The Best Weekend

Last weekend, Sean took me to Port Townsend to celebrate my thesis defense. I was so excited, because he didn't tell me where we were going or anything. He left work early on Friday, and we were off to get the Edmonds-Kingston ferry.

Friday night we checked into our B&B, and then ate dinner at this cute Mexican restaurant. Our waiter was so friendly and called us "amigos" every time he talked to us. It was cute!



Here's Sean sitting in our room at the B&B.

Saturday we strolled around the downtown, checking out art galleries, used clothing stores, fishing gear. It was cold but sunny so we walked up and down the beach, and Sean made fun of me because I couldn't skip rocks. (By the end of the weekend I actually got much better!)



Saturday night we had a nice seafood dinner and then went back to the B&B. Sean disappeared to grab some of their homemade cookies from downstairs, and came back with a bottle of champagne! (Yes, when I saw that I suspected that something was up.)

He proposed!!!!!! And I said yes, of course. It was the happiest day of my life.

Why not to go to grad school

Ugh today was a bad day. Just when you think you are done with your thesis (and consequently spend the whole day surfing the web), at 5:30pm you can find out that your committee wants you to add some more stuff.

Everyone's experience in grad school is different, so I don't want to say "Never go to grad school!!!" because it really is a great option for many people. For me... not so much. I know I've complained about it on this blog before, but as one last hurrah before I (supposedly) graduate I will give a short list of the things that I did not like about it.

1. Having a boss whose goals are different from your goals. (Advisers are extremely busy and don't always have a stake in what you are doing the same way a boss at a 'normal' job would. This does not go very far towards achieving your goal which is to finish school in a timely manner.)

2. Due to #1, you have to be extremely self-motivated. As I found out, I am not this person. I just can't write code for 8 hours a day unless I have a deadline looming over me. This is why I usually kick butt at classes but suck really hard at actually doing work. If you think you are self-motivated because you do well at school... you might not be. Just something to think about.

3. People don't sit around and chit-chat like they do at a 'real' job. (It has been known to happen, but much less often. Of course this depends quite a bit on the people in a given lab.) The reason for this is that at a 'real' job, you have to be there all day no matter what. But in grad school, you rarely need to come into your lab. If you work on software, you can work from anywhere. So you only come in because you really need to get something done. In my opinion it makes your work life way less fun.

4. Many of the software tools you use will not work well and will have zero documentation. This is because they are written by fellow grad students. I could get into this more, but would probably give myself a hernia. Suffice it to say that research tools require much patience and coddling, and consequently require a user who is very self-motivated.

I still have no idea what's going on in this world but I have one piece of advice regarding my grad school fiasco. Before I went to grad school I thought that I 'didn't mind' coding very much. This was true when I was getting paid lots of money. It turned out to be not true otherwise. I actually can't stand coding and I hope that after this week I will never ever do it again. So think about what you would spend most of your time doing in grad school and ask yourself, would I do this for free? If the answer is no, you might not like it enough to go to grad school in that field.

What Next?

The past few days, as I have been basking in the glory of finishing my defense, I have heard this question many, many times. "What next?"

For the answer, I refer you to the lyrics of the following music video. And also, if you are wondering, yes that is exactly what I looked like when I was in the high school marching band. RAWR. :)

Why I Haven't Been Posting

I'm defending my thesis today. Slides are here if you're interested in seeing them.

Almost done!!!

Urban Hike - Ballard to Downtown

Yesterday a few of us set out on an adventurous urban hike. It was my first urban hike and it was a ton of fun! The time flew by, but I was surprised to find that my legs were really tired by the end of the day. Including Queen Anne in the itinerary actually makes it a pretty serious hike, with lots of elevation change.

Here's a quick summary of the hike.

Step 0 - take bus to Ballard.

Step 1 (about 9:30am) - meet at Cupcake Royale. Delicious and over-priced cupcakes, yum. Someday they will make muffin-sized cupcakes and then they will be worth their ridiculous price. But I think over-paying for cupcakes is very much in the spirit of hiking.



Step 2 - Set off towards the Ballard locks. Popped into Archie McPhee's (Seattle's most famous toy store) on the way there.



Step 3 - Luckily, a construction worker tipped us off to a Ferrari club meeting that was going on nearby. We spent lots of time ogling the very exotic cars that were parked all along the street.




Step 4 - Hiked up a giant hill into Queen Anne. The neighborhoods are so quaint that if you lived there, every day would be a constant struggle against starting to speak with a British accent.

Step 5 - Lunch at Elliot Bay Pizza Co. Not sure if the name is supposed to be ironic, since we found that their sandwiches were much better than their pizza. I got a Thai chicken pizza which was O.K. but I'm not exactly sure what was Thai about it.

Step 6 - Walk down giant hill, toward Seattle Center.

Step 7 - Admired the beautiful fountain in the Seattle Center, then walked past the sad, sad collection of seemingly abandoned amusement park rides.




Step 8 - Head into Belltown. I saw Del Rey and Tia Lou's (big nightclubs) in the daylight for the first time. They look a little bit beat up.

Step 9 - Back to downtown. From google maps, I estimate that we walked about 7.5 miles. The End.

Lending Club Update #6

Like most Americans right now, my retirement plan is not doing so well.

I have 41 loans with Lending Club, two of which have now defaulted. That doesn't sound so bad - it's only a 4.8% default rate. But sadly, 5 more loans are over 15 days late. The number of late loans I have has been steadily climbing over the past several months. If all 5 of these loans end up defaulting, that would give me a default rate of 17%! Not so good, since my average interest rate is 13.47%.

I had such high hopes for Lending Club when I first signed on! But I can't feel good recommending it to anyone now, seeing how dismal my portfolio performance is. Luckily my sister seems to be doing better. (I'd feel bad if she was losing money since I convinced her to sign up.) Last time I talked to her, I think she had only 1 out of 40 loans that was late.

According to Lending Club's site, their default rate is still only 1.54%. Either I am really really unlucky or that rate is going to climb.

On the positive side, this analysis report does show that Lending Club has on average been producing a positive return for people, and has been a much better investment than stocks. I can't argue with that!

The Bacon Controversy

Last weekend I went to an Elvis competition, which was super fun! I saw many Elvii - white, Indian, male, female, and even one zombie Elvis. It was really amazing. I forgot how many fun, catchy songs Elvis has. Plus, watching each Elvis sing one song is perfect for my short, Gen Y attention span.

My favorite part of the evening was indulging in an "Elvis sandwich". According to the bar hosting the event (Club Motor), the sandwich consists of peanut butter, banana, honey, and bacon, and the bread is buttered and then grilled. So it's sort of like a very exotic grilled cheese sandwich.

Later, a couple people told me that bacon is not an ingredient in the Elvis sandwich. They said that Club Motor must have made that up just to add an extra silly/gross/outrageous factor. (BTW in my opinion the sandwich was not gross, it was awesome.)

The other night, a few of us went to a new sandwich place called WhichWich. This place offers an Elvis sandwich...... in their VEGETARIAN section. You guessed it - no bacon! Just peanut butter, banana, and honey.

So of course to resolve, I turn to wikipedia. It says the sandwich was peanut butter, banana, and sometimes bacon. OK so that explains the confusion over the bacon. It is optional. But now where did the honey go?? I am still confused.