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.