First All-Nighter

Might actually happen tonight. Why, you ask? Well, I have a huge 213 assignment due Thursday midnight (ie, tonight), and while I currently have a 58/64, I would like a 62/64 (I've sort of given up on the 64/64 because, well, that's near impossible at the moment).

In addition to that, I also have two assignments due on Friday, neither of which I have started. So sleep will happen after I finish 213 tonight, and hopefully get one of the assignments out of the way.

Sleepless at CMU,
Brown CS Girl

Swag I got at the job fair

The title is self explanatory.

Cheers,
A Brown CS girl

Long Hiatus from posting because

SCHOOL FINALLY STARTED.

And by that I mean, the first week of school is over! First week of sophomore year, done. 

And with that, the school work begins. I've been doing well so far, although 213 has been kicking my butt, so hopefully I get somewhere with it soon. 

Short and sweet, 

Brown CS Girl

Happy Independence Day!

Today is August 15th, which means all around India, Independence Day celebrations will be occurring!

Quick update: We're now in Bhubaneshwar, where we will remain for the next five-ish days.

I'm in India!

And therefore posting will be extremely sporadic.

Enjoying the last 4 weeks of summer,
Brown CS Girl

Last Day of Work!

Wow. The day I've been dreaming about since the beginning of July. Not that I didn't enjoy work, but I'm ready for a true summer vacation - the kind where you wake up at 11, do nothing until 4, realize that it's 4 and over half the day is gone and you should probably do normal-human-being activities like eating and showering, and by the time it's over it's 6 and so you laze around till dinner and then chat the night away with friends. Granted, I only get that for about 4 days this summer, since we're leaving for vacation soon after I get home, but I cannot wait! It's been a fantastic summer, and at some point, expect a blog post about things I've learned about myself, humans, Pittsburgh, and the universe in the course of 80 days of summer.

7-hours-55-minutes-before-freedom-(and-by-freedom-I-mean-packing),
Brown CS Girl

A surprisingly addictive website

www.webmathminute.com

Essentially, this tests your math ability by throwing 20 - 100 addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division (or some combination of the aforementioned) at you, and seeing how many you get correct in a certain amount of time. You can pick the minimum and maximum numbers, the number of questions you want to aim for, and if you want to "practice" a certain number, for example, the 3's multiplication table, that as well. It's a really simple concept, yet surprisingly addictive. I've spent a significant amount of time attempting to better my score.

Currently, my record is 81 multiplication questions in 60 seconds, with minimum number 1 and maximum number 12. I'm hoping to correctly answer 100 questions in the near future.

I might be a little bit of a math nerd,
Brown CS Girl

edit: This post was originally published at 2:51 pm. The universe clearly thinks I'm a math nerd as well.

Congratulations Team USA!

Gabby Douglas, Kyla Ross, Jordan Wieber, McKayla Maroney, and Aly Raisman, well done. While I wish I could have watched it, Shawn Johnson's live tweets told me everything that I needed to know about this gymnastics final. Each and every one of you looked unstoppable.

Proud of Team 'MURICA,
Brown CS Girl

Last Summer Weekend in Pittsburgh? Check.

Unfortunately, this past weekend was my last weekend in the beautiful city of Pittsburgh. I have to say, it is much, much nicer in the summer than it is during the school year, although I'm sure that that is because I actually have time to do something other than work during the summer.

Quick recap of the weekend:

Friday night, my friend came. My big and I took him to the Delt House and then Half Price at Fuel and Fuddle.

Saturday: For some reason, my body decided that sleeping at 3:30 am and waking up at 8:30 am was perfectly normal, and so at noon, after being awake for 3.5 hours, vacuuming the house, washing the dishes, and doing laundry, I went grocery shopping, walking both to and from Squirrel Hill since I missed the bus both ways by no more than 10 seconds. By the time I finally got back, my friend was finally awake, so we went to lunch in Shadyside (we went to Chica Loca Taco, a small little taco place) and then hit the AXO house to visit my other friends. After that, he needed to buy some things in Southside, so off we went. Then came dinner at Silk Elephant, a fantastic Thai restaurant in Squirrel Hill, although I was a little disappointed that when I asked for a spicy level 10 Thai Green Curry with Chicken (the spice levels go from 1 to 10, 1 being the mildest), it was not very spicy at all. Nonetheless, Thai food is Thai food, and it was delicious. That night, we all went to a friend's house to chill.

Sunday: My friend was due to leave at 4 pm today, so after waking up at 10:30 am, we decided to just walk around Forbes and Fifth Avenues. Breakfast/Brunch was at Crepes Parisiennes on Craig, then Rita's because it was really, really hot and humid. The only non-food purchases of the day was a $600 smartphone that my friend bought and a $3 shirt that I bought. As we were leaving, we saw some of my friends from the previous night, and they were heading to lunch, so we joined them, although I didn't actually eat anything. By that time, it was already 3 pm, so we returned back to my house and he packed and left for the airport. Afterwards, I worked in Gates for a few hours, walked to Shadyside in an attempt to find an iPhone case (forgetting that most stores are closed on Sunday), worked out, and ate dinner while watching the Titanic (I've never seen it).

A somewhat-relaxing-somewhat-hectic-weekend,
Brown CS Girl

Greek Life

Is something I'm not a part of. But after the events of yesterday, is something that I wish I had joined.

Yesterday, a good friend of mine from New York City came down to visit me here in Pittsburgh. He goes to school in UCLA, and happens to be a member of the fraternity Delta Tau Delta (DTD), which happens to be a fraternity that Carnegie Mellon also has (surprising, I know). So after we (my big and I) picked him up from the airport, we brought him to the Delt house.

And the way the other Delts greeted him and interacted with him was something that completely surprised me. It was like he was a brother at CMU's DTD chapter, like they had known him forever. He was introduced to everyone, and was immediately asked, "Hey, wanna beer?" And afterwards, 9 of us went out to eat dinner, and even there, everyone was super nice and welcoming towards him. To the point where, afterwards, one of the brothers invited him to a party tonight and asked him if he wanted to watch The Dark Knight Rises with the other brothers. They had met less than 2 hours ago, and already, plans were being made for the rest of his weekend there.

Surprised but oddly content,
Brown CS Girl

Musings

Yesterday, Thursday, July 26th, 2012, I skipped work. I decided to email the office and say that I was doing something with my big, and therefore, I couldn't go to work. My "excuse" was partially true,  I mean, I was with my big, her boyfriend, and two other DTD brothers, but the true reason I decided to not go to work was because the five of us decided to take a road trip down to Cumberland, Maryland - where my big and one of the Delt brothers is from.

Why, you ask? Well, my big needed to pick up her glasses from the eye doctor, and after hearing so much about Cumberland and the people there, I needed to visit the place. And when the other three heard we were going to take a 2 hour long road trip down to Maryland, they decided to join in as well.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post. Was it irresponsible for me to skip work yesterday? Most definitely. Was it irresponsible for me to go to Cumberland without telling my parents? Absolutely. But it was adventures like this one that make you - as cliched as it sounds - stop and smell the roses. Leaving for the day with five friends was exhilarating, exciting, and one of the best things I've done all summer. And, to be honest, we didn't even do that much. Once we got to Cumberland, we ate lunch at my big's favorite Asian restaurant. We then picked up her glasses, walked around downtown Cumberland for a bit, saw the two high schools, went to the two houses of the people who lived there, ate dinner, and left. OH and we also went to a state park, Rocky Gap. It was gorgeous! A huge, quintessentially-blue lake in the middle of the park, with mountains surrounding most of the lake, and on the part not surrounded by mountains was a small beach area, the clubhouse, and the backdrop of a beautiful golf course.

And that was where this thought of "living a little" came up. One of the Delt brothers was continuously complaining about how it was hot, or how he needed to get back to play Dungeons and Dragons, or how there was nothing to do etc. But at the moment in State Park, his brother turned around and said, "You know what? Just live a little."

Yes, we all have work to do, places to go, people to meet. But sometimes, all you need to do is live a little. Forget about all of the work and all of the stress of the "real world". Forget that you need a flat-screen TV or a Lamborghini or a penthouse in New York City. Rather than investing in the material goods, invest in the experiences. The memories will stay with you forever.

Living a little,
Brown CS Girl

Mashup Music

Almost every day at work, a significant amount of time will be spent coding with my headphones in. And while there are songs that I like to listen to over and over again (We Found Love by Rihanna? Played that one 400 times in a row), occasionally I do get bored. So yesterday, I went to check out kapslap.com.

For anyone who likes mashups of popular songs and techno/electronic music, this is the guy for you. He's a DJ from Lehigh University, and his mashups are some of the best that I have heard. Who would have ever though you could remix Call Me Maybe with techno? Enter Call me Greyhound, one of my favorite Kapslap mashups. Although my friend, who happens to be a member of the frat Delta Tau Delta at UCLA and had Kapslap actually come for one of their parties, recommended Satisfied Like A G6, which to steal a colloquialism from the Cali kids, is hella good.

Girl who wishes she was in California,
A Brown CS Girl

It's 12:02 pm

And half of the people at work have cleared out of the office.

My motivation to continue working has exponentially decreased. Partially because of the fact that no one is *actually* working today, but also because, in about 10 hours, a group of us will be going to watch the Dark Knight Rises! For those of you who have already seen it, how was it? Could you recognize some of the Carnegie Mellon buildings?

Can't wait for the weekend,
A Brown CS girl

Just crossed 1000 views!

Thank you everyone for reading my blog!

Here are two links that my great friends (thanks Vidur and Lucas!) showed me yesterday. The first one is hilarious, the second one shows a lighter side of Facebook and their engineers.

1.http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/wp3w5/which_famous_person_needs_to_come_out_already/

2.http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/pr-done-right-facebook-engineer-apologizes-on-reddit-for-imgur-mistake/

Happy reading!
A grateful Brown CS girl

Interesting Article

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/civicscience-2-86-million-new-atlantic-ventures-cox/

Cheers,
Brown CS Girl

New Music?

As I'm sitting at work, waiting for another case, I've been looking at different types of music on Spotify.

And I think I've been converted. Into a Penn Masala fan girl. I always liked their music, but after listening to a few of their songs, I have come to appreciate the way they fuse Indian and Western music together. It's so effortless, so fluid, and their voices perfectly blend together in a way that just reminds you of dark, silky chocolate and makes you melt.

My personal favorites are Aadat/Apologize, Aicha, and of course, Viva la vida/Jashn-e-bahara.
New fan girl in the room,
A Brown CS Girl

Kennywood!

My apologies for the lack of posting this weekend, but it was one of the most busy, fun-filled weekends  that I've had all summer. On Saturday, six of my friends and I went to Pittsburgh's local amusement park, Kennywood. We were expecting long lines and huge crowds, but luckily, the weather was overcast with a chance of rain, so although we had to suffer through the rain occasionally, we never had to wait for over 20 minutes for any ride.

Saturday morning, 10:30 am, the seven of us were on a bus to go to Kennywood. Why is the time important? Because all of us are college students, meaning 10:30 am may as well be 6:00 am on a weekend. But, we did it because all of us were super excited to go, and wanted to hit as many rides as possible.

After buying tickets, we began our ride adventure. I won't go into detail on all of them, but if any of you are planning to visit Kennywood, I highly recommend the Black Widow, Phantom's Revenge, and the Thunderbolt. The Black Widow is Kennywood's newest ride, Phantom's Revenge is just fantastic, and the Thunderbolt is one of Kennywood's famous wooden rollercoasters, and was my favorite ride of all.

Also during our Kennywood adventure, we decided to eat as much food as possible. And while we didn't have enough room to try the fried oreos, we ate some of their famous fries, cotton candy, dipping dots, funnel cake, and of course, tons and tons of lemonade. And dinner was Indian food at half-price, which means the seven of us ate a huge meal for approximately $50.


To fun-and-food-filled-days,
A Brown CS Girl

Birthday shenanigans :)

This is the first birthday that I have celebrated away from my parents, and let me tell you, the shenanigans were endless! Here's a small summary of everything that happened yesterday.

3:45 am - I woke up in my home in New Jersey to catch a 6:30 plane back to Pittsburgh. As I later found out, my best friend and I were in the same terminal at the same time. 

9:00 am - 4:00 pm - Work. Nothing much to say here, other than the fact that by 4 pm, I was exhausted, and just wanted to celebrate my birthday. 

4:30 pm - 5:30 pm - Chilled in my favorite place of all, Gates. I was helping a few of my friends with their math homework - Set Theory - which was actually very relaxing, and lots of fun. 

5:30 pm - 9:30 pm - Let phase 1 of the shenanigans begin. At 5:30, I went over to one of my good friend's house. He had slept for "9 hours over 3 days", so I made the executive decision that he needed to ingest some form of caffeine (granted, I was also exhausted from waking up at 3:45 am, but I had already downed a Diet Coke, so I was in a bit of a better place than he was). He, knowing that I love caffeine, decided that we would go to the Starbucks in Squirrel Hill, and drink the John Wayne shot. Now this shot isn't on the menu, and isn't available everywhere. It's 2 shots of espresso with a layer of a flavored cream at the bottom. Now, because he also had no faith in my coffee-drinking abilities, he made me order a tall iced cafe mocha as well, in order to "chase" the espresso. I've never had espresso shots before, so I was nervous, but hey! It was my 19th birthday, so why not? Once the John Wayne shots arrived, we waited for them to cool down, and downed them, similar to how people may down, say, shots of alcohol. It was delicious! I had chosen vanilla creme, which beautifully complimented the bitterness of the espresso. Now, I had no need for the iced cafe mocha, but started sipping it merely to finish it, because coffee should not be wasted. He decides to try the triple John Wayne shot (so 3 shots of espresso instead of 2) and buys me another one - this time with cinnamon creme. By the time I finish this shot, I feel the caffeine-induced jitters begin. And I have more coffee to finish. And we go to Rite Aid to buy caffeine pills for him (that I end up taking). Between 6:30 and about 8:30, I was probably the most hyper person in Pittsburgh. We went and chilled on the cut from 6:30 - 9:00, and while we had one of the most fantastic conversations I've had in a while, I could probably have just talked for 2.5 hours straight, and not been bored. It was terrible. If this is what ADD is like, my heart goes out to those who have it. At 9:00, we returned to his house to attempt to eat dinner - I say attempt because caffeine is an appetite suppressant, which means he tried to eat because he knew that he had to eat at some point, while I gave it and decided that it was fine to skip dinner. Or was it?

9:30 pm - 10:30 pm - The last bit ended with a question because at 9:30, I was "kidnapped" and taken to dinner by two of my good friends. And because I absolutely in love with  Chipotle, we went to Chipotle for my birthday dinner! It was fantastic. Good food, and even better company. At 10:30, we ended up at my house, where a few people were going to come over to chill. 

10:30 pm - 2:30 am - SURPRISE! My friends threw me a surprise party, in my house, inviting all of my friends. It was an incredible party, especially for a Monday night :) We had a Google Hangout going as well, and my friends from Cali called in to wish me a happy birthday. The cake was incredible as well. Since there are four of us who have birthdays very close to each other, and we were all turning 19, the cake had all four of our names on it, and during the "Happy Birthday", the candles were lit four times so we could all blow them out. It was amazing! But unfortunately, it had to end at 2:30, because I had work the next, er, later that morning. 

7:30 am - Birthday over, first day of being 19. Walk downstairs, the house is a mess and I am exhausted and have to make it to work in an hour. But hey, it was a pretty spectacular 19th birthday, one that is definitely unforgettable :)

Nineteen-years-and-one-day-old, 

Brown CS Girl

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! :)

And, because my mom is a fantastic card-maker, she made me a gorgeous card after our fantastic dinner at the Cheesecake factory last night!

Here's the link to her blog, and specifically the card, she made for me:
http://pixielifeforever.blogspot.com/2012/07/dream.html


In her last teen year,
A Brown CS girl

July 4th festivities

Yesterday, of course, was Independence Day for the United States. A day normally reserved for spending time with family, eating, and relaxing. And while my family wasn't here to enjoy the festivities, three of my friends and I celebrated the day in true American fashion - by going to Heinz Field! Home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, it truly is an awe-inspiring stadium. We were merely feet away from the turf that has seen the like of Ben Roethelisberger, Hines Ward, Tom Brady, Joe Flacco, and many other NFL players. For the four days leading up to the Fourth of July, the stadium and surrounding area turns into a massive carnival-esque scene. There was rock climbing, shaved ice, funnel cake, football tosses, even a live band. Of course, we tried the shaved ice (twice) and I attempted to rock climb ( I say attempted because I made it one foot off of the ground).

We decided to eat dinner at the Melting Pot, and that is possibly where most of our "shenanigans" occurred. Let's just say that the delicious food (if you go, make sure to get the Fiesta cheese and the Pure Milk Chocolate fondues), the company, and the atmosphere led to a night of ridiculousness. It's possibly the most fun I've had in a long time, and as one of my friends put it, "this is one of the stories that you tell your grandkids".

European Champions!

Are, as predicted, La Roja! Well done to my Spanish boys, you played fantastically and definitely cleared up any doubts about how you were playing during the tournament. Special call outs to Silva, Alba, Torres, and Mata for your goals, and especially Torres, for also winning the golden boot :)

Fabregas with the trophy, with Torres looking on.

Euro Cup Finals....

will be between Spain and Italy.

I was personally hoping for a Germany vs Spain  match, but truth be told, Italy played fantastically today (Mario Balotelli, where did you come from?) and definitely deserved the win.

The Champions of Europe will be decided on Sunday. Who are you rooting for?

Always rooting for La Roja,
Brown CS girl 

Congratulations Spain!

For those of you who don't know, I am a huge football (soccer) fan, and I absolutely love the Spanish national team.

And today, they beat Portugal 4-2 in penalties to secure their spot in the finals.

Well done la roja! You deserved it :)

Coding playlist!

Some of us are lucky enough to be able to listen to music while we work. And, considering that's how I used to work during the school year as well, I have a "go to" playlist that ensures maximum efficiency while coding (sometimes).

1. Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon album: The entire thing. I love it. Somehow Kid Cudi is able to strike the perfect balance between the spoken and sung parts of his songs. My personal favorites are Heart of a Lion and Pursuit of Happiness. Fun fact: I once listened to Pursuit of Happiness for 3 hours, and solved 3 251 problems in that time span.

2. Cinema by Skrillex - So I was never much of a dubstep fan, but being at a nerd school like CMU, one of the few constants during the school year is that someone will always be playing it. And that's how I was introduced to this song. Occasionally a little loud, Cinema is a great song to listen to if you're frustrated and want to throw something at your computer.

3. The Intro by xx - Ominous, cool sounding. That's pretty much the reason I listen to this.

After this, it really depends on what songs I'm hooked on. Right now it's Katy Perry's Wide Awake and *gasp* Justin Bieber's Boyfriend.

Please don't judge me,
Brown CS girl 

Web links for the bored

So Mondays are the days that our releases are well, released. While this means that my boss is extremely busy making sure that everything that we fixed over the week are actually correct, both me and the intern are the exact opposite of that. And doing "nothing" for 8 hours is extremely boring. And it's impossible to Facebook/Gmail/do-social-media-related-things for 8 hours. Which is why I have a list of links that I go to cure my boredom.

1) FreeRice.com - Not only are you curing boredom, but you're also helping end world hunger, 10 grains of rice at a time! For every question you answer correctly, FreeRice donates 10 grains of rice to the World Food Programme. The questions are in various categories, ranging from SAT prep to English Vocabulary to Basic Math. In order to track your progress over time as see how much rice you've donated in total, you have to create an account, but you can easily play as a guest as well. I'm currently at 29,380 grains, and hoping to reach 50,000 grains.

2) wikipedia.com - We've all used wikipedia when we need information, but sometimes, it's fun to just visit the website, and click on the "Random Article" link on the left hand side of Wikipedia's home page. To get there from the link, click on your preferred language, and you can find the "Random Article" link on the left. Many times, the articles that the Random Article link links you too will remind you of a topic that you wanted to read about at one point, and now, with all of your free time, you finally have time to read about it. For instance, today, I remembered that I wanted to know more about the Knights Templar, and spent 15 minutes reading just about the history of the order. Boredom somewhat cured!

3) WikiGame - Somewhat along the same lines as #2, this link points the Speed Race part of the WikiGame website. You're given a wikipedia page to start at, and using the links in that page and subsequent pages, you need to make it to the "goal page" of that round. And you compete against other people to see who can get there the fastest, which is possibly the best part of this game if you're an extremely competitive person (cough me). The last few rounds have been from Iceland to ABBA (which was solved in three clicks- Iceland-Sweden-ABBA), Linear Regression to Walrus, and Toronto Raptors to Tibetan Scripts. Pro tip if you're reading this blog: if you can't find an obvious connection between to the two topics, try to get to the United States (or another country's) page, because that links to a variety of topics.

Hope this helps! I'm going to go check Facebook, and then go back to FreeRice!

Cheers,
Brown CS Girl (:

Starbucks Sunday

Sunday Travels: Shopping at Rue 21, buying fries from Five Guys, Iced Cafe Mocha Venti from Starbucks and a new Starbucks Card, tanning on the Greek Quad, gymming, dinner, then
Razzys.

In the picture, two of my friends are working on their last programming assignment. That's my iced cafe mocha venti.

Cheers,
Brown CS girl :)

Summer Weekends

The biggest difference between summer weekends and school year weekends is during the summer, you actually have free time on the weekend, whereas school year weekends are the same as weekdays minus the classes (although it's debatable how many of us go to classes on the weekday anyway).

Anyway, a typical weekend for me includes grocery shopping, normal clothes shopping, eating delicious food, cooking for the rest of the week, and anytime leftover is spent chilling :)

Today was spent working out and then watching the Spain-France match with a friend and eating Chipotle. To all my Spain fans, two words: Xabi Alonso (:

Onto grocery shopping,
Brown CS girl

It's Friday, Friday...

I won't finish the song. BUT IT'S FRIDAY. It's been a long week, and after 3 pm today, my motivation to do any work at all exponentially decreased . Thankfully, I didn't have to much longer. After 4:20, the office only had 4 people left in it. One was actually working, my boss and I were playing darts and talking about how my other boss was president of one of the frats that got kicked off of CMU's campus. And the other intern? Watching Euro Cup. Not a terrible Friday afternoon at all.

I'm currently waiting for the bus to arrive in the ridiculously warm Pittsburgh weather. Although, seeing as my office is probably colder than the Arctic, the heat isn't completely unwelcome.

Speaking of the heat, I unfortunately must congratulate the Miami Heat on their victory. OKC, I was rooting for you all the way, and there's always next year.

Until next time,
Brown CS Girl

Feel free to leave comments!

I would love to hear what you, my amazing readers, have to say! And while I can't always promise that I'll publish the comments in a timely fashion, I will do my best.

Until next time,
Brown CS girl (:

Cooking at the AXO house

So a few of my friends are here over the summer, and they live in the AXO house. One day, they invited me over for grilled cheese and tomato soup, and because it was delicious and because I throughly enjoyed eating with all of them, we decided to have another "family" meal, except it was my and my friend Harsh's turn to cook. So last Sunday, Harsh and I went shopping for our family dinner, and decided that the night would be called pasta night! And so pasta we cooked. Appetizer was a delicious pasta salad and dinner was my personal favorite, spaghetti with marinara. It was a delicious meal with great company (:

A typical weekday for yours truly!

So currently, I'm sitting at work, and doing absolutely nothing. Why? I don't know. But I will go insane if I sit here for 8 hours on freerice.com (which as a side public service announcement, please visit! They do good work) or learning about differential equations, so my lovely readers, you get not one, but two blog posts from me! And if you're lucky (or is it unlucky?), maybe more.

Now as your probably guessed from the title of this blogpost, this post will be about what my Mondays thru Fridays look like. While some may find it monotonous and mundane, I'm quite enjoying the neat little schedule I have going. Now if only this could translate over to the school year.

7:30 - This is when my first alarm goes off. I say first because while I attempt to wake up this early, I end up jumping out of bed only at 7:55 (or in today's case, at 8).

Between 7:30 - whenever-my-taxi-for-work-arrives-which-hopefully-is-no-later-than-8:30 - I get ready for work! Normally this just involves finding jeans and a clean t-shirt (I work at a tech startup, and tech companies are notorious for not having a dress code) and making lunch for myself. Yes, I cook. It's cheaper and to be honest, healthier and more delicious than eating Middle Eastern food or a sandwich every day (the only two restaurants walking distance from work). After making lunch, I've started making myself coffee in the morning, which I'm hoping doesn't turn me into one of those people that has a caffeine addiction (assuming, of course, that CMU hasn't done that to me already). Then, I wait. Until I get a call saying that my taxi has arrived. Now you might be wondering why on earth I take a taxi to work. The answer is twofold: one, the only bus that takes me to work is half a mile away from my house, and the only time that I can take the bus that would ensure that I make it to work on time is at 8:00, which means I would probably have to leave my house at 7:30 to make it on time (which considering that Pittsburgh transportation is very rarely on time, is a risk in and of itself), and second, it's around $10 for a taxi ride, which I figured is acceptable for me to spend every day, since most days, that is all that I spend.

Whenever-I-get-to-work to 5:00 - This is when I'm (supposedly) working. To be honest, out of the 8 hours that I'm at work, I solidly work for about 6.5 hours of them. The other 1.5 hours are spent either eating or taking a break from coding, which is surprisingly exhausting. I don't know how much I'm allowed to say about my work, so all I will say is that I spend 6.5 hours a day coding in PHP, Javascript, and/or HTML. And as much as I complain about coding, there is something extremely satisfying when your program works.

5:00 - I'M FREE. Those are the only thoughts in my mind as I run (erm "speed walk") out the door and attempt to make it to the bus stop on time. You see, after lunch, which is around 1, I lose all motivation to work. And once lost, motivation is very hard to regain. Anyway, I leave at 5 and make it to my bus stop around 5:05, which gives me approximately 10 minutes to wait for the bus. Hopefully it's only 10, although until I found this bus stop, the wait was anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. And in the burning heat, waiting an hour for the bus is terrible.

6:00 - Generally the time I get home. The bus drops me off at Craig Street at around 5:30, and I lazily walk back to my house, often walking through Gates because I a) love Gates b) like being able to check-in on foursquare in gates (I'm only slightly obsessed with foursquare) c) occasionally my friend in 150 is in gates. Speaking of which, yesterday, she was sitting outside the assistant dean of CS's office, and after I got there, the three of us had a conversation about drinking and speeding. It was strange having this conversation with my assistant dean, since hearing your assistant dean curse in every other sentence is slightly unnerving, but he was super chill and quite frankly, "a bro". Unfortunately, he is going to CMU's Campus in Qatar. We'll miss you MJS!

6:30 - Time to gym! Yes, I now workout. I originally had a bet with someone as to who could be more toned by the end of the summer (although I believe the exact words of the bet were "who would look better at the end of summer"), but now, I workout for me! I want to look toned and look good by the end of these three months, so that's what I'm doing. Generally consists of elliptical for 35 minutes, then machines for another 30ish minutes. By the time it's over, I'm dead, but hey, hopefully it'll all pay off.

8:30 - DINNER TIME. Normally rice + something or pasta, although occasionally, I do go out to eat. I prefer to eat by myself though, because I one, hate eating with people because I'm super self-conscious about the way I eat and two, that way I can watch TV.

Midnight - The time I try to go to bed. By going to bed at midnight and waking up at 7:30, that gives me 7.5 hours of sleep, and yet I still manage to be exhausted when I roll out of bed. How I sustained multiple nights of only 4 hours of sleep during the school year, I can't remember.

And that's it! A typical day in the week of yours truly. There are occasionally some variations (like when I have to go grocery shopping or eat dinner at 6:30 with people) but this is my summer life (:

Pittsburgh Summer

After a ridiculous number of days of not blogging, I have decided to once again, start. And so without any further ado, let this long overdue blog post begin!

This is my fourth week of being in Pittsburgh, and I have to say, being in Pittsburgh over the summer is much nicer than being in Pittsburgh during the school year. Don't get me wrong, I love and terribly miss all my friends and the long hours spent in Gates, but during the school year, there's nothing else to do other than work, eat, and sleep (in that order of priority, mind you). During the summer, I have come to appreciate the beautiful place that Pittsburgh is. And while I don't love it yet, it's definitely grown on me.

How many times will I have to apologize for the lack of posting?

Hopefully not too many more :( My sincerest apologies for the lack of posting, life has moved by at relativistic speeds since the last final.

I'll probably have another post dedicated to the shenanigans of Monday night/Tuesday morning, since these shenanigans made me sleep at 6:30 in the morning, and wake up at 8:30 for a taxi to the airport at 9:30.

I went home for three days, which was super relaxing, and Friday afternoon, the parentals, brother, and I drove up to CMU. My parents were helping me pack and move into my summer residence, and I wanted to have at least one day in Pittsburgh before my internship began on Monday. Packing was relatively painless, although I suspect that was because my parents were there to help me. I did, however, realize that I have accumulated quite a bit of junk over a year.

My internship started on Monday, and to be honest, Monday and Tuesday were extremely boring. There is another intern for the summer, a fifth-year ECE from CMU as well, and so Monday, we spent the first half of the day setting up our computers to code. Then, around noon, we went to lunch, where I tried (inadvertently) fish eggs for the first time. For the next four hours, we were told to "play around with the system", which, after an hour, becomes EXTREMELY boring. So I sat and facebooked with people for the majority of it (and got paid, so I see no down side :P)

The first half of Tuesday was the same, we learned about the website and a little about coding in PHP, a web-scripting language. It's very similar to java-script, and simple enough to learn. Lunch today (and for the rest of the days) will be on our own, so I went to one of the two places that is in walking range of the office. It's called Salem's and, seems to be a Middle Eastern / Pakistani restaurant. It has delicious food, although I inadvertently ordered shish kebab on a Tuesday (I am vegetarian on Tuesdays, also, I hate lamb). The way lunch at the office works is that, generally, people eat lunch and work at the same time. I did that all the time in college, so that was perfectly fine for me, although at that point, I didn't really have any work, so I was facebooking. However, at 3:30 yesterday, I was assigned my first task. I opened it, and was immediately intimidated. I spent the last hour and a half that I was at work attempting to decipher the specs that my "boss" gave me. I say "boss" because in a company of 7 people, there isn't really a boss. There's a CEO, and then there's everyone else.

Today, I got to work at 8:45. By 10:50, I had figured out the first task. YESYESYES I'm not incompetent. 10 points to Nikki. I got my second task around 11 am, which was more confusing than the first, but was similar enough that it only took me until about 2 pm to finish it. Which is why I now have time to write this epically long blog post. As I was leaving my boss's table (because we need to show him that our code actually works before we update the entire system) he said, "Wow you're working quicker than I expected." YESYESYES THANK YOU CARNEGIE MELLON FOR TURNING ME INTO A (semi) COMPETENT CODER. I'm really happy, as you can tell. And, I went to the gym and ran about 2.2 miles, and feel extremely good that I could do that since I'm extremely out of shape. OH, and I passed 251. I was 1% away from a B, which is upsetting, but I'm confident that I can handle whatever CMU throws at me. Hopefully :P

It's been a good summer so far :) 

Back in Pittsburgh!

Ready to start packing and moving into my place for the summer.

And then work starts in 2 days! So excited!

HOME!

So my parents bought me a surprise ticket home, and so here I am! Home sweet home, relaxing.

Unfortunately, I came down with a terrible cough the day I came home (probably because for the two days before, I had gotten a total of 5 hours of sleep over 48 hours). So I've only been sleeping and eating, although I did buy two pairs of beautiful shoes, worked on a 1000 piece puzzle, and learned some JavaScript.

Back to the Burgh on Friday to pack! 

Rising Sophomores :)

And at 11:30 today, the last exam of freshman year was over.
It was brutal; as one of my friends said, "it was like a dinosaur stamped on me".
But we're done. We finished one year at the insane school we now call home.
And we're rising sophomores.
Three more years, Class of 2015. We can do it. 

Last Saturday of Freshman Year

And it will be spent studying for 251. My last exam. At 8:30, Monday morning.

And after that, I will be a rising sophomore.

Where has the time gone?

Studying, Studying, Studying

Even though yesterday (Wednesday) was "Reading Day", or  a day when no exams are held, and can therefore be considered as a "day off", the majority of it (for me, at least) was spent studying for programming. Unfortunately, I have my two hardest exams left, which means up until Monday at 11:30, I will be doing nothing other than studying.

And after that point, SUMMER WILL HAVE BEGUN. I can't wait. 

Waterfront today!

So after my matrices exam, I went to the Waterfront with two of my friends. The Waterfront is basically strip mall with loads of stores and restaurants-including Target, DSW, Dave and Busters. We went to Express, Macy's, Ulta, Claire's, Gap, Bath and Body Works, Panera, and Coldstone. It was a perfect day. Except for the fact that it's finals week. To be honest, the most free time that CMU kids have is first, during Carnival, and second, during Finals Week.


There seems to be something wrong with that. 

And finals week is upon us!

Tomorrow begins the last two weeks of my freshman year in college (eek! How time flies). And it begins at 8:30 in the morning with an Econ final. And on Tuesday, a Matrices and Linear Transformations final. And then on Friday, a Programming final. And finally, the next Monday, at 8:30 in the morning, is my last (and hardest) final. 251. After which, I will be done. And can probably officially call myself a sophomore CS major. 

Just finished the last 251 Homework!

(hopefully)

Sorry for the lack of posting...

But, this is the last week before finals, and I have two huge homework assignments due tomorrow night at midnight. Always fun, I know. Thankfully, I have finished one of them-the Virtual Machine of C0 (which is a safe subset of C). The Virtual Machine essentially takes the bytecode of a C0 program and interprets it, and then outputs the result. It took a while, but it's finally done!

The other one is the last 251 homework assignment ever! (assuming I pass the course) This one's on ZFCs and logic systems and Godel's Incompleteness Theorems. I need to prove things about the provability of other things. It's inception proofs.

So after 3:30 am

I decided to stop working, because I was being super-unproductive. Instead, a friend and I explored Margaret Morrison Building-one of the Architecture buildings-and found a way onto the balcony.

Here's a view of the road leading down to the building (it's also where the buggy races are held). 

Meals: Done!

The way meals work at Carnegie Mellon is that there are a set number of meals for a two week period. I have 22 meals for 2 weeks, which works out to 11 meals a week. I had yet to finish all 22 meals, but for the first time I FINISHED. It was quite the accomplishment. 

Birthdays!

 It is my best friend's birthday today, and so at midnight, about 15 of us went over to his dorm with an ice-cream cake and wished him a very happy birthday! I've never really celebrated someone's birthday with cake at midnight, but it's tons of fun, and I absolutely plan on doing this again.

Shout out to the birthday boy: Happy Birthday, Sid! Have a fantastic one :)

Registration for Fall 2012

It's so crazy to think there are only one week of classes left before my freshman year of college is almost over. As cliched as it sounds, it seems like only yesterday that I was unpacking my things in my room and attempting to figure out the quickest way to the furthest building on campus. And the fact that freshman year is over was cemented by the fact that this morning, I had to register for classes for next semester.

I had an 8:30 registration time, which was one of the earliest ones, so I was excited. I woke up at 8:15, looked at my watch, told myself I could sleep for another 5 minutes. Next time I open my eyes, 9:15. Freaking out, I nearly jumped off of my bunkbed, grabbed my laptop, furiously opened Chrome, and registered. And got all of the classes I wanted to get into. Looks like I'll be taking Differential Equations, Combinatorics, Functional Programming, Systems, and Personality next semester :) 

Hammerschlag Hall

This is CMU's "Engineering" building-the equivalent of the Gates Building for CS students. Most of the graduate students have classes here, but I have my Matrices and Linear Transformations class in the 2nd basement of this building. I took this picture because the contrast of the sky with the building was gorgeous :) 

Pausch Bridge (again!)

This time, you can see it changing colors! 

Giant whiteboards!

One of the giant whiteboards that we CS majors work on! This, incidentally, is on the 8th floor of Wean Hall, which is where the office hours for 251 take place. There is very little covering the board right now, but on Wednesday and Thursday nights, the board is covered in Expo marker.

Incidentally, this week, we got a 2 day extension on the 251 homework, meaning it's now due Saturday. Coupled that with the fact that the only other homework I have is studying for my matrices midterm, and this week seems to be a pretty light one so far :) 

Tazza D'Oro

So Tazza D'Oro is a cafe on Gates 3, and they have the best cookies and chocolate croissants, especially when they are freshly baked. So me, who was craving dessert, decided to buy both a chocolate chip cookie and a croissant. And it was delicious. 

And with that

Carnival is over. It was an eventful three days, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was the first time that I was able to completely let loose and not worry about anything that I had due in the next week. And it was the first time that CMU felt like a real college campus (although not sure that I enjoyed all parts of that).  While Sunday is still considered to be a part of Carnival weekend, it is generally reserved for tearing down the booths and finishing all the homework that was assigned over the four days. This next week is going to be hell week, but hey, Carnival was worth it! Expect to see more Carnival pictures come up in the next few days once I upload them from my camera.

El Clasico 2012

I'm a huge soccer fan and I also have a lot of work to finish. So what do I do when my favorite team and their arch-rivals meet? Do both. El Clasico 2012. May the odds ever be in Barcelona's favor.

(EDIT: Just as I was typing this post, Madrid scored. Great.)

And Pittsburgh weather strikes again!

Saturday: The best day of Carnival. When alumni, all undergraduate students, and random city of Pittsburgh people come out to see the booths before the award ceremony, the finals of the buggy races, and the amazing concert. 

And it's raining. Because clearly the Pittsburgh Weather Gods decided that Carnival wasn't important enough to keep the sun and the warmth in the picture for 4 days. 

What this means for Carnival? The buggy races were cancelled, no one really visits the booths because many of them don't have ceilings which means you would need an umbrella and that's just annoying, no one goes on any of the rides, and the concert will be held indoors, which means you won't be able to enjoy it unless you have a ticket to it. 

Thank you Pittsburgh Weather Gods. I appreciate it. 

I won a giraffe!

So a friend of mine from the Mock Trial team and I went around Midway, and won almost every game there (the only game we didn't win something at was closed). I won an adorable giraffe and a teddy bear, and she won a teddy bear, a duck, and a basketball. I love Carnival <3 The only time CMU feels like a real college. 

Crepe place!

There's a delicious crepe place (conveniently named The Crepe Place) that has at least 25 different varieties of sweet crepes and maybe 15 or so savory crepes. I finally went to this place last week, and again yesterday, with a friend of mine who had never gone. This is a picture of a nutella and berries crepe. Delicious! 

Dinner at Chipotle!

So my friends and I have a weekly tradition. We always eat at Chipotle on Friday after all the homework has been turned in for the week. Unfortunately, since we are allowed to take late days to finish the 251 homework (we have five in total), for the past 3 Fridays, we haven't been able to go since we generally work until midnight and then eat dinner, at which time, Chipotle is closed. BUT YESTERDAY, after the 251 midterm we decided to go out at grab Chipotle. The midterm ended at 9:30 and Chipotle closes at 10. By the time we finally left Gates (where the exam was taken), it was around 9:40. Me being the Chipotle fanatic that I am, decided to walk 0.8 miles instead of waiting for the bus. And so, at 9:40 pm, I half walked/half ran down Forbes Avenue to Chipotle. I made it at 9:50. The others who had waited for the bus? Made it at 9:51. But it was completely worth it, because my Chipotle chicken burrito bowl was delicious, and after a week and a half of no Chipotle, that was all I wanted. 

What CS majors survive on

And they are quite delicious. Better than the small double shot espressos. Chocolate and coffee is delicious. 

Typical Lunch at CMU

Typical lunch at CMU-salad, side (of pudding) and soda. 

Last day before Carnival!

And I am so excited! The booths are looking bigger and better than ever, and everyone on campus just seems to be happy and stoked for four days of non-stop fun. Most people were done with work yesterday, so the majority of campus may or may not be intoxicated right now, I don't know. However, all of us 251 freshman have a midterm from 6:30 to 9:30 tonight, so we will all be in hyperventilate/panic mode until then.

But after 9:30, Carnival officially starts.

I. CAN'T. WAIT. 

MIDWAY :)

This is a picture from my room of the parking lot where Carnival will essentially take place! The wooden structures are what we call Booths-essentially two-story wooden structures that students build by hand. The parking lot was shut down on Friday, and it's amazing to see how much all the organizations have gotten done since then. At the very back of the parking lot is SigEp's booth-rumored to be the best one this year. The theme of all the booths is "As seen on TV", and apparently, SigEp is building the Krusty Krab and Spongebob's house. Can't wait to see it! :)

A friend of mine is studying 251 on Gates 6 Balcony...

And looking pretty baller doing it. That's how we do it as CS kids at CMU. 

More Gates Pictures!

View from Gates 6 balcony! On the left is the Cathedral of Learning, a Pitt building.

Pittsburgh Weather

Yes, an entire post dedicated to the weather in the city of Pittsburgh. Simply put, the weather in Pittsburgh can transform from blizzarding to bright and sunny in the span of 20 minutes. Think I'm kidding? It happened three times in one day. It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. The weather in Pittsburgh is unpredictable and bipolar, and you can never plan for it.

However, today, Pittsburgh was kind enough to give me my favorite weather-cold and sunny, with no clouds in the sky. Of course, I'll be spending today on Gates 8, attempting to finish 251 homework.

Pausch Bridge again.

Pausch Bridge at night!

View from Gates 6! Another shot of the Pausch Bridge, this time with the Purnell Center for the Arts in the background. 

View from Gates 8!

So the Gates-Hillman Center for Computer Science-affectionately nicknamed as Gates by CS students-is my home away from the dorm. And in fact, there have been quite a few days where I have spent more time in Gates than in my own dorm room. I love this building! Currently, I'm sitting on the 8th floor of Gates, working on none other than 251. The bridge that you see is the Pausch Bridge, named for Professor Randy Pausch, who unfortunately passed away. Apparently, there is a graduate-level class in which you can actually program the lights on the bridge (which are visible at night) in whatever manner you want to. Rumor has it someone programmed it to be like Mario Kart.

Expect to see more pictures of both the exterior (and interior) of Gates in the future!

Great Theoretical Ideas in Computer Science

More commonly known as 251. The dreaded freshman-spring-semester-discrete-math-class. The class that chews kids up and spits them out. And requires them to re-take the class if they get less than a C-which isn't a 70%, closer to a 58%. That's right, the lower boundary for a C is a 58%. Twelve percent lower than normal. If that doesn't scare you, then I tip my hat to you.

Why is 251 so difficult? It's a combination of the concepts, the homework and the exams. So currently, we're learning about Definite Finite Automata (which are actually really cool-very logical) and Counting and Diagonalization. Those concepts are difficult, but it's the applications of those-that we see in the homework-that make them ridiculously difficult. The homework consists of 6 questions, most questions that have multiple parts to them, and must be typed in LaTex-which is a software used to make proofs elegant. Much, much better than Microsoft Equation Editor.

While six questions may not seem like much, there has yet to be a week that I have not pulled an all-nighter to finish this homework assignment on time, or a day late (since we have 5 late days that we can allocate, using at most 3 per assignment). Understanding the question is difficult. But it's when you finally understand the question that you realize how difficult the question really is. Yesterday, for example, I had to prove that there was no sequence of length 3 that consisted of odd numbers separated by two that consisted solely of prime numbers. First, this proof was a contradiction proof, which means I assumed the opposite and proved that to be false. Second, this proof had 12 subcases. TWELVE. And the kicker? That wasn't even what the question was asking for. This just happened to be a sub-proof that I needed to answer the question "rigorously".

Now, of course, I would be lying if I said I hated the class. Yes, it's a really hard class. Yes, I keep bombing the exams and am dangerously close to failing. But the concepts are interesting and I'm learning more about math than I ever did in high school.

And now, back to studying for the weekly quizzes that we have in this class.

Parents visited!

This weekend, my parents + brother + brother's-friend-who-is-basically-my-little-brother all came to visit me at CMU. There was no special reason for this, but I had some free time this weekend and it was Spring Break for all of the kids back home, so they decided to come down for a day.

What I realized when I was with my parents? How sleep deprived I truly am. Now call me crazy, but a person shouldn't be sleepy after sleeping from 10:30 pm to 9:30 am. But all my body has wanted to do after receiving 11 hours of sleep is sleep some more. My hypothesis about this phenomenon: You don't notice when you're busy how tired you actually are. You only realize how exhausted you are when you stop. 

My sincerest apologies for the delay..

but today at 9 am, I had a programming midterm. It did not go well. There were 3 questions, weighted 45%, 25%, 30%. Pretty sure I got the 25% one completely wrong (maybe I got a 5%, if I analyzed time-complexity correctly). The thing is, I studied extremely hard for this test, but nothing that we actually learned was on the test. It was fantastic. Afterwards, however, I proceeded to watch TV shows and movies until my next class (which was at 3 pm) sto that was nice. BUT pulling an all-nighter tonight to finish homework that is technically due at midnight tonight (but that I can't finish so taking a late day). Granted I could sleep and then finish it tomorrow, but working on a Friday is terrible. And CMU has made me nocturnal anyway, it won't be a problem.

Fun fact of the day: While CS majors may work extremely hard, we also party hard. As a CS major told me, "CS majors are 20% more likely to be alcoholics than any other majors." While that statistic might be completely false, it captures the general idea. CS majors work hard and party hard. 

At a ripe early time of 3:34 am....

....I have finally finished about 90% of the programming homework due tomorrow.
And my body has decided that all of the caffeine I digested early should be implemented now, which is why I won't be sleeping until very much later. Which of course is terrible, seeing as I have a 9 am class tomorrow. Which, coincidentally, is the programming class I'm staying awake for.

So one of the things I've learned about being a CS major at CMU is that while it is true that we have the most work (although the Archies and the ECE majors do come close), we also spend a solid 50% of the time complaining about how much work we have, and the other 50% actually doing work. So granted, if we started earlier, we would finish earlier. But being nocturnal actually is slightly more productive, since everyone else is asleep, meaning that there are a fewer distractions. And there's a sense of camaraderie that you feel with the rest of CS (whether they are in your class or not) when the Gates building comes alive at 4 am in the morning.

And as much as I complain about it, I truly love being a part of a wonderful class of Computer Science majors. We're arrogant, annoying, awkward, but (and I'll attempt to be modest and fail miserably) we're also some of the most hard-working and brilliant people I know. And I'm so glad that I get to spend the next 4 years of my life with these people <3

<\post> back to work.

Mock Trial Constitution Meeting

Hello again. I'm currently sitting in a Mock Trial Constitution Amendment Meeting (hence the title).

What is Mock Trial? Essentially it's a debate club. At the beginning of the year, the American Mock Trial Association sends out a "case packet"-which consists of a series of affidavits that relate to that year's case-which this year, was a drunk-driving and possible murder case. Normally, there are 10 affidavits, and a certain portion are "prosecution" witnesses, a certain portion are "defense" witnesses, and there are a few that are "switch witnesses"-witnesses that can be used on either side depending on how the case is argued.

So each tournament consists of four rounds, two rounds in which the team debates as the Prosecution, and two rounds in which the team debates as the Defense. There are 6 people per side, 3 attorneys and 3 witnesses. Rounds proceed as follows: Pre-trial, where the attorneys are introduced, then Opening Statements for both sides. Then, the Prosecution begins it's Case-in-Chief. The first witness-attorney pair proceeds in what is called as the Direct Examination-this is the time for the witness to shine and for the prosecution to have it's case heard. This year, we called the best friend of the victim to the stand so that she could cry and tell everyone how terribly the defendant drove that night. After the Direct finishes, an attorney from the other side comes up. This time, it's the attorney's time to shine, because it's up to the attorney to interrogate the witness and show the inconsistencies in the witness's story. This happens 3 times on each side on the prosecution's side, and then the defense goes. After both sides go, Closing Arguments are given by both sides. The judges then fill out the ballots, they're sent to a toom that determines which side won, and then judges give comments. All in a maximum of 3 hours.

It's fantastic. Also lots of work. But right now, we're done for the year, since we didn't pass the Opening Rounds of the Championship Series (aka first rounds of Nationals). 

Why this blog?

Good question. Seeing as my free time at Carnegie Mellon University is close to 0.

It started out one Sunday afternoon, as I was programming the Huffman Algorithm for the programming class I was in. Like all college students, I was finding a way to procrastinate doing this assignment. Granted, it is due in 60 hours, so I do have time to procrastinate (a little), but with all the other homework assignments I have to do this week, I really should be doing the work.

So anyway, I was procrastinating on tumblr (on my other blog) when I decided that it was time to make a new blog that dealt with what it was like to be a computer science major at CMU. What it was like to have to spend over 40 hours on one homework assignment, to spend 9 hours on a Friday night typing up math homework, deal with the awkwardness that follows all CS majors and their inability (in various degrees, of course) to have social interactions. But, this blog will also deal with the amount of fun that happens at 4 am in the morning after all the assignments have been turned in, the amount of ridiculousness that occurs at CMU in general, and why I would have never picked another school to go to.

And with that, I will wrap up my first post and go back to programming.