Biking

My friend Dmitry asked me whether biking in France was any different than biking in America. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes I would look around and think to myself “I could be on the Burke-Gilman trail right now and not even know the difference”. The same trees, rivers and people were in France as were in America. However, sometimes biking in France was quite different. Some days we would bike between little villages along vineyards and fields, things I’ve never witnessed in America. Scenes such as the spire of a church poking through the hills, a small pin telling me that yet another little village was just beyond that hill, dot my memory, and I don’t think I would have found those in America. So yes, biking in Europe is special.

With my comfort bike of brick, I may not have biked a long distance, but I did bike for a long time. Biking is a very peaceful exercise. My ex-boyfriend Ben explained why biking is peaceful well to me: it’s because of the cadence. The constant up-down of the pedals is so hypnotizing. I was constantly flowing in and out of a biking zen throughout the trip: half awake, half dreaming about nothing in particular. And always there was the up-down of my pedals.

Biking of course didn’t come without its pains. My butt hurt every time I got on the bike, and after the third day my thighs were always aching. But these were all bearable pains, pleasant in fact. Even the burn I got on my thighs after forgetting to put on sunscreen for one day weren’t all that bad. Whenever I have pain like this I always remind myself that this is all temporary. If you just push through the pain a little bit, soon it will go away, and everything will be better. I suppose emotional pain is like this too. But it seems like those wounds take longer to heal.

Getting Lost

Which way?

The directions we had gotten from the tour company were terrible. They were incomplete, were overly complicated, and with the abundance of pre-marked trails in this area, completely unnecessary. Maybe it was because they were transferred from German. As such, we had the pleasant experience oPublish Postf getting lost on the first day of our trip. After a wrong turn, about a half hour of confusion and a visit to the wrong town, my mom and I finally found our way back. Who would have thought that we were supposed to make a left on a “no left turn” crossing?

From that moment on we were pretty skeptical of the directions. In fact, my mom didn’t even follow them. Instead of putting instructions on the little placards we had on our bikes, she just stuck a map there, and followed her gut, as well as the signposts for various trails. And you know what? That worked out better than following directions. Not only was she able to actually look around more (as opposed to reading the instructions), but she also had a sense of where we were on the map, which is often more valuable than even the best directions.

So, what did I learn? Don’t book a tour and hope others will do stuff for you. Instead, get a map and do it yourself. It is much better to be well-oriented than to have a good guide.

Chateaus

I juggled in front of every Chateau we visited.

I saw too many Chateaus. By the end I was beginning to take these marvels for granted, as if the sweat, dirt, drama, and life that happened within those walls didn’t matter. Each chateau we visited was unique, but in some way they were all the same. For one, all the chateaus were cold. Also, each one had a history, its own story older than that of the United States, and beautiful bouquets of fresh flowers decorating its interior. And of course every chateau was stuffed with paintings, mostly either portraits of people or of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. It was as if Jesus was the Brad Pitt of the 15^th century.

But, this isn’t to say that the chateaus were all the same. Not at all. Each one had its own personality, its own feel to it. My two favorite chateaus were Villandry and Sache. Villandry wasn’t so much of a chateaux as it was an elaborate garden. As I noted in my journal “it was as if someone was painting with a paintbrush of hedges and flowers on a dirt canvas”. The sheer size and the precision with which each plant was trimmed made the garden look like less of a garden and more like a geometric painting. Chateau Sache was the complete opposite of Villandry. It was by far the smallest Chateau we visited. I liked it because it was peaceful. The morning we visited the chateau was so quiet, I could hear the leaves rustling in the trees as we walked through the mansion. I liked the simplicity of this brick mansion. It reminded me of a cabin, one that I would want to own someday. But it would have to be in the mountains, of course.

Overall, I’m very glad that my mom and I visited all of these Chateaus and remembered (if but for a moment) the exciting, happy, dull , and tormented lives of the people that lived in them. I doubt that many of the houses built today are durable enough to last 5 centuries as these have. Let’s hope we have something else to show people of the future instead.

J'aime aller à vélo en France

The last supper (lunch) at Google

Act III of my college experience ended with a bang: a lavish lunch filled with sushi and sashimi, and a bucket. A few hugs later, I left Google. Well, for now anyway. Then it was time for a little intermission. This time, it was a bike trip to France with my mother with a stop in Paris to top everything off.

I’m not going to detail everything that we did or that happened in a narrative. It’s not very interesting anyway. Instead, let me give you a digest of my thoughts and experiences, and maybe I’ll recount a story or two in the few posts that follow. I will only include one photo per post, so if you're interesting in seeing a more complete collection check out my picasa album.

Geozette on Google Code Blog!

About a year ago, I had an idea: what if we could display news on a map? I even blogged about it. I'd been mulling this idea over for a while, and this Spring I finally got the chance to implement it with my two friends David Belatero and Daniel Otero. The fruit of our efforts was an interesting little RSS reader, Geozette.

Coincidentally, this course was sponsored by Google in an effort to introduce MapReduce to the undergraduate world. Apparently, this was interesting enough to make it onto the Google Code Blog. And the site that my friends and I created is linked to from this blog!

I know this isn't a big deal, but for me it illustrates the power of having an idea, sticking to it and actually making it happen. The site is only a prototype, but I plan to make it have current news and better location extraction, and maybe a few more goodies as well.

I want to thank David, Daniel, Christophe, Sierra, Jack and Aaron for making Geozette happen. And please check out the site soon, because it will actually work!

Life of a Google Intern

Above: My name tag. I was promoted to Intern 1 after washing my host's car.

What's it like to be an Intern at Google? In one sentence: Being at Google is like going on a cruise with a desktop computer and two 24-inch monitors that for some silly reason you can't take your eyes off of.

Why is working at Google like going on a cruise? Well, because at Google, you have easy access to all of life's necessities, just like on a cruise. I was within a minutes walk from free ice cream, sushi, salads, breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, an espresso machine, ping pong and foosball tables, bathrooms, and even couches and beanbags to sleep on (although I never used these). Working at Google is also fun. For example, I played ping-pong, juggled, and even played board games with my fellow co-workers, and could freely joke around with my team. I even managed to wash my mentor's car (just for fun, of course). But what's surprising is that despite all of these comforts, I still spent most of my time in front of my computer at work.

Google did an exceptional job of providing me with plenty of comforts so that I could focus completely on the problems that I was solving. And because these problems were very interesting, I spent most of my time at work trying to solve them. I did not work an 8 hour work day. Usually I worked at least nine hours a day, and oftentimes more than that. I remember days when I came in at 9:30 am and left at midnight. But nobody forced me to stay this late. I wanted to keep working, because I was interested. In fact, almost every day I or others had to force myself (me) to go home, knowing that this was best for me.

I will not lie, working at Google is hard. But so is skiing, and juggling. And I love both. Similarly, I loved working at Google this summer. Yes, now it is the end of the summer and I am completely exhausted. But, my summer at Google will be an experience I never forget. I completed two projects, learned to make a good mocha, started another juggling group, and made some new friends. I am honored to have had such a privlege.