Teeming With Life

My first weekend in Moscow was deceptively quiet. I arrived in the middle of a long weekend to a calm, quiet city. Everyone had gone to their dachya for the long weekend, or were otherwise enjoying their free time in their apartments. The streets of Moscow were deserted. As we travelled with Alexei (a family friend) along the wide, empty roads I felt that we were the only tourists in Moscow, zooming around at an alarming rate.

As I stepped outside the metro station on Monday, I realized how inaccurate my initial impression of Moscow was. Moscow was not the quiet, relaxing city that I thought it was.

Moscow doesn’t have the world’s worst traffic jams (according to Time magazine, this accolade belongs to Sao Paolo), but the endless stream of cars is overwhelming at times. From the old and busted Volgas to the shiny new BMWs that many of Russia’s noviye ruskiyi have, everyone stands virtually still on Moscow’s roads, trying to push their way through to the next block, the next road that might offer relief from the traffic jam. The trucks are the worst, though. Russian trucks spew out a dark, disgusting exhaust that makes you want to cough your lungs out should you be unlucky enough to inhale its fumes. It is often faster to take the metro and walk than to drive in Moscow.

Everybody in Moscow walks fast. You can’t stop in the metro to admire the beautiful halls without getting swept away by the crowd. If you walk slowly, you will soon be enveloped in people pushing past you so it’s best just to hurry like everybody else is. It feels as if everybody in Moscow is always late for something—everyone of these 10 million + residents had something they were doing.

It’s hard to relax in such a bustling city. I felt that in order to fit in with these busy 10 million that I also needed to hurry up and get on relaxing before my vacation ended. But then, hurrying to relax isn’t very relaxing, is it?

Piroghi in St. Petersburg

Piroghi from Stolle

One of my most memorable experiences in St. Petersburg was eating piroghi in a restaurant chain called Shtolle. I remember the first time I had piroghi from Shtolle. We had just arrived to St. Petersburg, and were all hungry, so we decided to go have dinner.

I was in the middle of my cold, and my throat hurt. I seem to remember that it was raining, but my memory may be deceiving me. You see, it is raining right now, so I might just be projecting the current atmosphere into the past. My mind sometimes tricks me this way.

The shtolle we entered into had a cellar-like atmosphere. I immediately liked the dark light, the wooden tables and leather couches in the restaurant. After ordering some soup, piroghi and pelmeni, we sat down in one of these comfortable chairs (of course we moved a couple of times because my sister Dasha couldn’t find a comfortable place to sit) to wait for our food. The soup and piroghi came out at once. I’m not sure if this was just because I had a sore throat, but I found the soup and piroghi to be incredible soothing. The soup massaged my throat, and the soft, tender flavors of the piroghi (with cabbage) lathered my throat with smooth, delicious flavors. This was the first time in Russia where I was inspired to close my eyes in order to fully enjoy the complementary flavors of the salty mushroom soup and the mild, sweet flavor of the piroghi. This meal was a celebration for my mouth, my throat, and my mind.

The next day, my sisters, Kolia, and I made a similar excursion to another St. Petersburg Shtolle, but this time we took our piroghi to go, as we planned to eat them during our night-long excursion of St. Petersburg’s white nights. But, the piroghi weren’t as good the second time around. We ended up eating the piroghi at home after heating them up, but they weren’t the same without the soup, the dark atmosphere of the restaurant. Maybe it’s just that we were tired, but I found it much harder to appreciate the delicate flavor of these piroghi at 6 am. Piroghi at Shtolle is one of the things I look forward to the next time I visit St. Petersburg.

White Nights

View of St. Petersburg at 4 am.

From June 11 to July 2, St. Petersburg never gets dark. These nights where the sun always seems to be shining just below the horizon are called the White Nights in St. Petersburg. Many people come from all around the world to wander the city in these seemingly endless days. This year my sisters and I decided to explore the city--it's canals, its cathedrals, its bridges during this magical time. My sister's say it's impossible to enter or leave St. Petersburg at this time because the trains and flights are all full, because these white nights are a sight that everyone wants to see.

The white nights in St. Petersburg are truly magical. But I’m a programmer, not a poet, so I couldn't explain or illustrate the majesty of St. Petersburg's white nights. But, I think Pushkin, even when translated into English, does a nice job of depicting the white nights. Here's a short excerpt from his poem, "The Bronze Horseman":

I love thy harmonies austere,
And Neva's sovran waters breaking
Along her banks of granite sheer;
Thy traceried iron gates; thy sparkling,
Yet moouless, meditative gloom
And thy transparent twilight darkling;
And when I write within my room
Or lampless, read--then, sunk in slumber,
The empty thoroughfares, past number,
Are piled, stand clear upon the night;
The Admiralty spire is bright;
Nor may the darkness mount, to smother
The golden cloudland of the light,
For soon one dawn succeeds another
With barely half-an-hour of night.

Teaching Kids to Juggle

I love children. They are full of dreams, desires and the potential to do so many things. I got to teach some of my sister Dasha’s students how to juggle during my trip to Moscow, and really enjoyed it. Finally, I got to make a difference (however small) in the lives of some people in Moscow. I like teaching kids because I feel like I can really have an important impact on their lives. I don’t know if any of these kids will go on to become great jugglers, but I do know that I became inspired to juggle by another juggler who taught me. I remember how much that juggler inspired me, and hope that I’ll be able to inspire others with my juggling as well.

Tea

Dasha, Galia and Kolia sitting down for tea in St. Petersburg

Besides sleeping, I think that the activity I spent the most time doing in Russia was drinking tea. Tea is the non-alchoholic social bonding alternative to vodka, and is the only thing you can really drink (unless you want to drink boiled water) if you don’t want to be poisoned by Moscow’s less-than-clean water.

I drank tea every morning along with breakfast (sometimes I even had two cups), then usually had tea with my lunch. Sometimes we would stop in the afternoon for another cup of tea, and then I always had tea (or honey water) after dinner. That totals to at least 3 cups of tea a day.

I used to think that drinking tea was a waste of time. But now I realize that it’s a great way to get to know people, and to discuss and understand events in life. Tea is a great excuse to eat candy, or to make blini. Tea is how we come to understand why the traffic is so bad, what the weather will be like, and what we will be doing tomorrow. It is a time when you aren’t doing anything really, just sitting, talking, thinking. What a great time. I’ve found that I haven’t had any tea time in Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh I am always doing, I haven’t had time to just sit down and think. I miss that about my time in Moscow.

Skiing on Thanksgiving

Me jumping a small rock under Jersey Cream. Thanks to Chris Hacking for the amazing photo.

Short of having a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner, there's nothing better than skiing on Thanksgiving day. This year, I was fortunate enough to have both. What a wonderful opportunity, to be able to go to Whistler on Thanksgiving day, to rent a condo, to buy tickets, and ski on opening day of Blackcomb mountain then to come home and have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with my mom. I am a very lucky little girl.

This thanksgiving, I have many things to be thankful for. Firstly, I'm thankful for my mother. It is thanks to my mom that I am alive, thanks to her that I have friends, and thanks to her that I was able to spend this Thanksgiving in Whistler, and a have a great Thanksgiving dinner. Secondly, I'm thankful for my father. It is thanks to my father that I am alive, thanks to him that I am able to enjoy any part of the mountain (whether by hiking, climbing or skiing), and thanks to him that I am privileged enough to be in a fantastic department at such a strong university. Finally, I'm thankful for the snow, rocks, gondolas, lifts, lifties and ski patrollers that all make it possible for me to enjoy the mountains.

If not for all of the things I mentioned above and much more, I would not be able to enjoy Blackcomb on Thanksgiving, and Whistler the next day. I would not be able to hike Jersey Cream bowl on Blackcomb and ski down, or hit the terrain park in Whistler (it was better than the one in Blackcomb, more jumps, more jibs, more fun).



This has not been an easy quarter for me at all. It has been incredibly busy, and very intellectually demanding. Were the short two days worth 7 weeks of suffering? I don't think that this comparison should be made. I think if you like something, you should do it, and not work on something you don't enjoy simply so that you can spend a little time doing stuff you love. Hopefully, I will be able to combine my love of programming and my love of skiing so that I can do both and get tired of neither. I haven't figured out a way how yet, but maybe someday I will. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

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.

Firefox Keywords: A Keyboard Shortcut Paradise

Ever since I started really getting into computers, I've been really interested in finding the quickest way to do just about anything. Unless you're editing photos or browsing maps, the fastest way to do something is using keyboard shortcuts.

I find this to be especially true with browsing the internet. If I want to select the address bar and type "www.gmail.com" 100 times a day, and I spend 5 seconds doing this task, that's almost 10 minutes I lose a day. In a year, that's ~ 3600 minutes, or 60 hours, which is about 2 and a half days that I lose of my life just by clicking on the address bar!

In addition, using a touch pad or trackpad on a laptop to point and click is very unhealthy, so the more I can use the keyboard, and the less keystrokes it takes for me to do something, the better.

At work, we have a really cool system where you can go to your email simply by opening a browser and typing "m". Calendar is "c", and so on. Wouldn't it be great to have something like this at home? Well, firefox has it, and it's called "bookmark keywords".

Bookmark keywords are just keyboard shortcuts to your bookmarks. So, instead of going to your bookmarks and clicking on them, you just type the keyboard shortcut for that bookmark in your browser, and hit enter.

For example, if I wanted to make http://mail.google.com map to "m", I would go to http://mail.google.com, then bookmark the page. Then, I would open Bookmark manager (Bookmarks -> Organize Bookmarks...), right click on the Gmail bookmark, go to Properties, and in the keyword box type the letter "m". Then, any time I typed "m in the browser, I'd go straight to my email!

This site has more suggestions for how you can use keywords in awesome ways.

I've always been amused by how the smallest things in user interface design make the biggest difference. This is a perfect example of a small feature that means the world to me. Or almost, anyway.

One Year Later

It has been almost one year since I've written in this blog. In many cases, one year means nothing. Even for people, one year is often not long enough to change a person much once they get past the age of 10. But this year meant a lot to me.

This last year has been the most influential year of my life. I look back at myself 12 months ago, and see a distinctly different person with a different way of approaching life. Many things happened this year that changed me significantly. I...

Took on a research project, and got fired.
Fell in love.
Had my heart broken.
Spent more time skiing in Whistler than in school.
Dropped my physics major.
Helped write a website, Geozette that I'd been dreaming of doing for a while.
Got an internship at Google.
Won a prestigious national scholarship, and had my name plastered over the University of Washington.
Taught an introductory Computer Science class for two quarters.
Went to places like Colorado, and New York on my own.
Slept in cars, houses that were not mine, and hospital rooms.
Lost my father.

Somehow, many of the experiences that people often consider significantly impacted their lives happened all at once for me. Suddenly I became very aware of the different worlds people live in, and the many hardships they experience. Things that seemed very important to me before (mostly grades, and taking many classes) didn't seem to matter any more. I became much more patient, and much less shy. I learned that in this world there are some things we cannot change, and we need to accept that. Most importantly though, I learned about the importance of friendship. A lonely person is not a happy person, regardless of how much fame and success they have. There is no better feeling in the world than to feel loved and cared for.

I hope that in the past year I have been a good friend. And I hope that I will stay a good friend until I die. That would make me happiest.

On Parents and Potential

So much depends on two people in rocking chairs on the front porch.

Yo Yo Ma was a cultivated cellist; a prodigy to be sure, but the inevitable product of his musical parents' efforts and their persistent attention. At 4, he would not be able to force himself to memorize two measures of bach a day without outside influence. No genius could do that. Each day his parents would probably remind, perhaps even force Yo Yo to practice the violin or cello or piano. He got better, and his talent and passion made him excellent, even prodigious. Now he is the best cellist in the world.

Sally could have been a champion runner. As a child, she beat all the boys in all the races at recess. She loved running, especially short distance. She was a little scared of running long distances, though. They took forever, and made her sides hurt. Her parents liked to sit on rocking chairs. Once, she went up to the front porch and asked her parents if she could join a track team. "Sure!" they said "why don't you find a team, and we'll sign you up." Of course, Sally never found the track team. At seven, she was too shy, too young, and had to much to do. Who could blame her? Sally continued to run for a while, but nobody really cared. A few people mentioned she'd be great for track, but it didn't matter. Those two people that mattered most, her parents, never really noticed. They were too busy with their own plans for Sally. They thought she'd make a good pianist, a good philosopher, maybe even good at rocking on chairs like they did, but not a good runner. They were too busy worrying about her health to see how much she liked running. They were too lazy to get out of their chairs to help. So Sally grew up and became just another person rocking on her chair, like her parents were. She never became the great runner she could be.

Sometimes I feel a little bit like Sally. But then I remind myself that if I really like something, I should do it regardless of how little my parents care about it. That's why I learned 5 clubs, and why I'm now learning 7 balls.

Won't Be Posting for a While

So, I won't be posting for a while, because I am in Rome, and thus most of my thoughts are associated with Rome. Check my Rome blog out at http://jugglinginrome.blogspot.com

Organization Freaks

Why do some people like to be organized so often?

Humans like to cluster things together. We are constantly doing this in our minds. We can see this in how we classify people, or even in how we remember things (when you type a phone number, you cluster it into several special sections like country code, area code, and actual phone number). Organizing is just another way of clustering stuff, really.

When we have a messy room, or messy code, all the elements in our object are mixed into one big mess. Organizing allows us to re-catagorize this mess, and break it up into smaller, more manageable parts. It allows us to re-cluster our environment.

Why do some people organize more often? I think this has to do with how we think. Perhaps people who really like organizing tend to cluster objects more. Or, perhaps they get anxious when things are not clustered because they are generally nervous. It's also possible that some people like to be efficient, and clustering allows us to access information faster. But what it all boils down to really is clustering. Almost all people prefer a clustered, categorized world; they like being organized. The question is whether they like it so much that they're willing to go through the effort of organizing.

Uninformed News

(Above: Ethiopia, in case you were wondering)

I have a few words to say about how we read news.

Today I read that some negotiation of some sort was being settled in Ethiopia. The reason I don't remember what exactly was going on was because I didn't finish the article. Half way through my reading, I realized that I didn't know where Ethiopia was. I quickly went on wiki and found out, and that got me thinking...

How often do we know where our news is coming from? We know what is happening, but often have no idea where this is happening. This is especially prevalent in America, where citizens are rarely taught about the geography of anywhere but New York and Disneyland. Why is this important? Well, when people have a concrete idea of the physical location of an event, this makes this event seem more realistic, and has a much stronger impact on a person. The more familiar one is with a location, the more important the news is for this person. You care a lot more about bomb attacks in your hometown than those in some fictional land called Lebanon. Letting people be aware of where news is from makes it more real, making people care about it more.

I have an idea for how someone might let people become more aware of where there news is from: you could write a program/service that takes news from some source, and then places thumbnails of this news in the country/city where this event is taking place. Basically, you'd have a map with a bunch of news thumbnails and headlines, which you could then click on and then read.

If designed well, this program would give people the where of news. It would provide a new way of reading news by location, while educating the user not only on global events, but also a bit on geography as well. Plus, it'd be kind of cool. So yeah, if somebody did/has done this, it'd be pretty awesome.

Why So Few Posts?

If you read this, you might be wondering why I haven't been posting much. That's because almost all of my posts have been in my Rome blog! These are thoughts mostly geared towards my getting ready for Rome, but still there's some cool stuff in there. Check it out here:
http://jugglinginrome.blogspot.com

I was juggling in the park today, and this guy asked me why I juggled. I couldn't think of anything except a cursory "Oh, it's just a hobby", but I thought of something better: it keeps me from watching TV. What I mean is, juggling is a way for me to relax, like TV is for most, only juggling could potentially earn me a pretty penny when I'm in trouble, but watching TV won't.

Google Open House

Yesterday I went to a Google Open House/Recruiting event. It was refreshing. I must say, I enjoyed having "empty" conversations with incredibly intelligent employees at Google for the sake of mingling. Because, the purpose of this event was not to have a deep conversation or build friendships, but rather to get your face known around Google. Since I was one of 3 girls in a room of about 60, I had an unfair advantage over the guys here. We had three talks, two about google maps, na done about Google analytics. Google analytics sounds like a fascinating service which I hope to put on this very site in the near future. Afterward, we mingled some more and ate more unappetising appetizers (the desserts, however, were phenomenal. You can't go wrong with lemon tarts and small chocolate glazed cakes), and it was time for the raffle. Some guys won google memorabilia, and two won Nintendo DS lights, and then the party was over. People kept milling around for a while, but eventually the party died down and I left with a nice little goodie back complete with Google pen, notepad, and shirt.

This was the first time I realized the power and purpose of talking about things you probably won't remember past the next day. Because you might not remember what you talked about, but you will remember who you talked with. And that's just as important.