Let's move on; time goes back to the start of the 2006 Fall semester. I finished my first job in the U.S. when the summer ended. Before I left, the owner of ITC asked me to stay after school started. I declined to do so because I knew that was not the place I wanted to be. That says I was unemployed. I took two MBA courses and one IS online course. I was a little bit nervous about taking the MBA courses - Economics and Statistics - because I took only IS courses before. The terms in Business and IT are different; indeed, they could be the same words but mean differently. For example, security. In IT, it means the state or quality of being safe or protected, but in Business, it means the evidence of debt or ownership, such as stocks, notes, or bonds. I guess that's the reason we have to take GMAT. Besides the terms, I was doing fine. Classes are boring, so let's skip it. I couldn't remember when, but it was like late September. We had a career fair on campus, so I attended. As you may know, when you go to a career fair, what you need to do is giving out your resumes as many as possible. You don't want to miss any possibilities. The more resumes you give, the more chances you will have. And that's exactly what I did. I got an email from my current supervisor two weeks afterwards. I was wondering how she got my resume. But anyway, I was excited about the interview. That was my fourth interview. I cannot say I didn't feel nervous at all, but it was like making a presentation in class. For real, I didn't feel so much pressure. Carolyn, the associate director, interviewed me and talked a little bit about what they were looking for. As usual, I came back and was waiting for the further contact from her. I didn't know how many people they interviewed, but in general all interviewers will say "we still have couple candidates, and we will contact you." In a week, Carolyn contacted me again for the second interview. In the U.S., if you have a second interview, it means you are almost on. I was so excited about it. Colleen, the director, interviewed me. There is one question I was asked often during the interviews: why did you come to NY or why did you come to the U.S.? I said it out loud in my mind: money. But, it would never work in the interviews, so don't say it if you were asked. Instead of saying my real mind, I said I want to extend my vision. I want to see more than Taiwan. I want to see this world from a leading country’s perspective, and something pretty. Oh, my God! I felt I was totally fake. You know what. It doesn’t matter because it worked.
Let’s continue on my internship because I found it is much more interesting than telling you about school. I remember Carolyn asked me how long it would take to build the database. And I said one week, which is 20 hours because I was allowed to work only 20 hours per week. She seemed to be shocked. Maybe I should have said two weeks instead. However, my action was like when something approaches to your eyes, you will close your eyes immediately. When I saw her shocking face, I was worried maybe it was much difficult than I thought. Well, it turned out NOT. I made my first impression of my hard working and my capability of handling this job. I transformed the excel spreadsheet into database and the paper-based application into computer-based interface. It is impossible to apply everything you have learned in school to you job because most of time what you need for your job will not be something you learned in school. I don’t know if this is the case of other fields, but in IT, we never stop learning. If you have other choices, don’t come to IT world. It will kill you unless you really enjoy what you learn today will become useless tomorrow. Before I took this job, I had never used Infopath, one of the Microsoft Office applications, and I had no idea about it. Fortunately, I am pretty good at MS Office applications. They are all similar to each other, just have different functions, I feel so. I started using it and made it work after two weeks, or I should said in one week because I was part time, don’t forget about it. Of course, I had difficulty using it sometimes because it was totally new to me. Fortunately, I have a very good teacher Mr. I – the Internet. It is quite simple that you can get an answer about your questions on the Internet nowadays. Before I continue, I have to mention one of my other characteristics – quick learner. There is a co-worker who was doing Infopath as well, and he also encountered some problems. He usually came to me and asked for help. Whenever he said he needs my expertise, I felt proud but felt little bit over complimented as well.
I invited Yen and Angela to join me for dinner because Angela was going back to Taiwan after graduation, and each of them brought a guest. It was 14 months ago when we had a meal together last time, and coincidentally the restaurant was located at the same place called "Troy's home". Everything you saw on the above picture was gone in 30 minutes. I couldn't help doubting whether they were really hungry or my cooking was good. Afterwards, we had fruit, cheese cake, ice cream, and a special order from Yen - Latte. The dinner was good and I am glad that they all enjoyed. However, there is one thing I must tell them: my dear friends, I think you forget to leave a tip on the table when you leave.
This was my second menu in a week. I don't know the reason of inviting this friend to have a meal. Sometimes your feeling drives your action, and that happened to me. While I was cooking, I was thinking maybe it's too much for two of us. And the result confirmed my suspicion. It's too much. The leftovers were even enough for two lunchboxes. And this was just the beginning of the amazing week...
