Sights, Scenes, and Spirituality: A week in the life of a _______

Sunday, June 24th

Update: So... I drafted the post below this past Tuesday, but, due to a mixture of not having internet at my apartment and plain busy-ness, I haven't had the chance to put this up until now (5 days later). A brief update since then, this past Thursday, I went electric boating on Lake Union through with other interns from the Explorer internship program (I drove a boat for my first time!), and this weekend I camped and hiked in Olympic National Park. This was a great experience and I definitely encourage all those who have the means to explore the great outdoors - at least in the States, the National Parks have something for everyone - from intense trails for experienced backpackers to short, easy trails for families. Pictures from the past few weeks can be found here. Now onto the actual post (from this Tuesday).


Tuesday, June 19

My roommates and I (minus one) at the Space Needle

Today after work, I visited the Space Needle and the Chihuly Garden & Glass exhibit with about a dozen other interns from Harvard. Thankfully, the overcast clouds from the morning were no where in sight and the weather was on its best behavior. However, I was a bit out of place with my polka dotted rainboats and trenchcoat from the slightly uglier morning. When I flew out to interview with Microsoft on-campus this past spring, I already visited the Space Needle, so that experience wasn't new. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the panaramic view of the different Seattle districts as well as Lake Union and Washington. Yet, the Chihuly exhibit was truly a treat.

Views from the Space Needle:

Microsoft Harvard Interns @ Chihuly Exhibit

This Seattle native who originally studied architecture in university played around with pieces of glass as a hobby. After college, he travelled to Italy, where the art of glass blowing originated from a few centuries ago, to study the art more seriously. Shortly after coming back from Italy, he began pioneering new practices and techniques in the world of glass blowing. Throughout the 70s and 80s, he created countless glass works (enough to fill plenty of exhibits), led RISD's glass blowing program, and even ran his own experimental school for glass blowing. In the late 80s, he was in a car accident that forced him to stop his blowing, yet, still till today, he continues to direct his team to make new works using his techniques and continues to teach blowing to the excited and interested.

Some sculptures from the Chihuly Exhibit:

Needless to say, I really enjoyed his collection and found that it elegantly captured and reflected the beauty of nature. After scaling the Space Needle, we headed over to Dick's - a classic American burger joint that some say is comparable to California's In & Out (I've never been, so I wouldn't know).

This week has been and is filled with many exciting events - plenty to keep me busy. Yesterday (On Monday), I worked a 12-hour day - 9am to 9pm - to finish up my functional spec as well as to clock in enough hours to leave work early for the rest of the week. This weekend, I'll be camping and hiking in Olympic National Park, and on Thursday, I'll be going with some other Explorer interns on an electric boat scavenger hunt on Lake Union.

In terms of work, these past two weeks have been fairly busy: my team has been diligently working on our functional spec - an extensive document that basically details the "spec" (specifications) of exactly what our project is and does. We just had our full spec review today, and I'm proud to say that, though we received a lot of suggestions and constructive criticism, the feedback was largely positive and our project was signed off on! I've been learning how best to communicate my thoughts and needs to my teammates  and mentors. While at a retreat with my local church's college fellowship this past weekend, I realized that I often overworked myself above and beyond the call of duty simply to look good. In that effort, I had not leveraged the aid of my team as much as I could have. It's definitely still a learning process; thankfully, I maintain a fairly healthy work-life balance: When I leave work, I leave work at the office for the night.

Group Picture (normal version)

CG campers!

As I mentioned before, this past weekend I went with my local church to nearby Auburn, WA, on a church retreat called CG Camp (short for Common Ground) for the college-aged church members. While a year at Harvard and now an internship at Microsoft have both been great blessings and opportunities that God definitely orchestrated (more on this later), I feel that I unconciously became a bit disoriented through the process. Attending such a prestigious school and snagging a nice internship right after freshman year, I easily fell into the mindset of perpetually thinking about and prioritizing my future and "success" as benchmarked by the ambitious measures of marks and opportunities. I deluded myself into thinking that I still lived for God, yet truly, my actions were driven by selfish motives: my desire to have options after graduation, to maximize my experiences, and to basically have a good time. Sure, I didn't do the "bad things": I don't drink or smoke or even swear. I even did some "good things": I'd donate to charities and be able to hold a conversation about Christian theology. However, so many things were missing. The first signs were when consistent church attendance and quiet time with God became obligations that I started slipping on. The next was when I began to feel ashamed of who I believed in and started treating my faith in Jesus as a private religion instead of a personal, yet passionate relationship.

Group Games at CG Camp:

"Hide-and-Go-Seek"

Human Etch-A-Sketch of "Aquarium"

Human Etch-A-Sketch of "Video game"

Despite my state, God still prevailed. From the moment I stepped off the plane in Seattle, God began working in my life to get me back into His. As I mentioned in my first blog post, an elder at my local church and his wife welcomed me to the Pacific Northwest my first day and extended to me Christ-like hospitality. Through them, I was plugged into their church from day one and was provided rides to all of their services and fellowships. This accountability was exactly what I needed in order to start having God be a regular part of my life again. Seeing many members of this church demonstrate love in so many different ways, from providing rides at 1am to introducing me to countless Microsoft employees in the congregation to simply making me feel welcomed into their community, God reminded me of what the congregation - the Body of Christ - is really suppose to look like. I had been struggling with spending quality time with God daily in prayer and in His Word, yet God reached me through my favorite avenue: technology. By chance, I began reading Francis Chan's book Crazy Love that I had downloaded on my Kindle a few months ago per a friend's suggestion. Reading through this book these past few weeks, coupled by this past weekend's retreat on happiness & holiness, really pressed me to face the fact that my faith was seriously messed up. For anyone who's currently struggling with a lukewarm faith, I'd highly encourage them to read Chan's book - it's a straight-forward, easy read that explains hard truths honestly. Basically, Chan points out that most American Christians are motivated by things of this world (i.e. career, success, family, etc.) instead of things of God and are only willing to give God a slice of their life, time, and resources. If Christians really took Jesus' teachings literally (i.e. "what you do for the least of your brothers, you do for me"), Chan challenges that we would very palpably see the Christian community pour much more time and resouces into serving the poor and needy as well as a much more noticeable outpour of love. He reminds his readers that the early Christians did not coin the name "Christian" for themselves, but rather non-believers at that time invented the label to describe them. Chan's point is that Christians were known by their actions not their label. This really made me wonder, if my Facebook account didn't say that my religion was "Christianity", would people think me different from my peers? The answer was fairly obvious (no). Chan also pointed out that simply making bigger promises to love God more wouldn't work (I can attest to this point, I've tried applying the "self-help" method to my faith - it doesn't work). The only solution, Chan suggests, is to ask God for help in this area of loving Him and living for Him. So, I've been trying that, that is, trying to lift up my current faith struggle to him and saying, "God, I feel like I literally can't get any "better", that I'm stuck in this spiritual and behavioral rut for life, but I believe you to be the same God that parted the Red Sea and level the city of Jericho, so I'm taking a leap of faith here and asking you to help me love you better."

I still am far from being the perfect Christian, or even a "good" one at that (there are no such things). I've realized these truths, that I don't fully love God as passionately as He desires and that I can't compel myself to anymore than I can compel myself to love vegetables. I still struggle with showing Christ-like love in the workplace and in my home when things are busy and crazy and stressful. Yet, at least for the past few days, I feel closer to God and that my attitude on faith and life has been slowly changing. I'm no longer viewing reading the Bible as a chore and that I can treat my coworkers and roommates well when I keep my mind on Christ and his transformative power. I still feel "PC" (politically correct) about my faith, but even in this area, God is slowly working with me (hey, this is a pretty lengthy blog post about God right?)

Anyways, if you are a fellow Christian, I encourage you to reexamine your faith through a similar lens as well as to pray for me as I continue to trust in God to grow in my faith, that I may store up treasures in heaven rather than strive for treasures on earth, that I may treat each person that I encounter as I would Christ, and that I would passionately love and treasure God. My hope and prayer for you is the same.

Enjoy the precious summer days with your friends and family wherever you are.

Best,
Ruth

Second Week in Seattle

Hi all!

Hello again from Seattle! I realize that I have not been diligent of the late in keeping up with the blog; there has just been so much going on. That said, I promise to do a better job with the updates, and this posts marks and describes the end of my second full week in Seattle (May 28 - June 3). Compared to my first week, when a firehouse of information continued to hit me and stretch me, this past week I felt a lot more confident in my work. My pod mates and I just finished our first big milestone (writing our "short-pager" - an overview of our project that we're now waiting to get "signed off" on). 

To explain more of what I'm doing at Microsoft, this summer I'm part of Microsoft's Explorer internship program, which is targeted at freshmen and sophomores in college. The twelve-week program groups interns in teams or "pods" of three that work together on one project and rotate through the main software development roles: PM (project manager), SDE/Dev (Software Development Engineer), SDET/Test (Software Development Engineer in Test). For my pod's project, the first four weeks, we're all acting as PMs and are working to design, scope, and spec out our project. The next four weeks, we'll spend as Devs, planning the code architecture of our project and coding the project up. Then, the last four weeks, we'll act as Tests, testing our project through manual and automated tests. I've really been enjoying the PM role and meeting with various Microsoft employees to talk about our project.

This past week, I also became more plugged into the local church I was introduced to by Uncle Peter and Auntie Marilyn the week before. With one of my roommates Grace, I checked out a few fellowship groups for young adults and was really encouraged by the open, genuine community and honest desire to become more Christ-like that I saw in so many of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Again, I was met with an outpouring of Christ's love from all sides - with many brothers and sisters giving me rides to and from fellowship and church and even one kind sister who picked up me and my friends from the movie theater at 1am in the morning.

Fueling my need for speed in a U. Wash. race car @ Science Expo

The Knights of Veritas @ Science Expo

On the weekend, I went to Seattle Center again where there was a huge Science Expo going on that day. My friends and I saw a lot of cool robotic displays and even played around with U. of Washington's competition race car, among many other things. One of our favorite parts of the Science Expo was the great weather: one of my roommates and I just lay in the grass field and sunbathed for a while. We also really enjoyed the catchy science soundtrack that played throughout the day (there were songs about having a mom as a scientist and what a paleontologist does that were pretty infectious I must say). 

Visiting the oldest Starbucks @ Pike's Place

Dawning some Starbucks swag while waiting for our drinks!

One of the perks of being a Microsoft intern is that we each get a discount card that works at a variety of restaurants and attractions. So, last weekend we ate at a mid-priced American and Seafood restaurant (Cellar's Restaurant and Lounge) for half-price. Afterwards, we parted ways; I headed to with another Microsoft intern friend, I watched Idina Menzel perform live at the Paramount Theatre (a really pretty theatre) while my two roommates went to another concert. Watching Idina Menzel was really amazing, she's really funny in concert and it was just a cool opportunity to be able to see her live and tie together her rich history as an actress, singer, and performer. But before the concert, we had a few extra minutes to spare, so we visited the oldest Starbucks in Pike's Place Market and even got some hot cocoa before the show started.

Outside Paramount theatre ready to watch Idina Menzel live!

Inside Paramount theatre (it's gorgeous!)

Idina Menzel opening the show

Leaving a beautiful Seattle after concert

On Sunday, I went to church again with Grace and we ate out afterwards with some of the church members. In the afternoon, I met up with Michelle - one of my college friends who was in town this weekend - and we visited Gas Works park - a small park with old gas pipes - in downtown Seattle. After playing on the jungle gym of pipes for a while, we had the chance to observe real LARPers - live action role players - in action. There were probably about 20 LARPers dawning full medieval knight armor lined up for battle, and when they sounded the gong to begin fighting, they really did duke it out! Several LARPers fell in defeat.

Gas Works Park

Michelle and I climbing the pipes 

LARPers lining up for battle

Engaging full on

After Gas Works, we headed over to Alki Beach in West Seattle. There, we walked along the shore of the Puget Sound (Seattle's large body of water that opens into the Pacific Ocean) and rented one of those family bikes for an hour and had a blast ringing our bike's bell and pedaling incessantly (it was a one-speed double surrey bike for four people). To top of the weekend's adventure, we ate at Taphouse Grill with Microsoft's saving card with a Buy One Get One Free Entree discount.

Sunny skies on Alki Beach

Cycling around on the Alki Beach boardwalk

Pedaling away on our one-speeder

Stay tuned for a post about my past two weeks, during which I went on kayaking with other Microsoft interns, to the zoo for Microsoft appreciation day, and to a church retreat with a college fellowship! I hope you and your family are safe and well; let me know how you are!

Best,

Ruth