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.