Racing Through Chicago

Ready...Set...Race!

On Monday, 200 of my fellow interns and I descended upon Chicago to take part in the "Amazing Race", a team building type activity that took us all throughout the city of Chicago. IT WAS CRAZY! We were given clues that lead us to various landmarks throughout the city like Wrigley Field, Sears Tower, Second City, and Buckingham Fountain. Once we made it to those landmarks, we had to do crazy things to get points, like singing "Take Me Out to The Ballgame" while outside of Wrigley Field. It was a really cool way to see different places in the city, and we got money to do it. SUSAN: I went to the hotdog place. And ate one. But I forgot a photo :(

One of the other ways we could get points was by getting random items like Cubs hats, wine corks, shotglasses, and McDonald's toys to name a few. So what happened to all of these things at the end? We got them! So, the three of us got Chicago hats, wine bottles, and shot glasses...and decided to party it up in the limo on the way back. Hence, the crazy the photos that are now going to be on the blog. Sorry Andy and Keith, you are now living in infamy.

The rest of the week managed to pass by uneventfully -- the interns are gearing up for the poster presentation that is taking place up at Abbott Park this Thursday, so we have been going to craft stores and Walmart to try and find everything that's needed for the posters. Mine is called "An AMD Summary", and is an overview of the products that AMD puts out. Mainly, it's because a lot of people still don't know what AMD does since it has only been up and running for about five years now.

While Keith is going above and beyond with his poster on the Plex-ID, I'm just trying to get mine done. I'm basing it off of the IMDb website, so that way the other interns can kind of draw parallels. And so then I don't have to be as creative.

By the way, I went and saw "Inception" on Thursday night -- it was a great use of $10, by the way. It was one of those movies that continues to make me think even days afterward. It was incredibly interesting, mind bending, and one of those movies that leaves you walking out of the theater trying to figure out something that you can't quite put your finger on. Don't worry, I won't say anymore, however I highly recommend it to anyone who is on the fence about seeing it. Once you do....let me know, and we can trade theories!

On Saturday I almost didn't head into the city...it was raining! Once it stopped, I went into the city, and they were having MASSIVE flooding problems. I went to the north side of the city to the Chicago History Museum, and it was a very interesting museum. It was really cool to see the history behind the start of Chicago, and then all of the famous and infamous events that have happened in their past. There were exhibits on the deep dish pizza, the origin of the hot dog, Al Capone, the Great Chicago Fire (by the way, the City of Chicago exonerated Mrs. O'Leary AND her cow a few years ago of any wrong doing in the Chicago Fire), and many other events throughout history. There was also one about the Playboy Club, which I thought was funny.

Also, I decided that if I somehow end up in the Chicago area after college, I am going to get married at the Chicago History Museum. I somehow manged to wander into the banquet hall, and as I glanced outside, my breath was taken away. It was gorgeous outside, and gorgeous inside. 

Afterward, I was making my way back to the El station to go downtown (on an errand I'll write about in a paragraph after this one), when I, on a whim, decided to turn left instead of straight and walk through Old Town. A great decision, I must say so. I found what I decided to call the "Chicago Freedom Trail" (in honor of the few times my mother had us walk the infamous Boston Freedom Trail....I'm assuming it wasn't actually that horrible, but family legend and lore has made it miles longer than it was and uphill both ways). It was plaques at various points along the street that gave the history of Old Town. Now, if that wasn't the best part, I found a fudge shop called "The Fudge Pot". IT WAS DELICIOUS. Of course, delicious chocolate doesn't come cheap...the brick of a chocolate caramel was completely worth it though.

So, now onto the real reason why I was heading downtown. The SWE National headquarters are located in Chicago, and I figured since I was in town, I should go by and see them (it was like a nerdy pilgrimage). After walking out of my way for about 10 minutes, I finally found the right place. It is right near the Chicago Board of Trade, which has been featured in movies like The Dark Night and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and will be in Transformers 3. So, the office building where SWE is located is in those movies, too! I felt really nerdy when I wandered inside to see the listing of companies and explained why I was there to the doorman. She seems to find it funny though, and let me wander around the lobby, which was nice and cool while it was muggy and nasty outside.

Another delicious food item of Chicago's is Garrett's popcorn, which is know for it's "ChicagoMix", which is caramel corn and cheese corn mixed together. While it sounds kind of gross, it is actually DELICIOUS! I stopped by on my way to the El station (ok, actually, I went three blocks out of my way, but I REALLY wanted that popcorn) to get myself some "gourmet" popcorn, and finally headed back to Des Plaines.

Surgical Science Museum next weekend? I hope so!

Lesley

Wallace's Grommets

A few weeks ago, Keith and I (and when I say Keith and I, I really just mean me since it really was my idea, Keith just encouraged it) had this great idea for the Abbott website. On the Abbott employee intranet, there is this site not unlike craigslist for employees to place ads on. Seeing this, I had an incredible flash of brilliance!

The founder of Abbott is Dr. Wallace C. Abbott, who was a doctor in the late 1800s. And, as some of you know, Wallace & Grommet is one of the BEST movie franchises of all time! I was introduced to these brilliant movies when I was about seven years old, and Uncle Richard sent us a three movie set for Christmas. And, grommets are also a term for a type of fastener, or, as I like to call it, a do-hickey.

Therefore, I had a flash of inspiration -- why not call the ad website Wallace's Grommets! I thought it was an extremely great idea, as did the other interns (yes, all two of them). Now, if only corporate would go for it....

In the ten minutes I have been sitting here writing, the weather went from hot and muggy to wet, rainy, and thunder. For once, my laziness has paid off....it's long run day according to my running schedule, and around 11 I was going to go out for my leisurely 4 mile run. If I had....I would be out there, at this moment, getting completely soaked. Oh joy. But no, instead I decided I was going to wait for it to cool off, to go out later in the day. I told Randi that I have a major problem motivating myself when she isn't there to motivate me, or at least guilt me into going to practice.

While I do have trouble motivating myself to go out running, I did go for a nice bike ride yesterday....the five mile round-trip to Target at least. Well, I needed a few things, and Target is pretty close, so I figured it would be a good ride. It's only about 15 minutes or so by bike to Target, and it's all flat -- so unlike San Luis Obispo. And it was incredibly hot then, too! I didn't feel it as much when I was riding because I could catch a slight breeze, but as soon as I stopped I was just sweating like crazy...and this was at 8 pm!

Since the 'rents left, life here has been pretty uneventful. I am still working hard at my job. I had a small thought crisis earlier this week when I realized one of my projects is taking much longer than planned (and I missed my deadline by a week so far), and another one of my deadlines is quickly approaching. One reason why I missed my deadline is because the project is taking much longer than both my boss and I thought it would take. We've discussed it, and as long as I keep her updated with my progress, it's fine with her. On that note, I really enjoy working for my boss (she is incredibly funny, and you can tell she has teenage kids whenever she speaks to you because she is definitely a no-nonsense kind of woman), and the people in my group. I get picked on, but it's just cause I'm the newbie and it's all in good fun. As for my other project....it's not actually due until the end of the summer, but I have a presentation on it in two weeks. And it's not even close to being done yet! I'd say that I'm 15% along, so it's going to take a lot of work for me to get it done on time.

One of the great things about the Abbott intern program is that they plan a lot of activities for us. One event we recently got to participate in was a dinner at the Abbott house. The Abbott house is a replica of Wallace Abbott home where he first started up his company, Abbott Alkaloidal, in the late 1800s. The original sits in Ravenswood, IL, and the one on the Abbott property is a replica. It was built in 2005, and is there to host board meetings, and events such as the intern dinner I attended on Friday evening. We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but the outside is pretty neat.

The intern dinner is where they bring in interns from all across the country at all of the different Abbott divisions, and we get to meet some of the senior board members and learn more about the company. They are definitely grooming us to accept jobs with them in the future, that much is obvious. But it's also obvious how much everyone in the company cares about the work that they do. It's not just about the amount of money they make, but the fact that the research that they are doing, the drugs that they are making, the tests that they are perfecting, make a giant impact on the world and that's why they do what they do. This is why I want to work in a field like this, where I know that the work I do can directly benefit the good of others. It's why I became a biomedical engineer.

On another note, I am getting a lot of reading done while I am here....but not much research. In fact the amount of research I've done for my thesis equals about....0. It's just hard to sit down at my computer after a full day staring at one at work and work more. I have to start making myself do it! But I am reading a lot of books...I bought a couple more books on sale a few weeks ago, and I am steadily making my way through them.

In the past twenty minutes, the weather has changed again! It is now sunny, and I can't tell if the noise outside is from the airplanes or residual thunder. Guess I'll find out soon enough.

One More Thing....

Bon fete nationale de la France!

Ca c'est le jour de Bastille en France. Il y a deux ans, je me suis asseye sur le tour eiffel avec mes amies. Tu me manques Paris....


English translation!
Happy national holiday in France!

It's Bastille Day in France. Two years ago, I was sitting beneath the Eiffel Tower with my friends. Paris, I miss you....

Beh! Je m'espere que je suis en France maintenent!

Man! I wish I was in France right now!

Do I ever.....

Me and the Muggy City

Oh man. IT IS HOT HERE! And not just hot...it's muggy. Yuck.

If it weren't for the indoor gym at my place, I wouldn't be running at all. Because running in the humidity just SUCKS. I've done it a few times already and it is horrible. Just an fyi for all of you out there.

Days like today make me really happy to be working inside a building with AC, as opposed to years past when I would be sitting outside suffering in the heat of the valley while making sure kids didn't drown, or have too much fun.

Work and life has been interesting to say the least. My parents and little sis (yup, Mama and Papa T came a-visitin') came and hung out in Chicago...well, I guess you can't just come and hang out from San Francisco. For those of you who don't know, Papa T grew up just a few hours from Chicago, and Mama T's parents retired to about 30 minutes from here -- so it was like coming home for them! Since I had to work, you know, because that's what I am here to do, they entertained themselves during the week and they we all hung out together on the weekend.

I managed to work extra during the week, so I could leave work SUPER early on Friday. Mama T then took us on the Tour of Illinois, seeing the house where my grandparents retired in Lake Forest, the house she spent a few years in when she was very young in lake Bluff, and then her grandmother's house in Zion. Apparently, Zion was started as a very religious community, with a very "for the good of the community" socialist view. It was kind of cult-like...something that you can't find on any website because they like it covered up. Crazy, right?

On Saturday, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry (really, a return for me), and spent an ENTIRE day wandering around the museum. We got to go inside the U-boat this time, which was insane! This sub is 15 feet across at its widest, and 7 feet tall at its best. 59 sweaty, stinky men in this sub for 3 months at a time...quite a lovely picture to be had. The average temperature on the sub was somewhere in the mid-high 80s...nasty.

I think one of the best stories about the sub was that the US had to ignore all Geneva conventions when it came to capturing the men on this sub. They had 58 POWs to hide, and they wouldn't let the Red Cross or the German high command know of their capture, because otherwise Germany would know that the US had access to their codes for their code machine, Enigma. This code machine was amazingly complicated (even for now), and was proving to be impossible to crack. The U-boat was caught just 2 days before the invasion of Normandy, and therefore the Germans couldn't know that the US now had their codes and other valuable machinery. I'm not saying it was right, but there was definitely a reason why the US did what it did. But the information they got was....invaluable.

I also went down the coal mine, which was a really cool exhibit on the history of mining and how it works. The best part was when I visited Abbott Hall, which had to do with (shocker here) Biomedical! Yay! The whole hall was filled with exhibits like this one, which is an expanded inside body view -- it was so cool! This is why I want to do what I do, I love seeing this kind of thing.

The best part of the Abbott Hall (they donated over $2M -- that why I get in for free) is that they showcased one of their products that I have been working on, a fluorescent probe for seeing cancer cells in the chromosome for breast cancer. It is very interesting technology, and I get to see it in action every single day. This is why I became a biomedical engineer, because I want to be able to help people. And everything Abbott does helps.

And then, we drove by what might have been the coolest part of the day (after the expanded innards, of course)...the Transformers 3 set! They're filming a large part of the movie in Chicago, and so my mom looked up where they were filming and we did a driveby....multiple times. Isn't it neat?! For about four blocks around, there were trucks EVERYWHERE, and then on two blocks were completely sectioned off and it looked like this photo -- just a bunch of "crashed" cars and mayhem and destruction. Susan, I didn't see any Autobots or Decepticons unfortunately.

Sunday, we slowed it down a bit and went and visited the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oak Park, which is about 20 minutes away from where I am staying. I give him this, Frank Lloyd Wright was an incredibly gifted architect...but not the best when it comes to people skills or maintaining a home life. He was a truly gifted architect at the expense of his family and everyone around him. He really was a control freak -- he designed dresses for the wives of his clients so that they could match the house! The house in Oak Park was the first that he designed, and he and his family lived there for a long time. He only lived there on and off for about 15 years before his wife finally gave him the divorce he wanted and he moved away for good. We then took a driving tour, and since Oak Park is where he lived for awhile there's a bunch of homes around that he designed. He was very famous for telling the builders, when they asked how they were suppose to build to his crazy drawings, "I don't know. I just designed it, you have to build it". He also felt that people should really be appreciative of being able to work with him, and therefore when they came looking to him for payment he rarely had it. He died destitute and poor...like so many brilliant minds do.

Unfortunately, it was back to work on Monday, and while Mama and Papa T, and little T , went into Navy Pier and Sears Tower I was in meetings. At least on Tuesday we had our Employee Picnic, so I was paid to eat some pretty good food, play softball, and just generally hang out. It was a lot of fun, and I can see that the employees here are of the "work hard, play hard" type. I think I could get used to this!

Lesley

Life's Better on a Bike

That's right, I broke down and purchased a mode of transportation. That mode of transportation is a bike, and seems to be pretty good and I got it for a good price.

I got tired of not being able to go where I wanted when I wanted. Yes, we can ask the hotel to take us places, but it's weird sometimes to ask them to take us to dinner or other places. We do get taken to the grocery store once a week, but I've only gone once.

Anyway, my bike took it's maiden voyage to Target on Friday, and worked out just fine. It's weird riding a road bike versus my normal mountain bike, but I got used it to real quickly.

This past week went by very quickly. Right now I am sitting and trying to upload my pictures from my past few weeks here. I am starting my fourth week here! The time is now flying by so quickly. I have so much to do at work this week that I hope I can get all of it done on time...far cry from me being really bored, right? haha.

This past week was a very busy one as well. Monday and Tuesday were normal days at work, but on Wednesday we had a "Career Development Forum" up at Abbott Park. It was a day for all of the interns in the country...which meant that there were 300 or so of us at this thing. I didn't realize how many of us there were from Cal Poly...about 9 or 10 I think. I'm one of two Biomedicals, and there's some Mechanicals, Industrials, and a Comp Sci. On that note, the entire day we were touted with the numbers that we were the top 3% of people who got Abbot interns. Apparently, 15,000 people applied for the job that I have!! And I thought that getting into college was hard. Much of the day was set aside to inform us of the Professional Development Program, which is a two year rotational program for recent grads. I have applied for it, and I do hope that I get the job, because moving around for a few years after college sounds amazing. However, getting into the PDP program is even harder than getting the internship. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Also at this Career Development Forum, we went to a few lectures. The first one I went to was on etiquette, specifically dinner etiquette while at business functions. The guy was really funny, and I did learn a lot. The second was on emotional intelligence, which was a very interesting topic. The man was talking about how by making our lives monotonous, we continually looking forward to something, whether it be the weekend, vacation, anything. And by doing that, we can't enjoy the life we are living now. So, break up the monotony, have fun at everything you (while it's easier said than done), and you can enjoy life more. This rang true with me, because it's like what I have been trying to get myself to do this past year. Earlier this year, I decided that by not sweating the small stuff, and by removing myself from some of the crazy ini my life, I can be a lot happier. And it's worked so far.

I worked over 40 hours this past week, but I'm applying the hours to next week so that I can leave early next Friday when my parents are in town. It was ok, because I still had a bunch of work to do. I moved desks on Tuesday, and I am not sure if I get more work done there or less work. I moved next to Keith, one of the other interns, and so now we do talk a lot. I am getting work done, because now I don't wander over to his desk part way through the day, but I did notice that when he left early on Friday I was able to zone everyone out and get a bunch of work done.

I have today, Monday, off from work, so I spent almost all of Saturday and Sunday in the city seeing the sights. Saturday morning, I headed over to the Art Institute of Chicago, where I got in for free because apparently the Abbott foundation donates a bunch of money. Yay for me! I enjoy walking along the water to get places because it was incredibly nice out. The Lion to the left is one of two that flanks the entrance on Michigan Avenue to the Art Institute.

Some pieces inside the institute are "American Gothic", "Nighthawk", and a lot of Georgia O'Keefe's work. I tried to find the Matisse works, because I really find them interesting, but navigating the Art Institute is crazy because you can only get from exhibit to exhibit is to go down to the first floor and go back to the floor you want at the exhibit you want. I was also meeting up with friends to go to Taste of Chicago, but since it's free, I am going to go back another day.

On that note, Taste was delicious!! There was so much food and it was so amazing. I met with a few friends and we all bought a roll of tickets and then shared everything we bought. It lead us eat a turkey leg, chocolate dipped cheesecake, beignets, Irish eggrolls, honey dipped catfish, and a lot of delicious fruit. Yeah, there was a bunch of people there, but it just added to it all, and made it a bunch of fun.

On Sunday, my friends and I went to Sears Tower, which is now actually called "Willis Tower" because some London group bought the tower and the right to it. However, apparently all Chicagoans refuse to call it anything else than Sears Tower. As always, the views were amazing. One of the newest things that they added in the last year or so is the glass walkouts, of which there are four on the Skywalk. Ok, so these walkouts are extended about five feet out into THIN AIR! The whole time, my engineering mind was saying "It's ok, there's a bunch of engineering and calculations and simulation testing that went into this and so no one is going to die", and my irrational mind was going "Holy Crap get me out of here!" Needless to say, I went out, got my picture, and then left as soon as I could.

After the Sears Tower, my friends and I ate at Giordano's, which is one of the famous places in Chicago for deep-dish pizza. It's not THE place for it, but those places also have hour long waits. I ate at Giordano's last week with my boss and my manufacturing group. We have some deep dish pizza, and it was so delicious! I love the food in this city.

Afterwards, we navigated the El and buses so that we could go to the Museum of Science and Industry. Again, it's free because the Abbot Foundation donates a bunch of money.

One of the coolest features of the MSI is that they have the only captured German U-boat from WWII. While it costs more to go on a tour of the U-boat, you can go through the entire exhibit for free, and since I only had about an hour, that's what I did. It was incredibly interesting, and since I love WWII history, it was amazing to me.

After MSI, my friends and I wandered around for about an hour trying to find somewhere we could watch the fireworks. Eventually, we decided just to give up because there were hundreds of thousands of people there, and everyone wanted to get on Navy Pier. Yeah, that doesn't sound like my kind of fun. We ended up taking the El back to Des Plaines, and along the way saw about ten different fireworks shows, so I guess we didn't miss it after all.

This week is going to be a busy one, again. I have two projects to finish, and I'm trying to cram four days of work essentially into three. If I work extra the rest of the days, I can go into work for only a few hours on Friday (I have meetings in the morning) and then leave so I can hang out with my parents and little sister who are coming to visit. More family fun time!

Lesley