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Thursday, April 10th, 2008
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11:10 pm - 99 weeks
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| Friday, May 12th, 2006
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12:06 pm - Where In The World Is...
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Carmen Sandiego?
Or actually me. I'm in New York! After a year and a half in Redmond, I've moved back to New York, and I'm living in the city on the upper east side.
I was thinking of giving this blog up completely and moving to MSN Spaces or some other Microsoft-friendly site. But then I looked back at the first entry I made. It was back on October 17th, 2001. That was before I even knew the word "blog"! And I think that gives me a little bit of street cred :)
So the reason I care so much about my blogging street cred is that back in Redmond I was the program manager for blogs in the new version of SharePoint. And today I saw that some of the folks I worked with have announced one of the really exciting features we worked on: Blogging from Word!
Cool, huh?
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| Monday, September 20th, 2004
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10:40 am - The Game
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| Thursday, November 20th, 2003
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11:14 pm - Ani!
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Ani Difranco was AMAZING! That woman has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard. I've always loved her cd's but they are nothing compared to hearing her live.
My hopes hadn't been to high for the concert, I was afraid that she would only play her new songs, and that they would be too happy - not the angry rocker girl I love. And aren't acoustic concerts usually less intense?
No Way! She has the energy of a 16 year old girl. The atmosphere was like a coffee shop, and she was playing as if she needed to put all of herself in to survive. Her new songs are amazing (She's angry at the government now instead of men). She played lots of old stuff, and even some songs that I hadn't liked (Reckoning) she made awesome and intense and alive.
For a few hours she took us to paradise.
And the opening man, That 1 Guy was out of this world, literally. His instrument was "The Magic Pipe" and it was an odd contortion of metal and electronics that he played like a harp/bongo drum. Quite a performance.
Absolutely Astounding. And for those who don't know, Ryan Adams will be at Cornell on Nov. 9th.
current mood:  bouncy
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| Tuesday, September 23rd, 2003
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9:12 am - My Intern Project is on the web!
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Woohoo, one of my projects from this summer has made it onto the Microsoft website! It's a web part for Sharepoint sites, and it's available for download! The Rate This Page Web Part is rated 5 out of 5 and has 69 downloads already :-). So happy...
current mood:  jubilant
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| Thursday, September 11th, 2003
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4:22 pm - Pictures as promised
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As promised, I now have pictures of me with brown hair:
I've also got a bunch of other pictures from Spain, etc. up. Since I just learned how page rank works, I'm going to link to the site with my name: Jackie Bodine.
School's been amazing so far. Musefest was lots of fun, and now I know about Oculus, a great Ithaca band. I also know that if you drive to the end of 366 there's a blueberry farm where you can pick your own berries for 60 cents a pound.
Classes are good, I'm down to 14 credits :-) Intro to acting is like kindergarten, and human bonding is teaching me so much.
Nothing too interesting to say now, so goodbye.
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| Tuesday, August 19th, 2003
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1:25 pm - I have a job!!
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I'm finally back from Redmond, and with good news... they offered me a full time job. So this time next year I'll be working at Microsoft as a PM in Windows SharePoint Services. You haven't heard of SharePoint yet, but you will. Trust me.
In other news, I'll be back in Ithaca next week. I noticed that I'm signed up for 22 credits, that's gonna have to change. It's pretty crazy to know that I have a job lined up, because now I'm all confused and not sure what I should do with my last year of college. I've finished all my distribution and cs requirements, all I have left is 4 econ courses and 2 cs courses if I want to graduate with honors. I don't know how to choose my courses anymore. Interesting, well rounded, good teachers, good time slots... it's really more than I can jumble in my brain.
Ooh, and props to my homies, the Silly Hat Brigade!
Jen, Katie, Alex, Federico, Arthur, Michael, Jett, Justin, Ryan, James - You guys made my summer so much fun. I just want to bundle you all up and take you to Cornell with me. Most people can only take a few minutes of Jackie, and ya'll put up with me for 3 months... that takes stamina ;-)
Oh, and I'm a brunette now. I'll put up pictures soon.
current mood: employed
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| Tuesday, May 13th, 2003
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12:07 pm - End of Junior Year
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Another semester bites the dust. It's absolutely amazing how time speeds up as you grow older. It's hard to think back because memories distort, stretching and shrinking. Amounts of time that feel like forever pass by, and it's as though they never happened. How can we preserve our memories? How can we hold onto the full value of our experiences without losing the richness of emotion and knowledge that they possessed?
I come across old notebooks in my room and I can barely remember writing in them. The notes are in my handwriting and I get a flicker of the course, a faint feeling of the material that I used to know. All that's left now is a mark on my transcript, a weight on my gpa.
Our quest for knowledge has been subverted, but I'm not sure of how it could be avoided. Too much depends on a college education.
Perhaps it would be an improvement if we could go to trade schools to prepare for work. Doctors could study biology, chemistry, anatomy, and other related fields, without being required to learn history and literature. Bankers could study economics and finance. People trained only in relevant fields could do their job as competently as if they had taken a distribution of courses, intended to make them well rounded.
I am not arguing against liberal arts degrees; I believe that a liberal arts education is important for individuals and for societal development. I am arguing against the current application of those liberal arts degrees. A degree, transcript, and gpa have become metaphors for intelligence. Learning loses its internal motivation with the introduction of grades. Grades set a clearly defined goal: "I want to get an A in this class", but I believe that it is a harmful goal. The kind of studying and learning necessary to get an A does not necessarily correspond with the studying and learning undergone to gain persistent knowledge.
We pay tens of thousands of dollars to go to college, so why do we feel like we are being forced against our will? Maybe we are too young to appreciate the salary increase that this studying will bring. Maybe we haven't realized how these classes will help us to do the things we want to do. I remember the most frequent complaint in middle and high school: "Why do we have to learn this/When are we going to use this".
As humans we want relevance in our lives. Pertinence. If we understood that this math class would one day help us to build a stunning computer game we might pay attention. If we could see that this chemistry class would one day help us to save lives in the emergency room we might take notes. The application of material to real life problems provides a better motivation than grades.
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| Wednesday, April 23rd, 2003
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10:44 am - Cornell
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I love Cornell, I really do, but I'd like to point out to anyone who wants to attend here that it's April 23rd and it's snowing. Yes, snowing. White cold stuff falling from the sky. I'd like my warm weather back please.
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| Tuesday, November 19th, 2002
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7:34 am - Killing Time Before Work
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Hmm so here's a riddle for you. If my Job at the ATC starts at 8:00 AM and there's a bus that goes by the CTA at 7:45 AM and gets to Trillium by 7:50, and I live on the corner of Eddy and Williams, what time do I leave my apartment to make the bus so that I don't have to stand out in the cold for long? Extra Bonus Riddle: What time should I set my alarm for in the morning so that I can leave my apartment at said time?
I've been working on this riddle all year :-). I usually set my alarm for 6:30 AM, and hit snooze about 3 times before rolling out of bed and deciding I don't have enough time for a shower. Then I try to leave the apt. at 7:35, but I usually get nervous and jump the gun, and then I'm standing around for 10 minutes. And then there are the days I don't make it out till 7:40, and I run up the hill, and somehow still seem to have 5 minutes to wait.
Oh well, you can't expect good sense out of me this early in the morning. Especially since I was playing The Sims Online until 11 last night.
And on another note, my play, The Blue Room was this past weekend and it went fabulously. I had a great time, and all three shows were sold out. That makes me feel good :). Hmm, at least I think all three shows were sold out... the last one might not have. Nevertheless, I feel it was something of a triumph ;-)
And now I must go.
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| Monday, October 21st, 2002
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1:59 pm - An October update
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Yeah I know, I don't update this journal nearly enough... hopefully this isn't anyone's main source of entertainment.
So my big announcement is that I'm going to be in a play! The Blue Room will be playing at Risley Theater on November 15th, 16th, and possibly 17th, though the last performance might not happen, since the Counting Crows are coming to Cornell on the 17th. In the play, I am, "The Girl," which is a quaint euphemism for a hooker. My role is actually a lot tamer than the rest of the roles however. I'll be expecting to see all my friends in the audience. If you do happen to go, can someone make sure to hold Kevin back during the sex scenes. No need to have him killing the poor actor opposite me in a jealous rage :-).
In other news, I'm such a dork, I've ordered The Sims Online. I'm really looking forward to the CD's coming in the mail, and I've already got an idea for a business. I want to run a homeless shelter. Be prepared for a lengthy post philosophizing about The Sims in the future. As for rumors of a new Sim object I created... well that's for personal use only.
I know this entry sucks, I just wanted to post something even though I'm in quite a rush. Have to teach section soon. I was so impressed when I graded the CS 312 exams last week. I've never seen a semester where so many students understood proof by induction. If anyone in the class is reading this, Way to Go! I'm so proud :-)
current mood:  geeky
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| Wednesday, June 12th, 2002
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4:12 pm - Microsoft
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The summer's started, and I'm at Microsoft. I like it here.
My apartment is great. I have a kitchen, living room, tv, washer and dryer, and my own bathroom. I also have two male roommates. I don't know how that happened. It's okay though, because Soumya cooks, insuring that I don't starve this summer since when I come home I'm usually to tired to think about food. David is cool too.
I like my work. I'm working on SharePoint Team Services. It's good stuff, and I'd love to say more, but this silly little NDA prevents me. I'm not exactly sure what I can talk about, and better quiet than fired.
Washington is beautiful. I've never seen trees so tall. The streets are pretty confusing though, I expect that if two streets are numbered consecutively, that they would be fairly close to each other, but no. But it's okay, because that's what allowed me to get ridiculously lost and see the pretty tall trees.
My group here is really nice. My mentor is really supportive. My office mate is one of the most helpful people I've ever met. He just seems to know everything. He was even able to help me when my computer insisted on blue-screen-of-death-ing when I was trying to install an operating system.
The best thing about being here might be the free drinks. They have Coke AND Pepsi. No need to play favorites. I usually go for the hot chocolate and cider. Mmm. Thank goodness that I'm not too far from the bathrooms.
The other interns are a lot of fun. I baked cookies for one of the World Cup games and we had a lot of people over. We went to a 3D Imax movie last weekend about the international space ship. It was amazing. I introduced some friends to the movie Tomcats, which is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. And then we all saw Zoolander, and took pictures with "the look".
I'm really happy here. Much more than I thought I would be. I talk to Kevin enough, and he is going to visit me for July 4th. It will be nice to see him. I really think that I could do this for a career. I don't mind working late hours to finish updating my spec. The only frustrating part is dealing with how slow my computers are.
So that's the latest, I'll try to write again this summer.
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| Thursday, May 9th, 2002
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9:29 pm - Finals
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Another year gone by. Very quickly this time. I'm listing to U2 because it's soothing. I want to feel soothed. I've got two finals tomorrow. Two more on Tuesday. And then it's over. Half-way through my college years.
I didn't believe, even at the end of last year, that there would be a difference between my freshman and sophomore year. I was wrong. I'm a different person now. It's like a different world. I feel like I'm moving a hundred miles an hour.
The summer is going to feel as long as the whole year did. I believe in relativity. I know that time zooms by when we want it to tarry, and we know that it lags when we need it to hurry. But even the slow times this year went speeding by. Even the classes that I wished over before I sat down, they went right by too.
I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse.
I don't know who I'm going to be in a month. What happens when I leave this place? What happens when I get a 3 month vacation from the school I call home? All the people that I see everyday will be forgotten next year. My best friend is going to be an ocean away.
Everything changes so fast. I can't quite keep up with myself. I don't even feel stressed yet, because I haven't yet realized how close these exams are. It hasn't sunken in.
I arranged to have my belongings stored over the summer. It's silly to move my snowboard and blankets and computer around so much. I'll feel lost without my computer. It's my safety blanket.
I'll feel lost in a new city, with no one near by. A different place altogether. A different coast of the world. I did always say that I should have gone to college in California, just to get used to being far from home. But now I get the chance. The most time I've spent out of NY since I can remember.
I'm sure that the summer will be great. I've never missed a good time, given the chance. I'll change though, and when I get back, I probably will not recognize the girl who's sitting here, slightly nervous.
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| Tuesday, April 23rd, 2002
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12:17 am
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So I'm learning asp.net. I won't become an expert in it, but I'm gonna write at least one page in it. I'll be writing the report generation page for my 501 group's project. I get to play around with asp controls and try to make a functional page.
It's scary how quickly the deadline is creeping up on us, and how little we have done so far. Hopefully we'll all pull it together for the final presentation. On the plus side, I like learning new things, even if it means that I'll only get 3 hours of sleep again.
Sleeping less is doing more. That would be a more inspirational quote if the "more" that I did today was less classes and more substance. Still, we do what we can.
I updated my Web page with style sheets: click here to see it.
Back to work for me
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| Sunday, March 24th, 2002
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5:54 pm - Yellowstone
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For our Spring Break, Emmanuel, Matt, and I decided not to do the ordinary thing (going to Florida or Cancun for a week of drunken festivities that we would later not remember, but speak of fondly) and instead drive across the country in an Avis rental car to visit Yellowstone.
I suppose I can start with the facts. The car was large and comfortable, plenty of leg room, its only known faults being the lack of power locks and cd player. The first was merely an inconvience, the second we solved for on the second day with an auto pack that attached Matt's Discman to the cassette player.
We drove through: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Emmanuel pointed out that it almost seemed as if the state lines were drawn along shifts in scenery. We saw small groomed farmlands and areas where the horizon seemed miles away. There were mountains and plains. We passed over the Mississippi river at some point (where it didn't appear quite as Mighty as I had expected). We saw the Great Lakes, which I would have guessed were oceans by their grandness.
I ate fresh Wisconsin cheddar cheese curds. They're soft and chewy, and reminded me of polly-o string cheese. I ate two bags, and brought another home.
We listened to all forms of music: Nine Inch Nails, Windham Hill, Morphine, Counting Crows, Offspring, Bob Dylan. Everything Else that was in our collections as well. We listened to Aaron Copland in the park itself, and I could feel how it was trying to convey the magesty and expansiveness that surrounded us.
We talked about anything that was on our minds. We talked about jobs, familiy, relationships, the future, and the past. To be truthful I'll have to admit that we did a bit of gossiping as well. I believe that the three of us really care about people. Even in our gossiping, it was as though we were trying to understand problems so as to make them better.
I think I learned a lot about privacy on this trip. We all shared a large part of ourselves on this trip, but we all held a lot sacred and private. There were pieces of ourselves that we wouldn't share, that would lose it's meaning if it was put in the public forum.
There were long breaks in the conversations where we were left alone with our thoughts and the scenery. I could feel the difference now that I'm back in my dorm room. I heard music coming out of my friend's room, but I didn't want to stop in. I needed the time to myself. Even now, I'm still not tired of solitude. I don't feel lonely in my room. I have so much to think about. I love this space and freedom.
It's the freedom of not having to put on a face. I'm reading another book by Kundera now, The joke. There's a part in here that describes how I feel. Ludvik is a young member of the communist party, and he notices that he acts different when he is at party meetings, when he is with the girl he likes, when he is with friends, and when he is alone. He asks "But which was the real me? ", and answers himself "Let me be perfectly honest: I was a man of many faces... They were all real: I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces becaous I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be."
I suppose I'm interpreting the idea of faces differently that Kundera, since Ludvik also has a private face. But the quote still applies. It's confusing to deal with the differences between how we are with friends, how we are in class, and how we are alone. Sometimes I think that I'm most comfortable with the "face" I wear with Kevin. I think I'm more open around him than I am when totally alone. He prompts me to think about parts of myself that I take forgranted when alone.
Back to Yellowstone. So I hadn't expected so much of the park to be closed. Only one path and one road were open. We walked up the snowy trail to the Mammoth Hot Springs, but the activity was barely active. The pouring waters and steaming rock were replaced by a yellow area where the snow didn't stick. We did find a small hot stream under a bridge that housed a few colorful streaks of thermofiles in blue, green, and red. We also walked out to the place where a hot stream meets a river, and forms warm bathing pools.
We saw some amazing animals on our drive. Many buffalo and dear. And quite amazingly, wolfs. We saw a group of cars pulled over with telescopes, and they were members of some wolf society, and let us look through their telescopes to see where some Buffalo were guarding an Elk carcass from the wolves.
The best part of the drive was being dwarfed by the mountains. The landscape made us feel small and insignificant. You could throw all your problems into those mountains and they wouldn't make a dent. I will live and die, and the mountains won't notice. Nothing I do will alter that landscape.
I'm glad I did this spring break. So many things that exist in my everyday life didn't exist on this trip. So many thoughts that usually fill my mind were unthinkable on this trip. I felt like a whole new person. Or maybe a whole old person, brought back in my life to an earlier time. Brought back to think about all that pained and scarred me. Brought back to heal it. I came to terms with a lot of things that I didn't want to deal with. I understand and forgive those who caused me pain.
It's rare that I get the chance to step back from myself, and a lot of pain is too close to heal. But this trip separated me from it, and I put things in their places, saw them as part of the whole picture, where they did not blind me to the rest of the world.
I hope that today I am a better person than all my yesterdays.
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| Monday, March 4th, 2002
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10:19 pm - Econ Prelim tomorrow
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My Econ TA lost it today. The review session was supposed to go from 6:00-8:00. So we get there and we start to go over the practice prelim. very slowly. I guess he realized how slow he was going, because then he just rushed through 10 questions and I could almost smell the tires burning. And then he stopped.
He said he was tired and going to take a nap. He lied down on the table in front of us.
Then he popped up, and said he would give $10 to anyone who would solve the problem on the board. A girl did it. He paid her.
Cut to 8:00. He has a problem on the board. We don't know how to do it. We have no idea what's happening. He won't let us leave. Someone suggested an answer and he cracked up. He was rolling on the floor laughing, then stopped long enough to inform us "It's a joke! But it's a joke you gotta know or you'll be SCREWED"
Crazy Econ PhD students.
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| Thursday, February 21st, 2002
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3:45 pm - I've got an Internship!!
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I guess I did a good job with my Microsoft interview, cause on Tuesday night, I was working in CSUG lab, and my cell phone rang. It was my recruiter, and she told me that all three groups I interviewed with, Word, AWS, and SharePoint, wanted to hire me. I chose SharePoint because they seemed to be doing the most interesting work.
So I have a Job! I can't believe I got it. I'm going to be an intern program manager. I get to be the link between the customers and the software developers ::insert appropriate Office Space quote:: I'm going to work on developing the specs and features that go into a product, and then I'll be responsible for making sure that everything gets done by the deadline.
I'm going be in Seattle! I've never been on the West Coast for any prolonged amount of time. This is going to be really exciting. This is going to be my first job in the Software Industry. I'm going to get to do real work, the kind of work that a full time employee would do. I get to make real money!
It's going to be a little strange being so far away from home, but I found out that one of my best friends moved to California, so I might be able to visit her when I'm there. I'm going to miss Kevin.
This job is the most amazing opportunity. I've always heard that experience is the most important factor in getting a job after graduation. If I do a good job this summer, I can work there again next summer, and then get a full time job with Microsoft when I graduate.
What I really like about the position I got is that as program manager, I'll really be making a difference. If I were a software developer, my only real challenge would be in trying to write efficient code. I love coding, but as PM, I get to design! I really loved the design questions that I was asked over the interview. I really had to think about a product at many levels.
I was told to write the specs for a device that had 4 buttons: on/off, mute, volume up, and volume down. It was amazing how many things came into play. Its not only the idea that mute has to make the volume turn off,and deciding whether the volume will stay muted if you turn the machine off and then on again. My interviewer explained that I also had to worry about how fast the volume should go up if I held the button, and what would happen if two buttons were pressed at once, and what should be displayed on the screen so that the user can know that the volume is muted.
This summer should be amazing. :-D
current mood: excited
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| Tuesday, February 5th, 2002
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11:57 am - Windows XP
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So I've finally installed Windows XP and Office XP. Legal Copies of both :-). Well I just can't bring myself to pirate software, since with any luck, I'll be the one writing it in a few years. At the same time, being a college student, I can't bring myself to pay for software. Luckily my problems were solved by a cunning combination of getting Windows free for signing up with devhood, and getting Office free by asking questions at Steve Sinofsky's talk. It's amazing how much free stuff they give away at info sessions. Just last night I got one of those cool potato chip-bag clippers from PriceWaterhouseCooper.
I have to say I wasn't so impressed by PWC. I admit I missed the first few minutes of their presentations (who would have thought ILR had *two* buildings), but when I asked what sort of place they would have for a CS major, they told me that I could make sure that businesses had their firewalls set up properly. Hmmm.... not much science in that part of "computer science". And then when I asked if they were hiring sophomores for internships, she said "well, not _paid_ internships." And so I left.
It's remarkably difficult to find companies that are accepting Sophomore interns, which is strange, since they want Juniors who have had previous internships...
Luckily, Microsoft is accepting Sophomores, and after my phone interview with them, they decided to give me a chance. So on Feb. 15th I'm going to be having an on-campus interview in Redmond, WA. I'm really excited, and I hope that I'm able to impress them.
I guess I should go back to doing Econ homework :-)
current mood:  happy
current music: Disney - Siamese Cat Song
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| Thursday, December 13th, 2001
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9:45 pm - Final Exams
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I never have to take math again!!!!!!
Never Never Never Never
I'm done with it forever!!!!!!!! Evil multivariable calculus.
current mood:  chipper
current music: Madonna- Don't Tell me
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| Thursday, December 6th, 2001
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2:57 pm
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babyscarlet's journal