The intern has an intern!

So today was my shadow with Joanne Maguire. She was really friendly and nice, but I didn't have a lot of time to talk with her because we went to a lot of meetings. That's what you do when you run an entire company.... I felt awkward at times because all the meetings were full of executives and VP's. She also spoke at a forum that was webcasted and I had to follow her out to the stage then go sit in the audience. Everyone was staring at me and they probably were like who the heck is that? Besides that, it was a good experience.....but I don't think I would ever want her job. Seems like it would be impossible to have a life. She has her own corporate jet because she's in several different cities each week!

I now have an intern at work. LOL. He's not actually an intern. Since I'll be done with my internship in about 3 weeks, someone needs to take over where I left off since the test will be taking place in the middle of my departure. My manager found someone who has been working at Lockheed for several years for me to train. So he basically will be following me around and I will be telling him what to do until I leave....just like an intern! As nice as it sounds, it's kind of annoying! So far, I don't know if I like him. He asks a lot of really stupid questions and when I give him things to read and tell him to figure it out, he's makes it sound like I need to SHOW him so he knows rather than figuring it out for himself. I'm only doing it for his benefit because after I leave, he will have no one to help him. I want him to be able to figure some things out by himself, just like I did. I think it's because he resents the fact that he has to report to a measly intern and he thinks that he knows more than I do.....BUT HE DOESN'T!

I have to give a presentation about what I did during the summer next week and I had to write an abstract for the judges to look at. Here it is:

D5LE TVC Test CSCI Hardware/Software Integration

The D5 missile uses Thrust Vector Control (TVC) for pitch/yaw control for each of its 3 stages. As part of the D5 Life Extension (D5LE) program, the electrical component of the TVC Module is being upgraded. The TVC Module sits between the Flight Controls Electronics Assembly (FCEA), which is one of two flight computers on the missile, and the TVC actuators connected to the nozzle. The FCEA receives digital commands from the TVC Module and sends them to the actuators, as well as receive feedback data. An Engineering Confidence test will be performed to ensure that the D5LE TVC module performs the same as the current deployed fleet D5P TVC module.

My task for the summer was to develop the Computer Software Configuration Item (CSCI) based on Software Requirements Specifications (SRS) for the confidence testing of the D5LE TVC module. The CSCI is the software that will be used during the test to send commands to the TVC, perform closed loop algorithms, and gather feedback data for post-test analysis. Because the FCEA is still a couple of years away, a Xilinx FPGA board with the CSCI test software will be used to emulate the FCEA.

I first had to develop a simulation of the CSCI in an all-digital environment similar to the test. The behavior of the CSCI was captured in the simulation, providing an easy means of testing during software development. Upon completion and verification of the working simulation CSCI program, I moved the program from simulation to “real-world” by integrating the program into the Xilinx FPGA board for use during the test. This part involved constant interaction with hardware personnel in order to troubleshoot issues that arose to ensure that the software would work properly with the hardware. Along with developing the CSCI and hardware integration, I also provided support for the software portion of the Testing Procedure documentation.

Should I be nervous?

Next Tuesday, I get to job shadow Joanne Maguire. She is the vice president of Lockheed Martin's Space Systems Company. Basically, she is in charge of our nation's defense, space, and missiles systems. This is HUGE. All the interns picked her, but I got lucky and they chose me to shadow her. What am I going to ask one of the 50 most powerful women???

Yikes!

I am holding a peer review tomorrow at work. It's basically a bunch of software head honchos sitting around at a meeting reviewing/analyzing/criticizing the code that I implemented for the test. I've spent almost the whole week preparing for this review because I was informed on Monday by the person in charge of overseeing the test that I needed to hold a peer review. Then it was a mad scramble to send meeting notices and compile all my code into a package to send to "important" people to review before hand. Why do I need to do this? Because it's a government contracted project and they require all these regulations and procedures. So my manager has been sending various people to prep me for the peer review...LOL. I've been told that it can get brutal, so hopefully they will take into account that I'm an intern. I don't believe that an intern should be holding her own peer review.

So they hold various tours of some of the projects at the Sunnyvale facility for the interns throughout the summer. I mentioned the Advanced Technology Lab in an earlier post. A few weeks ago, I was able to take a tour to see the D5 Trident Missile, which happens to also be the project I'm working on. They had a full-scale mock-up of the missile. Today, I went on a tour of the solar arrays, which are panels powered by the sun that provide power to the majority of the things out in space. Lockheed makes solar arrays for the International Space Station, military and commercial satellites, space telescopes, and whatever other objects we put into space. As cool as it was to see, I don't want to work on the solar arrays. Seems too boring.

^_^

I took the link to my journal off Facebook because too many people I know from work are friending me.

I want some chips and salsa.

Well I have been really lazy about updating this thing. Things are going well.

I have a presentation to do in a couple of weeks, so I am trying to prepare for that at work, as well as working on my project in time for the test.

I spent the Fourth of July at a BBQ with Dave and his girlfriend and a bunch of people. I played bocci ball and saw the biggest dog ever in my life. A couple of fireworks also exploded wrong and almost hit me....and we started a mini fire. LOL.

Today, I spent the day in San Francisco with some of the interns. I was able to see a lot of things, but it was pretty foggy for most of the day, so that kinda sucked. I have to say that out of all the cities I've visited, SF has to be one of the most unique. Maybe I'll expand more on this trip later...

:-(

I swear there's a "Who can do the best job of creeping Truc out" contest that I'm not aware of.

Soooo SORE!

Nothing out of the ordinary has been going on at work. The deadline is next week and I'm getting along, but still a little worried that I might not make the deadline. There's a chance the deadline may be extended by a week because one of the parts that we need for testing may not arrive in time....hopefully this is the case ;)

I had a pretty awesome weekend. On Friday, Dave had a BBQ and busted out the magarator. It was mostly all of our friends at work that came. We ended up watching die hard 2 ....let me just say that one should never watch any sort of movie that involves planes and such with a bunch of aerospace engineers. They will drive you crazy with all the faults in the movie!

On Saturday, I got to go wakeboarding! One of Dave's best friends owns a boat and his family takes it out almost every weekend. So a bunch of us and his friend's family went out to this river that emptys into the Bay. There was 14 of us total on the boat and we all took turns wakeboarding, water sking, and wake surfing. It was about 85 degrees and the water was almost the exact temperature, so it was really nice. Not too hot either because it can get up into the 100s. There were 4 of us that had never wakeboard before and as I watched the other 3 get in the water and fail miserably, I got really worried that I wouldn't be able to do it either. I was thinking that if the 2 guys who were over 6 foot tall and fit couldn't do it, what chance did I? On top of that, people kept making jokes about how small I was and the shoe size on the board was a 13 in mens! I ended doing really well and was able to get myself up and gliding in the water for about 30 seconds each run....and the board did slip off my feet whenever I crashed into the water. Now, this might not be so impressive compared to all the pros that can jump over waves and such, but the other 3 couldn't even get up, let along glide!! So I was told that if I tried it a couple more times, I will get really good at it. I wanted to try water skiing too, but I was pretty sore already, so I passed. After spending the entire day in the water, we came back to the friends house and grilled hotdogs. :) I love hotdogs!

Today, I went to San Francisco with some of my intern friends to watch the LGBT Pride parade. It was really amusing....although weird at times. After the parade, we did some light shopping and then one of the girls wasn't feeling well, so we came back. I will definitely come back to SF a few more times before I leave Cali. It seemed like there were a lot of things to do.

Oh yeah, as a result of my day of wakeboarding, I am now sore all over! Everything hurts...it even hurt to shiver when I was cold in San Francisco.

I'm watching Dateline.

I've been pretty busy lately and have been lazy to update. Work is going stressfully due to the deadline. I cannot wait until this deadline passes and I get to work on a new project. Not because this project isn't cool...just because there would be a lot less pressure of failure. I have made some friends with the interns and we have been doing a lot of things together. Last Friday, we went to a hookah lounge and got to smoke hookah in their outside area while we people watched. It was a good time. Then on Saturday, we went to Santana Row, which is like a mall for rich people. Everyone here was nicely dressed and drove nice cars. It didn't look like your typical outlet mall...rather like a downtown. We had dinner at a Spanish Restaurant and there was a band playing music just like the "Spanish Guitar" CD I bought from target last year. LOL. It would've been romantic if I was with a hot guy rather than just us engineering nerds.

My new place is working out great. I'm completely comfortable here now and Dave always encourages me to have people over. We have a hot tub and a pool.....and a MAGARATOR that makes 10 gallons of magaritas. HAHA. This weekend, I was laying out at the pool for like 10 minutes and got really dark....so I had to go buy sunscreen for the first time ever. The sun is really intense here and I'm afraid that I could burn or get TOO dark. It was only 75 degrees out too! It's suppose to be in the 90's soon.

Lamb Shish Kabobs

I moved to my new place yesterday. Some of the co-workers came over and we watched super troopers to celebrate my new housing...LOL. Crazy Kids. It's nice to be able to interact with normal human beings. Dave is really nice and his girlfriend and I get along pretty well. There's another guy that lives here which I have not met yet because he's currently in Hawaii and there is another girl moving in the extra room next month. We met her today and she has a really cute chihuahua dog...not like the ugly taco bell dog. I am going to practice on this dog for when I get my own :) So now I live in Sunnyvale which isn't nearly as exciting as San Jose, but there's a quaint downtown area with every type of major restaurant, even Vietnamese. We went to a Mediterranean restaurant today which was really good.

Today, I got to go on a tour of the Advanced Technology Lab in Palo Alto as part of one of the paid intern activities. The lab is a part of Space Systems where they develop the latest technologies. I got to see some of the latest space telescopes, satellite platforms, 0 gravity testing and vehicles, and other neat things. It certainly would be interesting to work there, but they only have 700 people employed, 2/3 of which have at least a Masters Degree.

Mini-Vacation

Here's my entry about meeting up with my family for their summer vacation.

On Friday, I worked for 4 hours and then left to go to the airport. I got into Los Angeles just as my sister finished getting her rental van, so it was perfect timing. I wish I could've seen more of LA, but unfortunately, none of the plans included being there outside of the airport. Hopefully I will get to explore it before the summer is over. First order of business was to go find the Vietnamese area to get food. My aunt told my sister their was an area called Little Saigon and that's what we were looking for, but we ended up in a different one. So we drive into the parking lot and there's this lady with her van all ghetto rigged out as a Jackfruit stand. Of course my mom and sister went down and bargained for some jackfruit. LOL. We found a restaurant to eat and then I introduced my family the amazing-ness that is Lee's Sandwich. When we got to the hotel, we all went into the hot tub cause it was too cold to swim.

On Saturday, we spent most of the day at the San Diego Zoo. Everyone told me that I needed to see it and I thought it was ok, but not as impressive as the huge zoo in Texas. I did get to see pandas!! After the zoo, we found Little Saigon and ate dinner, then went to the Oriental mart to buy goodies to snack on for the next day.

On Sunday, we headed to Long Beach to take a ferry to Catalina Island. It's sort of like a Mackinac Island...only a lot bigger and a lot prettier....and of course a completely different environment. I had read in the brochure that it is sunny on the island 297 days of the year, but as the boat was heading over there, it was cloudy so I got worried that it wasn't going to be sunny. Then just right before we got to the island, it rose out of the sun....the sun amazingly just shines on the island and no where else around it. We spent the entire day exploring the island and such. The scenery was probably the most gorgeous that I've seen in my adventures thus far. After we left the island, we stopped by this restaurant that sold crawfish and bought some to eat at the hotel. Of course my sister asked them to make it as spicy as possible and it was sooo spicy that I had to sip milk between each crawfish! It was even too spicy for my mom and Thu, who thrives on spicy food. It was still worth it though :)

On Monday, we went to Disneyland. We did the whole Disney World thing a couple of summers ago, so it wasn't anything tooo spectacular, but the kids enjoyed it. I spent about 3 hours there and then my brother-in-law had to drop me off at the airport to come back to San Jose. It's too bad that I have this deadline at work, otherwise I would've just taken the next few days off and stayed with my family for the remainder of their vacation. They are always an amusing lot.

I was suppose to move to my new place today, but Dave has a huge final tomorrow that he has to study for and can't help me move out till tomorrow. Since I had the extra evening, I headed to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant to have one last meal before I had to leave downtown San Jose :(

So much to do, So little of me!!

So I am moving for the third time in 3 weeks. The dude that lives across the hall from me is a total creep and I don't want to have to deal with him. My friend Dave who I work with is renting out 2 rooms in his condo and so I'm going to move in there for the rest of my internship. Hopefully the third time is the charm.

Work is getting stressful. We have a deadline approaching and I have to finish the software side because I don't want to be the section of the project that pushes back the deadline. This means that I will be doing major overtime for the next couple of weeks....at least that means more money. At least I have the excuse of being just being an intern and not even suppose to be doing something this significant if I somehow can't deliver the results in time...

A lot of the intern program activities are starting to get into full swing. We had a catered lunch with some keynote speakers today and that was kinda cool. I found out that I get to jobshadow the person in charge of Space Systems in Sunnyvale....all the interns chose her as the top pick and for some reason, I was the one that got assigned to her. I have chosen an intern buddy and she seems nice, but we haven't done any social activities together yet...probably soon. I have to do a presentation for all the executives and managers at the end of the summer about what I did and so I have to start preparing for this. A bunch of other things too, but I'm too lazy to type it all.

Tomorrow, I'm flying to Los Angeles to meet up with my family. They'll be there for a week, but I will only be there for 4 days. We will probably spend the majority of the time in San Diego....and of course Disneyland for all the little kiddies. A vacation before I live at Lockheed until the deadline.

BLEH!

So the dude that lives across the hall from me is a TOTAL creep ..... thus I believe I will be moving ONCE AGAIN!!! ...... to be continued....

Oh how the sun burns my skin.

I had read a flyer advertising a "Community Resource Event" for Vietnamese people that was happening today, so I decided to go check it out. It started at 10 and I wanted to go when it started, but I was being slothful and slept until close to 12:30 and thus did not make it there until about 1 hour before the event ended which I came to regret later on as my post will show. So I'm walking towards City Hall where the event is being held and I start to hear music and as I get closer, I realize there's a real life Vietnamese singer giving a concert. Unfortunately he was not a face I have seen on Paris By Night or Asia Entertainment, but he was still good and I enjoyed the concert. Above is a picture of him performing. Note the Vietnamese flags interwoven with the American flags in the background ;) So the whole event was like a community get together for Vietnamese people I guess and there sure were a lot of them gathered. So they were giving away prizes and I was chosen to come up and compete with 4 others to win an XBOX 360. Unfortunately, the question was "Name as many of the counsel members that have spoken as you can." and the person that came up with the most would win. CURSE ME!! I was only there for the last hour so I only heard 2 of them speak which I managed to name. The winner managed to name 3!! If I had been there for the whole event, I would've EASILY won because there were 8 members total that spoke and I would've only needed to name 4 to win! This is what I get for being slothful and I hope I learn my lesson....or maybe not.

After moping about how close I was to winning an XBOX 360 that I probably would've sold or given to my nephew, I decided to walk around because it was such a nice and sunny day. I went to the Public library and got a library card to rent books for the long lightrail rides to work. I didn't have anything to prove I was living in Cali, so they only let me rent out 1 book. I browsed through the library, which was really cool....it's 8 stories high and is primarily covered with glass. I spent a long time looking at which book to rent being as how I could only rent one. After I checked out the book, I went to this bubble tea place called Quickly and got a nice orange slush bubble tea and proceeded to walk around the San Jose University campus because the library was right next to it. I then sat down on a bench and read my new borrowed book and drank my bubble tea. Then I got hungry and decided to hit up a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner and it was really tasty. I just realized that I totally forgot to talk about the disaster that was last night....so I will make that post tomorrow. Now, I need to go to bed so I can put in 10 hours of work tomorrow.

Party In My Mouth!

I had quite an entertaining day today. Earlier, I went out in search of a Vietnamese restaurant that my aunt told me about. While looking for it, I wandered downtown. I knew I lived near downtown San Jose, but I didn't realize how close I was! On my way, I passed by a Seafood Mexican restaurant and I was really excited because I figured they would have shrimp tostados...which is something that I have only had twice at this Mexican restaurant in EL. I saved it for later though since I was on the hunt for the Vietnamese restaurant. So I wandered down 4th street and I couldn't find the restaurant....but I did find a BOBA tea cafe and I got myself a Thai BOBA tea...it was tasty. I decided to go back to the Mexican Seafood restaurant but decided to take a diversion because I saw a really cool building that turned out to be the City Hall. Once there, I kept going and came across a VIETNAMESE area! There were Vietnamese restaurants all day!! There was also a "Lee's Sandwiches" which is a place that sells all types of specialty Vietnamese subs. A lot of people both white and Asian have told me about this place and I am happy that it is very close to me. So while wandering in this area, I saw a clothing store and so I went in there to take a look around. First thing I noticed....they were playing the Backstreet Boys CD and second thing I noticed was that the owners were Vietnamese. Turns out they had some cute stuff, so I ended up buying a lot of clothes...whoops. It was pretty amusing because they were talking in Vietnamese to each other about me and then when I payed with my CC, the chick realize I was Vietnamese. LOL for Viet people not recognizing me. After I left, I decided to go eat at the Seafood Mexican restaurant because I had been thinking about shrimp tostados all day.....and what an amazing experience it was! Above is a picture of what I ordered....shrimp and crab tostados! Notice the various hot sauce I put together in the background ;) I also was watching a Spanish soap opera on the tv there and I stayed to watch the entire episode because it was so enrapturing.

Tonight, I went to an improv comedy show called ComedySportz with some interns. It's sort of like a mix between "whose line is it anyway" and that one show with nick cannon on MTV. It was pretty amusing because audience participation played a major role. Unfortunately, I got a little embarrassed. We picked the showing that was family friendly and one of the rules was that if any of the comedians or audience members said/suggested something inappropriate, they would have to wear a brown bag over their head for the remainder of the act. So the dude asked us to name an occupation that someone would have and I said "stripper." So they tried to make me wear a paper bag over my head....but I refused to. I don't do paper bag.

I'm eating cheese and crackers.

This was a really short work week because Monday was a holiday and then I have Friday off because of this whole 9-80 deal which gives me every other Fridays off. Even though it was short, I've been really busy. So busy that I eat lunch at my desk and don't take the usual coffee/snack breaks with some of the other co-workers. There are two phases to my project and I am just finishing up the first phase which is coding to "simulate" what would happen. I believe that the first phase is the easier one because the next phase consists of integrating the first phase into hardware and this program that I've never used before. I don't look forward to the second phase because I have to work in an ESD lab (basically means the room has to be shielded from any form of electro-static) ...which means I will be isolated from people :( . I had a meeting yesterday where I had to report my progress on the software portion of the testing because there are several other portions involved too and they were all like "didn't you just start?". Then I tell them I'm actually just an intern. LOL...I wonder if they are all thinking "oh shit!". I was glad that I was able to tell them that I had completed some stuff so I didn't look like an idiot. Yesterday, I also had lunch with my manager and some other co-worker. It was pretty amusing, yet odd...he's a pretty entertaining fellow when he's not telling me there's a deadline.

On Wednesday, our weekly intern event was bowling. Not a lot of interns came, but a lot of the more recent hires came. I met a lot of people and got to listen to the projects they are working on. I think that I've never really appreciated Lockheed as a company. I'm still wishy-washy about whether I want to work here or not when I graduate, but I've come to realize that the things that I have done here have been pretty great. I mean, how many people can say that they get to work on and be a part of innovative technology that changes the world. It was surreal to realize that everyone there was working on these crazy-ass projects from satellites to planes to missles and other secret projects.

Yesterday, I went out to a bar called Nolah in Palo Alto with some of the co-workers. It's like this New Orleans inspired place....I wish they were still serving food cause I bet it would have been good. It was Stanford Grad appreciation night there, so it was full of a bunch of Standford graduate students, including some of my co-workers. Nevin, one of my co-workers, drove me around the Stanford campus...but it was night, so I didn't see much.

Memorial Weekend

On Saturday, I was at the mercy of the Californian public transportation system to make my way to Vallejo in order to visit a cousin/great aunt there. I did not know this person existed until about a week ago when my mom informed me so and we have been in contact since I came to California. I'm not quite sure how she's related to me due to the fact that the Vietnamese relative naming convention is a little confusing. So I took numerous trains and buses and managed to make my way up there after nearly 6 hours!!! It takes like 1 hour to drive there from San Jose. I was suppose to take a ferry at one point across the San Francisco Bay, but the one train I was on was late, so I didn't get to :(....maybe another time. On my way, I met a man that was in California for a business trip from Japan and a woman who was there to visit her daughter from Australia....I just happened to meet them because they both asked me for directions. For some reason, people are always asking me for directions! I must appear to know where I'm going....too bad I always have to tell them "I don't know. I'm new here."

So I got there Saturday evening and met some relatives and we had some Buon...always tasty. They live in a really nice house and it was nice to have such a luxury after being at this shit hole. She has two sons and I think they would be my cousins. They are really cute and just wanted me to play with me all the time. I've played more video games this weekend then I have my entire life! On Sunday, they took me to some friends and we ate, then they had their own little party at their place. It basically consisted of a bunch of people sitting around eating crab and watching Paris By Night....your typical Vietnamese get together. My aunt has gotten it into her head that she is going to find me a Vietnamese guy after I told her that I wasn't particularly keen to them. One of her friends has a son that's like a few years older than me named John and he was also at the party. She was inquiring if I thought he was cute and whether I would go spend time with him if he asked......rolling my eye and trying not to shiver.

Today, they drove me to the Vietnamese center in San Jose. It was pretty cool and we had some good food at one of the restaurants there. It's pretty close to where I live, so I will make sure to visit it a lot. They then took me back to my shit hole to help me move my luggage and stuff over to my new place. After this, they left to go back to San Jose.

My new place is sooo much better than the shit hole. I decided to hit Target up right away to get sheets and such and I ran into one of my housemates. His name is Warren and he offered to drive me to Target :) I just took him up on the offer because I didn't want to walk there my first time. So he took me there and walked around to help carry my stuff. Then he showed me this park and then took me to the mall in Santa Clara!! LOL! He was really nice and has already invited me to some outings with his friends. I met another housemate later and she seemed nice too. Eh...time for sleep.

P.S: Miss Japan just got crowned Miss Universe and Miss Korea came in third. AZN POWER!

P.S.S: This tidbit is for Melissa:

During the evening gown parade, Miss USA, Rachel Smith, slipped on the runway and landed on her bottom, although the slip didn't stop her earning fifth place.

This year's contest was marked by controversy, with a handful of Mexicans booing Smith in the run-up to the finals because of what they saw as U.S. unfriendliness toward illegal immigrants.

In another hitch, Miss Mexico was made to change her outfit for the regional dress contest after her original dress, decorated with brutal images of rebels in a 1920s religious uprising being hanged or shot, drew accusations of poor taste.

Week In Review

I've been in California for a week now and I am starting to feel comfortable and enjoying myself. A lot has been happening, but I've been too busy to update and often times lazy. I'm just going to make a really quick summary because I will be out of town for several days and I know I will not be wanting to talk about any of this stuff after that.

Tuesday- There was a welcome lunch for me and like 30 people came. I really like working here because there are so many young people. It seems like everyone is really friendly. At least 5 or 6 different people stop by my office each day to chit chat with me...probably cause it's the first week. My work is....stressful. With a deadline looming, there's so much pressure because even if I do a good job, it almost doesn't count for anything if I don't meet the deadline. I'm not going to complain that it's hard, but I'm doing more in my first week as an intern then most new hires do in their first month. Also, they gave me a Level 4 Engineer's task (Level 6 is the highest) that I have to familiarize and master in less than a month.

Wednesday- Just getting into the grind of work. There's a Vietnamese man that was a new hire into the group the same time I started and he has befriended me. He comes by my office around lunch and we go eat lunch. I bring him along with my other co-worker friends to lunch too cause I just don't want to limit myself to who I interact with. He tells me about his daughter and his doctor wife and tells me to not take my parents for granted...and also to work for BOEING instead. LOL.

Thursday - I started to make quick friends with some of the younger workers. We take snack and coffee breaks all the time. LOL. I quite enjoy the people....although there are some incredibly nerdy ones.... I went on this little mini-golf outing with like 10 other interns as one of the Intern Program's activities. I got a ride from this chick that goes to UofM and we had dinner with other UofM people. ugh. I suck at mini-golf....but I am quite good at making the golf ball ricochet of rocks. The dude that I met at the orientation came by to check out his soon to be home....can't wait to move out!!

Friday- Had a long meeting with my boss....he reminds me of the dad named Peter from Family Guy. It's pretty funny. After work, I went to this bar in Palo Alto with some co-workers and it was a great time. We got this huge beer thing that's like the equivalent of 4 pitchers of beer. I really liked the bar and the people there were friendly. After this bar, we crashed a party at Stanford. The party was ok....but the people there were not the most attractive people I've seen. What business do they even have partying anyways?

I am sleepy and I can't believe that I'm still up at 2:30 in the morning! Boy am I becoming an old lady fast.

First Day

Woke up at 5 AM in the morning!! It takes 45 minutes on the lightrail for me to get to work, plus another 15 minutes of walking. I had to be at work at 7:30 for the orientation and I was about a half hour late because Mo,who was showing me where to get on the lightrail, didn't time it right. The orientation was only for interns because there's a whole intern program with events and stuff tailored for interns. I met some people and talked to some, but I wasn't as social as I should've been. Most of it was because I was late and I felt kinda shitty about that. Turns out that there's like 5 interns from UofM. I ended up talking to one of them and he is in need of a place to stay, so he will be staying with MO in my place. I'm soooo glad it worked out that way because when I told MO that I didn't want to live with her anymore....she was pretty peeved about it.

Work was pretty amusing today. Lockheed in Sunnyvale is HUGE....I would compare it to a big campus. It's so big that there are shuttle vans that take the employees around to different buildings, as well as bike stations where people can use a yellow bike and ride it around. On top of that, it's heavily fenced and guarded, which makes transportation on foot almost impossible due to security.

I met my manager, Dave, and he seems nice and laid back. He told me that I was the only intern in the department. Just like last year....I'm in a project where no other interns are hired :( He is having me take over a project for someone who had to go on medical leave due to heart problems. There is soooo much pressure for me on this project because I have to be the one to make a test program and perform all necessary testing. I have to be done with the testing for it in a month!! What is this project I speak of???? This is a D5 missile. It's a missile that is launched into space from a submarine. See where the fire blows out? What I have to do for this project is to make sure that the mechanism in which the fire comes out works properly so that the missile can properly be launched. This isn't a classified project, so I can talk about it. So I have a month to do this and then I am going to work on a different project which I can't disclose. Man oh man.

uhhh.....??

My roommate is wasted and passed out on the couch....and she's suppose to be up in 6 hours for work.

In Search of Food and a Home...

So I decided to wander outside in search of food yesterday. I found a Vietnamese store on Yahoo that was .6 miles from here, so I decided I would go there and get myself some instant noodles and Vietnamese subs. Alas, with my lousy sense of direction, I ended up going right when I should've gone left and ended up in the Mexican area. I was able to put my Spanish skills to use by asking Donde Keyes street?, but the gentleman who sold me the strawberry shortcake ice cream bar did not know, so I just wandered around some more and decided to hit up a Mexican restaurant for some chips and salsa. The owner ended up giving them to me for FREE! My first good fortune in Cali....FREE chips and salsa! I went into some Mexican stores and bought some water and oranges, but they did not have instant noodle :( I just went home after this little adventure and took a nap.

After a couple of days at my current residence, I decided that I don't really like it here and I don't much care for my roommate, so I have been on the hunt for a new place to live. I found one this morning and I even bused there to check it out and I like it a lot better than here. It's like a house/apartment complex and there are currently 3 other people there with their own rooms. I would have my own room and share the kitchen and stuff. Rent is only $495 compared to here, which is $850!! Plus, the train station that I would need to take to work is just a block away as compared to a mile from here. So I signed the lease, but I can't move in until middle of next week. Blah...I don't want to stay here for another week, but oh well. I haven't told my roommate that I'm moving out yet and I hope she won't be too mad. I just really hated living here and I didn't want to spend the next 3 months living in a place I didn't like and having to pay a shit load for it. She's nice, so I feel sorta bad about screwing her over.

I start work tomorrow and I'm sooo excited to meet people!!!

Here I Go Again...

Since I kept an account of my time in Virginia last summer, I decided I would do this for my time in California as well. I'm still interning with Lockheed, but for their Space Systems business unit rather than their Maritime Systems. I worked really hard to get this internship in California because I've never been to California and I've always had an interest in Space. I turned down an internship with NASA this summer and I hope that in the end, this works out.

Originally, I was going to come to San Jose a few days earlier, which is where I'll be living for the summer, so that I could situate myself and maybe explore the area before I began work. This didn't happen though because Nick and I decided to road trip to DC and to drop of our robotic arm at NASA for a week. I've been to DC a few times before, but this was the best time I've had there. Visiting Goddard was also a great experience....but I think Nick was more psyched than I ;). We got back from DC early yesterday morning and then I flew to San Jose this morning.

So now I've been in San Jose for about 3 hours, 1 of which was spent at the airport because I couldn't figure out where to find my ride to the house. Mo, who is the girl that owns the house and is renting out a room for me is at work right now, so she left me the key on a mat in the backyard and that's how I got in. I will officially meet her tonight I assume.

Right now, I have the same feeling of loneliness and isolation that I had last summer when I first arrived in Virginia. It's this feeling of being in a completely new place and not knowing anyone. Then I wonder....what if I don't enjoy my 3 months here? Sure I'm in California and interning at a great company, but what if I don't like the work and what if I don't meet the right people? Last summer, I ended having a really good experience because I liked the work, but most of all, I met a lot of really great people who I still keep in touch with. I hope the same will happen this summer and I hope this feeling will go away soon.

So my first impression of the house is ehh. I stayed at a really NICE house last summer and I guess I shouldn't compare. It's a nice house and it's pretty roomy.....but I have to get use to the smell. I'm going to buy some candles first chance I get. I have my own room which is connected to a bathroom that I share with Mo and then I get my own half bathroom. The bed is basically a futon....but I am small, so it's ok. The house appears to be clean, but the sink is kind of dirty....I hope Mo is clean... As far as the neighborhood goes, it appears safe, but I haven't wandered outside yet... I guess I should start unpacking....or maybe I'll take a nap.