My video premier to the world wide web!

I sometimes wonder if each new blog entry will be able to keep up pace with the others I have posted on this website. Probability seems to indicate that at least one of my blog entries should be dull or boring. I hope this is not the one, as I have once again been surprised at my week’s activities. Wondering why I had my own makeup artist and camera crew following me around for 3 days? Read further to find out!

The work week started off busy as ever. I am finding that the better I perform, the greater task load I am given. While this is a good thing, I still find myself continually surprised by the magnitude of my work tasks! If I were a manager, I am not sure I would entrust these tasks to a young intern! Nevertheless, I am very pleased with the sense of accomplishment I get from completing them.

This week was my first week to attend a famed “Taco-licious Tuesday” at Fred’s Mexican Restaurant in Old Town. This restaurant is a popular place for locals and tourists alike, since the $2 tacos and margaritas are famous to San Diego! Picture this: One grilled chicken taco, one shrimp taco, and 2 house margaritas totals up to $8.34. What a steal, right? A group of us attended the Taco Tuesday after work and enjoyed delicious food and good conversation. I have a feeling there will be more Taco Tuesday’s in the weeks to come.

Wednesday I attended my first yoga class, which was provided free by my apartment complex. While I don’t consider myself to be extremely flexible, I had no idea how mediocre my abilities were until this class. There were women ages 20-70 who could bend their bodies in ways I did not know were possible! Between the slow entrancing music and sloth-like motion, I was more likely to fall asleep then get a workout. Yet my assumptions were proven wrong, because when I woke up the following morning, I had sore muscles. Who knew that making ones body become a human pretzel could cause such sore muscles the following morning?

Thursday afternoon I attended a free lunch event at work for the interns, where the interns ate lunch while talking to an executive panel of speakers. After a brief introduction, the executives opened the floor for questions. I raised my hand and asked: “On a day to day basis, what do you do to inspire your employees to innovate?” This was the first question to stump them, as the executives shared glances. The whole room laughed as the executives mentally collected their answers to share. When I got back to my office later that afternoon, I had a smattering of emails from my Qualcomm Boulder friends congradulating me on stumping the executives! I had completely forgotten that a live video was being streamed to Qualcomm’s remote offices (like Boulder, Austin, etc)! It was great to hear from a few of my friends in Boulder, as it reminded me how much I appreciate and miss them.

Thursday evening we continued with a tradition Anne and I have enjoyed since my second week here: Grilling and hot-tubbing by the pool. This Thursday was a really fantastic grilling experience, as we had over 8 people turn out to join us. Something about enjoying grilled food and taking a dip in the hot tub is therapeutic for me. It is one of my favorite ways to celebrate surviving through the work week. This week’s menu? A cheeseburger and tossed salad.

Qualcomm continues to surprise me. I sometimes feel like “The Chosen One” in the company. Another fantastic opportunity was provided for me on Thursday and Friday this week. I was selected, along with another 4 lucky interns, to participate in a professional video shoot called, “A Day in the Life of the Interns.” Since this video will eventually be posted on Qualcomm’s global website for recruiting efforts, no expense was spared to create the film. I had a professional camera crew and director, in addition to a professional make-up artist following me for the past two days! I felt very unnatural and out of place, as I got my make-up professional done and touched-up every few hours for each video segment. I shared a few small laughs with myself as words like “Action!” and “Camera Lighting 1” were casually tossed around by the film crew. I showed the crew the Imaging Lab that I work in, including the light booth and various resolution and color charts I use to test Qualcomm’s camera solution. I also had my first encounter using a “green screen” which was used for the interview portion (You can see this in the picture to the right!). Perhaps my favorite thing to film was a Qualcomm event called “QSOL,” which stands for “Qualcomm Summer on the Lawn”. This event is best described as a company-wide picnic with free food and bands on a green lawn. As I may have mentioned before, I am a part of a women-in-engineering group at Qualcomm. In this group, I organized and am currently co-directing a program which connects female interns to a female mentor. I personally believe that having a female mentor is a very important piece for female engineers, as girls are still a small minority in the computer engineering field! Thus, I invited the female interns and their corresponding mentor pairs to join me at the QSOL event (You can see a picture of all of the women in my program to the right!). We got brightly colored balloons and beach blankets to sit on and enjoy watching the music bands. It was really great to see all of my hard work being put into action at the event.

Let’s see if you were paying attention? Did you count TWO free meals from Qualcomm this week? Did you catch that I will soon have a video being posted online for the entire globe (and Qualcomm’s 14,000 employees) to see? Did you see that I am continuing to enjoy the delicious Mexican food here? Did you catch my wording about how back-breaking yoga can be? If so, than consider yourself thoroughly updated on another dreamy week here in beautiful San Diego. I miss all of my friends and family, but I continue to truly enjoy my time in this incredible city.

Curious what is on the agenda for tomorrow? SURFING LESSONS!! Updates on that will be posted on this blog soon!