Wisconsin 2007
From Ben's Writing
Contents |
Introduction
Wisconsin: a state in the northern U.S. that borders on lakes Superior (in the northwest [duh?]) and Michigan (in the east); pop. 5,363,675; capital, Madison [that's where I'll be!]; statehood, May 29, 1848 (30). Ceded to Britain by the French in 1763 and acquired by the U.S. in 1783 as part of the former Northwest Territory, it was the site of the Black Hawk War, the last armed Indian resistance to white settlement in the area, in 1832.
January 28th
Lethbridge, AB
I'm leaving with $42 USD in my pocket (completely by accident; I've been saving my US dollars for no other reason than to have some "green backs"). Maybe I should dip my towel in ketchup and mustard too. If you haven't read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, that last part will make no sense. But, then again, if you haven't read that book, you're probably not reading this anyway, so this aside is completely superfluous, and I probably should have spent my time worrying about the plane crashing because of those the American hating terrorists, rather than ruining a perfectly reasonable joke by explaining it. Oh, well. I don't feel like deleting it now, so we're all stuck with it.
I'm sitting now in the Lethbridge Airport. If you thought the Calgary one was exciting, you don't know what you're missing in Lethbridge. Jax just left, because we thought the boarding time was 1:15 p.m.; it turns out the flight — who's plane I can look out the window and see — is delayed. Oddly, and fortunately, there is free Internet here, so that'll keep me entertained while I wait. I wish the had the in the Calgary Airport.
Calgary, AB
Land, run, run, run, see Ben run, customs (surprisingly fast: there were no lines), run, flight is late, wait, wait, wait, watch Ben read and take off. Oh, my god, they made this plane for midgets (or little people, if you've feeling like saving their feelings — which I don't quite understand, I can't take offense at being called giant). I actually have to physically bend over to reduce my height by what seems like a foot. And I complained about Chinese airlines. Budget Airlines suck: United Express is worse than Tango, which is saying a lot.
Chicago, Illinois
The strange thing about this place is it's all a whole lot of the same, just more people. I half expected to be overwhelmed by the size, but it's all rather reasonable. They do, however, have funny accents. I don't think they find it as amusing as I do, but the Chicago, or US drawl, is quite funny to me. I should really get that out of my system before I sit down for the interview. The one cool thing here is the range of faces. I think in a given place, there is only so much range with respect the to faces you'll see. Sure, people travel, so it's not exactly a perfect theory. But in general, Lethbridge and area, has its own range of faces. Chicago has quite an amazing range. I just saw a man with not only the bushiest mustache, but the coolest afro stuffed under a ball cap. He was even wearing blue-blocker like sun glasses that wrap around the face. If he wasn't wearing a janitor's uniform and carrying a mop, I'd swear he was a '70 pimp. Not to promote horribly offensive stereotypes or anything. I would have gotten a picture with him, but I got a little too embarrassed to ask. Which is strange, because I'll never see him again.
I think part of me half expected to be back in China: completely disoriented and lost. It turns out it just as comfortable as any other place. It would be nice to have some time to look around. It's funny, I was in Edmonton long enough to explore, but didn't need to, but when I'm in new places, I'm just rushed through, with no time to enjoy the scenery. Oh, well. If I get the job, I'll be able to take my time on the way down. Maybe spend a day or two exploring the parts of the Midwest, between Lethbridge and Madison.
Does any one know if Madison is named after the US president, James Madison? Or is it just a coincidence. Sounds like something people would do, but I could find no record of it (maybe I just skimmed to quickly). (As it turns out, it is; fancy that!)
"Attention, attention, the department of Homeland Security has raised the national threat advisory level to orange." Man, I feel safe here. What does orange mean anyway? Yellow must be for Pee attacks (humour me, I'm bored), or something like it, but what about orange. I guess I shouldn't be too concerned, since no one else has reacted. How do they know they are under near eminent attack? I assume that is what it means: since Red would mean there was something actually happening, which, obviously, there is not, right?
Madison, Wisconsin
Got in about 11 or 12 p.m.. Nice airport, everything looks new, it's all shiny and clean. I caught a cab to the hotel; split it, in fact, with another person: they slept, and I just looked out the window.
At the hotel I order pizza, and for the first time in my life, was not meet with incredulity when I ordered a cheese-less pizza. This was the first thing I liked about this place. The guy on the phone didn't even skip a beat when I told him; he just kept on chatting — coolest fast-food moment ever. The food arrived about 40 minutes later, and I scarfed it down while watching some wholly inappropriate television.
I think I managed to get to sleep at about 3 a.m., their time: and all I kept thinking was, "man, it's going to be a long day."
January 28th
Madison, Wisconsin
I woke up, feeling surprisingly chipper, to a knock at the door. I think I had ordered my breakfast a little earlier than should humanly be allowed to happen — or, well, for me, anyway. After I ate, I got dressed, checked out, and caught a ride to the University (which, as it turns out, was about 4 blocks from where I was staying).
The building where I meet Kristine Ludwig, Professor Miron Livny's assistant (the guy who will say yay or nay to my application) was very unusual. First, it was old, which I had not expected. Second, it was actually 3 buildings, (poorly) cemented together. The fourth floor, where Kristine's office is, is actually slip over several half floors. Meaning, you actually have to go down the stairs from building 1, to get to the fourth floor of building 2, and so on. Amazing design, if you ask me. It's sort of like their streets: it's almost as if they just built buildings, and then decided well after the fact, that they might find it convenient to be able to navigate between them too. I suppose, to be fair, this is probably true of any city that pre-dates the automobile; it's just rather strange to see it first hand, after living in such young cities for so long (or should I say, designed cities?).
Anyway, after a short meeting with Kristine, I was introduced to Greg. Greg was in charge of making sure that I was technically capable of doing the work I would be assigned. We chatted a bit before we started, and he told me a little about the way the software was laid out, what kind of work-place it was, etc. We also talked about what we'd done at school and a little about traveling and Canada. I told him about my trip down, and how little sleep I had gotten the night before. He then told me, "in that case I'll take it easy on you." Since it was his first time doing this kind of testing, I told him I'd take it easy on him. He seemed to enjoy that, so we continued to joke around while I wrote the code that I was being tested on. Its kind of nice when people laugh at your bad jokes, it seems to make otherwise possibly uncomfortable situations more palatable.
We finished up the coding part rather quickly, so he took me on a small tour of the department. The building may have seen better days, but their equipment is rather enviable. They even have a rack of machines that can be used to simulate a huge network, so that the software can be tested in a continued environment that closely resembles a real life application. Pretty impressive stuff, both in functionality and price.
After we ran out of impressive things to look at, Greg took me back up to see Professor Livny. I meet with Professor Livny and Alain, who had been part of phone interview. Which, of course, I would not have remembered, since I was having a hard enough time remembering my own name after being drilled by four phone voices. I told him as much. He chuckled. This was going to go well too, I thought to myself.
More still ot come ...
