sacha chua

Summary - In terms of my goals from last week:

Organize information	Haven't rearranged our group Activity yet.
Plan external blog	Brainstormed names. Now to brainstorm topics...
Plan podcast	Done. Several ideas, even.
Library run	Done. Picked up more books.
CASCON presentation	Survived.
Meeting with Gordon Lee	Done. Scheduled another meeting this week.
Emacs blog entries, pages	Blog entries done, not yet laid out into pages or merged into text
CAS dinner	Skipped
Dogear podcast script, audio	Drafted, but not satisfied with quality
Dogear podcast video	Waiting for script

Next week's goals:

• Dogear podcast due Nov 3, one segment targeted for power users, another basic one
• Client project? Cool =)
• 2000 more words in Emacs-related blog entries
• Go to DemoCamp, reconnect with people
• Request papers needed for permanent residency application

UP: My second week of work was dominated by CASCON, the conference organized by the IBM Toronto Center for Advanced Studies. I presented a short paper about my thesis, summarizing 72 pages and 1.5 years of my life into five minutes and what really amounts to this sentence: "Blogs, bookmarks, and people-tags may be able to help people find expertise within their company, so let's make a search engine that combines all three." I also enjoyed helping out with Stephen Perelgut's Second Life workshop, even though only half of the people could get on the metaverse. Aaron, Bernie and I met a couple of times during the conference, and I did manage to squeeze in some "real work" as well. I also had my two-week check-in with my manager. We're thinking of making those weekly, just to keep everyone in the loop. A couple of market scans here and there, some podcast plans... work is good, and getting even better.

UP: I got back in touch with Gino Ledesma, a friend of mine from university. We had a lot of fun catching up. I was thrilled to hear about what he and my other batchmates have been up to, and particularly by the way he's been giving back to the Philippines. His company is very impressed by him and is looking for more Filipinos to hire. That's gotta be something. =) That reminds me: I need to introduce him to Winston Damarillo, who might be interested in having Gino give some presentations to his Java folks.

DOWN: Trapeze lessons have been postponed. It was an informal class in somebody's loft, and that somebody needs to now focus on med school. Ah well. Time to look for another form of exercise. I don't really feel like spending money on this, and I'm sure I can find plenty of free, fun ways to exercise around the house. Winter is coming, so running might not be my cup of tea. I'll look around for ideas.

DOWN: The paperwork requirements for the permanent residency application are a little bit intimidating, aren't they? I felt overwhelmed earlier. W- gave me a wonderful hug and helped me remember to divide and conquer.

UP: I've found a good way to get more material for my book. =) It's easy for me to write if I think of things as blog posts. Even basic information is fun to share. But I need to protect that time. I managed to write a little bit during the evenings, and more during the weekends. Let's see if that works out next week too.

1. 2007.10.23#2: Why Emacs
2. 2007.10.25#1: Emacs: The difference between a task and an appointment
3. 2007.10.27#1: Emacs: managing schedule
4. 2007.10.27#2: Tweaking day-specific planner pages
5. 2007.10.27#3: Choosing a daily schedule in Emacs
6. 2007.10.28#1: Clocking work time under Org
7. 2007.10.28#2: Clocking work time under Planner
8. 2007.10.28#3: Org: Changing the task states

DOWN: The downside to this is that I'm not sure how to make the time to meet my friends face-to-face. I'm growing a lot more protective of the rare four-hour chunks I can carve out of my day, so I tend to keep the weekends for myself. A wonderful home life makes me want to spend more time at home instead of going to cafes and meeting friends. Blogs are easy to fit into the spaces in my day, but what about the friends who don't blog? I'll try tweaking my schedule a bit this week. Tomorrow I'm going to go to DemoCamp, but only the pub night part, and I'm planning to go after dinner. It doesn't make that much sense to go back and forth considering I'm working from downtown, but I can do productive things on the subway (hmm, rush hour, so that means listening to a podcast or doing blue-sky thinking), and I do like being there when J- comes home from school. =)

DOWN: E-mail is also lower on my priority list. It's becoming easier to tell myself, "I'm going to do one hour of e-mail, and that's that." Or 30 minutes, or whatever time I can set aside. I'm a little mixed about this because a number of books I've read recommended quick responses as a way of showing you care, but as long as expectations are also adjusted, I think things will be fine. If I take a long time to reply, it's just that I have other priorities.

UP: And somehow I still found the time to read library books and encode more notes, too! =) I probably won't be updating my Booksnake blog for a while (again, other priorities!), but my workflow is getting better.

UP: I'm happy with the overall balance of this week. My 50,000-feet view is becoming clearer: I want to become a practice evangelist, business practice maven, or whatever the proper term is. On the ground-view, I manage to complete most of my planned tasks without feeling as if I'm wasting time. In terms of personal stuff, I'm doing well, too. =) Happy with this week, can't wait for the next.

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Random Emacs symbol: make-hippie-expand-function - Macro: Construct a function similar to `hippie-expand'.

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