"work" log - july 8 (why most of today was good)

The weather was soooo beautiful this morning. I got to enjoy it for about 1.5 minutes while walking from the parking spot to the building at work. Take 5 (the cafe at work) always makes a few blends of Starbucks coffee, and this morning included one of my favorites - Cafe Estima. I really have to remember to bring in my mug warmer so I can make it stay warm for hours and hours.

Topics at lunch: cats hunting birds(??) and rabbits (Steve thinks rabbits are cute), squirrels, the new Transformers movie (Jackie and Yuriy liked it a lot and Steve refuses to watch it), and the comparison of heavy metal vocals to Cookie Monster.

Walking in the hall after lunch, Yuriy told me that my hair looked good. I was like "psh this is me being lazy, putting it up and not bothering to blow it dry..." but I did (after a few attempts) manage to braid my bangs (as they are getting longer) and pin them back, which I liked. I really did appreciate and was happy that he said that to me.

In foosball, the other Yuriy and I did respectably against his friend and...I forget who... I think the friend (wish I knew his name) and I may have beaten Yuriy and Shilpa? Then Srini and I made two crazy attempts to beat Yuriy and Shilpa. I'm always laughing and then my eyes start tearing because they do that easily and then I have to clear them out so I can even see to play. I never knew I could love foosball this much. Foosball quote (I believe after Shilpa scored a nice goal): Yuriy says, "You're ready for the playoffs!"; then she hits it backwards towards her own goal and says "Not really!" :)

In the afternoon, Chris came over with Jason and a couple other people. He'd just come from showing my work up on a projector in a meeting and found out no one else knew who I was, so he brought them over for introductions. (err I don't remember any of their names...) Chris recounted how recently Martin(??) had emailed him kind of randomly and asked, "Where's our intern..?" since we had moved from one area to another, across the building. Chris responded that I was down in Row T, and Martin said, "Oh...I thought we forgot her." hahaha. Then I was saying how I'm far away from everyone and don't even know who's in our group or not, so I was walked down to Row J (where Chris and Jason are) and introduced to a few more people who I may or may not remember. Then the company softball league came up, and I said how I'd tried to find out information about joining the team to which we, GTS interns, were directed. I wanted to be on the department team, not play against them, and Chris poked fun at me for my wsj.com friends (since he knows I play foosball with them) - I said "hey I have loyalties here too!" and we laughed. Jason is on a different team though, and kind of just recruited me on the spot. We walked over to the team captain's cube and he'll add me to the email list...

Not long after this little adventure, Martin ((I think)) happened to find me, down in row T. He started up this whole 10-minute chat about finding what you like to do in life (with other things thrown in), and I think I held up a nice little talk.

Towards the end of the day, I ran into an odd problem - I discovered that in the process of working on a page, I had broken an important function of the code. The thing is, I could not figure out how it had originally worked. The method that seemed to be used made no sense. Things like that reel me in, and though a bit frustrating, I want to figure it out and fix it. But that could take hours. At 6:15 or something Yuriy came down and, as he said, we had a real-life little music exchange - I played a few songs on my ipod for him.

A little earlier I had asked Jason if the softball games are held out on that field wayyy in the corner of the property, by where those department picnics were held last year (I want to do that again...). (The conversation, by the way, is courtesy of Microsoft Office Communicator - a business chat program to install which I had to go through a whole online request/approval system haha. It has actually turned out to be helpful so far.) I said I might come by to watch a bit, and he said not to laugh... :) Yuriy, being the good friend that he is, led me driving around to the parking lot that's actually near the field. The weather was still gorgeous by the way, as was the "lake" on the property. I should've attempted a picture even if it was only phone-quality. Anyway, I watched the last few innings of the game. A couple of young guys seemed really into it (interns? dunno) and a few people had cleats and there were some great hits. Watching the game made middle school softball come back to me a little - cheering for people, pitching, calling out the infield play as the next batter comes up. It's been many (in a relative, 21-year-old sense) years since I have really tried to do anything with softball, and I said to Jason afterwards that I felt like I should practice before showing up for next week's game. He told me don't worry, just come and play. I am looking forward to it.

Jason thanked me for coming to spectate. That topped off the evening nicely... aside of forgetting to actually start the car and trying to go somewhere in drive or reverse, I was in a good mood that I didn't totally understand for most of the drive.

"work" log - june 9

The rain told me this morning was made for strong Starbucks coffee, not my tea of the past few days. By the time I got there it was not raining in the Dow Jones complex, so I shed my green nylon high school track jacket and made the parking-lot walk wearing heels rather than my rain shoes. (They actually look just like this except with navy coloring in place of the green.)

During the morning I tried stubbornly to make my kind-of-not-working visual design "work" (which means "look good"). I do think it might be on its way to a state of "possibly usable". We'll see if I can fix it up well enough tomorrow.

In those few hours I waited for a text back and never got it. So I gave over a small piece of my mind to worrying about that. I should remember he's got a life too, though. I didn't know exactly when the guys (my friends from last year) were going to lunch, so I kind of gave up. It can't hurt to catch up on hours by eating at my desk anyway. I took maybe 15 minutes of time doing things not related to work on the computer and hoped no one walked by and asked why I had Twitter on the screen.

Later Yuriy came to my rescue, YAY! I emailed to ask how foosball had gone since I assumed I had missed it. He called me up at my cube and joked that I didn't need Matt's permission to come play. Then he said I must come to the 3pm game session. I was so glad for the break so I wouldn't be at my desk for the entire day straight. When I got upstairs Yuriy told Dimitri and Dean that the most important player was there and we could go...haha, right. They said we were going to play shuffleboard (table version) today and I made a face. I figured I would be no good at it. Yuriy and I lost the first game but totally won the second, with some good rounds. I was excited. In the third game, with Frank(?) in place of Dean, I think all my rounds were 0 or only 1 point. Oh well. Then we just had to play one foosball game although the rods don't spin well at all in the table in that room. I do believe Dimitri and I beat Yuriy and Frank. Yuriy then walked back with me and so now knows my location in the bottom floor corner. Oh right, what were we doing? Yeah, working...

Bonus: At the end of the day I discovered that Jason (the guy I'm working for) used to play DDR and Stepmania - haha awesome. He apologized for being a geek...so funny because there is absolutely no need.

-

I need to redesign this blog's design. Eric Fisher told me so.

"work" log - june 2

This morning I brought a teabag from home, purchased from the cafe a 15-cent, medium-sized cup of water that was so hot it hurt to carry it from Building 5 to the bottom floor of Building 1, and made tea at my desk. Observation (only a couple hours later): room-temperature tea does not taste too good. Maybe I should bring my mug-warmer from home...?

Other notes from the day...

Discussed lunchtime with Matt by email and met the guys in the cafeteria. At lunch:

• There was a general conclusion that no one knows their cube number. Dimitri doesn't know his extension number, which is fine, because he doesn't give it to anyone. Matt pointed out that the phone displays the extension number.
  
• Upon encountering a picture in the paper, Jeff thought the entire Sri Lankan army was composed of some people in wheelchairs.
• As a result, Dimitri led the discussion on the optimization we'd achieve by using fewer limbs on a daily basis, and how to best keep the extras in reserve.
  
• Matt's iPhone game is going to have true-to-reality outer space sizes/distances.

Foosball news! I played my first foosball games in probably months. Matt has gotten all intense now and perfected his stance. I suppose I managed to play decently - Matt and I beat Jeff, who was, well, a little bit unhappy. :P Maybe someday this summer I will learn how to be useful playing defense.

Yuriy missed out on all of this... He was playing soccer, apparently. Good thing there are many days yet ahead in summer. :)

What I feel like doing right now instead of working

I want to go back to the summer for a bit, when it would be warm and sunny outside and I looked forward to lunch... I'd read the Wall Street Journal in print, since pieces of that day's paper were scattered across random lunch tables in the carpeted, skylight-ed, comfy-chaired Dow Jones cafeteria anyway, and I'd like the feeling that maybe I understood something about what was happening in the world. And then Matt and I would usually go outside, and finally - finally - I wouldn't have to be cold for awhile. We'd walk around the building, often laughing over ridiculous stories (okay...his stories not mine, because I don't have too many, relative to him) and how I sometimes stumbled over my heels and how I had issues trying to make his iPhone scroll. It was an interesting summer in a number of ways, and often made me think beyond the mostly-sureness of college to what might come afterwards.

Even though I'm a bit sick (and of course only because I am actually a little sick do I suddenly once again appreciate breathing through mostly clear nasal passages and being able to swallow without feeling that little weird pang in any part of my mouth or throat), another part of me wants to jump back to the cruise after senior year of high school with the group of students led by my Spanish teacher. I want to be in a world totally different from my world right now, with days spent seeing beautiful buildings, drooling a little over the things sold in little street shops, eating too much gelato, and gazing off the back of the cruise ship at its huge wake in the aqua blue Mediterranean - and nights spent dressing up for dinner and later going to the "dee-sco" where, once I got up the courage, I'd squash onto the crowded tiny dance floor, getting lost in the infectious European house and dance beats, and occasionally, getting awfully close to the hot Italian boys we met. And I definitely intend both meanings of "hot".

Earlier today I was thinking, as I have now and then recently, of the night of the Take the Lead anniversary party last semester. I got to dress up and I was really happy with how my hair turned out. I met up with Xavier, my French-exchange-student friend, and Amr, my Egyptian friend, both of whom I met through the PLBD social dance lessons. (And I think it's crazy awesome knowing guys from France and Egypt.) They were both dressed really nicely, of course. Once we made it to the studio (via the Penn Transit van...interesting experience), we chatted, enjoyed food, took pictures. Then I got to see so many amazing dance performances - I kept turning around to Xavier, telling him (with a borderline-ridiculous level of excitement) how much I wanted to learn that one too, and he seemed just as excited. Later they put on music for social dancing... Xav and I attempted salsa with hilarious half-successful results that often got our arms into some kind of pretzel configuration. I danced cha cha (or something like it, since I had no idea how to do it) with a seemingly sketchy guy - and tried to get away quickly afterwards. Upon hearing a song for which I could not identify the dance, I asked Senthil, and thus received my first bachata lesson. I loved it! This also included the story I now tell people probably too often: he asked "Would you like me to dip you?" I guess I said okay, and it was really crowded so I accidentally kicked someone! It's always a funny memory. My night was completed when I walked back with Xav and Amr and enjoyed an amusing conversation.


In opposition to all of that, I have mathematics programming ahead of me, I'm tired, and whatever else. I don't know. I want some sunny intrigue, some of another world, some sexy Latin dancing, some sweet guy friends...

Top moments of Tuesday

So there were a few funny moments at work yesterday that I wouldn't mind recording for future enjoyment haha...

- Matt comes in with the new iPhone and demonstrates the light saber app - you literally brandish the phone and it makes saber-swinging noises.
- Matt and I compare both our experiences with this guy who's also interning and seems interested in me in some way or another... (Matt had interviewed him for the commerce group)
- I'm returning to the rectangle from lunch with my water in one hand and coffee in the other, totally not expecting anything, and Jeff fakes like he's gonna throw his frisbee at me, and I'm like "ahhh!" and cringe away because I don't have any hands available to catch it.
- Sunita compares relative maturity levels of boys and girls...or maybe just me and Matt?

I really do enjoy being around these people. I'm glad that the kinda random chain of events by which I ended up here happened the way it did. I guess when you're an adult working in the "real world", the people you work with end up becoming your social circle (or at least one of them), and now I see how I can like it. For sure, I'm not as old as them and probably don't have a lot in common, but they're still interesting people and plenty of funny things happen in the rectangle... :)

All in a day's work.

*

7:00am - Wake up. Obviously wish I could go back to sleep for like 5 more hours.

7:00-7:10am - Lie in bed trying to rest for a little extra time without falling asleep (cuz I don't think I have any more alarms set to rescue me if I did that).

7:15am - Realize Mom has just turned on the water for a shower so I can't start mine.

7:15-7:25am - Eat cereal, turn on computer, start it running a backup cuz I'm obsessive like that.

7:25-7:35am - Return to bedroom and begin debating what to wear.

7:35-7:55am - Shower.

7:55-8:05am - Finish debating what to wear, and get dressed. Put hair in clip and hope it dries okay, put on earrings and shoes.

8:05-8:20am - Eat rest of breakfast (fruit), brush teeth, etc/get ready to go.

8:20-9:10am - Drive to work. Notice van's gas tank is only 1/4 full, decide not to be ridiculous and maybe I'll stop and fill it on the way home. Listen to clips of ridiculous country versions of popular songs...since when was Elvis Duran (sp?) on Q102? Wasn't he always on Z100? Classify cars I see on the road: ugly or not (haha).

9:20am - Sit down at my desk at work.

9:20-9:30am - Write/respond to emails re: intern stuff.

9:30-10:40am - Begin getting cold and possibly thinking about Matt's sweatshirt. Would it be weird if I borrowed it when he wasn't even there yet?
Fix issue of scrollbars appearing in Firefox when a link was focused by moving overflow:auto to the form instead of an enclosing div, and thus still beating the FF invisible cursor bug!
Begin playing around with positioning to see if I can get relatively good agreement of appearance between IE/FF.
Get distracted when I hear Jeff, Chandra**, and Sunita start talking about Thunderbird vs. Yahoo vs. Outlook vs. whatever other email options there are; chime in that Thunderbird is a standalone application.
Chat with the three of them about email, texting ("Why don't you just call? I don't get it" says Jeff, just like my parents, and of course I can't come up with a convincing explanation...haha), rotary phones ("You had one? No way!" - Jeff again), area codes (yes, you really do have to dial it now; that's been in place for years!)...
Listen to the Jeff/Steve movie debate.

11:15am - Turn back to my work, wonder if Matt's even coming in today, assume that since it's past the latest arrival time I knew of (10:30 or so), assume he isn't showing up.

11:30am - Hear Matt talking, saying he has come in for the training at 1pm... Decide that since that means I can't go to lunch with him anyway, I'll go from 1:30-2 and make up for some of that time I spent talking with the others.

11:30am-1:30pm - Fix up some of the positioning stuff and another minor unexpected behavior that popped up. Painstakingly decide that maybe I'm done with this stuff and wonder if I should bother Matt to tell him (and ask if I should do any more on the positioning); decide not to, and begin looking into the html source of the next thing Matt had told me to work on.

12:57pm - Matt leaves for his training and I'm pretty much alone in the rectangle.

1:30-1:55pm - Eat lunch; read some articles in WSJ; continue being cold in the cafeteria.

1:55-2:05pm - Go outside because I'm really looking forward to warming up in the sun. Sit down in the courtyard and begin reading the WSJ page I stole (it's the Technology page and has both Alcatel-Lucent and DreamWorks on it!); get visited by curious little worm-like bugs crawling up my legs and attempt to flick them all off.

2:05-5:10pm - Return to my desk. Start getting cold right away and really want Matt's sweatshirt; consider emailing him (hoping he gets it on his iPhone and could respond); decide this is a little pathetic and don't do it.
Matt shows up for a second; feel too awkward and I don't ask for his sweatshirt after all.
Continue setting up this new thing I'm working on. Look over some of Matt's code and admire its structure as usual. Decide to rework a section of my code for like the 3rd time.

4:40pm - Receive email from Matt that I'm probably going to have to "talk" at this pizza lunch thing on Thursday. Wonder if he means I'll have to give some kind of presentation, or if he's telling me not to be shy, haha.

5:10-5:20pm - "Register" for intern lunch thing tomorrow. Input my hours for the past week online.

5:20pm - Before leaving, ask Matt about the email; he says I might just have to say a little something about what I'm doing as an intern. Laugh and tell him it would've been legit if he'd been referring to me being shy :P

5:25pm - Step outside and relax into the warmth as I walk through the parking lot, a little walk which always brings back a hint of a crazy little memory...

--
*all times are approximate.
**I really hope I'm spelling his name right.

I. Love. Work.

Disclaimer: I don't exactly mean that as a blanket statement. Often "work" is stressful (eg computer science classes) or rather boring (eg physics, Animal Behavior textbook sometimes). What I'm referring to here is my internship at Dow Jones. Now, just to bring us up to speed a bit here, what I've been doing so far is almost completely JavaScript programming. I've been writing (and expanding) scripts to create interactive user experiences, such as with HTML forms. This probably sounds deceptively simple. Make this box on the page disappear when the mouse moves outside it. Fill the form input fields with default messages ("Enter your password here") and make them go blank when the user goes to type something in that field. This actually still seems very basic (even to me when I think about it), but I always end up running into many problems: browser differences, lack of browser compatibility with W3C standards, Javascript/DOM quirks, browser bugs...yeah. All these issues tend to pile up and make things stretch on for h-o-u-r-s of debugging. Fun stuff! I've actually been compiling a list of reference websites, programmers' blog posts, and coding forum threads that have helped me figure these things out; maybe I should post it sometime so other people could reference it. Okay, now that I've talked about what I'm doing, I can say that I like it well enough. Debugging gets pretty frustrating, and my brain can get tired staring at the same code every day for hours...but I don't hate it. It's pretty cool when it works. I even get a taste of that programmer's momentary euphoria ("HOLY SHIT IT WORKS!") when I figure out some annoying bug. :)

But anyway, on to why I really love work: the people. As I think I mentioned before, during the time before I actually started working there, I was pretty petrified of Dow Jones. It's this huge international company, I thought, and I'm going to go work in a corporate environment in an office building on a big "campus". But now that I've been there awhile, I've learned what probably should've been obvious: the people that work there are really just people, too. Some are married, some play video games, some are from India (and have varying degrees of accents, haha), some love to play foosball, and...well okay, I don't know all that much about them. But the best part is, they (or at least the ones that aren't so quiet) like to joke around and have fun, so a few times every day I find myself laughing at something or other that's going on in my "rectangle"...

This past Thursday turned out to be quite the interesting day. I managed to make it to my desk by like 9:20am (not bad, not bad). A little while later Jeff (who sits on the other side of Matt, who is next to me) comments to me that it's too quiet without Sunita around. [Side note: Sunita and Jeff, and sometimes Matt, always seem to get something funny going...and get me laughing...haha.] Shortly after this, Steve calls across the rectangle to Jeff to ask if he's heard that Alex Rodriguez's wife has left him for Lenny Kravitz. We then find out that everyone else around knows who Lenny Kravitz is except Jeff. This leads to a small bunch of us gathering around Jeff's desk while he looks up Lenny Kravitz on YouTube. Steve and Jeff start debating the wife's decision and trying to figure out whether the girls go for jocks or rock stars more. I'm afraid to take sides, but I have to say I'd probably prefer a rock star (point for Steve)... I do say that baseball is not boring to me and I really do enjoy watching it (point for Jeff--even! haha). Then, I don't know how it happened but we got back to the topic (from the other day) of palm reading, and (please please forgive the likely misspelling of these names) Shilpa says she actually somewhat knows how to do it, and so a few of us are getting our palms read... When it's my turn she says that the lines in my hand aren't very deep (so it's harder to read) - and Sunita goes, "Well, maybe she just hasn't matured yet!" hahaha we all get a good laugh out of that, and Jeff tries to amend it by suggesting that I'm not developed! hahahaha I'm mildly embarrassed but mostly just laughing and enjoying it all... And somewhere in the midst of this, around 10:30, Matt shows up, sees us all crowded around Jeff's desk and goes "Hey guys...what's goin on?" and it's just great. Eventually "play time's over" Jeff says, and as we're sitting back down at our desks maybe 45 minutes after we left them, Jeff explains to Matt, "See, this is why we all come in early, it's not to work..." haha I love it.

So the rest of the morning goes by, and noon arrives, which is the time Jeff and some others usually start thinking about heading downstairs to lunch. They know that usually Matt (and I) go later on, around 1 or so, but Jeff says we can always come join them if we want... So at maybe 12:30 Matt says to me, "Come on, let's go eat with them" and we head downstairs to the cafeteria. The table ends up being as follows, assuming I remember correctly, starting from the corner to my right: Jeff, an Indian guy whose name I don't know, me, Tushar(?), Steve; on the other side, Paul, Yuriy, Matt, Brian, and Chandra (spelling again?). Jeff was surprised to see Matt and even more surprised to see me, and I said Matt brought me. I was pretty quiet during lunch, listening to the stories people were telling; Jeff mentioned that "Sunita managed to insult everybody this morning" and I said "even me!" and then we briefly relayed what had been said during the palm readings... So even though I only participated a little bit in the discussion (Jeff's "wow...wow..." at my being born in 1987 - so young! haha), it was still nice to be around everybody. :)

As lunch is ending and everyone's getting up to head back upstairs, I'm sorta thinking about how Matt and I usually walk around the campus outside during lunch hour, but assuming we don't have enough time for it and it might be a little weird if we left the rest of them on the way back. However Matt turned left when the rest of them turned right, and I was like "haha I feel sketchy" but I was glad we got to go outside and make one lap around the building and chat. (Okay, so we talked about high school gym/health class, but hey. It was still entertaining.)

After we came inside, I dutifully debugged for the next few hours...don't recall anything too funny from the afternoon...then left early since we were going to the Red Bank fireworks (but that can be another post maybe). Anyhow, overall, it was a good day. I'm so glad I like the people at work :)

Red Bull

So I think I've had Red Bull maybe 5 times total in my life. I guess the real caving in began when I started switching over from getting hot chocolates to getting mochas at Starbucks in Commons during freshman year. (Lattes, caramel macchiatos [sp??], cinnamon dolce lattes, and frappucinos have since followed.) Not that I didn't stay up crazy late working on homework and projects in high school, but somehow when I started doing that in college, I found I could no longer stay awake in classes the next day :P. And hence my new interest in coffee took on a new purposeful role, thanks to its caffeine... But anyway. Though John was kind of getting into Red Bull sophomore year, I shied away from it. I suppose I thought it was weird to consume this drink just for the caffeine effects...? Of course such effects were probably more often than not a major reason why I drank so much coffee, haha.

Anyhow, my first Red Bull was kind of on impulse. I'd gone to Savory to eat and hopefully cram tons of last-minute physics into my head before the final exam at 6pm. This didn't exactly happen, though I enticed Dan to come study with me by offering to buy him food haha. And I just kinda saw the Red Bull fridge thing there and got one. I'd tried it before, but still thought it tasted weird. Carbonated, not quite as sweet as soda, a taste rather unique and hard to put into words.

Well, soon after starting my internship, I discovered that Matt's daily caffeine source is Red Bull. (I think he's got one of those six-can mini fridge things in which to keep a stock of them.) One day early on he offered me one, and what can I say, I was tired (and even as of now I still don't know how to find my way to the Starbucks that is supposedly somewhere in the building complex), so I said, "Okay, ... this is my second Red Bull ever haha.." Since then, he has supplied me with a few more... Tuesday morning he walked in and said "Red Bull, anyone?" I think I just laughed and he handed me one. Today he didn't even ask - just placed it on my desk, lol. And now that I've had several, I think I am coming around on the taste...

One final comment:
Today as I was leaving work, I still had a third of a can or so left, so I figured I'd pour it into my water bottle and thus be able to recycle the can yet not waste what was left in it... Well, I poured it in, looked at it - in all its yellow carbonated-ness - for a few seconds, took a drink, looked again, laughed, and thought: "...Now I definitely understand why Red Bull comes in a can." (I ended up pouring it out after all, hahaha.)

My summer internship (the beginning)

Last summer, my job was through the Monmouth County Summer Employment Program; I worked for the Public Relations (and Member Services) departments for the county-wide library system. It was not a bad job by any means, and the PR people were very friendly and nice to me (which was great). However, for this summer, I wanted a job more related to the kinds of things I've learned so far in my major, Digital Media Design. (And maybe I'd even get to actually use some of them! haha.) So as the months of the spring semester went on, I watched people around me going to career fairs, updating their resumes, and getting internships. I'd thought a bit about where to start looking for jobs, but I didn't even write my resume until spring break. (It definitely took at least a solid day to condense my experience into one organized and pretty page.) I still applied to the county summer program (requesting something computer/design-related on the app), and googled around to look for anything interesting that'd be local (and I don't live in a city, or near one of any acknowledgeable size, so it's not so easy...). One night I really started panicking that I hadn't found something good, and stayed up really late rather frantically searching PennLink (Penn's Career Services job listing thing) but to pretty much no avail.

So what happened? Well, my mom turned out to save the day. Thanks to Google, she found an IT internship being offered by Dow Jones, and near enough to home, too. (They have locations in Princeton and South Brunswick.) The internship description was rather vague. It listed probably 30 technologies (programming languages, database stuff, and other words of which I don't really know the meaning :P) and said if you were familiar with any one or more of them, that would be enough. I was glad, because most of the job postings I'd found or seen had requirements that I just didn't fulfill, and it was getting discouraging. (How do people learn all this stuff anyway? I don't think there's enough time to teach us most of it in college...) I think Java and C++ and even Microsoft Access (lol) were on the list, so I figured I might as well go for it. I didn't really expect I'd be successful; I mean, "this is Dow Jones, how can I be good enough for that?!" I thought.

So I wrote a cover letter and completed the application online just after spring break, then waited for awhile... And suddenly I started being contacted (!!). An "Application Architect" from the Wall Street Journal first emailed me, then called my house the next day (my mom passed on the message to me). I called him back that same day and he interviewed me on the phone. I wasn't too hopeful though, because he asked me some things about Java and other stuff, and I don't think I gave a solid answer for any of them... Soon after that, I received another totally unrelated call, and had another phone interview, with people representing three different departments. And then there was a third call, with yet another group of people. I kept trying to get a good explanation from all these people about what they really did in their departments, but to be honest, I didn't understand most of what they were telling me haha. Thus, when I thought about it (and conferred with my parents; my dad tried to give me some clue about the terminology with which these people were explaining their jobs), it seemed that the first person I'd talked to would be the best match. The Wall Street Journal Online sounded good to me, and maybe I'd get to do some programming... So when another guy who works with the first one emailed to offer me the position, I decided to accept it.

Fast forward through more emails, a few more phone calls, the end of the school year, and a number of forms and info packets, and I was almost set up to be a Dow Jones employee. I had a couple weeks or so between getting home from Penn and the start of my job (the Tuesday right after Memorial Day), during which I enjoyed sleeping in, reading, shopping... and I worried that I wouldn't be good enough for the job. Seriously, I didn't know why he accepted me when I thought I'd done pretty badly on the phone interview. I kept telling my family and friends I was petrified, and of course they all said I'd be fine and not to worry so much. (Worrying is something I do too much in general, probably.)

One thing about this Dow Jones internship is that the complex ("campus", I think they actually call it) is in Princeton/Monmouth Junction. My parents of course think the value of this opportunity overshadows the hour-long commute, and I guess I didn't really know what to think of it. My dad helped map out a more back-roads route which would hopefully avoid the worst traffic, and on the Thursday before I was going to start, I got up early to practice driving there. We took Dad's truck and made it without a hitch (well, perhaps aside of being late :P); after making sure I knew how to get to the parking lot and entrance I'd been directed to use on my first day, we turned around and headed home.

A few days later, my first day arrived. I left my house around 7:45am...and shortly thereafter, realized I'd forgotten my purse at home. And obviously couldn't call home to tell anybody, because my phone was at home in it. So there was basically nothing to do except continue driving, else I'd be late. With the help of Google Maps printouts and two sets of written directions (mine and my dad's), I arrived at the Dow Jones entrance guard booth at 8:51am. (I know this because the guard labeled my one-day parking pass with the time.) I had survived the first trial of the day (driving there), but was still so nervous that the guard had to ask me to repeat my reason for being there because I wasn't loud enough...

I walked inside and told the guy at the reception office window that I was starting my internship. As he was looking me up and trying to call Matt (the guy who had interviewed me) and then trying to call Frank (the other guy who had emailed me) since Matt wasn't answering, and whatever else, he asked for my driver's license, and I was like "umm... I kind of.. forgot it..." (hahaha). Luckily he just asked me to spell my name and then gave me a visitor's badge. Then I headed over to HR, where I had another minorly embarrassing moment: the receptionist asked who my contact person was in HR, and without really thinking I mentioned Matt, then Frank... she was like, "Do you have your letter?" I finally realized she meant the guy whose name was on my official job offer letter. Oh well. Said guy came and filled out my I9 (luckily I had my passport with me despite not having my purse, so I didn't look illegal or anything). He took me back to the check-in window and got me a real Dow Jones employee badge (which, yes, I think is kind of cool, haha. It's retractable and I can scan it to unlock the building doors!) I went back to HR, where I called home to discover that my parents had realized my forgotten purse, Mom had called Matt to tell him, and Dad was already on his way to deliver it (oh brother).

Finally, Frank came to fetch me from the HR office and took me upstairs where I was introduced to several people whose names I don't remember anymore lol. Matt still wasn't there, so someone showed me where the cafeteria is, and then we headed back towards where I'd entered (Building 5, by the way--though Building 1 and 5 are connected) and picked up my purse from Dad. Somewhere amidst hallway touring with somebody, we ran into Matt, finally. I discovered he is young after all, as I'd guessed from the phone conversation. (It feels weird to call him "young" when I'm years younger than everyone else there, haha, but it's all relative.)

So Matt and I walked around and talked, trying to figure out what I should work on for the summer. I told him I was up for anything, since I didn't know what to expect. Eventually he decided on something for me, and left me with the instructions to go through Javascript tutorials online. This sounded good to me, because after all, Javascript was one thing on my mental list of things I wanted to learn, so I dug in...

Lunch posed a bit of confusion for me. For some reason I could not understand, I'd been placed at a desk within what I now call a "rectangle" (defined by these cubicle wall things) containing nine desks total, but most of these were empty, and Matt wasn't even in the same large room as me, let alone my rectangle. So I walked over to another rectangle in another large room where I thought I remembered his desk was, but didn't see him there. However, several people in that rectangle looked up at me and one guy asked if I was looking for Matt. I said I thought I should tell him I was going to lunch, and the guy kinda laughed and said I didn't have to tell anyone I was going to lunch, then showed me where the cafeteria was for like my third time that day. At least they are friendly :) .

As the afternoon went on, I kept reading about Javascript (and some HTML, because I was only vaguely familiar with most of it), and as 5pm approached, I started wondering if I should go talk to Matt at all. Luckily he came to see how I was doing, and then briefly showed me a little more about what I should be looking up and what kind of code I'd be working with. He asked if I was good to go, and I said "Well.. can you tell me how to get out of here?" He laughed and walked me back to Building 5. I followed Dad's reverse directions, and managed to get home. And my first day had gone pretty well, I figured. :)

~~~

The next days included a variety of challenges and experiences. I eagerly worked on the Javascript tasks Matt gave me, looked up tons of little quirks, found out that Firefox usually does what I want and Internet Explorer doesn't (hahaha), and tried out extra things just to see if I could do them. Matt sometimes took me to a conference room and drew diagrams on the whiteboard to try to explain larger structures and concepts to me, and I usually was (sorta) able to understand. I found the cafeteria garbage cans and the nearest bathrooms, and read Tuesdays with Morrie during lunch, sitting in the comfy cafeteria lit by the sun coming through skylights. I found out that my "group" or whatever was in the process of moving into the rectangle, and gradually people populated most of the remaining empty desks. Matt is now next to me (though the desks are pretty wide, so he's probably at least 6 feet away), and next to him is Jeff. The next side has a "doorway" into the rectangle, but they've kinda blocked it with the whiteboard, haha. The next side (opposite mine) has Steve, Dean(?), and another guy whose name I don't know. The fourth side is moved away to make doorways, and two women whose names I also don't know sit there. I've come to recognize some other people who stop by the rectangle and/or apparently sit in nearby rectangles, but I mostly don't know names, especially the Indian ones. I think everyone I've talked to has been friendly, which is really great. Our rectangle is not without its silliness, either. This includes various goofing around, such as taking tables from the center of the rectangle and claiming them as extra desks, then placing stuff there and joking about opening a bazaar... throwing around a compactible (what?? Firefox spell-checking tells me that's not a word? oh well) Commerce Bank frisbee... joking about "Sue's balls" - these were golf balls, hahaha, but I guess guys will always be guys :P ... Steve getting Facebook... "I'm too sexy for my code" (because those center tables look like a runway LOL)... Oh man, there's more but I can't remember all of it. At least I'm learning that just because Dow Jones is a big intimidating-sounding company doesn't mean there aren't real normal people inside who like to have a good time :).

And speaking of that, one day, Jeff came over to me and asked if I played foosball, haha... I told him not really in awhile. I used to play really hardcore with Greg, back in the day, with that little table that caved down towards one end and the plastic players moved around and all...such good times though. So we went over to the "game room" or whatever and I requested to play defense (3 goalies? what? I guess that's the standard and ours was just old or something), but I am definitely out of practice, and my left hand is better for snapping the players, so I wasn't doing so well with the defenders (right hand). Jeff and I lost the first match to Steve and Dean(?), but then Steve left and someone else took his place, and Jeff and I switched positions so I played offense, and we won :).

...aaand that was a bit more than I planned, so I didn't get to the past few days, which were the original subject for this post.. but hey, it's all good.