Santa Cruz Beach

The beach is a religion in California. On recommendation of the old interns, we headed to Santa Cruz beach today, being a long weekend Memorial Day. It's a 40 min drive away, but we made an hour and half trip out of it.


The beach itself is beautiful. It's not as big as I thought it might be, but it was still way better than any beach in Toronto. I really need work on my tan. It was super crowded when we arrived, but was pretty spread out by the time we were leaving. The water was surprisingly calm, but cold as hell. None of us fully dipped in the water. Another cool thing about this place is the 'Boardwalk'. It's like a carnaval fair, with food, games, and rides, located right on the shore. Overall, a really fun day on the beach. Here are some pictures.

San Francisco

We went sightseeing in San Francisco today. It was our first weekend together, and of course we had to make our way to SanFran. Just to make things more justified, it was George's birthday on saturday and Michelle's today.

We left Mountain View around noon and took about an hour to get there. Obviously, it wouldn't be a trip if we didn't get lost. The places we visted were: the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Dwarf, Lombard Street, Full House houses, Chinatown and ChaChaCha. The unfortunate thing is, we missed the last Alcatraz tour, which was at 2:15. This definitely has to be made up for. I personally would like to go through the downtown area again. There's sooo much stuff going on.

Here is the link to my facebook album for the day.

California Dreamin'

The Eagle has landed folks. I am now in Mountain View, California. I arrived in San Francisco on Saturday morning. The flight here was very smooth. From the airport, we were picked up by a limo service to our corporate housing in Mt. View called Oakwood. This place is sweeet, it's basically a resort. A fully furnished 2-bed, 2-bath apartment, tennis court, basketball court, swimming pool, jacuzzi, barbeques, game room, excercise room, free breakfast every morning, and happy hour every Thursday.

I started work at Actel on Monday 22nd. First day and a half was the intern orientation, which was mostly HR paperwork. Got my rental car and a bank account opened up. I only get the free rental for a month, and have to share with my roommate, and it's a Chevy Aveo, but hey, I'm not complaining when it's free.

I still can't believe I'm here in California. It's hot and sunny outside. Life is good.

OW Ow ow oW OW

My entire lower face is in severe agony right now, due to getting my wisdom teeth pulled out this morning. I had the operation done at 9:30. They said it would be about an hour, but actually lasted 2 hours. During the entire procedure I was knocked out by anesthetics through my arm and some laughing gas at the begining. Overall, the surgery went quite smoothly.

I couldn't feel anything below my upper lip when it was done. Almost the entire mouth was numb, but now that it has wore off, all I feel is the stinging pain of my swollen jaw. It's so swollen, I actually look different. I look like I have a very broad jaw, like Chuck Norris. My best friends right now: Tylenol3 and antibiotics. And I can't eat anything, my mouth can barely open to drink water. This will probably last for another couple days before the swelling goes down and I'm able to use my mouth a little bit.

I just pray there won't be any post-operative problems or complications, like an infection or anything like that. I only have until next friday before I leave, so it's quite critical that my recovery is full, and without any complications.

Preshness

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, finally done exams! And no more exams for another 20 months.

This term's exams were that bad, I think I did good on most of them... I think. It was super busy at the very start of exam session, due to everything cramming together, and it was super lazy at the end, because of all the time I had to study for courses that don't need much studying. Even though the exam period was exactly as long as December's, I wasn't as anxious about finishing it. I guess Christmas time really had me on my toes back then. I do have reasons to be just as excited now though.

To reflect back on this semester, the best way to describe it would be how relaxed it was. This term's workload was surpringly low. Shocking, isn't it? As always, with more free time means more time wasted on stupid things. I'm definitely not naming them. One thing that primarily occupied my mind, and I 'm sure many others as well, were the PEY internships. Applying to jobs, doing interviews, waiting for offers, the whole process was quite tiring.

I now have about 2 weeks to get ready before leaving to California. A few things I need to get done before going:
+ pull my widsom teeth out; since I won't be seeing a dentist for a whole year, better to get it done now
+ clean up my desk, room, and other parts of the house
+ learn how to cook
+ get a fake ID that says I'm 21
+ meet up with friends to say goodbye
Alright, let's get to it.

New laptop

I bought my new laptop today. And wow, is it a sweet-ass machine.
It's a Toshiba Satellite. Intel Centrino PentiumM 1.73GHz, 1 GB memory, 80 GB hard drive, 15.4" screen, thin and sleek. Basically, it's everything that I need and want, I love it.

My desktop has served me very well until now, but I really do need a laptop in California. My dad owns a Toshiba, which he's had for the last 6 years, and it's still working fine! I'm sure mine will endure just as long.

Actually.... now that I think about it, I never officially announced it on this blog. I will indeed be going to Actel in California for the year-long PEY internship. After that mishap in the first round of interviews, I landed another position with them in the second round as the Verification and Validation Intern.

Preparations have been well underway, such as the TN visa application in Buffalo, which turned out to be a good hour's worth of stories, much to my annoyance at the time for the amount of precious clocks it took out of studying for my first couple exams. Speaking of which, I'm almost done, just one more. Wednesday at 9pm, that's my 'Saved by the Bell'. But having this luscious new laptop sit here on my desk next to the work doesn't help very much.