To grad school or work?

It has been awhile since my last post but I've been busy with school. School combined with work seem to be eating up all my time.

Anyways I received a letter yesterday informing me that I've been admitted to the UW-Graduate School. Of course this isn't my first choice (Stanford) but at least I now know graduate school is at least a choice. They haven't told me anything of financial aid and the date for finding that out is April 1st. I can't afford another few years of school so if I don't get a Fellowship, or a TA or RA position work is the way to go. Not only that I got a job offer from VMware that is VERY, VERY, tempting. Well I sort of got one they called and told me about it but I haven't received a piece of paper with the info yet. No need for me to decide yet.

Back at School

WoW (pun intended). Long time no posts. Thanks to World of Warcraft I haven't made any posts or done much else for about a month. This game is just that good.

Anyways, I'm back in Madison and School has begun! I just got done with my first day of classes. Its sort of strange to have my day centered around a few scattered times in where I sit and listen to people lecture. Of course not all my classes are like pure lecture. I'm taking a PE class, Kendo this semester that is 30 minutes of lecture and 1 1/2 of running around hitting things with sticks. (Ok I'm exaggerating there is a lot more to it than just hitting stuff with sticks.)

World of Warcraft

My younger brother gave my World of Warcraft Collectors Edition for Christmas, and I have to say this is the BEST game I've ever played. I'm afraid my life (outside of the computer) will soon be over as I want to play this game 24x7 (excluding sleep, and mealtimes :)). Once again Blizzard has somehow managed to release a great game into an overcrowded genre filled with mediocore to crappy games (EQ, DAOC, AC2 here's looking at you).

Instead of a boring level grind I find my self walking around the world and doing the quests, and yes many of these just involve killing things. There is just something different that makes this game fun to play, something that other MMORPG's have missed. I'm not the only one with this opinion as this game sold more copies than any other PC game on its first day. Additionally this game is OUT OF STOCK at just about every retailer of computer games in the Twin Cities area. Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, EB Games, Gamestop, Target and even Walmart don't have this game in stock. Considering you pay $15 a month to play this after 30 days I can't believe it sold out! The collectors edition sold out in about the first week, I only got one because a friend of my brother was working before christmas returns and grabbed it for him.

Well I need to get back to Azeroth so if you happen to be on Perenolde drop a line to the great mage Jthon.

Merry Chrismahanakwanza

Merry Christmas to you all.

Cold

It's way, way to cold outside right now. According to Trillian it's -9 outside right now. It's so cold I'm keeping a gallon bucket of icecream frozen by my window! I stuck a Big Mikes Super Sub by my window last night to keep it cool, instead it froze and I got a frosty sub. Took a minute in the microwave to thaw it. All my pop on my window sill froze solid too. It's so dang cold that when I headed out for breakfast I almost got frostbite on a two minute walk.

This is the type of weather that makes you go. WHY IN THE HELL DID ANYONE STOP IN MINNESOTA OR WISCONSIN? Was the east cost to warm? Gave up going all the way to sunny CA? Speaking of CA Trillian tells me its a warm 50 in Mountain View right now. Makes me want to head back out there.

Finals Done!

Finals are now over. I have finished all those annoying tests and papers! My CS 520 final went terrible, I thought I knew what is was like to fail. Well now I know. If I'm lucky I'll pull off a 40%, I'm really, really, hoping the curve pulls up my grade otherwise I can say goodbye to good GPA and grad school :(.

Theory of Computation aside my other tests went pretty well. Apparently I got an A on my 7:45am final! Yeah!

Two Down One to Go

Well I finished my two finals for the day. How did they go? Easy as easymac (btw I've never made these crappy things). I put in a whole 20 minutes of studying for my second final, and boy I thought it was easy. Either that or I failed it.

One Down Two to Go

Got done with my ECE553 final around 9:25 or so. It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would. I look at my notesheets like twice, and even then it was just to confirm something I already knew. Of course the T/F section at the begining probably screwed me over especially as I changed an answer to something incorrect. My ECE 551 final is coming up soon at 12:25. Maybe I should study or at LEAST make a notesheet for this one.

Test Time

I've finally reached that point in finals week when I actually have a test. That's right starting at 7:45 am my tests begin! I know, I know that's way to early to go to class let alone stay awake and think. But do I have a choice? Nope, I just lucked out with such an early class aren't you jealous?

Considering "finals" started Thursday evening you would think I'd be all studied up for the test. Guess what I'm not. I started my studying today and maybe got in a good 5 hours for ALL my classes. So in reality I really haven't studied at all. Ohh well go figure. I hope I get up early enough tomorrow. At least final number 2 isn't until 12 tomorrow so I have time to make a notesheet!

Finals

Well I'm supposed to be studying for finals. Guess what I can't get anything done because I am easily distracted. It's really really annoying. Can anyone suggest a decent way to keep on task? Because I certainly cannot do that.

Finals Week! AKA Game Time

Here at Madison, we have entered Finals Week. This is the time where many students get all stressed out about exams and stuff. Me? I play video games instead of work.

In an ironic twist of fate KotOR II: The Sith Lords has come out. Why is this ironic? This time last year KotOR came out and basically ruined my GPA. It is solely responsible for a B I got in AI as I played this game for about 3 straight days instead of studying (Yeah, Yeah a B doesn't "ruin" your GPA but it does mine). Why does God hate me so?

Probably my most hated class is stupid Afro Am Studies? Why do I hate this. It makes me write a papers. Papers are an evil that I have avoided since freshman year and so I am TERRIBLE at writing them. Not to mention the fact I need to try and come up with 10 pages of stuff to write on. This isn't easy for Engineers.

Where's the Snow

Well it has been awhile since me last post. Nothing like being way to busy to do anything. Most of my grad school apps are now in, all that's left is for some people to submit some letters of recommendation.

In other news it looks like all those Job Interviews were a waste of time. Sure I ended up with offers from all (except MS, Google) but I think I will do the grad school Thang. I even declined Oracle making me an offer. God I feel stupid now but it's not like I really want to develop software apps. I want to be a little more low level, and designing software for missle Wing-Extenders for Lockheed didn't really appeal to me. (Florida is to hot).

Austin?

Well I'm in austin texas. What is there here? I'm not entirely sure. After the fun of a day of interviews I had the chance to see what part of downtown Austin is like. More specifically what a couple of bars are like :). Did anything exciting happen? Well not totally. I got to know a couple of the current employees of National Instruments better and another UW student. From talking to these people NI sounds like a fun and challenging place to work. The only downside? I've been railroaded into a software engr. position. This has been the case with every dang place I've applied. I don't think any company will overlook my double major and let me do hardware design. It doesn't help I haven't done any design since last semester and would prob mess up part of the interview. Ahh well not everyone can be perfect. Seeing as how I devote little effort to actually accomplishing anything I prob should just count my blessings.

Ohh one other thing. While in my interviews I got a whole two calls from VMWare wondering if I was still available for employment. Ohh to be wanted by so many and yet have basically no offers to show for it. Ahh well I will just have to live with my mediocrity. I know people less technically able then me that have job offers from companies such as Microsoft. It makes me really think about what they are actually looking for in an employee. Maybe I failed because I didn't want tto be a wage slave. (Who knows?)


P.S. Guiness? Not so bad....

Deep in the Heart of Texas

I'm off to Austin, Texas that is, for an interview with National Instruments. This is my 5th and final out of town interview for the year. I can't do this anymore as it's hard to get stuff done for class when you miss most of them.

When I get back I'll let everyone know how "cool" Austin is.

There and Back Again - An Interviewies Tale

Well I made it back from sunny Florida on Friday. After 75-80 degree weather coming back to the bitter cold of Wisconsin was quite a shock. Luckily I will only be around for about a day. Tomorrow I take off for San Franciso where I will be visiting with Oracle. I'm actually getting sick of flying all over the place. Hopefully I can get a good seat on the plane like an emergency seat so I can have some extra leg room.

Planes In the Sky

Well I'm off again on another Interview adventure! This time I am heading to exciting Orlando Florida to speak with Lockheed Martin. What do they have in store for me? Who knows! But whatever it is requires a Top Secret clearance.

Googleplex

Well I'm out in sunny Mountain View, CA and am now relaxing in my hotel after a long day of interviews at the Googleplex. That's right I scored an on-site with the great Google. Google has got to be the coolest place to work. After touring it I really, really want to work here.

Let's see what they have. There are Segways (those cool 2 wheeled things) anyone (who is trained) can just hop and and drive to another building. The work env is awsome. Everyone has twin 20" LCD monitors in the coolest offices ever. Complete glass. 3 people share class walled office which is pretty huge. Since you work on projects in groups of 3 you basically just share an office with your entire team! It reminds me of the team work areas in a CS lab. Seems pretty cool. Finally there is all the free food. The cafeteria has a huge variety of stuff and all of it's free. Microsoft touts their free soda but it's nothing compared to Google. Google has coolers of every soda imaginable. I mean everything. Coke, pepsi, mt. dew, bawls, even and a ton of other specialty beverages such as bottled root beer. They also have plenty of bottled water (normal and "smart").

In addition to drinks Google has tons of food with every drink cooler. They have chips, fruit, candy, cerial (yes boxes of cerial), and random granola and other bars. This is part of the 100 ft rule. That is you should never be more than 100ft from food. Google holds to this religiously.

All the people I spoke to were very excited about their work. There are some sweet things going on out here. I also had a chance to sign up for google's Orkut network. (This is some sort of secret community thing.)

Halloween In Madison

So this weekend was Halloween. What's this mean? A crapload of stupid highschool and college students from out of town come, get wasted, and fuck up State Street. Do students get involved? Nope. Wandering up and down State Street drunk (or not drunk) is no fun at all. Besides all of us have schoolwork to do.

This all tends to reflect badly on all of us students here since on the news you hear stuff like: "On halloween students at the #3 party school, UW-Madison, rioted on state street..." Of course what news places don't mention is that 12% of the arrests over the entire night were actual students here. That's really, really low when you consider there are like 10,000 students here in Madison. A large majority of all the trouble makers come in from out of town to riot/fuck up Madison.

So what does this have to do with me? Not much except all these people PISS ME OFF. Do to them they locked the dens here for the entire weekend which annoyed everyone I know as people wanted to use them for homework. This also forced a bunch of us to sit in the hall and have a small pizza party around 12am as we couldn't eat in the den. As after 12 is "quiet hours" so in theory we shouldn't have been in the hall. Of course everyone on our floor was there so I don't think anyone minded. In any case a couple of Housefellows (one inebriated) came by later and nice told us all get out of the hall since it was quiet hours.

GRE Done

Well I'm done with the GRE so that's out of my way. I got my scores on the Quantitative and Verbal parts right away as I took the test on the computer. Assuming I didn't write down the wrong scores I did pretty well. Of course I'm afraid I wrote down the wrong score as I can't believe I did that well.

GRE Test

My plans for after getting out of here include heading off to graduate school. About a day ago I realized if I want to apply to any graduate schools I need to cram a GRE in before the end of this month. So in a panic I managed to score the last possible test time I could get this month. 1:00pm in Milwaukee of all places. So now I get to rent a car and go on a road trip.

This wouldn't be all that bad except I went and took some practice GRE's in a GRE study guide. After looking over how I did I've freak out I'm going to fail the damn test. Maybe I should actually have studied for this thing. Most of the schools I would like to apply to expect you to have scores in the 90th percentile for math. I got a range of 60-70th percentile. I'm so fucking screwed. I have the wonderful problem of getting stuck on an easy question because I can't focus on the question at hand. I haven't felt this way since taking the ACT and SAT.

I'm afraid I'm going to totally fuck up and screw myself over.

Ahh well not much I can do. JD will help me feel better :)

(Well if I fail this test I can only hope my Visit to the Googleplex goes well)