| 16 nov 2001 so yesterday from 2:30 to 5:30 i was interviewing with vweb. i thought the interview went well, and the headhunter told me that they were really excited in meeting me, but for some insane reason, they didn't extend an offer. i noticed things were a little fishy when the people in the latter rounds didn't ask me much... in fact, i got very few technical questions. i dunno. very fishy. i mean, i don't think i did anything badly, and i answered everything ok except for one question out dividing negative two's complement numbers, but... hm. i dunno. i don't think i would have gone to that company given other potential offers (like from cisco or nvidia), but i don't think it was obvious that i found their company unsexy and rather boring. oh, and the other problem i had with the company was that it was ALL old chinese people working there. i mean, yeah, i'm chinese and stuff, but i like more diversity in my coworker demographics. and no hot women there. :) and there was this fiasco that happened when i tried to go to eric's performance at stanford. so i got there at 7:55, and i pulled into tresidder parking lot. but damn, there was absolutely _no_ parking anywhere. in the two parking lots, along lomita... and after 10 minutes of driving around (with a bunch of other cars that were also looking for parking), i got really pissed off and went home. i mean, i was already late for the performance, and i HATE walking in late during an intimate performance anyway. argh. i really wanted to see eric perform, because he said that this might be his last semi-pro cello perf gig. so i went home all upset. i wonder what the hell all those people were doing at stanford anyway... i drove by dink looking to see if they had a performance there, but it seemed to be empty. so i went home and watched my tape of that night's _friends_. dude. mona is pretty cute. i don't like the name, but the actress is definitely pretty. jay come home last night for the first time in days. it was to see his face again. he cooked this kal-bi and stuff, and it smelled really good. i mean, i had in n' out a few hours earlier, but i got hungry just sniffing his food. but i held my ground and instead opted for a large bowl of cereal and some potato chips, which eventually pushed me over the edge and resulted in a yackfest once again. *sigh* i'm baffled by vweb's behavior. i really am. the only thing i can come up with is maybe my financial figures scared them off. i know it's stereotypical and stuff, but i get the feeling that chinese companies can be a little stingy, and maybe they felt like they couldn't give me the compensation that i wanted. i mean, it's not like i said, "look, i NEED $X." i told them in an offhand manner and told them that i understood that with the economy in the shape it's in, i don't have any expectations. ARGH. what the hell happened? it's funny how something that i wasn't interested in still upsets me when i realize i can't get it anyway. so i have an interview with cisco lined up for monday afternoon. to tell you the truth, i'm pretty nervous. i remember the last time i interviewed with cisco... it was pretty technical, and now that i'm no longer a newbie fresh from college, i know the questions are going to be much tougher. and with all the weird shit that's happened with some of my interviews this round (like me thinking i did well, and getting the negatory afterwards), it's not doing good things for my self-confidence. i had lunch with my manager at vivace today. i just realized that i haven't mentioned his first name... and it's not like i have any problems with trying to keep his identity secret, so his name is mohammad. but anyways, we went to vito's pizza, which i've been wanting to go back to for a while. it's good stuff. but anyways, he gave me some pointers as so what to study for my cisco interview (his wife works in the group i'm interviewing with.) so i guess i have to pull out my ee284 book this weekend and do some reading. i dunno. it's good to know that he's looking out for me. i've always tried to do things on my own, i.e. not heeding the advice of others, but i think that people like him, with more experience, are people that i should listen to and learn from. he did let me know that my slacking (and my announcement of such activities) this year didn't help me at all in the decision to lay me off. and i can totally understand that. i've thought about how light work has been this past year, and it comes down to two things... one, i have to put some of the blame on myself and say that i _was_ lazy. especially when i came back from japan... but the other thing was that i didn't have any compelling assignments that required me to grind out long hours of arduous work, either. but yeah, i take fault for most of it, though, because i could have easily been proactive and asked for more work. yum. vito's pizza... i took a look at the toppings list, and next time i gotta have some meat and some GARLIC. mohammad ate some of his pizza by folding the crust in two. i wonder why. i used to eat my pizza by taking two slices and making a sandwich. i had this idea that i could eat more that way, because i'd just be stuffing myself before my stomach would register fullness. blech. oh yeah. before i left to meet up with him, i had this case of the "phantom dump." what i mean is that i got the feeling that i needed to go take a dump, but the moment i sat down, i would twiddle my thumbs, and nothing would happen. it's like the feeling went way. but when i zipped up and stood up, the compelling feeling of needing some dumpage came back, so i'd take off my pants and sit down again. and the cycle would repeat. it's very odd. i came back and took a nap. i was woken up when my cell phone rang and some dude from afara websystems called me. their webpage is pretty lame, and from the first mention of their name (i mean, how unsexy is the word "web" in a company's title? that's so _passe_.) but then he mentioned things that made my ears perk up. first was their investors... one was sequoia capital, which is a highly rated VC firm. the other investor was raza foundries, which is a name i recognized as well. and then he mentioned that the founders were a professor stanford and a guy who was the chief architect for various "famous" microprocessors which i recognized as well. so... my interest is piqued. from what we agreed on in the conversation, i'm gonna meet up with them on tuesday. i took a look at where they're located... and i laughed. it's right near vivace. what a small valley. so the reality is that i still don't have any offers. but i have a scary cisco interview coming up. i am feeling the urgency now to sharpen my brain up and to present myself well. we'll see about nvidia, and a friend of mine is trying to get my foot in the door with caspian networks. and my headhunter is working with 3pardata (even though, yeah, they're based in FREMONT.) so i have some stuff on my plate. it's time to do my best with them. oh, and i'm most likely not going back home for thanksgiving. *sniff* i mean, i'm happy i don't have to fly anywhere (i'm scared of flying once again), but i did want to see my family. ah well. my two goals for this weekend are to learn more about topics relevant to my cisco interview, and to see _harry potter_. laters. |