the final stretch

hey everyone,

i have only 2 weeks to finish my master's thesis. right now, sheley is in bandung (her 1st stomping ground), and next week she's going to belly-tung (i don't know how to spell it), which has a beach!

as for me, i've finally booked some of my upcoming flights. i got 3 flights for a total of $177!!
LA -> seattle = $69
seattle -> san fran = $59
san fran -> LA = $49

the grand, tentative schedule follows:
march 13 (fri) = finish master's thesis
march 13 (fri) - march 19 (thurs) = enjoy LA/long beach w/ brian and jeff
march 19 (thurs) = fly to seattle to see BP
march 23 (mon) = fly from seattle to san fran to see kazi
march 26 (thurs) = fly from san fran to LA
[pack bags and ship everything to boston]
march 29 (sun) = bye bye LA and fly to boston to apartment hunt
april 4 (sat) = fly from boston to atlanta
april 10 (fri) = fly from atlanta to FIT to see dan
april 14 (tues) = fly from FIT to atlanta
[wait at home until i can move in to apartment in boston]
april 23ish? = move to boston

my good friend jeremy, from middle school and high school, finally started writing a blog again. his old one from 4 yrs ago was really funny, so check out his second attempt. oh, and as a disclaimer: it's unlikely that his posts will ever go without offending at least one person.

http://incognegro2.blogspot.com/

don't forget to the do the poll on the right.

the transition stage - part 1

in the last post, i mentioned how i'm gonna start being way more active here in LA before i leave. i listed 4 events for that 1 week. well, i did all of them except for the art exhibition. the bball game was great. i randomly saw my roommate and his gf there, and we all enjoyed the game. we beat berk by like 16 or so?

sadly, i didn't do anything on campus this past week. my excuse: operation graduation. i've been reading papers and just doing a lot of thinking about how i'm gonna really approach my problem. i have 4 weeks left, and i must write 20-40 pages in that time, too. so, it's starting to get scary.

okay, here comes the good news! i finally received my official offer from MIT Lincoln Lab! they really want me, and they made me a very gracious offer. the best part is that i'm also very excited, and MIT was the dream ever since 2001. i'm not going to talk anymore about the whole dream stuff, as i've already blogged about it in the past. just know that it feels very good.

okay, here comes the bad news. nasa/caltech's jet propulsion lab is also making me an offer! they put in a request, and it's just up to HR to approve. their small group is undergoing a huge funding decrease due to the space industry pushbacks. but, my job would be research/development of AI for the mars rovers and all of the deep-space satellites. very fascinating! i'm the first person they've hired in 2 years, and only 2nd in 5 yrs. i'm extremely flattered.

i classified this as 'bad news' because i always said it would be too hard for me to have to pick between the two. out of all of the places to work in the world, they are my #1 and #2 picks. yet, i just didn't know the ordering of who was #1. they are both identical in many respects (are FFRDC's tied w/ good schools, located in fun cities, amazing research opportunity--instead of being 100% programming, fascinating nature and application of the work, etc). during the last 3 months, i've been thinking about it a lot, and i've finally picked who i want to work for. i won't say now, though :) i'll keep it as a surprise for a bit. anyway, that's my big news. i feel very very grateful/fortunate/blessed/lucky.

don't forget to do the poll, please.

i will leave you w/ a video i saw this past week: