A quick sketch of the highlights of my year:
Letter and photos to follow! =)
Category Archives: calendar
On this page:
Upcoming events
My proposal was accepted at an IBM conference on best practices! I’m thrilled to have all these opportunities to share what I’m learning and to learn even more from other people. It’s a little mindboggling dealing with all of this as an early-career employee with less than half a year on the job, but I know from personal experience just how wonderful public speaking is when it comes to networking and connecting with people.
I’ll need to work extra hard to balance all these conferences with paying work, and to show the business value of all of that. It’s a bit of a challenge in the consulting world where we’re supposed to maximize our utilization, but maybe it will work out well.
To help keep track of all the conferences, articles, and other significant events on my horizon, I’ve added an upcoming events widget below the calendar on my blog. I used MagpieRSS and PHP to read the XML file from Google Calendar, and I did a little regular expression magic to get just the dates and locations. Maybe you’ll find it useful too!
Business responsibilities come first. If my clients aren’t happy, I may just have to pull out of some of the conferences. I think everything will work out, though, and the conferences will help me bring even more value to my client work!
Wanted: real-time calendaring for get-togethers
My social calendar tends to stay relatively full. I have to
consciously schedule breaks into it because otherwise I just pack it
with stuff. Google Calendar’s monthly view is great for keeping things
sorta organized. I’m really, really tempted to write a social app that
makes it easier to manage these get-togethers – what Filipinos call
“gimmicks”.
Such an app would have a floating list of non-time-specific
activities, with people indicating interest or even availability.
People should be able to take events from that list and schedule it
onto a group calendar.
There should be *some* way I can easily manage having multiple
overlapping circles of friends. See, there’s a reason why I’d rather
blend groups!
And all of this, of course, should be available from a mobile
interface so that I can go from one event to another.
But that’s too much interface complexity, so it has to stay inside my
head. ARGH!
Reflections on 2005
This year saw me in three countries: Japan, Philippines, and Canada.
On the surface level, I learned about a fair number of things: Jakarta
Struts, Ruby, engineering psychology and human performance…
Other things I learned:
- I love writing. One article in the Linux Journal resulted
in dozens of e-mail. My column in Computerworld On Campus got a lot of
feedback from students whose lives I’d touched (even if only lightly).
My weekly posts on diyplanner.com get feedback, too. I love writing. I
can affect people through it. What took me so long? - I need people. This was the year that my current barkada
really came together. The year started with the Digital Pinay fiasco,
which was how Clair and I really got to know each other. The year also
saw Slycesoft developments and our little triumphs and crises. I’m
also very glad I have Dominique and my family. =) With them, the
future looks even better. - I have much, much more to learn about the working world.
If I could do one thing over this year, it would be that span
of time at a company in Cebu. Looking back, I can see how I could’ve
been more politically sensitive. It was a valuable lesson, and one
I’ll keep in mind. - I want—no, _need_—to make a difference. =)
My biggest challenge was adapting to graduate school. I found it
difficult to be motivated and confident. I had a really bad attack of
the impostor syndrome that made me almost quit my teaching
assistantship because I felt I was doing the students such a
disservice by teaching something I didn’t really know. The students
reassured me, my professor and the previous teaching assistant helped
me, and even the assistant department chair called me in and
half-scolded, half-encouraged me.
The engineering psychology and human performance class was
interesting, too. The lab reports really helped me review statistics,
and I enjoyed writing. If I could do one thing differently, I wish I
had kept my new-found study habits instead of getting frustrated in
lectures. I used to read ahead, but I found it difficult to pay
attention in class, so I ended up just reading afterwards. Maybe
graduate-oriented classes will be more engaging.
Searching for a good project was also very difficult. My research
supervisor and I went through so many ideas. Because I didn’t have a
clear research question in mind, I felt adrift and frustrated. I
wasn’t sure if graduate school was worth the opportunity cost. I’m
happy now, though. We’ve found something that not only fits in with
our short- and medium-term goals, but also helps me with my long-term
goals. I think social search provides interesting possibilities,
particularly if we can make it much easier to do, much more
mainstream. I’m curious about whether we can make it easy to filter by
multiple networks, too. I still feel a little guilty about not having
completed my reading paper, but I resolve to turn in an absolutely
wonderful one next term! =)
I think the secret to life is being fully in the present, wherever I
am. I’m looking forward to throwing myself into the metadata course
when I get back to Canada, and I’m setting aside time to read papers
while on vacation.
Listening to my family’s stories. Chasing horses and ice cream carts
while learning photography. Hanging out with my friends. Geek lurv.
(Hi Dominique! Hi Clair and JM! Hi Paolo and Kris! Hi Marcelle and
Gin! ;) ) Digital Pinay smackdown. Long phone calls and Skype
sessions. Cryptograms. Graduate House people and activities. New
friends and old friends. =)
- Read more. I want to read at least a book a week and a
scholarly paper a day. - Write more. I want to write a scholarly paper. I want to
continue writing articles for magazines. I want to post thoughtful
pieces on my blog more often. =) - Study more. I want to make my department glad they took a
chance on me. =) - Do more. I want to lay the groundwork so that I have an idea of
what to do after my master’s degree. - Live more. I want to make more friends in the Philippines and
in Canada. I want our barkada to grow—fresh blood! =)—and I want to
find a group of people I can hang out with in Canada. - Be more. I want to make a difference (even a small one!) at
least every week.
On Technorati: reflections
Resolutions for 2004
- Speak slower and lower.
- Check requirements within 3 days.
- Log all of my expenses in plain text in Emacs so that I get forced to develop a ledger mode.
- Journal every day. 23:00 – 23:30 is my journaling time. Drop everything and write (unless have earlier substantial journal
entry). - Visit at least one new website related to computer science education every day.
- Play at least one game of chess a week.
- Chat with friends at least once a week in order to swap stories and get ideas.
Plans for 2004
- Visit AU and NZ during the summer. Sit in classes, visit friends, meet professors.
- Collect or compose at least 100 exercises, examples, and ideas for introductory computer science education.
- Collect at least 30 CookOrDie recipes and stories into something publishable.
- Apply for an MS or PhD program in computer science education or computer science.
About me
For more info, check out the About page.![[me]](/blog/wp-content/themes/sacha-v3/images/face.png)
I'm Sacha Chua. I'm having lots of fun geeking out about parenting our four-year-old. I also compile Emacs News weekly.
I'm infrequently on:
Twitter - Github - Facebook -Slideshare - LinkedIn
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