The Google Chronicles: Life of a Google Intern (Part 2)

It’s finally starting to sink in. Looking down at the date in the corner of my screen and seeing that it is already April keeps reminding me of how quickly the days are passing before summer arrives and I’m on my way to sunny California. And it being April also means one other big thing: I’ll soon be 21. I’m honestly not sure which is stranger to me. I don’t feel 21. I don’t even feel like I’m 20. Maybe 19. Being one of the youngest in my class has always had me connect better with the class or two under me. In fact, this year I probably spend the majority of my free time hanging out with the first years on my hall. And for those curious as to why I’m still living in a dorm on campus as a third year, I’m a mentor for the engineering living community. (Plus, living on campus is just convenient. I mean, I get to be right next to the best campus food in the nation, after all.) So turning 21 just seems absurd to me. I don’t see myself going out and drinking alcohol, either. The only time I’ll probably do that is just when I go back home after finals and let my father buy me a drink for the sake of a father buying his son his first drink. It certainly won’t be a beer, though.

But that is still twenty-two days away. The real reason I felt like posting was just as I had promised in my last post. The day following, I finally received the email from Google about the group they had set up for all the interns to join to assist in coordinating housing and roommates. This is exactly what I had been waiting for to get the ball rolling as far as actively finding a place to live and whatnot. The group also included a forum, and it was only a matter of time later that the introductions began. Since forum posts automatically get sent by email, my inbox began to explode within only a couple of hours. Interns from all over were making themselves known, excited to be joining the Mountain View team. Most simply listed their name, degree, school, major, and Google team. Admittedly, it began to become a little intimidating, seeing schools like MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and other well-known prestigious computer science schools representing the majority of interns. Then there was me, Mr. Virginia Tech. Now I’m not saying that Virginia Tech is not worthy nor capable of holding its place among these reputable schools, but one does begin to worry that he might have gotten himself into too deep of water. I’m sure this is just silly, nonetheless, and that I will be meeting some of the coolest people upon arriving on the Google campus. And for this I cannot wait.

So going back to housing. Upon adding my name to the coordination spreadsheet, I received an email a couple of days later. A fellow intern gathered all who would be interning during the same time period as he would be and began an email thread just among us. Quite a brilliant idea, really, and this greatly helped cut down on the additional stress of having to juggle between classwork and seeking out housing. A week or so went by, though, with no luck. Looking through the newest income of introduction emails, I noticed that the guy who started the housing thread, however, had found an apartment. The name he gave of the apartment was actually one that had been referred to me by my mother some time earlier when seeking out advice on the housing in Mountain View. Knowing that this was about as good as I was going to get, with it being only a few miles from the Google campus, I quickly sent out an email on the thread and asked if anyone would be interested in rooming there. I doubted someone would reply back, but thankfully that was not the case. A few hours later, I received an email from one of the guys accepting my proposition. A roommate had been found!

Now it was time to actually rent the apartment. We had to act fast as there was only one two-bed, one-bath apartment left. That evening, my new roommate and I would be engaging in a flurry of emails back and forth as we each filled out the forms and whatnot on the website. A few button clicks later, we were the proud new renters of an apartment. Whew! Finally, the stress of having to find a place to live and someone to live with was over. But with having found an apartment, someone to live with, and renting the apartment taking place in the course of just a single day, one realization began to dawn — I really did not know my new roommate at all! Now the thoughts began flooding my mind, hoping that I did not just make a huge mistake. I figured I’d check to see if he had a profile on Facebook, but alas I was unable to find one. I supposed I was simply going to have to email him to find out more about him.

With all the apartment logistics out of the way, I sent my new roommate, Erich, an email asking him what year he was in at the University of Texas (which I had found out through his introduction email way back). He replied back, telling me that he was a third year, like myself. I was very pleased about this, actually, though I wouldn’t have minded much otherwise. I responded back with a little information about myself and proceeded to ask what sort of things he liked to do. I was only expecting a few sentences with the typical generic responses, but to my surprise, he actually sent a decent-length email, and certainly not anything typical nor generic. He said he enjoyed solving puzzles, as most CS majors do, but also that he liked writing fiction and poetry. This intrigued me. I have done some dabbling in poetry, myself, and have plenty of friends who like to write fiction. He also went on to talk about how he enjoyed languages, both computational and natural, and toying with absurd ideas. Now he started to sound just like my best friend back home. This was becoming more interesting. Finally, he brought up that he used to do martial arts and was thinking about possibly getting back into it while in Mountain View. Again, another commonality between us. It was quite evident that I was going to enjoy having Erich as a roommate.

While Erich ended up having a Facebook profile after all, he was not very active. Nonetheless, he did like to post his poetry as notes. Eighty-nine to be exact. And naturally, as a fellow “poet”, I felt inclined to read a couple. And then that couple turned into ten. (I had to start doing homework eventually at some point, or I would have continued.) I was amazed to say the least. These poems were incredible! Every word would ring in my head; it was as if he knew me. His poems reminded me greatly of my own, but so elegantly written so as to keep the distinction clear that this was no poetry of mine. In his email to me, he mentioned that he would add that he was not decent at writing until someone told him that they would hit him if he kept it up, and I can see why. I look forward to reading the remaining poems as I get the chance to do so in the coming weeks. If you’re reading this, Erich, keep up the great work — you have real talent.

I suppose that pretty much wraps up all that I have to talk about for now. Needless to say, I am beginning to become quite anxious about starting at Google. It’s getting a little bit more difficult each day to focus on the work currently at hand. But I suppose that’s a good thing, really.

Cheers!