s maybe a better way to find out. Have job recruiters come in and follow you around for a few days to discover whether you’re a good person.

I’m just kidding. That’s just kind of scary.

Funny stuff aside, the best piece of interviewing advice I ever got was during my ExxonMobil interview. Despite not getting an offer from them, I really enjoyed chatting with them, both at the career fair and during the interview. I think when I first started talking with them, I knew and they knew that I wasn’t the right fit for that kind of company. So we just sort of threw off the formalities and chatted about life, which was really nice.

I remember he told me, “As you continue on through your interviews, make sure you’re interviewing the company as much as they’re interviewing you. If you’re not impressed with the company, then you’re not going to enjoy the job, no matter how much they pay or how much prestige you get.”

It’s so completely true. The worst interview I ever had was my first one with Microsoft. I wanted to share my experience because it was really, really bad. I like Microsoft okay, and I especially like DirectX and the Xbox, but as a company, well, they really need Bill Gates back. Working for Microsoft would be really cool, and is one of those things that all CS majors wish they could do for at least a couple years, and I was fortunate enough to have them actually seek me out instead of having to go to them.

My interviewer was named Yves. If you ever have a Microsoft interview with a guy named Yves, be very, very careful. He has no sense of humor. If you read about MS interviews online you’ll read about how cool they are - Microsoft is famous for their “Why are manhole covers round?” question as well as lots of fun types of thinking problems. But mine? Mine wasn’t fun at all. In fact, it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

First of all, the interviewer was five minutes late to a half an hour interview. Because of this, he rushed the entire interview as if it were my fault. I showed up ten minutes early and ended up waiting for him for fifteen minutes. The career services lady had to actually go and look for him.

I walked into the interviewing room which was just a small room with a lamp overhead. I jokingly asked if it was an interrogation room and he just looked at me. We sat down and he started off by introducing himself and asking me if I knew anything about the position I was applying for, which was program management. I told him I knew it was about solving problems, about seeing a program being developed from beginning to end, and about overseeing a team. He said, “Hmm, that’s not quite right,” and made some notes on a piece of paper.

That was the first sign of warning bells in my head. What I had said WAS correct - that’s what program managers do. However, something I had said obviously wasn’t sufficient to him.

He asked if I had ever been to Seattle and I said no, although I have been in Washington. He explained where Microsoft was located in relation to the rest of the city and then proceeded to ask that if Steve Ballmer came up to me and asked me to oversee the move of Microsoft campus from the suburbs to the middle of the city, how would I do it?

Knowing that Microsoft interviewers were supposed to have a good sense of humor, I said we would use giant forklifts to pick up the buildings and then use rafts to float them across the river.

He was not amused. He kept writing stuff down, and then said, “That’s not possible.”

I said, “I know, it was a joke.”

He paused, then said, “How about we assume you can’t do that.”

So, I continued, and the entire time I was feeling more and more like everything I was saying was somehow unsuitable. He questioned every single thing I said, almost to the point of mocking me. I couldn’t figure out at all what he was getting at - every answer I would give he would say, “Is that really what you want to do?”

The next question he asked was to implement a C function. C! It was true I had mentioned finishing a project in C but rarely do interviewers ask about a particular language - usually it’s just pseudo-code. I tried my best and when I finished he said, “Hmm. Make it more efficient.” Not even a single other comment on what I had written. I couldn’t think of any way to make it more efficient so he asked me to test it.

Mind you, I was applying as a program manager position, not a coding position at all.

By the end I was so upset and demoralized that I didn’t go to class. It was a terrible experience and I never want to go through that again. I just want to say - Microsoft is a fine company but they really need to find better interviewers, interviewers that actually care about the people they’re interviewing enough to grant them some common courtesy. Going to an interview for a career is a stressful enough experience without having the interviewers make it worse.

So interviewing has been stressful in some ways and good in others, but I’m never going to forget my Microsoft interview. I am never again going to let interviewers push me around like that. And I advise you all to do the same once you start looking for jobs.

December 6, 2008 @ 2:04 pm . Comments (6)

General — Tags: bill gates, computer science, nanowrimo, real life