Weekly Update (21w09)

Anniversary #1, tons of impulse-reading, my first few interviews, and some "funnies."

Oops, this is going out on Monday. A trial by fire of my accountability system, to be sure, and one that worked: after forgetting to write my weekly update on time, four people contacted me asking where it was! 🙃

It’s really late asI write this (almost so late that it’s early), so this will be a bit shorter than normal. Better than skipping, I figured!

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I. Anniversary #1

Mattea and I got married a year (and 8 days) ago! Last Sunday (February 28) was the day, but we didn’t really do much to celebrate—so, on Wednesday, we went skiing for each of our second times. We also walked 3 miles to the nearest grocery store on Thursday, to get a tub of ice cream and make milkshakes with our expired bananas!

[I would insert a picture of us skiing here, but keep leaving my phone in the car.]

She got me an awesome gift (two, one was “for Valentine’s Day”): leather-bound copies of “Ender’s Game” and its lesser-known sequel “Speaker For The Dead” (a transparent allegory which still manages to be one of my all-time favorite books). Turns out that premium leather-bound book publishers aren’t exactly the most prompt with their on online order shipping, so they got here a week or two late—go figure.

All of it was amazing—the skiing, the milkshakes, and the books. ❤️

two fancy books from a too-fancy person

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II. What good are books, if you don’t read them?

In a conversation earlier this evening, I was discussing “vices” with some friends here at Edyfi. Doing irrational but enjoyable things, someone argued, is the way we assert our humanity: if we let our tasks and structures and schedules and hierarchies consume us entirely, we might as well be robots, right?

I like the way that sounds. I didn’t flagrantly abdicate any responsibility I might have had in any non-work (hi, Chrisman!) realm this week… I just, um, asserted my humanity.

“Ender’s Game” came in on Tuesday morning; “Speaker For The Dead” (do I capitalize those middle words? maybe? gah!) on Wednesday. By 7:45 PM on Thursday, I’d finished both of them, from cover to cover. 5 hours each, 10 total.

For those keeping score, that means that I spent more (non-work) time reading than not reading for three days straight. It was totally worth it, too—that series continues to be a pinnacle of literature in my eyes, evidence that the English language can truly sing at unimaginable heights.

Then, because I still didn’t want to find and call a local mechanic, I picked up a copy of the King James Bible and started reading from Esther onwards (timely, as a Jewish friend here informed me—Purim was just last week). After that, I figured it’s been long enough since I read “Julius Caesar,” (right?), and Shakespeare was practically staring at me from the shelf, so how could I resist…

Impulse reading is my vice. At least I picked a good one!

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III. I wonder what it’s like for interviews to go well

Last week, I’d never interviewed anyone before. Now, I’ve only never interviewed someone I didn’t veto immediately afterward! (That’s 0-3, for those keeping score.)

First up was an intern candidate for Synthesis; my job was to figure out if they were fluent in JavaScript. I picked a pretty fun question: “implement the ranked choice voting algorithm.” It’s nice, simple, and open-ended, while giving people enough rope to hang themselves if they’re just faking it.

That’s what I thought, at least. After watching an otherwise competently-presenting sophomore flounder for 1.5 hours straight, though, I decided to take my own medicine and implement the code in two programming languages. 10-15 minutes each. Hm.

Next intern. HOLY CRAP. Have you ever felt so bad for someone that you just want to curl up and die a painful death or two of shame for them? I had made the mistake of scheduling our interview for a full hour and a half—after 10 minutes, I knew it would be quite the ride. Here’s a sample of the code this candidate wrote in five whole minutes:

minVotes = Math.min(...roundVotes);

Haha, just kidding. That’s how it was after I gave them the half of the necessary syntax! Thankfully, the code environment we were sharing crashed after half the allotted time; I’ve never felt so conspicuously free before.

(I don’t think I’m being mean? Very sorry, intern candidate #1 at least (#2 had no hope at all), if my expectations are too unreasonable when starting off at this.)

I also interviewed a candidate for Edyfi’s summer houses, who couldn’t stop dropping names for 5 minutes to talk about his values or motivation. Apparently, if your dad is the [semi-important position] at [prominent US agency] while you’re growing up, you “get tired of admirals and astronauts coming over for dinner twice a week.” When someone spends more time talking about the 12 billionaires that invested in their failed startup than giving any hint of having a personality, I don’t want to live with them. 🤷‍♂️

(I feel really bad judging people—especially when it requires negative conclusions. I’d rather just stick to judging myself in the future, but unfortunately it seems necessary.)

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IV. Bonus “funnies” (courtesy of nearby old lady)

When Mattea and I were on a long walk last Sunday, looping around through an unfamiliar suburb on our way back to the house, a short old lady swooped out of her driveway to walk alongside us and “tell us funnies” on the way back.

An old lady who walked with Mattea and I to tell us “funnies”

Here are some of her best jokes:

• What’s as big as an elephant, but doesn’t weigh anything? (Its shadow)

• Which part of your body hangs onto life the longest? (Your eyes, because they dilate (“die late”))

Apparently most people shake her off after a few dozen feet—we listened to her (it was mainly her talking) for 5-10 minutes. It feels good to spread some empathy in these lonely times! 😊