Big Day
Before I talk about my special day where I bring my Transformer lunchbox to school and meet nice people during recess, I would like to point your attention to three things:
1) This site has a new design. I know, you didn’t notice until I just said so, but there it is. It’s quite pretty but it’s not my design. Just one of a few templates available from Movable Type. I don’t have time to do my redesign and this fills my needs for now.
2) I’ve posted pictures and video of our Austin trip.
Friday was significant to me in a number of ways. In chronological order, it was my last day at Trilogy, my orientation day for school, and it was the launch of my pet project.
Four years at Trilogy was about two more years than I envisioned being at Trilogy or in Austin but I don’t regret any of it. To repeat what many before me have said, the experience was unique and definitely helpful. I credit Trilogy with a little bit more than most for one reason: they introduced me to the possibility of a career in HCI and now I’m going to school to study it more. I never was happy doing technical consulting and wanted a way to combine my left and right brain into one mega robot like Voltron but it wasn’t until Trilogy that I actually discovered such a career existed.
That’s not to say Trilogy was all candies and lollipops (or beer and IPOs). Problems definitely prevail there and they are struggling to grow. I disagree with some management decisions and attitudes but I do wish them the best. The one constant was that my peers were all of exceptional quality. I hope I’ll find a similar caliber elsewhere.
International students at UCL had their orientation on Thursday and Friday. I only showed up on Friday as I had to finish up work. The early part of the day was spent enrolling which to me, meant signing up for courses, but to them it apparently just means letting them know you exist and writing them a big fat cheque. The next couple of hours was spent registering for all sorts of administrative things: library service, computer account name (I have ANOTHER e-mail address), barcode tattoo, etc …
After I got my computer account, I followed a number of signs that pointed to “orientation” because frankly, I had no idea what else I needed to do. As I was waiting to ask a security guy where I was supposed to go, a girl was asking the same guard where she should go to get her student discount travel card. That sounded like something I needed and, after discerning that I had no scheduled events until 4pm, I joined her in the quest for cheap Tube tickets. Alina was a Russian from Belgium starting her first year undergraduate in Russian studies. Talk about the embodiment of international student.
We struggled with the student travelcard applications for awhile (I didn’t have any photos so I had to go to the nearest Tube stop and Alina didn’t have any forms of payment other than cash) but eventually got it sorted. When I returned to the Union building to mail my application, I saw a familiar looking face. He was filling out an application form as well so I checked his name to make sure. My reaction was simply, “Holy shit!” Five years since I’ve seen my dad’s classmate’s son and that’s the first thing I say to him. Good job, Kevin. He looks up, looking rather confused and then say, “oh hey.” Evidently, I’m the only one actually excited about this little encounter. Here’s a guy I’ve known since he was a toddler in Hong Kong (probably since he was born but I have little recollection that far back) and he’s about to attend the same school that I am out in London. Random. We exchanged numbers and went our separate ways for the time being.
Early evening, Alina and I went over to the UCL reception to see if we could meet other people. We met quite a few people fro mall over the world. The most interesting part was having each person ask me, “where are you from, Hong Kong?” I’ve talked about how hard it is to answer that question before but I’ve never had to deal with people constantly making assumptions. Especially when the conversations typically went:
“Where are you from? Hong Kong? Singapore?” “Canada” “Ontario? Montreal” “Vancouver” “But where are you REALLY from?” (although I know what they mean, I persist) “Vancouver” “Before that?” “Van. Coo. Ver.”
Granted, I lived in Hong Kong for ten years and ask my mom, she’ll say my home is in Hong Kong (rightfully in many respects) but I’m born in Vancouver, my undergrad was in Vancouver, my passport is Canadian, so I feel like I have a pretty good basis for claiming I’m FROM there. The strangest part was when these questions were posed to me by a Nigerian from Russia.Of all the people who would understand the flaws in stereotypes! I posed the question to him, “do I ask if you’re from Pakistan?” I’ll grant that he was a little tipsy with the free wine, though so I was irritated but amused.
Whilst conversing about origins and stereotypes, we were also waiting for a friend of Alina’s. Sarah is a French girl who met Alina on some French/London website and they were meeting up in person for the first time. Apparently, she’s here to study English (not at UCL though). Unfortunately, Sarah had some difficulties with the directions and took two hours to find us. I HAVE to commend her for her persistence and am really glad she made it in the end.
Soon after, we made our way to meet up with Dan and other BA folks to celebrate Dan’s quarter of a century milestone. We hit Waxy O’Connor’s, which has quickly become my favourite pub in London (not difficult given I’m not a fan of pubs in general) and after closing, we decided to head out to Fabric. Dan details the rest of our adventures quite well from that point on but I have to point out: Alina talking on her cell phone to her mom at midnight, whilst searching for a sketchy Pakistani store that would sell vodka after-hours, was a bit surreal.
Speaking of surreal, Tom and I have released a new comic strip! I had to do a little bit of fire-fighting in the middle of orientation but the launch was successful and so far, the strip seems quite popular. I’m curious how it will take with people I don’t personally know but only time will tell. The strip won’t make much sense to a lot of readers because it’s targetted at interaction designers (as well as usability specialists, industrial designers, etc., etc.) but hopefully you will still go and look at the pretty pictures to go “oooh” followed after a brief pause by “aaah”. Go check it out and bookmark it for a visit every Friday!
Keep it up and I can promise that you will have at least one loyal fan visiting every Friday..
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