"Of things beyond my ken."

So I had my first day today - and it began with hours and hours of orientation. Security briefing, HR orientation, IT orientation, badges here, scan passport there, this that and the other, don't carry secure documents down the hall unless they are covered by a folder - and then finally, I had my little badge with my name and employee number that gets me into all buildings, had an account on the company intranet, and - well, I met my team.

When I write this out here, it's different than when I explain my day in person. When I was on the phone with friends earlier, I explained in a bit more detail. The interesting thing is that I'm not actually sure just how much I'm allowed to tell. We got these huge and tedious security briefings because the company itself does provide services for the Department of Defense, and most of the security protocols only apply to you if you happen to be working with documents or equipment relating to that, which I will not be during my internship. But still, you're in the building, you have the badge - it feels a bit different than any other work I've had before.

But once I shook off the strange feeling the security stuff left with me, I met my people. I'm working on the very young but exciting project of airplane wifi (look it up! "Exede In The Air"). Not something completely new (we've all seen GoGo in Flight advertised on planes before... competition!), but this company (ViaSat, if I haven't mentioned the name before) has some new ideas for how to do it right.

So, I met the people working on this project and within five minutes, I had a fairly great realization about why I think they hired me. Not necessarily because I can do calculus and linear algebra - but rather that studying math has given my brain certain skills and patterns of thinking, abstract and problem solving abilities - and that's what they want. That brain with those skills on this project. And I'd rather be hired for that than for my ability to solve differential equations. :) Not only that, but they are already telling me to be creative, to "follow my nose", if you will. And the company is very laid back and very productive at the same time -- that may seem like a contradiction, but it really boils down to this: "Do whatever you need to do in order to do your best work." So, how does this look? Employees going surfing during their lunch break or out to the beach volleyball courts next to the work buildings. Some people come in at 4 a.m. and leave at noon, some don't show up until 11 a.m. and stay as long as they can. Some men wear shorts and t-shirts, some where suits (okay, that also varies by department) and everyone is on a first-name basis, but not in an awkward way.

Basically, a good first day. I'm excited to go back tomorrow and not spend the whole day fighting my way into the computer system (so much administrative stuff yesterday!). And - I'm excited to meet these people and work more.

I'm the first intern on my project. Next week another will come, and a month after that, another. But for now, just me. That's kind of fun. :)