As usual, I always always pack the night before I leave for my vacation. Basically I was a cat chasing a mouse, tried to ensure I did not leave any presents behind, no cables forgotten (sooooo many cables: phones - both nokia and motorola, cameras - both canon and panasonic, laptops - both apple and sony, ipod, nintendo ds. Btw these are for 2 people, not all mine, I am not that greedy and rich : ) ...yet. We didn't end up taking everything anyway.
So after we (I) finally packed, we still have to wait until all the clothes are dry and have to fold them after that. Really annoying living at an apartment without your own washer/dryer.
But I should be happy happy since tomorrow we leave for 1 month. No more work and no more waking up early to go to work. Even though I like people at work, I would still prefer to sleep and earn money at the same time.
Friday, June 27, 2008
procrastinated post from before our vacation
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Interviews
This semester I've had the most travel of my entire life. I had 3 out-of-town interviews: Seattle, Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St.Paul) and Charleston. Almost every weekend I went out of state, and stayed in different hotels. I learned something about interviews: the more interviews you go through, the more you prepare for the next one, and the more you know about your self. Every time you have to explain to them about yourself, your skills, and answer technical and non-technical questions, you learn how to solve and divide and conquer your problem. Even though I was tired through all these interviews, I am really grateful that I had lots of them. I did not pass some of the first interviews but sometimes I made it to the second interview.
At the end I had two offers that I debated for soo long liked so much because of the environments and also (hehe) the $$$. But one offered much higher $$$ than the other one and I saw that my career would grow faster. I liked the starting date they offered, it made me be able to stay here in Atlanta with Russian for awhile and we could then move to the new city together. I am afraid going to a new place alone ... thinking of living there alone and knowing no one except people at my work. But now no more, because Russian will move to the same city after I move. I felt lucky for having everything - a new job, new city and a really nice boyfriend : )
Seattle - Microsoft Interview
Yipeee ..... I passed my first interview with microsoft and they asked me to come to Redmond for a second one. So i arranged my travel with them .. was really easy to take care of it.
I decided to go on Saturday, which gave me extra days to spend in Seattle and also gave me Sunday to prepare for the interview. Fortunately the Russian was able to company me there, thanks to him begging his dad for a plane ticket using some of the frequent-flyer miles he has collected. So it was a nice time - spending a little holiday in Seattle, everything for free including plane tickets, hotel for 3 days and car rental.
My car rental
When we got there, we traveled through seattle, downtown, the space needle, the international park ... and ended the day in pike's public market - a really exotic international place. I liked this fish market soo badly, because it reminded me of my hometown. They sold lots of fresh fish, and the way they sold them was really interesting: everyone was singing and they threw fish from one person to other like the bartenders from the Coyote Ugly movie. The other cute thing I saw there were lots of flowers shops (I love flowers). The prices were not too expensive, and they were really cute ... not only roses, but lilies, daisies, sunflowers, etc., making the market so colorful and lovely.
However I didn't like Seattle too much, I prefer San Fransisco still.
We spent all of saturday downtown. The next day, we went around Redmond, nothing much there, just looking around the surrounding area. We ended up eating in an Indian restaurant, and the Nan (bread) was sooo goood, the best Nan I've ever had. I love food if you don't know me well, but I am a bit picky , not like the Russian who can eat everything .... We chatted with the waiter and asked him regarding the living costs in seattle (I like to know how much $$$ I have to ask for, before the interview...)
After our lunch, we went back to hotel and practiced lots of programming problems, just to make sure that I know how to solve them and to explain it clearly. The problem with technical questions is that sometimes you are too nervous and forget everything or maybe you want to solve it right away without thinking through all the possibilities. I read from the internet that Microsoft likes the interviewee to explain or give the algorithm before writing code. So I practiced that a lot, and during my practice, Russian noticed that I always said "everyting like that" and made lots of assumptions without explaining them. Phew - good thing he noticed and let me know before my interview.
Monday, Russian dropped me off at Building 19 (the hiring building), and I walked inside (btw, we went a day before to check out the building and took some pictures hehehheheh).
I was nervous, really nervous, and the lady at the front desk asked my name and gave me a nametag and asked me to wait until my hiring HR lady (Marie) came to pick me up. So I waited around 15 minutes until she came out, and she took me to her office and gave me some questions regarding my status and starting date .... she also gave me tips how to "divide and conquer" each question ... really nice tips. She also asked me this as a warm-up:
"Imagine you are a librarian in the Microsoft Library, and
Bill Gates calls you one day and asks if he can borrow
a book, and you check the database to see that the book
is available. So you tell Bill Gates to come to pick it up,
but after you hang up, you realize that the book is not on
the shelf. What do you do?"
She wanted to know how I will divide and conquer the problem, and then she explained what mistakes I made. After finishing with her, she took me to the interview car, a honda car, really small one, and this car drives all the interviewees around every day.
I jumped into the car, and had a bit of conversations with the driver. He said that every day there are 100 people interviewing with Microsoft .... ooooo my God ..... to make the story short, I had 6 interviews, only 1 lunch break..... Microsoft's cafeteria is way better than GT's, and they have 13 different cafeterias!
I was so exhausted after the interviews. I skipped the dinner with Microsoft because I had to go back to Atlanta since my flight departed at 10 pm, and the interview was finished at 7 - no time for dinner. But I ate a realy expensive dinner at the Seattle airport with the Russian (and Microsoft paid for us).
November 27, 2005
Names
How you pick your children names? based on your husband/wife name? someone in the family? meaning?
I think everyone should her/his children names unique........how hard it is?
Interesting research
Really interesting day today (March 1)...really a good start of the month
Couple interesting researches were discussed inside the class such as: sms stringer bus, and graffiti.
SMS stringer bus would allow us to send sms messages to find out how far or location of the busses, so we don't have to wait too long or in the cold weather. Yipeee, does not have to find a computer and log in to check the buss again : ) mobile computing and network are really paid off
Graffiti is nice and interesting one too. It would allow us to leave a comment regarding places we have visited or stayed. The users would use PDAs or mobile phone to read or write opinions to/for other people. I remember when I just graduated from my junior high school, I really wanted to leave my name on one of the walls inside the school, however I was not able to. I knew if I wrote something, someone would paint the wall back and my "autograph" would disappear. So this software would able to save those kind of stuff that I wanted to do. This would be a really challenging software to complete
................................................................................time to search more about GIS
Old Blogs
I could not believe that I have quite number of old blogs and to re-read them again brought me back to Atlanta and our old-sweet memories over there. How silly I was :) ... ops I am still silly now ;)
Now I remember why I didn't update my friendster blog - all because of their stupid limit number of postings. I lost couple older posts because of that - so I decided to not write more since I didn't want to lose my current posts. I don't know if they change their rules yet. But nevermind, I am taking over my posts to different website - sorry.
Opssss I found some more old blogs.....
To know which one is new or old, just check the date below each blog. The old ones have dates below them.
Janji Joni (Joni's Promise)
I have seen many Indonesian movies such as "mengejar matahari," virgin, brownies .... etc. (I forgot the titles already.) The reason I watched most of them is because of my curiosity after reading news from Kompas regarding how good they are. However, after watched all of them, I am so disappointed with the stories and the acting - it seems they just try too hard, causing it to become unreal and totally not funny, not romantic enough etc etc.
I dont say they are bad actresses or actors, or bad storylines or bad directors etc, but I was not attached to the movies while watching. I was able to finish some of my assignments and even fell asleep during some. Always a lot of distractions. Maybe after you get used to watching Hollywood movies, the Indonesian movies becoming amateurish, something not interesting and sometimes obviously copying the stories from comics, and other love stories.
But yesterday I watched "Janji Joni", the storyline being so simple, but I really liked it! : ) And not because "Nicholas Saputra" is really cute. Basically I learned something I have never known regarding the job of a "movie reel delivery boy", and never knew there even existed a job like that. Even though some of the jokes are old jokes or copied from American movies, there were lots of moments that would make you remember about typical Jakarta.
The story was about a guy named Joni who promised that he will not disappoint movie watchers when they watch the movies because - it turns out that for a movie to be played in a cinema, there are 6 reels (for Indonesian movies) - however to reduce the production costs, each set of 6 reels is always being used by 2 cinemas, so they have to have a delivery boy to take rolls to exchange between the cinemas *while* the movie is playing! The way they illustrated it was really good :)
Of course one day he meets a really cute girl (I have no idea what her name is... do I have to know her? NAHHHH... as long I know the guy's name that's enough for me ;) actually, just go watch the movie, otherwise I will spoil the story. It looks a bit like the "Serendipity" story, but little bit more funny, and less romantic (I admit it). If you are going to watch it, do not expect too much - I realized if you expect the movie to be really good, you will end up disappointed :(
But seriuosly the movie is a good one (8/10 rating). Btw I liked the Final Fantasy 7 movie too : ) , I mean I was not interested with FF at all before, but now really curious thanks to the brothers Goh. Still too lazy to play the games though, so I used my online cheat sheet to know the story.
Let me know if you want to borrow "Janji Joni". It's $59.99 per day ONLY!*
*Some late fees may apply. See store for details. Batteries not included.
Geisha
I read the book before I went to watch the movie. Lani told me that it was worthless to watch it since we both had read, but after I finished the book, I was so obssessed to see the movie (same as the kite runner)... I like to com
pare between the book and the movie, which is better, and to imagine how they actually illustrated the book into a movie, where exactly inside your brain you had little pictures of everything and felt you knew each character really well. The movie was not so bad, but there were several scenes I wish they had changed, and still hate the ending, I always wish it would be different. I like Gong Li's acting as Hatsumomo, just think she is not mean enough, I imagined she should be the devil someone who made someone's life really hard daily, but the movie lacked sympathy, love, emotions etc. For sure it lacks the full story about Geisha, the book explained it much better. But overall, I am ok with the movie. I give 8/10 for the novel and 7/10 for the movie
Long time no blog
I didn't forget about my blog, I just had a really looooong vacation, starting with parents coming for graduation, taking them around east coast (washington dc, philadelphia, atlantic city, new york, boston, providence and niagara falls), all the way until now, when i ran away with my friends to florida.
To start 2006, i had 2 vacations to florida (since i guess one was just not enough). The first one was cold and so was the second. I though we could avoid the cold weather in Atlanta but it turned out that Florida was NOT as hot as it's supposed to be. The second vacation was crazy since we went to the beach and all the windy-ness of the beach blowing through me had added to my sickness (sssneeze, sneezeee!).
Lots of gambling moments and "talking big" from Han2 during the trip. I was a bit quiet - hehehehhe really!! I know that you couldn't believe that, but I was quiet ... sickness caused me some dizziness.
The most memorable moment from the vacations was my fight with Vietnamese lady in Atlantic City, she is a total crazy %#$&$#%@# lady @#*^&%!!! All started because I had put some gambling money on top of her money, and she told me to take it away because it gave her bad luck and this long long lecture from her made me lose my temper a bit and i said to her "shut up," and after that there was lots of talk back of FFFFFFFFFF---- Chinese this, Vietnamese this, beep beeeps beeeeps, lots of censoring there. I had never had fight this big which almost caused me being kicked out of the casino - heheheh. Not a really good way to end and start a year, but whatever, accidents happen. Stupid lady.
January 16, 2006
GT Survival Guide - please read it when you have lots of time to waste
Finished my programming language final - Pheeeew!
During my exam, there was a guy who finished his test and ran out screaming: "I am out of college!!!" Repeating and repeating it, so loud. Same with me, I wanted to scream at him and tell him to wait for me so we could celebrate together ;) but at the end, it became a bit annoying because he just wouldn't stop screaming and I couldn't concentrate one bit on my exam with all the noise. (Ya ya ya blame my lack of concentration aaaall on him just for celebrating too early.)
This semester I only went to library a grand total of two times - the last visit was on Monday. And it turned out there were lots of interesting things going on there during finals week. One of them w
as shocking: there was a *sleeping bag* on the floor of one of the big group-study cubicles! Sleeping bag in the library ... what? Maybe I was lost. Is this a library or am I in a dorm?
Ok so it was really a sleeping bag, not in the dorms or camping ground, no: in *the library*. I even have a picture to prove it - I didn't think anyone would believe me otherwise. (Sorry, maybe you all have seen sleeping bags in libraries, but not me, it was my first time, so I'll admit I got a bit too excited to photograph it for evidence).
So I just want everyone to know, I am not as big of a geek as Ernita, Merry, Han2, and Lani try to accuse me of. At least I have never SLEPT in the library ... well wait, I mean: I've taken a nap before, I guess (have you seen our textbooks? zzzzz) but hey, at least I never brought a sleeping bag EXPECTING to take a "nap" for eight hours! Not even a blanket.
But this all gave me an idea: how to stay in GT without paying anything... can it be possible? Yeah, now that I think about it, actually someone *can* stay in GT without even having an apartment. How? Take a look:
STINGY GT SURVIVAL GUIDE
----------------------------------
Q: Where should I sleep?
A: You can sleep @ GT library from Monday - Thursday, Saturday and Sunday (GT library closes after 6pm on Friday). Then Friday sleep in Student center... big Tv, lots of computers, and there are comfy sofas. Definitely better than Library. Maybe switch between them, so people would not notice that you use these places for sleeping.
Q: OK but now I smell like sofa. Where do I shower?
A: You can take showers in CRC (GT exercise center), and you can rent a locker to put all your bathroom stuff. And if the CRC is closed, you can go to the old Boggs Building, I saw one of the restrooms there has a shower. Or maybe ISYE...? I can't remember where I saw the other one, but I notice in the old buildings, the restrooms still have showers connected sometimes. Looks a bit creepy, I remember saw them during my 1st year in GT.
Q: OK now I smell good, but my clothes still smell like sofa. What do I do?
A: Now if you want to be much cheaper - even completely pennyless - you can keep some of your stuff in your friends' house and wash clothes at their place too : ) maybe do them a favor as an exchange. I dunno if you have to pay for laundry when you live in the dorms. (P.S. Lani & Han2, I washed my clothes @ your place because I was too lazy to go to a laundry place, not for saving money! I'm serious. Stop that.)
Q: I'm really tired of carrying all my stuff with me. It's embarrassing when I go to class with my alarm clock and microwave. What should I do about storage?
A: Like I said, got any friends?
Q: No. I smelled really bad until you gave me the showering tip, so all my friends left me.
A: Hmm... well dang. Then I cant find another way for saving money on laundry and keeping your stuff except for help from your friend ... hmm, think think .... tik tok tik tok ... OK your time's up - I can't find any places without a janitor finding it. And any more advice from me will cost you $$$ (which you don't have, otherwise you wouldn't be asking these ridiculous questions).
But if you can get a job, using your new clean smell, you can hide stuff at your workplace.
Q: OK wait, can I have one more question before you start charging me?
A: Was that a question?
Q: NO!!! Don't count that one. Here's my last question: all of the shower stuff is nice, but walking around and showering everywhere has made me REALLY hungry. What should I do for food?
A: Aha, the most important part: for food, you can pretty much get it from different departments at GT for free almost every day! Every department has free food sometimes (free pizzas mostly, and Diet Coke). If you know which department has it and you go around lunch time, you're pretty much guaranteed some leftovers at least! It's a good idea to go and save some for the next meal too. You can heat your food in the student center during lunch hours, and at night you can go to the library downstairs to reheat your leftover leftovers.
Oh and, this all reminds me of one of the old news from Stanford (or maybe Yale or NYU, I can't remember where...) there was a student who lived homeless inside the school library... so it is possible! He even got housing and scholarship in the end, when the administrators found out. (And CNN found out... hehe)
So using my handy guide, this can happen in GT too - lots of resources, no problem.
Dang, I'm still such a dork. : (
Q: Yeah you are!
A: Shut up!
December 13, 2005
Suck! I got robbed!
I spent 78 dollars for my graduation gown. 78 bucks man! That's like... that's like 15 meals at Sakkio! Enough to feed starving children in Africa and everything.
Yeah, I don't understand why it is so expensive, and WHY WHY we have to spend OUR personal money to buy this stuff - shouldn't the school give them for free, after we spend 4 years tuition and 2 years of master program graduate-tuition. Besides, I have never even used those useless Stingers (maybe one or twice) and never ever used any health facilities ... damn, they should have made exceptions ... especially for graduating seniors. Just as a gift for graduation! Stingy ridiculous people - why everything has to be paid by students?!!
I got robbed. After staying up all night for two years studying crap, I have to pay another 78 bucks to graduate in a funny costume? What &#^#%... you know what? nevermind. I am just feeling cheapo today
December 10, 2005
Substance Test
I finished with 2 of my finals, yippeee!
It is not finals week yet, still 2 weeks away, so a bit relief for me. So after my exam, I went to get a substance test/drug test for pre-employment. I hate drug tests, not because i am a junkie, for sure i am clean, and never tried anything. I just hate the way we have to take it, feels so disguisting. This time was my second time, once before I had to do it for my internship in ADP, and I did not know what was the substance test procedure. I thought they were going to take my blood .... so when I got there, I had a difficult time to ... um... you know, "go"... so they *rejected* my sample! Not enough. What the @#$%&*$# is that? I had to go to Burger King and buy a really big size sweet tea to "prepare" to take the test *again*, and the place was closing in like an hour.
However, two things: 1) the tea was disgusting, not sweet at all, had way too much ice which tasted bad, and 2) it did not work right away so I had to keep drinking and drinking and drinking it, even when I lost all my taste because it was so bitter and cold and watered-down after the ice melted. It took around 30 minutes even though I had only drank half of the cup. The Russian made me finish it all - really painful event, but a bit funny if I think of it now. I wish we had a different way to test this.
December 01, 2005
AJC's Photo Contest
For People, Animal and Place Category
They are not too good since I am not a great photographer but I really like them, especially the place category, I think that one is unique, and really cute. Good thing the photo contest is for amateur people, so I am one of them. Maybe I am not too amateur, maybe beginner. If you want to participate in the contest, just click this link AJC's photo contest http://www.ajc.com/news/content/travel/articles/stories/1005/photocontest.html
Actually for the animal category, I was going to submit this picture.
But I need a consent form from Puffy (lani's beagle). I dunno if she will be happy to appear in a newspaper, and she might want to share the prize. But can she ride inside the plane? Is there doggy spa with this prize? And overall she needs a ticket to fly back to Atlanta just to claim it. Puffy, I miss you ... your fatness, laziness and beaglesness.
November 27, 2005
Lazy Day
So today I woke up and I should have studied for my final, but I was so lazy (as usual), and just stayed in front my TV all day and watched watched watched. The page hasn't moved since 3 hours ago. I am way unmotivated to study ... thinking to go to Borders to study, but I know if I go there, I will end up reading manga and magazines, and when I finish with them, I will rush out to go home thinking that it is better to study at home. But if I stay at home, the TV distracts me soooooo much, even if I study inside my room, there is a TV and lots of manga surrounding me.
So I decided to enjoy my time by blogging and submitting photos to the contest.
November 27, 2005
Fruits Basket
Sorry for making lots of new blogs today. I have saved them in my mind and my lapi (my laptop) and did not have a chance to post them because of my busy schedule with interviews, homeworks, projects and tests.
Today, I received Fruits Basket No. 12 - yippeeee I am crazy about fruits basket!
I have its DVDs (presents from my Russian), calendar and also the mangas. The story is getting better and I ca
n't wait for the next one - really impatient about it, so I decided to get No. 13 from the Japanese store near my place. Even though I cant read Japanese fluently, I will patiently find each word from dictionary ... btw the Dvds stories are different from the mangas...my Russian might think I am crazy heheeh, but he knows I am crazy and a maniac about fruits basket. But not too maniac based on my wallet size now. So I went there and found not only no 13, but no 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18! Aaaarrrhgggggg, I don't have time to translate all of those with my elementary japanese level. So without thinking much, I decided to get no 18. I like to read endings of stories. Yup, but it never ruins the story for me because if the story has a good ending, it is worthwhile to read and spend time on it. Otherwise why should i even spend time to read it?
So I got no 18, and I went through all, but didnt understand anything because it way too far ahead from the part that I read. Dumpu dumpu Lili <--- this is what the Russian will say, because I always say it to him too. I should have bought no 13, but my greed corrupted my bright idea to begin with... oooh well, I'll have to wait till April until I get the No. 13 in English. Now I can't spend another cent on manga, if I want to travel with my parents.
November 26, 2005
Cold Case
I felt in love with this tv show, in love with its story, the main actress ... the first girl I love so much to see, thinking that she is HOT hehehehhe. Russian is so jealous because he cant compete with her, even if he wears a cute skirt and pink lipstick (hehehheh can't really imagine this .... )
Why did I fall in love with this show? Because what she said when someone asked her "Why do you handle old cases?" She said: "Because they have been waiting for so long, and people should not be forgotten."
I always like detective stories. I think if I was not a programmer, I would want to be a detective or a lawyer ... my dad told me long time ago that I can be a good lawyer because I can get my way using words ... really tricky. But I dunno if I am good enough at remembering all the different cases for my trials, and I don't think I want to defend bad people. But you never know if clients are bad people or not, maybe they are liars. I wish I could read other people's minds.
Ok back to Cold Case - I am planning to get the collection of DVDs from seasons 1 until 3, proving how much I feel in love with the show. But I am still just planning.
I like the main actress, especially her hair. Maybe because the way she dresses really professional and still her hair is never tidy ... makes her much more cute.
For the new season she changed her hair style. I don't really like it, but I still like the show - always makes me smile, especially the endings when the dead person smiles because the detectives solved the old case (the one no one else wanted to solve).
In a way, the show is really romantic and sentimental - thinking that someone still cares about others.
Russian watched it once, and he fell into it too, especially the beginning music. Yup, ex-music majors, always paying more attention to music than the story. He's happy that he found the title of the song, but hasn't found the song yet : (
November 26, 2005
First
Yup yup yup
Finally I decided to blog again - I used to do it on the friendster website but after awhile I completely forgot about it, so hopefully I can keep this one fresh and updated.
Inubaka, inu == dog and baka == stupid or crazy
I took it from a manga title which means crazy for dogs - since I love dogs and manga ;)
So for starters, I will copy all my previous blogs to here, happy reading ... until I find new material to gossip/write about.
P.S I will be visiting my country for a month, so probably not much blogging during that time : )
but I will definitely post some trip journals after I come back or find internet access.
