Facebook – Week 9 – Part 2
Posted on 8th May 2014
Scott was away again the next week, but that didn’t stop my progress. I was now fairly confident with the tools, languages and infrastructure I was using. I worked hard on Monday to the extent that I forgot about rehearsal, pounding away on my new idea. A number of different pieces had to come together for it to work and this added some new challenges to my workflow. I taught myself a bit more about databases, and worked from the top to the bottom of the stack. Quite exciting.
The days went by very quickly. Wednesday lunch I invited Ilana Arbisser, a PhD student and Penn graduate, over for lunch. We drew it out as much as possible and for dessert brought along Zach, who I had been pleased to hang out with a number of times over the course of the internship.
In the afternoon there was a Security Talk but I was far too caught up in trying to solve my currently problem to really focus on it. I was determined to at least have a working prototype for my second project by the end.
Thursday at work was a little more chilled, with Vocal Network rehearsal at lunch breaking up the morning. In the evening I partook in Infra-crawl, a series of poster presentations with food, prizes and drinks, which was a good chance to spend a little time with my team other than trying to solve immediate problems.
After infra-crawl I had my last session of improv, though Lainie the instructor wasn’t able to attend, so a friend of hers was running the session. However I didn’t manage to stay the whole time as at 6.15 I had to race to the bus park. In front of building 15 a bus stood, flanked by interns. It was to be taking to a stadium in San Jose to see the SJ Sharks play the Pittsburgh Penguins in ice-hockey.
The game had a great sense of atmosphere. Though the entire event felt a little over produced with flashing lights and a giant screen hanging from the room, having an involved crowd made the game feel alive. Every time the sharks scored the crowd would stand and pump their fists in time with the theme. The game itself was an excellent first example of the sport for me and featured a thrilling comeback by the sharks from 0-2 down at the first period. Whenever the Penguins had a chance to score, the Sharks fans would form their arms into the shape of a sharks mouth and raise and lower the jaws while the theme from ‘Jaws’ was played over the speaker system. Eventually the sharks prevailed and, in a thrilling last minute scored a final goal bringing the tally to 4-3 to the Sharks. One other highlight from the game was when “Welcome Facebook Winterns” was broadcast on the screen, bringing us all to cheer!
Friday’s Q&A with Mark was cancelled, so the majority of the day I was just pounding out lines of code. Lunch was a little more of an event, as I had arranged to meet up with the Vocal Network for lunch. Sadly, only the male members were in attendance as all the women had prior meetings and commitments. The day was beautiful and sunny, and the company was good, making me feel quite at ease. After lunch concluded I said my goodbyes to Jason, the other intern in the acapella group and made promises to catch up sometime.
The day soon ended and I caught the shuttle home, content with my week and looking forward to the challenge of my last.