My Homemade Curtains

Curtains, curtains, curtains. Ever since moving into the new house, curtains, or lack thereof, have become a major headache of mine. None of our windows came with any kind of covering, so we had been debating how to best cover them while still preserving the beauty of this house. Almost every single house I've been to over the course of my life use venetian blinds, which I hate. Although they're cheap and easy to install, I just think they're bland.

I wanted draperies. Silk curtains. Colorful fabrics. I wanted to turn our home into one of those makeover projects on HGTV. Alas, everything on TV looks easier than it really is. Who knew curtains were so expensive? It's just fabric! After months of research, going to stores, looking at catalogs, I simply gave up on the idea of buying pre-made curtains. First they are really expensive, more than $200 if you want a decent design and choice of fabric. Second, most of them don't even fit the windows we have. But I refuse to succumb to those white blinds. No plastic strips on my wall. If I can't buy my curtains, I will make them myself. Needless to say, four months since moving, our windows are still bare.

I overestimated the amount of effort it takes to make a curtain. There's fabric selection, length and width measurement, curtain rod installation (of course I don't do that :))...etc. After we had decided on the kind of fabric we want, we found out that we had to special order them because the store didn't carry the amount of yardage that we would need. I had no idea that special ordering meant it would take forever for the fabric to arrive.

This past weekend, after eight weeks of waiting for the fabric, it finally arrived. So, with the help of my mom, I bunkered down and began making my first set of curtains. We first measured and cut the big roll of fabric I got into equal length sections. Since the width of the fabric is not wide enough for one panel, I had to join to pieces of fabric together to form a wider piece. While that sounds easy to do, just sewing straight lines, it is not. I must have sewn and de-threaded, sewn and de-threaded about 10 different times before giving up on perfection. I had to settle for my not so straight lines and sometime scrunched up fabric. I have new found respect for seamstresses.

So after a day of pinning, sewing, and ironing, I finally had one panel made. It was actually quite fun after I got the hang of things. I think things would go much faster if I wasn't such a perfectionist or if I actually had any sewing skills. Unfortunately, after I hung the one panel up, I realized that the color I chose, dark red, is way too overpowering for our small sized media room. Back to the fabric shop to order some lighter colored fabric - light gold. Red and gold, royal, I know. Luckily, I was able to save the red fabric for our family room. Otherwise it would have been heartbreaking for me to waste over 200 dollars worth of fabric.


If this software engineering gig doesn't work out, maybe I can make curtains full time. Then again, maybe not.

My San Franciscan Heart

Most people who know me probably know that I spent a good number of years living in San Francisco when I was growing up. From the age of ten through seventeen, the city by the bay was my home. When I moved to Canada in 1999, the definition of me was San Francisco. Even though Vancouver was a beautiful city, I never warmed up to it because I was always occupied with memories of San Francisco. When people asked me where I was from, I would proudly say "San Francisco!" I guess you could say "I Left My Heart in San Francicso."

Since I left, I went back to visit a couple of a times, each visit a memorable and heart warming experience. It felt comfortable to be back in a familiar city. A little more than a month ago, I went with Alex to Mountain View for a week when he was down for Google new hire training. This trip was my first trip back to the Bay Area in four years. I was excited to see the city again, anxious to show the town to Alex. I looked forward to stepping back in time momentarily and revisiting all the places I once called home.

But this trip was anything but heart warming. Something changed within me. I felt extremely sad and depressed when we drove past the street on which I used to live. Suddenly all the bad memories of life in San Francisco began to pour in, flooding my mind. My dad's depression. My mom's burden. Our struggle to stay. I saw my mom with bags of groceries fighting the crowd when Alex and I walked through Chinatown. I saw my dad walking back home on Van Ness Avenue as Alex and I drove down the busy street. I saw myself hanging around the Marina district as Alex and I ate dinner there. Bits of the past were flying towards me, overwhelming me. I didn't know how to deal with them. I didn't know how to deal with memories I didn't want to remember. I felt like I was being sucked back into the past, except I now knew how different life could be beyond the past. I felt like I was thrown back to live those seven years again, except I now knew the conclusion of that life.

As I revisit each part of my old familiar grounds, I realized how far I had gone since I left. This time, I went back as an adult. This time, I was visiting instead of coming back home. I guess at some point during these eight years, I left my San Franciscan home, and left my San Franciscan heart.

Our Lawn

Part of the headache (or joy) of owning a house is dealing with the lawn. I've always heard people complain about lawns and yardwork, but until I (or Alex) had to deal with it, I never thought much of it. The last weekend Alex and I spent a good afternoon outdoors taking care of our lawn.

In the one month that Alex was in California, the grass on our lawn has been growing as if it's on steroids. Originally we bought a manual push mower to mow the lawn since we really didn't have much grass. When Alex came back and noticed how tall our grass has grown, he decided that manually mowing this was just not going to work. It would take us weeks to complete the work, and by the time we're done, we would have to start all over again.

So we bought an gasoline powered mower. It's kind of funny that we're dealing with all of this right now. It almost feels like we are two kids playing house, pretending to be grown-ups. It still feels surreal sometimes that I own a house and I have to worry about things like the lawn, or weeds, or leaky roofs. I don't know when I will actually feel like a 100% adult, but I have not gotten there yet. Maybe when I turn 30 I will feel like one.

Never knew I had so much to say about lawn mowing. Enjoy the pictures!

My First Resignation

A month of working at that online-retail-giant-named-after-a-South-American-river, I am ready to say goodbye to it. It's been kind of a disappointment to me so far. Before joining, this company is one I've had my eyes on for quite a while. I applied right after graduating from college, but I didn't do well on the interview so I didn't get the job. When Motorola announced our layoffs, I decided to try again. This time, with more experience, I got in without much trouble. I was thrilled when I got the offer. So thrilled that Alex said he's never seen me this happy.

Well, a month into the job and I'm not so happy anymore. I now understand why a lot of people warned me about this company and why the turnover rate is so high here. Two words: it sucks. Well, at least for me it does. I took an SDET (Software Development Engineer - Test) role here because test development is where I want my career to go. I like building test infrastructures and enjoyed my assignments as an SDET at Motorola. The SDET position here seemed like a perfect fit for me. I would be doing Java development, which I have been doing for the past several years, and I would be doing test development, which is something I want to pursue further. Well, a month in and I am doing Java development and I am doing test development. I should be happy right? Not quite. One huge aspect of my job I didn't really consider was the team participation part. My company does not put much emphasis on Quality Assurance, at all. Because of this, most SDETs here work alone or consult developers when tackling testing problems. I am one of the few lucky people here who get to test an entire product by myself.

That should get me trained plenty, having to do everything by myself, right? In a way, it would teach me a lot of things. For example, I would have to do all sorts of testing that I've never done before, like stress and load testing. But in another way, it's teaching me the wrong way to do things. Because of their lack of direction on testing, everything here is somewhat "hacked". So essentially, I would just be creating a bunch of little projects here and there to solve temporary testing problems. I wouldn't be able to build a test infrastructure, or at least learn how to build one. Because of their lack of emphasis on testing, I have no one to learn from, no one to consult with on the subject of testing. There is no test architect to guide the general direction of testing, and there is no team members to consult with about how to test a feature. I would very much like to become a test architect at some point, but I am way too inexperienced as of now to take on that role.

The culture of this company is also a sore point. Because they're a retail company, they have very very low profit margin. They don't have the financial resources as say Microsoft or Google, who mark up their products quite a bit. For this reason, they must operate efficiently and cheaply. That means that everything has to be done quickly and new features have to be out much faster than normal so they can attract customers. There's always a trade-off between delivering products quickly versus delivering a quality product. When a product is shipped quickly, quality usually suffers. When a product is shipped with top-notch quality, it usually isn't delivered that fast. This company values shipment date much much more than product quality. They provide a free service for online retailing, customers don't have to pay to use it. It's okay if a bug or two is found, as long as customers can find what they're looking for. But it's not okay if they lose a potential group of customers because they did not deliver a new service quickly. As a result, their services are usually released in lightning speed but with lots of bugs. To remedy the bug situation, instead of prolonging the release period and hire more staff to test it, they make their developers go on-call to handle any crisis.

So after a month, my position here has become "just a job". It is just the wrong fit for me. As a result, I will soon be quitting this job and moving onto another company who values quality a lot more - Microsoft. I know, I know, it's the devil. But hey, for a career in test development, Microsoft is the place to be. My stint at this company will be short, but I rather leave a bad impression here than waste my time doing something I don't like doing here. I haven't told my boss here yet as I'm still waiting for Microsoft to take care of my visa. I am dreading the conversation with my boss but I can't wait to get it over with.

I can't wait to quit.

My Employment Stress

It's been a crazy and stressful month, to say the least. The ax fell two weeks ago and my worst fear was realized. I got laid off. The company 5% staff reduction (rumored to be much more than 5%) affected pretty much all of our office. Our corporate VP flew into Seattle two weeks ago to discuss "future business plans". In reality, she flew in with an entourage of HR staff to reduce her staff. Out of almost 100 employees in the office, only 23 were left after the reduction. Development, test, program management, and several other departments were all wiped out, completely. Although most of us saw this coming, it was still shocking to watch them "clean the house". All of a sudden, all that we had worked for was no longer relevant. The deadlines, the pressure, and the commitments all disappeared with one announcement.

I had never been laid off before, so all this was new experience to me. I had, however, watched former co-workers get laid off at Infowave when I was a co-op there. I have to say now that watching somebody get laid off is entirely different from being laid off myself. When the announcement was first made, when I first got the little purple folder which contained my severance information and whatnot, I was almost relieved to hear the news. Maybe I had been anticipating it for too long and it felt nice to finally know something concrete. At least now I knew I no longer had a job instead of not knowing whether I would have one tomorrow. It was satisfying just to know my fate, instead of waiting for it to unfold.

That satisfaction, however, did not last long. Motorola gave us two weeks of grace period to basically wrap things up and look for a new job. But I knew in two weeks I would be out of a job. The consequences were greater than having no income for me. I am in the U.S. on a work visa. Without employment, I technically cannot stay here. Suddenly, all these problems started to weigh in on me. Loss of a job, visa problems, mortgage payments...since when was I supposed to know how to solve these problems. I remember my mother solving these kinds of problems not long ago. When had the torch been passed on to me?

But in life, there is no time to ponder, no time to question, no time to doubt. There is only time to accomplish, to "do". Before the layoff announcement was official, I kind of saw the storm coming and started applying to some jobs already. After the official announcement, all I could do was keep applying and preparing myself for those dreaded technical interviews.

Perhaps the experience of applying for co-op jobs during the Dotcom bust is still haunting me, but I worried constantly that I wouldn't find a job, I wouldn't get my visa renewed, and I would leave the country. I don't know how my mother did it all these years, weathering all these setbacks and hardships in life, but now that I am getting a taste of it, I know it's not easy. Nevertheless, aside from the stress of unemployment, the search for new employment also brought about a sense of excitement. After working at Motorola for close to two years, I was growing a little bored of my job. It was exciting to think about working in different companies such as Amazon or Google, companies that I've also longed to work for.

To find out more, read the next post. :)

My 12-Hour Move

Done! Finito! We're finally moved into the new house. Last Friday Alex and I picked up the truck from U-Haul around 6pm to help us move our stuff from his condo to the new house. Originally we had decided to finish packing on Friday night and move on Saturday. But after getting the truck and driving it for a bit, we decided it might be too difficult for him to drive it all by himself on Saturday. The truck didn't exactly drive like my little Honda. So, we decided to move on Friday night, in the middle of the night that is.

When we made that decision, I thought we would be done by 2am Saturday morning or something. Little did I know that last minute packing dragged on for a few hours and loading took a few hours more. By the time we were done loading everything at the old place, it was already 5 o'clock in the morning. I have to say, I'll never complain about Alex not doing chores again. Because of my lack of exercise, and therefore, lack of strength, Alex did 99% of the move this time. I really couldn't help him do anything. It took us that long because every time he needed my help lifting things, I needed to take a million breaks in between to regain strength. I am so shamefully weak.

Of course it didn't help that we moved in the middle of the night when everybody in the building and surrounding homes is sleeping. It's hard enough moving a giant couch; it's even harder when you have to move it without making a sound.

We finally got to the new house at 7am Saturday morning. Traffic was still pretty light since it was a weekend morning and nobody's rushing out to work. By the time we got there, we were dead tired. We unloaded one of the mattresses, threw it on the first place we saw and fell asleep. Since the house is brand new, we had no accessories of any kind. We had no curtains. The morning sunlight poured in like crazy and eventually woke us up after only a few hours of sleep.

Back to work we go. Time to start unloading. The nightmare of lifting the big couch into the truck was back again. Time to lift it back out. Oh god. My weak muscles hadn't even recovered from loading yet, and now we had to unload? We started to lift Alex's couch and I just couldn't do it. I dropped it to the floor half way and just couldn't lift anymore. Luckily a neighbour across the street was washing his car and saw us struggling. He came over and helped us move the couch in.

With the couch in, next came the big heavy T.V. I almost killed Alex when he asked for my help. He asked me to hold steady; instead, I lifted the TV and almost toppled him over with the TV on top of him. He was not amused. I am so useless.

At 3pm, we finally finished unloading and returned the truck. With that, our move was finally over. What a long long day.

My New House

We finally got keys to our first house today! Our escrow closed today after the bank wired the money to them and they got everything on record. Our real estate agent went over to Bellevue, where the seller is located, to pick up the keys for us and we got it from him later in the evening. Even though we don't move until Saturday, Alex and I could not wait any longer, so we went straight to the new house after getting the keys.

We had never gone to the house at night before tonight, so it was definitely interesting seeing our new neighbourhood when it's dark all around. When we did the walk-through last week, the selling agent mentioned to us that Kenmore, where are new house is, is kind of interesting because it's kind of rural as well as suburban at the same time. Today I definitely noticed the rural side of things as we drove by our neighbourhood at night. Unlike Seattle, Kenmore's not very well lit at all at night. In fact, the street we live on does not have a single street light. The downside of that is it would be really difficult if I ever decide to walk home at night from the bus stop. The upside I guess is I can see the stars better.

It was weird when we stepped inside our own house for the first time. It was just me and Alex, with nobody around and a big empty house. No selling agent, no buy agent, no family members. Just us and this big house. We sat in the kitchen and ate the food we had gotten earlier at Taco Bell. There was no T.V.; the house we eerily quiet. For the first time, the new house felt so distant to me, so cold and unfamiliar. I started to miss Alex's small apartment, his tiny apartment that is the size of our new kitchen and living room. Even though it is small, it is our home.

We couldn't stay at the house long because we had to rush to Best Buy to buy a fridge, washer and dryer. We had picked out exactly what we liked already, but stayed on the cautious side to not order it so early in case something went wrong with the house. Today, after getting our keys, we finally bought the fridge and washer/dryer of our dreams. They are all LG appliances. We got a stainless steel side-by-side LG refrigerator, and front-loading washer/dryer with steam wash capability. I'm so excited! I can't wait to use my big new fridge!

After circling around the Seattle area for more than four hours, we finally returned back home. I take back everything I said about the new house being too big and unfamiliar. It was just a horrendous sight greeting us when we walked into the apartment. Boxes everywhere, clothes everywhere, it was like the apartment just vomited all of our stuff out. I have to twist and turn to get things and get to places. I can't wait for a bigger place.

Today, I bought my first house. :-)