School’s back. Full-swing. And it’s very swingy. Unstable, in fact.
(Photo of a group outing of our design cohort)
FEAST FOR THE EYES>>
- The Design of Future Things. Don Norman. Norman’s newest book, I thought. I still haven’t read his breakthrough book, but this one was available on audiobook so I zipped through it pretty quickly. I enjoyed it but I don’t think it would be everyone’s cup of tea.
- How to Do Things with Words. JL Austin. I admit that I only finally finished reading this book because we had to read most of it for class. But we skipped like three of the lectures, so maybe I haven’t “officially” read it.
- The Story of English in 100 Words. David Crystal. This was fairly interesting, but it’s more like accumulating a bunch of etymological information that you can’t really use. I don’t remember that much of it either.
- How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed. Ray. Kurzwiel. Don’t recommend this book. Some parts were interesting, but not enough to rescue the rest of the book.
ENTHUSED>>
- Next week I’m going to the Grace Hopper Women in Technology conference in Arizona! I’ll get to see my friend Becca from Zürich :).
- I have really liked my classes so far and feel like I’m learning so much both from my classes and my independent study. The time its taking to do it all is another study all together.
- Meeting all the delightful first year students has been a treat. I feel like they’re more outgoing than our class was.
- Going to see Seven Guitars by August Wilson put on by the CMU theater.
COMPULSIONS>>
- No compulsions that aren’t forced—like working constantly.
- And I guess I think about design and my CPID program all the time.
COMPUNCTIONS>>
- This has been a really tough semester so far. I’m committed to all the projects I’m working on and they take so much time and are so emotionally stressful to work on. Teaching takes 10x more time than I thought it would and it stretches me quite thin.
- Working on thesis. (and/or not doing it enough).
- Thinking about the long year ahead…
- I feel like I don’t have enough time to buy food, make food, or eat it. Which is stressful.
SIGHTS>>
- I went to the Andy Warhol Museum, finally, and loved it! I learned so much about him and saw all his early work. It was incredible! It’s a seven story building dedicated to his work and life. I will admit I didn’t care for his pop art so much, but seeing the transition and stages he went through helped my appreciate what he ended up working on. So lovely!
- Attended the IxDA Pittsburgh debates and thought they were very interesting. I even volunteered to go on the panel for a little bit! It was a treat to talk with other people outside of school about what the industry is looking like and what they want for it. It’s a relief to know they are concerned with the same high-level things we’re talking about in grad school and that we’re not just living in a bubble. There solutions to the problem, however, are another thing all together. Basically all my answers were “You have to consider context.”
STORIES>>
- Book of Mormon: The Musical for a second time here in Pittsburgh. It was interesting seeing it not in the first row like I did with Matt in Denver 😉
- Is the Tall Man Happy?: An animated interview with Noam Chomsky. Absolutely beautiful animated interview with Chomsky by Michel Gondry and completely enjoyable if you’re a fan of Chomsky as well.