Funny Bits #1

As "lol" is probably the most overused and devalued chat acronym (at least in my experience), I always use more emphasis in my online conversations if I'm actually laughing in front of my screen.  With that in mind, here goes my first little collection of (mostly kinda recent) funny quotes from online conversations...

11/9/09, 12:05 am:
friend: just didnt want you to feel guity
friend: you're not as fun when you act responsible
me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
me: ohhhh god
me: that was fantastic
me: esp in my state of mid
friend: :D
me: *mind
friend: wont ask
me: (mid wtf?)
friend: lol
me: ballroom comp~~~
me: i am not drunk
me: though myh typing might look like it

12/23/09, 12:38am:
me: ok
me: i went and cleaned out the screw-on tips of the frosting things
friend: lolo
me: ...that doesn't sound dirty AT ALL
me: but um
me: i ate all the icing i cleaned out
me: hahahaha
me: it was really good
me: ..oh god
friend: mmmomnomnom
friend: i didn't take it as dirty 'til you said it was
friend: haha
me: oh good
me: but yeah i couldn't help seeing that ;P
me: :P
friend: lol so uh
friend: you really like that icing, huh?
me: don't even start.
me: :D
friend: XD
friend: :P

12/22/09, 9:43pm
me: you also have a habit of making me jealous. :P
friend: Sorrryyyyy
me: better be.
friend: Ill share the wealth when ur nak
friend: Bak
friend: ...
friend: My phone was going to complete nak for me as naked
friend: whoich wouldve been very inappropriate
me: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
me: omg that is hilarious
me: ahhahahhahahahaha

"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 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. :)

I am going to explode

It has been 7 hours since I last ate something but I've already been home for an hour and haven't eaten anything. That's about how much this is consuming my mind. And when I say "this", I mean "he".

It's a complicated situation, really; before I got into it, I imagined that if I got into it, it would be difficult. Of course in the first place there is me to deal with. How many times have I been right next to him, our time together going on, supposedly what I look forward to so much, but I get so tied up with all my worry and fear that it all just strangles me? Thinking about it now, outside the moment, I can't even understand what I'm so afraid of. Maybe this is one reason it might be a stupid endeavor. I just want to be comfortable. I just want to be me, because if I want him to like me and like being around me, I don't want to be holding things back.

Sometimes, sometimes, it works. I'm telling him some story and I know he's listening cuz he has that look, interested and right in the moment with me. Or some little thing or other happens, and I make a little joke about it, which starts us laughing, and then one of us makes another joke off of that, and we just laugh even harder on top of it all. Then I relax a little because we shared something fun, something that feels good.

I think there's only been one time we've stepped past the line of little jokes and related funny stories to have a little bit more of a serious conversation. I think it took me slightly by surprise when he started it with a question, but it felt good... And I love laughing, I really really do, but I want this so much too. I want to just talk about what we think... But it seems so hard. I don't know a whole lot, but my life and his (and he and I) are so different. My knowledge, my experiences must encompass only a small fraction of his. I feel restricted and he looks free to me. How can my life be of interest to talk about? How can I be of interest? Well if I can't talk about things I do, I'd like to talk about things I think about... I want to try to give who I am, since I guess that's all I really have.

And then... there are these most dangerous little moments: we touch. It's happenstance. I'm laughing, we're going up the stairs, and he doesn't want me to fall, and he kind of has his arm there in case, and it brushes mine a few times. He reaches across my arm to get to the keyboard. My earring falls out and he puts it back in for me. His puts his hand on my knee, for a second.
...
Then my mind takes over, turns life into a movie. I trip over my shoes and the fall lands me halfway into his arms, and I get to stay there a little longer... Or our hands touch, and catch, and stay together. Or we're laughing really hard, then while we're recovering, I lean over and just kiss him. Okay yeah, basically every scenario leads to kissing, because somehow I can't stop them from coming to mind. I say "movie" because these things would be much more likely to happen in a movie than in my real life.

And just to make it all 10 times worse, the situation that I'm in draws its no-cross line exactly at the line whose crossing would indicate an interest between us... So I go on every day, wondering if he might want to cross that line, if the situation were different. Wishing I was free to cross it, if I could ever get the courage. Trying, if the chances arise, to step just a little closer, and see what happens, how he reacts. Attempting to discern if possibly he's on the other side of this barrier wanting the same thing, not that I could really think well enough of myself to assume it.

The worst thing is... I'm not sure why I want it all so much. Is it just this enticing game, something with which I can try to push the limits, this little bit of excitement I can hold onto and let it make me crazy? In the beginning, it seemed that we could talk easily, but now there are plenty of times it seems neither of us can think of anything to say. That's always awkward for me. Conversing easily and eventually meaningfully is one of the things I value most in a relationship with somebody (I mean any kind of relationship, friends as well); for sure, I want that with him, but it's not exactly happening naturally. Still, it bothers me every time I feel like I've regressed. But to get back to the point, if talking doesn't really flow with him, then why do I still "want" him so much? (..whatever "want" entails.) Is it a combination of just wanting to kiss someone and being attracted to him? ..I don't like thinking I'm caught up in such a shallow level of feelings, but I suppose I am human which makes it totally possible.

Okay...where have I gotten with all of this? I want and don't really know why but can't have anyway. Things happen every day, my mood soars or dives accordingly. I analyze and worry and wonder and regret and hope and act giddy and basically, go crazy. And I don't exactly want to rush my summer past, but I want so badly to know what might happen in a certain future moment that could be my only chance to find out some answers to all this wondering..

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... :)

unhappy things

[one]

I miss talking with somebody on a regular basis, telling stories/news and sharing thoughts and being open. Leaving messages back and forth online and laughing. Knowing that someone's thinking about you (and you think of them) and looking forward to both funny lighthearted conversations and serious conversations. Okay...so I've got an experience from last summer on my mind. Not to say I haven't talked to anyone this summer, I have talked with several people, and had the occasional meaningful conversation, and even kept in somewhat regular touch with a couple. But (sorry for the annoying cliché) it's just not the same. I guess I had something special, which means of course I'm not going to truly appreciate it till I no longer have it...seems to be a rule of my life or something. And I think this kind of friendship is one that may elude you if you seek it on purpose; it'll find you when you are neither trying to find it nor expecting it. This just makes it all the better: "I don't know how it happened, but I'm so happy it did."

So based on all that, I suppose the best I can do is not worry about it too much, huh? Just wait and see what happens. I only hope something does.

[two]

This is far less meaningful to me, and has nothing to do with the above (except maybe social emailing, but I haven't done that for real in...six years? Though, there is something to be said for it. Another time.). Anyway, so I've gotten really extremely lazy with my email. My old "home" email, instated in 7th grade, doesn't get much these days aside of ads for online shopping (which I may or may not have really signed up for), so I don't usually bother with it anyway... And with my school email, not gonna lie, there are certain listserves I pay more attention to and some I only glance at for the most part. But usually during the school year I try to read the important stuff and respond to it. And even though it's the summer now, I'm still getting some important stuff (especially about Koosh's band camp at Penn that I'm gonna be a counselor for) that I really really should be keeping up to date on...but I'm just not. I check my email and then I don't make myself read them. I dunno why this laziness is so compelling. It exists in other realms of my life; seems to be generally that I can't get started on doing some kind of project or other, even something I think I want to work on. But really, reading emails? Not so hard. Yeah, I should really start pulling myself back onto track. Might as well try to get into a habit of being organized with email (at the least) before going back for next year.

Silliness....:P

I would say in general I'm a pretty serious person. Apparently it's a deep-seated trait, because in 4th grade two of my friends launched a campaign to make me laugh more. (I'm not sure how effective it was.) This doesn't mean I don't enjoy joking and laughing, because I thoroughly do. I like serious conversation because it enlightens me about the person with whom I'm conversing; it's interesting to hear their opinions, advice, thoughts, perspectives, etc etc. But of course I also enjoy cracking up together (even possibly in the middle of a serious conversation); it makes me feel comfortable and a little closer to that person because we're sharing something that just feels good ("natural high" and all that - it's probably true). As for just goofing off, it's not something that comes naturally. Watching my brothers or whoever being pointlessly/ridiculously silly is usually uninteresting if not mildly annoying to me. And same goes for that kind of comedy in movies. However...sometimes I click into the silly mode. It works best when my brothers are goofing off. Then silly faces and gestures ensue, and almost everything one of us says is probably a little ridiculous and cause for more laughing. None of it is actually that funny except because for the time being, everything is funny. The best part is letting go of everything and bonding and just having crazy fun that doesn't make much sense... Haha if any guy can get me into silly mode and spend an hour or something with me like that, I'd probably be on my way to falling in love. (Well...at least falling in "like"..."love" is a powerful word and I still can't quite figure it out.)

Bottom line? I really need to do more of this, and with more people. :)

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.

98% Pointless little post about why i love java so much

K so I'm just starting to look through the Java swing api cuz of something I want to work on, and what do I find in the JFrame docs, but... :

public JFrame()
    throws HeadlessException

....hahahaha "headless exception"...like what, the JFrame's missing its head? Ok I'm sure it's a totally reasonable name and all but I just love it. Not quite as much as the dirty rectangles method I found once...I'll have to find that one again sometime...but still. :P

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 :)

Freshman year at Penn ... v.3

This (and similar future posts) are inspired by a Facebook note written by Keelan... hope he doesn't mind me stealing the idea :)

The following is a list of things that happened in my freshman year of college, in a fairly random order, as I think of them:

• first roommate I met - running into Erica in the Rodin lobby when I was checking in
• my dad helping Tatini and her parents install her mirror on her room door
• wearing my beach towel to the NSO toga party
• "sketchy toga party guys" and Jen (me), Lee (Simone), Natasha (Tatini), Monica Sanchez (Marcela) and...crap what was Ben's ?? [thanks to Simone for remembering Marcela's code name haha]
  
• fire drills at 4am and 7am, everyone trudging out to the stairway in pajamas
• the wind tunnel
• baking Nick's bday cake (buying stuff at Fresh Grocer, borrowing the heart-shaped pan, spelling the words on it with Cheerios)
• running from DDF to wind ensemble (only a half hour in between) on Thursday nights
• slipping on Locust Walk in the rain in my clogs and flip flops
• keeping the list of funny quotes ("Penn Quotes")
• discovering when I first arrived at Penn that I'd been missing out on Facebook (because EVERYBODY was talking about it), and hence getting it immediately when I set up my computer haha
• listening to Mae all the time on purevolume.com (before Ruckus)
  
• had a crush on a guy I'd started talking to over the summer; decided later on that it was probably superficial O:-)
• freaking out in my first CSE110 recitation because the TA TOTALLY confused me when he tried to explain something like x = x + 5 in Java, telling Eric Fisher about it, and ending up switching into his recitation
• getting breakfast at Commons with Dan every Thursday morning (because I had class from 9:30 to 1:30 I think?), then walking to our math104 recitation
• learning what spooning is, and discovering I'd already done it haha
• getting hot chocolate with Rebecca after band field rehearsals on our way back to the high rises...
• ...and eventually transferring to mochas, then lattes, and declaring myself a Starbucks coffee person (after years of thinking I don't like coffee!)
• falling asleep ALL THE TIME in the first row in music theory!
• eating chocolate covered espresso beans and absolutely cracking up over whatever with Rebecca instead of studying for something
• first time I ever slept in the same bed with a guy
• exchanging "stories" all the time online with Henri
• room switching in Rodin 108 halfway through the year
• over spring break, a 260 problem defeated both me and my dad for hours one night; then as I was falling asleep I figured it out, and later led Dan through the steps to figure it out :)
• doing math104 homework with Dan during his ITA lab hours on Wednesday nights (the night before it was due in recitation, of course)
• spending hours playing Stepmania with Evan one night instead of doing our homework (my first time playing it, and hence the beginning of my addiction haha)
• shopping for Freshman Formal attire at King of Prussia with Erica, Tatini, and John (and the craziness of the buses to get there and back!)
• going to Chris's Jazz Cafe with Rebecca (for my jazz history class) and with my jazz writing seminar class
• after playing Sweet Child o' Mine all the time in Penn Band, I finally listened to the real song and liked it so much that I listened to it over and over till Erica came in and asked me what was going on! haha
• eating dinner at Commons with everyone: Erica, Tatini, and Simone; Matt (our GA); sometimes Ben and Chris from across the hall
• when the washing machine left my clothes soaking wet so that after 2 runs through the dryer, they still had to be hung up on the clothes rack for awhile to dry
• late-night bus trip with John to the art store Pearl on South Street cuz I needed gray paper last minute for drawing class
• Keelan wearing someone's high heels at the Penn Band Semiformal (hilarious!!)
• staying up till about 5:15am finishing my jazz history final paper on Praful (latest I'd stayed up up to that point, I think)
  
• Rodin ski trip to Camelback with John: discovering maybe I'm only good enough to ski double green circles (apparently those Montage black diamonds were nothing much, haha), falling once and losing a ski, falling again via crashing into someone and getting impressive bruises on both knees, getting run over by a lift (hahaha), the bus breaking down (or did it hit another vehicle?) when we were almost back... good times :D
• discovering that rainboots are fashionable (never would have guessed!)
• fell madly in "like" just after it was too late (as usual), spent a couple months or so pining away reading over saved online conversations and listening to supposedly emo music, finally got angry enough to let go, and slowly redeveloped a friendship
• experienced my first kiss
• nudged two friends into converting to DMD (my major)
• savored the glory of having only one class on Fridays (first semester), and the icing on the cake: it was not till 1pm!
• played Outdoor Overture AGAIN - after having the solo part in high school concert band, I found out what the third part is like thanks to the wind ensemble...
• came home for fall break and visited my high school marching band, where I was smothered by hugs from my clarinets - it felt so amazing :)
• carved the beginning of my downhill curve in calculus: math 104 was okay, but math 114 started getting harder... (maybe it was the professor's approach to teaching, but still.) I started thinking maybe I don't like math so much anymore?
  
• confused my shoulder for my elbow one day in said math 114 class (hahahahha Grace...)
• began experiencing the great ups and downs of being in a relationship
• wrote perhaps the most inefficient program I've written so far in my life: every time I wanted to write a line to a file, I opened/closed a FileWriter. Let me tell you, it was SLOW. And absolutely hilarious - after I figured out what was going on, hahaha.
• woke up 15 minutes before my jazz history class, put on the first clothes I found, walked as fast as I could to Fisher Bennett, and climbed 4 flights of stairs to get to the room - and still arrived while people were moseying on in with their coffee/breakfast
• got caught in pouring rain after a band field rehearsal... walked back to Platt with Jenn and Keelan and got drenched since my umbrella was back in Platt, then had to stand dripping in the lobby while my forgotten Penn Card was fetched for me from downstairs. Returned to my room and hung up my pants to dry for like 3 days lol.
• sat between Dan and Evan while the two of them doodled and wrote little notes back and forth on my 260 notebook - so much for paying attention in class that day, hahaha
• making the "ADD in DMD" Facebook group with Michelle...during DDF...haha
• watching Nirav and Luke play guitar just inside the quad entrance till like 3am
  
• ..more to come?
  

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.