Mariah's Blog: Its Friday!

This is the Exchange Party (that is our cafeteria)

Exchange Explorers!

Friday was another great day at work. It was a lot more of getting organized and understanding the network at Microsoft, and all the tools we will need to use. We finally got our laptops set up, after lots of difficulty, so now we can start working from home as well! We got to go to our first CEP (Customer Experience, which is the branch of exchange I work within) Exchange team meeting, which included the head project manager, lots of full times, and my personal manager. It was totally scary. We walked in and were scared to sit down because there weren't enough chairs, but the PM who conducted the meeting made us sit and some of the full times stand! He introduced us around the room, and told the team about the project we will be working on. The entire meeting was over my head, and was actually really intimidating. A lot of the things they talked about were internal issues like a program for catching and dealing with bugs properly, so I wouldn't understand how to use them unless I was used to the way Microsoft has its employees stay organized, but listening to the developers talk about creating that particular application, was sooo scary! Someday I'M going to have to do that!!! But the PM said he was very proud of us for staying awake throughout the meeting, so I guess we succeeded in acting like we knew what was going on. I've begun to realize, though, how much Microsoft does that I never even knew about. All their server products, and business applications. I've always loved apple, but you honestly can't even compare the two companies. There are things that Microsoft does, that apple just doesn't, and doesn't need to. They are two completely different companies, both totally amazing! Its really neat, though, to have this stereotype that I've always had towards Microsoft disappear. I've always respected them as a company, but still made fun of the design and functionality of lots of their products. Its not until working there that I really see how many awesome things Microsoft does, and the new technologies that they contribute to. They are way more than just the company that makes Windows and Word, they really do so much! Around 4, my manager came and got us and took us to the cafeteria where they were having their monthly "MAPI beers" which is a party for the entire exchange team. It was pretty fun...and kinda nerdy haha. They had a DJ, and catering, and someone that did caricatures . We met a few people that worked on our floor, and socialized with the older exchange interns. My internship is only for freshman and sophomores, and there are only 4 of us in Exchange. They call us the Pod haha! Then there are other interns that are juniors and seniors, and each of them works individually on a project, rather that in a group like ours. After the party, my group went back upstairs to work. Our manager was kind of surprised, I dont think he expected us to all be so excited, and asking so many questions. We stayed until about 7, and were the only people left. On a friday, even the full times, leave early. But we are still so excited to be there we all basically want to sleep in the office. We borrowed lots of books from our manager, and will spend some time during the weekend studying. Friday night, we had some other explorer interns over to our apartment and had lots of fun. This morning (Saturday) my roommates and I went to downtown Seattle to Pikes place market, which is like a huge farmers market. They have tons of vegetable and fruit stands, a few flower stands with the most gorgeous bouquets for 10-2o dollars. They had a pasta stand with all sorts of dried pastas like chocolate, mixed fruit, and normal ones like lemon garlic and basil pesto. Lots of gift shops and restaurants as well. We stopped at the cutest bakery with the line out the door and got a Cinnamon roll with apple it it. The smell of the bakery was AMAZING...I thought of you granny!! We had lunch at this little sandwich shop that had very different things. My sandwich was ham with artichoke hearts and cheese on the best bread. We did a little shopping in the stores all around downtown, not just pike place market but it was a little rainy and COLD ( its may wheres the 100 degree weather i'm used to) so we took the bus back home, and will save the space needle and more seattle sightseeing for another day. I napped for awhile then woke up to make dinner. My roommates and I all have about the same degree of "living on our own" experience, and haven't succeeded in making ourselves a decent meal yet. Tonight, my roommate bought cookie dough and made a batch of cookies, burnt them, made the rest of the dough and burnt them again. So, sadly we didnt eat a single cookie out of that roll of dough. At the same time, my mac and cheese turned out soo watery, and my microwave chicken was hard as a rock. I dont know how we can be so good with computers but are having a hard time feeding ourselves. We all joined a Microsoft intern group called free food, so maybe we will get so emails on where we can take advantage of Microsoft catering! My roommate and I started studying a little bit tonight, mostly ended up on facebook, but had to laugh because at one point, between the two of us, we had 5 laptops open and running on her bed, as well as a few C# and Visual studio books. Thats what we do on a Saturday night....we are CS students, and we love what we do!