My So-Called Life

 In 1994, I graduated from Cornell University. It's a beautiful place, so I recommend that you actually go there instead of taking some half-assed WWW photo tour. But if you're feeling like a lazy bum (which I often do), check out some of these gorgeous photos. A special treat for the Cornellians who may visit this page: click here to listen to the Cornell Chimes playing the Alma Mater. You'll need the latest copy of the RealPlayer.

During my time at Cornell, I was a privileged member of the Alpha Tau chapter of The Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity. We were a diverse, intellectual, and cynical bunch, which probably led to our eventual downfall (we are currently disbanded). But rumor has it that we're going to be back on campus by 1999.

 One weird thing I did at Cornell: I attended Wells College during the second semester of my Junior year. Wells is an all-woman's college located at a teeny-tiny town of Aurora, NY. Rumor has it that every girl who goes to the school is nuts . Rumor has it that the water is to blame. I tend to think it's because four hundred girls are living together in a town that has virtually nothing in it and therefore nothing to do. Anyway, the class I took was Intro to Poetry, and I got one of my poems published in a little Canadian glossy mag, ASH.

 After graduation, I had this brilliant idea that I wanted to go back to my home country, South Korea, and teach conversational English for a year. My plan was to sojourn at my native soil for a year and then head for grad school. After two weeks, I was back in the U.S. A detailed explanation of my brief encounter is described in my essay English Lessons, which was printed in the April/May 1995 issue of A. Magazine: Inside Asian America. Another article that found its way into A. Magazine is Name Calling.
 

 I temped for a while, looked for jobs, and was hired by TV Guide in October 1994. I lasted two weeks there (I also have a thing with two weeks, as you can see). The reason was simple: They didn't pay enough. So I switched jobs, and for a year and a half, I slaved away at the Transactions/Journals Department of the IEEE. That's the "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers."

At one point or another, I was working with these following journals:

• IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
• IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation
• IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
• IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I
• IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II
• IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology
• IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design
• IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

By and large, I think editing is a thankless business. As an editor, I had to care about things that nobody else gave a flying leap about. But enough griping: A funny tidbit about the Transactions Department: We had a very strict style when it came to author biographies. For an example, here's my biography in IEEE Transactions/Journals form.

 In May, 1996, I changed jobs yet again. I left the comforts of a steady job for a consulting gig at AT&T over in Basking Ridge, NJ. It's where the "mothership" is -- the huge building that supports over 5000 AT&T workers. Personally, I did not enjoy working at AT&T; maybe that's why I only stayed there for three months. I can boil down the AT&T experience in a couple of bullets:

• Everybody is too busy to do anything.
• I'd rather personally deliver a handwritten letter than use ATTMail.
• Secretaries who ask for 32MB of EDO RAM to check their ATTMail are granted their request without question.
• After a couple of weeks, you learn to hate just about everyone around you. (Except for Cormac, Dan, and Bev, of course.)
• Everything you read in "Dilbert" is true.

Since August, 1996, I've been working at ADP, Inc., yet another company that uses acronyms for its name. ADP, which stands for Automatic Data Processing, is a company that cuts paychecks for other companies. Don't let anybody fool you, it's a thrill a minute. A regular roller coaster. It's only a matter of time until Hollywood makes a film of this glamour-filled industry.

Not long after, I became the Editor-in-Chief of The New Yorker.


Then I woke up.

So that's my story so far, folks. If anything else exciting comes up, I'll let you know.

sjwoo@planetall.com