Week Two

Time flies. It's been already a week since I got here. I'm in a better status than last week, but still don't know what exactly I'll be doing this summer. At least, I was given some papers to start off and read them and am catching up the studies. I'm still in tense as nothing really happened so far. Feels like walking on thin ice? A calm before the storm?

A good thing is I'm a beginner's status of mind without mannerism or something. Changing working environment and meeting new smart people is very stimulating. I meet other students whose interests are not far from mine, and see their footprints and sometimes get impressed. Yesterday, I met a girl Rimma. She said it's her third visit to MSR. I went to her website to read her name correctly, and found that she have four publications this year. What a productive year! One of the papers was written by herself, which was even more impressive. Hope to have such a productive year :)

Day Three

Wherever I move to a new site, I collect the memory of its first sight. Two days ago, I was walking into the DMX group section following my mentor and a glassy, modern interior of Microsoft Research building 99 was collected. It wasn't flamboyant or splendor yet was stylish. Possibly, that's because I knew world class researches are performed in the building. I wish I could post pictures, but after a long orientation, I figure that could be a bad idea with all the legal and confidentiality issues.

Today, I had my first lunch in the cafeteria of building 117 (I think) with fei, arnob and eckel (?). While chatting, arnob and I realized that we were in the same session at the VLDB 2007. Meeting new friends is always pleasant especially when you can share your interests.