Another few weeks have passed

So it's been another long while without posting. As always- my excuse is being busy.

School is in full swing now. I'm still working at the place I got a summer internship with, and I've gotten a generous raise. I'm very pleased to hear my work is noticed. On other job news, I had a first interview with Google.

Before I get ahead of myself, I have to mention the day before the Google interview. For those of you who don't know, I'm The "Google Pizza Ambassador" at Rutgers (another shameless pagerank plug...). It's a gig I scored by being in love with Google, and thinking it'd get me a chance of getting my foot in the door. Besides getting free pizza for computer science students here at Rutgers, I also help Googlers who visit campus.

On Tuesday, Google came to campus. So I got a few FedEx packages with posters I had to hang up around the place. I also decided to come a little early to the event to help out, which I did, wearing my "ambassador" Google shirt- my favorite shirt. They were giving pens out and were having a raffle for some cool Google swag, including a lava lamp I really wanted to win. I met a few of the Googlers there and chatted with them.

The event was interesting- one of the "Tech Talks" they have in the company. They told us some stuff about the general principles of how Google works- thousands of cheap computers, scalability, Linux, etc. Cool stuff. After the event, they handed out t-shirts to everyone, and I WON THE LAVA LAMP!!! W00t! I've got a Google lava lamp. It's up there on the list of my most prized possesions.

They held a one-on-one Q&A session after the talk, so students could ask the Googlers questions about working at Google and such. I went to check my email, as I had been sent an information packet about the interview just then. When I read the email, I learned that the interviwees were invited to dinner with Google at Tumulty's. Wicked...

Dinner was cool- lots more Googlers, and very interesting dinner conversation. Also got a Google water bottle ;-) . I'm getting tired so I'm gonna skip ahead- not much more to say about dinner. Oh, except this- the seared chicken breast is awesome. Try it.

The next day was the day of the interview. I wore a different Google shirt (the first one I got). The interview wasn't great. I fumbled through the entire first problem I was given. When I switched interviewers I did somewhat better- I had a good idea of how to solve the problem, but I didn't actually complete it. The interviewer seemed to be pleased with my answer, so I'm hoping to get a change for another interview. I'm going to start practicing my weak areas soon for whatever the case may be.

Well, I'm all written out. I've gotta get some sleep after another long weekend. See you in a few weeks, if history has anything to teach us.