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!

Puzzle Day and more...

My puzzle day team!

Trying to stay organized

These were all the cupcakes!

Working hard...

We got pieces of this rocket when we solved certain puzzles, to win first place you had to launch it first. We didnt win...

See how seriously the Microsoft employees take puzzle day. This guy actually wrote one of our puzzles.

So last Saturday was puzzle day. Its an intern event, kind of like a scavenger hunt except we have to solve puzzles all day around campus. Its taken very seriously here at Microsoft and even the employees get dressed up to fit the theme. This years theme was Microsoft Interngalactic Summit, so all the puzzles had to do with space stuff (yes star wars and star trek like crazy...super nerdy I know). My team was named Entropy, and we reserved conference rooms in our work buildings to do the puzzles. The puzzles are all pretty complex, and we were starting slow until I finally went to our smartest teammates apartment to wake him up and drag him to puzzle day. The puzzles were all pretty cool and written by Microsoft employees too! One puzzle was a stack of pictures with captions at the bottom. Except each pictures caption was really a caption for another pic in the stack. So you had to match each picture with its correct caption which created a chain of linked pics. Each caption had one red letter so when you look only the red letters on each pictures it spelled out, look under your table. When you look under the table there is a LED invisible ink detector. Each of the pics had letters written on them in invisible ink (which we knew about before hand and had already tried microwaving the pics and using a lighter to burn them a little thinking heat would make the ink show...wrong). Then the invisible letters finally spelled out the answer. Another puzzle clue was a tray of hostess cupcakes. One of our teammates went to get them, but had forgotten his badge at home so couldnt get into the building to get them. Insead, he snuck through an open back kitchen door before anyone else had gotten their tray and took one, while hiding 4 others. On his way back he started eating them (he didnt realize they were a clue and just thought it was free food). So when he got back and everyone started eating them, we realize some of them were missing the cake part underneath the frosting. About half of the cupcakes were totally cakeless. We then realized it must have been a clue. Luckily, since there were still 4 trays hidden, he went back to the kitchen and got them and we ended up with 5 trays of cupcakes. Turns out, the cupcakes without the cake translated to 0's and the cake ones were 1's. It was 4 binary strings which translated to the word SPAY. Random! It was a pretty fun day though. Anyways, we ended up coming in 21st out of 35 teams which we were excited about since we were the youngest team. Plus, we beat the MIT team and the other explorer team! 

Sunday was lots of fun. We woke up early and went to brunch at Saltys on Alki. Their Sunday brunch is world famous, even though I think the food at the brunch at la Mansion in San Antonio might be a little better. The view here was amazing though. We sat overlooking the water with a gorgeous view of Seattle on the other side. From there we went downtown and shopped for awhile. Spent way too much money...but it was all necessary I promise (I didnt have any gold heels and I needed some haha) Then we went to Pike Place market, probably for the last time (AAAHHHH!) and I got lots of fruit. Then we came home and slept for a little while. Its so nice because at 8 'o clock when I wake up from a nap, its still light out to go do something. So I called a friend and we went down to my favorite park and just sat by the water until the sun had set. We watched a movie at the apartment and I got to bed pretty early. It was a great weekend, and one of the last ones Ill get to enjoy around Seattle. Microsoft has tons of stuff planned for this upcoming weekend, and the following weekend, my last here, we were planning a trip to Canada. 

And then back to work. its Wednesday now, and the past 2 days I havent left work until about 10 pm. We have to have all our code in by end of the day Thursday, so its super crunch time. Not only do our features have to been done, but we have to have all the teammates parts integrated, unit testing done on each feature, all errors handled, documentation, ect... Last night was pretty fun though. We were working and one of our friends shows up at the office, which is pretty cool because he is super smart and helped us out a lot. Then 2 of our other friends show up, but instead of help they more just talk. It totally turned in the building 34 social hour. So an hour later we are back to work, and getting a bit slap happy. Its weird to be the only people in the building, we can be as loud as we want haha. But we made decent progress even with the interruptions, and still have two full days to finish everything. Wish us luck!!!