Saturday June 1st

One Internship Down…

It’s my last day at my current residence. Tomorrow, I move from Sunnyvale to San Francisco. I’m excited because there is a lot of Haskell involved (in fact, I start by going to a Haskell Meetup tomorrow evening), but there is also a lot of opportunity for me to grow as a developer.

It started out pretty great, and I planned a bunch of fun activities in the morning as it was my last day at my current internship, but I made it to around the early afternoon and had to start sending out emails to everyone that my email address was going to change and that they should stay in touch with me via my personal one.
Then, came an outpouring of people who were in shock, and saying that I should come back soon. “What!?” someone said. “What do you mean today is your last day? How!?” said another. “You have to come back!!! Get your PhD and come back here!!!” said a third. A fourth, burly six-foot man with dreadlocks gave me a bear hug. By the time I got around to my team, I think I had a slight case of the sniffles. My coworker, at the end of the day, stayed and chatted with me after everyone else had left, and he walked out with me, and wished me well.

The best I can do since I can’t share photos publicly, is to share some of my experiences that I can share.
There was everything from watching my manager play dance dance revolution, taking my first salsa dancing lesson, trying Beat Saber for the first time and everything else in between that made my experience really enjoyable. Oh yeah, and a really awesome day and concert and a cake in between. I also saw Woz at an event at the Computer History Museum on the Newton. Also, struggling and then ending up feeling like it was all worthwhile. Growing as a person, with the resolution that I am going off to do my PhD.

We’d hang out every weekend. It was fun because we ended up doing everything from trying out corn dogs, drawing, drinking boba and talking about functional programming and the community. We even went to a movie theatre one night and ended up watching various shows because the staff didn’t seem to care that our tickets had expired :) All she could say yesterday was “I’m going to miss you” insert crying emoji. What do you say to that? I was tearing up, too. We resolved to make time to hang out every weekend, at least until I have to go back to LA.

The first evening, I went to a pre-event and took a bus after work and ended up dancing in a conga-line with a bunch of other women. I almost ended up taking my shoes off and we took a bunch of videos together.

He had really great advice on mentorship and the PhD process, which was wonderful. He said that if you surround yourself with people who know things you don’t, you can continue being mentored and learn and grow, which is important.

My coworkers resolved that they would not allow me to come back unless I had attended, since I simply could not stop talking about Hinton, and it was sort of a dream for me to be able to (especially as an aspriring researcher) see him speak.

I met some of the summer interns! We had a few dinners together. I showed my friend in LA this photo and he said “You all look so happy!”. Yes; if I could describe it all, it would be a mix of happiness and fulfillment.

I leave inspired. I’m currently working on a group project for a new idea involving Space. We may get to file for a patent, which is pretty cool.
I start my new Haskell internship!
I look for housing in Vermont, go back to LA and pack everything I’ve owned and move to Vermont to start a new chapter of my life.
But for now, I’m just moving to SF and enjoying the summer and hoping to learn a lot of Haskell. I’m so nervous, but grateful for the opportunities.

The spirit of everything. It was a special place because the people there really do care and love what they do. I met really special people who I will remember for a long time (as long as my memory is intact). We are all inventors. We are the rebels.

Written on June 1, 2019