क्रिस्ती

So it appears I'm the only qualified candidate for a summer position that pays obscenely well. (i.e. a higher rate than I have ever before earned.) I'm not well qualified, mind you, but it appears I'm the only one in my class with a BSEE/CS. Or in the class at Hastings or Stanford. I think that says as much about the economy and how strong the field is relative to other degree areas.

I was pretty much planning on going to Europe over the summer. The school is running a very nice program in intellectual property in Munich. I'd done a lot of research into how I'd be working that out and pretty much had all the paperwork together. However, the amount of debt I'm accumulating is beginning to terrify me, in addition to the scrimping and scraping getting old. There's also a very sizable deposit, which I'd rather not sink if I'm wavering.

Along with the obscene paying position, there are other positions open that pay pretty well too. They include one with AT&T, although I'm not a huge fan of working for, as one fellow I dated called it when he worked for them "the death star", it would be excellent experience in an area I already have a strong background in. I also hear that Cisco is probably going to open one or two spots for 1Ls. I think I'll still all the Cisco references back on my resume for that, although they probably still have my ticket records from way back. I'm thinking others will show up when they have the high tech career fair.

It's highly probable I'd be able to find a position that pays. I imagine if that all falls through then I could just keep taking classes over the summer. I'm keen on lightening my load towards the end so I can coast a bit once I'm totally burnt out. Of course, I need to do what I can to avoid burning out before then.

A number of friends have posted long lists of accomplishments of things they did over the last year. I am trepidatious about this, as there are a number of very ugly things I had to overcome that I would have to count as successes.

However, it is a bad spot when you consider your successes more horrifying than not accomplishing anything. I have found the energy to stand up to that. Hopefully the coming year will be better.

I started the year rushing to get out a proposal for a NASA grant. We had a pretty good shot at it. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of enough about the grant to put together a proposal that sufficiently met the requirements. However, it was a tremendous learning experience putting the whole thing together.

My LSAT scores came in in early January and I discovered that I did quite well on the exam. Over the course of the next 3 months, I applied to several law schools. This involved talking a number of people into writing recommendation letters, cleaning up my finances (a process that took over 6 months to fully complete), gathering all my academic information from the various universities I'd studied at and writing an excellent application essay. The process itself was kind of epic. I was accepted with a scholarship to Santa Clara University school of law.

I had to give up my studio at the end of January, so I managed to squeeze what I couldn't fit into my tiny bedroom into an 8x8 storage space. It was pretty packed. I moved almost everything myself. At the end of that, the building had a major bedbug scare, so I found myself sterilizing the bulk of one of my housemate's possessions, as well as spending an inordinate amount of time checking my own. I managed to extract myself from ongoing obligations to deal with the problem but angering others. First nightmare of the year.

I stripped down all the LED lighting in our Syzygryd project, sort of leading a small army to clean the LED strips, coat them, and re-install the lights in every cube. When it was done, I joined the team that brought it down to San Bernardino for Beyond Wonderland to install it, run it and take it down afterwards.

I did a lot of volunteer work for the Red Cross. I assisted people burned out of their homes at about a dozen fires. I helped pick up, package and deliver 3 hot meals a day to 8 locations for 1-200 people who had been displaced by a large fire for two weeks. I took all possible training with the Red Cross in disaster technical operations, including hands-on exercises with satellite equipment and other field disaster equipment.

I was invited to take a road trip to see one of the final shuttle launches and attend the New Orleans Jazz festival. I measured a clutch plate on a Porche engine and replaced it because it was too thin. I helped insert the engine into a VW camper. I traded off driving it, working on learning how to drive a stick-shift again, all the way to New Orleans when it broke down. Managed to extricate myself from a wildly dangerous situation that arose in rural Mississippi as a result of the breakdown, allergies, increased tensions and a completely unhinged travelling partner in the middle of the night, enlisting the help of family to arrive safely back home. Second nightmare of the year.

June was largely pleasant but lazy and I can't think of a thing I accomplished. July came with a third nightmare: my unemployment checks, along with all my other mail, were lost. I managed to scrape by for the entire month without any income or any money, largely with the help of a good friend. I moved to Santa Clara, also with the help of that friend, in Late July.

Early august had me settling down in the 'burbs. I spent the first two weeks unpacking, making jam, and getting to know the area a bit. I continued on with struggles over financial aid, a bureaucratic quirk with renewing my driving license and resolving all the issues of having my mail stalled for over a month over the summer.

In mid-August Law school orientation began, and thus my descent into shutting out the rest of my life and sinking everything I have into school. Nothing else of significance has been accomplished for the rest of the year. 

A robot I won from a raffle at Robogames arrived in late August, just in time for me to not quite get it completely working before classes overwhelmed me. 

All in all, it was a very difficult year. It's also hard to look at this year as full of accomplishments since so much has been dedicated to a single purpose. There's a nagging sense in the back of my head that I should have a fuller life, and I'd be happier and more productive and effective in law school if I did. I'm not sure what to do about that, but I know if I was more, uh, focused on my studies I'd do better with it.

I split with my latest paramour a little over a month ago. I spent much of New Years day with him, as a result of mutual friends, among other things. It made me sad to realize this, but my decision to split is even more resolute.

We are alike enough, I so want him to be different than he is. He's so generally agreeable, I want him to be the person I need him to be. But he's not, and I have come to accept that and move on. The differences, although fundamental to my world, seem inconsequential enough that it makes me frustrated that they exist at all.

But I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I want from people around me and it's become more clear to that there are some things I'm now unwilling to live without. To be with him would require abandoning several.

When I was young, I had a sister who was a complete kleptomaniac. I could reliably trust her to take from me anything and everything of value. I either would not or could not steal much back. (Not sure if it was lack of skill, fear or I was just too ethical for my own good. I like to think the latter.) My parents found my accusations of her incredulous so I didn't really have any recourse. I think that's why I lost interest in the admiration of things. Why waste energy wanting things if you knew if you got them they'd only be taken from you. It was a tough lesson for a child to learn, but I think I'm glad I did. It has freed me from the bonds of my possessions in ways that allows me an enormous amount of flexibility and freedom as an adult.

As a result there are only a few things I need to be happy, but I'm sure many consider them very strange. The first is I need to be surrounded by ideas. It strikes me as a kind of hell to be stuck in a place where people only talk about those unimportant things, or even people to some extent. Events are interesting enough, but when they don't mean anything other than themselves, they get boring pretty fast. It's only when thoughts meander into the realm of ideas that it really holds my interest.

The other odd thing that's important to me is I need to be surrounded by giants. If I don't admire the people around me, then my self esteem starts eroding away. I think it's perhaps that regardless of who I'm around, I never really feel superior to anyone (despite how I may sound), so I wind up trying to make myself smaller to be able to enjoy being around people I don't really admire. And oddly that eats into my self-esteem more than being overshadowed by great intelligence or accomplishments.

The other day I went to a round-table led by a local congresscritter focusing on the state of the net. It was an interesting discussion about how these really broken laws get enacted in Congress. Of course, the folks representing California are getting a lot on both sides of the issue, what with both the content industry and the tech industry both being seated here. (Hollywood and Silicon Valley respectively.)

One of the points she made was that the entirety of the high tech industry has fewer total lobbyists than a single phone company. When I tweeted this, my tech activist friends applauded it as a sign of allowing congress to do their jobs without trying to interfere. That's not the spirit it was intended.

In the course of discussion about all these offensive laws that get proposed about the net, the speaker (Zoe Lofgren) was trying to explain why congress is generally clueless as to technology in general. See, in our current model of government, legislators are educated by lobbyists. If there's not a lobbyist to explain something to them then they won't ever come to understand it.

It makes sense how originally the system was meant as a means of utilizing experts in the industry, with no taxpayer expense, to inform lawmakers on the details and needs of their respective industry. I can understand why, in this age of a billion lobbyists, things get out of hand. The loudest voice gets heard. Truth and representation get distorted. I can get behind the movement to get the lobbyists out of Washington.

But that leaves a big vacuum that I am not sure the anti-lobbyists are even beginning to address. How do the lawmakers in Washington learn what the issues are? Are we willing to expand the size of government to hire experts on every subject imaginable to inform them? If we do, how can we be sure they, in turn, remain impartial?

I don't really see an alternative to the lobbying situation. I do think the tech industry needs to engage more. And there needs to be tighter restrictions on what they can do (and HOW they can inform) but in general, I'm pretty certain lobbyists in general are a good thing.

Don't eliminate, regulate

Some folks 'round here have heard of the G+ nymwars. I made a post on G+, but then realized that I can't set it so that those who have accounts suspended can see it, so here it is in all its glory:

OK, I finally put my finger on that niggling thing that was bothering me with the "real names" policy that hasn't been stated in any of the many articles, comments and discussions I've read on it.

First, let us be clear. It is a "real-sounding" names policy, not a real name policy. +Camilla Corona SDO, the rubber space chicken is apparently still posting freely, while the person with the real name of +Violet Blue has been suspended. Why would this be? Why would Google care more about an apparent fake name than a profile that clearly doesn't represent a person?

It hearkens me back to when I lauded the new age of advertising that Google brought on. Targeted ads. No longer would advertisers find it advantageous to try to homogenize the population to enable their ads to reach a broader population. No longer would there be that pressure to conform to tastes and style. 
And names.

I find it eerily reminiscent of the old days of advertising when there were active forces shaping our culture and directing our future. Our desires were driven by market forces, rather than the other way around. Directed advertising, Google's Bread and Butter, changed all that, putting desire back in the hands of the individual It was a great thing for American (and world!) culture and it made Google rich.

Now, it looks like they're not satisfied with that and seek to go back to the way it was, undercutting everyone, including themselves.

I have spent the last few months at least emotionally, if not otherwise, completely buried in frustration with the worst bureaucracy I think I have ever had to deal with in my life. This is pretty remarkable, considering I was raised military (i.e. I learned to write by filling out forms.)

It started with a stray student loan that no one in three agencies could seem to track down for months. (And then when it was nearly dispensed with, it was turned over to a collection agency, who were great about contacting me. Ahem.) I finally get all that resolved (JUST in time to get enrolled for law school - it was seriously down to the wire).

Then I discovered another alarming problem. My driving license was expiring and I can't get it renewed. Of course, I could only ascertain this after standing in line for hours at the DMV. To make a long story short, I've spoken with at least a dozen government agencies, stood in line at the DMV for many, many hours (since that's the only definitive way to tell if it's been resolved) and still haven't resolved a thing. The last story I heard was that it could take 4-8 WEEKS for the office in California to process such clearances once they receive them. I sure am glad I live walking distance to school.

Add to the mix not having any income for the month of July. It's not that I wasn't having any money sent my way. As soon as I stopped spending much time at home, important pieces of mail started disappearing. Things that were obviously checks. Loan paperwork also fell in this category. Just when I needed the income the most, it disappeared. I won't even speculate on the attitudes or passive-aggressiveness of various housemates as to my presence or absence. At least I can say that's all in the past. I had the missing checks reissued and sent to my new address. Mere days before the old check turned up. (Postmarked weeks earlier.) Any DMV notice telling me my license has expired still hasn't turned up.

This made moving exceptionally tricky. But I managed to accomplish it with (more than) a little help from a friend. I might have managed it OK on my own, due to some extraordinary luck right at the end, but at least it was slightly less stressful in this regard. There are a few outstanding issues, but I think I have everything important covered.


And now, I'm starting law school. It's the scariest undertaking of my life. I'm spending almost as much for one year's tuition as I did on the entire cost of purchase of my house, and it's a 3 year program.

And I still don't have a proper driving license.

This is going to be interesting.

So I have a new boyfriend and have been spending quite a lot of time at his place. Because of that and all the traveling I've been doing lately, last night I was home for the first time in two weeks. I slept 11 hours, sleeping through the event I stayed home in order to make. When I awoke I was so swollen and stiff that I could barely move, despite taking a triple dose of antihistamines. Even after being awake for several hours, things didn't get better. I still have bags under my eyes.

I have been beating myself up for the last year struggling with why I have accomplished so little and why I've let so many people down. Now I think I have a very definitive answer. The allergies are worse than Kansas here, and there is no reprieve if I wind up spending all my time at home, as invariably happens when I feel so bad. I'm in a classic example of a feedback cycle.

I'm hoping Lun won't mind me wanting to spend a lot of time at his place until I move. Somehow I suspect not. 

I'm following the Prop8 trial today. They're trying to decide if a gay judge can fairly decide the case, or if he should have recused himself.

This raises a question of self-determination and whose "rights" need protecting more. From the perspective of the gay rights supporter, the argument is patently absurd.

So I go searching for a context where it isn't utterly absurd, and I think I figured it out. It makes sense only if you "otherize" glbt folks, making them decidedly "not us".

Once you have established that mindset, you can move in on this whole marriage thing. It is something that has always been uniquely yours. By letting them in, even worse, by letting THEM decide on whether they can pollute this institution you have there is an invasion.

I mean, how could one of THEM possibly decide fairly. They couldn't possibly understand how sacred and important this institution was. If they could even remotely grasp it, they'd choose to be other than what they are. It's not like they're black or a woman or some other situation that has no choice, right?

I don't think this thought process ever makes the threshold of awareness before it shapes people's opinions. I wonder if it would change anything if it did.

Posted via LjBeetle

So for this latest outing I hopped on a 46 foot sailing vessel to head upriver for a floating festival. (That some dear readers may know as not being Ephemerisle.)

The capitain of the boat was and is still delightful in a slightly churlish sailor curmudgeon sort of way. It's been fascinating sailing with someone who not only has political views so much in line with my own, but has just as much penchant for sleeping until noon. I didn't know that sailors were allowed to do that, even on their own boats.

The boat itself is a wonder. What other vessel of this size would house its own dainty little machine shop? I would easily be comfortable living in such a spacious cabin. The voyage itself was peaceful, if perhaps overly calm. And the rest of the crew were friendly and interesting.

It was over halfway through, though, that my trouble began. I woke up one morning with my face and arms covered with hives. The hives on the backs of my ears gave it away, though. I seem to have developed an allergy to my sunscreen. No more time in the sun at the water festival. Nevertheless, I got considerably more color than I wanted.

So my idea was... of course I should sleep all day and dance the night away! That worked pretty well, except dancing on that undulating platform did a real number on my knees, seriously unaccustomed to such strain. The next day (afternoon) as I was getting around, I found myself stiff and weak. I stumbled and fell.

By this time, I'm pretty good at assessing if I broke something just by my reaction after the injury. When I regained my wits, it was mostly a question of what it was that I broke. (That period of denial has waned over the years.) Weirdly enough it was my 4th toe. I think that's a first. (3rd gets broken because it's longest, 5th because it's on the outside...)

So now I'm here on the boat. We just stopped for the night. We'll be returning to Oakland on the tides in the "morning". I will then have to schlep all my stuff on a bus then on BART then load it on my motorcycle and ride home. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to all that with a broken toe.

At least the hives are going away. And no ambulance ride! (Ahem)

Posted via LjBeetle

OK, I can stop beating myself up now. Or at least accept why I'm not getting anything done. 

I really seriously don't like several of my housemates. In addition to being pushy and loud, they're here all the time, often with a crowd of other loud, if not pushy people. It makes me want to hide in my room. I kinda hide in my head even.

I've had this sense of not getting very much done since I've been here. Every time I get energized, I feel like I get chased off, not deliberately, but just by people here making me uncomfortable and not wanting to be around them. 

I think it's high time I get a place of my own. I need to focus and it's not happening with all this traffic, noise, clutter and chaos. None of this helps anything. Sure, it's cheaper to live with other people, but with what I'm accomplishing, definitely not worth it.

I'm not even getting any energy from these people who have such strong goals that are in a completely different direction than what I want or need that they kept trying to drag me off to.