CRA-W DMP Program Summer 2004

Journal
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Week 8

Work this week was pretty exciting because I starting making some serious progress on the compiler - I got floating point numbers finished up, handled flow control, and conquered structs for the most part. Next week I hope to move on to arrays, testing corner cases, and dealing with position independent code in OS X which has prevented me from really being able to test in OS X - I can't do printf! Jim Burrill, a staff member at U Mass. who is largely responsible for maintaining the Scale compiler, visited UT this week. It was great to finally meet Jim, having only talked to him on the phone before, and he was extremely nice and extremely helpful.

While work was productive and exciting this week, that didn't stop me from taking off on Monday to go to Schlitterbahn! Schlitterbahn is known as one of the best waterparks in the nation. Jenn, Chris, Walter, Nick, Mike and I all left Monday morning and spent the entire day there. We started out by going on the Master Blaster, which has won awards multiple times for the best waterslide in the nation. It was a really cool slide, it actually blasted us uphill in various places and was very much like a rollercoaster. The park was a blast, although it's a good thing we went on Monday because the lines were very long even then - I can't imagine what they must be like on weekends! We played 20 questions while we waited in line which kept us quite entertained, and taught us that Chris is far better at that game than any of the rest of us. But seriously, who would guess "The year of the monkey" as an answer to a 20 questions game anyways?! After we got back from Schlitterbahn, we all went to Hyde Park Grille for some dinner and some very yummy desserts.

Mike, Walter, myself, Chris, Jenn, and Nick at Schlitterbahn. The park was awesome and amazingly, none of us got sunburned.

Jenn, Nick, and myself chilling in our tubes in the west side of the park. The west side had a lot of really long tube rides that would be lazy for a while and then unexpectedly dump you over a cliff.

On Tuesday I went to training class for First Bytes. First Bytes is a program to introduce high school girls to computer science. Julia and I volunteered to help out with a few of the labs. Tuesday evening I left ballroom early to go meet Jim for dinner. Jim, Julia and I met and discussed our project and got to know each other. Afterwards, I went back to ballroom and then hung out with Javier for the evening. After work on Wednesday, my friend Palani from ballroom picked me up and took me to his place where he made me an awesome dinner! He made an Indian chicken dish that was incredibly good, and he had some Indian desserts that were very yummy as well. He showed me a video of him skydiving! He had just gone skydiving for the first time and they made a video of the whole thing and it really looked like fun. Afterwards, we watched the first half of Ghandi and he helped me understand what was going on. It got pretty late so we decided to watch the second half another night. It was definitely an awesome evening, I love home cooked food!

Thursday I went to another partner tricks class where I learned more dips and lifts. Vinh actually has the guts to try them out at ABD and Austin Swing Syndicate dances, which is pretty cool. Thursday night a bunch of people came out to the Fed again for the Austin Swing Syndicate dance, I hope that means they had a good time last week and will keep coming! Friday morning I met Jim at the bread & breakfast where he stayed to grab breakfast before he left to return to U. Mass. The place was called the Austin Folkhouse and it was adorable and the food was very good - I highly recommend it. I was sad to see Jim go because he was a good guy, and it was very nice having him around to help. Friday night after work Javier picked me up and took me downtown to Katz's deli where his friend Eric works. It was a cute little place and after an awesome meal he came back and kept me company while I did my laundry (thanks Javier!).

Saturday I came into work and finished structs up, then went to the gym for a run. Afterwards, Javier gave me a ride out to the ABD dance, but he didn't end up staying. I danced at ABD for probably the last time, since next Saturday will be my last Saturday here. Quite a few UTBDC people came out to the ABD dance again this week, I was really excited to see them coming, I hope they'll keep it up! Walter had a wine party Saturday night at Allen's house, so as soon as I was done with the dance I went over to Allen's for some wine and cheese and hanging out. We had a ton of fun, I met a few new people, and we talked until about 4am.

Myself, Nadine, Walter, Kartik, Todd, and JP at the wine party at Allen's house. Note the excess of empty wine bottles (I got there late!) and cheese.

Sunday I woke up and came into work. Julia and I have to give a pressentation on Wednesday so I started thinking about that so we would have something done before our meeting with Kathryn on Monday. Sunday afternoon Palani took me to Bull Creek. Bull Creek was a cute little creek with a little waterfall, swimming holes, and a few rope swings to jump off of into the water. After Palani dropped me off I met Vinh and walked back to his part of town to grab dinner. He took me to the Rotisserie Grill and got me a free meal which was pretty awesome, and then we went to Central Market. I have heard about Central Market from soo many different people. Central Market is an upscale grocery store which Walter calls the Walt Disney World of food because they have such an abundance of good food. The absurd quantities of cheese, wine, amazing chocolate, freshly baked bread, fresh and rare produce, etc. were mind boggling, and leave the wallet quite empty. I got some groceries, and Vinh insisted that I try the Miles of Chocolate brownie with him. It was the most moist, decadent, rich brownie I have ever had. I got some tiramisu cordials as well. mmmmmmm :) Central Market also has this adorable little cafe where they have live music on weekends and a good selection of foods. Afterwards Vinh walked me back to drop off my groceries, and then I went into ACES to get some work done after an awesome weekend.

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