When it Feels like They’re trolling you…

Hi All

• It’s been a while. I am in the middle of just being allergic to everything in LA (except dogs) and starting classes. I mean…everything. Sneezing constantly, irritated nose. I’ve got it all.

• I’m finally getting around to reading “On the Expressive Power of Programming Languages”, by Matthias F (who I’ve met at POPL! He’s currently is at Northeastern, and two of my friends are his mentees). Here is a copy

A few disappointments

• I made it to the last freaking round of this interview with a large company but no dice. Again…so close, yet so far. I’m enjoying the interviews a bit more, though. I had two interviews back to back, one with someone who had 20 years of experience, and the other who works for a huge Cloud computing department. The 20 years of experience-interviewer had me sweating, because they were doing the second-guessing thing (“Do you really think?”). I’ve never encountered that before, so it was an experience.
• I have to give myself a bit of kudos for constantly coming so close (esp at some of these huge companies), but it’s frustrating when it doesn’t work out. And this is largely through self-learning. I have no idea why they’re even giving me a chance, but for now, I’ll take it for what it is, and I’ll continue working on my proficiency (you trolling bro? lol). Oh well, back to working through stuff.
• I also didn’t get this lab position I would have liked because I don’t have enough credits in school. Yeah…some of us work so we can’t take 18 credits a term. It me. But it was worth a shot.

On the other hand

• A friend of mine got a JPL internship! It’s perfect for him! It’s exciting! Both he and I are applying for our Master’s. I didn’t mention it (because I’m over it at this point) but my advisor pretty much screwed me over on my application, so it wasn’t submitted (this is the second time this has happened, and part of why I was thinking of dropping out of school and considering the boot camp stuff briefly. Teachers don’t care :(). The worst is that there is this thing people do in LA where they just ghost, especially if they know they screwed up. If someone did that where I grew up, they’d find the person and smack them and ask them what was wrong with them and why they didn’t have the chutzpah to stand up for their decision/ actions. Anyways…
• My friend’s an engineer (not officially yet, but he thinks like one!) and I hope he can get into a great MEng programme. I hope I can get into a good Computer Science-scientist programme. I’m more of a scientist. It’s interesting to see how much of that makes a lot more sense to me than say, a year ago.
• Oh, I didn’t get into Discrete Structures, but I did get into my Concepts of Programming Languages class. The prof said he’d possibly have a summer Discrete Structures. I may try to take it, especially if I don’t get into this other thing I applied for over summer. I’ll find out by the end of April.

Other stuff

• I still have to make it through that paper. That guy’s going to kill me lol.
• I’m starting Concepts of Programming Languages class today
• I’m working through my Nanodegree (module 2 and project 2)

I have some other stuff

• In the works coming up in June (ie LambdaConf; going to that), BayHac (going to that in April), SCALE (volunteering for that weekend of March 10th), Google Women’s Day celebration/ training (March 10th), July (summer training), September (possible opportunity)
• Somewhere in there, I’m doing my GRE (May 12th) and applying for my Master’s, and of course, continuing to look for internships/ experience, etc.

So yeah…kind of busy

• Anyways, until then…never give up! :D