Weekends go ridiculously fast these days and I have to get ridiculous amounts of work done in them. Consider: last week was another one of those super-busy weeks that I was hoping I'd only see one of, so I pulled all nighters doing work for like three out of the five days. Saturday I spent watching Wǔshù (Chinese martial arts) in the morning because one of my good friends was performing in a collegiate (funny how on first glance this word always brings "Colgate" to my mind, similar to how seeing Lebanese always brings up "Lesbian" for an instant), sleeping in the afternoon and working on my draft paper from 6pm until 5.59am on Sunday (I remember telling someone that I wouldn't work past 6). Anyway, I'm very proud of this weekend. Got quite a bit of work done even if it was all for one class. Also, did the laundry and emptied the trash, which have their own rewarding feelings.

Man, I'm really looking forward to working on my Mac programming class final project, which is finally here. Unfortunately, with me and CS projects, I have this pathological problem of not being able to gather enough will power to just start the thing. I'm super excited about it, but it's just... so... hard... to start it. Maybe today. Maybe right after this blog entry, since for some reason, after having gone to sleep at 3.30am, I wake up right now at 7.30am feeling completely refreshed but also in complete disbelief as to how.

Also, England was "rocked" by an earthquake. I only mention this because there's this excellent weekly 30-minute podcast done by two Englishmen - one living in London, the other in New York - in which they do the "funny take on the news". It's called The Bugle and it really is rather good. Also, I mention this only because in the most recent episode (number 18?) they ridicule the pathetic earthquake that England just experienced and the best part is when one of the podcasts hosts does an imitation of an Englishman's response to an earthquake - it's seriously gold.

In addition, I finally get to have a new music interest which is Jay Chou, who is an American Taiwanese singer with really awesome songs. I would give you Stage6 links here but the site's been closed down since February 28. (Seriously, what the fuck, DivX?! It's like giving someone a MacBook Pro, not telling them how long they're going to be able to keep it for but implying that it's forever, then a year later just taking it back and leaving them with a ten-year old PC running Windows Me. It's criminal, I tell you!) Anyway, I was first introduced to Jay Chou (Pīnyīn: Zhōu Jiélún Traditional Chinese: 周杰倫) by this song Huò Yuán Jiǎ from the movie Fearless (2006), which I liked, and then thanks to some of my Chinese-speaking friends, some others, two of which I really like. They are: Fà Rú Xuě (Traditional Chinese: 髮如雪 English: Snow-like Hair) and Tīng Māma de Huà (Traditional Chinese: 聽媽媽的話 English: Listen to Mom's Words). The lyrics in Fà Rú Xuě are way too complicated for me to understand at this stage, but I'm really happy that I can understand more than 95% of Tīng Māma the Huà even with the high speed.

Labels: English

我 在 這 個 博客 上 批評 漢字 當作 文字 批評 得 不 少，可是 今天 我 想 承認 對 學生 來 說，漢字系統 也 有 它 的 好處。主要 的 是 這樣：中文 的 學生 平常 學 生詞，同時 學 有關 的 漢字。所以，如果 他們 看到 一 篇 文章，文章 有 很 多 不 認識 的 字，學生 能 馬上 注意到 那 篇 文章 看不懂。但是，如果 只 有 發音，學生 猜錯 意思 的 趨勢 很 大。

此外，除了 練字 給 學生 一 種 特別 學會 的 滿意 以外，因為 學 字 這麼 難，那麼 學 發音 和 意思 對 學生 來 說 記下去 比較 容易。

Labels: Chinese

So, after the phone interview with Apple, which, apparently, I didn't completely bum, they've offered me a one-to-one interview tomorrow. Let's see what happens. If there's anything worth retelling, I will append this very same entry.

Addendum
So, the interview went all right according to me. The guy asked questions, including one involving programming and I feel I answered them all quite decently. Unfortunately, the position his department wants someone for is web development and I flat out told him I'm not going to be interested in doing that. I'd like to work at Apple but not in any random capacity - I'm only doing Mac programming this summer, unless it's in China, in which case anything is fine. But, if I'm in the US, I'm doing Mac development, whether it be at Apple or Microsoft.

Addendum II
Now, I've had two more phone interviews with Apple - one went well, the other not so much - and I have another one scheduled for Monday.

Labels: English

我 剛才 在 路上 碰到了 我 以前 的 中文 老師，那 位 老師 就是 給 我 起 名字 的 人。其實 我 那 個 時候 騎著 自行車，沒 看到 老師，經過 她。可是，她 大聲 叫了 我 的 名字 的 時候，我 就 馬上 停下來了，轉了 一 轉 看到 她 了。她 為 嚇 我 道歉，告訴 我 這 只是 她 的 個 實驗，以 查明 是否 我 對 我 的 中文 名字 反應。好像 這 項 實驗 成功了。也 是 挺 有意思 的 吧，因為 對 我 來 說，我 的 中文 名字 現在 就是 算 我 的 個 真正 的 名字。好 厲害 哦！

Labels: Chinese

It’s been a while since I’ve been in snow and I’d probably forgotten how absolutely marvelous it is. We couldn’t see much in the dark when we arrived there (and, by the way, our bus got stuck and we spent three hours trying to get it unstuck before the driver finally bit the bullet and agreed to call the tow truck company – can’t blame the fellow, they did charge him $250), but this morning, it was amazing. A bunch of us went outside and played in the snow, threw snowballs at each other, did a little bit of sledding; hell, there was even some antakshari thrown in. And the snow is so perfectly white, clean and pure, that you could even eat it. In fact, if my memory serves correctly, one of my friends actually was eating it. Unfortunately, as much as snow looks extremely solid when you’re playing around with it, it becomes very tangibly liquid the moment you stop playing around in it. And, you know, it was worth it. (By the way, there’s a long prologue at the bottom of this entry which explains the "it was worth it considering…" where the "…" is replaced by the misery of the two days before heading off to Lake Tahoe for Snow Trip.)

In any case, I had to sell a computer the next day, not to mention a shit load of work to do because of which I had almost cancelled the idea of going to Snow Trip, so I had to leave the awesome snow very early, leaving most of my friends behind who would come back the next day.

Unrelated Matter
Besides all the fun and the snow, there comes up once more the issue of what I am going to do during the summer, because, I met with my academic advisor and he says I should look for more opportunities before I accept Microsoft’s offer. In fact, he went so far as to recommend that I drop Microsoft’s offer if they don’t give me enough time to decide. Scary proposition, and I will probably deal with it when the time comes, and that is going to be in about a week. Meanwhile, I am earnestly applying to all sorts of internships and scholarships just as I would have done without the outstanding offer.

Prologue
There are some things, I feel, that I should do in life simply for (a) not ever regretting never having done them, and, (b) for trying things out and making sure I’m not missing out on something I really, really like just because I was too lazy to try it. So this time around, when the time came for the dorm Snow Trip, I thought I’d go, even though I didn’t know how to or want to go skiing or snowboarding. I have to say though, in an almost vengeful manner, perhaps to punish me for missing out on Snow Trip for the last two years (and especially in my freshman dorm in which I really should have gone because (a) I knew everyone and it would have been hella a lot of fun and (b) I really didn’t have a good reason not to), I had to make an inordinate number of sacrifices in order to go. This past week had, in any case, turned out to be the busiest week I’ve ever had in college; I had a large electrical engineering problem set due, two programming projects, about a hundred pages of reading (which I couldn’t just gloss over because we have to submit a "synthetic paragraph" about the reading the night before class and there are only three people in the class so it gets awkward if you’re the only one who has no clue about what’s going on), two midterm exams, one oral report, and, of course the regular homework that I’ve got to do everyday. On top of that, I had to write up two personal statements for an internship and a scholarship that I’m applying for (both during the summer, in China).

Even with two all-nighters, all that work didn’t get done. As for one of the two programming projects, I did it really well and even did all of the extra credit stuff because I simply enjoy doing it (also, my advisor told me I needed to do really well in this Cocoa programming class if I wanted to work at Apple, hehe). As for the other one, I simply did not do the assignment. It was too late and too big and I didn’t really have a clue on even how to get started. Thankfully, this is a class which drops the two lowest programming grades, so I’m safe there, except for the fact that I was hoping to save this second freebie for later because I’d already used one when I was doing the orrery assignment last to last week (I’d got all the planet to rotate about the sun but couldn’t get them to rotate on their own axes.) But, that’s not all. I was up all night on Thursday working on this "annotated bibliography" for the only non-techie class I’m taking this quarter and I still hadn’t completed it when, at ten o’clock, I got a call from a 408 area code and remembered that I had a phone interview with Apple (a.k.a., the mothership) scheduled for that time. All I could think about at that point was that I was going to be wasting another forty minutes that I could’ve spent on the bibliography. After the interview finished at 10.45am, and my first midterm finished at 12.15pm, I rushed back and "finished" my bibliography, hastily citing two more references, sending it off to the professor with an apologetic note saying that I didn’t have enough time to do it and hoped that she’d find it satisfactory, and then deciding about whether to study for the midterm at two o’ clock for which I had yet to study a single word or even prepare the cheat sheet that we were allowed to take into the exam. On top of this, I had promised two professors that I would give them the materials they needed to write recommendations for my China applications by the end of the week (i.e., that day) and I had still not written my personal statement which I was hoping to give to them so that they’d know my motivations for applying; and I didn’t want to break my word because it would create a bad impression (for someone who’s going to be recommending me!). So, another corner cut – I simply rushed to the bookstore, bought two of those professional-looking folder things, put the recommendation form (shit, I just remembered, I forgot to fill out my part!) and a copy of my transcript inside and dropped it off at their offices. Finally, with twenty minutes to go before the exam, I hurriedly made a cheat sheet, printed it out, rushed to the library, printed out the problem set that I’d painstakingly made in LaTeX the previous evening (hey, I learned LaTeX!), and reached the exam room two minutes before it began. I then proceeded to get thoroughly raped by the exam, made it home at 5 o’clock and finally on the bus to Lake Tahoe at 5.30pm.

Labels: English

Last Monday, I went to interview with Microsoft for the MacBU Intern position. Sure, it was five hours of continuous drilling on programming questions and answering many of the same questions again and again (because there are four different interviewers), but at least I was going to get a free (and good) lunch out of it. Although in their email, they say wearing casual is okay because they don't care about dress code, they also say that the interviewees can wear formal if it makes them feel more comfortable. As for me, it doesn't really make me feel more comfortable and I would've worn casuals if I hadn't heard about this other line of thought that although they might make a little fun of you for being overdressed, they probably won't penalize you for it, and, wearing formal lets them know that the interview is important to you. It's like, when you address professors for the first time (here), you don't use their first name; instead, you're a little more conservative and let them set the playing field. In 95% of the cases, they ask me to call them by their first name immediately after I addressed them "professor" and I do that from then on (even if it makes me feel a little uncomfortable), but there are a certain few who prefer the official title and, you know, whatever floats your boat. So, basically, don't go wearing a T-shirt and gym pants to meet someone who might place emphasis on the sheen of your shoes (if you want a job from him).

The interviews were actually pretty interesting and, I believe, even all the ones with programming questions (three out of the four) went pretty well. I always feel stupid in interviews with programming questions because I feel that the questions to which I do know the answers are those that pretty much any decent programmer should be able to answer and the ones I take a while to get (or don't get without some help from the interviewer) make me feel embarrassed that I didn't get them sooner. However, when I came back to the dorm and I asked the questions to other CS majors, I discovered that perhaps the questions weren't as easy as I thought they were.

Finally, at around 2pm, the interviews ended and I got to go home. Although I'd had myself dropped off right in front of the Microsoft offices in the morning, I'd told my friend not to bother for the return journey and that I'd make it on my own. Sadly, that involved walking three miles down to a Caltrain station and then taking the train back home. While I was on the train, I got a phone call with a 425 area code, which, by the way, is Redmond. Apparently, even though they'd told me they'd get back to me in a week, in less than two hours after the interview, they'd decided they wanted me for the job. Elation! Also, they started mentioning something about "changing my compensation" and my heart dropped because I thought that perhaps the interns in Mountain View get paid less. But, guess what, they actually offered to pay me considerably more than last year. More elation!

Yes, it sounds a bit lame but it is a dream come true, because I wanted to Mac development last year and didn't get the opportunity, at either Microsoft or Apple. And this year, although I applied to Apple, I was really hoping more to work at Microsoft because, although they might not be as "cool", they definitely treat their employees loads better and simply don't seem to have as much attitude as Apple does. I mean, Apple admittedly makes many great products (and I buy a lot of them), but I'm not sure I'm ready to work for them. Maybe I'm just not cool enough yet. Need to start listening to Bob Dylan perhaps.

So, yes, I'm probably going to accept the job offer. I'm actually really excited about this summer because I'll be working in Mountain View, which means I get to stay on the college campus and be with friends. I'm also planning to learn how to drive... at some point. Also, although I was going to buy a second-hand MacBook (having given the last one to my mother and not having the money or urge to buy an Air), in the happiness of having gotten the job I wanted for the summer, I bit the bullet and just bought a brand new one. Got RAM from newegg.com - 4GB for <$100. Guess how much Apple charges for the same. $850! I also got one of those protective shells for it (in red), so it looks cool. So, is life good? Mostly. :-)

Labels: English