Paper Writing Insanity

1. Take a nap. Wake up, do jumping jacks.
2. Can't ingest caffeine quickly enough.
3. The bedbugs can't bite if you don't get to sleep in your bed.
4. Clay Dunagan is effing cool (funny when people you've worked with are cited in papers you are reading/citing in your paper).
5. I have a love/hate relationship with meeting new people at the very end of the semester/college career. For real. In the last two weeks I have met some amazing people, or gotten opportunities to get to know people better that I'd met previously. It happens every year, but it makes me a bit sad. But hey, plenty of time in the next two weeks to enjoy the company of new and old friends.
6. 6 pages complete. A page and a half of legislative hoohah, and 3/4 of a page of crazy.

Music

I saw Ryan Groff play tonight as part of a benefit show for Invisible Conflicts, who are a groovy group of people and seem to be off to amazing things.

Hearing Ryan play made me really reminisce about the last few years... sophomore year till now, I guess. I've said already (at least to many people in person) that I will miss the music scene here, only to be told the music scene in Chicago is ch-amazing and that I have nothing to worry about. But its not that, really. Its that I love the musicians here, the concerts at Courtyard for less than $7 and seeing the bands support each other and the amazing places they turn up. Elsinore (Ryan Groff's band), Headlights, Lynn O'Brien, Lorenzo Goetz, Beauty Shop. But beyond that its the memories... going to Headlights concerts, jumping our hearts out at the back of courtyard, and being called to the front because we were the only people dancing. It's knowing people like Rachael Dietkus (pretty much my role model) recorded tracks with the Headlights and New Ruins, and getting to see her play that one time. Its hearing Lynn for the first time at her CD release party, and her interaction with the crowd, and being completely blown away. Its being just a couple degrees of separation away from throwing awesome benefit concerts. Its remembering the people who introduced me to the music... and missing Casey and Pocket, and the others that have graduated.

I'm ready to be done with school here, and most of the people I know are leaving, but I will miss Urbana. Urbana has been terribly good to me for the last 5 years.

Sunset Stallion was pretty good, too.

Food.

Russian food is delicious. If you drink beer, you should try the Baltkia 4. Is it good.
And Rock Bottom Brewery is... absolutely incredible. And like 8 blocks away from work in Chicago. Oh noes.

I love comedy. I guess I love laughing, but there it is.

My sister makes me giggle.
"You're moving to Chicago next year, right?" ~My sis
"Yeah...."
"Do you know where you're living yet?"
"No..."
"Oh, well... Sarah and I, you've met Sarah before, are planning on running the Chicago Marathon next year...."
"Ok."
"Do you want to run with us?"
"No, probably not"
"Oh, ok then."
"But you can stay with me if you need to."
"Great! Thanks! Goodbye"

New Webcomic!

http://www.viruscomix.com/

Hopefully something more eloquent about CHI

Things that were discussed:
1. The future of the HCI4D community
2. Elegant and simple solutions
3. Scale, and when it is appropriate to scale up and not
4. There's no harm in setting yourself up for success.
5. "The EWB model" and how sometimes, in order to build a school, you have to build a bridge first.
6. "The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of bad ones" - innovation and creativity
7. The power (and beauty) of print.
8. Ethics
9. Timelines, deadlines, and the conflict between graduating and doing what you want to do and what you need to do. (Long term projects that may be neccessary do not fit the "publish or perish" expectation in order to graduate - how to "chunk" projects and make sure someone else is around to finish a long project).
10. User and human centered design.
11. Problems of feedback - fear of having technology taken away, "magic" in software development and perceptions of what is possible and how long it will take
12. Exit strategies and community expectations
13. The real problems - that no one wants to explore (education in the US). There are some problems technology can't solve (ie teachers not understanding science).
14. Healthcare and education, and then my head exploded a little.
15. Social technologies and their role in industry.

"We hear all your stories about sneaking off at conferences and talking about humans... and the inside jokes. Ours will deal with that screen falling." And talking in languages with clicks.

The workshop was kind of like an ASB coffee talk on crack... or maybe just real espresso, and PHD students. It's funny how quickly humans adjust to "the way things are" - whether its pain, or illness, or lack of stimulating conversation. Such a cool community.

I think I will start my own conference. It will run Monday - Friday, but Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon will have nothing planned - to give people time to travel, but also to have time to schedule for those impromptu meetings. You know, the socializations that conferences are really about.


Posting a link to Tim Ferris, because I don' t know how many times the conversation has come up (both domestically and internationally). I say you all, and I own up to it... I don't really say y'all. You all just makes sense, so deal with it.

I'm obsessed with the BlackCabSessions. Particularly: Spoon (but then again, we've known about my Brit Daniels obsession for a while), Emmy the great, and the new pornographers.

Also, Tuesday night bourbon and Set playing is ridiculously nerdy but oh so fun.

And Count your sheep is cute:

Wear your heart on your feet/Long time no blog

The lack of blogging lately has been due to being in Italy. And preparing to be in Italy. And hanging out in Chicago to avoid the work that I have to do after Italy (and see good friends).

So the week looked like this:
Thursday, April 3rd - Drive to Chicago, get there later than intended, drive to Lindsey's house to leave my car there for a week. Catch rides to the airport with people I've never met. Discover the beauty of thermacare patches for avoiding back problems while flying.

Friday, April 4th - Arrive in Florence. Meet up with Manas (who I met in Brazil at Interact) and his flatmates for the week, so I don't have to navigate Florence by myself. Have dinner, walk up to the conference center, and walk around Florence a bit with said gents. Force staying awake until 9pm to reduce jetlag, start falling asleep reading workshop papers, only to face terrible, terrible insomnia.

Saturday, April 5th - HCI4D Workshop 9am - 6pm. Lunch and dinner as a group (which is pretty sweet when good food just appears on the table and you pay a flat rate). End up talking to people after dinner until 22:30, inquiring how I never ended up in jail out of boredom, and being told not to let the corporate world keep me too long, because they'll give me the world because I do things. I miss talking about real things

Sunday, April 6th - HCI4D Workshop 9am - 6pm. Went out to dinner with HCI4D grad students and friends, followed by a wine bar. Interesting conversation about bowel movements and travel - hey, everyone poops, and every culture has different practices around it.

Monday, April 7th - SV duties at 8:30. Conference reception, involving some wine consumption. Wise decision to leave the reception when we did, but lots of fun none the less.

Tuesday, April 8th - SV duties at 8:30

Wednesday, April 9th - SV duties at 8:30

Thursday, April 10th - Eric presents best paper, and it rocks. Divya asks what font he used.

Friday, April 11th - Fly back to the US. Have dinner with Lindsey's mom. Meet up with Freeberg and Haala, go for hot chocolate with Haala's friends, pass out.


1. Wear your heart on your feet...
Anyone can wear their heart on their sleeve. It takes a lot to wear your heart on your feet and do something. Susan Dray provided heart socks for everyone that some people wore throughout the week (whether as socks or wristbands). I love the community of people that are in HCI4d/ICT4d.

2. I miss cappuccino. The waiter guy at the hotel in the morning would make cappucino with a heart in the foam and say "Don't break my heart." Cute schtick you can tell he uses a lot, but really nice guy. He'd notice when you weren't there in the mornings (ahem, Tuesday morning), and thought I was Italian at first.

3. I miss gelato. A lot.

4. Bideus

5. Peters projection
Is a map that shows the actual area of countries. What implications does this have for international relations?

6. I met some really, really amazing people who have done some incredible things. People who have done studies on one laptop per child, or with teachers for students of learning disabilities, or healthcare applications for distance consultations, and preventions of childhood mortality. Very, very cool.

http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Portraits/black_and_green
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1018013.ece
http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/04/10/two-female-leads/

Randy Pausch (for real, watch "Really Achieving your childhood dreams" if you haven't already).

Potential grad schools in no particular order:
CMU
Ga Tech
U Washington
Berkeley

Its a PEC shirt!

And there are probably a ton of other things I want to write about (like the papers I want to read) but I'm bored writing so you're probably bored reading. Ka-posted.