LJ has a portal?!?
Sorry to have kept you all on the edge of your seats with a lack of updates from the Far East, but times have been quite busy. Here's the past week+ in review (week++ for you++):
* I had my first dressed-to-the-nines presentation and learned that for all subsequent such presentations, I should really take a taxi. It was for my Architecture class and we presented the IT architecture for a subsytem of the Beijing Olympics IT. The weekend before, one of my 3 project mates was out of town so she couldn't do much work. She returned and emailed us some stuff but couldn't make any meetings due to hay fever. She eventually could not come to present, so our already hastily thrown together and unrehearsed presentation became a bit worse. In the end it went ok, I talked too long, we answered some questions.
* Our production went up this week (on Friday). If you think Load-In and strike are bad, imagine putting up and taking down the entire set (including sound equipment, spot lights, etc.) every single night of tech week. Yeah, it sucked. But the show went incredibly well: no injuries, no major flubb-ups, and overall everyone who came tended to enjoy themselves. We got an 85% from both of our invited graders, which somehow in Singapore is an A+. We have an after action review (wrap-up) meeting this week, but this class is mostly over.
* I had my first real job interview. It was 10am Friday morning in Seattle and subsequently 2am Friday night in Singapore. I didn't expect the lady to call (they didn't know I was in Singapore), but she did. I was sitting by the Singapore river on the bay by the Esplanade. A few mins into the conversation, a street-cleaning truck began cleaning some streets as loudly as possible. I could barely hear due to the poor connection in the first place. As she began talking I realized that I had never done any interview training as I had never had a real interview. The first question left my speechless (I know, me?) and after flubbering around for a bit, I finally asked her to skip it and ask again at the end. She agreed with icy coldness. The rest of the questions I answered quickly and pretty well, though I had to use the same example twice. Overall, it was a disaster, and there's no way they're calling me back. Which leaves my actual prospective application count at 0.
* In a total of about 15 hours, I had a sum total of about 7 hours of fascinating conversation. The first 4 or 5 were on the aforementioned riverfront and began around midnight. I ended up discussing Islam and general feelings about religion to the executive producer of our show and enjoyed a few other musings on love and life with the rest of the group that was there. At one point, I became entirely awe struck looking up at the stars. For more info, see bullet below. Then, during my networking meeting, I mentioned having read the Gita (one of my group mates was talking to me about the Ramayana I had just performed in). This somehow, as it always does, spiralled into an equally riveting conversation about religion, politics, and (this is getting weird) blogging. Yep, I am blogging about a conversation I had about blogging.
* Can you believe that on a clear night, you can look up into the sky and see a portion of the universe? You can look back in time and out into infinite space? With our meager human eyes, one little person (a speck on the Earth's surface), can look plainly out into the vastness of space. It's really quite incredible.
Ok, enough for now. Quite a busy week ahead. Mon: director's proposal meeting, CMU course scheduling, project meetings. Tues: class class meeting. Wed: Presentation number 1 and HARRY POTTER! Thurs: presentation number 2. Fri: Exchange student farewell bbq. Sat: Thanksgiving dinner!!!!
* I had my first dressed-to-the-nines presentation and learned that for all subsequent such presentations, I should really take a taxi. It was for my Architecture class and we presented the IT architecture for a subsytem of the Beijing Olympics IT. The weekend before, one of my 3 project mates was out of town so she couldn't do much work. She returned and emailed us some stuff but couldn't make any meetings due to hay fever. She eventually could not come to present, so our already hastily thrown together and unrehearsed presentation became a bit worse. In the end it went ok, I talked too long, we answered some questions.
* Our production went up this week (on Friday). If you think Load-In and strike are bad, imagine putting up and taking down the entire set (including sound equipment, spot lights, etc.) every single night of tech week. Yeah, it sucked. But the show went incredibly well: no injuries, no major flubb-ups, and overall everyone who came tended to enjoy themselves. We got an 85% from both of our invited graders, which somehow in Singapore is an A+. We have an after action review (wrap-up) meeting this week, but this class is mostly over.
* I had my first real job interview. It was 10am Friday morning in Seattle and subsequently 2am Friday night in Singapore. I didn't expect the lady to call (they didn't know I was in Singapore), but she did. I was sitting by the Singapore river on the bay by the Esplanade. A few mins into the conversation, a street-cleaning truck began cleaning some streets as loudly as possible. I could barely hear due to the poor connection in the first place. As she began talking I realized that I had never done any interview training as I had never had a real interview. The first question left my speechless (I know, me?) and after flubbering around for a bit, I finally asked her to skip it and ask again at the end. She agreed with icy coldness. The rest of the questions I answered quickly and pretty well, though I had to use the same example twice. Overall, it was a disaster, and there's no way they're calling me back. Which leaves my actual prospective application count at 0.
* In a total of about 15 hours, I had a sum total of about 7 hours of fascinating conversation. The first 4 or 5 were on the aforementioned riverfront and began around midnight. I ended up discussing Islam and general feelings about religion to the executive producer of our show and enjoyed a few other musings on love and life with the rest of the group that was there. At one point, I became entirely awe struck looking up at the stars. For more info, see bullet below. Then, during my networking meeting, I mentioned having read the Gita (one of my group mates was talking to me about the Ramayana I had just performed in). This somehow, as it always does, spiralled into an equally riveting conversation about religion, politics, and (this is getting weird) blogging. Yep, I am blogging about a conversation I had about blogging.
* Can you believe that on a clear night, you can look up into the sky and see a portion of the universe? You can look back in time and out into infinite space? With our meager human eyes, one little person (a speck on the Earth's surface), can look plainly out into the vastness of space. It's really quite incredible.
Ok, enough for now. Quite a busy week ahead. Mon: director's proposal meeting, CMU course scheduling, project meetings. Tues: class class meeting. Wed: Presentation number 1 and HARRY POTTER! Thurs: presentation number 2. Fri: Exchange student farewell bbq. Sat: Thanksgiving dinner!!!!