| 12 dec 2001 well, it's my first day at work. no exclamation points. i was actually really happy earlier, when i drove down 101 to the office. i was excited and stuff. but now, i've been poring over this 100+ page DENSE technical document about the system architecture and description, and i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. i started strong for about two pages, and then things just started flying way over my head. like WAY over. i guess it's expected, because i am just starting from scratch on learning about networking architectures, but man... i sure feel stupid and ignorant right now. i got a papercut from the document. a diagonal one... sliced a nice piece of skin off, just like one of those arby's roast beef blades. eww. i got really little sleep last night. i played halo from 11 to around 12:30am, and i got past the 2nd level. and then, i got sucked in some more, like "hey... i'll just take a peek at the next level." and bam! they gave me a sniper rifle! snipers. *drool* if i had to fight in a war, i'd want to be a sniper. forget all the glory of battling in the front lines... i want to sit back and hide out in a tree or underneath a pile of leaves, and just scope out people and take them out. it's intoxicating power. but anyways, in halo, you get this sniper rifle, and you zoom in, aim for their heads, and just blow them away. one shot. and they're dead. they never know what hit them. it's fucking rad. but basically, (and i knew this would happen), after playing video games for that long (some people wouldn't even call that a long time), all i could dream about was halo. and i couldn't fall asleep for the longest time, either, so basically i got shitty sleep and had to wake up about 9 or so. oh yeah. by the way, i have to be IN the office by 9am every friday for a company-wide meeting. that really sucks. so i think the initial excitement here has worn off. i got to meet basically everyone in the company, and i have yet to find someone that i can see myself hanging out with. like, you know, someone i can just chat about incessantly with in his cubicle. maybe i gotta look harder. but i dunno. it's gonna take some work. i really should have eaten lunch with some of them today. you know, make some friends right away. but i called rahul up (he's back from india) and drove over to vivace and had lunch with him instead. it was good seeing him again, although the thai restaurant we went to was a little bit too loud to have any decent conversation. it's weird now, because i feel like asking him all this stuff about how work is going, stuff about the company, but i realized that i am not one of the priveleged people anymore... i don't work there anymore, so they have no obligation to tell me about the inner workings of vivace. does anybody out there know what happened in the WWF after survivor series? i was watching _raw_ the other day, and i noticed that some alliance members were still fighting, so what the hell happened? i thought the wwf won the battle, and they kicked out the alliance. and how did stone cold become a good guy again? and how come y2j became a bad? i'm just confused. i swear, it's like a soap opera. but for guys. but anyways, missing a few weeks of it is already enough to flip all the roles around and not know what's going on. hm. i unpacked my box; it's the box that i packed the day i got laid off at vivace. i pulled out my transformer (jazz), my wooden hand, random shit like that. and my rubik's cube. i wonder if i can still do a rubik's cube... i'm kind of petrified of messing it up right now, because i'll feel really uneasy if i can't solve it. seeing an unsolved rubik's cube is like having an itch i can't scratch... i just can't deal with it. i think it's another part of my OCD; some people can't handle having dollar bills not all facing the same way... for me, it's seeing a messed up rubik's cube. despite the fading of my initial excitement here at greenfield. i have to say this... it feels damn good to know i'm getting an income again. oh. last night, i took jay and margaret out to swagat (they were feeling rather weary about buffets after eating at so many of them in costa rica). i was scoffing at the meager portions they were giving in their a la carte menu, but it turned to be a shitload of food. i guess the rice and nan really fills you up. not to mention the BUTTER sauce. yum. i was saying earlier that i could eat all three people's entrees, but i turns out that one was plenty. i felt pretty disgusted afterwards. indian food has the highest diminishing returns i have ever seen. i mean, it's stratospherically good in the beginning, but after a while, it can get really really disgusting. it's amazing how the same thing can bring such polar opposites of feelings. it turns out that i got assigned on a rather "unsexy" chip. i probabliy can't talk about what it does, but it's basically not the best assignment, i.e. the one where i'd learn the most about the fundamentals of networking. i'm not too worried about it yet, but if i find out that i'm going to be designing something akin to my dreaded "CFi' block, i'm going to shit a few bricks. i don't want to go through that again. damn. it's quiet in here. i think my typing at least doubles the noise decibel level of this place. i've been ticcing a bit in the office. i don't know how people are handling it. i wonder if they think i have a persistent cough or something. engineer's aren't generally the kind of people who are brave enough to ask me directly what's going on... and i'm afraid that they're just going to sit there and think what the fuck is wrong with me. i gotta look for my TS brochure and post it outside my cubicle, just in case somebody is curious. i feel like i just moved to another city on my own. it kinda sucks, i guess, not knowing anyone. it'll get better. it BETTER get better! ok. off to read some more grueling documentation. *blech* |