I think I’ve got about 10,000 lines that I’ve written for this over the past few months, which easily surpasses anything I’ve worked on before.  Nearly every week I’ve made significant changes to existing code and added in a lot of new stuff.  Something of this size in a constant state of change is a new challenge to me.

Consequently, I’ve taken a lot of steps to keep everything organized since I can’t do it in my head.  Since the code is mostly in Java, I’ve done my best to take advantage of its object oriented nature.  I try to keep things as loosely coupled as possible so that when I’ve got to make some modifications, it doesn’t screw everything.  I’ve made use of Java packages to group stuff together that has similar functions.  On top of all that, I’ve put the project into a Subversion repository so I can always go back to old stuff and so that I can work on it from multiple machines without it being a huge headache.

Of course, this is standard procedure for any programmer, but until now it’s never been absolutely necessary for any projects I’ve worked on alone.  During my internships, I had worked on stuff that was in the tens of thousands of lines, but it had been contributed to by other people.  Good programming practices made sense since other people would be working with my code and vice versa.  With what I’m working on now, it’s almost as if some of the stuff was written by someone else.  I’ll come across a method that I wrote two months ago and not remember much of how it worked.  I feel like a one man programming team.  I recall an interview of Bjarne Stroustrup that complained about grad students that would work on their own projects and write terrible code, not expecting that later on it would be needed for another project or possibly released to others.  I’d rather not fall into that trap since the stuff I’m working on now will likely see plenty of use in the future.

Increased comprehensiveness is one reason they say that Extreme Programming is so valuable — having someone else there with you really helps in making something that not only works, but is built in such a way that everyone can understand it.  Some people, including myself, can often write something that is almost completely unintelligible to others.  Knowing this is one reason I like to avoid cramming several actions into one line, for which I’ve gotten grief from others about being “verbose”.  I’d rather be verbose, but understandable than concise ambiguous.  I’ve never understood why people brag about writing a program in as few lines as possible, usually in some loosely-typed scripting language.  For part of this project, I had to use someone else’s MATLAB script to convert some trace data.  Of course, they crammed the conversion code into about fifteen lines that took me forever to figure out what it did (partly because I’ve never used MATLAB).  Not wanting to revisit that, I translated the code into Java in a more drawn out format so it would integrate well with the rest of my project.

I’m sure there are plenty of things I could do to make my code more better than it is now, but it’s hard to improve when there isn’t someone to give you feedback.  I can learn from my successes and mistakes from previous projects when working on my current project, however.  It seems as if most good programming practices don’t matter so much when the code size is small, but when a threshold is crossed, they seem to go from irrelevant to absolutely necessary.

HEY GENIUS, WE WANT YOU!

Microsoft:
Meet the Company!
9/18
4:30-5:30pm
Andrews Hall room 101

People here love their work because they get to think big and dream big.
Right now we’re looking for the next generation of Microsoft innovators.
If you have talent and a passion for technology, this could be your big moment.
Come find out more about our fulltime and internship opportunities and the area of Seattle!

Bring your résumé for a chance
to win great prizes!

FREE FOOD will be provided!

OMG Free Food? It’s as if the author thinks that the food will change my decision whether or not to go. The sentence structure seems very pedantic and more like that of something a non-native English speaker (Nigerian scammer) would write. It just doesn’t seem to flow very well — usually in these emails it’s more along the lines of “Company X is currently seeking a customer service oriented and highly creative individual to provide services and support as a Junior Software Test/Documentation Specialist.”

The department later sent out a more formal email verifying that this was indeed real, which I found hard to believe. Regardless, I’m not looking for a job at the moment. I will say that the latest round of recruitment emails from our department and the school’s career services has been much better than the typical “Redneck Technical Services is looking for an entry level web designer in Rustic, VA with a starting salary of $20K.”

There were some bugs in the gridding software I am using for my Master’s project which kept me stuck for the past week and a half. Now that the issues have been worked out, it’s still slow going. The more I get done the more likely I will graduate (or more appropriately, the sooner I will get my Master’s degree). I also got handed a bunch of papers by my to-be PhD adviser so I have to finish those by the time school starts next week. On top of all that, there are a bunch of things that NASA Ames wants implemented. I finish up with Ames at the end of the month regardless, but I should be able to handle their requests.

It looks like I’ll be a part time TA this semester too so that will add more stuff for me to handle. I think it’s going to be a rough semester, one that will either make me or break me. I’m going to have to make a good effort not to waste time since I tend to screw around on the Internet sometimes when I should be doing work (like now). I probably won’t be able to go to practice much due to my class times and work load, but it would be nice. Actually, at this point, I just hope I can continue to train as I have during previous semesters. I’ve got to have some kind of release since I’m not big on the social scene sort of things.

If things turn out well, my RA stuff will start in the summer, which is probably good. First, I won’t have to get another summer internship and deal with looking for places that will take me. Second, I’ll be able to get a head start on my PhD research which is also a good thing. The downside is that I’ll most likely be in Williamsburg in the summer, which is a lifeless, bug-infested jungle. I’ll probably be able to come home a lot since I won’t have classes, but I’ll have plenty of stuff to do from my advisor, I’m sure. At this point, I think I would like to try to find my own apartment so I won’t have to deal with roommates making a mess of things. Living in the graduate complex is getting old and it still has a bit of a dorm atmosphere to it. Regardless, that’s about number 4000 on the things I have to do this semester and I’m on number 6.

The replacements for my failing equipment came this week. The watch arrived yesterday and unlike the first, actually worked. There isn’t much to say about it except that it does what I want it to do. It’s better than the last one since the numbers are larger and easier to read when running. Also, I can make the primary display show the lap split and not the total running time. I’ve had a few watches that only show the total running time in the primary display for the chronograph, which seems pointless. The whole purpose of the lap/split feature is for interval type training. When you use it, you want to see the time of your current interval, not the total running time. Anyways, that’s definitely a plus with the new watch. Unlike my last watch, you can’t set the year, so I’m wondering what happens on leap years. I’m guessing it will have to be reset.

Frustrated with the intermittent R key on the Saitek Eclipse 2, I broke down and ordered the new Apple wired keyboard from Newegg. I looked at the Razer Lycoza, mentioned by , but most reviews said it was too expensive for what you got. Apparently the back lighting is weak and you can’t read the keys without it on, either. If the lighting was better, I might have gone for it. It then came down between the Apple wired and wireless keyboards. The wireless was more expensive and I would have to get a Bluetooth adapter for my Windows computer so I could use it with that. That would effectively double the price over the wired version. Plus, the wired version has a full set of keys since I use Delete, Home, End, and sometimes the keypad when programming.

The keyboard came an hour ago and plugging it in gave me an excuse to pound out this entry. Two things right off the bat — the cord is really short, less than three feet long. It comes with a small extension cable, but together it still isn’t very long and barely reaches behind my desk to connect with the computer. I have a 10 foot USB extension cable at school I can use if I really need it. The other thing is that it has two USB ports, which won’t power my mouse. They are both low power ports. I’m not sure what USB devices are low power anymore. Maybe something with its own internal power supply, like a camera.

With that aside, the keyboard is definitely good. It’s really compact, even smaller than the Saitek Eclipse 2. It’s also well made — very heavy and not flimsy at all. Since it has such a low profile, there isn’t a need for a wrist pad, which really helps. The keys have a bit more feedback than the Macbook, but have a similar feel to most laptop keyboards. They are spaced out a bit more than a normal keyboard which causes me to mistype occasionally, but it’s something I can get used to in time. And, of course, the R key works. Compared to a regular keyboard, I feel I can type faster on this since I don’t have to slam down my fingers to make every keystroke register. I have yet to try it out in any games, but I can’t see it being any different than playing games on a laptop. It seems that many hardcore gamers are using laptop style keyboards nowadays anyway.

Another weird thing I just noticed — my Dell LCD seems to have experienced some burn in since I’ve plugged it into the Macbook. The Apple menu bar is slightly visible during the boot sequence. Doing some reading suggests that it can be removed by running an all-white screen as a screensaver. The 2001FP is another “older” piece of equipment I’ve got that hopefully won’t break down anytime soon like my keyboard or watch. I would like to get a massive 1080P TV/monitor to use with my computer or even the new Dell 30 inch display. Those would be great for games and for displaying a ton of junk on the screen at once when I’m working. Unfortunately, monitors that big aren’t conducive to someone in my situation who moves back and forth to school every few months (and likely will for awhile).

The weather has been weird again lately, with it being very warm and windy. Each day the forecast is for the cold to return, but it never really does. It’s been good for running, but I’m sure it will be back to cold and nasty rain just in time for school to start next week.

I also saw No Country for Old Men this week, which was definitely the best movie I’ve seen all year with the exception of the ending. The bad guy gets away after killing all but one of the good guys. There isn’t any final showdown, either — each character dies in a different scene without putting up much of a fight. The one guy you want to win dies a quick death offscreen while the one good character left stops chasing the bad guy simply because he just doesn’t care anymore. The first three quarters were great though, a couple of street smart rednecks barely outsmarting a cool and calculated hit man. There were plenty of tense moments mixed in with slower paced character and setting building scenes. The atmosphere and dialog were great and reminded me a lot of the driving out west this summer.

Well, back to work some more before it gets any later.

At the top, I could see everything. To the east was the Central Valley with the Sierra Nevada on the horizon. To the north, I could see Suisun Bay and the Sacramento River. In the distance, Mt. Lassen was barely visible, the southernmost volcano in the Cascades. The entire Bay Area was visible to the west, but much of it was covered in fog. The skyline of San Francisco just barely stuck out of the fog, along with the Golden Gate.

That was a pretty cool trip. I spent a fair amount of time walking around the summit and taking pictures. It was like being on an airplane with the views.

On Saturday I did a loop around the Palo Alto Baylands for my long run. I had been there before, but turned around instead of doing a loop. This time I went farther and came back along 101 instead of retracing my steps. One of the best things about this area is that there are so many good places to run, just right out the door. Then, of course, there are all the parks in the Santa Cruz mountains. If you took all the parks I’ve been to in Eastern Virginia and combined them into one, they still wouldn’t be as cool as one of the open space preserves in and around the Santa Cruz.

I’ve also watched a few movies lately. I saw Zodiac, which I was surprised I hadn’t heard of before. I was really impressed by it, but the ending was a bit anti-climactic. It was also kind of weird because it took place in the SF Bay Area. It seems most movies I see are set in a place I have little connection to, so the setting made it a little more meaningful.

I also saw The Prestige. This was really good. I had wanted to see this for a while and finally got my chance. The ending was excellent and almost completely unexpected. Spoiler: I had an idea of what would happen, but the reveal of the true “good” and “bad” magician really blew me away.

The whole food thing is working out well, but is starting to encroach on my free time. Planning what I am going to make and especially going to the grocery store is wearing on me. Each week it becomes a pain to figure out what I can make that is relatively easy, since I don’t feel like doing much after work. The weekends don’t matter as much, so I can afford to spend more time. However, going to the store takes awhile and sometimes I wind up going to several places since not every store has all the stuff I want. Of course, I usually forget something and then have to go back again to get it.

This weekend I did a stir fry with shrimp and rice, which turned out great. I made another peanut butter pie, this time with cream cheese and a chocolate crust. It’s kept in the freezer and with the cream cheese tastes like a cheesecake/ice cream combo. It’s also really dense despite using low fat ingredients. At this point I’m pretty confident I’ll just get a minimal meal plan and eat most of my dinners in the caf. All the overhead of going to the store and planning things out would be a real pain while at school. It might work out better if I had a roommate that I could switch off cooking with. That way I also wouldn’t make something that would last for three days.

I’m pretty much getting done what everyone at work has given me to do. My visualization tool has been integrated into the Composer IDE and now I’m just adding more features. The work isn’t terribly challenging, but it’s much better than the previous summers.

Dan called to tell me he should be in Echo Lake on Saturday afternoon on his way up the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s a four hour drive from here, so I thought about going to see him, but it’s hard to tell if he would be there by then. Yesterday was the last time he could call before the weekend. I don’t want to go all the way out there only to miss him. There are some friends in Davis that I will probably go see instead.

My mom was planning on driving back with me and was just talking about going back the same way I drove out. I don’t know if I want to do that. It might be interesting to go the southern route since it’s something new. I’ll get to go to three new states: New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. It’s pretty much Interstate 40 from California to Tennessee. It would probably be hot and consist of a lot more boring plains and deserts, so I’m kind of unsure on the issue. I’m also not too keen of another endless drive through Nebraska. There’s still a few more weeks to decide, but not too many.

I find that when I get to about two or three months into the training cycle I am at the greatest risk of getting hurt. This time was no exception. I can see the signs, which are mostly just being beat up, but especially small irritating things like sore achilles or hamstring. Stuff like that really sets off the alarm bells that something bad could happen. When I feel exhausted even after a non workout day, I know that something is amiss.

I was about this close to asking if I could adjust my training and throw in a down week last week. This close. But I didn’t do it, figuring that everything would be okay. And then, after last Wednesday’s workout, I find myself limping around the apartment.

Of course, it takes me four more days of running with increasing pain to convince myself that I’ve got a serious injury and can’t run until it’s better.

So, in the meantime, I’ve been sentenced to the bike. It could be weeks until this goes away. It took three last time. On the plus side, it might give me much needed rest so that I will be able to finish my last season feeling good. In the past, I’ve been able to blast a couple good races even with injuries a few weeks prior. Last spring, when I didn’t get hurt, I ran out of gas at the end, most likely because I wasn’t used to running for six months straight.

Spring break has been pretty uneventful. I went home last weekend but am back here at school since I’ve been asked to for practice. Not that I’ll be able to do what everyone else is doing. Personally, I would rather stay home since I wouldn’t have to pay for food. The dining halls don’t open again until Sunday. The weather’s been great at home for biking, but that will change tonight and it will be back to cold again. At least being at school will allow me to get more work done before class starts next week.

At this point in the fall, the halfway point was the marker between no schoolwork and onslaught. This seems to be the case this spring as well. Suddenly, all this stuff I have to do has popped up. It’s going to be a tough finish again, compounded in the short term by my injury (Biking takes more time than running) and in the long term by racing. But, I’ve had tough semesters before and have still been able to work in training and racing. I’ve got to do the best I can in everything because I don’t have much school or running left.

All the internship stuff for this summer is set. I’ve got a reservation at the NASA Ames Exchange Lodge where most other interns stay and I’ve done all the paperwork (that I know of) for the internship itself. It should be an interesting experience and I can’t wait to go, but there is a lot to do between now and then. One thing that will be weird is that I’ll have to cook my own food on a regular basis for the first time.

It’s kind of hard for me to believe that the semester is nearly halfway over in terms of time. It definitely isn’t in terms of work and I have a feeling that it will slow down as it progresses. It will be a challenge to hold everything together, that’s for sure.

I was getting worried because I had to let Lockheed Martin know what I was going to do by this Sunday. It was really coming down to the wire. Last night when I got back to my room, I got an email that I had been pretty much accepted at NASA Ames and only some details needed to be worked out. Today, I sent my response to everyone involved that I would be going to NASA.

This is something I have wanted to do for quite a long time. I really want to see what it’s like to live somewhere far from home, especially with the notoriously awesome summer weather of Northern California. The internship work itself sounds great too and will probably be something that will keep my hands full all summer.

At this point, I’ll probably drive out there so I can have a car. Someone will probably have to go with me since there is no way I can drive 10-12 hours straight for four days. This will combine three things I’ve really wanted to do into one package: road trip, living on the west coast, and an interesting job. For me, it’s about the excitement equivalent of breaking 14 minutes in the 5k. Maybe I can do that in the next few months too, who knows?

It seems there are a few things to be worked out, mainly the starting date and housing. If I run at regionals, I’ll only have a little more than a week to leave school, pack my stuff at home, and get to California. If finals are as tough as they were last semester, things could be rough, but I’ll be finished with those a little earlier in May. With housing, it sounds like there is a hotel/lodge kind of deal on the NASA Ames campus from what I have read on the internet, so maybe I’ll be able to stay there. That would really help with commuting, too.

On the flip side, the internship is at about step 1500 on my to-do-list, and I’m currently on step 5. There is a whole lot of stuff that will happen between now and then. With school, I’ve got some homework assignments and then some projects coming up. With running, assuming I don’t get hurt or sick, I’ve got a lot of training to do and quite a few races. IC4As is in Boston next weekend, which is a pretty big deal. I ran the qualifying time for IC4As at Virginia Tech last weekend that should put me in fast heat of the 5k, but I’ve been worried about my sore calves turning into an achilles injury.

Regardless, there is a lot going on. It was also this time last year that I found out I got into grad school. This year, it’s the internship. A lot of the seniors on the team who have applied to graduate school are hearing back. It should be interesting to see where they end up.

Despite having the promise of an exciting future, I’ve got to take things one day at a time. I’ve only got a few months left of being on the team and I really want to take advantage of that. I don’t have that much more school left, either, so I have to live in the present and enjoy what I’ve got.

Of course, the NASA Ames telephone interview wasn’t scheduled until today, so I had to get the deadline extended for my acceptance at Lockheed. The interview today went more like what I had expected in the first place — more detailed job descriptions and more questions about specific things that I knew. The guy I talked to listed off a few potential projects I could work on, some of which had to do with Eclipse plugins, which sounded interesting. Eclipse, he said, was one of the reasons I was interviewed, since I listed my experience with it on my resume. I’ve done development with Eclipse, but never created a plugin for it. I talked a lot about what I had done in school and for work, much more than at Lockheed. He also asked a few questions about stuff I hadn’t had any experience with, which might not be a good sign, but he didn’t seem too worried. Overall, I think the interview went over well, but it’s hard to say what will happen. I feel I gave a much better impression of myself than I did the last time.

Hopefully I will find out next week about NASA so that I can make a decision about what I want to do. It sounded like there may be a follow up interview to test my technical knowledge, specifically with Java. It seems like I could get grilled if that happens.

I’m also dealing with finding housing for next year. At present, I just slapped down my room deposit for graduate housing so I have that as a sure bet. I would rather room with someone I know well, which pretty much equates to my teammates. Some of them found a house not too far from the graduate complex but it seemed too expensive and too many little surprises (unfurnished, not enough bedrooms) to be worth it. Maybe someone else will be willing to get an apartment. Though if I do that, I will most likely be paying rent on two places over the summer, so hopefully I can find someone else to sublease to.

School has started to pick up a little and I’ve got a fair share of assignments. Before long, there will be a whole torrent of stuff to do. This is one reason why I’m glad all these interviews are going on now and not later.

I think I’ve discovered where the insane tuition increases have been going. Today I stopped by the coaches’ office where someone was installing a new computer. The “old” one was no more than two years old to begin with (Pentium 4) and they didn’t use it for anything more than word processing and web browsing. Now it’s a brand-spanking-new Core 2 with a big LCD that fills up most of the desk. Oddly enough, it’s running XP pro, not Vista. I know in the CS department there was a huge round of upgrades last semester where we all got 20 inch LCDs. Personally, I would rather the tuition be a few thousand less than have a few more inches on my desktop.

I was pretty impressed with the way everything was arranged. There was a lot of paperwork that I had to fill out, both online and stuff I had to print out, fill out, and bring in, so I had to take care of all that before I left Thursday night. The email sent by the head recruiter at Lockheed gave me the option to get a plane ticket and a hotel room if I needed it. Initially, I was going to drive up myself on the day of the interview since I didn’t have to be there until 11:30. I realized that I would have to get up really early if I wanted to do that, and I wasn’t sure if I would have time to run either, so I decided to get the hotel room and drive up Thursday night.

This meant I had to do my workout on Thursday instead of Friday, which really beat me up. It snowed for the first time this winter while I was doing it, but it began to melt by the time I was done.

My dad said he would drive me up to the interview, and met me around 5 on Thursday afternoon. He brought with him all these clothes for me to wear the next day. I had a few things that would probably be okay, but he got a bunch of nice stuff — A new jacket, shirt, tie, shoes, and pants — just about everything. Surprisingly it all fit and just about all of it was the smallest size available at the store he went to. That was mostly the reason I don’t go looking for decent dress clothes — most stores don’t have my sizes. To get decent clothes anywhere, you have to be at least six feet tall and weigh 170 pounds.

Somehow the weather managed to hold out and there wasn’t much traffic at all the whole way to Arlington. The hotel was pretty nice and when I checked in, I got a ticket for a free breakfast at the hotel courtesy of Lockheed. I brought my computer along, and in the hotel room, I was able to detect at least 20 wireless networks. That was the most I’ve seen anywhere, way more than Palo Alto, even.

On Friday I got up before 8 to get in my run, which was only an easy day, but I wanted to leave myself enough time. The George Washington Parkway has a trail that runs its entire length, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to it even though it was a half mile away. I went into some neighborhoods west of Crystal City and then came back. There was a nice little hill in there too.

The hotel restaurant was pretty much deserted except for someone else who looked my age and was wearing a tie. I assumed he was another one of the candidates. He looked pretty nervous sitting there by himself, which made me kind of glad someone came along with me. As it turned out, the guy was also in my interview session.

I ordered muesli, but it wasn’t what I expected. Usually, it’s just dried oats and fruit, but this was more like cold oatmeal, as if it had been soaking in milk for hours or days and got all lumpy. There wasn’t anything distinguishable in it.

I changed clothes after breakfast and headed down to the car with my dad since it was after 11. The building where I had to go was also in Crystal City and was located only a few blocks away. Even still, it was difficult to find the place and its entrance. Ironically, the building was fixed with a giant “Boeing” logo. It made me wonder if I was going to the right place, but when I got inside, I saw signs for Lockheed Martin on the correct floor.

When I got there I had to hand in a bunch of paperwork to the receptionist and fill out even more paperwork that she gave me. Since it was fairly early, another interview session was just finishing up. Out of my session and the session that I saw leaving (probably about 20-25 total), something raised a flag in the back of my head. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was, but then it hit me. About half of everyone interviewing was female. This really struck me as odd since it turned out everyone there was a computer science or computer engineering major. At a school with at least 60% of the population being female, less than 20% of the computer science students at my school are female. From stuff I’ve read on the internet, especially Slashdot, this seems to be about the national average. So how come half of all the interviewees were female? I’m pretty sure there was some kind of profiling going on, which really ticks me off. On the flip side, however, it could have been that everyone there was the most qualified people that could be found? I don’t know, but it was definitely an odd group compared to typical computer science students.

There was a lot of sitting around. There was a general presentation for the entire group about the company and its specific divisions. Everyone introduced themselves during this portion. I learned just about everyone there was from Virginia Tech and one guy was from Maryland. Lockheed must recruit heavily from those places because one of the hiring managers was also from Maryland. They went over some security stuff as well and then we had to wait for our individual interviews. I was interviewed by two people, one after the other.

We weren’t given much time during the one-on-one sessions and we ran out of time both times. I wasn’t paying attention to the time, but I would say it was about 20 minutes both times. Both people I talked to were from the transportation and security division, which was all non-military stuff. The weird thing was that they couldn’t say exactly what I would be doing during my internship and only gave a few examples of projects their division was working on that I could be a part of. There was a project with the national archives to preserve data so that stuff like powerpoints could be read 50 or 100 years from now. There was also a project dealing with the FAA, and there was another one they talked about that dealt with giving biometric identification cards to port workers. The port worker ID card stuff I’ve heard a fair amount about since there have been a few articles in the paper.

Both people seemed deliberately vague about everything I asked them, and couldn’t tell me how many people I would be working with or the exact location I would be working if I got the job. They only said that they would match my skills to an a place where I would best fit in. The woman I talked to didn’t seem to ask much about me, but the man I talked to after her at least asked about my programming and work experiences. He seemed especially interested in my familiarity with good software engineering practices. I tried to talk about everything I remembered from my SE class, but it had been awhile. We did some of those sorts of things at Alion/BMH, but he didn’t seem too impressed. He also claimed my resume was rather “short”. I thought that was odd since I doubt anyone else there interviewing had more development experience than I did, since I had been working since high school and most of them were undergraduates.

After the individual interviews, I spoke to another recruiter who asked about starting dates and preferred job locations, but I couldn’t really comment since I didn’t know what it was that I could be doing. I asked about housing, but was told that the housing compensation or help depended on where it was that I would be working. I was also told I would hear back from them around a week to ten days later on the outcome.

I finished up around 2:45 and my dad came to pick me up. I guess he had spent some time at one of the nearby malls while I was at the interview. The traffic was pretty heavy, but cleared up around Fredericksburg. We picked up my sister from her dorm when we got back to school and went out to dinner at a new Italian place, which was pretty good. I got pasta with shrimp, scallops, and mussels with a sauce that was pretty spicy. It was a ton of food, but still less than Vinny T’s in Boston. I finally got back to my room around 9.

In all, it wasn’t a bad experience. I wish I knew more about specific job opportunities rather than a vague, general approach. It would help if I knew specifics so I would have a better feeling about the job. Maybe it will involve something really interesting, but I just don’t know. Unfortunately, at this point, I haven’t heard from any other places to which I’ve applied. That would also give me a better baseline for comparison, but I don’t think I want to go to too many more interviews.

I will see how this turns out, and it could go either way.

The real kicker this week is that I got a call from Lockheed Martin and am supposed to have an interview in Arlington on Friday for a summer internship. Of course, there is a colloquium and a big workout that day too. I guess that will all have to be rearranged. I don’t have a suit with me at school, so I’ll have to go home and get it at some point. This is going to be an experience since I’ve never had a face to face interview before. There are all kinds of forms and stuff that I have to fill out before I go, much more than I’ve dealt with in my previous job. I’ve seen books and books on surviving job interviews, but reading all that stuff will probably make the whole thing worse. I’ve got a lot of other things on my plate right now.

I got in a good solid first race this weekend at George Mason and tied my best time for 3k. It would have been nice to get a new PR, but considering I had only been back at school for a few days, it isn’t too bad. It’s been quite a while since I’ve run in uniform and it was great to be back. I got a nice big fat blister on my left foot from new spikes though. My main goal from here on out is just to survive without injury. If I can do that, everything will be fine.