It's gotten to the point where it actually feels strange for me to be typing so much in one go on a keyboard, which is probably not a good thing. I want to get back into writing now that I'm done with my compsci requirements at school and have more time to devote to things I previously enjoyed doing. Also I realized that a lot has happened this year both in terms of actual events and also state of mind inside my head, and I don't actually have any recollection of it since I never wrote it down anywhere.
So here's my best attempt at picking up the pieces since I updated last, which was spring break... (I'mma be honest, this is tedious for me too, to try and defragment my experiences from memory + records as best I can =__=, but it's probably an exercise I should do for future Winnie so here we go):
Spring break: I don't recall much of note happening this spring break, it was a usual New York visit, we went to the Met to take some photos and around the park, I recall going on a bike ride as well (I'm very bad at riding bikes, pretty sure the seat always leaves bruises, and the uphill part of the circuit in Central Park is not fun), I also got to see several plays/musicals so that was great actually -- I really want to see more theater productions in the city. I saw Les Mis with Alex and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime with Alex and Emily. I probably also had dessert at Spot while I was in the city but cannot confirm for sure, just a lucky guess haha.
Post-spring break: I believe this time of my life was consumed by CS161. In fact I can prove it, here is the RescueTime datas for spring semester since I started using it by week in terms of google doc and dev time:
Lol, can you tell when my projects were due?
Spring semester also consisted of Quincy Assassins, which was fun to follow along with.
There was also planning for the summer, which involved trying to get a place to live in San Francisco with roommates. Ended up with a DJ Pong, a Rakeem and a Jacob, which made for a really fun summer! ^_^ We lived in a cute blue victorian in the Mission. Took the Bart to work every day, had a great summer at VSCO and learned a ton about Android development. We also visited many places like Monterrey (which I just learned last week is spelled with 2 R's!) and Yosemite. Working in Oakland was also p cool, it was definitely a different environment, super rich in art culture which was awesome. Plus when the Warriors won the NBA final the parade went right by the office, which was siqq. We also watched the final in the office so when there were celebrations in the streets right afterward we were there to in the middle of the action, super fun.
We did July 4th at Fort Mason, though it was so foggy that the fireworks disappeared behind the fog so it was kinda sad. But after we got home people were setting off (illegal) fireworks from the streets in the Mission so that was dope. Just how it should be haha, it was fun. I also gave up drinking after July 4th lol.
I flew to LA to attend Siggraph again this year, this time not as a volunteer but as an actual attendee. I feel like as a volunteer I had too little time to see the things I wanted to see and as an actual attendee... I had too much time hahaha. I think around this time I also kinda realized I didn't want to be involved in the game/movie industry as an engineer, but it was still cool to see emerging tech that people were working on and listen in on some of the production sessions. Luckily Diane was there to entertain me for some of the time too haha :P Thanks to Peter for being accommodating and driving me around everywhere, and also Tin for deliciousssss macarons (srsly he should open his own bakery. Better than professional stuff I've tasted).
After my internship ended, I flew to SLO to visit Jordan in Arroyo Grande. It was fun! Central California is beautiful~ and I got to go to the beach finally *__* And play with lots of cute dogs and get fat on the Hayashi family's unrelenting hospitality. It was a great end of the summer. Oh yeah I also got to get behind the wheel of a GTR, so that was pretty sweet.
This past semester... it was okay! Gradewise, it was better than last fall but worse than last spring. :P But it's okay, because I'm employed after graduation! I will be working at Square as a full time Software Engineer in San Francisco ^___^ No more stress~ I also finished my CS requirements aaaand all my gen eds, so now I can kick back and enjoy my VES classes and electives :D :D :D I'm so excited for Spring!
I went to Toscanini's ice cream for the first time this semester with Michelle oh my god why have I not gone before it is legit the best ice cream I have ever tasted. And I tasted a lot of good ice cream this summer (seriously I walked past Humphry Slocombe twice every day on my way to and from work, much self-control needed). No joke. I am going to go back in the spring after it gets un-freezing. Plz.
I attended Start @ A Startup which is some conference in NYC organized by a bunch of Princeton kids who are apparently terrible at reimbursing money because literally nobody I know has gotten transportation reimbursed like we were promised, but I'm still hoping that one of these days i'll get a nice surprise in my mailbox. That's literally all I have to say about this conference. It was suuuuper tiring because we had interviews and whatnot, but at least I found out about some cool startups I hadn't heard of before.
I also attended Grace Hopper for the first time this year -- thanks to sponsorship from Capital One, I was able to go for free. I met a lot of amazing women and peers, and it was definitely worth going to at least once. I didn't really participate in the job fair or anything (except to get nice swags), since at that point I already had interviews lined up for places I was interested in. I think that really put a huge load off my shoulders, it was painful to see ppl who had interviews all throughout the 3 days and seemed super stressed D: It was also great to run into a ton of old friends -- I spent some time catching up with an old elementary school classmate, and hung out a lot with Jessica ^_^
There's also a new Japanese BBQ place that opened near campus where we went a ton -- they have a reward system and I went enough times to get 500 points and earn a $25 off coupon which we used at the end of semester. Basically, we are fat.
At some point in October ap and I also went to the Arnold Arboretum -- actually it was because Adam told us he wanted to visit Blue Hills that weekend to see the foliage but then flaked to go kayaking, but I still kinda wanted to see foliage so we went somewhere closer. It was really pretty! I'm glad we went before I graduated. Probably won't get to see such colors in SF.
I was a pusheen for halloween, except I just stayed in because I'm boring
Jay, Kevin and Julianne came to visit Boston and Harvard one weekend so I also managed to try out the $1 (50c before 6pm!) oysters at the Red House -- it's a nice place to go for visiting friends! I was lazy and also went with Zelin when he came to visit too lol. Yay for re-using restaurants.
I missed Harvard-Yale this year (which was ok, because we won again so it was nothing new or interesting, lol) to do onsite interviews in San Francisco. Ran into Hansen at the Airbnb interview (which I failed, so sad, it would have been my top choice), so took some time to catch up which was good. It also RAINED this weekend in San Francisco, which was crazy -- Kevin tried to take his car out to wash it in the rain but by the time we exited the garage it had stopped raining. Classic CA.
Right after this was Thanksgiving, I flew directly to New York (upon landing got news of my Airbnb rejection, sad times, but its ok bc i ate away my sorrow in koreatown). I think Thanksgiving was pretty standard this year, it was definitely a much needed break in the middle of semester. I do think that the period after Thanksgiving is where my sleeping patterns all went out of whack though.
We started sleeping at like 2-3am every night and waking up around midday, which is probably not good... luckily that's fixed now that I had to travel to China, but still lol. Probably has to do with working late at formals, lack of classes in reading period to wake up for, battlefront in the CS50 office and whatnot. Also went to the opening night of Star Wars, which was great ^_^ BB8 so qt
I briefly dabbled in a bit of Rune Factory 4, but haven't played it since school ended. It seems to be a reallllyylylylyly long and feature packed game, which is great. Gotta get my money's worth.
Since then, I went home with ap to kill some time before I had to fly back to GZ, wrote and sent some holiday cards, slept a lot, visited Flushing (nom nom nom). Then flew back to GZ here to see the grandparents and whatnot ^_^ I downloaded Tinder to try to talk with some English speakers and get recommendations for stuff to do, but will probably talk more about that separately in some other post. It's an interesting exercise as someone in a relationship haha, but very effective for the untraditional purpose I intended it for.
Anyway, it's new years eve now in China and I'm going to go to bed before midnight because I'm lame and we're traveling tomorrow to some hot spring... I probably should do some more reflection but for now I think it's good that I at least managed to put down some of my year's exp in words, ugh. There's probably a ton of stuff I forgot. Eh if I think of it I guess I'll edit this later.
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