Busy Busy Busy

So I know I haven?t posted in forever, but I have an excuse? I've flown out of state 6 times since October, while balancing school, work, and trying to have a college social life. Not that I?m complaining though, all my trips have been great and I feel very lucky to have been able to travel so much. The first trip was to Georgia to see my boyfriend for the first time since he got out of basic training. It was really great, especially after spending the last 2 months only getting to write letters to each other. It was actually kind of cool though, I felt like I was back in the old days before computers and phones, when letters were the main means of communication. The next trip was right before Christmas. I made it up to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to again visit my boyfriend who was home on leave. (Dating a boy in the military is definitely what I blame for all the traveling haha) After that, I took my first trip to New York City to meet up with my summer besties, Alli and Nadia. It was the first trip I ever planned and paid for myself, so I felt very grown up haha. It was sooo amazing to see the girls, and we had such a good time walking through time square and Greenwich Village, getting to see the Christmas tree and ice skating rink at Rockefeller center, going shopping on 5th Avenue (Tiffanys and the apple store were my faves), and, the best part of the trip, getting to see the Radio City Rockettes. It snowed one of the days we were there, which was actually kind of cool to walk through downtown New York while it was snowing. We took the train into the city everyday, which was another new experience in itself. The girls are doing great as well. Alli is going back to Microsoft this summer, and Nadia has just moved out to California for a Co-op at Cisco. You can read about her experiences at her blog here:

I made another trip out to Georgia for my boyfriend?s graduation from officer school and Military ball(YAY for pretty dresses), and recently to St. Louis Missouri to visit him again. St. Louis was great, and I got to visit the Arch downtown, the St. Louis Zoo, and a very interesting part of the town called the loop, which reminded me of a larger version of ?the Drag? here in Austin. I?m home for awhile now, but am planning my next trip to see my boyfriend at the end of May. Busy busy busy.

During all this traveling, I also turned 21. It was a great Birthday. It is tradition that I get breakfast in bed every year. My mom told me this year that I wasn?t going to get it because I was getting too old. Well my dad decided that I still needed it, so I got my breakfast in bed!! I was soo happy, I?m not sure I?ll ever be able to get over that tradition. It was so nice. Then my Mom took me to La Cantera Mall, and surprised me by walking into Tiffanys, and telling me to pick out what I wanted! I couldn?t believe it, and had wanted a bracelet from there, so I got my first Tiffany?s. We went to a restaurant and got Mimosas and Bellinis after that, I didn?t even get ID?d, probably because I was with my mom. But she made sure to ask him to check it. We had a spa day after that, and then my dad and mom and I went to sushi for dinner. It was a great birthday, and I?m now enjoying being able to go to 6th street on the weekends.

Waiting for the train into the city

        

      

   

In front of the apple store!

And that was my Sandwich from a New York Deli. It was HUGE!




   

It was sooo beautiful

Lots of snow!

We saw Moose walking through peoples yard in Steamboat Springs

My 21st Birthday Breakfast in bed!

Military Ball

OCS Graduation:

The Arch in St. Louis

We saw this Orangoutang in the Zoo. It came up to us and put that blanket on its head, then started playing peek-a-boo

Back to School!

I know its been awhile, so Ill update everyone on what I've been up to since I got back from Washington. The first few weeks back were so nice, getting to spend time with my family and friends I hadn't seen all summer. It was so nice just getting to relax and do nothing during the days, and to lay out by the pool which I had missed. But before I knew it, it was time to move back up to Austin. It took us two trips up this year to move all my stuff. Since I'm in my first apartment ever, I had to bring lots of furniture and a bed. My room turned out soo cute. I have been collecting things to decorate it with since freshman year! It was so exciting to finally put it all together. My dad built all my furniture and hung my pictures, and my mom made my bed (its tradition, its her favorite part). I love my roommates and am having lots of fun with all my UT friends. But of course, i'm already sooo busy with classes. This year I'm taking differential equations, which is a math class, another CS class which focuses on theory of many topics including cryptography, security and encoding, and regular expressions, all which I'm very excited about. The class actually seems like one of my easier classes this semester. I'm also taking a Geology class, and an electrical engineering class. The EE class is basically taking over my life already. Its a self paced class, meaning that I teach myself the material from reading our textbook, and as soon as i'm done with a chapter, I take a test on it before moving to the next. Each test has to be passed with 100% correctness which is the rough part. You are expected to complete 2 chapters a week, so reading, taking notes, studying the material, and passing a test on it. Its kind of the dreaded class in the CS major, and everyone knows that the semester you take the class, you will always be stressed out and pretty much have no life outside of it. So I'm already feeling the strains of dreaded EE, but I knew it was coming. This is the first semester I really do almost nothing but study. Good thing I had the Microsoft internship to motivate me, so I keep pushing through instead of getting lazy and giving up. Besides school, I'm looking into some interesting clubs to join. I went to a meeting last night for the Sailing club. They go out every Saturday and sail on  Lake Travis. Its so beautiful out there and I love being on the water, so the club seemed like a great idea. 2 of my friends are planning on joining as well so Ill keep you updated on how it goes. We plan to try it this Saturday for the first time. And, of course fall semester means FOOTBALL SEASON!!! I went to the first game (and survived the heat and constant standing) and was so excited to see our Longhorns do so well. The second game was another blowout, and I had fun watching it at a restaurant surrounded by UT fans. This weekends game should be fun, since its the first team that might give us a little run for our money. Hope ya'll are watching the games! Well thats about all for now! Should have some more exciting things coming up! 

My journey comes to an end...

So i'm back in Texas, and the heat is killing me. I never thought that, being a born and raised Texan, I would ever loose my immunity to the 100 degree weather, but I am definitely having to readjust. I'm also readjusting to life not at Microsoft, and that is the hardest part. I already miss my friends so much, and I had to cry a little on Monday when I wasn't going to work. But if I look at the positive, who can say they love their work that much! I feel so privileged not only to have had the experience of a lifetime, but to have been able to prove to myself that this is my passion, and what I truly want to do with the rest of my life. I've come home so inspired to learn more, and work harder. As hard as it was to leave, I look back with only amazing memories and lessons and now have the rare opportunity to do nothing with my time but learn, learn, learn. I just have to remember that if I work hard enough, that summer can be extended to full time.

Its been nice being home though. My parents and grandma picked me up from the airport, and my mom had a Welcome Home banner and balloons for me at the house. My dad had made a great dinner and we had some family friends over. I've definitely been a little bored during the days, but have had lots of time to rest and unpack, and am even starting some reading for a class I will be taking this semester. And of course I will get to spend lots of time with my Granny! I'm finally getting used to the idea of being home, and actually got excited (for about a minute this morning) to go back to school. 

I will just back track a little on my last few days at Microsoft. The second to last day, we did presentations for all the Explorers. Everyones project was really great! I was very impressed with all of us, how much work we all managed to get done in one summer, and how professional everyones projects turned out. Our project was probably the most unique. We were one of the only groups to have a project that was so focused on user experience and a "coolness factor" for users. Most of the projects were more technical, and more aimed and admins, where as ours was aimed at college students and had way more UI. After presentations, we went kayaking. It was our LAST explorer event!!! We had a good time though. We split into groups, and I was in the second. While the first group went on the lake, the other half of us went with our recruiter down to Alki beach. We walked around and played in the water. She showed us her favorite condo (Alki is lined with amazing condos) and we even went in and took a tour of the model rooms. It was GORGEOUS! We decided she needed to buy it so all the explorers could go live with her next summer. It had floor to ceiling windows, and a beautiful roof view of the beach. We finally got to get on the lake, my roommates and I got a triple seat boat. It was a pretty interesting experience, I had never been kayaking before. But being on the water with the Seattle skyline in the background was so gorgeous. We only stayed out for a little while because the first group had been on the water for awhile, and we needed to get back. (Thank goodness my arms were killing me). The next day, our last day, we had a goodbye lunch with our team. It was so sad to be seeing everyone for the last time, but so nice for everyone to come to say goodbye. We also had a presentation to our VP. He seemed to like or project, so that was pretty exciting. We cleaned out our desks, and took some final pictures, cried a little, then went home to finish packing. We met all the explorers and our recruiter later at ihop for a final goodbye dinner. Then we went to an explorers place and had a pinata party. It was pretty funny but was nice to hang out with everyone one last time. We said goodbyes, then had some of our friends over to hang out at our apartment. We all just finished packing and sat around the table and talked. It was a pretty low key night. We tried to stay up all night, but I finally went to bed around 3:30. It was sooo sad to say goodbye to my roommates (we did our goodbyes before we went to sleep), but I did make plane tickets to go to NEW YORK to visit my roommates!!! So I have a countdown going until I get to see them again, I'm sooo excited!

 

All the explorers before we went kayaking

My roomies and I!

Kayaking for the first time!

Beautiful skyline

My last day at work

The last party with the explorers

Pinata party

Well, thats about it. Thanks to everyone who kept up with my blog, its been a great summer and I have loved being able to share my experiences. I will keep writing, but way less frequently. Only when cool things happen at school. 

On the Lake!!

After work today, our PM manager took us out on Lake Sammamish. It was so much fun and I got to wakeboard for the first time ever. The lake was beautiful, surrounded by trees, gorgeous houses, and a great view of Mt. Rainier. I decided I HAVE to have a boat when I move here for real haha!!

Exchange Explorers!!

My roomie!

Getting ready to wakeboard for the first time ever!!!

The water was sooo cold at first

I finally made it up!

The Sunset on the lake was BEAUTIFUL!!

Microsoft SPOILS Me!!

All the UT interns at  our Texas Picnic

At the office late at night

Devs....taking a nap at the office after a long night at work

The winners of the Guitar Hero Contest....Exchange employees take the comp. very seriously

Exchange Explorers

Our police escort lining up 

Traffic stopped on the highway

The bridge close down

At the intern party

Ben Folds, one of the performers of the night

@ the Microsoft company picnic

w/ Mt. Si in the background

This was one of the tractors full of drinks

Motorcross

These are two of my fellow interns

Microsoft store with Mt. Si in the background

Explorers at the picnic

Mt. Rainier

Barefoot in the snow!

WITH STEVE BALLMER!!!!!


So this weekend was full of fun Microsoft Activities. It was much needed after a hard week of working late nights (until 4 AM one night). Friday was great because we finally checked in our code, thus ending development hell for the time being (until the bugs start coming in of course). We only worked half a day and then went to a really nice park for the Exchange Summer Picnic. There was burgers and hotdogs, lots of games and rides for kids, a Guitar Hero concert/contest (yes super nerdy...again), and a dodgeball tournament. My teammate and my admins formed a team call "You got Servered"...haha get it we work on exchange SERVER. Anyways, they ended up winning! It was so funny to watch all these people that I work with everyday, including my bosses boss, playing dodgeball. It was lots of fun, but we left early to get back to Microsoft in time to catch the busses that would take us to the zoo for the intern party. There were 21 busses, and since Microsoft basically just does whatever it wants, they shut down entire 4 lane highways, all the side streets, and the entire bridge to get into Seattle just for us. We had a police escort the entire way. Traffic was crazy! We were so shocked that Microsoft did that. We got to the zoo, and they gave us fold out chairs that said microsoft on them and blankets (cuz it actually gets cold at night here haha), and we set up our stuff by the stage. There was lots of good food, 4 freezers kept stocked with Ice cream, a candy bar and a beer garden which I couldnt go into. There was a band and a solo artist, both were very good. It was lots of fun, and at the end of the night they gave us Zunes (which is like Microsofts version of the iPod.) The next day, we were up pretty early to make it to the Microsoft Company picnic. It was at the gorgeous park right at the base of Mt. Si. The scenery was so Beautiful, and the picnic was more like a carnival that just a company picnic. There were 3 bands playing throughout the park, tons of rides and games, guest performances including motorcross, and TONS of free food. It was amazing, there were so many different food stations with everything from hamburgers to curry chicken, bbq ribs, grilles salmon, salads, stir fry, and fresh fruit. Then the drinks were huge tractors just filled with sodas, and when one would run out they would just drive another one in. There were soooo many people too, and the picnic goes on Saturday and Sunday for 2 weekends. After all this it was really obvious that Microsoft is an Empire. They have so much money as a  company its unbelievable ( and they use it to treat their employees so great!) The next day, we had a hike on Mt. Rainier planned. I almost didnt go because I woke up 15 minutes before the busses were scheduled to leave. But I got ready really fast (and thankfully I work for Microsoft where nothing starts on time) so I made it. But because I was rushing, a few minutes after the bus pulled out, I realized I had left my tennis shoes in my car and was still wearing flip flops. So that kinda sucked. I slept for most of the drive there, and when I woke up the scenery was amazing. All of a sudden that small mountain we see from the city was HUGE! So we go to climb the mountain, and I'm thinking that ya my feet will probably hurt like crazy at the end of the day, but I should be able to do it nonetheless. Its a well traveled path, it should be pretty easy. NOPE! It was ALL snow!!! Definitely a weird experience trying to hike in flip flops, and yes I got made fun of pretty badly. It was hard enough for people in tennis shoes to not fall, much less me. So about 1o minutes up the mountain, my feet are frozen and my leather shoes are soaked. Luckily one of my friends was nice enough to stay with me so we just found a rock and hung out up on the mountain for awhile. I attempted to make a snowman, and we just sat and enjoyed the scenery. Then we climbed down, which went much faster granted I was on my butt a lot of the way haha. We played in the snow at the bottom and ate lunch and the others were back down soon. Even without getting to climb the whole way, it was so beautiful out there and I was really happy to have gotten to take the trip. Everyone was so sore and tired from falling anyways, maybe I got the better deal. So the weekend was packed but it was great. Today, tuesday, was the annual product fair. They set up booths for all the new products and technologies for everyone to learn about. They reserve the morning of the first day just for interns, and have a special keynote from Steve Ballmer, the CEO. It was sooo awesome, and he is sooo funny. I was a little stalkerish after the talk and I went and got a picture with him. It was a group pic but it was still really cool and I was super excited. A work update, we are now in the testing stage and are hoping to get lots of bugs worked out, and start working on our presentation. I can't believe our product that was nothing when we came is almost ship quality!!! But work has been good, and i'm just enjoying my last 2 weeks with my friends and all the amazing people at work!