Intelligence is not a likable trait in particular. Neither are competence, success, nor the willingness to work hard. These are all to be respected, perhaps envied, but no one will love you for them. At least, that is my conclusion.

The people who feel the most affection towards me also feel a certain condescension, I believe. They consider me their intellectual inferior, in one way or another. I don't blame them; I suppose I really can't. You learn more when you humbly defer, so it's probably better this way, but sometimes I wonder what it would take to get people to acknowledge my thinking.

The problem lies with me, of course. I've never given any indication of being a particularly contemplative person, and when called upon, I can't give voice to my contemplation. This is the meaning of the word "dumb", you know. Mute. Speechless. Like an animal of the field. The universal reaction, when people find my livejournal for the first time, is always this: "Holy crap! Lillian, you actually have thoughts?" ...but not in so many words.

The fact is that I... I think about things a lot? But I can spend my whole life thinking and people still won't be wrong to call me unintelligent. If I never put my thoughts out there, never subject them to the test of scrutiny, I don't know if they would ever hold up logically beyond the safe boundaries of my head. And by keeping them in here, bouncing around inside my skull, I miss the chance to strengthen my reasoning, to temper my views against opposing and similar alike, and make them fit for sharing with other people, viable outside the womb.

So it's not wrong, to assume that I lack thoughts because I cannot speak them. In fact, one may directly cause the other. But it really struck me recently that, contrary to my beliefs, this is not at all a reason why someone wouldn't like me. We don't put as much stock on intelligence as I had assumed.

Especially this whole partner programming business. My new partner (let's call him Z), before he asked me to be his partner, knew nothing of my programming skills except that I used all three of our allotted late days on the very first 429 assignment. Basically, that I was neither diligent nor punctual. You'd think, especially when choosing a programming partner, that you'd want to pick someone with demonstrated success at programming. But no, he was totally content to work with Miss Tardy. And when I think to all my other relationships with people: never once has anything like intellect or competence figured into the equation. No one has ever awarded me more love for doing something smart, nor taken away love for doing something dumb. So maybe I was wrong about this; maybe all the things that I had thought inherently desirable, admirable, are not so at all.

I think intelligence, rather than being a trait that you'd like in those around you, is a trait that you'd like to have yourself. People won't love you just for being smart. In fact, they're more likely to love you if you make them feel smart. Which is ironic, because when people want to be liked, they do so try to show off their knowledge and wisdom. Is all that just counterproductive? Are we only driving affection away?

Today was just the best day ever. Must sleep soon, but I just wanted to store these feelings in this entry box before I lose them: the way you slowly flow down from a 12-hour rush of adrenaline into a drift of content exhaustion. The way your eyes close and your mouth turns up.

Solving puzzles for twelve straight hours was so much more fun than I could ever have expected. We stole a practice room in the music building and just did puzzles straight from noon to midnight. I have no idea how I maintained such a high level of energy for a half a day when I can barely keep it up for two hours doing actual schoolwork, but I was so pumped the whole time, and the puzzles were so much fun. There was an xkcd one, and a Portal one, and my team was wonderful and I think I did a pretty good job contributing. I think if you give me little positive reinforcement like "CORRECT", I can just go on working forever. We came in 3rd place at our school (2nd place beat us by three minutes!!!), and I took home a nice Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate as a prize, probably sell it on eBay or something.

After that, I went over to Forbes to visit some of my old high school friends, some of whom were visiting for marching band. It was like a huge reunion (of five people), and I had such a blast. I feel like so much more of a human being around these people. I think if people at Princeton could see me hanging out with WP folks, they would be amazed. I don't know. I thought I had low self-esteem back then, but looking back, I was pretty comfortable with myself, or at least my position in the scheme of things. I just felt so much more relaxed, so much happier in this company than with so many others. This whole entry is probably not too coherent, but I haven't enjoyed myself this much in a very long time.

So he was like, tell me about an experience when you used your technical skills to blah blah blah.

And I was like, hey great, I prepared like 20 of these, here's a random one. SHIT that was my weakest one ever why did I say that? For the next question I'm going to try to work in this one.

And then he was like, okay, so how would you code this.

And I was like, well this other time I--- what? Oh, ok. I guess. Ok. Well... hmm... this is probably not the most efficient method, but it's the simplest conceptually (EXACT QUOTE WTF). You do this and this and this.

And he was like, but... so many swap operations! So much cost!

And I was like, GAH YOU'RE RIGHT THIS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH AT ALL YOU HAVE TO DO THIS AND THIS AND CALCULATE THIS MATRIX AND INCREMENT IN THIS DIRECTION AND FIND THE MIN COST PATH BECAUSE I'M A COS 126 LAB TA AND I SAID SO wait that doesn't work, wait.

And he was like, so... do you have any questions for me?

And I was like, what?

And he was like, you're outta time, kid.

And I was like, WHAT? But don't you want to know whether I work well with a team? What about my resume that I spent all night reviewing, don't you want to know what that ICA stuff is all about, huh? huh? Don't you?

And he was like, is that your question?

And I was like, ...what. what is it like to work at Microsoft? Now I that I know I'll never find out sobsob.

There's always such a lot of nastiness inside of me, and while I do hate to let it out onto my journal, sometimes it has nowhere else to go. So here's this, and we will never speak of it again. Right now I'm:


1) busy. Liz showed me how to open my window shades (!!!!) but I haven't been in my room during the daytime since then to make use of that knowledge. In fact, for the past week, I've barely had a free moment from 9am to midnight, and I don't see that changing until maybe Sunday. Dear life: a little room to breathe would be nice, don't you think?


2) insecure. This past week J and I submitted the last project we would work on together. Then someone dropped out of our Microsoft Puzzle Challenge team, so today in class I was going to ask J if he wanted to join us, because the event's in two days and it can't hurt to ask, right? So as soon as I open my mouth, he makes a joke like this: "Haha no, I can't do your project for you, you'll have to work with your new partner on that." I snap my mouth shut, confused and - okay I'll admit it - rather hurt. I'm not really sure how to respond to that, so the only thing I can think of is to continue, at a mumble, "um... I was going to ask if you were free on Saturday." And he instantly responds, "No, I don't think so." And that's that.

I'm a little worried about posting this because I know it's so easy to misinterpret, especially with the way most people's minds are slanted. But I think if you understand me well, you'll know what I'm feeling here. There's nothing I hate more than being a burden, and for this reason, the people I work with always have such an enormous power over me. One word about how I'm not holding up my end, and I pretty much freak out. And you know, joking is a good way to express all the resentment that you'd otherwise be much too nice to say anything about.

Damn it, I miss when I used to be actually competent. I miss when I could make it through a class on my own merit. I miss just. you know. being a worthwhile human being who could set goals and then reach them. I'm going to work so hard on this next project, so my new partner never finds out how much of a fail programmer I am. I'm willing to go to just about any lengths for a measly scrap of competence.


3) terrified. Microsoft first round interview TOMORROW MORNING. Happy Friday the 13th. I wish I hadn't listed so many projects on my resume: now I have to review all of them and make sure I know them inside and out. I keep thinking ridiculous things, like if I can make it through this and then the second round interview and then do a great job on my internship then Microsoft will hire me full-time after I graduate and then my whole life will be set. But actually none of the above is true, and I just have to. have to focus. Need a little perspective.


4) pissed. Don't claim other people's work as your own. Just. No. I'm not even going to bother to keep catching you on this. I just. You're a cool person and all, but I just can't respect that about you. Do you really have so little confidence in what you yourself have to offer? Even I'm not that bad off.

I woke up at 7am this morning to continue working on programming, but I saw prepuzzle #4 in my inbox and decided to solve it instead. I know this time I should've waited for the rest of my teammates to wake up, but in my defense, due to my lack of consideration for the rest of my team, we are now ranked #1/16 in our school and #25/527 overall (not that it matters at this stage, but vanity! all things in life are vanity!). Plus it was a word puzzle, and I do love my word puzzles. :)

I'm in a really good mood right now. There are times when you know you have to work and you're crying and tearing your hair out because you just can't force yourself to do it. And then there are times when you know you have to work, and you just grin and stretch lazily and do whatever you want. Because it's just school, you know? Do the best you can - work hard, don't get me wrong, work very hard - but remember who you're doing it for.

Similarly, here are some things that have been occupying my time this weekend instead of COS 318:


1) Acting as a tour guide. I don't understand why Asian people are so fascinated with my campus. It's beautiful, I'm not denying that, but to stop every five feet to take pictures? Who would want a picture of Dillon Gymnasium?? It just boggles the mind. In an hour, I managed to get them through about 25% of campus. Not the most awkward experience of my life, but probably only because I was still in shock from having been torn away from my programming so suddenly.


2) I've been posting non-stop about my new Ubuntu partition, and that's because I am so excited about this thing! For those who don't know, Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux-based operating systems out there. ( For those who don't care, this is an lj-cut. :) )


3) And finally, I have a new cell phone to replace the broken one! It's the first time that I (or anyone in my family, come to think of it) have ever purchased a cell phone. Usually we just get a cheap-o one that comes free with our plan, or some friend of ours has an old one that they're not using anymore. It's a Motorola, and I've concluded from my vast experience of ~5 Nokia phones and 1 Motorola that Motorola phones are really stylish, but Nokia phones are much more user friendly. Seriously, the menu on this thing? sucks. But it's so beautiful that I can't help but forgive it. Just how many levels of superficial does that make me?

I haven't configured it much since I've been busy with Ubuntu - just changed the menu from Spanish to English, really, which was a big relief haha. But I'm really happy with it, and its camera is a million times better than my old one, so maybe I will go out and take some pictures or something. Okay. Should get dressed for class now.



Good morning, world!