I thought I had finally come up with a way to recap the past two months in a simple format: two posts, one briefly highlighting awesome things which had happened in the second part of the quarter and one covering the not-quite awesome things which had happened. I started thinking about what I wanted to cover, and honestly, for all the hard work, stress, and frustration that went into this quarter, there wasn’t really a “this completely sucks” moment that sticks out in my head. Which is good; winter term is notorious for being really depressing and gray and desperate because it’s 8 weeks of class, no breaks in awful weather (ah, Indiana, land where the weather literally CANNOT MAKE UP ITS MIND whether to rain or snow). So, anyways, awesome things. Here they are.
To start, a few that don’t require much explanation besides a bullet-point mention:
Having a single
Volleyball (finally made it to playoffs)
Grades (3 A’s and a B+)
Getting a literature minor (a third one I wasn’t expecting to get until I found out I qualified this fall)
Now for those that require a little more explanation.
It started when D’s parents brought a giant orange pumpkin with them when they came to visit. CS traditionally brings a shite-ton of pumpkins every year after fall break to give away to people because his family grows far too many of them (at least that’s what he claims), and D had scooped him. It was hilarious. After fall break (which I spent with D and his family), no pumpkins emerged when CS returned. It was eerie. D and I had brought back a white pumpkin for D’s gf. Again, scooped, or so we thought.
CS had brought back pumpkins, but he was storing them at his girlfriend’s room in another dorm (she has a single). 20 or so went to her sorority, and the rest appeared in the hallway yesterday. CS chose the largest one because it was all gnarled and “no one else would want it”. BS. He just wanted to compete with D’s pumpkin. I jokingly told D that CS had “pumpkin envy”. We laughed, partially because it was possibly true, but also because the pumpkin D brought was one of the SMALL ones from his family, and CS’s largest was barely larger.
In my own way, I think I’ve felt a bit of pumpkin envy. There’s one member of the senior class who isn’t in my major but takes enough of the classes that he’s probably got a minor. I’ll call him 1-up, since that’s what he always seems to do when I talk with him. I hate 1-up, but whenever I see him he’s always talking about the offers he’s received or the interviews he’s being flown out for. And I get jealous–I’ve heard back from Microsoft and Epic, with both saying they’re going to pursue other candidates, and I’m trying to find other places to apply now that my first choices aren’t really an option. I know I shouldn’t let his talk hurt me, but it makes me feel just as inadequate as a SE as the pumpkins D brought made CS feel.
I guess if there’s anything to pull from this, it’s that I shouldn’t do what CS did last night. He carved about 4 or 5 pumpkins which are outside our room. He’s showing off, and it’s not making him look any better.
I’m not sure what the me from 3 years ago, just entering Rose would make of me now. I came into Rose with the goal of working as what I now know is called an SDE (Software Development Engineer) at Microsoft. Basically, I wanted to be an awesome programmer. 3 years later, I’m looking to be a project manager at Microsoft. 3 years ago, I had no intention of ever being any sort of manager. So what happened?
Well, for starters, I realized that I wasn’t that great of a programmer. I’m competent now, but winter of freshman year, I really slipped up with some concepts in CSSE220 and ended up not doing so well in the class. That class nearly broke me–I considered switching majors (to math), but I decided to give it one more chance in the fall of sophmore year before I completely gave up my dreams of working with computer software. At the advice of my advisor that spring, since I was looking at doing some form of international experience at the beginning of Junior Year (starting in July and going through November in someplace like Australia), it was suggested I take 371, as I’d likely not find a similar class abroad. I got special permissions to take the course–I hadn’t taken CSSE230, but the course was mostly writing and didn’t require programming knowledge. So I took it–felt way out of my depth with the first assignment, but once I got my weird panic in check, I did well on the assignment and continued with the class. Without that class, I wouldn’t have met my future boss (Nick Ohrn), and I probably wouldn’t have learned that I’m basically awesome when it comes to requirements documentation. That class re-ignited my passion for Software Engineering–I realized that there are more stages that just coding to professional software development and that I could find a place even if my coding skills weren’t as strong as some of my peers.
I took CSSE372 that year, too–it didn’t seem fair to abandon my project teammate in the next class if the project was to continue. Then it was announced that projects would be switching between quarters, as would the teams. My new teammate was the project manager for our project, and didn’t do the best job with it–I remember getting emails 5 minutes apart, one praising my work and the other telling me to step it up. It was mixed messages, to say the least. There were a lot of times where I felt I could have done a better job, but we did the best job we could and finished the course. If nothing else, I learned where to improve my own skills when leading a project. That’s about the time I realized I wanted to be what Microsoft calls a Program Manager–I need to be knowledgeable about code and what developers are capable, but my strengths lie more in defining the project’s scope and requirements and keeping people on task so that things get done on time and under budget.
The career fair was this past Wednesday, and I had a pretty good outcome from it. One of the companies I’m looking at seemed really confused by my applying for what they call a PM, though–they don’t consider it a technical position. The rep was almost nasty with me, trying to force me to apply for the software developer position instead and claiming that they only hire business majors for the position. I knew for a fact their website listed the position under software jobs (also noting it was open to “all majors”) and that what the job entailed was a perfect fit with what I had been doing this summer, but was so flustered by her attitude that I didn’t bring it up. I was offered an interview on the spot, and I accepted her offer–it was the first time that had happened at a career fair for me, so I was excited to get that. The next day, I was fortunate enough to interview with the other person from the company at the fair–one of their developers. I made sure he knew I was interested in the PM position, and although he was more receptive when I gave him my reasons, he still seemed skeptical that someone “with as much technical knowledge as [me]” would want this non-technical job. I tried my best to explain to him the benefits of having a technical person who can “speak customer” in this role would be–someone like this can be an advocate for the customer’s needs with developers and an advocate for the developer’s limitations with the customer. I’m not sure I’m the person the company’s looking for, but I’ve been invited to the next step of the process. I guess we’ll see.
On another note, when I got back from the career fair, I had an invitation to interview by phone with Microsoft waiting for me–I had worried with them not being at the career fair my application would be lost in the pile of all the other online applicants. Here’s hoping that one goes well–I’d love to get to second round with them this year.
Went and saw The Informant! in theaters. While not entirely what I was expecting, it was still pretty funny and the ensemble cast did a great job.
The movie was good, but it was what we saw on the way back that was better. Driving down the road in was what appeared to be a modified go-kart or golf cart. Plywood/MDF had been placed around the back, listing hours and location of a barber shop. Music clearly taken from an ice cream truck was playing as he drove down the road with his small, baked-potato sized dog in his lap on a seatbelt harness.
I look forward to being the age where driving a contraption such as this along with my dog seems like a good idea for drumming up business.
There’s been a lot going on recently that’s ticked me off or put me in a fouler mood, most of which has been omitted from here since I’ve either been too busy to post about it or I felt it didn’t need a second life online. Anyways, for all the good things that are happening, I’ve mostly been focusing on the bad.
That changed after lunch today.
A few of my good friends are part of the Jewish Culture club on campus, which had a table in the lobby because today was Rosh Hashanah (hereafter abbreviated as RH), the Jewish New Year. He caught D and I on our way out of lunch, asking us to take RH with him, and that it would only take a minute. I had wanted to ask him why, for a second week in a row, there wasn’t a music column in the paper (I’ve written one, as has another DJ, and we figured at least one would be in the paper this week), but decided to wait until after what he had to say.
One of the symbolic foods of RH is an apple slice dipped in honey, representing the sweet things in the year to come. As we had our apple, he talked about how it was sweet, perhaps too sweet, but just right. He then told us to think about the good things, the things that drive us to do better, for at least the rest of the day, if not the rest of the year. And that resonated with me, enough so that I no longer cared that my music review wasn’t in the paper for two weeks in a row. And the message also made me feel at peace. And I think it did that for D too, who’s been dealing with even more shit than I have recently.
Will the bad stuff continue to happen? I’m sure it will, especially with my current suitemates and their various hangers-on. But I think I’m going to try and keep the RH message in mind–focus on the good that happens and the things that drive me–to get through it.
I’ve been getting a little too free in what I say about CS with others, and it came back to bite me in the ass this morning. Hard.
CS has the tendency to leave a door open when he leaves, whether it’s his roommate’s door when his roommate is in the process of going to bed or the front door of the apartment when he leaves in the morning (I’m all for an open door policy, but I’d rather not be the only one in the apartment with the door right open if I’m still asleep). When I woke up this morning, D and his girlfriend (or so I thought) were already well awake and playing on the Wii. The door was ajar, so I said “Did CS do this? Did he?”
The response? “CS is right here.” Oh. Shit. I quietly went back to my room and shut the door and just sat there for 10 minutes. Then took a shower. Then went back to the room, sat down, and just sort of avoided talking to Colin until classtime. It still hasn’t come up. If it does, I’ll be honest, but I seem to be lucky so far. I need to be careful, double-check, and think before I speak poorly about someone. Also, not being half-asleep would help. Good to know that CS isn’t the only one who can be taken down a notch.
I’m all moved in, but my suitemates and I are still going through the stage of our co-habitation where we’re figuring out how each other works. My roommate (hereafter known as D) and I get along great–over the summer we discussed what was and wasn’t okay and resolved to talk things out and be open with one another if something arose. So far, that’s been going good. It’s a little harder with the suitemates (CS and SC), but I think we’re getting there. It’s tough, though–here’s what happened this weekend and why I feel amazing going into the first full week of classes.
I had the best headache ever last night. It wasn’t a particularly strong one, but enough of one that I knew that it was a headache. The reason it was so awesome? The source was the Noisettes concert I had just left.
While my love for the Noisettes has already been mentioned on this blog before (as well as on my old blog), I didn’t think they’d stop in Minneapolis on their US tour, much less decide to do a free show to get the word out. They were amazing. I’m still smiling from the thought of the show. I didn’t bring my camera along (after having to stow it in my date’s car for the KT Tunstall show after being stopped at the door with it), but I used my cameraphone to capture a few (really shoddy) shots from the show. This venue was more lax on cameras–I should have gone with my instinct and brought it, but such is life.
We got to the venue around 6, an hour before the doors opened. I hadn’t realized that I actually know Dinkytown (the college-y area just outside of the U of Mn Twin Cities campus) better than I thought, although I hadn’t been there since a class trip to the U of MN library in 10th grade History class. We weren’t the first ones there, but we couldn’t have been more than the 15th or 20th in line. Patiently my dad (who’s a fan of the group as well) and I waited along with everyone else, excited for things to start. The drummer for the band walked across the street into the venue, which was exciting. Wristbands were distributed to those over 21 and then we were let in.
While we were near the front of the line, we weren’t fast enough to get some of the nicer seating at the venue (club chairs and couches). All the remaining available ones were roped off for guests of the band, which sort of sucked, but we found a large table near the edge of the seating area and stood by it for a little bit before sitting on the edge of the seating area’s platform.
The Varsity Theater doesn’t look like much from the outside, but once you get into the building, it’s gorgeous. My mom knew it as the movie theater closest to campus when she went to college, but it’s since been converted, keeping the red curtains of the old moviehouse as well as an area where a screen used to be where the bands perform. It’s definately a cool space for performers to play in (the band themselves said it was one of the most beautiful venues they’d played). People slowly filled in the rest of the large area for standing and waited for the opening act.
The opening act was awful, to say the least. I’m not even going to give a link to them (Google “Dearling Physique” if you’re brave). Experimental ambient electronica is better left to the studio rather than live performances, I hate to say. My dad had no idea what to think of the performer. We had a discussion while checking our respective clocks and waiting for the performance to end:
Him: How are we going to explain this to your mom?
Me: Probably the standard Minnesotan “Well, it was different“
After they were done, we waited for around 45 minutes for the Noisettes to set up and start. The guitarist apologized for the group being “tardy” and then launched into a slower opening version of “Wild Young Hearts” while the lead singer slowly made her way to the stage. Here’s a video from an earlier US gig that sort of illustrates it (I’ll try and use some of these wherever possible to supplement my own poor-quality photos)
What follows is a hybrid setlist/notes from the show
Wild Young Hearts
Never Forget You — Shingai said she had a question for us (“What Ya Drinkin, Rum or Whiskey?’” is the first line of the song)
24 Hours — This song sounded even better live
Saturday Night
Sometimes — This was acoustic with the drummer on a box drum–amazing
Don’t Give Up–The band switched quickly from acoustic to rocking the house with this track from their first album. I could physically feel this song in the back of the room against my chest
Every Now and Then
Don’t Upset the Rhythm–This one got more than a couple people in the crowd dancing
Atticus — Shingai attempted to reach and perform from the bar for this one, but didn’t quite have enough microphone cord. She settled instead for the soundboard platform, where she did acrobatics from the metal bars surrounding the area. This was the second closest I was from one of the band members all night, the first being when she walked backstage before the opening act, brushing by my dad and I; I only recognized it was her when I saw her from the back and realized that the distinctive hairstly could only belong to one person.
Sister Rosetta (Capture the Spirit) — another rocking wailer to close out the night
Unfortunately, because they were running late, the band had to catch a bus to Chicago immediately, but I still got one of the many free Noisettes posters that were around the room. This is the best live show I’ve seen. The group was so full of energy and had the whole room smiling the entire night. Hopefully I get another chance to see them, even if it’s never as intimately as this time was.
As a final link, the band performed on the local public radio station that plays modern music (we also have an MPR news and an MPR classical) and their conversation/performances are here