Ugh, I just had to make a rough choice. This one will be fun to look at later in life, I think.

Two offers. Two great offers. It would have been so much less stressful if I only got one, but I got two, so be it.

Offer #1

• With: The Honeywell Corporation
• Location: Bangalore, India
• Perks: I mean, it’s INDIA, Flight covered, housing covered, reasonable stipend on top.
• Job Description: Development of a control system platform for industrial applications — setting up the whole system, and then running user-experience tests on the mockups and prototypes we’d make.
• Number of coworkers: 6,000 (team of 4 or 5)
• The Scoop: Honeywell is huge, which means I’d have a ton of resources at my disposal, and that oh-so-cohesive gooey corporate communication, with people who are actually reliable . I’d be doing work that I enjoy, fresh in my mind and applied from my course load this semester in something I feel I want to work with in the future. It also presents the chance to participate in the engineering process, applying some heavy compsci, and satisfying my thirst for details and technicality. In my free time I’d get to explore India, a beautiful land with a great new culture (we all know how much I love that). And to boot, I’d be there with 3 other IST students, two of whom I’ve known for years now. Awesome.

Offer #2

• With: Ventura Marketing, Inc.
• Location: Long Beach, California
• Perks: Housing covered, Long beach is great, good stipend.
• Job Description: Doing web development for numerous sites. Databases, scripting, graphics, etc.
• Number of Coworkers: 10
• The scoop: Working for a small Cali-based startup, flexing my creative muscles and doing small degrees of user-experience engineering. It gives me the chance to be a be a bigger member of the design community, I’ll be able to really sharpen my skills, and I’ll have a visible impact on the workings of a company that deals in my paradigm: the web.

So which did I pick?

It wasn’t easy. By far one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. I went for California. After getting council from as many people as I could, I realized that it was important for me to start plugging myself into the west coast technology scene. I’ve been abroad, I’ve done international work, and as much as I want to see India, and as great as I think I’d do at setting up that platform and studying how usable it is, it’s a process I am capable of, I already know that. Working as a designer not only exposes me to the “real”, or “professional” version of what I’ve been doing on my own, but it’s going to challenge me, I’m going to grow, and I’m going to network. Working in a web firm is going to help me get a web job, or at least I hope. People have always said that I belong in California, and I’ve had an inkling to believe them, and this is a good chance to see if the west coast is really for me.

I really wish I could have done both. Honeywell’s an amazing machine. I met one of the senior VPs last friday, as well as people that have been working in Bangalore both on and off my project. The people there breathe professionalism and skill. They’re some of the top people in the world for their respective jobs, and I am honored that they picked me for this internship, and I’m deeply sorry that I can’t be in more than one place at a time. I hope I made the right choice.

Monday: Woke up early to print out programs for the IST night of honors. Failed at that, skipped a class, got them printed, found out that there was a mistake on them, had to print another batch (wasted money due to me hooray), worked on an award for the dean. Skipped another class due to the print-shop’s closing time, ran out to get a frame, put on suit, went to event, pitched in a little afterwards, got home, attempted to watch Lost, passed out.

Monday’s Perk: Sheer exhaustion forcing me to bed early.

Tusday: Woke up wonderfully refreshed, class, home at 1, 1 – 4 spent cleaning apartment (mine) and washing dishes (not mine), tried to grab a shower, late to class. 1 hour break of attempting to accomplish work on prototyping, more class til 745, baked casserole (ingredients were going bad), more correspondence, gave up and went out at midnight to try and unwind (nothing crazy, have some faith, folks.)

Tuesday’s perk: Casserole.

Wednesday: Woke up for 7am phone session with people in india. Attempted to get more sleep, went to class, did the TI thing, set up shop in IST for working on stuff until 3, helped the FutureForum committee, got home from IST around 6, went to SOMA meeting. Won presidency, got home and worked on German. Went to bed early with hopes of working on German in the morning.

Wednesday’s Perk: SOMA presidency, Good news concerning my startup.

Thursday (so far): Woke up. Bombed German presentation. Came home, further self-loathing,
Thursday (now): Just enough time to do a homework assignment and blog this between classes, nothing else.
Thursday (projected): Helping futureforum crew at 3:30 to 4:15. 4:15 class. Break from 5:30 to 6:30 where I frantically scrape more prototypes together. 6:30 class, quiz which I am not prepared for, 7:45 group meeting for a semester project that I don’t have time to work on by myself that my group hasn’t done things on, 9pm game thing for IST that i’m contemplating skipping.

Thursdays Perk: None. I give up.

Friday (projected): Early wakeup for 7am Futureforum setup. Event all day. Reception afterwards. Home at maybe 7 or 8. Freedom, provided I haven’t found a good bus to throw myself in front of or a nice toaster to take a bath with.

Friday’s Perk: Free food since I’m out at home.

People I am neglecting as of late: two web-development clients, my partner in business, myself.

Things I wish I had time to do: Shop for food, do laundry, finish the cleaning i started on tuesday, read the book i’m supposed to read for class, read a book I started in February and haven’t been able to get anywhere in, do development work for my neglected clientele, update my personal portfolio, continue photoblog development, put more time into SOMA, the list goes on.

it’s all just puzzle pieces. I wonder where my soul went. I’m sorry everybody.

So glad to be leaving this for awhile.

Doing some thinking lately. Perusing.

Immanuel Kant once wrote

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

In normal English, this means that we should act as if the reasoning for our actions would become human nature — we should act as role models, even though we aren’t.

Another thing I’ve been wrapped up in has been Nietzsche’s note, “The Greatest Weight”. Here it is:

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!”

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!” If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more, and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

So, let’s recap.

1. Listen to Brecht (a few posts back) and take in life as much as you can. It’s short and needs to be valued.
2. Listen to Kant and make sure that the reasons behind your actions are ones that you would find acceptable or agreeable, were other people to d them.
3. Listen to Nietzsche and consider the greatest weight before committing and action. Would you be willing to experience it over and over again?
4. Apply a little Nietzsche and Brecht and continue to try and experience events that would make your life worth living over and over again for all eternity. It’s those moments that make our lives valuable.
5. There’s a ton of stuff I could say here from the Dalai Lama and how being selfless and compassionate not only fits in with the previous, but I really don’t have time to write a novel

Bit of a rando post, but I figured it’d be fun to share. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, it’s nice to jot this stuff down.

If you’ve got suggestions for good pieces of philosophy to read, there’s the comments section.