Well I’m officially 22. Today was a a great day. I haven’t been in such a positive state of mind for a while.

I started the day off with a bike ride to the gym and a good hard work out. Then I hit the showers and headed to work. Some birthday elves visited my office the night before hung Happy Birthday streamers from the ceiling and toilet-papered my chair and computer. How cute.

I had a meeting with Stacey (the Microsoft Intern coordinator for Waterloo) in the afternoon. We talked about how my job’s been going so far and future job opportunities at Microsoft. Right now, I think I’m going to use my last work term to get a job elsewhere, but the great part is I don’t have to decide for a while. I can interview with another group at Microsoft sometime in the next few weeks, hopefully convince them and my current group to offer me a job, then go through co-op this summer and decide then if I want something new or if I want to return to Microsoft. Sounds like an ideal situation to me.

At around 4:00, work turned into a zoo, as an unscheduled beer bash broke out (the developers must have met a code milestone). A mini-golf tournament took place throughout the hallways on my floor. I didn’t participate, but I made a few obstacles in the hallways outside my office with my birthday streamers. I only had time for a quick drink before Sarah() and Greg() arrived to pick me up for dinner.

We met Graeme() in Bellevue for a birthday dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant. After dinner, we hit the Apple Store and had typing races with Spongebob Square Pants teaches typing. I’m a brutal typist. I could only do 30 WPM, and my accuracy sucked (you’d never know I type all day for a living). Sarah hit 98 WPM and Graeme is the king, at a unhuman 102 WPM. Spongebob almost bust a nut when he saw that.

Then the highlight of the night, Sarah and Greg got me Ticket To Ride for my birthday. We proceeded back to my place for a game. A quick synopsis: Greg started building railway lines on the west coast, Sarah built the a trans-Canadian railway, spanning from Vancouver to Montreal, Graeme built his rail empire in the east coast, connecting Toronto, New York, and Boston. And I cut across the middle going from LA to Chicago. The only real drama was when Sarah and I teamed up to prevent Greg from connecting his rail line from Seattle to Vancouver, and then Graeme screwed over Sarah twice when he built rail lines around Toronto. In the end, I came out on top, after taking the longest rail line, and completing a lot of long stretches. Graeme was one turn away from completing a long stretch that would have made the score close.

So in synopsis, my day included an early moring workout, a short, but positive, day of work, dinner with friends, and a night of board games. The perfect birthday. Thanks gang.