The sunset at Gasworks park before the fireworks started

The park was packed. They really celebrate the 4th up here

Hiking:

I was so excited to see SNOW!!

At Pike Place Market. They throw the fish, my mom got this great show of the guy catching one!

A great view of Seattle

Today we had off work for "intern day of caring".  All the interns were bussed to different places around Seattle to do volunteer work. My group was taken to a place called food line, which is a group that collects food from grocery stores and food drives, and distributes it to the shelters around Seattle. We spent the day going through food that had been donated in food drives, making sure it was still okay to be distributed, and organizing it into boxes. It was fun getting to spend time outside of work with all my friends, and helping out the Seattle community. It did get tiring however, we made another trip to the beach last night for another bonfire and didn't make it home in time to get more than 4 hours of sleep. I'm actually in bed about to take a nap haha. But we had  a great time last night; its one of my favorite things to do here...tons of stars were out and I think Saturn?? Anyways, after we got done volunteering they had a party for us outside on the soccer fields. There was food and music, and we got to listen to Lisa Brummel speak. She is the VP of Human Resources, and is huge at Microsoft. She is right below Bill (or now Steve) in rank. She spoke about her career, and about who Microsoft is and what it can do for us. She reminded us that, no matter whether we come back to work here or not, interning here is a rare, once in a lifetime experience, and that we really have to take advantage. They put so much into who they recruit, and the culture they want Microsoft to have, and its unlike any other company. Its amazing to me to see the amount of talent this company hosts. She has been with the company for almost 20 years, and has really seen its development. She told us that Microsoft is a business phenomenon, and a company that has truly changed the world and will continue to do so, and that even being here for just a summer, we have been part of that history. It was really great to hear her speak, and it just reminds me again, how appreciative I am to have been given this experience, and to have met and learned from some of the most amazing people. 

To back track a little, I had an amazing fourth of July weekend because my parents came to visit me!! We had lots of fun, even though the days they were here were the only days it had rained in weeks. Oh well, they finally had a clear day to see the mountains the day they left. But their visit was a blast. We spent time hiking (and actually got to see snow) and in downtown Seattle eating the best clam chowder ever on the shoreline and buying amazing fruits, veggies, flowers, pasta, and seafood at Pikes Place market. The best night was when my parents made dinner at my apartment. Everything was so fresh and we had lots of fun just relaxing and talking. It was so fun to show them around my office, and tell them about what I do and where I go everyday. The trip was awesome overall, though there were a few transportation issues. We saw the most amazing fireworks show at Gasworks park, but spent 2 hours after trying to get home through traffic and getting lost. Then, the last day here, we spent a gorgeous morning walking on Alki beach before realizing our car had been towed. We ordered chinese in the hotel that night, we were so tired from walking up and down the beach a million times! Its okay to look back on now but at the time it kind of sucked. We did meet some cool hangglider people who helped us though.

A work update. We have officially completed a working gadget incorporating all of our priority one features. We had a demo for all of our managers, and of course they critiqued it like crazy, but were also very proud. A quote from Randy Pauch that I really appreciate, "When you are screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you. You may not want to hear it but your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better." So they gave us input, and told us to take it with a grain of salt because in the end, this is our project and we have made the decisions we have very carefully, and for a reason. And though our critics have more experience, our opinions are just as valid and may sometimes even be more logical. We spend all day thinking and working with this gadget; its our baby at this point. Every single one of us care so much about making it the best it can be, we even considered trying to stay an extra week without pay to rewrite some of the code so that it isn't dependent on an API we are using. Don't worry mom, i'm sure that won't happen, but it just shows how much we dedicate ourselves to this project. It was so fun though, piecing together each persons code and seeing the complete gadget. I honestly thought "did we really make that?, how did we do it?" It was so fun, and i'm so proud of my team, and am so thankful to my managers. Everyone has been so amazing and I will cherish what i'm learning from them, both career and life lessons, forever. My biggest personal dilemma  right now is trying to decide if I want to mock interview as a program manager, or a developer engineer. For me its almost a balancing game of what I want versus what I'm good at. I think I could easily handle the program manager role. I have the motivation and skills to manage people as well as the technical knowlege and logical thinking skills needed to design and plan for a project. But i'm not sure how interested in that position I am. I'm so surprised that I have really enjoyed the development role, and while I know that I could sit down with any project and do whatever it takes to get it done, I get nervous that I may not have the natural talent to impress interviewers. And I know that being scared is never a reason not to go for something, so I am leaning more towards developer, but its something I have to think about and decide. 

But other than that, things have just been busy busy busy at work and outside of work I'm just trying to spend lots of time with my friends and doing things I will not have when I get back to Texas (reading a good book outside in the grass under a beautiful tree by the waterfront with 73 degree temp as the sun is setting...Jealous?? lol) But only three weeks until i'm home. I'm trying not to think about it, even though I am excited to see all ya'll! We still have some fun events planned, and tons more work to do on our gadget, implementing priority 2 features and working on release and shipping. I'll keep ya'll updated!