Capricious Me

Well, on Friday the 29th I advanced to candidacy after passing my qualifying exams.

As a present to myself, I’m visiting Boston for a few days before my internship starts. Woo!

Derek, originally uploaded by pokester.

We got the kittens home last night. They’re currently exploring Chad’s room and bathroom. Derek is pretty mellow and… well, I don’t want to judge, but Lyra seems to be braver and smarter. And louder.

But how do you resist a shy little kitten with curled ears? Especially when he sits so sweetly in your lap?

One of my favorite scenes in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is when the female Cardassian is skeptical that Miles O’Brien can do a proper job of being a good scientist because on Cardassia, all scientists are female. The males are simply too emotional for science. Only in sci-fi, right?

Two NYTimes articles (recent, earlier) have been making me think about the low rates of women in computer science.

Admittedly, I never really though about this problem until I got to grad school. Wellesley was all female, so I never thought too much about it. When I got to Davis, I would have these “I feel like I’m at summer camp” moments when I’d suddenly realize that I was the only female in a group or a class. Aside from those jarring moments when I actually thought about it, I never really cared because it didn’t affect me or my life in anyway. I thank Wellesley for that. When I attended the Grace Hopper conference for the first time, one speaker, Fran Bermon, said something that I fiercely hold to. “Don’t be the woman computer scientist. Be a computer scientist.” I agree. Yes, be aware that as a woman some things will be harder. However, don’t handicap yourself before you even start by putting too much emphasis on “woman” and not enough on “computer scientist.”

Society now accepts technological prowess, so it’s not fear of being labeled a nerd, I think, that keeps people away. Test scores show that females do just as well if not better than male peers. Computer science is a field with great relevance and influence on the world. So why aren’t females flocking to this field as they’re flocking to economics, life sciences, political sciences, and all the other fields previously dominated by men? I think this perception that it’s so difficult for women, which does have some basis in reality, is what keeps a lot of females from entering into the computer science or other science fields. Who wants to try something that brings unnecessary hardships when similar rewards can be earned by going into other fields? Why would you want to enter a field where taking maternity leave might be considered a sign of weakness or lack of dedication and could jeopardize your tenure if you desire a family? But even earlier than that, why aren’t females flocking to a thriving field, or even trying it? Is it the notion that programming is boring and that’s all you’d do? Is it fear of failure? Indifference?

I’m skeptical that “geek chic” or the Obama presidency is going to lead to a drastic change in enrollment numbers or the number of women seeking to enter academia. However, I’m hopeful that all the attention may bring about changes in the established traditions of career advancement and maybe even in the way computer science will be taught.

It seems, as this point, that unless the few millions of uncounted votes contain at least 500000 more votes against proposition 8 than for it, California will have added to its constitution an amendment banning gay marriage. An Amendment to the State Constitution of CALIFORNIA.

What is it about giving marriage licenses to gay couples that offends and provokes such a visceral response? Protecting the sanctity of marriage? Why not ban divorce? Protecting children from being taught about gay marriage? Um… schools are not required to teach children anything about gay marriage. Children are not as dumb as you’d think, although they are certainly not as smart as many parents would hope they’d be. How does this benefit you? It doesn’t, except perhaps you can be smug about denying a right to another group. Does it suddenly change your life if a gay couple living together for years now possess a marriage certificate? They won’t be holding their wedding on your front lawn. They won’t be flaunting their relationship to your children in schools. It’s merely a piece of paper and you would begrudge them that?

The irony is that a lot of the money supporting prop 8 came from the Mormon church, which so clearly upheld the ideals of marriage as a union between one man and one woman so well through out the years. Let’s face it. The state should not meddle with the religious definition of marriage, so if a particular church doesn’t want to marry a gay couple, so be it. However, marriage as it is interpreted by the state is more like a legal contract than a holy/sacred union before whatever god you chose. Religious groups should not meddle with the state interpretation of marriage. Be divisive and turn away people from your churches, but please don’t presume to alter the law to suit your beliefs at the cost of the rights of another group.

China’s victories in team gymnastics makes me soooo happy. I always root for China. :) What can I say? I may be an American citizen, but I’m still Chinese.

The men’s gymnastics is always amazing to watch… but the Chinese men were so much better than anyone else that I wasn’t too surprised when they won. The women’s results were much more exciting, especially since it was such a tug of war all the way through. I’m looking forward to the all-around and individual event competitions.

The synchronized diving is pretty amazing to see too, but I only got to see the women’s 3m. Of course China got the gold there.

Go China!! Jia you!

Today was puzzleday. The day was so awesome. The puzzle creators and people planning the event were all dressed up in costumes. Among the attendees, several Star Trek crew, a grunt (from Halo), Master Chief, a flower/vines creature (mother earth?), Darth Maul, a Jedi knight, Neo (from The Matrix), a cardassian… Oh, the costumes did not disappoint.

When we were at the closing ceremonies, the author of the puzzle or a representative would explain how to solve each puzzle. One of the authors was… KEVIN LITWACK. From my high school! I remembered then that Lily had told me that he was at Microsoft and I’d confirmed that there was a Kevin Litwack working there. I didn’t know him very well, but Lily and he were on debate team together.

Pain Train Synchronetics (5 pts plz!), my team, came in third today (we were the 3rd team to complete the metapuzzle) but we had the highest overall score and solved every puzzle but one (which is at least 2 more than any other team, including the teams that solved metapuzzles before us) so I was really pleased. As a prize, we each got a little star trophy with a hologram of a shooting star that says, “Third Place – Lieutenant” and a Mars Mission Lego set and a handshake from Master Chief. (The theme was space related.) The 1st and 2nd place teams got pretty much the same prizes.

Puzzlehunts are fun. I wish they would bring college puzzle challenge to UCD, but I doubt that we’ll be so lucky.

So Mike, who is awesome beyond words, got us tickets to see Maroon 5 in September. (Counting Crows will also be there, as will Augustana, who I just started listening to on Pandora and it’s pretty good.)

*happiness*

And then… there’s THIS. Diablo III! The gameplay video looked so awesome. There was a bit with Deckard Cain when he starts to say, “Stay a while and listen,” and get interrupted midway. Heheheh. And he sighs, “No one ever listens.” Which is probably true. Anyway, the new class, Witch Doctor, looks like a lot of fun. Swarms of locusts? Gruesome pets? Firebombs? Mind altering spells? It’s going to be a long wait till 2010.

The internship is great. :) I’m enjoying it immensely.

Last weekend was An and Jonah’s wedding, for which I flew back to Davis. It was lovely and I’m so happy for them!

This weekend.. I participated in a “playtest” at Microsoft, where you basically help them test video games by playing them and answering some questions. I also met up with Jason, who used to be at UCD but now works at Microsoft.

Today was absolutely beautiful and warm so I went to Pikes Place Market for some grocery shopping. I waited in a long line, patiently, and bought a dozen assorted donuts (plain, powdered, cinnamon, sprinkles over chocolate) which are so tiny and delicious. I have to resist the temptation to eat them all. I also got half a pound of roasted hazelnuts. I’ve only had raw hazelnuts before, so I was very pleasantly surprised to detect a faint taste of sweetness in the roasted ones. The hazelnut flavor is definitely enhanced by roasting and I’ll have to get more when I run out.

I went to Piroshky, Piroshky again and waited in line, again, for a smoked salmon pate piroshky. They were out of the ham, cheese and spinach one AND the bavarian sausage. Ah, elusive Ham, Cheese and Spinach Piroshky, I’ll taste you yet!!

On my way back to the apartment, I stopped by a little window called Monorail Espresso for an iced mocha. (Yes, the weather was just that good today!) The man working there was so kind and made small talk while he made my drink. He shook up the mixture of chocolate with espresso and ice and poured in whole milk, saying “You and I could both use some whole milk to gain some weight.” Hehe. What girl doesn’t like being called skinny? The mocha was delicious. I’ve been avoiding mochas because Starbucks always makes them way too sweet for my taste. This mocha was not too sweet and I tasted more of the coffee than the chocolate, which makes me very happy.

And that brings me to my last point and intended topic for this post, which is that I’ve now regained this obsession with mocha flavored things, from the dark chocolate espresso chocolate bar I sectioned into small pieces for a piece a day last week at work, to a quickly depleting supply of mocha rocas, to the coffee addiction that’s growing because I drink a cup of hot coffee mixed with powdered hot chocolate in the mornings at work.

( Two days of adventures in Kyoto. Lots of temples, desserts. Shibuya. )

My summer internship’s all set. I’m going to Microsoft Research (which is pretty much my dream internship) from April until July. Woo!!! I was also interviewing with some other companies, but one of them wasn’t really a top choice so I dropped out of that process as soon as I got my MSR offer. I was waiting on another company, but their interview process was dragging on much too long and when they asked me to schedule in a third phone interview I decided to save myself the trouble and chose MSR for sure.

I’m so excited!! My housing situation looks awesome. I’ll have to commute ~15 miles or so from downtown Seattle to the Redmond campus, but I’m living smack dab in the middle of downtown Seattle. I’ll be so very close to that little crepe stand that I enjoyed during PAX and a few blocks away from the international district.

MSR!!! I can’t possibly describe how happy I am about this. For me, as a security student, to work with the groups that consistently publish in the top conferences is an unparalleled opportunity. I’d go to the middle of nowhere to work for them. Yay!!!