the dance

yesterday and today were the days for the engineering career fair. normally, i don't bother dressing up at all for career fair because (at least in the boom days) it is/was kinda considered acceptable for engineers to dress fairly casually. however, this year i went all out. i busted out my 50 dollar shirt, my new non-shiny black shoes, my black jacket, and my mad tie tying skills. the results were... somewhat better. i still got the "go submit your resume online" thing from a couple of places, but the responses from a couple other places at least sounded encouraging.

and, as the saying goes... it's not what you know, it's who you know. such was the case with one company i talked to today. after starting the student/recruiter conversation with the usual mindless chit chat, i somehow slipped in that i knew this guy who had worked there this past summer. upon mention of this magic name, i was immediately ushered to the back of the display stand to be signed up for the first round interviewing schedule.

the response i got from intel was somewhat less encouraging. not only did i get the "go submit it online", i was told "there isn't much chance" of having anything for me. ouch. at least i was able to snag some cool free stuff while i was busy whoring my resume to any and all companies. frisbees are always useful, especially since i never seem to have one when i want one. every car trunck should have a frisbee. i also got a mini-football from UBS Warbug--probably the coolest thing i've gotten in my 5 years of career fairing.

sometimes though... the free items hunt doesn't go so well. i wanted a google t-shirt, but being google, there was a long line to talk to them. rather than wait in line to talk to a company who isn't interested in industrial engineers, i simply ran up to the desk and tried to grab a shirt. however, the people there had the bright idea of keeping them all folded together, so it was impossible to grab only a single shirt in the mad rush i was in. i ended up with 2 shirts and one of the google ladies giving me a weird look. i guess i won't be considered for their interviewing list.

shopping?!?!?!

i spent this entire afternoon wandering around the mall looking for a pair of shoes and 2 shirts for interviews. i know amanda will laugh at me, but this was my first time buying clothes since sophomore year. if you haven't noticed, the vast majority of my wardrobe consists of free t-shirts i have acquired over the years. everything else: my mom bought (insert laugh from amanda).

so, there i was, in the big mall, wondering where the heck i'm supposed to go for shoes. luckily, i stumble onto a shoe store right as i enter. i find a pair of shoes marked down to $30 from $120 and i think "what a deal!". unfortunately, they didn't have my size... so i was back to looking at shoes. i find a couple of pairs that i like, but i'm a bit confused as to whether dress shoes should be dull or shiny. or if yellow stitching is acceptable. time for a lifeline. i call amanda, but it goes straight to voice mail. so i'm off to look for shirts.

but i have no idea what kind of stores sell dress shirts. i go into an express store since i have some conception of them selling some kind of mens clothing (also, they had a sign that said 'mens and womans clothing!'), but after walking around the store a few times, it became apparent that this particular express store didn't have men's clothing. this became especially apparent when the lady manning (personing!) the fitting rooms glared at me while i was vainly searching for something i could wear. so after searching the entire mall, i finally walk into a nice looking establishment selling shirts and suits and things of that nature. a nice looking lady comes up to me and offers me some help. i explained to her my need for some shirts and that i had no idea what i was doing and the she mentioned that they had $20 off the second shirt you buy. i thought "perfect, i wanted 2 shirts to begin with" and allowed her to lead me to the shirts. she proceeded to measure my neck and my back or arm or something and then picked out a couple shirts for me. after much deliberation, i picked out 2, declined the ties she had to offer, and went to check out. the total? $100. i didn't think shirts cost that much... perhaps it costs extra to get yourself measured? or maybe i'm still living in the eighties. i'm glad there was the $20 discount at least, or else i would probably be going to interviews in my intel involved t-shirt.

i give amanda's cell another try, but no one picks up this time. since i'm getting tired, i just pick out the no-name matte black shoes for 50 bucks and go home. i couldn't find a shiny pair that i liked, but for some reason, i think they are supposed be shiny. perhaps the image of business people getting their shoes shined? someone tell me if dress shoes are supposed to be shiny or not.

i think i've done enough of shopping for another three years. at least, i hope so.

i love football saturdays.

by far, my favorite part of the college experience so far has been football saturdays. it's just a lot of fun to be walking towards the stadium with one hundred ten thousand other people, tossing footballs around, and passing the frat houses blaring music.

today's offensive performance was rather lackluster (4 turnovers in the first half!). but steve breaston did look awesome with a punt return for a TD. and another thing i like about football saturday is the fact that once our game is over, there are still other games on the west coast to catch. i saw a couple different games today, including 3 overtime games! but the best one was USC vs Cal. i had figured this game to be a blowout since USC is ranked #3 in the nation while cal's program is hardly impressive. all i have to say is wow. triple overtime, several blocked field goal attempts, a 51 yard field goal, and several turnovers in OT (what?!?!) had me jumping out of my seat. i wanted USC to win because i want to play them in the rose bowl, but i'm really a closet cal fan. i know any maize and blue fan will call me a traitor, but i like their uniform colors more than michigan's. at least we have the winged helmet.

it was kinda weird cause i called a couple of my friends from USC/Cal and it seemed like i was more excited than they. perhaps i should have called legoman or alex G instead. i saw all of the students at memorial stadium rush the field... which kind of makes me sad that we can't do that at michigan. there have only been 2 instances where i have wanted to, but it would have been really cool.

a couple other college football notables for today: notre dame received yet another loss from a big ten team today. perhaps that is why they didn't want to join our conference? but then, staying independent isn't going to look like such a hot deal if they start every season 1-3.

i just want everyone to know that my heisman prediction for this week (as it has been since august) is phillip rivers. he is awesome. but for future seasons, keep your eye on steve breaston. he's a threat to score every time he touches the ball.

college rankings

recently, i heard that a certain professor stated that due to a recent change in the polling methods of US news and world report, the university of michigan's industrial and operations engineering (IOE) department will fall from its lofty ranking of #2. now normally, i would say that these rankings are for those who are so weak and insecure about their own abilities that they need to seek shelter and redemption in the ranking of their school, and thus, presumably themselves. unfortunately, i must admit to relying solely on those rankings for choosing graduate schools to apply to. if i chose my schools from a few of the top ones, how could i go wrong? i don't by any means regret my choice of staying here at michigan, since the 13 extra transfer credits i would get pretty much sealed the deal. but now i regret not looking at some of the other schools, like berkeley's ieor program, or mit's OR department. the more i look into US news and world report's rankings, the more appalled i am that i once placed so much of my trust in them. and it seems more and more parents are blindly pushing their kids to certain schools based on these rankings.

the fact of the matter is that these rankings are just a jumbled mishmash of whatever numbers those people can massage out of their collective behinds in order to keep things changing and the sales/readership increasing. a mere number is simply insufficient for classifing a university or graduate program. georgia tech has been #1 in industrial engineering for all of recent history. what kind of idiot would rather settle for #2, when he could have #1? to further illustrate my point (and give props to my fellow public school homies, kurt and kate) take a look at this letter from the president of stanford university here.

so let the ranking fall. i know what i'm worth. and it doesn't hurt to have the backing of the president of stanford either.

my first post.

i'm starting this blogg courtesy of a bit of help from redtree. it's hard to get one of these livejournal accounts! so i must express my gratitude for her invitation to join. i must also thank mandyrie or pacgirl, i forgot which, who inspired me to start writing my original blogg.

if you have read my blogg before, welcome back.

if you haven't, well, chances are you didn't work for intel this past summer of '03.

to set the stage, i will try to avoid making my entries catered towards the readership as with the original blogg. this is primarily due to the fact that not all of the readers will know each other (which was the case with the original). i figure that most people (except legoman, who reads kami's blog) would not be interested in reading about the craziness of people they don't know anyway. so if you're looking for hot juicy gossip (mandyrie), you probably won't find it here. and since i seem to have trouble keeping in touch with most of the people i meet over the years, this is an easy place for you to catch up with what's going on in my life without having to go through the effort of picking up a phone and calling me.

so, let the ramblings commence.