welcome to adulthood

holy moly, it's been nearly 3 months since my last post! woops.

basically, i finished school in march. before starting my job, i went on a 5-week vacation, visiting:

• BP in seattle
• kazi at berkeley
• sheley in indonesia

it was a great time, and i think i wrote about some of this in past posts. during this vacation time, i also rewrote my entire master's project and re-submitted it to my adviser. he loved it. that made me happy.

in june, i moved to boston. it's small, but i'm trying to make it cozy and make it mine. as previously mentioned, it's $1600/month, has a parking spot, washer and dryer, and is in the heart of boston (beacon hill). after 4 trips to ikea, i'm finally pretty much done furnishing it :-) i'll post a video of it later.

as for my job, i love mit lincoln lab. i cannot imagine a better place for me. i interned here last summer, so i had an idea as to what i was getting myself into. but, i'm now further convinced that this is where i belong.

short version, i love it because:

• im researching and developing ai and data mining algorithms
• unique opportunities and applications of the work
• industry jobs would require me to have phd in order to do anything remotely comparable
• the environment/atmosphere
• it's challenging
• benefits are great

long version, i love it because:
i am on 2 projects: (1) face recognition; (2) stream analytics. both are in its infancy, and are VERY small teams. the work includes ai and data-mining-related algorithms. i love it. that's what i went to grad school for.

also, it's not just a code development job. MITLL is a FFRDC (federally funded research and development center). so, research is a large role. that's awesome. i am essentially tasked with doing stuff that i wouldn't have the opportunity to do anywhere else, unless i had a phd and a strong publication record. so i just saved myself from wasting like 3+ years of my life. yet, the stuff i learned in grad school is part of the stuff i work on and read every single day. i am really glad i took the classes i did. oh, and the application of our work is really cool, too. our sponsors are some pretty cool organizations :-)

the environment is kind of like a glorified grad school environment. i am in group 62, "information assurance." the group has many people and is essentially divided into two halves: (1) speech; (2) networking. i am the only person who has a project on each side of the group :-) everyone's office door is always open. it's understood that everyone is responsible and will work 40+ hours. with this, the hours are pretty flexible. people sometimes come in to work a few hours late, work from home occasionally, etc. don't confuse this with slackness. the employees are smart and definitely get work done. some of the people in our group are highly well-known, and a couple have written textbooks. the group consistently ranks well in world-wide speech competitions. it's a great environment, and it's challenging work that i enjoy.

i'm becoming more acquited with boston, and i look forward to knowing it more.

sheley is visiting next week! i can't wait.

the new boston apartment!

i decided to go with choice #1 from the previous post.

it's located here:

View Larger Map

it's considered "walker's paradise," with a score of 95/100:
http://walkscore.com/get-score.php?street=78+phillips+street+boston%2C+ma&go=Go

although it's within walking distance of tons of things, the ones that matter most to me are:

• 600 feet to the subway (redline)
• 1,100 feet to whole foods grocery store!
• 1,100 feet to a parking garage that allows monthly parking
• 1,400 feet to the park (boston commons -- oldest in the nation)
• 850 feet to post office
• 1,000 feet to gym
  
• in the heart of tons of restaurants and shops

the main attributes of the place:

• 1 bedroom
• my own private parking spot behind apartment, 24/7
• washer and dryer within apartment
• no dish washer
• free heat and hot water
• $1,600/month
  
• 4 month lease, can extend in increments of 1 yr at a time
• 1st and last month rent upfront, $800 finders fee, $500 security deposit
• pointless notes: ive become friends w/ the realtor, and landlord is an mit prof

it's small, so i made a sketch of my tentative layout. the dimensions of every object are as accurate as i could get... should generally be within a ~8" error:

new boston apartment!

i'm looking for a place in beacon hill neighborhood.

wednesday, i flew in by 4pm, and checked out 3 apartments
thursday, i spent 10 hrs checking out 14 apartments

here are the best 5 i have found so far...

i've learned:

• personal parkings spots don't exist in beacon hill. (if so, they rent for $200-400 a month and sell for $200k+)
• people park in nearby garages ($100 per month) or on the street (free), but street parking may take 30 minutes
• i want a 1 bedroom, and the default price is $1700 - $1800

all of the following are:

• 1 bedroom, and are either on 1st or 2nd floor.
• within 1,000 - 2,000 feet from the parking garage

here are the top 5 so far:

1. $1600.
   pros: WITH A PARKING SPACE and laundry in house!! the realtor said this is his 2nd place w/ parking in his 10 yrs.
   cons: weird design... the living room is almost unmanageable to do something w/ it. can barely fit a futon widthwise
   vid:
   
   
2. $1550.
   pros: little complex w/ a cool maintained courtyard. great layout of room...
   cons: smelled a lil like urine, but "it should go away"; laundry is across street. very close though
   vid:
   
   
   
3. $1530
   pros: price. pretty big
   cons: fake fireplaces. decent layout but living room and bedroom are actually identical
   vid:
   
   
   
4. $1575
   pros: price. good kitchen i believe
   cons: odd layout. 2 adjacent rooms IMMEDIATELY in front of you as you walk in
   vid:
   
   
   
5. $1500
   pros: looks really cozy and good layout. working fireplace (most places dont allow them)
   cons: a little small? 2nd floor. closest laundry is 600 feet away
   vid:
   
   

if you could live in any of them, which would you pick? leave a comment.

it was the best of times, it was the...

i haven't blogged in a month.

basically, the past 4 weeks has been possibly the hardest time of my life since february 10 years ago -- the time with 3 funerals. i won't go into details because nobody wants a sob story and there's no sense in whining. i'll just mention 1 of the elements that has occurred: i'm not graduating this quarter. let's just say i did a lot of work -- more than the average student -- but my adviser didn't like my writing style, so i have to rewrite my 40 page report. this hopefully won't affect my starting date at MIT.

on the upside, i've started my 1.5 months of "vacation!":

1. resign from being a UCLA student
2. visit seattle (BP and brian)
3. visit berkeley/san francisco (kazi)
4. leave LA
5. househunt in boston for a week
6. fly to indonesia for 16 days!!

i took tons of pics, some follow for each respective section:
1. ucla:



2. seattle




3. berkeley / san francisco




also, i'm getting into panoramic pictures. i took some of the golden gate bridge, and i'm going to do some of LA before i leave here.

please do the poll on the right.

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:

you better get up, get out, and get somethin!

that line has been mentioned, mixed, and sampled in many rap songs.

it's really starting to hit me that i only have 7 more weeks here in LA. i'm used to the temporarily lifestyle whereby each year i live in a different residential hall, and every summer i live in a different city for 12 weeks. i've sampled many cities over the last 6 years, and it's just now hitting me that once i move to work full-time, that it's not so easy to just sample a new city. oh crap. heh.

it seems i haven't really done much in LA. i dunno. i guess, realistically, considering my personality and all, i did about as good as i should have expected. i still feel like a visitor in LA. i still feel like a guest. however, i guess i have at least done many of the touristy things: i've seen many beaches, spent a lot of time on 3rd street promenade, did the hollywood stuff (sign, walk of fame, grumann theatre), been to a few comedy clubs, getty museum, and have eaten at a few good places. i've definitely had many many fun times with brian and old friends who have flown to see me. so, now that i think about it, i guess i haven't lived as homely a life as i once though. i've done a good bit in my 1.7 yrs here.

i guess before i came to cali, i envisioned having a huge network of friends and being part of campus, just like things were in florida. i think the mere fact that i'm a grad student really makes that nearly impossible. it's as if each of us 12,000 grad students is just injected within a pool of 28,000 already-connected undergrads. we are outsiders, 50% international, and are being mixed with a social network that is 90% californians--they knew people from high school even! grad students' role on campus is to live within our labs, not to be involved in numerous campus organizations and events. oh, and the fact that i live 5 miles from campus only makes it more difficult.

nevertheless, i still wanted to have built up a personal critique of many LA shops and eateries. my excuses for having not frequented more of these are that (1) i'd have to go alone... which i definitely don't mind doing, but how many restaurants can one really care to eat at alone; (2) money. i've always been saving so that i can immediately pay off my 80k in loans; (3) traffic is horrible

okay, enough w/ the excuses. during my remaining 7 weeks, i'm gonna try to really experience LA while still doing enough work to finish my master's project. oh, and once i graduate, i'm gonna stay for 1 week just to explore here.

this week:

• tues = see examined life, a ucla-produced film
• wed = campus crusades christ at ucla
• thurs = ucla men's bball game against berkeley
• fri = art exhibit at ucla

it's unbelievable how many events take place on-campus each day. as a sample of the registered events, here are friday's events.

do the poll to the right, and i'll leave you with some never-seen-before videos from when i was leaving mit/boston: