jobhunt 1 Comment

Second Interview Results

You know, I’m not entirely sure how that went.

I spoke briefly with my potential supervisor’s supervisor, and that seemed to go well. More of the same: Tell me about the Access tracking database, etc. Then I met with two senior team members, who asked me more technical questions: How many tables were in your database? How many columns in the main table? What kinds of reports did you create?

Then I got the SQL test.

First question: Write pseudocode to generate the first 10 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence: (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34)

Took me a second to remember / deduce what the Fibonacci sequence was (add the two previous numbers to get the next number). Then I was all, OK, do while loop / for next loop, something like that. Counter variable going up to 10, sure. But I never figured out how to set variables for the previous two numbers, or to do the calculation mathematically. So, they got part of my logic behind it, but not a correct answer.

After that were a couple of query questions that should have been easy, but weren’t. After those were a bunch of definition questions, some of which I farted my way through (“What is normalization and when would you go for it?”) and some of which I skipped (“What is a transaction?”). All in all, I answered probably half the questions on the quiz, and got some of those mostly correct. Some of them I knew how to answer in the context of Access, but not SQL (“How do you define a one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationship between tables?”).

After the test, my potential supe came in and told me that the test is mainly to see where I stand programming-wise and what my problem-solving thought process is like. He stressed that in entry-level positions, they don’t have much to look at with regards to a body of work, so the test serves to give them an idea of where each applicant stands.

The Powers That Be will be convening by week’s end to decide who gets the job. I’ll keep you all updated.

P.S. – I wore my traditional Halloween dangly bat earrings to the interview. No one noticed. At least Jess noticed when I wore them to Eric and Jess’s reception on Saturday. 🙂

randomness 1 Comment

My Day So Far

8:51am – Alarm goes off, reminding me that I want to go to aikido at 10am. I roll over and go back to sleep.

10:45am – I realize that I need to leave soon to take Sensei’s digital recorder back to the dojo while someone is still there and the door is unlocked. Get up, get dressed, pull hair back, and drive to dojo.

11:00am – Sensei isn’t at the dojo, and a senior student is teaching the class that is just concluding. I put the recorder on Sensei’s desk and beat a hasty retreat.

11:10am – Arrive home. Eat breakfast of Chocolatey Special K. Read e-mails and blog entries.

12:00pm – Attempt to wake the husband. Am shot down in favor of continued sleep. Come back downstairs and begin trying to fix my iTunes library (another story entirely).

12:30pm – The husband awakes and showers. Begin working on Zen podcast.

1:15pm – Lunch: one breaded, stuffed cordon bleu chicken breast, cooked by Aaron.

1:30pm – Resume editing podcast.

2:00pm – Upload podcast. Send e-mail to Sensei with a link and some potential show notes. Begin backing up CDs with drum corps photos and other materials onto my computer in preparation for sending them to the new Executive Director. Alternate computer availability between WinRAR and iTunes.

3:00pm – Backups complete. Take break to watch Aaron play Bioshock. Eat banana.

3:30pm – Receive e-mail that reminds me to check the drum corps forums’ permissions. Realize, after some research, that there is no foul play and that I have b0rked the permissions myself. Rig a temporary fix so that members can actually see all the forums.

4:00pm – Forums unb0rked. Begin packing up CDs in a makeshift cardboard sleeve to be mailed to the Executive Director.

4:15pm – CDs packed. Do some more work on iTunes library. Talk with Aaron. Look over my to-do list. Cringe.

5:00pm – Talk with Aaron while he gets ready for work.

5:30pm – Say goodbye to Aaron. Feed the cat. Make dinner. Blog while eating at the computer.

It sure seems like I’ve been doing a lot of stuff today. So why do I feel like I’m treading water? Aaron says that maybe it’s because everything I’ve done today (just about) has been for someone else, either the corps or the sangha.

Next on the agenda: Go for a walk and listen to the hour-long podcast I just put together (since I missed the actual talk, being out of town). Review some SQL for tomorrow’s second interview downtown. Do some more cleaning and organizing, maybe.

Coming up on one month of joblessness. Hmm.

ETA: This article saved my ass the next day. Everything is magically fine again, without having to right-click on every damned file and browse to find its new location. Fantastic!

spirituality

Couple Brings Zen to Toledo

I would encourage any Toledoans in my readership to check out this article by Blade Religion Editor David Yonke.

And not just because I’m quoted in it, either:

Diana Schnuth, 31, of Toledo, said she was raised in a Christian home but came to the realization that “I no longer believed what I was raised to believe.”

She found that practicing Zen gives her a peaceful feeling. “I always come home from here feeling a lot better than when I arrived,” she said.

Even though Mr. Yonke had a digital recorder with him, I think I might have been paraphrased or misunderstood rather than directly quoted. I don’t think I would use the word “arrived” in informal conversation. I could be wrong, though — I *was* trying not to disgrace the sangha by saying something stupid.

I also know that I purposely did not identify the religion in which I was raised, not even to call it “Christian.” I recall saying that I was raised in a “religious manner,” but studiously avoided saying that I was a Mormon. The last thing I need is to have the missionaries knocking on my front door, trying to get me back to church.

Those minor issues aside, I thought the article was well-written, and I learned a lot about my Sensei between reading this article and Wednesday’s article in the City Paper. The publicity definitely helped boost the attendance at yesterday’s workshop on beginning meditation, as many people said that they had read about us in the newspaper.

Zen meditation can dovetail with your personal beliefs if you let it, since Zen itself has no mythology or belief system behind it, as Sensei pointed out. If you’re interested, even just vaguely, I’d encourage you to find a sangha near you and check it out. It can be a little weird the first couple of times you attend a zazenkai, but that doesn’t last long, and the inner stillness and acceptance of yourself and the world is well worth it, in my opinion.

spirituality 1 Comment

Calm, Cool and Collected

Attended Eric’s wedding reception in Columbus (photos to come) on Saturday. 2+ hour drive each way, but worth it for the multiple-course meal at Brio. Not to mention the adult contemporary pre-dinner musician. Hearing live covers of massive amounts of Jim Croce, Barry Manilow, Elton John and others was totally classic. Tells you how much of a goober I am that I could name title and artist for most of his repertoire, though.

Seriously, though, the food was the highlight of the evening. That, plus seeing Eric (whom I hadn’t seen since we moved into our house in spring 2004) and meeting his wife (whom I’d only ever talked to via blog comments). Even though we were the only people representing BG, and we didn’t know anyone there except Eric, we still enjoyed ourselves. And we enjoyed the yummy spice cake. Major kudos for having a cake that was neither white nor chocolate.

Sunday afternoon was a seminar on the basics of Zen meditation. We discussed our respective reasons for attending the seminar, learned about proper posture and options for sitting positions, and did a few brief sessions of zazen (seated meditation) and kinhin (walking meditation).

After both of these weekend events, I’m feeling refreshed and revived. Calm and alert. I think that, if I can maintain a daily zazen practice (and remember that I really do have friends, and keep in touch with them in a meaningful way), I’ll be able to keep this stillness in reserve for when I need it.

ruminations

Annoyance

I am starting to get seriously annoyed with myself for allowing myself to feel all pissy and depressed for no good reason. I let little things get under my skin. I let things harsh my mellow in a bad way. And I let other people’s negative attitudes affect me more than necessary.

Part of this is definitely, without a doubt, the connection between mind and body. Effed up sleep habits, eating habits, schedules — all are really taking their toll. And these are all fixable things. It’s just a matter of making myself do things just because, instead of ‘because I have to go to work’ or ‘because I have a deadline.’ How about ‘because I’ll feel like shit later if I don’t’?

I also feel like I tend to wallow in my depression / funk when I get in these moods. It’s like I take some perverse pleasure in feeling downtrodden or something. WTF? That went out of style back when I was 17. Righteously oppressed and darkly-mooded teenagers are to be expected; depressed grown-ups get handed a pile of Prozac and told to suck it up. Not that I’m clinically depressed (not diagnosed, anyway), and not like I’d be particularly comfortable with taking medication that alters the chemicals in my brain. The Pill screwed me up bad enough; who would I be after taking anti-depressants?

Point being, I’m kind of seeing myself from the outside in, while still being all funky. I need to fucking shake this thing.

Maybe tomorrow’s wedding reception or next week’s second interview downtown (OMG!) will cheer me up.

Update: Oh, that’s fantastic. Owens got my BG transcripts, sure, but one of the two programming classes I wanted to take in January (co-requisites, so it’s both or neither) is now full. Unless I plan to be unemployed until March, in which case I could take either the MW 10am-11:50am class or the TR noon-1:50pm class.

*insert tantrum here*