| 8 dec 2001 shit. i played some full court basketball today (12 to 2), and one of the guys, daniel, smashed his head against my jaw. now my jaw is all out of alignment, and it hurts to close and open it. this happens fairly frequency, and it really sucks. i think the pain is giving me the headache. hopefully the advil will take effect soon. jay just called. he's bringing me a cheseburger (animal style, of course) from in n out. i'm glad he's back. i was napping on the futon (yes, i really should stop taking naps during the day if i want to shift back my sleeping schedule) when i heard the thuds coming up the stairs. he and margaret came in, both tanner than when they left, and i was just happy. yesterday was kind of a small fiasco in terms of my job decision. caspian said no. which was ok, because they're in a financial pickle in terms of running out of funding, and even though i think they would have been really fun to work for, i think the offer wouldn't have been that great. but anyways, so i sat there after receiving the rejection e-mail, and i had a smoke (too lazy to hike to the foothills) to decide. so i had basically made my decision, but then i decided to call chi-kai for some advice and some 2nd point of view. he told me that i should negotiate my offer, something which i really have no idea how to do... i'm just a really big wuss when it comes to coming off strong and haggling for a stronger position. but after a while, i decided i would try, and i called up the CTO and got all psyched up to argue for my sake. but he wasn't there... and then, chi-kai must have done some more probing, because he talked to adam, who knows the founders and has had some contact with the company, and he came back with what he thought was "dirt" on the company. he called me, relayed the info to me, and basically i freaked out. so it was well past the workday, and i was just in a bad mood. i don't like it when i find out bad stuff (well, allegedly bad) about the company i'm about to go for. so during the dinner at korea house with jay and margaret, i was just cross, and i think the botherment just really got to me, because i had a 3-hour bout with insomnia, thinking about how i could psych myself up to go to the other company and stuff. i wound up falling asleep at the ridiculous time of 4am. before going to sleep, i fired off a desperate e-mail to adam, telling him to give me his esteemed opinion and to give me a call the next day. so adam called at 10am, and we talked for about an hour. he basically allayed my fears, and i feel good again. i just hope the offer stands, and i'm still going to try to negotiate my stock option package, but just not as aggressively as i was going to. adam is yet another one of my ex-coworkers at vivace who reads my journal. like a lot of people, he finds my earwax stories amusing. yesterday was kristie's birthday. i don't think i'll ever forget the date, even though we only celebrated one of her birthdays while we were together. i don't even remember what i got her that day. but, basically, i sent her an e-mail (i have no other way of getting in touch with her), cordially wishing her a happy day and stuff. i even told her that if i knew her address, i'd send along peter murphy's latest live album. peter murphy is one of the musical outlets i found while we were getting to know each other freshman year... songs from his albums _love hysteria_ and _deep_ still remind me of her and our times together. i don't know how long i've been e-mailing her on her birthday. but as long as i remember, i'll do it. and maybe miraculously, someday she'll come around and actually write me back. i don't expect much, though... tennessee is playing LSU in the SEC championship game. they say if tennessee loses, it'll be an uproar because according to the BCS, nebraska will then go to national championship game. and that's a supposed travesty because nebraska didn't win their division, and their last game was a huge blowout loss to colorado. so the gist is that most people feel they don't deserve to go, and a lot of people want the BCS thrown out, and would use this scenario as evidence that the BCS is a sham system of selecting the national championship contenders. i dunno. i'd just like to see the controversy unfold out of sheer curiosity. i actually took the time to figure out how the BCS ranking work, and i think it's pretty neat, if anything. i just find it dumb how stanford is ranked #9 nationally in the BCS this season, yet they're going to some no-name bowl in seattle. ouch. my head hurts. for the first time since i can remember, i'm only going to eat one in n out burger for a meal. i think jay was surprised. but man. i feel like shit. oh my. eric has been converted to a blogger. i guess in a way, i'm happy, because i hope that means he'll be updating more frequently. but i kinda liked his old format. sometimes bloggers write so little that i find myself feeling unsatisfied and wanting more. but anyways, he gave me a call yesterday to ask me if knew the phone stalker that just randomly called him up. now, i consider myself pretty open in meeting my readers, even inviting them to AIM me if they have the motivation to search me out, but a phone call? i think that even i would be a little spooked out by that. i hope that's the extent of the nuisances eric has to face. so that's about it. i've decided on my company, and now it's just a small pain of trying to negotiate my stock option package up a couple of percent (i'm not going to be as aggressive as chi-kai suggested), and then it's time for me to work. and then this whole pain-in-the-ass ordeal of being unemployed will be over. i am definitely grateful that my old employees are my friends . and that they are more than willing to give me advice, to help me... and basically look out for me. it makes me feel good. |