The best word to describe the trip would be “frustrating”, even though the interview and the evening afterward were very, very nice.

It started out with a plane ride on Thursday afternoon that meant I missed Pen-based computing class. Not a big deal, but in general it got me stressed about OS and how I was really worried about getting to the checkpoint and whatnot. (See last entry for full angst-ness.)
The flight was long… I hate flying… I hate layovers. The plane arrived in California late, so I didn’t get to the hotel and to bed until around midnight, which would be 3 AM Pittsburgh time.
Woke up to rain the next morning… lots of rain… and I hadn’t brought an umbrella, so I got really wet on the way to the interview. About halfway there, I get a call that the tour (the first part of the interview) was cancelled because of the rain, so I went back to the hotel for a couple hours…

Headed back (in the rain), and things went better after that.
The interview itself was good… afterward was an amazing dinner and going to a bar with the other interviewees and two employees.

The next day was all flights… two layovers, meaning I spent something like 13 hours in planes and/or in airports. Didn’t get home until around 10 PM. Meh.

Now is lots of OSing. We basically had nothing written for Checkpoint 1 (which is tomorrow), so today is lots of coding and oh god death. Meh.
We might end up missing the checkpoint anyway, but that’s okay… as long as we don’t miss the second checkpoint.
Unfortunately, I am also gone next Tuesday and Wednesday (for another interview).
Blar.
I want OS to go away so I can just do interviewing and enjoying life before I head off into the world… :-\

I am sitting in the airport. In about an hour I will be in an airplane heading toward California. I will be gone until Saturday evening.
My flight doesn’t get in until around 11 PM California time, which makes it 1 AM Pittsburgh time.
My flight leaves really early on Saturday, meaning I have to get up at 4 AM to make it.
I’m sitting here trying not to think about that.

In the meantime, I am trying to write some kernel code. I made an attempt at a loader that probably does none of the things it’s supposed to. I can’t help but feel incredibly, incredibly lost as far as that class goes… I understand all the concepts and such, but when it comes to actually writing the code, I stare at my blank emacs window and can’t think of what the hell I’m supposed to write. That’s kinda the exact opposite of the thread library, in which I sat down and churned out pages of correct, functional code.

Also, I’m probably a really bad partner, as I’m leaving 8 to get us most of the way toward checkpoint 1 while I sit in luxury in California, staying in a nice hotel and talking to some awesome people who might give me a job. But, even given that, I can’t bring myself to actually get something done on the kernel.

Blar.

Today I guess I’ve just been feeling really out of it and/or lost. Perhaps it’s just my dislike of flying combined with my guilt as far as OS goes combined with my nervousness of interviewing… but I can’t help but feel like I don’t want all this. I don’t like flying around the US every week and, the entire time, worrying about the work I’m not doing and feeling like I just want to be at home, curled up and either sleeping or hacking at code with 8 there to give me guidance… because god knows I’m not smart enough to figure this stuff out myself.
I suppose this is a necessary part towards the entire “doing a job I enjoy” part of life, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about it. We either need to invent teleportation, or companies need to do interviews with teleconferencing, or I should only be applying to local Pittsburgh companies.

Meh.

Okay, that post was overly emo-riffic. Apologies.
But meh, it’s going to be a lonnngggg couple days.