oh man

This weekend was a little nuts. Karen and Sarah were in town which was awesome. We just went from one meal to the next and hit up basically every corner of new york in between. Midtown for the cheese resteraunt, Soho for the shopping, Canal street cause I got lost, east village for the peanut butter resteraunt, the Met cause karen had never been. All in on and off rain. That was a lot of walking. My favorite was probably the Egyptian temple in the Met. I don't know how I had never seen it before but that whole room is amazing and huge. Oh and rocky horror picture show was fun but it made me feel old.

I have mixed feelings about the Halloween party. On one hand, I thought my costume was amazing (great idea, anne) and it actually was a really decent party with a lot of people. And I really enjoyed the old person party afterwards, especially since frisbee people and engineers seem to mix pretty easily. But on the other hand, I felt like I kind of dragged karen and sarah there so I felt bad. Until I had more liquor and then I only felt bad when I remembered to. It's not the kind of night that the three of us usual have. Which is strange cause I guess it reminds me how different the three of our college experiences were/are, where our high school experiences were so similar. I never would have thought that I'd turn out to be the party person out of the three of us. I felt like we were more back to normal today when we were just chatting.

I had stuff that i should have done today but I did almost none of it. None of it is really that urgant. This sounds terrible, but I wish I had more to do sometimes. When I have this much time, I get lonely. When I'm busy I don't remember to be lonely. When you've got a boy (or girl I guess), you have someone to fill in the spare minutes or call if you get bored. You have someone who wants your time. I don't have that right now. I have to fill my own spare minutes.

I think by the end of the week I need to decide whether I'm going to uganda in january or may. There are pluses and minuses to both. I'd prefer January, cause its closer and cause I don't know what might be going on in may. But if brett's not allowed visitors or to leave site in january, I don't want to put her in an awkward situation and make her break the rules. I should call her this week.

job count

The current count is 24 resumes out, 7 rejections without an interview, 2 rejections with an interview, and 2 in process (second rounds coming up). That leaves 13 companies left to hear from. So if my current rate holds, I can expect a lot more rejections in the coming few weeks. Of the second round places, one I really like and one I don't at all.

But I do have a new selection of brain teasers, some of which I got, some of which made me cry.

If you have 100 balls, 50 red and 50 black, how would you place them in two bags so that you maximize your chances of picking a red ball no matter which bag you picked from?

If you have 15 horses, how many heats would it take to find out which horse was your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place horse? Assume you have no watch or timing device, you can only race them 5 at a time, and no horse ever gets tired.

You're in a room with 2 ropes and a box of matches. Each rope burn completely in an hour. How would you measure 45 minutes? You cannot assume that the ropes burn at a uniform rate or that they are the same, just that the total time is an hour.

Some easier ones...

Say you have a cube of 1000 smaller cubes so 10x10x10. If you peal off the outer layer of cubes how many cubes are left?

If it is 12:20 what is the angle between the two hands of the clock?

Now do them while imagining someone staring at you.

mikey

So whenever me and Eric would go to see micheal high jump which was whenever we were home, we'd heckle him. That's basically why we went, so we could yell things like "mikeeeeey you lanky son of a bitch" or "he's so tall! why is he so tall?" or "chicks dig scrawny pale guys!" or, our favorite, "stop sucking! jump higher!" All of which sound a little mean but the worst it ever did was make him laugh really hard.

Anyway, he's high jumping in college now so today he had a meeting with his coach just to check in. His coach asked him what kind of things he should say to motivate him.

Mikey's offical personalized UVM cheer? "Stop sucking! jump higher!"

slow to finish but I'm quick to start

I have two assignments due tomorrow, both of which I'm almost done with but I just....can't....seem....to kill. I've been almost done with them for about a week now. Hopefully I'll have one done within an hour and the other I'll finish with my suitemates tonight. After I see Leora and do a bunch of calculations with my lab group.

I got two more first round interviews and one second round next Friday. That should keep me busy. At some point I should get my suit washed but I think its ok for a little while longer. I only wear it for 45 minutes at a time. I did a lot of nothing this weekend. Yesterday I went climbing with Ben which was really fun cause I managed to get up this wall that has a major overhang. I had to do this crazy thing where I switched hands and then kind of jumped. Ben couldn't do it cause his hands were too big. Then when I got back to campus people were playing pick up which was so fun and funny. 4 person zone, anyone?

Oh and me and Elizabeth discovered this special interest housing group that holds potlatchs every Friday so we brought our vegan food and went. Which was awesome cause its hard to meet new people at Columbia when you only go from EC to Mudd everyday. It was a bunch of dirty hippies and I got into a really good discussion on socially conscious business with a guy who starting a group to work on that. I think that's definetely what I want to do. After that me and Tracy went out and drank too much which was fun in a different way. Actually I should see what happened with her and Rob cause me and Goose wandered off early.

Ok I really need to finish machines if I'm going to head to queens and call stoops which I also need to do cause we keep getting cut off before I can ask him about visiting.

After some interuption, I'm back. You can blame Dan for my slackerness. He visited me last weekend so I spent the week before trying to finish everything before he got here and the last couple days freaking out with the amount that I still had to do. Doing absolutly no work Friday, Saturday and Sunday can really kick you in the ass. It was really fun though and we did a ton of stuff all over NY. He'd already done the tourist stuff so we got to do fun things.

A brief list
Moma
St Patricks Catherdral
Greenwich village (all of it)
Magnolia Bakery
Coney Island
Brighton Beach
Prospect Park
Brooklyn Bridge
Upright Citizens Brigade

In addition, we got drunk at McSorleys for goose's b day, had bagels from H&H, carved a pumpkin that is going to be delicious pie very soon, and saw The Departed. It was great to get out of morningside heights for a while and it was really nice to see him. I think I freaked him out a little by how much of a student I am. Dorms and signing in and twin size bed and classes makes me seem a lot younger than I did in Seattle when I was a real person. Oh well, its not my fault he's old.

Oh and Rutgers was this weekend. I'm really glad I went sunday cause we beat rutgers and I hate them and it was a really close game. And I think we could have beat NYU too if things had gone slightly differently.

Also I've started getting interviews. I met with one company last friday and even though I'm pretty sure they're huge tools and I never want to work for them, I got a second interview. I'll probably go too just to get an offer. I've got another one tonight and another tomorrow morning, both with companies that I'm more interested in. I need to practice interviewing and cases a little bit to make sure I don't blow it. I want as many job offers as possible. Especially the one Friday cause they have a non-profit division that sounds awesome. I was really proud of myself cause one company called me and I called them back. That doesn't sound like a big deal but I am so terrified of calling people.

Karen and Sarah are coming this weekend which means I'm crazy busy trying to finish things before Friday. I did most of machines and controls but I need to finish those and do linear and CAD so I can relax for a couple days.

failure

I'm grappling with the possibility of failure, mostly in my job search but also kind of in life. So far, I don't think I've ever failed at anything important to me. Like when I decided I wanted something I generally have gotten it. I mean I've had setbacks and rejections of course. But in a broader sense, I've always ended up about where I wanted to be.

So going into the job search, I have this innate belief that if I just want a job enough, I'll get it. But on a more rational level, I know that that's just not true. There are a million people who want things very much who don't get them. I've just been really lucky so far. And I define my goals broadly enough that I can usually hit them (i.e. get a job that I'll be excited about) rather than specifics ("get a job with this particular company").

But there is a real possibility that I will not get a job I'm excited about, no matter how hard I try. Does that mean the last five years of college and twelve years before that in school were a waste? I mean that's practically an american guarentee- work hard enough and you'll get what you want. But its not always true. it's just not, not for everyone.

Things will probably work out. They usually do. I will consider myself a success if

a) I find a job that I want to tell everyone I know about cause it gets me psyched
b) I continue/ begin to be the kind of person I would want to talk to at a cocktail party. That's mostly how I judge myself: in a crowded room, would I want to talk to me? Am I interesting?
c) I do NOT get competative with the people around me. Especially elizabeth. no counting interviews or comparing offers. Only support.

climbing

I got up the wall today! The one me and Ben had been trying to climb all last time and I did it. Without chalk too. Besides that though, climbing wasn't that much fun. I went down with the climbing club cause ben wasn't around and it was really crowded and I ended up partnering with someone who had just started climbing. Which isn't bad but it was kind of painful to watch him throw himself around the wall with no sense of center. Ben and I are more evenly matched.

McSorley's was cool last night. That was the first time I had been downtown in a really long time and inevitably I/we drank too much. I stopped pretty early but its hard to stop at McSorley's. Goose ordered "two" and the guy brought him 8 beers. Which he and retail drank. That can't be healthy.

I'm trying to finish as much homework as I can this weekend before Dan comes but I keep getting distracted. Elizabeth got me and her cheap tickets for the ballet tommorrow which I'm really excited about and today I really wanted to climb and its Rob's b day party later. I'm excited to see Dan and I'm glad it worked out with the tournament so I can still go to Sunday's games while he visits friends on long island.

Columbia's been so contentious lately with the riot at the minuteman event. I have such mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I don't think a group of vigilantes should be positioned at our border shooting people. On the other hand, they are "illegal" immigrants for a reason.

rejections

So I've gotten rejected from three jobs in the last 24 hours. Those sad e mails "while you are wonderful in every way, we are unable to offer you an interview." Two of them I don't really care about cause I knew I didn't have a chance and I didn't really want to work for them but one of them I'm kind of upset about. Oh well, the search continues.

So this is the first week that has actively sucked in terms of school work. I had two problem sents due today, one yesterday, one the day before and tommorrow I have two group projects due and an exam. And of course there's a million other things that want to eat my time. Like more cover letters and buying new cleats and returning people's phone calls and getting my computer fixed.

I guess I'm not even stressed cause I know stuff is going to get done and its not the end of the world if it doesn't. It just makes me tired.

Yesterday's practice was a lot better which is good and I had a lot of fun playing at Yale once we got there. Club sports is such a pain in the ass though. We did everything we were supposed to do to ensure that we would have a van ready and waiting for us at 6:30 saturday morning. And then it wasn't there. So I'm stuck explaining to 16 girls who dragged their asses out of bed on a Saturday morning that we have no way of getting to New Haven, except a combination of squishing into two cars and metro north. Once we got there though, we played pretty well considering the amount of rookies. Personally, I have to stop throwing it away but i did have a couple nice lay outs including one that I had to kind of twist my body backwards to get to.

Last friday was a career fair so I hit that up hard core. I mostly found a lot of companies that I thought I wanted to work for that it turns out I don't. But there were one or two that sounded really good and you never know what'll turn up. I got my internship last summer through a job fair even if it was indirectly. And that company wasn't even the one I was most interseted in at the time. I did look pretty snazzy in my suit too.

Oh saturday night my suite through a party, my first real party ever where you buy lots of alcohol and see who shows up. It was awesome. We had a ton of people from different groups and they were all mingling and having fun. And then we got shut down. At 12:30. By security. Apparently there were lots of alums on campus for homecoming so they were shutting down everyone. They didn't seem to care how loud we were or how many underaged people were there. They just said they had orders to shut everyone down. Which totally sucked. The rest of the night kind of went downhill. I'd been awake since 6:30 and while I loved seeing leora, steve was pissing me off and I hadn't even had time to enjoy the party cause i'd been signing people in and buying mixers.