It has been a few months since I have had the time to put in my few cents on this blog. Since the beginning of January I have been working for my new employer, Bloomberg L.P., first as an outside consultant and finally full-time as a senior software engineer. After accepting the six-week consultant position I was unsure if I would be accept a full-time position, but after mingling with the crowd and meeting a great group of talented programmers I was sold. So much to my pleasure I was offered an amazing position working for the OTC Equity Derivatives group in the Research and Development division at Bloomberg.
One of my key deciding factors to accepting the position was the fringe benefits; my graduate education would be reimbursed partly by Bloomberg as long as my grades are kept high. So, with that, I am going to be taking my Computer Science GRE very soon and applying to NYU and Columbia University (both in New York City) to work towards a Masters in Computer Science (specialization in software engineering).
I’ve finally started work on my writing community project after procrastinating for three long years. I picked up a Ruby/Rails book on the recommendation of JC and absolutely enjoyed what I was working with. So after many years of denying myself the time to spend on learning Ruby I have dove in headstrong over the past week and a half. My goal is to begin development this week and hopefully have a prototype ready by the middle of the summer for public consumption (see: beta). This project has been looming over my head ever since I started at NJIT and I am glad to finally get my hands dirty.
Welp, that is about it for this short and quick update on my life. I want to get into more of a blogging regimen as I have many things to say, but unfortunately the time spent learning Ruby, with my girlfriend and at the gym has left me exhausted by the time I sit down at the computer at night. I am barely able to stay away through a full episode of the flavor of the week on Hulu. But I promise (scout’s honor) to make more of an effort to ink more words.
It has been nearly a month since I have slept a full night on an actual mattress. During Labor Day weekend, about a month ago, the unit above my apartment sprung a leak in the bathroom and an existing problem got worse. A small spot of mold turned into a swarm, spreading from the upper corner of the wall, down the closet and into my personal affects. A small growth of mold that we wrote to a landlord about in a letter with our rent had multiplied, and forced my roommate and I out of our apartment. The water pressure had also destroyed the tiles in our bathroom’s shower leaving us miserable and dirty to boot. As you can imagine this was not how I wanted to begin my last semester as an undergraduate at university.
Over the course of the month I have seem my health be affected by the disturbed sleeping pattern, the uncomfortable arrangements I have had to make, and my studies have hit an all time rock bottom. This was the first time in my life that I have been physically without a place to call home; luckily I have been able to shack up at the office on an air mattress (occasionally sleeping on the couch to give someone else the mattress to sleep on) which has definitely eased the pain a little. But I can honestly say that this has been one of the worst months of my life.
All throughout this month I have learned how much I am actually able to take without breaking. I really feel like shit right now, burnt out and beat up, but my mind is keeping my sicken body going. I need to get this work done. No matter how much trudging it takes I am going to begrudgingly finish everything as best as I can. I am going to keep my mouth shut, no matter how much I think a teaching method is wrong. Maybe one day I will be able to incorporate what I have learned at college into something meaningful.
I am writing this blog post now sitting on the air mattress that I purchased a couple of weeks ago. My room has yet to be fully finished, I am waiting on a contractor to finish shampooing the carpet, and I have piles of work that needs to be taken care of. The past two weeks I have been nursing a cold that had seemingly gone, came back, only to be gone again leaving a persistent dry cough. I survived the first round of midterm exams, have one more next week, and will be officially halfway finished in about two weeks. This semester has truly been the worst and I am absolutely looking forward to the real world. A world without examinations meant to trick you into the wrong answer, mislead you, and generally make you feel shitty about yourself. A world where the end result matters and not the theoretical process that you used to get that result.
I can smell the roses. Let’s just hope that life does not through another curve ball my way. My apologies for something that is less humorous – I have been unable to write a funny piece this whole month. I’ll make an attempt to get back into the groove of things soon. I promise.