BILL GATES’ SUMMER INTERN BBQ

Assalamu’alaikum…..

Work has been piling up in the worse way these last few days, again, I went from slow to omigod-that’s-fast mode in the shortest time possible. The silver lining? Bill Gates’ intern BBQ yesterday, which me and Anna and a couple hundred other interns attended. His house is HUGE. Massive, in fact. And we probably saw only 10% of his house. Oh, and it has the most gorgeous view ever…. it’s right beside the lake, where across the lake you can see a view of downtown Seattle. Gorgeous. There were people water-skiing and fishing and all that right in front of his house. The food was excellent (of course), the view great, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. The Man himself was pretty down-to-Earth, considering he is worth 50 billion dollars. Most of the VPs were there, too. There is a huge crowd around Bill G all the time, so I decided to just talk to one of the VPs about possible careers on information technology instead. Very cool guy, I’m looking forward to future interactions.

Aside from seeing The Man Who’s Company I Work For, and the VPs, I also managed to make more friends. Since the girl-guy ratio at Microsoft is roughly 3-7, of course most of the new people I met were guys. In my department, the ratio is probably even worse, I barely see any girls at all, and there are only 2 female interns in the whole building. Weird. Anyway, one of the topics that was brought was of course, the girl-guy ratio, and how people are complaining that the girls have a better time finding dates ‘cause of the abundance of guys. Erm, excuse me? “Abundance of dates”? You’re implying that I have an easier time because I get to choose one pocket-protector wearing dork face over 20? Do you not realize us girls try to not go for the geeks, even if they do have potential to make more money than half of the population in Washington? I’d rather be with someone normal who has time for me than a rich workaholic who lives at the office. It’s a debate that never stops.

Today I managed to annoy my mentor a bit. I brought my normal click ballpoint pen to our weekly sync meeting, and somehow I have this habit of clicking the pen while talking. He had to take that thing twice away from me and even made the simile “Chinese water torture” to describe how nuts my clicking made him feel. I was, of course, thoroughly mortified, but I can understand why it would be annoying, especially in the cramped up office space we were in. Go figure.

At lunch, I had to go see a chiropractor because I hurt my back. He did a few things that involves cracking my bones and a world of pain, but hey, if it makes me better, then bring it on dude! Note to Farah: next time when you kickbox, try not to do too much of the kicking.

Here’s a couple of gems that I got from my conversations with Dan:

1. From the time I was sleepy and wanted to sakat him

Farah l [4:21 PM]:
ngantuk
Daniel [4:21 PM]:
bless you
Farah l [4:21 PM]:
= sleepy (in slang malay)
Farah [4:21 PM]:
hahahaha
Farah [4:21 PM]:
that was so far off
Daniel [4:21 PM]:
:)

2.
Farah [4:09 PM]:
you have 2 monitors now?
Daniel [4:09 PM]:
yup
Farah [4:09 PM]:
cool
Farah [4:10 PM]:
how do you set up 2 monitors?
Daniel [4:11 PM]:
next to each other


Yep, the man is that poyo…