february

windy

justin • 11 feb 2022

i'm back again. i've had a bit of a hectic week so i'm hoping that journaling my thoughts will be cathartic. my sleep schedule has been really out of wack since i moved back to illinois and it's been tough getting it back on track. like today, i woke up at like 8:30 and that didn't really leave me much time to get ready and drive an hour to chicago. i like just barely made it there by first class at 10. so already my morning was super frazzled and it got off to a rough start. i've got a lot of homework being thrown at me and a lot to study for. it's been a lot to deal with adjusting to commuting and in person school. i've been doing school online for so long that i've forgotten how to manage my time when actually waking up to go to school in the morning. it doesn't help that the drive to chicago is sometimes a nightmare. i try to leave early enough to avoid the traffic but sometimes i inevitably get caught in it.

frigid soundscape

justin • 6 feb 2022

wow it has been an incredibly busy month since the last time i wrote for this blog. last time i updated on here i was talking about the cme group offer, but as it would turn out very shortly after that blog post i got an offer from Google!!! i was so surprised. so now my whole trajectory has changed massively. i'm currently waiting back on the project matching call i had with a manager in the new york city office and i'm expecting for it to get approved since the phone call with him went really well. it's really funny because i had always made passing remarks about how i could go work for a big company like google and use that as a springboard for the rest of my professional software development career, but i never thought i would land in exactly that position! and for the project i got (potentially) matched with to be in the new york city office of all places is like a dream come true!

since school started going in person again, i had to drive back from new jersey to illinois the third weekend of january. i actually did 14 hours to missouri first to see my family, then 4 hours to chicago the next day. and school started the very next day after that lol. so i've been through like two weeks of commuting and in person school, although that's not exactly true since two days last week went online because of a massive snowstorm. regardless, i'm really enjoying being on campus, even if it's a bit of a hassle to commute. it's just nice to be out in the world after being couped up inside so much throughout the duration of the pandemic. a lot of people really don't want to go on campus because of covid but i honestly am at the point where i have accepted the risks of being out in the world right now and i just take the best precautions to keep myself safe. it's nothing complicated. i do miss being with nicole in new jersey, but if i'm going to new york for google this summer then i'm going to be really close to her and she could come stay with me wherever i end up getting a place out there.