Can I Expense That?

Although I have been thinking recently that I should write a blog post sometime soon, I have to admit that the real motivation behind this post is to try out my new wireless keyboard. Ever since I had my internship last summer with a dual screen set-up, I haven't wanted to go back. Having two screens made my life a lot easier, if nothing else. Especially when working on design projects, the added screen space was a big benefit.
So, I've slowly been working my way towards a dual screen set up. I got a monitor for my birthday last year, as well as a laptop stand. The laptop stand brings the laptop screen up to a higher level. But with that, it also brings the rest of the laptop with it. This makes using the trackpad and keyboard a tad awkward. So now I needed a mouse and keyboard as well. Wireless was the preference. I stole recruited a mouse from home and then all I needed for my set up to be complete was a keyboard. I didn't get one for Christmas, so I've been keeping an eye out since then. However, during school it wasn't high priority because I didn't really have the room to have an elaborate dual screen set up, and thus didn't need the keyboard.
But ever since I've started my job and have been working from home, it's becoming increasingly important to me that I have a decent desk set up (I'm already wearing a wrist brace while I work to control the pain I get from being on the computer all day).
The real kicker about needing the keyboard for working at home meant that there was a pretty good chance I could get work to pay for it. I explained to my manager why I thought I needed a keyboard to work at home and he understood. I told him I wanted the $160 wireless full size Apple keyboard. He said try again. So I went with a Logitech keyboard with solar panel charging, designed for use with Macs, at half the price. (He doesn't know all that fancy stuff though, he just knows I got a keyboard under his $100 price limit). And so far, it's working great. The only downside is that it's not bluetooth; it needs to use a USB port. I might have to look into getting a USB port hub, since now all two of my USB ports are being used for my keyboard and mouse. I wonder if I could get work to pay for that too...
I also got work to pay for the wrist brace :)

As for other updates, I'm all settled into my new apartment. It's a really nice apartment. The floors are a pale laminate, which looks great but shows every piece of dirt. Sweeping has already become a regular occurrence. The kitchen isn't huge, but has a lot of cupboard space. I'm still waiting for my couch to arrive...the friend I asked to deliver it is apparently much busier than I anticipated. Hopefully I have it by the end of the month; I'm tired of sitting on folding chairs.
The building has some really nice amenities, which I will need to make an effort of using more often. (Using more often...I've only been here two weeks!) There's been some issues with the elevators the past couple days where only 1 out of 4 will respond to calls. In a building 42 stories tall, this can cause some serious delays. I overheard a man saying that he waited 25mins for the elevator! Being on the 4th floor, it's not too hard to take the stairs. But the stairs only end outside; there's no way to get to the stair well on the main floor inside the building. This means I usually take the stairs when I leave, but not when I arrive. (I haven't tried it yet, but I don't know if my key would even open the door to the stairs from the outside).
I started hand embroidering. It's been slow going, as it also tends to hurt my wrist, and I want to learn some proper stitches instead of just going at it head on. I started a flower last night, and you can tell which petal I started on and which one I did last because they get better as you go around. I'm still keeping up with practicing lettering, although no longer daily. And I bake. And fold origami. That's pretty much what occupies my evenings!

Observation + the Power of Branding

I've always thought that I'm a fairly observant person. I tend to notice little details that slip by other people. But more recently, I've started to notice that I might not be as observant as I might think. Or more accurately, I notice the tiny details, but the bigger picture might slip past me. A few incidents recently have been about branding.
For those who don't know, there is a bike share program in downtown Toronto. You can rent a bike for a couple of hours or the whole day and there are spots to pick up and drop off bikes just about every other block. The logo for the bike share program is two shades of green. And ever since I've been spending time in downtown Toronto (since last summer), I've thought that TD sponsored the program. Imagine my surprise last week when I was looking at the bike share stand more closely only to realize that TD is not mentioned anywhere. TD has got nothing to do with the bikes. I only thought that TD had something to do with it. Any guesses as to why? If you said because of the logo colour, you're right. My brain connected the shade of green of the bike share program to the colour of TD and assumed they were connected. It just goes to show the power of branding and the effect it can have on how we think about things. (Ever notice in Bell ads that every accent is blue?)
Not much going on for me other than work. I'm starting to get some more interesting things to do and my team is still as awesome as they were when I started. I've been practicing my hand lettering in the evenings and doing a fair bit of shopping. I'm finally fulfilling my dream of lots of summer dresses! I still can't cook meals for one. The apartment hunt is ongoing, but I'm going to see one tomorrow which I'm hopeful about. I'm excited for Emily to come back to Toronto, because I don't really have friends to hang out with right now. I'm planning on doing some baking tomorrow, and will probably take some into work, since I can't eat an entire batch of cookies by myself (let's not kid ourselves. I could easily eat a batch of cookies by myself. I just probably shouldn't).

180 Turn

A lot has changed since I last blogged! I am no longer a student living in Stratford, but a working woman in downtown Toronto. I was very lucky to have my manager from my internship last summer offer me a full time position to start after I finished school. So as of Monday, I've been working as a User Experience Designer, which is what I want my career to be in. It's been slow going so far, but that's to be expected with the first week. Lots of reading forms and signing up for accounts.
Now obviously with working in downtown Toronto, you also need to live in downtown Toronto. So far I've been sleeping on my sister's floor. Searching for an apartment has been stressful to say the least. I'm hoping to find an apartment with a friend of mine, so that I'm not coming home to an empty apartment every day. But two people means two sets of needs and wants, which is making the entire process more difficult. I went to see an apartment that looked promising this afternoon. Let's be honest, it's just about the only apartment I've found that meets all of our requirements and is not a sketchy looking 4 floor walk up. The apartment was nothing special; the bathrooms and kitchen are run down, but look functional. The bedrooms are big, which is its main selling point. It's definitely an older building, but it has some nice amenities. However, the apartment isn't available until June, which still leaves me looking for a place for May. Needless to say, I have some thinking to do and have to come to a decision in the near future.
My life doesn't have much else going on at the moment because of my temporary residence and the mental exhaustion of starting a new job and looking for a place to live. I'm hoping to do something fun this weekend. I want to start a bullet journal, so I'm going to go search for one at the mall. Also might go to the aquarium!

The Final Countdown

A lot has happened over the past couple days, all building up to tomorrow, when we have our last class of our undergraduate degree. On Thursday evening we had our last SSC event, a dinner at Pazzo Pizzeria. We had 21 people show up, which was awesome (and I'm fairly certain our largest event ever). Marissa had made photo booth props for people to take pictures with. Luckily there wasn't many other people in the restaurant, so we were free to be silly and take a bunch of pictures against (fun fact alert) the oldest wall in Stratford. It was nice to have a sit down dinner with people as a bit of a send off.
Friday began on a high note when Mara's mom bought coffee and muffins for the entire class as a celebratory parting gift. For lunch, a lot of the graduating class went to the Parlour Inn for a GBDA send off that the GBDA Society had organized. There was some small lunch items, which enticed most of the people who went. But they also got a handful of professors that we'd had over the years to say a few words. It was kind of sweet to hear what they had to say.
Saturday was the GBDA gala. I'd never been to one before, so I was excited. A bunch of us got ready together at a friend's house. It was at Fed Hall in Waterloo, so we had a shuttle bus to take those of us living in Stratford to main campus. The theme was space/gala-xy. It was a little slow getting started because people showed up fashionably late, but eventually there were lots of people dancing. Unfortunately the DJ was repeating a lot of songs so for those of us that had been there the whole time it was getting repetitive. They had a photo booth with the popular giant letter balloons, which was pretty cool. Overall an enjoyable evening. There wasn't a ton of fourth year students there, ironically it was most of the people living in Stratford. It was also nice to see people all dressed up.
Today was Stratford's Annual Swan Parade, where the city officially welcomes spring by releasing the swans back into the river (they have a shelter that they live in during the winter). Another fun fact: the swans belong to the Queen. It's ridiculous how many people show up for this parade which lasts about 10mins. Last year they had 5000 people show up. I don't know if there was 5000 people there today, but it was certainly up there. There's lot of other things going on as well; there's a kids comedy act, colouring booths, and a long line of food trucks with even longer lines of people waiting to buy food. I spent the duration of the parade in a tree which gave me a much better view of everything than those who were on the ground. They had great weather for it. It's currently 14 degrees out and sunny. They couldn't have asked for anything better. I'm writing this on my rooftop patio, it's so nice out!
You can see pictures on Facebook in the near future.

Give Me A Conversation Starter

I'm in a bit of a mood that I don't know how to describe. It's almost like I'm lonely, despite being around people. And not just being around them; I'm interacting with people. I even went out for coffee with friends today. Part of it probably has to do with the fact that I had pie for lunch (happy pi day). While it felt great at the time, my body was definitely craving some real food by the end of the afternoon. So I decided to make KD. Perhaps not my smartest decision, but we all live with regrets (I did have some spinach salad on the side though).
I think part of it is that how I interact with people has changed a lot over the past 4 years. I was always on the extreme introvert side. I didn't enjoy hanging out with people all the time. I would max out at one social event per week. Over the past 4 years though, I've become more comfortable in who I am and have moved from 'extreme introvert' to 'introvert' (maybe even veering into ambivert...but let's not complicate things). I enjoy hanging out with my friends more often and will even plan things myself (unheard of prior to high school expect for special occasions such as my birthday). Especially after my term abroad, I'm much better at communicating with friends and putting effort in on my end of things.
The point I'm trying to meander to here, is that I always relied on other people to initiate things. And not just for hanging out; I would wait for other people to start conversations. I would wait for other people to message me or reach out to me first. My conversation starting skills are on the lacking side and it is my long-formed habit to wait for other people to start the conversation.
Now, with most people, this is not a problem. People will choose a topic and I'll go along (I'm also a big fan of joining conversations that are already going). The same cannot be said for my roommate. She is also an introvert, and also tends to wait for other people to start conversations. Do you see where this is going? If you didn't know that we were friends and watched us in our apartment, you would think that we were strangers who got along well enough to live together peacefully. When we're at school or out in other places, or there are others around, we talk well enough. But as soon as we're in the apartment, there is hardly any conversation. Obviously, I'm not expecting that we talk all the time. But we hardly have casual conversations about stuff. For all of last term, we wouldn't say anything to each other in the morning as we ate breakfast. Sitting at the same table. Across from each other. That has changed slightly, because I started saying good morning when I emerged from my bedroom. Even then, she'll say it back, and we'll go on without saying anything else. We don't even say anything as we get ready to walk to school. We just watch each other and the clock, getting ready when we know the other is ready to go. It makes me a little sad, especially because in three weeks, I probably won't see her often at all.
And I know that there is an obvious answer to this problem: talk to her. Strike up a conversation. But this is where I'll ask you to recall my earlier point that my conversation starting skills leave something to be desired. Our devices definitely has something to do with it. About 90% of the time, one of us has our headphones in, which naturally prevents conversation. I had hoped that saying 'good morning' would be enough to get a chat going over breakfast, but to no avail. Maybe my goal this week will be to start a real conversation over breakfast. This will also help me in my goal to get out of bed at a decent time, since I've been pushing that to the closest I can get it to 9AM. Wish me luck.

T-28 Days

Well it's been a while, hasn't it? Certainly not the longest period I've gone without blogging, but I had a bit of a good run going there.
Reading week was good. I didn't have any work to do, so I could just relax. I managed to keep busy though, meeting up with friends, finishing my camp quilt, and playing lots of board games.
The main thing going on with me right now is the fact that there are 4 weeks of school left. Ever. It's kind of hard to believe. We've started our final group project of our university careers. We were allowed to choose our groups this time, but I ended up staying with the same group I was with earlier in the term because we worked well together. Our project is to encourage interactivity in a public space in Stratford. I think it will be good. The hardest part will be completing everything in the 4 weeks left (our first project got 7+ weeks).
After that, it looks like I'll be moving to Toronto after I graduate, so I should probably start looking for a place to live there. Whenever I've visited Toronto, I've always though I wouldn't want to live there. There's so much going on and I find it overwhelming. That changed a little bit last summer when I lived in Mississauga, but still wouldn't be my first choice. But now that I'm moving there, I'm excited. I don't want to stay there forever, but I think it will be a lot of fun. And I can finally go to all the cool things I see going on through various forms of social media. And I'll be living in the same city as Alison again, so it will be nice to be able to see her more often again.
Yesterday the campus hosted a day-long conference about blending business and design. It was really well done. Lots of interesting speakers, good food, and great networking opportunities. I got to meet a UX designer from Indigo, which was probably my favourite part. It was a long day with lots of sitting though. They had an 'after party' at the end of the day at the Parlour Inn just down the street. I was surprised, because the Parlour is a pretty nice place. We went, but not a lot of the mentors and speakers came, so there didn't seem to be much points for us to be there. We left early (after eating the food).
Not a lot else going on. The 3D printer is up and running again, so I've been getting a few things printed before it either breaks again or the term ends. I printed a settlers of catan piece, since one of my wooden pieces had chunk missing.

The Reincarnation of GBDA X

Last term I was a part of GBDA X, which was an extra curricular run by a staff member of the UWaterloo Stratford Campus. I was very excited to be a part of it again this term, because I had a lot of fun in it last term, and it gave me something to do on Tuesday evenings. So when it was eventually revealed that GBDA X would not be happening again this term (cause UWaterloo admin sucks), I was disappointed (as were many others).
A girl in third-year GBDA and I were talking about how we were sad it wasn't happening again and off-handedly I mentioned how it wouldn't be hard to run it ourselves. A couple days later, she took me up on my comment. She asked if I would be interested in running it with her. We could still use campus to meet and use the things the campus provides, like printers and tech. I was totally down. It wouldn't be that much more effort to run than just participate, and since the entire concept of the group is that the students come up with the idea, we wouldn't have to actually prepare anything. We would just need to gather people together.
We talked to the guy who ran GBDA X last term to ask if it was ok/allowed. He said it was, as long as it was kept under wraps. The university can't stop students from working together on something, but they could stop 'a group from using University spaces'. So we're a 'secret' group, with an unofficial mentor in the original GBDA X facilitator. We call ourselves Project X.
We just had our second meeting; we meet once a week for a couple of hours. I really like the idea that we've come up with. We're going to create a sort of data visualization program that people can influence by interacting with an interface. It will create a generative design art piece which will hopefully be displayed on the micro-tile wall in the atrium. I've been assigned the role of coder along with 4 others...it will be interesting trying to code something with other people. I'm going to have to brush up on my programming skills, because I haven't coded since second year. I'm really excited to have something on the micro-tile wall and be able to say 'I made that'. Hopefully we can pull it off!