Fast forward ahead 4+ years. Now I'm here. Looking out from my apartment that I bought two years ago, which faces south over 10th Avenue and Hells Kitchen neighborhood in Manhattan. An American flag flutters in the wind over the Adolph S Ochs Public School directly in front of me, lined on each street with honey locusts. Some of those same breezes of summer's last days come though my open window. I can hear traffic rushing down the avenue and horse carriages from Central Park trotting down 53rd Street to their stables near the Hudson River. Barely visible to the east between two skyscrapers is the Times Square tower, brightly lit with huge LED screens even in the late afternoon, topped with a sign made of lights that spell out the year. 2014.
This apartment is nice. It's small, but large for a Manhattan studio. My bed is a Murphy, which folds up to serve as a couch when I have guests. I bought this apartment on a downpayment funded by my stock investments, as well as a loan from my parents. It turned out to be one of the best investments of my life, paying a very low interest rate on my mortgage (thanks to the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008), and also thanks to the rapid gentrification of Hells Kitchen, a popular neighborhood for young professionals who work in midtown Manhattan.
I no longer work for JPM, thank God. That place was slowly destroying my soul. The company is great, but the work there was not. Like any large financial institution, it is mired in bureaucracy. There was not much I was learning there that could advance my career. I also decided I'm not terribly fond of coding every day. I like management strategy and start-ups. That's where the thrills are. Of course it's difficult to get a management job at my age. More on that later. But start-ups are even more trendy than they were 4 years ago. Everyone would like to work at one. The economy is booming again, especially in San Francisco where the tech sector seems to experiencing another small boom. I visited SF just 2 months ago, for a job interview at a start-up there. I didn't get the job (which may have been for the best), but I realized I hardly recognize SF at all. Everyone in the Bay Area it seems works for a tech company, all my high-school classmates for example. Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Apple, Twitter, etc are all very well established and pretty much the entire populations of some South Bay towns seem to work for one of the big names there. The start-ups are still big too, and I know at least one other high-school classmate who has made it big on a buy-out of their social media app or site.
NYC too is experiencing a boom, if not to the same degree as SF. Silicon Alley is producing some major hits of their own, and the Silicon Valley big names are setting up shop here as well too to attract our cosmopolitan talent. One of these companies based here, Business Insider, has become my new employer, since about a year ago. I've become a project manager rather than a code monkey, which means I manage much more than I code. I learned how to motivate people and to take responsibility for projects that either perform well or badly. And how to work with people to achieve successes. It's much tougher than it seemed to me at first. But it's rewarding. And I like it more than coding. I could make a career of this, I think. I'm rarely bored as a result, like I was at JPM. I'm either doing management stuff, such as working with teams to achieve their goals, planning releases, or talking to executives about ways I can get their site to work faster using the people they hired to work with me, or I'm just "helping out here and there". Coding PHP scrips. Debugging an Android app. Even writing an article for our site: www.businessinsider.com/mission-motorcycles-electric-rs-r-tesla-2014-2.
I got this job by taking responsibility at JPM before I left as a "scrum-master". WTF is that, you might ask? It's basically a project manager. It was my responsibility to run meetings for the team and figure out what were our projections for the amount of work we needed to do and how well we were doing it. The scrum-master is a role which was invented as the "Third wheel" to the development team, the other two wheels being the "Team" and "Product Owner". I like to think that this is just another development in the democratization of the IT work-force. Developers are quickly being recognized for their value and knowledge of how technology ACTUALLY works, rather than the senior managers and executives who tried in the past to make them their slaves. They now get a lot more respect for what they do and how they decide to do it, if the company they work for has come to terms with reality. One of the issues with that is now the teams they're on don't have as much structure, and responsibilities are not always clearly defined. So just as Baron de Montesquieu invented the concept of a separation of powers for a democratic government in the mid 18th century, someone in the late 1990s invented this method called "Agile Scrum", which outlined three roles to every team. Think of the Product Owner as the President (executive branch), who sets the political agenda and either vetoes or signs into effect every act of legislation. The Team is the Congress (legislative), in that they actually write the laws and acts (the code), which gets sent to the Product Owner for approval. And finally there's me, the Scrum-master. In a role somewhat similar to the judicial branch, it is my responsibility to ensure an adherence of this entire process to the ideals of Agile and Scrum. The "Agile Manifesto" and our team's Working Agreement is effectively my Constitution. It is a document which can be amended, but it still has a precedent which is supposed to help maintain a balance and set expectations of the entire team. It's actually a pretty intelligent set-up, but I'm always trying to find a better way to make it fit the way software development actually works.
Anyway enough about work. How's life, Ryan? Well, it's good. I actually like NYC a lot now. I'm no longer anxious about returning to California, but it is still on my mind. I could go either way at this point. I wish I could find a career that would allow me to spend half the year in NYC and half in the Bay Area, with maybe a month to travel the world. That would be my ultimate dream. Along with a townhouse in West Village Manhattan and a Los Altos Hills mansion, if you could spare those.
Either way life is good. East coast, west coast, it doesn't matter in the end. Life is an adventure, and you just have to live it to the fullest.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Monday, January 25, 2010
Where to begin?
I'm going to go pretty quickly through about 2 months of updates. Sorry I can't write in my usual flourish, there's just too much time to cover...
Break was fun, spent about 4 weeks in California, mostly hanging out with my old high school friends. Some of them I haven't seen in more than a year's time, like Dana. Thankfully they haven't changed much, except perhaps more mellow and less jittery and ADHD as I remember them from our high school years. I was always the quiet, reserved one, but now I'm probably just as energetic as they are. Now we just like to sit around Dana's fireplace on at his house on Ravensbury like a group of old geezers and just talk about anything.
Got my car (the old purple Volvo) broken into while I was visiting Quincy at Berkeley one day, and his laptop was stolen from it. But he got it back about a week later when someone claimed they had it later, when they traded it for their old laptop. Daniel, Quincy, and I originally thought an Asian guy had broken in the car, because the window was broken and there was a can of tea inside among the broken glass. Then Quincy confirmed the tea can was actually his. Haha... and to think we actually thought an ASIAN had broken into my car... lolz
Ate a ton of good food over break... just thinking about it makes me resent the Sid servery food even more... Crab, dim sum, even caviar and Cristal champagne (both from Costco haha) on Christmas day. What a life.
Got a lot of cool gifts on Christmas too. Besides lots of money (Which I am quickly using up these days... more on that later), I got some nice clothes, my favorite pecan pralines from my grandparents in Texas, and a nice watch (a Seiko "Kinetic", which doesn't require batteries and just powers itself by using my motion to turn an induction generator inside) from my parents, who said that I should be wearing a real watch now that I'm working for a bank :) Not to say I don't sometimes miss those dorky Casio digitals for less than $20 I used to always get, back in my "engineering days".
A friend from Singapore, Tyler Tan, also visited over break. He stayed in San Francisco and came down to Palo Alto to visit once. Always good to see an old foreign friend from my days abroad.
Also met up with Michelle Jin, a friend from 5th floor Sid back at Rice who also lives in the Bay Area. She's an incredibly nice person, as in I have never seen her angry... ever... and I don't know when I ever will. How she does it I don't know, but we seem to get along well.
Went skiing with Natalee and Quincy, too. We actually took a bus up to Tahoe, and skied at Squaw just for the day. Pretty convenient set-up actually. Snow wasn't very good though, still icy.
Now I'm back at Rice doing my usual... but for the last semester. And it looks like I will be going abroad once more before I graduate... YES!!! This time it's a 10-day tour of Vietnam and Taiwan with the Rice INNOVATE program, right after spring break. I'm doing it with about 6 other Rice students. Finally, another chance for a globe-trotting adventure, my favorite, even if it is a quick one. I haven't been to either Vietnam or Taiwan before, so it should be exciting.
Oh and Subhash is back from his NS in Singapore, and he's living in our suite. It's great having him back; he even cut my hair for me today, military style with just some shears haha. Jay and I are helping him get back into the Elec routine... he seems to be handling it fine.
As far as coursework goes, the majority of my classes are now Econ. All part of the Financial Computation and Modeling minor degree that I'm trying to get. These classes, I must honestly say, are not terribly interesting. So we'll see... I was hoping for an awesome end to my 8 semesters of Rice. Will have to fix this...
Oh and last weekend we hosted an ELEC crawl. That was the first real party with alcohol I ever had to host, and I must say it went pretty well considering, besides running out of beer quickly.
I'm sure a lot more could pop into my head that I need to explain, but I need to get some other work done now. Just needed to note this all down before I forgot.
Oh and these are the latest questions I've been thinking about to myself: Would I give up the rest of my life to see what the world is like 500 years in the future? And would I sell my body (either actual body parts or just servitude/slavery of some type) for knowledge? Just ordinary questions to ponder...
Signing out.
Break was fun, spent about 4 weeks in California, mostly hanging out with my old high school friends. Some of them I haven't seen in more than a year's time, like Dana. Thankfully they haven't changed much, except perhaps more mellow and less jittery and ADHD as I remember them from our high school years. I was always the quiet, reserved one, but now I'm probably just as energetic as they are. Now we just like to sit around Dana's fireplace on at his house on Ravensbury like a group of old geezers and just talk about anything.
Got my car (the old purple Volvo) broken into while I was visiting Quincy at Berkeley one day, and his laptop was stolen from it. But he got it back about a week later when someone claimed they had it later, when they traded it for their old laptop. Daniel, Quincy, and I originally thought an Asian guy had broken in the car, because the window was broken and there was a can of tea inside among the broken glass. Then Quincy confirmed the tea can was actually his. Haha... and to think we actually thought an ASIAN had broken into my car... lolz
Ate a ton of good food over break... just thinking about it makes me resent the Sid servery food even more... Crab, dim sum, even caviar and Cristal champagne (both from Costco haha) on Christmas day. What a life.
Got a lot of cool gifts on Christmas too. Besides lots of money (Which I am quickly using up these days... more on that later), I got some nice clothes, my favorite pecan pralines from my grandparents in Texas, and a nice watch (a Seiko "Kinetic", which doesn't require batteries and just powers itself by using my motion to turn an induction generator inside) from my parents, who said that I should be wearing a real watch now that I'm working for a bank :) Not to say I don't sometimes miss those dorky Casio digitals for less than $20 I used to always get, back in my "engineering days".
A friend from Singapore, Tyler Tan, also visited over break. He stayed in San Francisco and came down to Palo Alto to visit once. Always good to see an old foreign friend from my days abroad.
Also met up with Michelle Jin, a friend from 5th floor Sid back at Rice who also lives in the Bay Area. She's an incredibly nice person, as in I have never seen her angry... ever... and I don't know when I ever will. How she does it I don't know, but we seem to get along well.
Went skiing with Natalee and Quincy, too. We actually took a bus up to Tahoe, and skied at Squaw just for the day. Pretty convenient set-up actually. Snow wasn't very good though, still icy.
Now I'm back at Rice doing my usual... but for the last semester. And it looks like I will be going abroad once more before I graduate... YES!!! This time it's a 10-day tour of Vietnam and Taiwan with the Rice INNOVATE program, right after spring break. I'm doing it with about 6 other Rice students. Finally, another chance for a globe-trotting adventure, my favorite, even if it is a quick one. I haven't been to either Vietnam or Taiwan before, so it should be exciting.
Oh and Subhash is back from his NS in Singapore, and he's living in our suite. It's great having him back; he even cut my hair for me today, military style with just some shears haha. Jay and I are helping him get back into the Elec routine... he seems to be handling it fine.
As far as coursework goes, the majority of my classes are now Econ. All part of the Financial Computation and Modeling minor degree that I'm trying to get. These classes, I must honestly say, are not terribly interesting. So we'll see... I was hoping for an awesome end to my 8 semesters of Rice. Will have to fix this...
Oh and last weekend we hosted an ELEC crawl. That was the first real party with alcohol I ever had to host, and I must say it went pretty well considering, besides running out of beer quickly.
I'm sure a lot more could pop into my head that I need to explain, but I need to get some other work done now. Just needed to note this all down before I forgot.
Oh and these are the latest questions I've been thinking about to myself: Would I give up the rest of my life to see what the world is like 500 years in the future? And would I sell my body (either actual body parts or just servitude/slavery of some type) for knowledge? Just ordinary questions to ponder...
Signing out.
Monday, November 9, 2009
My punishment for retreating West: push further East...
Wow, last post was September. What's with the slacking? Well I would say that the month of October 2009 is perhaps one of the most influential months in the determination of the majority of my life's path, depending on a few other factors later this year and next. After a lot of hustle and bustle with a bunch of companies and their interviews, it all boiled down to my original employer, JPMorgan, which was actually the first company I EVER interviewed with, for their internship last year. First time is the charm, just wish I didn't waste so much time on the others. I accepted their offer on October 9th, signing their letter as I was just leaving my own home of 18 years in Los Altos for lunch with family in San Francisco, then hanging out with my old high school buddies in Berkeley. It was definitely lots of mixed emotions, it was a huge relief to have a job, one which I think will have lots of promise for my career too, but on the other hand it was like signing an agreement to forfeit all my dreams of coming back to this beloved home in California that I even came to visit over my fall break. And now I will be even further, geographically, from the West than I was before. Rather than pursuing my goal of becoming a bright and successful Sand Hill Road entrepreneur, it looks like I am headed more towards joining the Manhattan crowd as just another Wall Street minion. Maybe I can still get back, maybe there's another chance for me yet. Or maybe JPM will, hopefully, assign me to a post out in Cali as they expand out West to replace old WaMu. Or I could learn enough finance to be able to choose where I want to go later. In any case, the fight isn't lost yet... just need more time.
Well, at least it's NYC and not Houston:
"In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can't do, now you're in New York,
These streets will make you feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you, let's hear it for New York!
New York, New York"
-Jay Z, "Empire State of Mind"
In other realms, took the GRE yesterday, and am gradually trying to re-establish good terms with my research professors. I am still going to submit applications to the best graduate schools in the nation; something tells me I will regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't at least try.
Senior Design project is actually going well, and I'm actually enjoying being able to finally use my ELEC skills for something worthwhile. It's a gesture-control iPhone remote control that will hopefully be able to at least control your PC the same way a mouse does by the end of the year. Jaimeet, Max Paul, Tate Hornbeck, and I have been working on it since September, and so far it's promising. One of the things I will miss about engineering, being able to work an awesome projects with awesome people. Not to say finance isn't fun... sometimes.
Who am I kidding. I'm not just in for the ride. I want the challenge. Just bring it on, and I'll take it.
But first, some lunch...
Well, at least it's NYC and not Houston:
"In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can't do, now you're in New York,
These streets will make you feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you, let's hear it for New York!
New York, New York"
-Jay Z, "Empire State of Mind"
In other realms, took the GRE yesterday, and am gradually trying to re-establish good terms with my research professors. I am still going to submit applications to the best graduate schools in the nation; something tells me I will regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't at least try.
Senior Design project is actually going well, and I'm actually enjoying being able to finally use my ELEC skills for something worthwhile. It's a gesture-control iPhone remote control that will hopefully be able to at least control your PC the same way a mouse does by the end of the year. Jaimeet, Max Paul, Tate Hornbeck, and I have been working on it since September, and so far it's promising. One of the things I will miss about engineering, being able to work an awesome projects with awesome people. Not to say finance isn't fun... sometimes.
Who am I kidding. I'm not just in for the ride. I want the challenge. Just bring it on, and I'll take it.
But first, some lunch...
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Time for a New Odyssey
Lately I've been having some strange dreams in Houston. One night I was abducted by aliens, actually "abduction" is a bit too strong of a word to use here. More like the aliens asked if any humans would like to travel with them, and I volunteered rather enthusiastically. The journey after that was like a mixture of Star Wars and Halo. Then the next night I dreamed I was a world explorer during the 1600s or whenever it was that they were still trying to find the best way to get to Asia from Europe. I've concluded that this means I am rearing for yet another adventure in my life. Travel. Experience. My next odyssey, when will it call me?
Regardless of school though, I've had some fun while in Texas. Last weekend went to San Antonio for a family reunion over Labor Day weekend, and to celebrate grandmother's birthday. Was relaxing, even got to go to my uncle's ranch to go dove-hunting. I cannot emphasize more "harder than it looks" when it comes to trying to take out a bird flying over you with an automatic shotgun, even when its just a few meters away. My relatives made it look so easy, meanwhile, I'm jerking all over the place like a Dick Cheney on crack. Same goes for paintballing, which I did with my friends a few weeks ago as well.
This weekend was also fun, went to a small amusement park with my fellow dorm-mates for Sid retreat. Go-carting, bumper boats, and mini-golf. Like a kid again :) Then went to an orchestral concert with Shaiyan and Jay, where we mingled with Houston's rich and old people listening to Stravinsky and Holtz, sipping complimentary champagne afterward. Then heading to Hard Rock Cafe for some burgers and more alcohol with Jay Jay (very effeminate waiter) and crew. Finishing off with the Euro-trash party at another college. The entire theme of that day could probably be summarized in these words:
"Somewhere deep inside me, I find... the CHILD I USED TO BEEEEE!"
... yeah this song was also the opening to Sasha Cohen's "Bruno". What. I can't blame the movie for good taste in music.
Ok and what has been keeping me busy lately, as in actual work you might ask? Well, it's been coursework as usual, combined with GRE studying and job-applications. So far I've interviewed with companies in engineering, software, petroleum, banking, and consulting. Sometimes I just want to scream at the top of my lungs, at all these graduate schools and corporations, JUST GET ME BACK TO CALIFORNIA! I don't care what the salary is, just reunite me with my homeland. I want to be young and free again.
Ok, time for lunch and getting down to work. Jay is now awake... oh, I forgot to mention that he learned on Friday (Sept. 11th by coincidence?) that he got an offer for a full-time job with his former employer as an intern, Horizon. It's awesome, he's so relieved. USA wants him to stay here after all. Instead of a suspect immigrant he is a hard-working, perfect example of what proud Americans should and will be. And just an uber cool guy all around of course.
Ciao.
Regardless of school though, I've had some fun while in Texas. Last weekend went to San Antonio for a family reunion over Labor Day weekend, and to celebrate grandmother's birthday. Was relaxing, even got to go to my uncle's ranch to go dove-hunting. I cannot emphasize more "harder than it looks" when it comes to trying to take out a bird flying over you with an automatic shotgun, even when its just a few meters away. My relatives made it look so easy, meanwhile, I'm jerking all over the place like a Dick Cheney on crack. Same goes for paintballing, which I did with my friends a few weeks ago as well.
This weekend was also fun, went to a small amusement park with my fellow dorm-mates for Sid retreat. Go-carting, bumper boats, and mini-golf. Like a kid again :) Then went to an orchestral concert with Shaiyan and Jay, where we mingled with Houston's rich and old people listening to Stravinsky and Holtz, sipping complimentary champagne afterward. Then heading to Hard Rock Cafe for some burgers and more alcohol with Jay Jay (very effeminate waiter) and crew. Finishing off with the Euro-trash party at another college. The entire theme of that day could probably be summarized in these words:
"Somewhere deep inside me, I find... the CHILD I USED TO BEEEEE!"
... yeah this song was also the opening to Sasha Cohen's "Bruno". What. I can't blame the movie for good taste in music.
Ok and what has been keeping me busy lately, as in actual work you might ask? Well, it's been coursework as usual, combined with GRE studying and job-applications. So far I've interviewed with companies in engineering, software, petroleum, banking, and consulting. Sometimes I just want to scream at the top of my lungs, at all these graduate schools and corporations, JUST GET ME BACK TO CALIFORNIA! I don't care what the salary is, just reunite me with my homeland. I want to be young and free again.
Ok, time for lunch and getting down to work. Jay is now awake... oh, I forgot to mention that he learned on Friday (Sept. 11th by coincidence?) that he got an offer for a full-time job with his former employer as an intern, Horizon. It's awesome, he's so relieved. USA wants him to stay here after all. Instead of a suspect immigrant he is a hard-working, perfect example of what proud Americans should and will be. And just an uber cool guy all around of course.
Ciao.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Rice: Best Quality of Student Life, and Easiest School Name to Make Fun of
The reality of class-life has hit me like a ton of bricks. Especially after a week-long vacation in NYC and New England, wining and dining with family in the city and on the beaches. And especially with so much pressure on this one semester to get grad-school, my career, and everything all sorted out. At this point I have already given up and blogging again. I nearly lost my room keys on the first day, while playing ultimate Frisbee. At least I'm on campus though, and I'm back with a group of people I'm relatively familiar with to start with.
I will say very honestly that this week has begun with a little heavy sense of defeat. I know, what madness is this. But I've just heard rumors of some news from California regarding an old friend of mine, and if true I don't think it will be good for me. I hate any situation having my hands tied when in a place different from where another person or thing that could use my immediate attention. It sucks. I'm going to have to tackle this, but how. Tell me HOW! I will figure something out, but I question the outcome, the method, the motive, everything. Complicated.
Let me try to remember the better days. NYC was great, went out to nice restaurants, saw a show on Broadway. Yale, where my sister is going, was a cool campus. They have a pizza shop in their town that makes delicious New England style clam pizza. It's also where I developed a taste for Amarone, a fine Italian red wine from the Veneto region that comes from grapes dried on straw mats, and that costs about $75 a bottle. After that, we went to Newport, Rhode Island, where we ate lots of seafood, beached, and rode boats everywhere. Rhode Island is very much an Ocean State, if not much bigger than say Singapore even.
But now I'm back here in Houston, sitting in over-air conditioned classrooms listening to old professors drone. And yet so much work, so many expectations, I have a headache...
Life should be a party. What is this.
I will say very honestly that this week has begun with a little heavy sense of defeat. I know, what madness is this. But I've just heard rumors of some news from California regarding an old friend of mine, and if true I don't think it will be good for me. I hate any situation having my hands tied when in a place different from where another person or thing that could use my immediate attention. It sucks. I'm going to have to tackle this, but how. Tell me HOW! I will figure something out, but I question the outcome, the method, the motive, everything. Complicated.
Let me try to remember the better days. NYC was great, went out to nice restaurants, saw a show on Broadway. Yale, where my sister is going, was a cool campus. They have a pizza shop in their town that makes delicious New England style clam pizza. It's also where I developed a taste for Amarone, a fine Italian red wine from the Veneto region that comes from grapes dried on straw mats, and that costs about $75 a bottle. After that, we went to Newport, Rhode Island, where we ate lots of seafood, beached, and rode boats everywhere. Rhode Island is very much an Ocean State, if not much bigger than say Singapore even.
But now I'm back here in Houston, sitting in over-air conditioned classrooms listening to old professors drone. And yet so much work, so many expectations, I have a headache...
Life should be a party. What is this.
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