Events, thoughts and reflections about my 3rd year in college (plus my internship at Microsoft).

Warning: Long post ahead

Microsoft Internship

This summer was the first time I was going to live for an extended period of time outside of Texas. I would be enjoying a cool summer, meeting new people, and working at Microsoft. Here are a few highlights for that summer in no particular order:

1. Weekly Bible studies with other Microsoft interns and UW students
2. Questival with the MS Bible study peeps (Travis, Vivek, Hari, Xuean, Matthew, Kim, Amanda, and Kason)
   • Driving them around
   • Gum wall
   • Japanese Garden + Tai Chi :O
   • THAT ONE TINY WATERFALL LOL
3. Hiking on Mt Rainier with Raymond, Carolyn + her cousin
4. Playing my first relatively legit ultimate frisbee game with Kim and Evi
5. Great seats to a Mariners game with Kason, Huong, Michelle, Carolyn
6. Eating lunch with Ashay!
7. Meeting the members of the UW church and fellowshipping with them
8. Olympic National Park Camping trip with the UW church
9. Fancy restaurant at Microsoft called in.gredients
10. Boating around Lake Washington + seeing Bill Gates’ house in person!
11. Great mentor - Daniel Schiebel

Fall 2016

There are a few major shifts that took place this semester - I took 3 CS classes (BDP, IR, Networks) and took on the role of an older brother to the freshmen as an upperclassman in Koinonia. Once again, here are a few highlights for this semester:

1. Junior Getaway to Enchanted Rock - always a classic :D
2. HackTX - making SushiTab (which I probably need to continue work on tbh)
3. Thanksgiving trip with Clements peeps + Crystal and Carolyn - coldest vacation I’ve ever been on tbh, but was really fun to hang out with Jim and them again
   • Dab X-Wing LOL
4. Friendsgiving :)
5. CEO-Intern picture with Derek LOL
6. Mozart’s light show with the Koin juniors :D
7. Science and Faith apologetics training
8. Moving into an apartment after 2 years in the dorms

Spring 2017

This semester, I took algorithms (with former MIT professor Moshkovitz!) and Data Mining with Franke. These were very interesting classes, so I didn’t find them super difficult. In addition, as still an upperclassman, I continued to try to love the freshmen as much as possible (although it was super tough to do so).

1. Outreach at UH, Rice, and San Marcos
2. Junior Discipleship Retreat
3. IM Sand Volleyball + Softball
4. Fastest 5k - Longhorn run, 26.5 minutes!
5. Birthday surprise for Virin (have fun in Canada! (: )
6. Koin-Ops
   • Social Media
   • Welcome team
7. Interhigh
8. Course 201 - Understanding God’s holiness and the reality of life and death for me
9. Reading AND finishing Holiness of God with Ife (before he leaves for Purdue)
10. Starting course101 with a friend
11. Reminders of the truths behind Good Friday + Easter
12. Pedernales Falls with CS peeps to end the semester!
13. Graduation (:
14. Grabbing Hotpot with Francis
15. Started to work out
16. ACTS
17. Minjai’s wedding (MINJAI’S MARRIED!)
18. Ran a Half-Marathon :O

Reflection

This past year has been a year of growth in my faith, people skills, and time-management. I moved into an apartment with Chris Denny, Raymond Chee, and Gene Hsu. It was quite an experience trying to organize ourselves so that our apartment wouldn’t be a complete mess (which sadly was still the case).

Faith

This past year has been a challenge for me spiritually. One thing that I have learned was that in general: If one has good news to share with others (e.g some piece of knowledge that would improve efficiency or something objectively good), it would be natural to share the good news. Sharing this good news of the gospel is encapsulated by The Great Comission.

I have started to take this call more seriously. Whether it’s training up and having a clear mind of what I believe in or consciously introducing notions of the gospel in my conversaions (thanks for your experiences, Kason!), I have taken steps to internalize this. In addition to this, it’s also important to know where the other person is at. If they’re not open to listening at all or really open to talking about these matters, I have to learn how to respond to each situation.

One last but most important aspect of faith is the need to trust in God. This is probably the hardest for me to live out. This trust in God is very similar to how I would trust a friend to keep my stuff safe over the summer because I know him personally and that he’s not the type of guy who would backstab me. God has given me a lot of blessings (internship opportunities, wonderful friends, a curious personality) and lots of reprimands (through His Word, my leader, and my failures). I’d say that I haven’t really encountered a setback that has kept me down for a while, so I think for right now, I need to cultivate that heart of trust and awknowledgement of Him.

People Skills and loving others

Because I’m living in an apartment with 3 of my friends for the first time, I have learned what it means to keep an organized apartment (but not necessarily maintaining it :O). I would find myself getting really annoyed at my roommates for some particular behaviors (trash can overfilling, random empty bags or bottles laying around). However, the key thing to note here is that I too have that habit of not taking out the trash in time or being so lazy that I don’t want to throw away some trash. It’s not just noticing my own problems and fixing them. It also involves taking those steps to lovingly approach the issues that I notice in others - not to get angry but mention the issues nicely yet assertively. It’s something I’m continuing to cultivate and not yet where I want to be.

I’ve also learned that loving others doesn’t mean to be that guy who doesn’t assert themselves in anything. This means that if someone was pushing me around, my way of loving this person isn’t necessarily to let myself get pushed around. However, it also doesn’t mean that I should aggressively push back. I don’t think there is a clear cut way of action to deal with the situation as it depends on how well I know the person, what kind of mood the person is in, etc. Through experience, I can develop an intuition as to how to behave around these situations.

Lastly, I think the essense of loving others is to maintain a sense of knowing the other person. This can mean keeping up with them, seeing where their needs are, showing them that someone cares for them, etc. In order to know someone, you got to communicate with them.

Time-Management

I have increased in the amount of responsibilities this past year. With greater responsibilities comes… (wait that isn’t the saying) a great need to time management. My needs range from budgeting my time so that I can hang out with friends without my homework looming over my head or so that I can go to the gym and work out every part of my body. With this objective clear, I set out to try to put this into practice. I started homework early, so that I would have ample time to ask the TA. I would set out times for doing my DT and attempt to not let anyone distract me. I would also set times out in the day so that I could focus on my work without hinderance.

I would say that this desire for time management needs to come from inside or very incrementally from the outside. Luckily for me, because I wanted to take on a bunch more responsibilities, I needed to fix up my life in order to accommodate these time commitments.

NOTE: I know my writing isn’t that good, so if you have any feedback or comments on my style or organization or things long that vein, please message me!