sacha chua living an awesome life

This week:

• It was my last week on the Transition2 project, and there weas a big change that I needed to make to the source code internals in order to prepare things for future features. I didn’t know how much I’d complete, but I told the project manager I’d give it my best try. I made surprisingly good progress, and I think that was partly due to a new habit of waking up really early in the morning to do that coding. The unit tests also made it easier for me to verify that things still worked. I managed to get all of my tests working today – hooray! It still needs a lot of tweaking before then, and I (or the next developer) still need to figure out localization, but it’s in pretty good shape.
• I gave a speech on blogging at Concordia University in Montreal. The weather was poor, so only fifteen or so people came, but I think I helped a number of people gain confidence. People liked the stick figures. =) I learned a lot while preparing and delivering that presentation. I blogged about how I mindmapped and storyboarded the presentation, and with that as my preparation, I found it easy to change the presentation a bit in order to accommodate the mix of people I met there. I had originally planned to talk to a younger crowd because the talk was part of the Backpack to Briefcase series, but a number of people were interested in professional uses of it, so I mixed a little of that in. I also used a webcam to record my presentation. That was a good idea.
• I stayed a couple of extra days with Michael McGuffin and Alice Servera, which was a fantastic idea. It’s so much better staying with friends than staying at a hotel, and it was also a good idea to stay over a bit instead of going back right away. I convinced Michael to cook something for us, and the pineapple fried rice he made was wonderful. I told them stories about my life in Toronto, and we chatted with my mom over the computer. =) I also enjoyed playing with their kids and meeting Alice’s extended family, who were all warm and friendly.

Next week:

• I’m looking forward to starting on a new Drupal-based project. I’m joining an existing team, so I’ll get to learn from the ways they’re currently doing things. =)
• I need to put together some paperwork: invoices, permanent residency application, passport renewal, etc.
• I’d like to start sewing that 3/4 sleeve pajama top out of red fleece. =)

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