Changes

So this has been a crazy week. Last Sunday I got an email telling me that Microsoft Research (MSR) was interested in me for an internship. On Monday I interviewed for the position, and on Wednesday I got the position. It will start on the 25th of this month. Crazy huh, in the space of three days my plans for the rest of summer and also Fall Semester have completely changed.

I am really excited about my internship. It isn’t in my specific field of research, but it will be a great opportunity to work on an amazing project while also networking with security related researchers at MSR. It will also be nice that I will be near Emily for the rest of the summer. We will still be apart when she goes to China, but it will be good to have increased time with her.

And because of that it is time to get spend happy :) It look like I am going to have to spend just northwards of 1500 dollars to get my car ready for the trip. Wow, ACs on Ford Fusions are expensive! I also got myself a treat and upgraded my hard drive in my main computer.

 

Other cool stuff in the week included me being made first author on a paper. This is the first time this has happened. I am really hopeful the paper will get published. If that happens it will significantly increase my chances of getting into a great PhD program. It has been a lot of hard work getting the paper ready, but now it certainly seems worth it.

This week also saw Emily’s and my sixth month dating anniversary. It has been a good six month. Emily made us some bacon roses to celebrate. We also went out to Tucanos, both to celebrate this and a birthday for a friend of hers. We then finished the night by watching Jane Austen. Nothing too fancy, but it was all made wonderful since I did it with Emily :)

 

And that is where things stand with me now. I’ll keep everyone up to date with details about my excursion to Washington. Emily is planning to take me to all of her favorite places, so there should be a good amount to report on. Make sure to tune in and not miss any of the details!

Holidays and Weddings

This week has been a really good week. I was able to plan a visit out to Portland and Gig Harbor to see my cousin Jason and Emily respectively. I am really looking forward to this trip, it will be a lot of fun.

On Monday Emily and I made the most of the holiday. We started by making a giant breakfast :) There were chocolate chip pancakes, hash browns, butter milk syrup, and eggs. It was delightful. After we cleaned up the kitchen we went to Orem where we played a lot of out door games. I have to admit, Emily is getting really good at Bocce ball. She came really close to beating me, even though she has hardly ever played it.

The rest of the week was also pretty fun. Emily and I attended the CS BBQ on Wednesday, which had some really good food. After that I had Ryan’s bachelor party. That was a lot of fun to go to, getting to see all of my family and wish Ryan good luck.

On Thursday I got to spend more time with family as Jason and Alysha had a little get together. Emily’s Bocce ball skills came into use as we handily won the Bocce ball tournament. It was a lot of fun, and we even got to eat smores!

And on Saturday Ryan got married. It was a really special day. It is great to see him and Sarah together, they are such a happy couple. I went to the sealing in the afternoon and then got to chill with Drew for a few hours. Emily and I finished the night by going to the reception. At the reception they had the best chicken Alfredo I have had in my entire life. It was amazing. It was also fun to wish Ryan and Sarah good luck and see them off.

Here are some pictures from that day:

 

Other than that this week was spent working on a paper for work. We got luck and the deadline was pushed back. That will really help us. As of right now we have a decent first draft. It still needs a lot of revision, but nearly all of the material that we will need is in there. I hope it is good enough to get published. I could really use some papers on my resume.