i'm havin' the big one.
Hey LJ,
Once upon a time, I bought this black notebook. The reason was that job dissatisfaction had finally lead me to the point of wanting to improve my skills as a programmer and acquire more fulfilling work. So, for the past few months, my time at Time Warner between phone calls was spent learning various new software skills such as web programming, assembly language, 3D graphics, and advanced techniques for a variety of different languages. My stack of notes on different computer programming subjects has grown quite tall.
Then one day this woman who I had never met, but who was a mutual friend of bramblekite's, looked me up on Facebook and said that I should apply to work for the gaming company she worked at. I applied, got an interview, and now have a new job.
Looking back on it, it was very odd how it happened. Both with my previous job and this new one, the process from applying -> interview -> offer happened incredibly quickly; like, within the space of a week. I'm beginning to wonder if that's the way things normally work. During my last few months at Time Warner, when I was applying for jobs fairly frequently, it felt like an excruciatingly slow process, and always ended in rejection. For better or worse, I'm coming to associate a slow response to be functionally equivalent to bad news. Based on things fractallia and other people have told me, it seems like there is a trend of companies creating job postings even when the person who will be awarded the position has already been decided ahead of time. In retrospect, I wonder if that's what was going on at my last place.
Anyway, my new job is awesome. Besides the obvious benefits, like higher pay and non-shift work, there are also quite a number of other perks. For starters, I no longer have to play Frogger every day to get to work. The work itself is so much more mentally stimulating, too. Without saying too much, my primary responsibility is to write code and design systems, and during only the first few days, I've already learned several cool new techniques and tricks that I would have never been exposed to otherwise.
I'm also fairly nervous. I feel the need to prove myself as useful and competent. I've already gotten quite a lot of good feedback so far, though. I fixed a bug on my second day there, and apparently I'm way ahead of schedule and expectation on the current assignment I have. Still, I feel like I could be doing better and moving faster. Our office had a happy hour last week, and I almost decided not to go simply for that reason. It's odd wanting to balance socialization and work.
My work is also relatively mentally exhausting. I'm on my own for a lot of it, and am slowly become a subject matter expert on my little corner of our codebase. It's exhilirating, but I leave work everyday mentally worn out because of it. Concentrating for eight hours a day isn't an easy thing to do. I'm also getting distracted more easily nowadays. In the past, whenever I've worked on a personal project, a lot of the substantial work actually happened away from the keyboard. Thinking and conceptualizing is more important than putting fingers to keys, and hearing a word like "hook" can send me back into that special mindset that I'm in when trying to solve a technical problem.
It's also fairly exciting in another way. I was telling kulilinei that I've always been the sort of person who wanted to understand things inside and out. It wasn't enough to simply have solved a problem - I also wanted to know why it was a problem in the first place and why my solution brought it to an end. In this job, I don't really have that luxury. Things move so fast the codebase is so large that I really can't stop and parse my way through everything. It is a bit frightening, but also very exciting. Mentally, it feels "dirty" but I'm finding that I'm really okay with that.
The other programmers at my office are very nice, and each one fits a particular stereotype. I'm looking forward to going out to our programmer lunches with them in the coming weeks :D
Other Stuff
My post last month wasn't really a post per-se. It's not that I haven't been up to anything, but a number of different things have conspired to cause the time I can spend alone at my house to slowly shrink. This LJ entry actually represents the first few contiguous hours I've had to myself in 2 or 3 weeks.
Anyway, I've been having fun in the meantime. Not having time to myself means spending time outside with other people.
I went to see Old Klingons vs. New Klingons with softhat at the Ritz last Monday and had a great time. It's always so fun to see how campy the original Star Trek series was. The ultimate goal of the evening was to determine who was better - the faintly Mexican Klingons in the original series or the wrinkled vulva-brow Klingons of the Next Generation. They had a hilarious debate in the middle of the contest where our hosts dressed up in their respective Klingon outfits and talked about table-shaped penises. In the end, my boys the original Klingons walked away with the title, and a good time was had by all. In a wonderful surprise, we ran into mielikki and her possee on our way out the door and had a friendly little chat.
I had a great coffee date with kulilinei. It was very chill :) We sat around, chatted and enjoyed our drinkies. I felt nervous (which I guess is normal), and was worried about having things to talk about, but she is an incredibly easy person to talk to. She's a very intense and fun girl.
fractallia and I went to see a fun little steampunk play called "Alvida and the Airship Pirates" put on by the Weird Theater. It was a lot of fun, very tongue in cheek, and had some pretty amazing costumes and props. While waiting to get in and see the show, we passed the time by watching a series of short videos featuring a woman performing otherwise normal tasks using comically oversized props. In one of them, she was walking through a forest with a massive parasol, and the entire video was essentially her trying to pull it through the trees, getting caught and twisting in some odd angles. Afterwards, we went to Spiderhouse and had dinner at Trudy's.
At some point during the past weeks, fractallia, interactiveleaf, throm, thax, bramblekite and I went to a free beer weekend at the Independence Brewery and got happily drunked. I don't know what it is, but interactiveleaf and throm just seem to ooze relaxation. We tried all of the beers, decided on our favorites, sat on a couch overlooking the crowds of people brought together by their love of free and beer, listened to the band, waited a long time for the bathroom, oggled the purple-haired asian girl, and finished the afternoon with a visit to the Chili Parlor.
Speaking of interactiveleaf and throm, Moviegasm was another huge success. Another wonderful community gathered, I spent time relaxing on their porch, eating delicious (carby) food, and we all had a ton of fun opening the box from throm's mother. fractallia and I also left a few funny little items for a return (or retaliation) package. I didn't end up watching any movies, but spent a little time in the upstairs bedroom chatting with people in the wee hours of the night. We slept over, enjoyed breakfast and had a generally warm and comfortable time.
I went with fractallia and softhat to Carnaval. It was a huge party with scantily clad women folk and awesome masks. I had a lot of fun playing "spot the burner". We basically danced our asses off, got lost in the crowd, took pictures and had drinks spilled on us. fractallia looked amazing in her skimpy blue dress and light-up shoes. I had a great costume. I was covered in black and white stick-on leopard prints, wearing a silver and black mask, and black and white wrap pants. fractallia and my masks matched, which was also kind of awesome.
For Valentine's Day, fractallia and I went to Mount Bonnell after dark and looked out over the river. I don't know if it was romantic, but it was exactly the kind of thing that she and I like to do. She is such an amazing girl.
Also, joy! fractallia and I have our Flipside tickets!
Random Thoughts
Every night I have sex with the Invisible Woman.
You would never see a camo cock coming.
Kinky people are addicted to smack.
If we have the proletariat, can we also have the amateurletariat?
Why does it seem like all rappers are named after cartoon characters? Snoop dog, Shaggy, etc.
Gourmet chefs are prawn stars.
I know bonafide lesbians, but is there such a thing as a bonerfide lesbian?
A lot of people are incredibly worried about outsourcing of jobs, etc, etc. Regardless of the political discussion, it's comforting to know that there are jobs out there that have little chance of moving overseas - like fluffing.
I want to see what the wedding bouquet would look like at a poly wedding.
Do lazy golems lead sedimentary lifestyles? (there's one for my geek peeps)
Lonely and lovely are just one letter off.
When I grow up, I don't want to be a senior upstanding citizen.
Collections of pirate weapons are arrrr-senals.
When you have a bunch of steampunkers working on a project together, that's steamwork.
Poly + Mono = Molly.
A while back, we were visited by Father Winter and Auntie Freeze.
The money you save could be your own!
It's a shruggery!
Most people know how to curse, but only programmers know how to recurse!
Lotion made from pig oil = oinkment.
You can't detox before you tox.
Once upon a time, I bought this black notebook. The reason was that job dissatisfaction had finally lead me to the point of wanting to improve my skills as a programmer and acquire more fulfilling work. So, for the past few months, my time at Time Warner between phone calls was spent learning various new software skills such as web programming, assembly language, 3D graphics, and advanced techniques for a variety of different languages. My stack of notes on different computer programming subjects has grown quite tall.
Then one day this woman who I had never met, but who was a mutual friend of bramblekite's, looked me up on Facebook and said that I should apply to work for the gaming company she worked at. I applied, got an interview, and now have a new job.
Looking back on it, it was very odd how it happened. Both with my previous job and this new one, the process from applying -> interview -> offer happened incredibly quickly; like, within the space of a week. I'm beginning to wonder if that's the way things normally work. During my last few months at Time Warner, when I was applying for jobs fairly frequently, it felt like an excruciatingly slow process, and always ended in rejection. For better or worse, I'm coming to associate a slow response to be functionally equivalent to bad news. Based on things fractallia and other people have told me, it seems like there is a trend of companies creating job postings even when the person who will be awarded the position has already been decided ahead of time. In retrospect, I wonder if that's what was going on at my last place.
Anyway, my new job is awesome. Besides the obvious benefits, like higher pay and non-shift work, there are also quite a number of other perks. For starters, I no longer have to play Frogger every day to get to work. The work itself is so much more mentally stimulating, too. Without saying too much, my primary responsibility is to write code and design systems, and during only the first few days, I've already learned several cool new techniques and tricks that I would have never been exposed to otherwise.
I'm also fairly nervous. I feel the need to prove myself as useful and competent. I've already gotten quite a lot of good feedback so far, though. I fixed a bug on my second day there, and apparently I'm way ahead of schedule and expectation on the current assignment I have. Still, I feel like I could be doing better and moving faster. Our office had a happy hour last week, and I almost decided not to go simply for that reason. It's odd wanting to balance socialization and work.
My work is also relatively mentally exhausting. I'm on my own for a lot of it, and am slowly become a subject matter expert on my little corner of our codebase. It's exhilirating, but I leave work everyday mentally worn out because of it. Concentrating for eight hours a day isn't an easy thing to do. I'm also getting distracted more easily nowadays. In the past, whenever I've worked on a personal project, a lot of the substantial work actually happened away from the keyboard. Thinking and conceptualizing is more important than putting fingers to keys, and hearing a word like "hook" can send me back into that special mindset that I'm in when trying to solve a technical problem.
It's also fairly exciting in another way. I was telling kulilinei that I've always been the sort of person who wanted to understand things inside and out. It wasn't enough to simply have solved a problem - I also wanted to know why it was a problem in the first place and why my solution brought it to an end. In this job, I don't really have that luxury. Things move so fast the codebase is so large that I really can't stop and parse my way through everything. It is a bit frightening, but also very exciting. Mentally, it feels "dirty" but I'm finding that I'm really okay with that.
The other programmers at my office are very nice, and each one fits a particular stereotype. I'm looking forward to going out to our programmer lunches with them in the coming weeks :D
Other Stuff
My post last month wasn't really a post per-se. It's not that I haven't been up to anything, but a number of different things have conspired to cause the time I can spend alone at my house to slowly shrink. This LJ entry actually represents the first few contiguous hours I've had to myself in 2 or 3 weeks.
Anyway, I've been having fun in the meantime. Not having time to myself means spending time outside with other people.
I went to see Old Klingons vs. New Klingons with softhat at the Ritz last Monday and had a great time. It's always so fun to see how campy the original Star Trek series was. The ultimate goal of the evening was to determine who was better - the faintly Mexican Klingons in the original series or the wrinkled vulva-brow Klingons of the Next Generation. They had a hilarious debate in the middle of the contest where our hosts dressed up in their respective Klingon outfits and talked about table-shaped penises. In the end, my boys the original Klingons walked away with the title, and a good time was had by all. In a wonderful surprise, we ran into mielikki and her possee on our way out the door and had a friendly little chat.
I had a great coffee date with kulilinei. It was very chill :) We sat around, chatted and enjoyed our drinkies. I felt nervous (which I guess is normal), and was worried about having things to talk about, but she is an incredibly easy person to talk to. She's a very intense and fun girl.
fractallia and I went to see a fun little steampunk play called "Alvida and the Airship Pirates" put on by the Weird Theater. It was a lot of fun, very tongue in cheek, and had some pretty amazing costumes and props. While waiting to get in and see the show, we passed the time by watching a series of short videos featuring a woman performing otherwise normal tasks using comically oversized props. In one of them, she was walking through a forest with a massive parasol, and the entire video was essentially her trying to pull it through the trees, getting caught and twisting in some odd angles. Afterwards, we went to Spiderhouse and had dinner at Trudy's.
At some point during the past weeks, fractallia, interactiveleaf, throm, thax, bramblekite and I went to a free beer weekend at the Independence Brewery and got happily drunked. I don't know what it is, but interactiveleaf and throm just seem to ooze relaxation. We tried all of the beers, decided on our favorites, sat on a couch overlooking the crowds of people brought together by their love of free and beer, listened to the band, waited a long time for the bathroom, oggled the purple-haired asian girl, and finished the afternoon with a visit to the Chili Parlor.
Speaking of interactiveleaf and throm, Moviegasm was another huge success. Another wonderful community gathered, I spent time relaxing on their porch, eating delicious (carby) food, and we all had a ton of fun opening the box from throm's mother. fractallia and I also left a few funny little items for a return (or retaliation) package. I didn't end up watching any movies, but spent a little time in the upstairs bedroom chatting with people in the wee hours of the night. We slept over, enjoyed breakfast and had a generally warm and comfortable time.
I went with fractallia and softhat to Carnaval. It was a huge party with scantily clad women folk and awesome masks. I had a lot of fun playing "spot the burner". We basically danced our asses off, got lost in the crowd, took pictures and had drinks spilled on us. fractallia looked amazing in her skimpy blue dress and light-up shoes. I had a great costume. I was covered in black and white stick-on leopard prints, wearing a silver and black mask, and black and white wrap pants. fractallia and my masks matched, which was also kind of awesome.
For Valentine's Day, fractallia and I went to Mount Bonnell after dark and looked out over the river. I don't know if it was romantic, but it was exactly the kind of thing that she and I like to do. She is such an amazing girl.
Also, joy! fractallia and I have our Flipside tickets!
Random Thoughts
Every night I have sex with the Invisible Woman.
You would never see a camo cock coming.
Kinky people are addicted to smack.
If we have the proletariat, can we also have the amateurletariat?
Why does it seem like all rappers are named after cartoon characters? Snoop dog, Shaggy, etc.
Gourmet chefs are prawn stars.
I know bonafide lesbians, but is there such a thing as a bonerfide lesbian?
A lot of people are incredibly worried about outsourcing of jobs, etc, etc. Regardless of the political discussion, it's comforting to know that there are jobs out there that have little chance of moving overseas - like fluffing.
I want to see what the wedding bouquet would look like at a poly wedding.
Do lazy golems lead sedimentary lifestyles? (there's one for my geek peeps)
Lonely and lovely are just one letter off.
When I grow up, I don't want to be a senior upstanding citizen.
Collections of pirate weapons are arrrr-senals.
When you have a bunch of steampunkers working on a project together, that's steamwork.
Poly + Mono = Molly.
A while back, we were visited by Father Winter and Auntie Freeze.
The money you save could be your own!
It's a shruggery!
Most people know how to curse, but only programmers know how to recurse!
Lotion made from pig oil = oinkment.
You can't detox before you tox.