Staying alive in France, and doing on average, at least an hour of Duolingo daily.
Presented, and edited a video for Dynamic Programming recurrence relations,
which took in total, over 20 hours just for the editing and re-recording of sections where I made mistakes. I'm not going to count all the hours for this one. It was so much work!
Making the slides, solving algorithm problems, and deciding how to categorize patterns took time that isn't counted here.
The year is 4XXX and I still don't know how how to edit out my loud breathing, or prevent the mic from picking it up in the first place. I left my Shure mic in the Bay Area.
Finally Edited, and re-recorded my presentation on Dijkstra's Algorithm from the in-person seminar last month.
This also took a long time, easily over 12 hours. I'm grateful for KDEnlive, because I don't have a powerful machine to edit video.
Survived living with a chainsmoker for 11 hot summer days who refused to smoke outside. I still have some heart pain, but that will go away. Breathing was really difficult at times.
I found a cigarette butt on the kitchen floor. I have gazed upon no cigarette so demoralizing, so death-beckoning, so apathy-inspired as that one. I picked it up and threw it in the trash. I'm not sure what I did afterward, but I had so many regrets about booking this place.
I managed my productivity these days. Some things got done, just not as much as I'd like.
People would also smoke outside my window. I couldn't escape at times if I was indoors.
I also cleaned out the fridge because he didn't when he left. For a 25-year-old man to live like this, it's usually because he didn't grow up with those who cared about him.
I alerted property management, who came in on another day, and opened his door unnanounced while he was smoking. What followed was an angry scolding in French that was too fast for me to follow but definitely "Tu fumais dans ta chambre" was forcefully accused. The lady also brought a man, for backup mayhap? In case of altercation? It was loud, and lasted for at least 10 mins. I was in my room wondering if now was a good time to get my cheese from the fridge. It sounded like they were just outside my door. I waited for the storm to pass.
I almost got him evicted, but told property management to not do that to him because I was aware he had a pretty bad injury. I wish I made no attempts at kindness sometimes. Oh well it's over and given enough time this will become comedy.
Another roomate moved in the day the chain smoker left. She had a 70% proc rate per morning for vehement screaming. I don't know at who. Maybe family, because most people would just end a call from that much screaming.
I love saving money…but sometimes that leads to situations with troubled youth who have no money. My incompetence in French prevents me from asking deep questions and being able to respond meaningfully.
This is how I would awaken some days when she was there for 3 weeks. To screaming.
Her voice would crack, and then she would try to hit higher decibels. She vaped and that affected my lungs and heart too, but was mostly out of the apartment until night time. She was otherwise nice to me. She told me she was on social assistance. I'm glad France takes care of its citizens.
She told me about how she wanted to move to the city we were in and she was from Dardogne, where people were not nice. I sensed a suggestion of violence and harassment, but had no idea how to express that up to Unit 4 in Duolingo's French course.
Did two rounds of job applications to US companies between Aug 1 and Aug 14, while unable to breathe at my favored capacity, sleeping on the floor, and having loud interruptions.
Surprisingly, interviewed for a job between presenting lectures from my room in France, amidst the chaos woven with domestic peace.
Met with hiring manager
Met with someone who gave me more of a code design assessment
Got to onsite round and learned they'd ask a system design round.
Scrambled to cram system design that I learn is happening the next day from the recruiter who sent out the email. I pushed aside all else and reviewed by
rewatching some videos / rereading on designing a stock exchange
Review what makes cassandra so great
Review leaderless replication
Gave meaningful feedback to one of my student's for his presentation on Union Find.
Continued practicing leetcode.
Though I had to look up the answer for one of the daily problems and straight up and almost copy it. I put in the work to understand why my recurrence relation was incorrect, found a minimal test case, and saw I didn't actually try all valid subproblems, and saw how the model solution handled it.
My streak means consistent effort, and most days I get the problem without looking up a solution but may use hints. I try to limit myself to 2 hours of consistent effort before looking at the editorial. This month was harder than every month prior this year. I didn't give up on the hard that ended this month and it took me 4+ hours and plenty of wrong attempts to get a solve. I would have had no chance had I not reviewed Dijkstra earlier.
Lingering in France sounded good, in part because I don't have enough time to learn Spanish. I found a new place, cleaned my unit, picked up my bags.
Hey, a pound of brie is < $4. I think there must be a government regulation + subsidy, because no way can it be this cheap. That's enough to change anyone's mind to stay here just a little while longer.
There are of course, more expensive bries, and they are also great.
I'm really good at looking lost and asking for directions somehow.
I think it's how I preface by asking if they speak English (they'll say no), then I proceed to try my best in French, which is usually enough.
A cadre of guffawing hommes were standing outside the train station and helped me find the right bus. It turns out the guffawing hommes were all bus drivers, and one of them led me to the bus I was going to almost vomit in.
I somehow mentally jujutsu'd myself to not vomit in a bus; it would have been too embarassing.
We rode through wind after wind of a tortuous mountain pass. I hadn't eaten enough in the morning because I was cleaning and clearing out.
I was worried I wouldn't be able to explain myself to anyone if I vomited during the ride. I walked up to the bus driver when we stopped at a stop and let him know I had "mal à la voiture" (thanks google translate). And sat up front, which helped. I think the other people on the ride were confused.
It was agony. Feeling on the edge of vomiting for over an hour, clutching a plastic bag and sweating all over it as the nerves in my fingers tingled. Maybe I was hyperventilating too. I was nauseous.
That's how the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region do, an earthen furrowed brow.
Sadly forgot my adapter at the place before the agony of vomit–so it was time to problem solve. If my laptop runs out of battery I won't be able to continue my leetcode streak.
I texted my current host where I could buy a new adapter. After visiting a store and not finding it, he unexpectedly offered to drive me to a store to find an adapter the same day.
Problem solved at this place called Darty. "Solvé," I heard my host say. He then dropped me off at a bakery and I bought some good bread. Walked back up a mountain. Yay. A good kind of strenuous. Still need to see a doctor one day so I can't overdo it.
Surprisingly am closer than ever to a job I had a call with the hiring manager who said "You had a strong technical, and a strong behavioral," and that "he wish he could send me the offer letter now." So…it's probably happening but I haven't heard word since the 28th. Until I start, I'm assuming I still don't have anything. Companies may still rescind offers.
Allow the world to show me what's next. Being open to possibility, meaning, and connection.
For the first time in a long time, I'm allowing myself peace. It's been hard since last September. Very little did I look forward to.
Meaningful losses:
The loss of time due to my lack of focus. It is something that cannot be recovered. (I don't think this was a character error on my part; uncomfortable living situations are just hard to manage).
Didn't:
Put ob-libre-translate on melpa
write more blog articles
go to that meetup where French people spoke English. Missed it 3 times because they were all on interview days, or days before interview days.
Like last month, I've lost lots of sleep. I think I can start recovering here though.
What I'm grateful for:
My students, I mentioned already he's presenting on Union Find! He's going to show off its classical use in Kruskal's algorithm as well as applications to leetcode problems.
The chance to interview at that one company.
The injection of insecurity from that "Design S3" system design interview I died on last year. It will only make me stronger.
This star log as I careen through abyssal space-time. The hiring manager looked at this journal. Apparently this gave me some cred. Huh. It's almost like my plan has at least marginal success. (yay)
France. No, the people are not friendly a lot of times, and a lot of them are not helpful, but there are always those that are. I am thankful for this country for not putting up barriers to my entry, and allowing me to repose.
The cost of living in France inspires the will to live. A man can be free here, unburdened by the orphan crushing machine of Les États-Units.
The kindness of others suggesting I look abroad to live for a bit.
My friend who kept my things safe for me in the Bay Area
My Airbnb host in France.
Looking ahead:
Still on the docket: Attempt to seriously write articles more.
May need to find a place to stay in the US now.
For the contacts I've collected, I know I need to help some people.
Think about setting up some resources or time aside to help the emacs community.
Continue Duolingo to improve French. Meetup is not popular in France so I will
Oddly enough, I didn't do any AI or Godot learning this month, like I thought I might this month. And the strategy turned out to be finding work, and
Finding my way back to the US.
I may know an old lady in France who might let me stay at her place if I work on her garden. Not really sure how that will play out, or if it will at all.