Below are the 11 most recent journal entries recorded in tosylate's LiveJournal:

Monday, May 1st, 2006
12:43 am	What am I going to do? I think the last time I posted in here was when I got real nervous about finding a job. Things turned out all right, and I now have a very nice place to work. I love it. Now I'm fretting over the next stage in my life: the big M.D., and trying to get in. I've been reading a bunch of medical school brochures and ... honestly, there is a larger chance of me not getting into a California medical school. I have to say, I love it here. I'm not afraid of leaving here, but I'm more afraid of going into some hellish environment... e.g. University of Nowhereville in South Dakota, or Suburban Hellhole College in Texas. I really appreciate all the area I live in has to offer: good food, ample public transit, the liberal mindset ;) awesome weather, and a never-ending abundance of things to do. Also, it sucks having to tell your old friends, "yeah, I went to University of Colorado" when New York sounds more exciting. Don't you agree? So superficial. The name is so superficial, but it's something to be proud of. Current Mood: apprehensive (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 4th, 2006
10:21 pm	On my reading list - Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig - The Intern Blues - Planning a Life in Medicine - Never Eat Alone - How to Talk Your Way to the Top Current Mood: hopeful (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 1st, 2006
5:00 pm	Yay! Lots of things done today... had a great breakfast, and read more of "Never Eat Alone." It's a fascinating book chock full of inspiration and techniques on how to best keep in touch with people. The author is definitely full of himself, but it's probably well-deserved since he knows and keeps track of so many people. I often say, "I'm bad at remembering names" or "Where are you from again?" Hopefully with this new system, I'll remember *something*. I do have to thank YX for getting me started on reading books about networking, even if she doesn't directly do it. I'm off to Stanford (hissss!) Shopping Center, then a Toastmasters' meeting with tth. :) Too bad there isn't a UC near my new place ... they might be friendlier to me. Then, I get to see my sweetie! :) Current Mood: accomplished (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 31st, 2006
10:44 am	One more thing... Oh, I should post more here. That always seems to be a resolution I make, and never fall through with. Well, no more! I've scheduled this as a repeating To Do on my Zodiac. :) Current Music: Mimosa - George Benson & Earl Klugh (Comment on this)
10:43 am	Job job job, I got a job. :) Catherine told me that my website was getting too formal. And she's right. I guess I'm trying to project a more professional image of myself on my website, although I hope it isn't backfiring by portraying me as a robot. My website's purpose was to convey to employers that I'm one smart cookie, and that my blog isn't just about random garbage that other people create. And yeah, I am very much interested in user interfaces. ~_~ It makes me wonder, with all the rejections I got, I probably did something wrong. Not doing internships definitely hurt me, since other folks who did do internships have an edge on me. And the fact that I've been studying a bunch of random different things (biology, graphics, then bioinformatics) might have shown that I'm not as committed to doing user interfaces. :\ I guess my problem was that I did not know how useful and how integral user interfaces are a part of society, so I dismissed it and thought that even though I liked the subject, I couldn't make much money out of it (turns out I was wrong), so I looked into bioinformatics and computer graphics instead. After a year of mucking around in biology+computers, I now know I hate bioinformatics. But why am I even caring what happens? My real goal is to get into medical school. The prerequisite is, of course, making absolutely sure this is what I want to do. I've already inquired into Mountain View clinics, Stanford's *gasp!* hospital, etc. for volunteer positions; I'm still actively looking for something in the realm of public health, since that's something I might be interested in too. Of course, you won't find me posting about all this stuff on my public website. I still think that showing my real goal of wanting to get into medical school isn't something I should tell my new co-workers. Oh, I finally decided to go work at TT's company. :) She has so much fun. I think I'd really like working there. It'd be nice to work at a place that isn't stressful and is working on cool stuff. I'm so thankful that I do have a job. I was so worried earlier that I would never be able to find one, and that I'd have to work at a Starbucks. (which would be fine. Starbucks doesn't contribute to Republicans, so I'd be happy to work for a company that's pro-blue!) I moved into Mountain View. Take a look at my website for the actual post! Current Mood: optimistic Current Music: Dreamin' - George Benson & Earl Klugh (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 14th, 2005
12:21 am	First major interview *sigh* I'm really nervous. Lots of things in the pipeline! 1. Intuit. Interview later today. Four hours. OMG. First major interview I will have, with grueling software engineering tactics. This isn't my first choice place to work, but I'm already feeling butterflies. Carol says that my problem is that I want to be the best at everything, at least, to maintain the appearance that I know everything. But I know that tomorrow I *won't* know everything. This isn't like me taking the MCAT's. I had a whole three months to prepare for the damn exam. But this ... this is like, "okay, I forgot almost everything in software engineering and all my data structures classes, but I'd like to work for you!" It still gives me butterflies. If I drank alcohol, that could calm myself down. But no. I lack alcohol dehydrogenase. :P 2. I'm so behind in my research project. I can't give up though. But I'm slowly forming the opinion that computational biologists are a bunch of ... garrrgh. So uptight. If my lab is any indication of how weird things are, I don't think I could work with such people. Maybe I should just go and find a wacky job for 1.5 years, and do something that I wouldn't normally do. I thought about doing that. Or just settle for an internship. At a design company? Maybe. Lots of maybe's. The future is uncertain. Check back later. I went out with Carol, Stephanie, and Greg today and took Stephanie on a tour of The City. Also saw some old friends from the old graphics group (V and Jane, plus Christian) for breakfast. Things were nice today. Now there is icky work. Icky! (Comment on this)
Monday, October 31st, 2005
11:54 pm	For all the chemistry geeks ... A mosquito was heard to complain That a chemist had poisoned his brain The cause of his sorrow Was paradichloro Diphenyltrichloroethane A limerick on DDT. :) (found from wikipedia) (Comment on this)
Monday, October 24th, 2005
10:53 pm	a little ansy Got rejected by Factset. It's okay, I guess. Google hasn't gotten back to me ... nervous about whether I'll get a job. HR botched my interview schedule last Thursday. Yahoo hasn't talked to me. Neither has LBL. I'd like to work there too. Interview with Chevron and Intuit tomorrow. And my grades are slipping. I've been bombing MCB 130 cell's exams. I haven't caught up with the class. Haven't been reading. Behind on my research project. UPE is such a time sink. I'm glad my MCAT scores are high. That was a nice ray of light when I opened the AMCAS envelope and saw a huge fat "34R" score and the fact that I was well above the std.dev + mean, above the curve, above more than 90% of the 60,000 or so people who took the exam. This means that I succeeded in *something*. My website could use a lot of improvements. I need to learn Javascript. My sweetie is getting sick. I can't wait till Christmas. Why am I always so glum about the semester? I always seem to complain. Is it just me being pessimistic? (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 20th, 2005
9:51 am	New website! My new website has a blog but I have to sound pompous and professional and stuff. I can't just write whatever I feel like since I'm showing this to employers. If you'd like to visit, it's at www dot stevenchan dot us. :) It looks so much nicer than my previous site. *sigh* but there are still a lot of holes to fill, particularly Links, Publications, and Programming. I have an interview with Google in less than an hour. I have flies in my stomach already. Er, butterflies. This doesn't usually happen: with all the other interviews I've had with other companies, I never really got too nervous. But this is one of the more nerve-wracking ones. Nervous nervous nervousness. I'll try my best during this technical interview ... see how it goes. So busy otherwise. ... no time. Current Mood: distressed (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 2nd, 2004
2:09 am	Livejournal, versus Rolling Your Own It's 2 am, and I can't sleep. My website's been down for awhile, which has sort of been bothering me. (But that's not the reason why I can't sleep, mind you. ;)) For the past couple of years, I've been pretty good about researching web technologies, sifting through pages and pages of CSS and HTML code, and figuring out just how things work. I've even felt like I achieved a sort of "l33t"-ness, having my site hosted on its own domain and rolling my own blog system. This is all the while balancing school. But lately, I've been keenly aware of how much time all this web fluff takes from other things that matter (namely, school and friends). I guess making websites is a nice hobby to have... hell, it's landed me a student job and quite a few freelance positions. But I don't know if looking through it some more is really worth my time. So I was thinking of toning my website down, even using static pages (instead of PHP), just in case a server somewhere craps out again and I have to set *everything* up again. I was even thinking of making my website so bare and simple as this guy's site, or perhaps this guy's. On the opposite extreme is Stop Design. Oh, so nice. Maybe it's just reprioritizing things in life. :\ Not sure. Current Mood: awake (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 28th, 2004
8:40 pm	I am not here. This journal doesn't really exist. I'm just using an account so I can post on other people's journals. My actual website has more information that you can blackmail me with! firastudios dot com (3 Comments |Comment on this)