I think the title of this post would make a great Indonesian song. I'll have to try to write my own lyrics for it someday. Today could have been better. Actually, I don't think it could've been worse. But I'm going to focus on the positive here. I went to the temple this morning. It was really cool. I've never been to the Salt Lake City temple before. The live sessions were neat, although it did take longer. I barely got to work on time. I'm going to buy temple clothes and try to make it a daily thing here in the future. Once I have money...
Work was difficult. I'm having problems with the mp3 program that has been going so smoothly. I'm not sure if it's legitimate problems, or problems caused by my lack of focus. Either way, things aren't looking great for having a reading and writing ID3 tag editor in some kind of functioning state by Monday.
I talked to Bishop Petersen today. The only person I've talked to all day that's been able to comfort me. I'm glad I thought of calling him... of course, who did I have left? I couldn't call my family, I don't have any friends... I'm alone in this Zion. But I'll make through my struggles. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know I've been promised certain blessings, and I'll receive them when the time is right.
I've been making my self some self improvement programs. Things are going pretty good. I've some calendars up and running to track my progress. No red days yet... course, it's only been two days, but I intend to keep those calendars free of red. I also went over to Dan and Alice's tonight, just to be around some people. It felt good for a change. I'm alone at work, at home... I just don't get to be with people very often. And now I feel lonelier than ever.
Theme song for today: Berhenti Berharap ~ Sheila on 7 (30 hari mencari cinta).
Only because Api yg Sangat Dingin hasn't been made yet.
Sepertinya hatiku dibakar di atas api yg sangat dingin
Shattering Glass Arm
It's been a while, but my internship is going good. I can't remember if I wrote about it at all before, but I'm going to write about it here. I'm doing an internship with the church in their ICS (Information and Communications Systems) department. It's been a great experience so far. I'm learning a great deal about the industry and about programming in general.
My first project has to deal with downloadable conference talk mp3s. Somebody has brought it to the attention of the Audio Visual department that their ID3 tags for their mp3 files are inconsistent and sometimes just flat-out wrong. I have to write a program that will process all the mp3 files and write their ID3 tag information to a .csv report file. .csv is like an excel spreadsheet, basically. I got that part done a while ago and was able to run the program on all the files today. It worked like a charm and processed over 9,000 files in less than 3 minutes. I was pretty excited about that. The next part will be to build a tool that can be used to edit massive amounts of mp3 files at once. It's going to be tricky, but I think it will be fun.
I talked on the phone with mandy for a long time today. It was good to have a real conversation with her. We haven't had one for a while. That's really all I'm going to say about that though. Porcupine Tree is my new favorite band for this week.
On a gospel note, it's been an amazing experience to work so close to the temple and to work for the church. In a way, I kind of feel like I'm a missionary again, and it's not just because I have to wear a tie to work every day. It's great knowing that what I'm doing is helping the Lord's kingdom. Even if it seems like a small, rather insignificant aspect. I mean, correctly tagged MP3 files aren't going to be the diffrence in someone's salvation or not, but it does affect the kingdom in it's own way. It's pretty humbling, really. I'm so glad that I'm experiencing this wonderful oppurtunity.
Actually, I really wanted to work at USAA instead of the church. USAA is a great company and their services are also very admirable and I'm sure I'd feel almost just as accomplished there as I do here. But to be honest, ever since I've started this internship, I haven't thought of USAA once. Mandy mentioned it tonight, and it dawned on me that I'd never even thought about it since I started working here. Well, I'm off to read and get to bed. Big day tomorrow. I get to start writing the ID3 tag editing part of the application.
Summer Confusion
Well, the summer is finally here and I'm out of school at last. My grades came out today. I'm pleased with them. I know that I could have done better in a few classes, but if I had worked harder in those classes, my other grades would have suffered. I pulled away with an A- in my tutoring class, for instance, and I could have gotten an A in it. Overall, I'm satisfied. I managed a B+ in my Biology and Discrete Math II classes. I definitely could have done better in the discrete math class. Biology was kind of a lost cause from the beginning. I feel I did well at the end.
The reason I'm confused is I don't know where I'm going to be living or what I'm going to be doing for the remainder of the summer. I have 3 internship possibilities. 1 is for a local company, INSEI. They are a nice company that deals a lot with nuclear waste management software. They are an independent software engineering business and they will produce any kind of application that anyone wants them to do. The Church is another employer that's interested in me. I sent them my resume and other information today, so we'll see what comes of that. The last company I have is USAA. This one is a company based out of San Antonio. It's a HUGE company. They are basically a financial institution for military personnel and their families. The office building I'd be working at is similar in size to the pentagon and the Sears tower. The campus is huge, and the benefits they offer are awesome. I would love to be a part of this company, but we'll see what happens.
Obviously, I prefer to work for USAA. They seem to be the most friendly to their employees and the company that I would have the most future in. I would love to be able to come back and work with something more local like INSEI, but we'll see where life leads me. Mandy is back in Kentucky right now. I might not get to see her for 5 months. It's going to be a long summer in that regard.
That's basically my life right. I'm just nervous wondering where it is that I'll be working for the summer. I'm doing my best to stay objective and calm, but I'm pretty excited and nervous. I hope I get that job in San Antonio. It would be a wonderful experience. Even if I don't get it this year, I'm definitely going to check it out next year. If at first you don't succeed, try try again... right?
Weekend Road Trip
This was an interesting weekend. Mandy wanted to go down to Provo to visit her elders so I followed along. It was fun, but a little disappointing. We were all supposed to meet in Salt Lake City to go ice skating. We arrived early and decided to hang out at temple square for a while. We went to go see the Christus statue in the visitors center. Up there, we ran into a Malaysian sister who spoke Indonesian! It was awesome. I was able to speak with her for a quite a while. Mandy was understanding, although a little upset since she didn't get to see everything she wanted to. I made her go down to the basement before we left, so she took a lot of pictures of stuff down there.
Everyone we were supposed to meet to go ice skating bailed on us, so we went by ourselves. It was really fun. I enjoyed it. I still want to buy a pair of ice skates. I like it so much... I just wish I was better at it.
After ice skating we drove down to see Jacob and Elise. We just talked and ate pizza. I finished up part of my homework and turned it in. That's really all that happened that night. In the morning we just sat around talking again, so i worked on my research paper and got it finished, for the most part. Mandy insisted that I shave, so she and Jacob went out to buy razors for me. After that we went to the draper open house. I got to see Kindy for that. It was awful though. It took so long and I didn't really learn any thing. 2.5 hours later, we had dinner and then headed home. We used my computer to watch Madagascar 2 again. It was fun. Then we ate pizza and I really finished off all my homework.
We left around 11:00 AM this morning. Mandy was upset with me because I apparently spent too much time on my computer. Enough for Jacob to make fun of me for it to her. I don't get it. I did so much so that we could go on this trip and it doesn't get recognized. I worked my butt off last week so I could spend as much time playing as I did. I skipped a class that I probably shouldn't have, and I still didn't do some homework that I should have done because I knew this trip was important to her. I played games for a lot of the ride home. That made her angry too. I couldn't think of anything to talk about. So I played some games and just sang along with the radio. I don't know what she wanted... whatever. Either way, I'm going to have another busy week this week to get caught up. It was fun though.
After she told me about Jacob making fun of me, I was in a bit of a bad mood and didn't say anything the rest of the trip really. I don't know why it bothers me so much when people bug me about being on the computer. Yeah, at home I deserve it, but I'm really not on the computer much more than I must be up here, especially not at Jacob and Elise's. I had to get that work done. Everyone has something they do all the time. Some people watch TV, some read, some play on the computer, others do other things. Everyone has their niche.
I was able to stop and see my family on the way home. Rett was there and I don't get to see him very often, so it was fun. We were there for 4 hours and got a bunch of jerky from my parents. I took my Biology quiz, my last bit of homework, and we came back to Rexburg. After that we just watched 24. It was good. A nice relaxing weekend. One that I'll unfortunately have to pay for however. I'm going to try to write in here more often. We'll see what happens though. At any rate, this is more than enough for tonight. I'll see you later.
Tis the Season to be... Jolly?
Today was interesting. I was up really late last night. Kindy and I decided to trade music at about 1:30, and we were up til 4:30 playing and copying songs for each other. It was a lot of fun, but I'm way tired because of it. I slept until noon, and I NEVER feel good when i do that. it just makes me feel lazy and tired all day. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep tonight, but I'm an insomniac for a reason.
Kindy and I went shopping today. It was a nightmare. All the stores were full of people and you couldn't move without running into someone. It was ridiculous. I am a laid back person, but I hate being in crowded locations full of people. It's loud, people are speaking in 800 different languages, and I don't like bumping into strangers. I was not having a good time. On top of that, I couldn't find anything that I was looking for. A shirt I wanted to get for Dad was too big. Every web cam I looked at was either too expensive or didn't work on a Mac. It was so frustrating.
It wasn't a total waste though. I did buy some new church shoes that I desperately needed. I did end up finding something for my dad. It's a plastic, fold able lap desk for his laptop computer. It has ventilation slits on it to allow the heat to dissipate quicker. It keeps the heat away from your legs too. Not what I wanted, it not really fun, but I think he'll use it... At least, I hope he does. I'd use it.
Then we had to pick up some food and snacks to eat. We got sandwiches at subway and chips and pop at Walmart. We came home and watched the BYU bowl game. That was a disappointment. Anyways, the whole point is that I was mostly frustrated for today. But at the same time, it's Christmas. I realize there are going to be little things that bother and frustrate me, but that doesn't mean I can't be happy.
On a side note, I finished my geology website and sent an e-mail to my entire geology class to beta test it for me. I'll modify it based on their feedback and submit it to Brother Gahn once I'm satisfied with it. So far, I know that at least 2 people from my class have looked at it, due to the tracker I placed on it returning visitors from Washington and org eon. I'll see write more later. See ya!
Been A While
It was a killer semester for me. The classes I took were just way hard with difficult/tricky teachers. All of them fair, just with very high expectations. As it is, I'm assuming I probably got straight B's for this semester. But all that is behind me now. It's Christmas vacation, and I plan on enjoying it.
Mandy is back in Kentucky for the break. I wasn't able to go with her. It's a bummer, but I really couldn't. Money isn't readily available for me. I'll get to see her again early January. I'm excited, even though it's like 3 weeks away. My break has been pretty fun so far. I've just watched movies and played with daycare kids mostly. I Helped my dad setup the train village today, and my mom wants me to put lights up outside tomorrow. I don't like doing the lights. It's kind of a pain... but then again, so is the village. But it's all worth it in the end to get into the Christmas spirit.
I still have to go Christmas shopping some time. I haven't gotten anything for anybody yet. Hopefully my mom and I can go together tomorrow. My mom hasn't gotten anything done either. She can't drive herself, so She has to wait for me to get home to be able to do it. If I can get the lights done early enough, it shouldn't be too hard to go tomorrow. Anyways, it's late, and I really just wanted to get back into the groove of writing in this thing. I think I'm going to change the layout and stuff here in a bit. But I have lots of things I'd like to do similar to that. Anyways, I'll write more tomorrow. See ya!
Soccer and School
That's about all I have time for now. I go to school and learn. I come home and do homework, unless I have a game to referee. I have 4 games to do in Sugar-Salem tomorrow. I only get to center. That's the bad part. And I have so much homework that I need to get done. I don't know how I'm going to get it all done, but I'm going to give it my best shot.
Mandy and I haven't had a chance to go out on a date for a long time. It's mostly my fault. She'll come up with an idea and tell me about it and I usually already have something going on. The biggest problem is that I have the worst memory in the world. I agree to go on these dates several times, and every time I remember that I had a previous engagement. Church calling duties was the culprit this time. I can't complain. My dad gave me a father's blessing, and I'm going to cling to it. It's my only hope right now. Things improve once October rolls around. I think the 9th is the last day I'll have to referee soccer. After that, things should slow down a bit and I'll have more time on my hands. A lot more time.
As a side note to my business, my computer's hard drive was fried last week. I wanted to defragment it while I slept, and when I woke up in the morning it was toast. Great way to start the day off. I've got it back almost a week alter, and I've been spending almost every spare second just reinstalling things. I finally got DJGPP reinstalled. that took forever. I forgot how complicated the thing is. But it works now and I'm happy.
Today's blessing: I actually understood my Discrete Mathematics homework after being totally lost during the lecture. Tender mercy.