Launch Aborted

Sooo.. unsurprisingly, my time at Google has been incredibly busy. And on top of it, I can't really talk about the best parts of what's going on, and my time has just gotten a heck of a lot more valuable.

So as a result, I'm going to hibernate this blog again. Lame, I know, sorry. But feel free to hit me up if you have questions, e.g. about the Associate Product Manager (APM) interview process or role at Google.

Maybe I'll find the time to keep this up to date after all. But I wouldn't count on it ;)

Ciao!

Segue through Sydney

After a heartfelt parting with my parents this morning, I was off to Sydney for the day.

Thanks to dad's suggestion to check up on checking-in our luggage at the airport, we were able to meander around the city mostly unencumbered; one carry-on was all we had to cart around Circular Quay.

For lunch we headed to the Lowenbraeu for some pretty nice Bavarian / German, but it wasn't as good as last time and frankly, not really worth it. I mean, when I asked for the cheese sauce to eat with their Spaetzle, they looked at me with a blank stare suggestive of the blandness of said Spaetzle they had just served us. Far more interesting was the Fresh Food Store, where we got an excellent iced coffee and falafel wrap plus spinach salad which really hit the spot.

We also did a little browsing through the Sunday market in The Rocks. A stall with various semi-common gemstones caught my eye, as I hadn't really examined many of them closely before. Tourmaline, quartz (rose, smoky, clear), agate, malachite, garnet, amber (technically not a stone but you know what I mean), moonstome, tiger's eye, and many more. Most notably, there were some beautiful Australian Opals set in Sterling Silver. Rebekah and I looked through them and found an elegant pendant which set off her eyes, and for a very good price. Turns out opal is her 'birthstone', so it's easily the catch of the day!

The Sea Shepherd had one of their ships, the Steve Irwin, docked at the Quay. They were doing free tours but the line-up was huge, so we skipped that and just had a nice look and chat with one of the crew. Finally, the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art was another stop. The exhibitions ranged from bizarre to brilliant, unsurprisingly :)

Weary from walking and travel, we went to my far-removed cousin's place and had a wonderful evening with her and her family. Hot pot / Chinese fondue was for dinner and the kids and dog were great fun to play with.

And now it's off to bed, in an attempt to get ahead of the jet-lag while we can!

Good night world.

Dream-sharing

Whooo, I got my dream job! And with many friends and supporters curious about this next big part of my life, this blog will be getting a bit more exercise shortly :) so stay tuned if you'd like to find out more, o anonymous readers.

Some things sometimes

I'm a big fan of free will, and as it seems my blogging isn't happening much right now, I'm not forcing anything...but here's one from the more personal echelons of my head. I try to speak specifically, but I know things can be misunderstood, so I'll clarify if needed. Just try to look up any unknown terms yourself please =)

I think of rationalist epistemology as a sort of black hole. I don't mean this in any negative sense: it is simply an inescapable knowledge of the unknowable nature of all in our existence. Once you 'know' that you can't, you 'know' that you can't escape. The single quotation marks above point to the fun result of this: believing something despite 'knowing' you can't know is still possible. Of course, this raises the question of how you know that you believe it. The only escape from the inescapable is paradox: to be both within and without the black hole. When one is aware of this paradox and maintaining it regardless, that is something amazing--especially the particular paradox of belief without 'evidence' (or what approximations of it we have). Perhaps the belief with the most evidence is that we ourselves exist at all: Cogito Ergo Sum. After all, if we didn't exist, how could we be reasoning about it? Anything beyond that is a bit harder though: welcome to solipsism.

Unfortunately, believing something without understanding the paradox of doing so is nothing long of ordinary. It allows for and easily leads to epistemologically unsustainable paradoxes in our beliefs (ha). If you ever feel like a sighted person wandering among the "sheeple" (check XKCD for that one, heh), it may be that they hold such blind beliefs, unknowing of their lack of inability to know. Or they might just be lost in thought and/or observing the sheeple, like you. For those who've demonstrated their epistemology to be underdeveloped, I hope we can find ways to assist in their leaps.

End of Days

Well, this semester rather, but I felt a bit dramatic. It's certainly been a surprising one. Among many other coincidences, somehow I ended up taking four extremely interesting courses this semester, three of which were also exceedingly fun, and pretty inspiring and motivational. My theater prof, Stephen Drover, had a brilliant and fun approach to teaching, and really helped me think about theater on a new level. And my developmental psychology profs, Jeremy Frimer and Lawrence Walker, introduced me to a new and exciting framework for thinking about humanity. So many of my feelings about people and their nature have been given voice, a scientific context, and a view of the passion that others have for the same topics. Whether because he is from a closer generation, younger, or something else, Jeremy's lectures connected with me in particular. His teaching style was dynamic, obviously interested, motivated, effective, informative, personal highly relevant, and well paced. In short, it was a joy to learn under his guidance, and I think he has become a bit of a role model for me.

So that's my little blast of enthusiasm out there. I'm just about to fall asleep, as I stayed up late to pound out my last paper. Until next time.. *yawn*

Hope

It seems like lately I've been finding out more and more about amazing, progressive, dynamic forces of change, review, and critical thought. It's very, very exciting.

Whistler!

*written last night*

I feel like a more superfluous blog entry this time. This morning I could have taken the 6am bus direct from UBC to Whistler. On 4 ½ hours sleep. Consulting with B, my dearest, led me to realise this wasn’t the greatest idea. So we went back to sleep and woke up refreshed at 8:30, and had a nice slow morning with coffee and a delicious breakfast: a ham/egg/tomato sandwich; and a fresh-made waffle topped with mango, strawberry, raspberry and whipped-cream. After some final packing and preparation we were on our way to Whistler.

One (typically) late greyhound later, we checked into our comfy hotel and had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory*. The server was super nice (especially for his second day on the job) and oh man, it was so yummy, and pretty cheap for a ski resort town! $40 got the two of us enough food for two meals (i.e. our takeout containers still had enough for a second dinner each), including sides, coffee, and dessert. And tax.  Next up, we explored the beautiful, beautiful village in the thick, slowly falling snow. I’ll let the pictures do the talking (will edit them in once I’ve had the time to uploaded them. i.e. when not near awesome snow). 

-Pics-to-come -

I wanted some new shoes since my nice Clarks were straining to remain waterproof with all the slush I’d accidentally splashed through, so we explored some shops. I ended up deciding to wait and get a cheaper (i.e. <$80) pair of waterproof snow boots than the expensive $100+ stuff at Whistler. However we found a wicked shop called Excess Backcountry where they had my favourite thermal gear: IceBreaker! I’m all stocked up but B got a pair of thermal leg underwear and boarding socks. This adds to her brand spankin’ new board, boots, and bindings, all of which I think she’ll greatly enjoy tomorrow on our first day on the slopes of Whistler / this season. With luck, it will be our first powder day too!! 

And now we’re off to soak in the hot tubs for a while, maybe have a little swim in the pool... relaxin :) So all in all, it’s been a great day and I’m super stoked for tomorrow!

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*written just now*

Wow. Powder is awesome. You can sink and float in it and it doesn't hurt to fall at all! We did BlackComb all day and while it was a bleepin' trial to get our season passes, it was worth it. So much fun! And barely sore :D love my gear.

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~J

*I make no apologies in sharing some of my experiences—both good and bad—with brands, so others may avoid my mistakes and enjoy my good fortune.