(Please note that time speeds up and slows down in this article I started writing on the 18th of April)

As I sit in The Greene Turtle at BWI, I realize that the moderately sporty theme and full bar may give me an interesting possibility for introspection. So, with great resolve I start in on a fairly tasty, avocado burger and ponder the recent events of my life.

(Well, that was as far as I got before I was tempted with a piece of Macademia Nut Cheesecake, but that’s how writing works. At this point I’ve finished off my tasty meal and traveled a few hundred miles to find myself suspended in the air somewhere over Missouri.)

The most taxing part of my life, lately, has been the quest to get an internship for this summer. Being a grad student is apparently not difficult task enough to satisfy the gods, I also have to fill out loads of paperwork and fly to the east coast a few times.

I don’t like to complain too much, and the reality of the matter is that I’ve really benefited from the experience. Through interviewing with several different government agencies on more than one occasion I now feel a sense of immunity to the stinging barbs of the interviewing panel. It’s not that there are any shattered glass ceilings (for the 20-something, white male in America), but after your 20th interview in 6 months you start to place less and less stake in each one. I think half the battle is just realizing that you are wanted in this big ol’ world. Nearly everyone has the right to feel that way, but I think I didn’t let myself do it for a long time.

I’ve also become more comfortable in saying no to people. There are, literally, hundreds of places that are easily accessible to a person in computer science right now: everything from application development to taking a hammer to a hard drive. Personally, I’m just not the kind of guy that likes to track down criminals, plug small boxes into other boxes, or build robots. After everything I’ve been through I now can tell those employers that we just don’t have any chemistry and not fee. Once you realize that you’re wanted somewhere, it becomes a lot easier to do this. If I were to give any advice to a person nearing graduation at any level it would be to not accept offers just because you got them.

I’ve started to focus my knowledge of core computer organization and process flow into the field of information management and data visualization across systems. Most of my closer friends know what it’s like when I get a “topic-crush”, and right now its for data collection and aggregation. I’ll buy the drinks if you want to chat about this topic.[I'll probably leave your part of the tip for some older crushes like telecommuting, web development education, economics, or the possible existence of a Bizarro-Groucho Marx]

This new passion is partially enforced by my current research on network-based intrusion detection systems. Part of my groups task has been to create a testable out of band network for managing and sniffing traffic across large, distributed networks.

My biggest contribution thus far has been a redesign of the processing server and the way data is being handled in the short and long term. This sort of architecture really got me excited about my career because of the way I could see my knowledge and input change the process. I wasn’t always right in the choices I made, but the team was able to correct the misinterpretations or detect flaws in the design fairly quickly.

All-in-all, the solution we arrived at was fairly satisfactory, and I’m already seeing ways of improving our model. Additionally, I was also able to create a web-based GUI for accessing the new information and rendering a rather crude network visualization graph. It’s a non-trivial problem for two weeks time, especially since I still struggle with graph theory.

(This has been forgotten on my phone for over a month and a half, and now the author finds himself sitting on the couch. Feeling the red-afterglow of a Netflix-hosted episode of Outer Limits…I journey forth.)

This summer…well, I guess I don’t know what my goals are. I think I might stay cool on the personal technology side of life. I’m living with two good friends within minutes one of the most fascinating cities in the world. I think that the next 3 months will be devoted to seeing, smelling, and tasting as much of the East coast as possible. As friends may attest, I seem to have a lot more time for things “next month” than I do “this month”.