My second day of work

Yet again I woke up early today, at something like 6 or 7 o’clock AM here. I really wish that I had internet because this would be a great time for talking with all of you in the US with it (my Skype ID is “jdfennell” for whenever I am able to get back on for anyone that wants to call me). I’m getting a whole ton of reading done by waking up at this ridiculously early hour, and it hasn’t yet been too hard to make it through the days staying awake ^_^.

This morning Nels and I planned to leave at about 8:30 in order to get to work by 9:00. Unfortunately 8:30 came and went and breakfast did not arrive (it is supposed to be here between 8 and 8:30)! We waited until 8:50 and decided to stick it out and wait a few more minutes till 9:00. Literally *as we were standing up* to leave, the doorbell rang and it was the guy bringing breakfast. We ate quickly and left, but by 9:15 the traffic was already horrendous. We had to walk most of the 4km from our apartment to the office along the busy, polluted, and dangerous (b/c of the traffic) streets. I tried to take some pictures of this, but we shall see how they turn out.

We ended up not getting to work until around 10:00, again :-(. Once there I continued reading through the paper on the first topic I was given by Satya (which I didn’t find that interesting) and eventually met with Satya when he got into the office. He talked to me about a cryptographic procedure QUAD, which I took a quick look at, and also told me that my actual mentor for the summer is a guy named Venkie (who was the one to interview me). The only problem is that Venkie is in the US attending conferences and meetings for a little while longer! However, I did call him and talk to him on the phone, which gave me some idea of some things to look at for possible research topics. The most interesting of these is trying to construct a hash function for finger prints so that they could be used for authentication without giving away the original print. I’m also reading up on error correction codes.

I stayed late at work and got to talk to Mom and Elaine on the phone, which was also really nice. I realize that all of these blog posts are going to be posted at once (since I’ve been writing them on my laptop, which doesn’t have access to the internet). I’ll try to get them posted soon so you guys aren’t all in the dark!

One final nice thing that happened today was that once we got back home Sanjam, Nels, and I walked a little ways to a shop where we were able to buy some anti-mosquito things to plug into the wall (I’ve been getting bitten, and need to go buy repellant). I haven’t been able to use the mosquito netting Dad gave me yet since I don’t have a place to mount it on the ceiling and I’m still not sure if we will be moving from this place or not.

Cheers,

Jason