Can you believe it? It’s almost October. I haven’t seen a White Christmas since I was 8. So I’m kind of looking forward to being in New York this winter, but I think it will lose its novelty factor real fast.
A couple weeks ago, I got my diploma from UC Berkeley. Being a transfer student, the audit always came out telling me I was missing classes that I knew I had taken. I was kind of worried that I would have to quit my job at IBM and go back to Berkeley to finish off 1 or 2 classes that I had perhaps overlooked and starting all over again, without grants and head over heels in credit card dept. But now, I hold in my hand a diploma from the same school that ranks #3 in the college football nation.
Which gives me to a perfect digression to the start of my professional career. Why? Well, because a lot of the people that I’m working with right now are from Penn State, and they’re all avid college football fans. So I got a chance to go to Bill’s place last night and watch some football on his 50 inch HD TV along with 3 other co workers while playing some board games. Unfortunately for them, though, Penn State lost in an upset to the Fighting Illini. And as the night went on, I could see the scores being updated on ESPN’s bottom line (ABC’s regional broadcasting of the best game in the nation, Cal at Oregon, really pissed me off. They showed the Rutgers vs Maryland game instead here in New York). And when the board finally revealed the fact that Cal had won, I was really relieved and overjoyed over the fact that we were going to be climbing in rankings, but most importantly, we will more than likely go to the Rose Bowl if we only lose to USC. And if we are undefeated, then the sky is the limit. Of course, my cheering didn’t bode well for my Penn State counterparts, who went on to drink and play the games as if nothing had happened. I felt kind of bad and settled down, promising myself to be happier at my own personal time.
Speaking of my co-workers, they’ve been short of nothing but great. A lot of the people that I’m surrounded by that work for the same 2nd line managers are recent college hires. Many of them just started 2-3 months ago. There’s about 8-10 of us that grab lunch together, all around the same age group. They’ve been very helpful, supportive, and never hesitated in letting me know that I’m welcome here. About 4-5 of them are from Penn State, others from UConn, Kentucky, Pitt, and Germany. It’s been an awesomely relieving experience, because who I work around was going to be a definitive factor on how I felt about the start of a new career in a new place.
My housemates have been pretty cool as well. We went out last weekend to commemorate Corey’s moving out, though, and it’s not quite the same around here without him, although I had barely gotten to know him. He works at a hedge fund company. George is a civil engineer, and Will, who I have yet to meet, is a trauma dentist. He was in the army for 3 years in a tank division and now is doing his residency where he sees victims of accidents needing any dental work. Apparently, he’s seen his share of some horrific stuff. He practically lives at his office in NYC, which really helps him out by living where we are, some 38 minutes up north, because he’s not paying such a high rent for a city that he doesn’t really get to spend much time enjoying anyway, and the train station is mere 150-200 meter walk from this house.
Which sounds all fine and dandy because being close to the train station has its perks. If I time it right, I can easily head down to the city much more quickly on the train than driving. But the huge downside is that the tracks are literally about 50-75 meters away, and the train has to blow its horns while passing by the passway that connects this house to the main road. At first, it didn’t sound like a big deal. A train schedule indicated that late night/early morning/mid afternoon would see a train passing by only once every hour. But I forgot to add the fact that trains go in both directions. Which is pretty bad in the morning, when commuters are riding the trains every 20 minutes in each direction, so it’s the constant blowing of the horns that I easily wake up to, usually before my alarm goes off.
I was on payroll starting on the 19th Sept and attended a 3 day orientation class. I started work at my location on Monday the 24th, but I have very little to show for it right now. In fact, I haven’t done any work at all, because the management is bogged down with quarter close and fall plan work. Kind of sounds counterintuitive, since if they have a lot of work to do, why don’t they have the poor rookie the grunt work? Well, it’s mostly because I’m not experienced enough to do the things that they do, yet, and it’ll probably take more time for them to correct my mistakes and groom me than for them to do it themselves. I’m being told, though, by my colleagues to enjoy this. Sooner or later, I’m going to be working till 6 or 7 and I’ll remember these relaxing days.
So far, the transition’s been fairly smooth, although a lot of things are still up in the air. I arrived in New York with a luggage bag, a duffel bag and a back pack, and that’s still pretty much all that I have have today. I just recently purchased a mattress after sleeping on an air mattress for the better part of the past couple weeks that I’ve been here. It just came in this morning. The kitchen’s communal but the utensil’s not, so I just bought a plate/cup/bowl set. I purchased some much needed furniture this past Friday, but they won’t be delivered till next weekend. I’m waiting for a bed frame, a desk, a dresser and a TV stand to come in (I don’t have a TV yet and probably won’t for another month).
I’m waiting for the moving company to come in and deliver my stuff in this coming weekend as well. I miss my desktop and my speakers, my guitars, and some clothes. I need to buy a ton of kitchen utensils, some tools to put my furnitures together, ipod FM transmitter, PCI Wi-Fi Ethernet card, a 32″ or 36″ Toshiba LCD TV, and then I think I will be set. Of course, all of this is hurting me a bit financially because 1) I had to pay for my new used car 2005 Honda Accord Coupe EX-L manual transmissoin in cash (bought in LA, trucked to NY), 2) the South America trip really set me back financially, and 3) I haven’t worked long enough to receive a paycheck just yet. So I’m almost $10000 in credit card debt, along with $9000 in student loans. Of course I’m not freaking out yet because I have the signing bonus that will take care of a lot of the credit card debt and I think I’ll just pay the minimum in loans. It’s not that I’m bankrupt, I have a couple of investments, but they’re long term and not very liquid right now so I’m stuck with the short term debt.
I’m not too worried about as many things as I was 5 months ago. One of the only reasons why I wanted to graduate from college so early was because I had a ton of things going on that I felt like I had very little control of. back in 27 APR 07, I posted a list of my worries and I’m taking a look back to see how all of them turned out.
Friday, April 27, 2007
You know, there’s been a lot of things going on in my mind lately.
-Classes
An essay due every single day of the week next week. Is my grade gonna be good enough overall to allow me to pursue a Master’s from one of top 7 MBA schools?
My 2 year UC GPA ended up being 3.45. My overall GPA is 3.696. It’s not as high as I know I could have gotten, but it’s high enough, I believe, to be competitive for top 7 MBA schools. The major problem, I think, is the GMAT. Recommendations will come if I get into the right job positions.
-Graduation preparations.
When do I officially move out? When will the girls move out and what should I keep? Where should my family stay for the graduation? Security deposit for comcast, rent, when do I return the grad gown?
I ended up moving out on the same day that I graduated. There was about 3-4 day gap in between the last final and the graduation, but I was busy the entire week. In fact, I didn’t get a chance to pack, and my family and friends did a lot of the packing for me. The girls moved out the following month, and I kept pretty much everything that I bought with me. My family found a place to stay near the airport for a really cheap price that my brother found and secured online. I got my security deposits back, and was able to return the grad gown on the same day as the graduation, although by then it was 5PM and I didn’t arrive home in LA until a bit past midnight that grueling and very eventful day.
-Summer 3 month road trip down to South America.
What else do I need to make sure we have all the car maintenance pieces together? What kind, if any, GPS should I get? What are some can’t miss places I shouldn’t miss? Can I sell my car in Argentina or do I need to ship it back up? Will I be able to cross the borders ok? Will Panama-Ecuador shipment of vehicle really work out? Will I have enough funds or will I run out? What am I forgetting to prepare? Will the guys back out at the last minute?
This was by far my biggest worry. I spent a lot of money on the car ($8000) part of the preparation of the trip, $4000 to buy the 1980 Mercedes 300 SD Turbo Diesel, and another $4000 to fix some mechanical flaws and change the tires and the audio faceplate, adding new speakers to handle the ohms and adding an alarm system. I ended up getting a Garmin 60cX GPS that I was extremely happy with, it really helped me out whenever I got lost, which was often, pretty much every day that I had to go through any mid to major size city. Some places that I couldn’t miss were Tikal, Panama Canal and Machu Picchu. My itinerary was very simple other than those 3 that I knew I had to visit before the trip: plan as you go along and see what comes up, as locals and traveling gringos will have a better ideas where to go when you come around to. I didn’t need to sell my car because the engine blew up, so that worry, which was one of my biggest, was settled in a very favorable fashion for me. I crossed the borders ok, only troublesome part was Costa Rica – Panama and Ecuador – Peru. Panama-Ecuador shipment of vehicle never happened. It went Panama-Colombia, and I’m very happy it did because Cartagena was just beautiful. I had enough funds, but at one point only because I had secured a cash advance from my credit card. I actually didn’t forget to prepare anything. In fact, I over prepared. Will the guys back out at the last minute? I had 3 different groups of people pledging their commitment before the trip and all 3 groups bailed out at the last minute. I’m glad I was able to overcome that shock and still committed to going, and doing it solo.
-Back, elbow, and neck pain.
Why won’t they go away even after hundreds of dollars of physical therapy, acupunture, chiropractic adjustments and prescription medicine? Will they be so bad during the trip that I will have to cut it short?
This is somewhat of a lingering subject. Elbow is now pain free, and the lower back is feeling much stronger than it did a couple years ago, but the neck pain is chronic and it will require some resilient physical therapy to get it back to normal. It might be a good thing: my neck is almost as straight as an arrow and I will get a chance to curve it back into shape while nursing the pain through therapy. It will cost a bit of money, but hopefully the insurance policy I’m paying a bit of money for is going to pay off. The neck pain got pretty bad during the trip but it never got any worse than it was before that.
-TMJ realignment (stop jaw popping).
What would I do if one of the braces comes off during the 3 month trip? Will it ever really completely heal? When should I get my wisdom teeth and torii removed? Can I really fly back to see my TMJ specialist from work every 2 months? Why do I still wake up with relentless migraines every once in a while?
The braces didn’t pose as much of a threat to the trip as I may have made it out to be. There was a point where the lower wire came out protruding into my mouth and it was very cumbersome. I spent half a day in Comitan, Mexico looking for a dentist, and apparently only one dentist out of the 5 different offices I went to worked that day. I had that part simply cut off later on. It will never completely heal, but it will feel much better soon. Wisdom teeth and torii will be removed after my braces come off. I don’t know how I’m going to travel every 2 months back to Fremont, CA to get my TMJ looked at, but I have a few ideas. I still wake up with migraines, but they’re becoming rarer. Just imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had and that’s pretty much how my brain felt every morning when the TMJ was at its worst.
-Army transfer into Inactive Ready Reserve process.
If I go into IRR for the next 1.5 years, does this increase my chances of getting deployed like the rumors suggest? What if I’m called up while I’m traveling? Would I be court-martialed if I can’t make it?
I’m in the IRR now. The paperwork took a couple days and the process took a couple months. I now have 15 months remaining in my contract. I haven’t gotten called up, not yet at least, but the fact that I’m collecting some disability pay and have a doctor who will fight for me to keep up the treatment for about another year or two lest my condition get worse have me pretty optimistic that I will never have to deploy ever again. I was not called up while traveling.
-Consolidation and paying off loans.
Change address. Why hasn’t the army loan repayment program kicked in yet? Does the military really pay off nothing if I go into IRR and/or don’t renew the contract?
Army repayment program is a joke. I had a $10000 loan repayment program, but even when I did apply for it, there were so many channels that I had to go through that no one knew what to do with it. The other thing they don’t really tell you except on a long terms of agreement paper is that they don’t pay off all your loans at one time. They pay off 15% of the current loans every year and/or $250 (whichever is greater), after 1 year that your loan has been granted for. So since most people only qualify for about $5000 in qualified loans a year as directed by the military, this means that you get about $750 paid off the loans your first year and about $1500 the second year. Also, you need to be in an active drilling status (going to army reserve unit every month) if you want your loan payment to continue every year. For me, it wasn’t until my 4th year in the army that I got my loans out, because I had to transfer into Berkeley to take out any qualified loans and by then I had already spent 1.5 years overseas, which they don’t credit for you in any way. Of course now that I’m in the IRR, I no longer receive these payments, so the loan repayment program didn’t help me out AT ALL because my first paperwork, which I worked hard to push through for a few weeks, didn’t make it through.
-Moving to New York.
Do I have enough time to move to NY after the trip? Where will I live, and how close should I live to work/New York City? (which is 1 hour drive away from each other) What do I carry with me on the plane and what is IBM’s policy?
I did have time to move to NY after the trip because I got back earlier than I thought I would after my car’s engine blew out. I am now living about 10 minutes up from White Plains (pretty much the biggest suburb in this area), 40 minutes up from NYC, and 30 minutes south of my workplace. I carried a roller luggage bag, a duffel bag and a backpack with me and I’m waiting for the rest of my stuff to get here sometime this week, hopefully.
-Brother’s wedding this September.
Am I jeopardizing my career by taking an extra day off in September to visit my brother in Germany after only 9 full days of work? What should I get him for his wedding? Should I really wear Class A uniform like he wants or should I keep trying to keep a low profile? Should I attend the one in Germany or Korea?
There was only one wedding and that was in Korea. I moved my start date back with IBM to attend the wedding so it didn’t hurt at all. I ended up not getting him anything and took a rain check because I’m so much in debt right now. I ended up wearing my Class A uniform, probably for the last time ever, because it was his wedding and he wanted me to wear it.
-Car problems.
It seems like I have no luck really with cars. I spent almost $10000 on the 94 Accord, another $10000 on the Mercedes Benz that I couldn’t even sell for parts when it blew up in Argentina, and currently own a 2005 Accord which is making some high pitched whining noise coming from the front of the car, which is especially noticeable between 40-80 mph. I like everything else about the car except that fact. It’s not too loud, but it gets really annoying when you hear it for a long time on the highway, and I was lamenting the fact that I got this car when I took it over to a transmission shop and the mechanic told me that it’s not loud enough for him to determine where it’s coming from. But after some online research, I think it may be the brakes. Which I thought was really odd because I’m not hearing it when I brake. Instead, I’m hearing it louder and higher when I’m coasting or accelerating. Apparently, there’s a metal piece that acts as a sensor to let you know that your brakes are wearing out. Which actually kind of makes sense because the car has about 34000 miles on it and the front pads usually last about 30000 miles, 90000 for the rear ones. Tomorrow, I’ll be dropping the car off at a mechanic, and hopefully it’ll fix the noise problem. I’m quite optimistic that it will.