Adam AT Seattle

Good-bye Seattle, Hello my future

2008-09-07T09:19:00.001-07:00

The work experience was awesome. It was stressful throughout a lot of it, but highly rewarding. The stress is because at msft, the work I did was real. It had customer impact and true value. Towards the end of the term, I was working 8am-2am every night but voluntarily so. The rewarding part came from the fact where you know the things you're doing matter.

My mentor was an amazing person. Smart, well-rounded, a great people person, he was everything I wanted to be. He always took time out to give me advice and coach me. I could tell that he put his heart and soul into really coaching me. During the good-bye lunch, I made sure to give him a lot of credit when I had to make a speech which ended up in a lot of suck-up jokes lol.

It totally changes a co-op experience when at work you're doing things of value and working with such an awesome group of people.

My housing definitely sucked; seeing all my other friends' corporate housing made me a bit jealous. The thing is, I saved over 700/month on rent so I can't really complain. But the room I rented out had no AC so on hot nights, it was impossible to sleep. On cold days, I had to wear sweaters. The washroom was dirty and never cleaned. The landlord's were also incredibly stingy: they charged me $5/day for when Lynn came to stay and there was NEVER any paper towels in the house.

The one good thing about living there was that I had an awesome roommate who also subletted a room. A UWashington mech eng graduate who's smart, articulate, and a lot of fun. We went clubbing a few times, I met some of his friends, he's met some of mine, and he's just a really smart guy. He gives awesome relationship advice. It's too bad he wants to head back to India. I'd seriously room with him permanently if I had a chance.

I met quite a few people throughout the term, but the only ones I really want to keep in touch with are the ones from loo. I didn't seem to make a real bond with most of the interns for some reason. It could be because we have different interests, I was too busy, or it just didn't work out for some reason. Either way, despite there being over 1000 interns, I still felt like I knew nobody.

Seattle itself is beautiful. I can see myself being there full-time if it's with someone I love. Someone I can grow with. The reason I say that is because it wasn't all that fun when I was hanging out with people I barely even knew. It's fun, but it's an empty kind of fun.

What's next for me?

I've been offered full-time at Microsoft. I'll be back in loo for 8 months wrapping up my final year. We're living in a townhouse (finally, a big house we can decorate and call nice). Then I'll graduate and do whatever. As for going back, I'm really considering it. Objectively speaking, it's the best choice I have. If I accept the offer, then I don't have to worry about finding a job. I already know my team and know my work so it'll be easy to mesh. I know the area of Seattle and won't have a huge culture shock. If I want to complete my masters, they'll cover tuition.

For this blog, I guess I missed a full month of blogging and memories to leave down, so I may add some past blogs and pics but I doubt it.

I'm going to resume blogging on http://adamkiu.blogspot.com.

Here's A Question For You

2008-08-14T11:35:00.001-07:00

After reviewing the evidence...

...is this 'statutory' rape?

(Credit goes to an e-mail sent within an internal Microsoft distribution list)

9 Reasons Why Seattle Is Awesome

2008-08-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

Now that I've been here for about 3 months and have explored many parts of Seattle (though I haven't even explored half of what's offered), now I can list a few things I like.

1. Parking is free downtown (weekdays after 8pm, weekends after 6pm)

Parking is one of those things that really ruins the incentive of going downtown in Toronto. I dread clubbing in Toronto because I know $10-15 will go to parking and I haven't even entered a club yet. How about going to a Toronto festival downtown in the day that's free? Oh oh, it's $10 to park even remotely close.

In Seattle, parking is free practically everywhere. It makes going downtown something to really look forward to. Driving to bars and clubs actually cost nothing! Need to go clubbing? Park a block away free. Want to go to the harbourfront? Just find a spot!

2. Beer is much cheaper & sold everywhere

24-pack of Heineken for $23.95. 12-pack of Corona for $13.95. Compare that to Toronto, where 12-pack of Corona is close to $28 in Toronto. The only dollar beers you'll find in Canada are the ones that taste horrible.

Just getting off work and need a beer? Last minute party on Friday and need to stock up? No problem. Just stop by the grocery store on your way home and grab a 12-pack, or a bottle of wine. Or if the grocery store's out of the way, your gas stations or convenience stores will have it too. One exception: even though the stores maybe 24-hours, the state of Washington is not permitted to sell alcohol between 2am-6am.

3. Driving downtown takes about 20 minutes (vs. 40 in Toronto)

Jump on the 520 freeway or the I-90 freeway, both floating bridge freeways to get into downtown Seattle from the East side (Bellevue, Redmond) where I'm staying. It makes living in the suburbs a lot more appealing. Got to make guest list? Don't worry, you don't have to rush. Downtown is just a second away.

And did I mention free parking?

4. Tax is 10% (and neighboring state Oregon has 0% tax)

Can't complain about this one. The offset of privatized health care is that tax is 10%, but when you're working for Microsoft anyway and they'll cover your entire family for health, who really cares?

If you really want to save on tax, Portland just south of here has none. Sexy skirt for $19.99? It's exactly $19.99! Vs. $23.49 or whatever in Toronto.

Imagine when we all get to the point where we have to shop for cars. ;) Tax-free FTW!

5. Gas is cheaper (Comparison: Tor: 1.375/L, Seattle: 1.10/L)

This one's just simple. Driving is more appealing, it doesn't hurt as bad, and combined with free parking and having everything so close by, it's really hard to make any excuses not to get out and explore the nightlife Seattle has to offer.

I can also drive to work without cringing.

6. Summers are temporate (between 20-28 degrees celcius)

It's not sweaty/sticky/smoggy over here. Seattle is nicknamed the Evergreen state, famous for it's abundance of trees and greenery. In the daytime on a sunny day, you can estimate 20 degrees ish (perfect for tee-shirt weather) and at night time, a nice blazer or wind jacket will do.

7. Traffic Light system

Basically, there are sensors on the road before every traffic light so that as you approach a traffic light, if it's red, it'll turn green for you as long as there's no traffic from the perpendicular street.

This one's just a huge time savor. I don't have to sit there waiting for the light to turn, because I know that once I get there, it'll turn almost immediately for me. Also, left turns aren't allowed on green on most big streets, so you don't have to stress out when you're driving along and you see it turn yellow, and you worry that a douche might try to turn left, not seeing you run the light.

8. Scenic

Driving across the 520 and I-90, there's a pretty clear view of Mount Rainier, one of the tallest mountains in the states. Driving along the highways is like walking in a park; there are so many trees of different shapes, colours and sizes. And once again, driving across 520, you're going cross a floating bridge that's floating on the Puget Sound lake, a gorgeous lake surrounded by trees and cities.

I'll find a picture some day.

9. Home of Microsoft

Microsoft is here. Need pop for a party? Just pop into the kitchen and grab some cans, free. Want to see the Microsoft surface? I'll take you to building 19 where they have some on display. Craving rock band? Building 19 has an xbox 360 with rock band installed on a plasma TV, accessible pretty much whenever.

Looking for smart, motivated, passionate people to work around and infect you with that positive energy? It's all here. Besides the great night life, awesome scenery, cheaper things, you get a company that pays well, and more importantly, treats you incredibly well.

Booze at company meetings, glamorous corporate events (there was a ferris wheel set up at our product fair... seriously WTF?), police escorts, free parking and access to the most top-level technology of your time.

Wow It's Been So Long...

2008-07-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

...since I've last posted. It's because I've really been focussing on myself - apologies. I haven't been thrilled with the way I've been running my life. It's been a nightmare. Tasks are not completed straightforward - things are being postponed, and my time management just needs a complete overhaul.

The following that I've written is just non-stop talk about me and my struggles (which prob doesn't interest you) so to save you the boredom, I've included this disclaimer to stop reading any further if you're not interested in my bull :) Thank you.

I've been kept really busy at work and in Seattle and in life in general. Relationships, friends, careers, colleagues, family, all of it.

There's so much I want to express. So far that I've gone during my stay here at Microsoft. I hope they welcome me back. It's 11:11pm and I'm still at work. It's been like this for the last 4 days; work till 1am, go home, sleep my 7 hours, wake up in the morning and come back to work again.

I'm battling insecurities, overcoming some fears. It feels like a constant struggle and a constant fight. A constant internal fight to outdo all my weaknesses. To outdo myself and become a successful person.

But when I say successful, what do I mean? Where do I draw the line for when I've achieved 'success' and when I haven't?

If you ask me what my biggest struggle with myself is right now, it's the skill to put my mind to something and see it through from start to finish. Like, I struggle with sitting through writing an entire spec. How? My mind starts wandering when the task gets a bit tricky, or when I finish a little section, or even a sentence.

With the people around me, it's been hard to maintain a friendship with any of these 1000 interns around me. It's tough because we're all from different areas, and though everyone's really nice, we're all too busy to really connect. We're all involved in our own little worlds of managing/coding/testing.

But hey, don't worry too much because I'm getting somewhere.

My room's the first positive. I've cleaned my room and kept it clean for 3 days in a row now. You might see this as trivial and retarded, but for the last 2 months my room's been a tornado. My room being messy really reflects the way my brain's been so scattered.

Imagine this: I come home every night, and I don't put things away when I get home. I toss my pants on the floor, thinking I'll do it later. Drop papers on my desk thinking I'll clean it later. I hang my towel on my chair thinking i'll deal with it later.

Later later later. Postpone, postpone, postpone.

So lemme tell you, starting with my room has made me feel really good. Keeping my room clean means that I'm no longer postponing, at least for my room. It's progress. It's an area I can feel happy about and use that momentum to hopefully pick it up.

And it's been working, a little.

At work, I'm writing down my tasks, and following them. I'm really becoming intrinsically motivated to complete this project. For the sake of helping customers. I'm following through my promises more and more.

I still break my word to myself a lot, and submit to a lot of things I shouldn't submit to. But it's progress. I have to settle with the fact that I can't change everything at once.

Haha... I just looked over my blog and realized how vague I'm being and how you probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Well, I'm talking about self-improvement. I'm talking about my future. I'm talking about my past. I'm talking about everything and nothing really. I'm just rambling on.

Chicken Pasta Salad

2008-06-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Penne pasta,
Chicken,
Cucumber,
Red and Green Pepper,
Onion,
Caesar Dressing,
Parmasen Cheese
and
Cherry Tomato

2008-06-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

Scratch that.

Love Is Patient, Love Is Kind

2008-06-24T01:04:00.000-07:00

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but
rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
Love never fails.

Harsh lesson #2:

Sometimes we all get caught up into our own little world. We all have needs, and we all have feelings. Sometimes we're run by our emotions. When we feel wronged, we lash out. We strike back. When we don't get the results we want and can't make the other person understand our values, we lose sight of what's important.

True love is about learning to accept. It's about learning to be patient. It's about being kind, to endure rough times through compassion and resilience.

I began the fight focused on me. Focused on my own needs. Focused on what I felt were wrongdoings to me. Me me me. I sought out for an apology. I flipped out when I didn't see one. I lost my patience. I lost my empathy.

I'll admit it, I lost control of my emotions, and I grew a temper, and lashed out uncontrollably and unintentionally (Baby, I hope you understand what it's like to be upset and just say things that are mean but not be able to help it at the moment). The damage was done and I realized it after, which I will readily reap.

But the important thing I've learned is that this all started when I lost my patience. When I refused to let go of certain things, and demanded consolence right away. When I was busy thinking that I'm always so righteous and there are no exceptions when people do me wrong.

The fact of the matter is, there are exceptions. There are situation where it should be OK, and that I should let it go because it is circumstantial.

I've always prided myself in my patience, and my compassion towards people. Reading through a few past things my girlfriend wrote to me at night, one theme she used to admire about me was my compassion and open-mindedness towards people.

So where did I go wrong this time? It was the patience and compassion that I lost. Patience, the reason why I believe I can make anything work, and why I can succeed. Compassion, the reason why I believe I'm so good with people.

But I didn't understand it. Not fully at least.

It's not until I spoke to my mentor that he finally really showed me the path. The Eureka moment. Don't teach, he says. Don't demand, he says. Listen, he says. Don't argue and give someone space, he says. Give people time, he says. Don't go after your own needs. Be patient. Just like how patient his wife is with him when he is not in a good mood.

"People's personalities will be their personalities, and it takes a long time to change even a little bit. I've dated my wife for so many years now and we've only changed towards each other a little bit. But it's changing, and it will take a long time."

After hearing my mentor, who's married, tell me this, I'm now starting to believe that it was a miracle that I saw so much change from baby in her personality for me. That there likely was an enormous effort put forth on her part.

And for that, my appreciation for her continues to grow, despite the hard times. Our chemistry enabled us to bond at that level. The level of love that must have existed between us for something of that sort to happen is rare.

And so I must change for her. I must learn to change some of my views to think more like her. I have to learn to be more responsible. I have to learn to compromise and meet in the middle. Most importantly, I have to let go of the words we use, and focus more on actions. I have to be more patient and willing to deal.

Did I forget the creed which I once grew up modelling myself after? Maybe. But I've posted it on the top so that I can remind myself of what it truly means to love somebody. I have to set it there, so I can fix the way I am looking at this relationship. I have to make an effort to work together as a team to improve our individual personalities instead of a let's-change-everything-we-hate-about-each-other fest.

And it all starts with me. Adam, did you forget?

The Most Addictive Game

2008-06-23T08:52:00.001-07:00

http://play.typeracer.com/

This simple game puts you and your typing test to the limits, where you can compete against others in real-time typing competitions online.

F***, I love competitive games.

Friday Night @ the Diamond

2008-06-21T01:23:00.000-07:00

As a Microsoft sponsored intern event, they gave out about 150 decently located tickets to the baseball game, with a $5 concession stand certificate. Which meant Hot dogs/beer/Baseball on a Friday night.

The stadium that the Mariners play is called Safeco field, and it's the smallest baseball stadium I've been in. It's not even comparable to Fenway Park (home of the Bosox) and it's STILL empty.

I'm posing in front of Safeco before we entered. Me and a couple other guys went for a few beers before hitting up safeco field, so we arrived a bit late. Thank god too because it was seriously the most boring game in the world. By the ninth inning, people were cheering for the game to end.

To the left of me is QWEST field (where the football field is), and just past it up ahead is the Safeco Field. You can see my Microsoft employee badge sticking out, haha.
Like I said, I've never had such close seats to a ball game. But after watching it, I regretted that. The coolest player was the little japanese dude on the mariners, Ichiro. He's so friggin' fast, we watched him steal a base in a flash. He's so small compared to the big white baseball pros too.
I took pics because this was so boring.
I got in and found Mladen and Miru to sit with. These guys are also from loo.

As an added bonus, it was bobble head night! First 125,000 fans get a free bobble head of some no name dude, Andre Beltre. I don't know if I spelled it right haha. But I managed to cop me a bobble head, and now it sits in my room, collecting the dust.

Birthday Surprise

2008-06-14T00:08:00.000-07:00

She flew all the way up to Seattle, only having been here less than two weeks ago, to surprise me again. Apparently, she coordinated with my roommate, who picked her up from the airport. She played it well. I was suspicious the whole time but her text messages really threw me off track.

I came home to see her in my room just waiting for me.

So the first night after work, we went back to rotating sushi so she could get a taste of how cheap it is. For a girl of picky taste, she approved. That's gotta mean something.

We were trying to catch Sex and The City the movie, but apparently my Prime card discount didn't work out, so we went grocery shopping instead. This is a shot of her with her obsession with unique foods.

We tried a different rotating sushi, Sushi Yama. I thought this place had a much cleaner atmosphere and a lot more salmon, but there were fewer people and it was a bit pricier. But with the prime card, it works out to be the same.

Yum.

This Will Be EPIC

2008-06-13T01:36:00.000-07:00

What is the CTFL: http://www.tubeduel.com/

What: Cardboard Tube Fighting League Tournament
Where: Gas Works Park map
When: Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 4pm
Entry Fee: Free, tubes provided.
What to bring: Water, cardboard armor, costumes are highly encouraged. Tubes will be supplied.
What to expect: Welts and possibly bruises.

If there's one thing I'm going to leave Seattle doing, it's that I'm going to tell people I participated in the Cardboard Tube Fighting League. This shit is like gonna be so sick! I'm going to whack the shet out of anyone who comes my way. Apparently, no lunges or whacking of the face. Oh well.

PICTURES. COMING. AFTER. SUNDAY.

I'm So Funny

2008-06-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

Went to a 3 hour session on "Insights to Influence" hosted for PM's at Microsoft. Afterwards, they offered food and drinks. The drinks, of course, are alcoholic.

So I tried some of this:

Which means, it's 5:33pm, I'm at my office, and I'm tipsy. It's going to be a late night for me. On the bright side, it was a very valuable session. Now, to apply what I've learned.

Let's NBA!

Intern Hosted BBQ (I <3 Beer Pong)

2008-06-12T02:35:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, there was a BBQ being thrown at an intern's place, with free hot dogs and 2 kegs, all no charge. They had beer pong set up in their dining room where the dining table should have been, flip cup over in their living room where the music was also blasting, and a nice big patio in the back where the kegs sat and the food was being cooked.

It was a typical intern party with about a 5:1 girl/guy ratio. I didn't expect it to be good so I was just gonna stop by to pick up some free lunch and bounce.

Seeing the beer pong table and some flippy cuppers made me change my mind pretty freakin' quick. I hope I'm not an alcoholic. I think I'm just repressed cause none of my friends want to drink with me rofl.

Just filled up another round of beer. Oh btw, kegs are $80 here. For like bud and pale ale too. Yes, staying in the states sounds so enticing!

There's the beer pong set up. I was actually playing in that game and competing against those guys. They wooped our ass EASILY. Thank god they didn't play the rule where we drank the other teams drink. I don't suck, but these guys were ruthless. One of them looked like a pure geek, but when he started launching ping pongs, he looked more like Lebron James man. Holy cow.

Yea yea Mr. Kiu represent! :D That's my partner Josh. He's a really cool guy, been here since May 6th like me.

And that is the table, placed smack dab in the living room (which is carpetted by the way), for our flip cup pleasure. I played a few rounds with them, and our team always won. I'm flawless at the game - one flip it's over :D

A shot of the patio where most of the action was happening. There was actually a lot of people in the end. At Microsoft, there'll be 600 interns this summer, with about 100 flocking in every week or so. So it just grows like crazy, and I guess when a bunch of people come to a random city with nothing to do, free food is always a great incentive to come out.

Unplanned Soccer After-Party / Keggar

2008-06-12T02:22:00.000-07:00

I didn't mention in my soccer post, how I went to the soccer game with Dave, Chrissy and her sister Jen. The girls are from Michigan, and Dave's from loo. Jen is actually a full-timer at Microsoft, and she has her own group of friends who are also there. So after the party, that's where she headed, and invited us to stop by.

It was completely unplanned, but it turned out to be a keggar and there were drinks and normal looking people, so we decided to stay a bit. This turned out to be one of the most fun party nights I've had yet. Mainly cause I learned how to play flip cup and I just straight up own at it, muahaha.

That's our team in flip cup. Dave's the one to the right of me, and that's our team. That table was dedicated to flip cup.

Our enemy team. That's Greg, Jen, Chrissy and Kara, from left to right. All the guys and girls there were funny as hell. They're all shittalkers and jokers. Afterwards, Chrissy told me they like to drink a lot and that she doesn't like it when the group drinks.

It made me start to think of myself: I love drinking and I have so much fun drinking, but some don't like it. It seems like it's the same for this group too.

More people showed up to the party to play. Most of these guys are all working at Microsoft, and most are from Michigan/Michigan State.

I think I was explaining the rules of flip cup, or I was coordinating the teams, or I was getting their names. Either way, I completely forgot them now lol.

Jen and Elizabeth. I forgot to mention, a good number of the girls at this party were HOT.

I got all their contacts (two of em actually work in my building) but haven't bothered messaging them since. I usually am able to get really close with people, mingle with them while I'm drunk and get contacts. But I wake up in the morning and then I just start getting cold feet and then I never get back to them.

Maybe I should go drop by their offices... damn as a PM I should really practice socializing skills.

At A Soccer Game - Brazil vs. Canada

2008-06-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

This was pretty exciting; a Saturday evening, 7:30 tip off soccer game live, featuring one of the best soccer teams in the world, Brazil. And after watching Brazil bring their 'B' team on us, it's clear how truly talented they really are.

The brazilian players are all crazy ball dribblers; some of them deked out 4 Cdns at once, and they all have deadly passing/shooting accuracy.

Surprisingly, they only lost 3-2, and the go ahead goal was scored because a Canadian screwed up and passed it right to a Brazilian dude. So technically, it was a really close game. Anyway, Brazil winning was expected. Majority of the fans were also Brazilian, which is no surprise there.

We sat pretty high up, but nontheless still had a really nice view of the field. Note the size of this semi-outdoor stadium, also home of the Seattle Seahawks.

Another shot to show the mere size of it.

At night, it's lit up just the same like day.

A shot of the game in action. The camera's deceiving, the players look bigger than that from where I sat.

A shot at the parking lot outside the Qwest field. This thing is just outside of the heart of downtown Seattle.

Fans pouring in to watch the game. I think there were 66,000 in attendance-ish.

Picture of the entrance on the way in.

This is the front of the stadium, or the entrance. It's got those weird spinny things that just looked like a photo-op.

Before we headed up the long hike to our seats in the upper deck, we passed by these VIP rows. Over here, the view's much closer to the game.

Overall, it lasted about 2.5 hours and was exciting. It's a lot more fun than watching it on TV, because when it's live, the action's raw and the atmosphere is just unbelievable. Everyone's cheering, yelling, screaming, and just getting crazy.

I love sports events.

Untitled

2008-06-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, there are little things in your life that can matter so much that when everything else in your life is falling back into place and that small thing is just a bit off, your whole world can seem like it's crashing down on you.

What to do? Hmm...

It's Hard To Continue

2008-06-10T02:29:00.000-07:00

Since I've stopped blogging for a week, it's been so hard to just get back to it. When I was in the habit of blogging, it was so easy. I always had stuff to write and things to post about. But I think that after one week of not blogging (which also means a huge backlog of pictures and updates), you start to dread wanting to post.

Lynn was here for a week again surprising me for my birthday - we did so many things together. Rotating sushi, Kung-fu panda, a Portland day trip, home-cooked dinners, etc. I'll have to post them once I get off my ass and upload the pictures. She talks about some of it over at her blog.

Another thing. I'm addicted to Microsoft Outlook. At Microsoft, we have an e-mail distribution list where you can e-mail this list, and it will go out to all the interns. I've also learned how to use the Calendar feature, and the Task feature. I keep track of all the things I have to do and all my important dates.

I've also been hooked up with a temporary laptop for the term, which I'm using right now. An IBM T60p (I should say Lenovo). This thing is 15.4" widescreen, with an extra battery pack. It's quite a beast too - 4 gb ram, running vista 64-bit. With the laptop, I get access to my work e-mail, my to-do list, quicker internet, and a bunch of nifty other things.

I'm also taking on the challenge of co-ordinating a weekly basketball tournament for all the interns. Interns at Microsoft are so accomplished - many with side projects, secondary sources of income, hobbies and great things. I don't want to fall behind, so I'm doing this.

Plus, I'm getting out of shape.

Blog Hiatus #2

2008-06-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

Baby's back! Again! For another week! So I'm out of commission until after Sunday...

and yes... it's my b-day today ;)

The German Backstreet Boys

2008-05-31T14:46:00.000-07:00

Hiếu Nguyễn says:
WTF did you send me
adam | seattle! says:
my favorite song
Hiếu Nguyễn says:
is this german backstreet boys
Hiếu Nguyễn says:
man these are some ugly kids
Hiếu Nguyễn says:
fuck this is going to be opening song for my kegger

Beta 'K'

2008-05-31T13:59:00.000-07:00

After an unexpected turn of events where a house party got shut down by the police, we had to revert to contingency plan b, which meant chilling at Joe's sexy-gorgeous-cream-in-your-pants mansion to have a few drinks and sing some karaoke.

I'm really excited because I've finally found a group of people who can and want to drink! Together, we did 22 beers and a bottle of wine? It's been so long from Toronto since I've found people willing to get hammered with me so last night. I felt so at home, literally.

So whats Beta 'K'?

Beta 'K' is a code name for the pre-production stage of the official 'K' platform, which is to simulate the actual experience of a karaoke lounge and drinking at the pleasure of one's own home, which in this case shall be Joe's, where one may enter, sing, and drink to his heart's content while removing the constraint of forcibly paying boatloads of dough for a good time.

This includes but is not limited to: 60+ dice, unlimited dice cups, as much wine, beer, coolers, and hard shit as you please, and some drunk asians (plus one brown guy) that sing worse than these guys.

These guys (and girl) are all 3 years older than me, which they happily remind me, to emphasize how young I am. Unfortunately, all of them also have more back problems than me too. Bahahaha, you win some and you lose some, sucka!

You can check out Manson's blog over here: http://mson-adventure.blogspot.com

The fob pose, which we forced Saumil to do. This time, this one is Manson's idea, not mine.

Playing King's cup with MJ tiles, because he doesn't have cards. We put red wine into the king's cup, and mapped tiles out to different meanings. We had rhymes, categories, give 1 drink, give 3 drinks, give 5 drinks, drink 4 yourself.

One round, everyone managed to dodge the king tile till the last one, so Manson got his ass burned. Actually throughout King's, Manson was pretty much the target for everyone. He was just gettin' hit with drinks left, right, center.

My handsome roommate Saumil. A mech eng graduate student who could not sing any K because it was all asian songs. Me and him duetted Akon's lonely. It was worse than William Hung's performance on American Idol. Why the hell is Akon's voice so high??!

Anyway, beta K test phase 1 is completed. As fun as it was, we need to push our limits and hopefully next time, there'll be more people, more drinks, more players, and even more english songs.

Next time you're going down Saumil!

Pet Peeve / Huge Rant

2008-05-31T04:54:00.000-07:00

I was at a bbq last Sunday and my girlfriend was text messaging me. I missed her like crazy and I didn't have text messaging on my phone. All I wanted to do was to let her know that I got her text messages and that I love her. So I went up to the host and asked him if I could use his laptop for a quick second.

He stared at me blankly. why? what do you need it for? who are you talking to? who are you trying to communicate with? what do you want to touch my laptop for?

Whatever. I got the hint and just said wow, forget it. He responded with, I just don't like people touching my laptop. Fuckin seriously? All because you're uncomfortable with someone touching your laptop, I can't get online for one second to acknowledge my girlfriend and reply to her how much I miss her? So I can't give her a quick, 'hey I got your message, thanks and I can't wait to talk to you too.' What is so wrong with me that makes you scared to let me use your laptop??? What the fuck???

Yeah, cool. Do you have emo porn on your desktop? Do you think I have greasy fingers? Does the thought of me on your laptop make you cringe? Am I gonna give you cooties? Do you have something to hide? Do you think I'm gonna fuck up your laptop?

Seriously, one of my pet peeves is when people got these little issues with being a little giving or whater. Because with my personality, I give. Mi casa, su casa. I live by that principle and nothing less. Dude, whatever you want of emine is yours, and I expect the same. So when someone wants to retain shit from me, or like hold stuff from letting me do my own thing just because they got personal issues, I get bugged like hll. It seeps inside me, and I think about it a lot, and I get really frustrated. Why doesn't he let me use his? What the hell is the big deal?

It bugs the shit out of me when he didn't let me use his laptop. Lynn told me that maybe I just have clashing values with others and I should let them be. Just because I have different values doesn't mean I'm right. Yeah... so this guy doesn't wanna share. I should just let that go, right? He doesn't want to, then he doesn't have to.

Stephen told me its that everyone has issues. Everyone's fucked up in their own way. That's great then, they're right. I should accept him for who he is if I wanna be his friend. But maybe I don't want to be friends with someone like that. I don't wanna be friends with someone who's gonna be tight. I don't wanna be friends with someone who doesn't want me to use his laptop. I don't care, if you don't let me use your goddamn laptop, or you're refusing to do little favours for me, fuck that.

That's not how I want my relationships to work. Some people might be able to bond well in that, but I need a freaking team environment. I need an environment where I can take as I need to see fit, to accomplish whatever the hell I want to accomplish. An environment of trust, where everybody's a pushover, and everybody will bend if needed.

You know why? Not cause I think I'm superior. But because I bend over for all my friends. I'm willing to take it in the ass for any of my friends who need my support. If they need something I'm ready to give it to them. If my friend is hooking up with a girl and he needs a room for the night, I will willingly give it to him and sleep on the couch for the night so he can have his fun. Yeah, I have done that. And that gives my bed cooties. That's how far I'm willing to go for my friends. I bend my ass over so hard for anybody I trust.

In real life, we all cave for everyone. That's how it freakin works at Microsoft. That's their model of success. Team work. My shit is your shit, your shit is my shit. We all work as one; we float together, we die together. My laptop is fucking yours. My boss just hands me his laptop freely. He says, get whatever the hell you need done, and I am going to help you in every way possible. That's the model of the most successful company in the world. He understands a team model. He understands what success is about. It's about giving and taking. Not withholding for your own fucking personal reasons.

Fuck that guy.

These are people that I don't hang out with. These are the solo players in the world who prefer to think, my shit and is my shit, and your shit is your shit. I don't bond with solo players. I'm not a very good solo player, and I need team players to hold my fort, and I like holding others forts. Solo players may work well when they play solo, but I just don't. My whole life I never play solo. I always play in a team. I thrive in a team.

But seriously, I'm just too different. I just don't understand what his issue was. Why he just won't let me use it for a second. Unless someone had a freakin demented hand with massive blisters on it, or is bleeding all over and is infested with aids, I don't see why I wouldn't let someone use my laptop. With people like that who don't share, I just don't bother. I don't wanna deal with these people who don't trust me to use their laptop for one second.

I hate people who withhold something like that from you. Because of something stupid like that, I wasn't able to message my girlfriend for 1 second just to tell her I got her message and that they were the sweetest things in the world. I had to wait for 4 hours until I left the hosts house so I could message my girlfriend.

I just don't get along with people who are uptight like that. I've never understood it and despite how much it's just a 'clashing' of values, I don't know if I can ever understand that. That's tight. Seriously.

Sometimes you learn these harsh lessons. That people are gonna be like that. And when they are, what the fuck do you do?

PS. While I'm in a ranting phase, what is up with Seattle? At 4 am, day break was occuring, and at 5:10pm looking out the window, it is bright like the day. Bed time. And I'm not setting my alarm to wake up tomorrow.

Panic

2008-05-29T22:42:00.001-07:00

Shit! Didn't make it home in time. Argh.

Maybe I'm just being a bit melodramatic, but dammit, it feels so crappy to be too late. I'm not used to this. I've always been able to make it and have at least that hour of time. I never realized it until now, but it was what always made my night complete. It's what made me sleep really well at night, and dream happy dreams.

It always made my night so much better. It's so stupid but I feel this slight pang of anxiety. Like a small sliver in my heart, it doesn't hurt, but it's bothersome. I'm gonna try to make it home every time from now on.

I'm going to bed early and waking up early. We didn't sync up tonight, so maybe we can sync up tomorrow instead.

(Cheap) Rotating Sushi

2008-05-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

It seems like in Seattle, sushi works backwards the way Toronto does. In Seattle, rotating sushi comes much cheaper than regular sushi. Tonight, we went to Marinepolis Sushi Land, which was host to one of the most ghetto looking sushi places I've ever been to, let alone rotating sushi.

Here's a shot, sitting at the bar as the sushi passed. It was dirt cheap. You can get a cucumber roll for $1. 2 pcs salmon sushi $1. Plates were between $1, $1.50, $2, and the rare ones, $3. We had 35-40 plates approximately and only cost $15.

The red plates are $1.50. Right in front of you, you can see the people making all the sushi. There's also unlimited wasabi and ginger sitting in those bowls in front of the soya sauce bottle.

There were 6 of us total who went: Me, Amy (in the pic), Steven & Phyllis (who are hiding behind me), and Chris and Sarah who were on my left. It also happened to be Chris' birthday, so we took care of his dinner. It was that or 21 shots of alcohol, so he elected this one instead. Poor choice :(.

It was my first time seeing one of these machines. Right inside where they were making food, this stainless hunk of steel produces little sushi rice balls, so you can just slap the sashimi right on top. If you hit the red button, three balls of rice pop up, readily shaped and ready to put on the plate.

Chris displaying his chopstick skills. Like comon, that's impressive.

Not Another One?!

2008-05-28T23:31:00.001-07:00

Everyday at Microsoft, I learn something new. I'm always taught lessons by my team. People left and right, always ready to give me advice, ready to teach me how to succeed as a PM. The people at Microsoft are not only brilliant, but they're more than happy to help. Everybody has their own tips to success, so each person will give you a different tip. But from what I learned, everything they say is useful.

My mentor will spend hours with me just telling me his personal stories and telling me lessons he's learned. He'll take his time teaching me how to succeed and telling me all the key things I should know to be a rock star employee.

He doesn't tell me what to do; instead, he gives me concepts. He gives me tips and pointers on how I should succeed. He doesn't only teach me how to be a PM; he teaches me how to live life. And how to manage your time. How to prioritize; how to talk to the executives and how to get things done most efficiently.

And I'd be really missing out if I didn't write them all down somewhere.

So if you haven't guessed it, I've made a new blog. This one is special though; it's more than just personal. It's more than just blabber. Actually, there's ZERO blabber. It's just pure lessons and short notes. It holds or will hold all the lessons I've been taught, or that I've learned while becoming a Program Manager at Microsoft.

So now that you know...

Here is the blog that holds all the lessons I've learned while at Microsoft: http://adamatmicrosoft.blogspot.com

Neither Here Nor There - My Room

2008-05-27T19:03:00.001-07:00

It's such nice weather out today. Not too hot, not too cold. I drove home windows down and all, boosting some nice music. Seattle radio is equivalent to hip hop. They play nothing else, I swear to god. Weather makes me feel so damn happy. I think tomorrow I'm going to go wash my car, inside and out, and shine the wheels too.

Anyway, I got home and I've got the window open letting the breeze in. It's only 6:45 right now. Usually I never get home till 7:30-8 so this is a luxury. The breeze smells fresh - it smells like the air fresheners you buy from crappy tire. That's the most beautiful thing about this city; there's so many trees around that it always smells like pine.

This is my closet; it's enormous. I love it because it fits all my clothes and what not. The bottom is where I put my clean jeans, and worn jeans. The top has my ball jersey's, shorts, and swim gear. On the rack are the rest of my clothes, along with some of my more expensive jeans.

With the sun streaming into my room finally, and the breeze so nice and cool, I wanted to take a picture to capture the moment. There's definitely something in the air, like you're sitting on the beach relaxing. That's the feeling I want to capture, because I'm experiencing it right here in my room.

That's my bed. Sheets and blanket supplied courtesy of my landlords, The Tsuei's. They're great, friendly, taiwanese people who run a small deli down in a city just south of Bellevue. One of the most rewarding things is to get to come home and see Pengui greet me. I sleep with Pengui every night... bed's just too big and it gets lonely at night, even for a big boy like me :(.

I don't know why, but I had an urge to take a pic of some of my new gear. I guess it's because I don't usually buy expensive brand shit, and I finally found some of these for a decent price. Thank you Portland, for your ghetto-dirt-cheapness and no sales tax.

These are just a few of the things I picked up. In the pic, all are L-R-G, except for the zip up, which is made from Ecko.

This post is neither here nor there, but so is my mood today. Zen-like feeling. I'm loving this time to myself.

I Don't Have Time Management Issues, I Have 'Do' Issues

2008-05-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Realization #2:

I don't have time management issues, I have 'do' issues. I pride myself in great time management. Everyday when I wake up, or when I'm at work, or when I study at school, I write down the things I need to do nicely into my planner and allocate an abundant amount of time to do it.

I have these beautiful plans and guides written up and when it's done, I prepare to do them. But when the time comes to do it, I just laze there and not do anything. I just daydream about something else. I struggle so badly when it comes time to doing it. I'm great at organizing, but I need to work on my follow-through.

Like for example, I allocate 2 hours to write this e-mail at work, and then when it comes down to do it, I start doing other things, like chatting, or checking my e-mail, or daydreaming about lunch or dinner tomorrow. Then the 2 hours pass, I didn't write the e-mail, and I'm screwed for the rest of my plan.

How do I fix these 'do' issues? Maybe I should take Lynn's advice and worry about less. That way, I don't have time to daydream about this stuff so much and that I just do my job, and I do it well.

The solution is a work in progress...

Monday Morning... at Home

2008-05-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

For the past 3 weeks that I've been here, I've spent about $1500. Actually, it's probably closer to $1900 if I think about it.

$700 for a RT ticket home, $400 my first week (groceries and stuff for my room), $500 when Lynn came home, and $300 for random going out stuff.

Watch it burn...

That's goddamn ridiculous; I don't even FEEL that happy after spending all this money. It's all distractions; distractions to try to forget about the fact that I'm in a city so far away from home not hanging out with my friends and not being with my girlfriend.

The more I distract myself, the easier it is not to miss home. But anytime I miss a beat; anytime I get bored, or find a moment alone, my mind starts to wander, and I start to miss home.

Back to this money thing; I've really been careless with it, and not following through with things I said I'd do. It's weighing heavily on my conscience right now... I think I have to settle down even though I don't feel like I've even done much.

So today there's a game's day event run by some interns - they book a conference room in a building and play lots of video games all day. The best part is that it's free. I'm gonna head into work early to do some work, and then I'll join up with them later.

Saturday in Portland

2008-05-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

Portland, Oregon!

I went down with Ju and two of his friends, Vince and Jesse. We took my Eclipse down, which was hilarious because the back seats are tiny, so the 2 guys in the back had to hunch for the entire 3 hour trip down.

It was a shopping excursion, and we hit up the Woodburn company stores. I was so into it that I didn't take any pics; the sales were dirt cheap. AF 25's were goin for #$35, the Puma store had a lot of their store for 75% off (picked up a $50 zip up for $11 and a $40 track pants for $7).

It took us about 2-3 hours to get through it (it's guys, how long can we take really), but I gotta head back there to pick up a suit for my cousin's wedding.

We finished at about 5 or so, and since it took so long to get down there, we explored downtown Portland for a bit. First thing I noticed is that Portland's ghetto. Everything seems so gray and green. All buildings are gray and old looking.

The girls are pretty hot there from what I saw.

Here's a shot of the Portland streets... we were just walking around after we found a Greek place for dinner and checked out the place.

We went into a mall called Pioneer Place. It's a really cool mall with 4 floors, and it's in two buildings, which you can cross through the Sky Bridge. The 2nd floor was filled with baller brands like Coach, LV, etc. The bottom floor was more my floor, GAP, A&E, etc. haha.

Hmm, the best way to describe how Portland looks? If you watch Spiderman, and you see all those gray buildings and funky looking comic book buildings? That's basically how Portland looks. Although I just looked it up and Spiderman is NOT filmed in Portland.

What's Next?

2008-05-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

Now that Lynn's gone, it's time for me to get back on my feet. With her here, she's all I've been dedicating myself to.

I've got to do my laundry, got to shop for some clothes, got to set up my budget, got to figure out my weekend plans, and most importantly, got to be productive at work.

I've been staying at work until 7-8 everyday again and have been running around all over the place. My work is challenging; it's a difficult problem and the solution is not one that's easy to come up with. But I'm enjoying every second of it. More on that later... maybe I'll talk about it once I've designed it.

This weekend is going to be activity-PACKED; it's memorial day weekend. Tomorrow night is bar hoppin' in Seattle (where I'll hopefully meet and get to kno some of the more social people). Saturday I'll be in Portland all day at the outlets where it's tax free and dirt cheap ;). For Sunday, there's a big bbq goin from 1pm-9pm all day, and Monday I've got to get started on some damn powerpoint slides for work.

I got a haircut today to prepare for the weekend... but that turned out to be an epic fail.

Pictures coming tomorrow.

Our Stay... Downtown Vancouver

2008-05-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

Updated Tuesday May 27, 2008: This post needs some elaboration to do it justice. I was lazy when I posted this.

Thanks to Lynn's friends, Ben and Yvonne, who hosted us for the night. We had martini's and played cranium, true old couple style! Just for the record, we owned in cranium and I claim to be the putty master =P

The apartment was smack dab in downtown Vancouver. At night, with the apartment windows open, you can hear cars revving, music pounding and all that. It's a strong nightlife feel. At the same time, everything in Vancouver seemed so rich. The cars were glamorous, the people were pretty, and everyone was just so... SoCal.

A little bit too much salt... but still amazing margaritas. Couldn't taste the Tequila at all, but it still left a great buzz.

We went for Milestones for brunch in the morning. People in Vancouver dress up to go everywhere. I felt so under-dressed. I'm coming back to this city; it's for young people to have a good time in.

Stanley Park... the 400 Hectare Monster

2008-05-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

Stanley Park. There's the Lion's Gate bridge and the Mountains just a ways away. I'm gonna head back and climb the mountain sometime this term (look up Grousse Grind).

Another shot of the mountains. These pictures just don't do it justice. Why is Toronto so goddamn flat? An intern told me when he went up to Vancouver, he drove up the mountain, had a snowball fight, and then came back down to bathe in the beach. If that's not the life, I don't know what is.

Sunny day... so I had to get one of my baby and my baby. The passenger seat is longing to be filled, without you around anymore.

Freaking Beeee-autiful Vancouver

2008-05-21T22:04:00.001-07:00

The one thing Toronto has over Vancouver is that their sign is a piece of shit. Pardon my language.

The roads are really tight and the traffic is heavy. People drive crazy over here.

A view of the mountains anywhere you are. The condos also look really modern and clean.

This is such a gorgeous city. Why couldn't Toronto be half as pretty as this?

Shamelessly displaying a bad picture of myself.

The Scenic Drive to Vancouver (and Crazy Police Radaring Scheme)

2008-05-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

Still in Seattle... just leaving and heading over. This is shot from the floating bridge in Seattle. We have to cross from Bellevue to downtown Seattle to get on Hwy 5 which takes us all the way up.

This was in Seattle, driving down Hwy 5. It was gorgeous, with so many trees, and cutting through mountains. It reminds me of that map in Mario Kart where the rocks fall down and you have to drive through the mountainous terrain and dodge rocks.

Check out the view down ahead as you drive... the slopes and mountains.

Bout the Radar

I've heard about sly cops, but this is just crazy. A few cops set up the most crazy radar tactics that I've seen to date.

What they did? They used two (or more) cops for this one. You know how on a highway, there are bridges you have to go under, where roads go over the highway? Well a cop went to the road on top of the highway, stood right by the railing and shot his radar gun down at you. You can't see him because he's hiding from above.

Then when he catches you driving too fast, he'll radar his cop buddy, who's on the highway some miles ahead waiting for you, to flag you down and get your ass.

So word of warning, if you're speeding, make sure you not only check behind bridges, behind shrubs, but now also, check on TOP of the bridge!

Finally Got Me a Passenger

2008-05-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

And I love it! This car seriously gets a ton of compliments. After driving it for a bit, it kind of lost its looks to me. But this car's been complimented 3 times so far, on top of stares.

First time was at a gas station, when the guy behind me filling gas came up to me and asked me 'bout the horsepower. I told him I had no clue (cause I'm an idiot who drives a sports car and doesn't know jack about it) and that it was a company car. He responded with, damn that is a nice car.

Second time was when I was leaving a parking lot, and the attendant asked me what year the car was. Once again, I said 2007 because I didn't want him to know how dumb I am for driving around in this thing not knowing what year it was. I think I'm right but I'm still not sure.

Third time was when me and Lynn were driving up to meet my roommate for dinner at this Indian place, and this senior guy ran up to me (wobbled is more like it) and let out all these wows and aahs. He made lots of conversation with me and asked me about the car and how cool it musta been and how cool it looks and everything.

A full tank is about $50, going at $1/litre in Seattle. And the car probably gets me about 500km on a full tank of gas, driving a lot of highway (I tried it on the way to Vancouver).

Anyway, it felt good to have a girl in the passenger seat, especially my girl, with her hand sticking out the window, bagging even more stares for my car :)

Coolest feeling in the world!

Lake Bill @ Microsoft Campus and a Family of Geese

2008-05-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

So I took Lynn on a tour of the campus one day, and we walked all over. We ended up checking out this little tiny lake (more like a concrete hole with water and some fish in it) called Lake Bill.

This little pond was called Lake Bill because traditionally, everytime a Microsoft product shipped, Bill Gates would be tossed in the lake to celebrate the cause. I'm not sure how true this story is, but it's the story we got during our orientation session.

Anyway, cutest thing. We saw 2 geese and a whole family of little ones. There were 5-7 little ones and most of them stuck close to the mom. They would eventually all burrow into the mom's behind and lay safe and stowed away under her, while the dad kept watch from a distance away.

There was a stray little one who preferred to follow the dad, and would mimic the actions of the dad. When the dad pecked at the grass, the little one would nibble at the grass too. When the dad turned its head backwards, so did the little one. CUTE? I know, right?

The Space Needle

2008-05-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

The space needle is like, Seattle's ONLY tourist attraction LMAO. Max was right, there's nothing to do in Seattle except this damn thing. And it's about 1/3rd the height of the CN Tower, 2x as ugly, and 4x as lame.

Nontheless, it IS the only thing to do here so when Lynn came up, I had to take her out there to try it.

This is kind of a weird pic...

They have seats that put two people facing the window at the same time (a genius layout design that the CN Tower is stupid for not having thought of.)

A shot of the view... you can see the mountains in the background and the ocean. The space needle DOES revolve 360 degrees much like the CN Tower so you can see the whole city.

Though it is much lower than the CN Tower, the view is still prettier because the city is just gorgeous.

They sell space noodles at their gift shop... for some ridiculous price too! And see those Space Needle pepper grinders on her left? Guess how much they cost. Guessed yet? They're $110.

My chicken was $35 and it tasted worse than Swiss Chalet. Oh how I miss Swiss Chalet... The service was great though, the view was great, and the place looked really snazzy.

I wouldn't recommend it for food, but it's definitely something you gotta do in Seattle right?

Seattle's Floating Bridge

2008-05-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

So Seattle is like a peninsula, surrounded pretty much by water. I live in Bellevue, which is on the land, east of Seattle. When I drive into Seattle, I have to cross this beautiful floating bridge every time.

It takes about 5-10 minutes driving at 100km/h to get across (so you can see how long it is) and the scenery is so beautiful everytime you cross it. These are crappy pictures, I know. But they're all I've got for now...

Here's a pic, if you look carefully, of all the houses on that island. It's really condensed and it's where the rich people live.

Seattle's a weird city... it's so rich and beautiful but at the same time it's so dead. When you walk around downtown Seattle on a Friday night, it's hard to find a lot of people around...

Tap House Grill With Baby & Ju

2008-05-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

Microsoft perk: We get this credit-card looking thing that is called a PRIME card that gives us some outrageous discounts (buy 1 get 1 entree free) to some pretty classy restaurants. While Lynn was here, me and Ju took her to the Tap House Grill.

Funny story: Ju actually lives in the building where Amazon puts their employees for corporate housing! So if that roof looks familiar... yeah =P

Notice carefully the painting placed next to him as he's playing the guitar. Yes, it is him.

Drive in Restaurant

2008-05-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Over near University of Washington (U-Dub, they like to call it), there's a late night place you can drive to get some food.

They cut the cost of having to maintain their seats/chairs, etc.
Fries: $1.40
Burger: $1.20

Temporary Blog Hiatus

2008-05-18T02:24:00.000-07:00

"The captain is currently in a strait jacket and shall be absent until further notice..."

I won't be writing in my blog until next Wednesday at least because Lynn came down and I'm making the most out of my time with her.

Don't worry though because I've got a LOT to blog about when I'm back. Actually, I'm in Vancouver right now. Want to know about Seattle night life as I know it so far? What Vancouver is like? And the newest ways that I've seen police try to catch speeders on the highway? After Wednesday, I'll be back.

Updates coming...!

The Brick

2008-05-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

I didn't write this, but it was sent to me from my mom. It really opened my eyes. I got hit with a 'brick' today, after getting off the phone with my mom. I screwed up and I'm sorry. There's so much I can say to explain myself, but really there's no excuses. I deserved those harsh words and I'm going to do my best to change it. Thank you for making me realize my mistake. Love you.

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared . Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door!

He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, 'What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?'

The young boy was apologetic. 'Please, mister...please, I'm sorry but I didn't know what else to do,' He pleaded. 'I threw the brick because no one else would stop...' With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. 'It's my brother, 'he said. 'He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up.' Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, 'Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me.'

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay. 'Thank you and god bless you,' the grateful child told the stranger. Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy! push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: 'Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!'

God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us. It's our choice to listen or not.

I Love My Work Hours

2008-05-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

Getting to go to work at 10 in the morning is so sweet. I've never been an early morning person and I don't think I can ever be. So working here, I get to start work at 10 (actually, it's whenever I want) and I end at 6 earliest.

Since I live about 10 minutes away, I can wake up at 9:30, make lunch and still get into work by 10. I love these hours because it means I get to stay up until 1-2am every night. That's usually the time I get tired anyway; if I had to sleep at 11pm, I wouldn't fall asleep till 1 or 2.

I hope that my full-time job in the future is 10-6. Even though here at Microsoft I'm doing more like 10-8, it doesn't feel like a lot just because everyone on my team stays at work late, so work never seems lonely.

Gotta love it =P

What I Do At Microsoft

2008-05-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

What's the product I'm working on?

At Microsoft, I'm in the Microsoft System Center division, working on a product called Operations Manager.

It's a fairly old product; it's been around since 2000. You've probably never even heard of this product because I know I've never heard of it before. One of the reasons you've never heard of it is probably because it's not sold to the end-user, or in other words, to you. It's sold to corporate companies. Companies that have a lot of computer servers and need to maintain their entire system.

So what is Operations Manager? The easiest way to explain that is to use an example. Think about a large office company. At this company, each person gets a computer, and all these computers are connected to the company directory. The company directory allows you to send internal e-mail, the intranet, allows you to use their system.

So CEO's want to make sure that their system never goes down; that when a computer or a server crashes, it can be fixed right away so that there's no delay in productivity and that people can always be doing work. So they need a system to monitor all the computers, servers.

Operations Manager is the tool that monitors all the computers and servers, and sends data back to a database somewhere to store. That's Ops Manager in a nutshell.

What do I do?

I'm on the Ops Manager team as a feature Program Manager. Basically, we hear customer complaints and suggestions, or we come up with our own ideas, and then we implement it into our next release. I'm in charge of a security feature in the product and my job is to design it and get it into production for either the Service Pack 2 release or the next release of the Ops Manager.

I don't program or manage people. I am a hybrid of both. My job is more on ensuring the quality of the product. I take what customers say, infuse it with my knowledge of what works best, and design a solution for the feature and convince developers that my solution is the best so that they'll code it.

I need to take a requirement for a problem, turn it into a possible solution, and get it into places. It involves a lot of talking, a lot of communicating, and a lot of running around.

What's the Work load like?

It depends on your team, your boss, and mainly you. For me, my team is very ambitious, and I was really lucky to be placed under a very ambitious boss. He's pushing me hard to get things done fast, so I basically work 10am-8pm every day and on weekends too.

But around here, that seems to be the norm. To be honest, there's not that much to do in Redmond. It's a really pretty city just because everyone's rich here, but it's also very boring. I've got no family or friends here, and I'm sure it's the same with a lot of the other people working at Microsoft, so why not stay at work late hours and just work more?

The campus is probably the nicest thing in all of Redmond anyway. There's pool tables, foosball tables, lots of snacks, people who are always there almost 24/7, and just some fun people to talk to.

For me, I don't really know too many people here and I've got no family here so I don't see a big deal with working later hours. You may as well catch up with the rest of them and get up to speed as quick as you can. It's the best way to solidify a full-time job after you graduate right?

Saturday has ARRIVED!

2008-05-11T03:06:00.000-07:00

This is my orientation group that was randomly selected by Microsoft during orientation. We won a scavenger hunt, so we had a $350 budget to blow. How we decided to ball out? Lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory and a trip to the Pacific Science Center!

This is the group that I'm with, minus Selena, our orientation leader who took the pic. Half of these guys are from Waterloo, but they're from all over the map. Some are from Michigan, Miami, Florida, New Hampshire, Vancouver, etc. You could expect that a few of these guys are a bit more socially awkward, but generally they're nice. We're all in the same boat in that we just want to have a good time.

I'd say that from the group, I bonded the best with Selena, our orientation leader. She seems to be the most... similar to me I guess? It could be cause she's asian. And that she's in finance and not CS. I also found out that she hangs out with the guy who helped me find my sublet. She invited me out with her friends, so maybe someday I'll chill with them. Hanging out with locallers makes finding the hot places in town much easier.

My meal sucked. The Toronto Spaghetti Factory is WAY better. The menu selection sucked, and the chicken fettucine alfredo I ordered looked like it was something I could cook, and that's saying something. But it was a free meal so Spaghetti Factory, you get a pass =P

So, I thought this was really interesting. In downtown Seattle, when you park on the street, you go to the machine, pay your money, print the ticket, yada yada yada.

The cool thing is that you don't put the ticket on your dash. Instead, what you do is you peel off this sticky on the back of the ticket and use it to stick the ticket onto your curbside window. I've never seen this before but the concept of it blew my mind. It made it so much easier for parking enforcement to read, as opposed to putting it on the dash.

So yeah, after parking, we hit up the Science Center paid for by Microsoft (Thanks!). This was a really interactive place. You could test out your balance, arm strength, grip strength, reaction time, heart pressure, and tons of cool things. There were also some pretty cool robotics machinery that you could actually control and play with.

My personal favorite? Hmm... probably watching the snake feeding.

Apparently, this Boa Constrictor only gets fed once a week, and we made it just in time to get to see the feed. We watched it take 10 minutes to eat this rat. The snake is just something else. She'll curl up and use her body as a table so that she can put the rat on top of back (if she has a back) and then swallow it up. It was a slow process, but definitely it was something to watch. I was pretty grossed out by the entire thing.

I hate rats. We had to kill one in our old house in Waterloo one time and I had to toss it out. It was the nastiest experience I ever faced.

Another thing we did at the Science Center was watch Speed Racer on an IMAX movie screen. I'm a huge car fan, so I thought that Speed Racer was just AWESOME. I'll admit that it had a few cheesy feel good scenes, but I loved the movie. It's directed by the Wachowski brothers, so even though it was a racing movie, they incorporated some cool 'Matrix style' fight scenes into it.

Maybe it's because it was my first time at an IMAX movie, but I thought that IMAX is the craziest way to watch a movie ever. It definitely IS the ultimate movie experience. The sound is awesome, the picture quality is awesome, and the screen is so big that you're practically in the damn movie yourself.

After dinner, we went back home towards Bellevue to hit up a house party that was listed on the Microsoft Interns e-mail distribution list at work. Apparently, it was being thrown at some girl's house, named Rachel.

They said there'd be beer pong so I just HAD to go, since I recently rocked Alan and Elvin in it. We did well. I had David as my partner again and we lasted for 2 rounds. In the third round we were up 4 to 1, but then somehow they came back and beat us four cups before we could get the last one.

It was surprisingly a normal looking party (not one you'd expect from Microsoft interns) with plenty of girls, food, booze, and good music. The hosts were great, and Rachel actually turned out to be pretty. The thing was, she was also really awkward. But everyone else in the house was nice and easy to hang out with. The party was also really white. It felt like I was in a frat house almost, like the type you see in movies.

I think that when you're in a city alone, and there's a bunch of other people hanging out in a city alone, people are generally more open to talking to each other, just because it's what you gotta do to survive right?

I dunno though. It looked like a fun time, and I had more than a few drinks and had a great buzz going. At the same time, I couldn't help but think about her, and how I wished that she was there with me. Even though it was a great party, I still would have rathered hanging out with her anyday. I kept checking my phone almost every five minutes to see whether she text messaged me or not.

And with some sort of psychic coincidence, she messages me when I check.

Uh Oh... Landlord's Pissed?!

2008-05-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

I got home at about 1:30am and went to the kitchen to talk to Lynn on the phone.

I was being extremely quiet or trying to, and at about 2:30 my landlord's wife came downstairs, walked into the pitch black living room, stood for a minute or so, and then walked back upstairs.

Now I have no idea what to make out of this, but I got off the phone right after that. I'm not sure whether I woke her up, or that she's worried I'm using their phone for long distance calls or what not.

Seriously, I'm pretty nervous right now. Why would she come downstairs like that? Maybe she just wanted to check who's on the phone. Or maybe she couldn't sleep.

Now I feel like I'm being intrusive and being a bad sublet. I do come home at late hours and take late showers. I know they wake up at 5am because they run a restaurant and that they also have church at 6am on weekends.

I definitely have to figure out what the landlord's wife is thinking about and try to fix it so that she doesn't get all pissed off and kick me out of the house.

The worst part of this is that she doesn't speak up. I've noticed that she's not exactly social, and wants to stick to herself. I hope that's the case, and that she's not being anti-social because she already doesn't like me.

Or maybe I'm just thinking too much. We'll see.

I'm Fkin Tired

2008-05-09T01:10:00.001-07:00

It's been two days, and I'm seriously exhausted already. It's not like I'm not sleeping either because I'm getting a good 7-8 hours.

But the amount of things I have to learn is just overwhelming. Starting off as a PM for a completely new product is just a huge headache. I've been working from 10-8 the last 2 days and that's still not enough time for me. I'm definitely going to be spending my weekend trying to learn.

First of all, we have to build credibility with the developers so that in the future we can convince them to implement our design, so we have to learn the infrastructure of the product inside out. We also have to build credibility with the customers so that they trust us to do the right thing and continue to use our services, so we have to learn everything about the product inside out.

It's so overwhelming, and it's also because I put high expectations upon myself to perform. I want to help drive their product and input some solid ideas so that I can be respected as a contributor to Microsoft as opposed to being just some intern who was in and out within 4 months.

Random Things in my Office

2008-05-09T00:52:00.000-07:00

Before I show you pics of things in my office, I have to give you some context.

I'm sharing an office with another Microsoft employee. He's also my mentor and he's an amazing guy; he's funny, he's confident, and he's a great PM (Program Manager). He treats me well, takes good care of me by showing me the ropes, and is a great role model.

So anyway, we share an office, and this is some of the stuff that he had in it that I thought was pretty interesting.

What did you expect on the walls inside Microsoft but to have some funny signs up.

This is the team that I'm with: Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, which I'll also have to go into detail another time. That's actually a scarf, being proudly displayed on the corkboard.

We get Starbucks coffee in the kitchen with our very own branded Microsoft cups. A lot of people in the office are addicted. There's also an espresso machine somewhere around, but I haven't tried it out yet.

If you noticed, I'm only taking close up pictures and there's a reason for that. I'm quite sure that I'm not allowed to snap some pictures of what it would look like inside Microsoft for obvious security reasons.

All I can say though is that, once you get inside, there are so many cools things to walk past, to play with, and to see. The interior is really nice, really clean, and you can tell that a lot of money was dumped into making Microsoft a really nice place. They treat their employees really well.

A Taste of Amazon's Corporate Housing (Their Roof)

2008-05-08T00:54:00.000-07:00

Amazon is just 'down the street' from Microsoft, so to speak, and I happen to know a few people working there, such as Vasant, Jay and Shaun, etc, who elected to live at Amazon's corporate housing. In fact, the first get-together for all the Microsoft/Amazon/Expedia interns from Waterloo took place there so I brought along my camera cause I thought it'd be nice to capture what Amazon's corporate Housing would be like.

Everyone met up at Vasant's apartment which is Amazon corporate housing located in downtown Seattle. By 10pm or so, there were a good 15 of us. Since we didn't want noise complaints, we went up to the roof (18th floor), which brought sexy back.

Once you get to the top, you walk out the elevators, turn to your right and see that there's a main inside lounge area, and then an outdoor section. In the main lounge, there are some modern decor and furniture, equipped with a wide screen lcd TV.

There's also some of those eggie-shaped chairs so you can get comfy, you know, after a long day of working on that crazy Amazon.com site! For me, they remind me of those old school barber shops where women went to get their hair done, and those were the chairs you sit in. There's also plenty of plants to keep the air nice and fresh up on the 18th.

I'm just chillin on the furniture, wipin my dirty shoes all over their damn sexy furniture for them. No, I'm not a jealous Microsoft employee!

Also in the lounge area was a long table, which we made good use of. Jay busted out the cards, and we dealt out hands to everyone to play 'Pyramid', a card game where you try to cheat and make other people drink. We had two decks goin since there were so many of us.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Corona's down here are $1 each. 24 for $23.99. Sick eh?

This is where the roof top starts to become really attractive. The lounge area is surrounded by glass windows and garage doors, which most likely slide open in the summer. There are several doors all over so you can step out onto the rooftop.

From the rooftop, 18 stories above, you can see a beautiful view of Seattle. It's absolutely breathtaking at night. I ran into people taking their dogs for walks up here, couples chatting and just random people enjoying some fresh air. This is definitely the sort of place you take your date to. Anyone wanna hook me up with some keys to the roof?

No get-together is complete without a group picture. After we all got hammered enough, I co-erced them (that's right, co-erced, haha) into stepping outside for a group pic. I also co-erced them into a fob pic, where we all made peace signs.

From left to right: Me, Mladen, Raymond, Vasant, Graeme, Robert, Vivien, Nathan, Jay, Jenny, Mike, Steven, Jerry, and Shaun.

So that's just a quick taste of the roof. Hopefully we'll party in more places, so I can find more excuses to take pictures and sneak you guys the inside scoop on their stuff.

But seriously, if you thought that was sweet, I haven't even shown you what their apartment looks like yet. Don't worry though, I'm over there a lot. =P

15 Hours at the Airport

2008-05-08T00:46:00.000-07:00

I ended up spending 15 hours total at airports on that Saturday just to get to Seattle.

I don't understand it but they booked my flight from Boston down to Denver and then back up to Seattle. In case you don't know, Denver is in Colorado, which is pretty far south. And Seattle is in the North West.

It was an agonizing experience. I first flew from Boston to Denver, which was 4 hours with no problem. But when I arrived at Denver at 12:30pm, the connecting flight wasn't until 3pm. But then there were mechanical problems, so we didn't board till 5pm, and didn't arrive in Seattle until 7:30pm.

During my flight between Denver to Seattle though, the only thing that came out of it was a picture of this. Some frickin' mountains... of where, I have no clue. But I thought it was pretty neat, so while the grandma who had the window seat needed to go to the washroom, I jumped in her seat and snapped that photo.

It's probably gonna be 10-15 hours to get home after my internship... shit!

Pimped Out!

2008-05-08T00:28:00.000-07:00

For the next 4 months, I'll be riding around in a Red Mitsubishi Eclipse. That's right, I get to pimp out in this sexy-ass coupe. It's friggin' awesome. It's only a rental car from Avis, but I couldn't believe how lucky I was to score one of these.

Microsoft is gonna charge me $375/month for this, but I think it's worth it. People are always checking me out on the road (I'm also blasting music, so they could just be wondering who's the noisy jerk on the road) and it feels damn good to get to drive home from work in this. I can't wait to drive my baby around in this or pimp it out to the beach.

In terms of performance, it's pretty strong. When I gun it, it'll pick up for me. The handling is awesome. The entire car is really responsive to even a little turn of my steering wheel and there's almost no body roll. I can confidently rip it down the on-ramp towards the highway.

The seats are low as hell, which makes it kind of annoying for me to get in and out of the car. Sometimes I have to grab onto the door to drag myself up and out of the seat. It's worse when I'm parked on a hill (which there are a lot of in Seattle) because I then have to push open the door and quickly pull myself out before the door comes back to hit me.

The thing had about 3000 miles on it when I got it, and I plan to drive the hell out of it. I burned 3/4 of a tank from the first 3 days so you can see how much I've abused this baby already. Gas is about $1 / liter over here, but I don't really care.

The car is necessary in Bellevue where I live. Bellevue is really similar to Richmond Hill. The houses and neighborhoods are really spread out so that it's hard to walk or bike anywhere. Nobody walks in Richmond Hill just because it's so inconvenient, and it's no different in Bellevue. It's not like downtown Toronto or downtown Seattle.

Now that I have the car, I can hit up outlet malls whenever, go up to Vancouver, down to Portland whenever, and just drive around to do errands at any time.

It's also gonna be really sweet to get to drive this to work every day, which only takes about 10 minutes, meaning I can sleep in later.

Thank you Microsoft!

Seattle's Beautiful

2008-05-04T03:02:00.000-07:00

Arrived at 7:30pm (10:30pm Toronto time) and picked up my rental car and headed to my new place. It's cleaner than I thought it would be. But honestly, after living in loo, anything is good. This place is carpeted, the landlords are really kind, and it's very simple.

Seattle's a beautiful city. Once the plane gets low enough for you to see the city, all you see from above is green. There's so many trees and it makes the air so fresh. That's why they get their nickname The Emerald City.

The roads of Seattle remind me of San Francisco. The slopes and hills are really steep. The problem is that everything there closes so early. I was down there visiting Vasant, Jay, Dave and Shaun and we wanted to head out to grab a quick drink since it was early. It couldn't happen because we had no idea where the bars were.

There's also no toll booths (WAT UP!) on the highways so it's really similar to Toronto in that sense. The roads are kinda iffy though. The materials they use to make it aren't so great so when you drive too fast on it the ride begins to get bumpy.

Besides that, I'm exhausted as hell, I've officially been 'up' for 24 hours technically speaking. Bed time... lots to do tomorrow.

The Denver Airport

2008-05-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Why yes, I do know this airport very well. I was only stranded here for FIVE FREAKIN HOURS!!! WTF!

On an unrelated note, American Airports are so much nicer than Canadian ones. They're much more clean and elegantly designed.

I was wandering around the airport and found free high-speed internet. It pays to walk around.

Sleepless on the Plane

2008-05-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

My ticket from Boston to Denver says 10:00am - 12:30pm. When they say 10:00am, they mean 10:00am EST. When they say 12:30pm, they mean 12:30pm MST (2 hours slower). So really, it was a four hour flight. WTF>

It was a really troubled sleep on the plane, even though I only got three hours of sleep the night before. I missed her so much, and my thoughts kept flooding in of her and the events of the past week.

It was an amazing time in Boston.

Now I gotta wait until 2:30pm MST to board the plane set to arrive 4:44pm PST, which means it'll be a 2.5 hour flight I think.

Total flying time: 10 hours or something like that.

New Beginnings Are Supposed To Be Exciting

2008-05-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

And so begins the first day of my four month trip to Seattle. It all starts in Boston at the Logan International airport, at 9:01am, where I’m sitting in a seat outside gate C17 waiting for my plane to board.

Nervous? Yeah.

I’m nervous about plane rides. I friggin hate them. The take off always feels so shaky and I’m always scared to death that the plane will somehow lose power and I’ll plummet to my death. I usually console myself by thinking about the ratio of number of planes flown every minute vs plane accidents and I feel better. I just can’t help my imagination sometimes.

Saying good-bye was the hardest part. It’s pretty obvious that having to leave wouldn’t be easy. It’s not like I didn’t think it’d be hard. But nobody told me it’d be that hard. No one told me about the overwhelming feeling of loss that would overtake every bone in my body until all I could do is stand there dumbly watching her tears streaming down her face. Nobody told me that the pain would be borderline unbearable.

You stiffen up as the sadness seeps through your veins. You just stand there, holding back tears, knowing that if you say even one word, you’ll almost surely break down. The most I could do was push her away, tell her to go, and try my hardest not to think about it until she left. I hate it when I get all teary-eyed for these things. I’ve always thought it was just so melodramatic.

Sigh.

New beginnings and adventures are supposed to be exciting but my excitement is being capped by the fact that you’re not here with me to experience it.

I know this blog’s about me and Seattle and that I’m supposed to start it off talking about the great things I want to accomplish, but I can’t help but think about you and how much I’d rather just be at home in Toronto where I could spend my summer with you.

9:19am. 11 more minutes.

found my pad in seattle...

2008-04-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

I'll be paying $470 a month + utilities, which probably comes out to $520 * 4 = 2080. Microsoft's housing subsidy is enough to cover all my rent and for me to have a little bit leftover too.

It's located in the heart of Bellevue, just outside of Redmond. I've heard its about a 1 hour bus ride into Seattle, so we'll see what happens. I'll have a bike as my commute, and 12 free car rental vouchers to get around if I need.

Meets my guy standards

the room itself. Those drapes gotta go... and I'm not feeling the lamp either. But since Microsoft will subsidize all of it and then some... I won't complain.

From this pic, the kitchen actually looks pretty nice and clean. I wonder if they'll let me use their pots or if I'm gonna have to buy my own... I'm praying for a dishwasher too cause I'm so sick of hand scrubbing dishes.

You know it's an asian place when none of the furniture in the house matches. And using a chair to prop up the plants... pure asianness.

A big closet to fit my clothes... I like!

And here's a location of the place...

View Larger Map

Things to Do Before Seattle

2008-04-01T19:39:00.001-07:00

Buy a Webcam

Buy picture frames, take several pictures

Buy a little Penguin

Engrave the ring

List to be continued...

Corporate Housing vs. Non-Corporate Housing

2008-04-01T19:30:00.001-07:00

Right now, I'm stuck with the decision of deciding on corporate housing or finding my own housing. Corporate housing would be literally living in a hotel, with maid service, linens, a fully equipped kitchen, TV, queen size bed, clean living, but I would be paying $1100/month.

I'm looking at this non-corporate housing place (pretty much my only lead), which is a small room for $470/month... and will probably end up being $520 a month if I get it.

The thing is, it'll be so much cheaper to take the non-corporate housing. I'd save about $2000-2500 dollars in the entire trip. That could be the price of a laptop and a few round trip flight tickets. Another great thing about non-corporate housing is that I would be forced to live independently, to survive on my own and go shopping and take care of my household necessities. Thirdly, being on my own would mean I have time to grow, and just to travel around the city alone.

On the bad side of non-corporate housing, I wouldn't be living in luxury, and I lose the opportunity to show off to my friends and family what a great place Microsoft put me in for 4 months. If people came to visit, it wouldn't be as fun because I'm in a little dinky room. I also would be living about 15-20 minutes from the Microsoft Campus, so I'd have to commute further. I would also be TV-less, probably more out of the loop in terms of social events and activities (although I'm sure I can control that to some extent).

I think in the end, the best decision is to go for the non-corporate housing, and if that doesn't work out, just go for the studio option. Non-corporate housing would be great, and so would corporate housing. Living in luxury would allow me to focus more at work and at other recreational things.

I do feel like I haven't struggled enough in terms of learning to live on my own yet. In Waterloo, I've always been so sheltered. Mom always prepared food for me, I had someone to cook, I had a car, I knew the area, I always had friends, and I was always an hour away.

Being several thousand miles away and living in a little rut trying to survive would be a great experience to helping me grow up.

I could learn to cook, learn to decorate my room, buy necessities and suffer if I didn't be responsible, and all the other hardships.

Maybe I'm really biased right now, but I'm leaning pretty heavily towards the non-corporate housing.

Goals in Seattle

2008-03-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

Explore the city, all the nooks and crannies.
Take pictures and see all the sights.
Work hard as a Program Manager, learn how to do the job properly, and to do the job well.
Be punctual every morning, sleep on time at night.
Learn some discipline

Eat properly
Exercise properly
Work properly
Resist temptations, and maintain a schedule

Keep an up to date blog

Heading to the Evil Empire

2008-03-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

HELL YEAH!!

I got offered a position as a Program Manager at Microsoft for my last co-op position baby! I still remember the moment I got that e-mail. It was in my Computer Architecture class, when my gmail notifier notified me of a new e-mail labelled "Microsoft Interview Feedback".

My heart pounded as I clicked it. When I saw the words "Congratulations..." I couldn't contain myself. Thoughts started flooding my head...

How much will I be making? How happy will my mom be? What about my friends? What about you?

Regardless, it's going to be in Seattle, away from family, friends, and loved ones. As much as it really sucks in one way, in another this is my once in a lifetime chance to learn to grow by myself. Explore a whole new city and keep memories of what it was like to work in the states.

So here's to starting a new blog, to monitor all my learning experiences, my good times, and my bad times in Seattle!

Cheers!