Summer Schedule

I found out on Friday that I was accepted into the Taiwanese Tech Trek program, which involves me doing a ~2 month internship in Taiwan. My placement is with Academia Sinica in their Research Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences,  specifically for their program of historical demography, which sounds really boring, but we'll see!

Thankfully I bought my plane tickets scheduled around that time (i.e., June 24th-August 16th) early so it's only $1240!! Adam will be arriving June 28th and leaving some time mid-july. Hopefully i'll get somewhere nice to live and he can stay with me >.< 

I will be arriving in Vancouver on the 18th of August and going to Seattle thereafter....

Disclaimer

I just want to point out that I know going to Seattle is a big committment and I re-think my decision everyday, which is why I didn't really want to announce it on here. So for those of you who think that it is an irreversible decision, it is not. You might expect that I write a post on here one day declaring that I am no longer going with or without details of my reasoning.

My Telus Cell Phone(s)

I have a small dilemma. I own a crappy Motorola W385 that

• Runs out of battery in approximately 1.5 days with no usage
  
• Doesn't ring loud enough for anyone to hear
  
• Also doesn't actually ring until the caller hears a second ring tone so people usually hang up by the time I pick up if I'm luck enough to even hear it.
  

Needless to say, I am a bad person when it comes to phone calls. I rarely pick up because I either don't hear it or the phone is dead. Sometimes, it dies while I'm talking. (BTW, Motorolas are horrible when it comes to battery life, don't get them). The reason why this is my phone is simple: i lost my phone a few times. I had to spend as little money as I can on a new phone every time thus I am left with Pay and Talk phones from Telus for $100.

It's been about a year-ish since I've had my W385 and I'm getting seriously sick of it. But as a CDMA user with a great company and a seriously cheap plan not on contract, I cannot buy a new phone as it will not carry over to Seattle. CDMA companies are mean like that. This means I either have to:

1. Suck it up and use this damn phone for another 4 months-ish before I go to Seattle; or
2. Buy a cheap second-hand phone.

But what is cheap? Is paying $30 for a phone that's was released 2 years ago cheap? That seems to be the going rate on Craigslist. Having used Samsungs, Motorolas, and LGs, I have to say that if I am to get a new phone that I have to live with for the rest of my life, I'd use Samsung. The one that I've had my eyes on since last year is the Samsung A720 and the cheapest one I found on Craigslist is $50 (silver), which, imo is still considerably expensive considering how fast the retiring rate for phones are these days. To be honest, I would like to spend <$30 on this second hand phone that I may only use for approximately 4 months before it gets thrown into oblivion, as no one I know uses Telus. Ironically, although Telus has discontinued this phone for a while now, I just saw it on its Pay and Talk website for $69.99 refurbished with a $50 activation credit (pink). So for $20 more, I can have an almost brand new phone rather than a second hand phone that I've been wanting for so long?

Hmmm.... Is it worth paying $69.99+tax for a phone I might only use for four months? My soon to be unemployed butt is unable to justify it.

All I know is that the next time I get a cell phone, be it in Seattle or Toronto, I'm going to buy an expensive Samsung phone I like and I'm not going to lose it.

Going to Seattle

Hello -

Thank you for talking with us about opportunities at Microsoft. We appreciate your interest and the time you spent with us.

We have carefully considered your qualifications and skills. In light of our current opportunities, we will be pursuing other candidates whose background and abilities more closely match our needs at this time. If you have any questions, please contact your school recruiter.

Thank you again for your interest. We wish you success in your future academic and professional endeavors.

Sincerely,

College Recruiting

During reading week, maybe around Wednesday, I got an E-mail from College recruiters at Microsoft informing me that I had a pre-screening interview for PM, if I get it, I get flown to Seattle for the real full-day interview. Rather than spending the rest of the reading week in Toronto, Adam and I came back to Waterloo on Friday to study for the interview (for those of you who don't know, interviews for PM are full of logistic questions to test your thinking skills so studying for the format is pretty important).

Anyway, so after four grueling days of studying, I didn't get the position. Not that I really expected to get it, given my non-technical background, I'd really have had to impress them with my answers, which I didn't feel that I did. I was never really good with interviews.

In the last couple of months, Adam and I have been applying for jobs in Seattle, mostly tech writing positions, because of my current experience. I have not heard a single reply since. I joke around and tell people that when I get to Seattle, I will actually get to be a full-time bum. As great as that can sound, I've been told that it's only fun for the first week. My mom also shakes her head and wonders why I pursue a Masters degree and decide to do nothing with it.

Well, I mean, it's not that I really want to be a bum. Even without the recession, it wouldn't be easy for someone with a Master of English Rhetoric and Communications Design to find a job in the states that's willing to give you a working Visa.

So where do I go from there? Honestly, I don't really know. Did I mention I'm moving to Seattle...sort of? It's not going to be easy leaving Toronto to live in a city that really has nothing going for me, except for my boyfriend. And well, it's not even like I can be a resident there, since I would need a Visa to stay there longer than 3-6 months or something. No health insurance, no legitimate driver's license, you get the point.

In reality, I would imagine that I wouldn't be there for longer than three months, which is pretty long for someone without a job. Time only goes by fast when you have a job, and I've always had a job, since I was in grade 7. I can only imagine the fights that happen when Adam goes off to work in the morning coming home tired and I've been bored out of my mind wanting his attention. I can also imagine the nagging from him about different ways of finding a job and me lacking the motivation to look--it's not exactly encouraging when you don't hear replies. And the guilt of living off of someone else's salary. How will I get to go shopping and eat all the yummy food I'd like to try?

But even before that...what about the move? There will be no goodbye parties, obviously, since who knows how long I can actually be there for. And what about the packing? Am I going to get turned away at the border for packing too much? How much should I pack? Can't pack too much in case i get turned away. Can't pack too little cuz I don't want to cross the border too many times, and it'd be expensive.

It sounds like it's going to be stressful times. But then again, I've been pretty emo lately myself: that Microsoft interview had seriously drained my energy and then immediately afterwards I got incredibly sick despite no coughing and fever--just an extremely bad case of the sniffles. Can't breathe, can't focus, can't even get up from bed. Gotta get my life together again soon. In the meanwhile, gotta start on those papers I've been putting off and maybe start applying for jobs again.

Someone hug me.

*Edit: I just found out that a bunch of ppl from CS got rejected, so I feel a little better...I think...

What a lil Brat(d)?

I was unfortunately quite busy on Sunday doing some studying and could not make it in front of the TV for the 2009 81st Annual Oscars! So after doing much searching for the last couple of days, I was finally able to stream it on Need Movies. It was a really awesome show, probably the best one I've ever seen, so it's worth watching.


The reasons I'm posting about this is to:

• Let people know that there's a link that hasn't been taken down yet (at the moment I've posted this).
  

and


• Show what a possible brat Brad Pitt was at the awards ceremony when Kate Winslet was announced to be best actress and not Angelina Jolie.
  

Everyone stands up for a standing ovation for Kate Winslet, including Angelina Jolie, but Brad Pitt does not (See Part 12 of the link I gave out).

1. Angelina tells him to stand up too.
2. About ten seconds later, he finally does.
3. Kate Winslet walks right by him since he's got the aisle seat at the front.

Some theories:

• He doesn't like Kate Winslet because she forgot Jolie's name during her Golden Globe acceptance speech
• He had something on his leg/his leg was asleep and couldn't stand up right away.
• He's upset that Angelina Jolie didn't win and supports her by not standing up.
  
• He thinks Kate Winslet didn't deserve the Oscars/performance wasn't that good.

You can decide.

___________

On another note, I almost forgot, my favourite dresses:
Marisa Tomei's Versace Pleated dress (If you look carefully, the pleats are done so elaborately and intricately) and Heidi Klum's Roland Mouret fiery red origami dress. She wore a dress of the same colour last year which I liked a lot better, but this year's nice dresses were quite limited. Nothing memorable like Halle Berry's dress the year she won best actress or Gwenyth Paltrow's RL pink dress when she won.

White was apparently the colour this year, surprisingly a lot of people came with silvery white, beige white, barly any color that looks like white. Needless to say, the show itself was a lot better than fashion this year. I blame it on skinny jeans, Ugg(lies), TNA, hoods with the fur, and lululemon pants. Ugg(h)!