phony

My aunt, uncle, and cousin visted me today, and we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Now, I normally don’t really ever talk to them – at family dinners I set next to my male cousin and usually only talk to him, so I felt like tonight was a pretty awkward experience. Mainly, I felt like I was forcing a lot of conversation and prentending to be interested in things they said just to be polite. After I typed that last sentence, I realize that this is a really, really stupid thing to complain about – everyone does this. But I just feel really phony/disgusted with myself after experiences like this. Of course, idle chatter and feigned interest are very important social skills. And I recognize that they’re absolutely necessary to function in society. I just feel like I have a disproportionately large dislike for doing it compared to most other people. I also think I’m just making up excuses for being a hermit and for my dislike for meeting new people.

Nostalgia

First of all, wordpress’s new live preview thing doesn’t work in internet explorer.

Second of all, I was flying back from vacation in Los Angeles today, and I thought to myself – “Wow, I must really love my job, because other than that, there’s nothing I’m going back to that I like as much as what I’m about to leave.” I thought about it for a while, and decided that yes, I really do love my job that much. It’s the most important thing in my life at the moment, and accordingly the thing that gives my life the most meaning. Still, I couldn’t shake the bittersweet feeling in the pit of my stomache as I wistfully boarded the plane back to the land of gloomy skies and perpetual rain. All the places I love are in LA. All the food I love is in LA. Most of the people I love are in LA. Of course, there are things that I like about Washington – they’re just not as good. The food isn’t as good, the weather isn’t as nice, and the people are… different. Maybe it’s that my friends are all younger than me and are just more immature and superficial at that age. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m not really an outdoors person in a state where it seems like that’s all people do. Maybe it’s the fact that there aren’t as many asian people here. Whatever it is, I just know that I’m not as happy socially here as I was in college, and realizing that makes me sad.

A part of me also thinks that this is just something that would have inevitably happened to me, no matter where I was. Friends would move away, people would get married, and all the things that used to make me happy would slowly and silently disappear. Maybe my problem is that I just haven’t transitioned to the next stage in my life yet. But I know what that stage is, and I’m beginning to realize that I’m bad at it. There’s going to be a point sometime in the future where the panacea of happiness that I get from working won’t be enough to cover my unhapiness in other areas of my life. And I’m really dreading that day, because I don’t know what I’ll do with myself then. I know that there are certain mentatilities that I have that need to change for things to get better – this post isn’t about that. This post is about realizing that college was the best time of my life, and lamenting that it’s gone and never coming back, and despising myself for never even realizing or properly appreciated it. But I guess that’s how things always work – you never realize until after the fact. It’s just so sad that it has to work that way.

I did get inspired to do some things while I was in LA, including: getting a shelf for all my piano books, UCLA photography project, mounting my TV in the kitchen, getting a tea set, getting a cast iron skillet, working out more, eating better, practicing piano, and starting to read again

bleh

I wanted to blog today, but I noticed I had a bunch of unfinished, unpublished posts in my dashboard, and decided that I would try to salvage whatever I could and publish those. Unforutnately, that gave way to only one post, but at least now my dashboard is nice and clean. I’ve noticed that I’ve become more OCD the older I become…

yum

I had this done to me when I was reading a forum today. Apologies for any spontaneous snacking.

ham and eggs

Engineering at Microsoft is essentially divided into three disciplines. You have your PMs, which interface with customers and create project specifications, Tests, which test the software (duh), and Devs, who write the software (me). Anyway, IMHO being a Dev requires the most technical skill, followed by Tests, and finally PM. As I’ve started to meet more and more people at Microsoft, I’ve begun to notice how certain personalities traits are characteristic of certain roles. For example, the PMs I’ve met are FAR, FAR more social and… “normal” than any of the devs I’ve met. But they don’t radiate the same aura of brilliance that I get when talking to devs. It’s like we have a whole spectrum of personalities sorted by discipline. And what’s funny is that these stigmas affect the way that people interact with each other. Like I get the feeling that PMs think that Devs are just a bunch of antisocial losers who sit in their office and code all day, while devs think that PMs are a bunch of idiots who would be better served designing the next infomercial craze instead of meddling with important product work. Of course I’m exaggerating, I’ve met some very good PMs, but I thought that it was amusing.

It’s like this story that I heard in a programming class I took at work last year: A chicken and a pig are walking down the road. All of the sudden, the chicken turns to the pig and says “hey, I have a great idea! let’s open a restaurant!” The pig responds “Wow, that sounds like fun! What wil the restaurant be called?” The chicken answers, “Why, ham and eggs, of course!” Guess which one is the PM in this metaphore -_- stupid chickens

home

This was the first time I went back to norcal and felt like I was visiting rather than being home. It’s kind of a weird feeling actually. But I guess it’s one that everyone has to face sooner or later. Anyway, it was a good break. Lots of food, beer, and time spent with friends. We even played scrabble! Twice! woohoo! Anyway, should be a fun upcoming three weeks before Christmas. I swear, I feel like I’ve only been in the office about half the time this Milestone between vacations, storms, classes, and recruiting trips. Oh well, if there was ever a good time to take time off, it’s now.

On a side note, I never really thought about how my parents relationship works, but after observing over the past few days and giving it some thought, what I think it really revolves around is that they intellectually challenge each other. I found that kind of interesting – not that that’s unheard of, but I think it’s definitely uncommon compared to other things like personality or humor or looks. It’s kind of cool, and it made me wonder what it’ll end up being for me, because I see a lot of my dad in myself as I grow older. Or maybe it’s foolish to put a label on something as THE thing that makes a relationship work. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there, heh.

blah

So it’s been a while. Yeah.

A much too short update: I’m officially moved into my new place, and it’s beginning to actually look like a house. I have all my kitchen furniture, and I’m expecting my bedroom furniture any day now. I set my keyboard up, so I’ve been playing a lot recently, which is refreshing. For some reason, I got the Portal song stuck in my head, so I’m currently learning that. Maybe I’ll get around to recording it and posting it here.

Work has been good – I feel like I’m at a point where I have enough of a basic understanding of how our code base works to actually be effective in learning things, which is nice. I’m taking on bigger things everyday. Pretty exciting times. I joined the Microsoft flag football league. It’s basically like IM but for Microsoft people. Anyway, we had our first practice and oh my god, I am horrendously out of shape. I pretty much couldn’t move the day after. Definitely need to work out more.

So random story, about a month ago, I was at Costco and needed beer. I didn’t want to buy any of the standard boring stuff, so I picked up something called Redhook. It was really good, so I looked up where it was bottled and it turns out the brewery was only 15 minutes away from Redmond. On Sunday we went to visit, and went on their amazing tour for $1. You get a free 5oz glass and 6 beer samples. It was awesome. Other exciting things I’ve done… uh… I went to the Boeing factory, which was pretty cool. I also have been spending a lot of time playing cards and watching movies at Microsoft. Yup.

I’ve been spending a lot of time playing Starcraft II. I’ve beaten the campaign though, so I’m trying to ween myself off of multiplayer so I can do more productive things (like beat God of War 3, Super Mario Galaxy 2, etc). I also bought the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but I haven’t started on that yet. I’m also behind on netflix… I’ve had my current movie for like 3 weeks. Fail. I’ve been watching a lot of Futurama on streaming though. Hurray for Zoidberg!

I’m going home this weekend. Should be nice to see everyone again. It’s the Livermore wine festival this weekend! I never realized how good California wine is until I moved to Washington. Although Washington is also supposed to have good wine… maybe I just haven’t found it yet. Oh, and I am super excited for football season to be starting.

That’s probably good for now. I leave you with a semi-updated gallery of the stuff I’ve filled my apartment with.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86032328@N00/sets/72157624849290138

huh?

for the next few weeks:

edit: I don’t know if it’s just the yearbook in me talking, but I love coming in at night by myself to work.

vacation?

So I’ve come home for the holiday weekend, and instead of relaxing and taking it easy, I have something scheduled for every second of every day. It’s good that I’m keeping busy and seeing lots of people, but part of me feels like it’s defeating the point of a vacation…

Friday:

• Flight arrives at 10pm
• Install windows live sync beta/office 2010 pro on parents computer
• Start gathering all the things I want my parents to bring up when they visit

Saturday

• Breakfast with parents at 9:30
• wine tasting at 11
• Go to borders and central computers
• Eat at five guys
• Dinner/gaming with #msj

Sunday

• Shenanigans with aaron/marshall
• (wtf)BBQ?
• Lots of drinking somewhere

Monday

• Dim sum with grandma in the morning
• Dinner and toy story 3 with christine in PM/evening

Tuesday

• Finish packing.
• Leave at 5 pm

 

Okay, so it’s not quite as packed as I’m making it out to be, but it definitely isn’t laid back.

A few things really struck me today. First was seeing my masters diploma which was mailed to my home address a few weeks back. Since grad school really wasn’t a life changing experience for me, I kind of just blew it off as an afterthought to undergrad. But when I saw my diploma for the first time today, I couldn’t help but think “holy shit, I have a masters…” It was a very proud, yet surreal moment for me.

The second thing was that I got really sad packing up all my things. I’ve lived away from home all throughout college and for these past three months, but I’ve always felt that “home” was the Bay Area, and wherever I was at the moment was only temporary. But now I’m literally packing up my entire life so I can move it up to Redmond, and it feels like I’ll no longer be able to call Fremont “home.” It’s certainly a day that I knew that was coming, and one that I would have to eventually face - I just wasn’t prepared for how it would make me feel when it finally arrived.

wasteful

I really should not put my laptop by my bed when I sleep. Because while I’m lying there trying fall asleep, I’ll inevitably think of something to open my laptop and do. Like write this blog post.

I’ve realized that it is absolutely essential that I go out and meet people and do meaningful things with my life. Recently I’ve been focusing a lot on self improvement: Cleaning, working out, bike riding, reading, cooking – good things to do, but ultimately activities that I do alone. I used to think that making new friends would come naturally; that I didn’t necessarily need to force myself into social situations. My reasoning was that I wouldn’t necessarily get along with the types of people at the events that I would force myself to go to. But while that may be true, there’s still a remote possibility that I’d find someone I got along well with, and that chance should be reason enough for me to go. Like Matt Damon said in Rounders, “You can’t lose what you don’t put in the pot… but you can’t win much either.” Okay, that probably wasn’t a great analogy, but the point is that I’m not going to find new friends if I don’t even try. I’m at an age where I seriously need to start putting myself in situations that can help me end up where I want to be later in life. Being married and starting a family in my early thirties is beginning to look like it’s in real jeopardy with my current social outlook.

Even though I get along with most people, I realized that I generally don’t like hanging out with them. Not that we don’t get along, but I’d have to spend a lot of time worrying about how I’m being perceived, thinking about what I say, etc. instead of just relaxing and enjoying their company. That’s probably the reason my friends are a very select group. Actually, there’s more to it than that. If given enough time, I think I can become pretty good friends with almost anyone. It’s just I don’t give myself much of a chance because I’m always comparing new people I’ve just met to the people I’m really good friends with already. The reason I got to be such good friends with everyone in yearbook during college was because we were forced to work together. If we weren’t brought together through work though, I think I wouldn’t even have given most of those friendships a chance. It made me incredibly sad to type that, but it’s the awful, unforgiving truth. I’m a terribly awkward person to meet for the first time, which just compounds the problem. I hate being in unfamiliar situations. Maybe it’s because I’m too unsure of myself. I’ve never considered myself to have self-confidence issues before, but maybe that’s what this all boils down to. But no matter how much I hate it, it’s something that I absolutely must change as soon as possible. Because even though I’m not miserable by any stretch right now, I’m certainly not happy. I’m more or less just getting by, in denial of the fact that I need to change anything. Changing the familiar is a really difficult thing for me, but It’s something that must be done. Kind of like eating your vegetables as a kid. It’s just I don’t have anyone to force me to do it this time, so it’s that much harder.