Life happens when you open yourself to unexpected things.

Today I talked to James, Greenpeace volunteer in front of Graduate
House. I mentioned Greenpeace's initiatives to publicize the
staggering volumes of E-waste each year. James told me about
http://www.rebootcanada.ca , a non-profit foundation that provides
hardware, training and support to charities and people with needs.

I like what they're doing. Pity they're Microsoft-sponsored, though; I
don't suppose they'll let me get away with volunteering to teach open
source software…

Today I also chatted with Mike Chi. See, I was reading the paper in
the 5th floor common area when he asked me if he could read the
sections I finished. I couldn't help but overhear and get drawn into a
conversation he had with someone who was visiting Grad House. After
the conversation, we swapped names and courses. I told him I'm taking
my master's in HCI, and he was, like, “No way.” Turned out that he's
also from HCI, but part of a different lab. We chatted about memory
aids and PIM, del.icious and flickr, lots of other cool things…

Anyway, he told me he's taking this awesome course on
computer-supportive collaborative work, which sounds exactly like what
I should be getting into. It conflicts with the MIE class I'm taking,
though. Tough decisions! Really tough decisions! I want to take it up.
I need to make sure I'm not past the deadline yet, and I need to run
it by Mark tomorrow morning to see what he thinks.

I like this. Meeting totally random strangers is like opening a
treasure box…