back in windows, posting from google chrome. fuck year.

things are moving along! tomorrow i will spend all day in San Francisco. i have a telephone interview at 1:30 with SDL , Inc., a translation and localization software company. my position would be in San Mateo. tomorrow is a first-round interview, and will focus on technical knowledge. if i pass this, i'll move on to the personal interview!

i also have an appointment at 3:00 with a job placement company. i'm not at a point where i desperately need their services, but i figure it will give me an opportunity to practice meeting with people in a very professional setting.

the appointment is in an office in San Francisco, so in the interest of not stressing myself out, i will ride into SF very early and sit in a starbucks waiting for the phone interview. when that finishes, i'll wander around the city a bit and then go to my appointment. then i'll have the rest of the day to lounge.

i'm back in windows because people in #/v/ kept chatting about Cabal online and i got the urge to play it again. i'm remembering why i quit, and why i stopped playing MMOs in general, but it's still good to relive some memories. i'll probably hop back on this weekend too, maybe the server will be fuller.

just sent four more job applications on their merry way, bringing my grand total to seven.

i had to cut two from my prospective six, because one was a headhunter corporation, and the other was similar enough to give me pause.  but still, seven applications after two days of searching isn't half bad.

had a wave of hopelessness hit me about an hour ago.  i managed to shrug it off, but it's still nerve wracking.  it probably doesn't help that i didn't finish my job applications soon enough to get into the shower before my aunt fell asleep, so i'm still covered in sweat and sunblock from yesterday.  i need to realize that these things take time, and the fact that i've waited all of three days shouldn't surprise me.

anyway, my work for the day is done, so i'm going to stop talking about it.

i never did do that nerd rant, did i?  okay, here i go.  ignore the fact that they're in alphabetical order.

Hidamari Sketch x365 - still just as nutbladder bursting as ever.  after rewatching a few episodes of the first season, i'm starting to see that it really was something of a low-budget anime.  there are a lot of sequences where SHAFT cut corners to make everything fit.  i'm guessing its popularity allowed for a bigger budget for the second season, because many of those "cut corners" have been replaced with some truly artistic animation choices.  it is unfortunate that the series will only have a handful of episodes, but only about half are subbed, so i still have a long way to go.

Koihime Musou - i'm not really sure why i started this series.  all i had heard going into it was that it was adapted from an erogame except the male lead had been removed.  i guess i was curious what an all-woman ex-erogame cast would be like.  so far it's rather mediocre.  the fight scenes are nothing to write home about, the lesbian angles are getting somewhat dull, and i'm not sure how much more "nano da" i can take.  but you know, sometimes you need something mediocre in your diet to balance things out.  this is fitting the bill quite nicely, and is filling in the gaps between the other series i watch fairly well.

Mai Otome 0 S.ifr - SLOWPOKE yes i only got around to watching these like last month.  i walked into them knowing nothing of the backstory (i didn't realize until halfway through the first episode that it was a prequel) but i think i appreciated it a bit more because i had to discover most of it myself.  in any case, it's standard Mai Otome, which is not a bad thing.  since it's so short, the pacing is really quick, which means they cut a lot of character development.  it has some awesome fight scenes and great music to make up for it, though.  i'm looking forward to the third (last?) episode.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu - this, along with hidamari, make up the core of what i'm watching right now.  i will admit, i started watching this series because of Noto Mamiko.  but chances are i would have started it eventually anyway.  the pacing on this one is spot on - it introduces characters at a pretty even clip, and fleshes them out fairly evenly throughout the episodes.  the various anime industry parodies are also pretty funny.  i am glad they didn't go for the "DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA" route and are focusing more and more on the relationships.

Sekirei - fulfills my weekly required "enormous boobs that bounce and jiggle in complete disregard for the laws of physics" quota.  it's a somewhat interesting premise in a somewhat interesting anime.  that's pretty much all i have to say.

Slayers Revolution - i'm a bit behind on this one, but i'm still enjoying it.  i recently finished off the first season and started in on NEXT.  i'm kind of running out of steam.

Tetsuwan Birdy Decode - i'm behind on this one too, i've just been so distracted lately.  the animation here is top notch, the music is fairly good, and the premise is pretty interesting.  i will eventually catch up, because i enjoy this series and would like to see more of it.

Zettai Karen Children - finally got around to watching this one too.  some of the sequences with the children kind of bug me, because it falls into that same premise of "look we can do whatever we want because we are young and have powers!  oh look we messed up, but that's okay!  *PUNISHMENT* WE'RE SORRY!" and then everyone forgives them for whatever it is they did.  it's not enough to make me stop watching, some of the sequences are pretty interesting to watch.  but i'm kind of on the fence at this point.

also i'm rewatching potemayo and minami-ke.

i wonder when my pulse turned into "snippets of lyrics from the song i'm listening to."

i should probably rename it to that.

laptop time hooray.

so i called the career center just now, turns out the delay in processing is due to the huge volume of applications they have received this week.  but the person i spoke to specifically said they have received my renewal application, and that i should have my account restored by monday.  so yay.

looks like my post volume is increasing.  kind of makes sense, when all you're doing is sitting on your ass and watching anime, it's hard to come up with things to say.  when you're doing something that will impact and change the very fabric of your life, it becomes a bit easier to write things.

Once again, posting from my blackberry. It was 90+ at about 7:00, so I've had to shut my computer down to let my air conditioner have a fighting chance.

So it turns out 90% of my anxiety was exactly what I thought it was: my lack of action. Now that my resume and cover letter are written and I've handed in a few applications, I'm feeling much less anxious. Like I said before, it's all exciting now. The only anxiety left in me is the desire to start working!

I'm gonna keep watching law & order, get ready to hit the sack.

and so it begins

i have submitted an application to Google and two to Apple.

ドキドキ

even without the help of the career center (and my account is still disabled, for the record), i'm starting to assemble a pretty good catalog of job opportunities.

there is an open listing at Google's san francisco office for newly graduated Software Engineers.  there are two open listings at Apple: one entry level software engineer position, one junior engineer position for iPhone development.

goodbye, anxiety.  hello excitement.

the anxiety is starting to get to me.

i'm trying as hard as i can to hold on to my positive outlook.

and, once again, bureaucracy stands between me and my goals.

i'm sure some of you can recall how i have complained at length about the paper-pushing processes at SJSU.  specifically, about that one semester when they denied my grant paperwork and left me penniless for two months.  that wasn't the only incident, but it was by far the worst thing the university had done to me.

...until today.

this week was to be the end of my "vacation" and the beginning of my job hunt.  i was supposed to start yesterday, but my insomnia and the subsequent dose of lorazepam made me rather loopy.  i didn't wake up until 6:00 PM, and by then i wasn't really up to pouring over job listings.  i did get enough brainpower flowing to e-mail two of my professors asking for recommendations, and both of them agreed, which made me quite happy.

so i sat down and made the decision to start my researching today.  i got up at 10:00, procrastinated a bit, and about 20 minutes ago put my hands up and opened up the SJSU career center website.  i clicked the login link, typed in my information, and hit submit.

Your account has been disabled. Please contact your Career Services Office for additional service

so apparently as soon as someone graduates, their career center cuts you off.  they e-mailed me a form on friday, which i filled out and sent back.  but i have no idea how long this will take to process, and since i'd much rather go through the career center for this, i'm sort of dead in the water until they get everything set.  i can work on my resume, but there's only so much i can do with it.

hell of a system, right?  "oh congratulations on your achievement, we will now cut off perhaps the best system for finding a career until you send us a form and we decide to process it."

;_;

had a rather shaky experience just now

i made the mistake of looking up "job interview" on wikipedia.  it led me to an article on microsoft's interview style.  after reading it, a niggling little doubt started forming on the back of my mind.  as it grew, i realized it was irrational but did nothing to dismiss it.  i took my vitamins and crawled into bed.  the doubt lingered, and in the darkness of my room, started to grow.  it manifested in some exceedingly irrational thoughts, which i won't delve into here.  but they kept mounting, and soon i could feel my blood pressure rising and my heart rate increasing.  soon after i opened my eyes and the thoughts had almost brought me to tears.  so i got up and took some sleeping pills.  the instant i woke up i drove the niggling doubt out of my head, and i feel a lot better.  but it was still not something i'd like to experience a second time.