North American Tour – Day 9 - The Conference Has Formally Started

These events took place on Monday 30 April, 2007

The conference formally started yesterday and since I have already done what I'm supposed to do here I just planned initially to attend some courses on what I thought would be ethnographic research. However, as I listened to the first remarks during the first conference I realized I was in the wrong place. Not because I went into a different course, but because they were "just" talking about usability and how to build more usable products, which, at this point, I don't really care about.

Because of this I had to reschedule my entire day and finished in an "interactive session" entitled "Who killed design?" which was more interesting not just because of the people talking, but mostly because of the disagreements and ramblings among them. Bill Moggridge, Bill Buxton (which happens to be an interesting character) Terriy Winograd and Meg Armstrong were in the panel.

After this I decided to go to the airport to try to sort out my situation with with my trip to Salt Lake City. I can neither cancel my flight and, apparently, nor change it. So, it seems to be that I will have to end up buying yet another ticket to make it from San Jose to Salt Lake City.

At night I was really tired but I went to the exhibition and kind of a welcome party for the conference. There were lots of stands from this famous technology companies. I was interested in inquiring about internship positions, so, as far as I can remember, I made contact with Yahoo, eBay, Google and VMWare. These companies will be recruiting today but since last night I already saw people asking questions and giving their personal cards to representatives from these companies.

I was interested in making contact with foreign researchers to try to expand my own research so I made contact with some researchers from Samsung, and some PhD students from the University of Tampere in Finland and Georgia Tech in the US. I was invited to a party from this last university on Wednesday. On Wednesday it seems to be that everyone will be organizing a party. I missed my chance of making contact with some Chinese researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science. I mean, I did talk to one of them but during the welcome party it was to noisy to actually communicate... Hope I can have a chance to talk with them again.

There was plenty of international food during the party, but I was still full from lunch (a hamburger from Johnny Rockets that wasn't that good). However, I ate some Mexican chicken fajitas. There was an international show as well with Belly Dancers, who were kind of old, Chinese music with dragon included - according to the guy from the Chinese Academy of Science that was the type of show they have during the Spring Festival... that loud music was the reason why I couldn't really talk to the guy - and Japanese drums.

I got lots of goodies from the exhibitors... and I saw Bill Buxton signing his own book, like if he were a famous author. Met Aaron Marcus as well... and took the names of several books I should read from the publishing houses that were present.

I've been told that the Mexican team from the Universidad Tecnologica de la Mixteca made it to the finals in the design competition taking place tomorrow.

North American Tour – Day 8 - Second Day of Workshop

These events took place on Sunday 29 April 2007

I woke up early to give some finishing touches to my presentation and did present on time, this time. The particulars of this are in my other blog, once I have the time to update it...

All the workshop attendants went for lunch to some Vietnamese restaurant and then came back to the Convention Center to wrap up and finish. The required pictures were taken, some of which can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jose_in_glasgow/

After the workshop there was a networking event, but I almost missed it because I was supposed to be attending another course at 6 pm. However, before heading for the course I met the other people from Glasgow attending the conference, Roderick, John, and Steve, plus some former colleagues, Lorna and her boyfriend. I also met someone from Toshiba who, like me, is attending this conference for the first time, and also that guy from Samsung who was visiting Glasgow University and staying in my office a few months back.

After my course with Jonathan Grudin from Microsoft on the History of HCI, I joined the other people from Glasgow for dinner. Two ladies from Copenhagen University and the Technical University of Copenhagen joined us as well. It took 36 hours for one of them to make it to California from Mauritius! The evening was a little chilly, but still the weather was wonderful.

I arrived back to the hotel at around 10:30 pm. I was pretty tired but I still watched the news for a while... I mean, to keep my habit...

Oh! one more thing that left me pleasantly surprised. I met this guy from Mexico who works for the Universidad Tecnologica de la Mixteca (UTM) in Oaxaca, Mexico who told me that some of his students are taking part in the student competition during the conference. He insisted in telling me they are doing a wonderful job over there and on the high level they have achieved on the HCI field. Of course, I have my doubts, but I was nice to hear from this. Eventually, I saw to Mexican committee which I easily recognized.

I didn't know I should have brought presentation cards! Everyone is exchanging cards and a little piece of paper with my name on it doesn't have the same impact. There's also a job fair on Tuesday. I asked the guy from Microsoft who was in my workshop with whom should I talk about internships and he gave me some name... I need to do this because I was turned down from MSR, Cambridge last week :-(

I chatted briefly with Kate, Elnaz and Echo. Miss them all.

North American Tour – Day 7 - Arriving to San Jose, CA

Today I missed my flight to San Jose, CA. I was supposed to be leaving from Los Angeles at 6 AM to be perfectly on time at the San Jose Convention Center on time for my presentation at 11:20 AM. For some reason I went to sleep last night thinking that my flight was at 7 AM… the result was that after taking a shower I checked my flight scheduled and realized that at 5:30 AM was already too late to arrive to the airport on time all the way from Santa Ana. However, Roberto took me to the airport as fast as he could.

On our way to the airport I called the airline to ask for advice on my situation. They asked me not to reschedule over the phone as this would incur a different cost than if I did it right at the ticket counter. I was told the price for rescheduling would be around 100 USD and that the next available flight to San Jose would be at 7:50 AM.

We arrived to the airport just to be told that the next flight would be at 10 AM arriving to San Jose at 11:15 AM! Fortunately, the price for rescheduling would be just 25 USD, which, I must say, Roberto paid for me. Before he left me at the airport, Roberto gave me an extra 100 USD, which were really welcomed!

As I waited for my departure I had tot wander around the airport searching for an Internet connection to send an email to the organizers of the workshop notifying my delay. I found some public phones where I had to use my credit card to call and leave a message for the organizers. Finally, I found some wireless Internet access point, which, by the way, wasn’t free and I had to pay, again with my credit card, around 7 USD for 60 min of Internet access. I sent emails to the organizers and they were kind enough to quickly reply informing me they would arrange my presentation for later during the workshop.

As I waited for the flight I fell asleep and woke up before 10 AM thinking I had missed my flight again… fortunately that was not the case! My plane was the smallest plane I have ever been in. It had rows of only three seats (two on one side and another after the aisle). Well, it was so small that once I took my seat at the front of the plane I realized I would have to help the pilot with the controls on the right-hand side of the control panel.

I arrived quite swiftly to San Jose. On my way over here, I admired the Californian landscape that was very contrasting: lots of mountains and hills and several large valleys in between. There were also a few lakes. As I have highlighted elsewhere, California has a lot of areas resembling a desert.

Once in San Jose I took a taxi to the Convention Center. It costed 16 USD. I decided to go with my luggage straight to the Convention Center thinking I would make it on time for my presentation. I registered for CHI, I was given my course materials for several courses I’ll be taking during this week, and I headed to the room where the workshop was taking place. I made it at 11:45 AM, but sadly I had already been rescheduled for tomorrow Sunday at 9:40 AM. A girl from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign took my time slot for her own presentation and I’m taking hers tomorrow.

Issues dealing with the actual content of the workshop are described in my other blog. Here it suffices to say that I met Marcela, which whom I made contact before, and I realized we are around 20 people taking part in this workshop including just 5 guys. There are people from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Hong Kong, Chicago, Australia, California at Irvine, Microsoft, and Utah State.

A few minutes after I arrived to the room where the workshop is taking place I realized I had forgotten my course materials at the registration desk… I think. Sadly, I couldn’t recover them because after lunch there was nobody at the registration desk.

Around 15 of us went to have dinner together to a fancy restaurant where the food wasn’t that good. On my way back to the Hilton Hotel where I’m staying I stumbled upon Malc and Eve who apparently arrived to San Jose one day ago. Eve is presenting a poster and taking part as a student volunteer. BTW, I volunteered twice already for this but I have been rejected the same number of times; apparently they are already complete.

Kebabish is Such a Good Place

My good friend Stefan send us today this photo from our last trip to Budapest. I think he has been the only guy with whom I ever had meaningful conversations. I mean, mostly, my close friends have always been girls.

Last Wednesday Annu-Maaria came back to Glasgow from her trip to Finland. We went to have dinner at Kebabish, my favourite restaurant in Glasgow. As the name implies, this place is owned by Indian/Pakistani people, but the food over there reminds me of some food in Mexico, specially grilled meats. Interestingly, tonight I ended up there again having dinner with Maggie. This time she invited :-)

Annu-Maaria told me about her experience as a Godmother for her friend's baby. She went to a conference with the Dalai Lama, who shes's been reading lately, and her new deal to get a new flat in a new development back home. Apparently, everything is going fine for they both.

Today, Meiko, Carlos and Me sent our six-months reports back to CONACYT. I am so grateful to this organization!!! It allows me to be here writing this. Afterwards, Meiko and me were in my office having lunch and talking about our love relationships and exchanging some ideas about our research projects. We were talking about working together, since she is into sociology and that is one of those fields that are increasingly becoming important to HCI.

Yesterday I went to The Primary again. I took a few photos and met some new people. The most interesting bit was a Chinese girl who joined the society and who asked me if she could have my email address and my MSN name. I gave her both. Let's see if we meet again... As I'm logging to MSN right now I see that she has added me to her contact list.

Maggie is spending the weekend with me. She's working tomorrow and Sunday the back shift, so I will have some time on my own to continue reading and getting ready for my viva on Monday. Should I prepare a presentation?

This week temperature has been droping considerably. I'm still wearing just my jacket when I go out of my flat, but I notice is not enough to keep me warm. It's been raining again... but I still like this city.

I've been keeping a detailed record of all my expensed for the last month. I wasn't able to save anything, but at least I know now where it all went. I'm doing the same this month. This month I'm supposed to be sending some money to my sisters in Montreal to help contributing for my parents emigration process.

Today, Christiane, who is now in Mexico, made contact with me. She said she's been eating "tacos" all the time. She asked me if I wanted something from Mexico... all I could think of were Cheetos. I told her I was kind of jealous of her. Her relationship with her boyfriend from Austria is working out fine, he's visiting her in Mexico, then they both are coming back together and living together, and I'm sure she'll be able to get a job here now she's finished her masters...

First Pub Night Of The Year At The Primary

Last Tuesday I finally finished my First Yeare Report. One of my other blogs has a fuller account of that. After submitting I decided to take some days off... and now it's been 4 days already.

Last Wednesday Maggie came back from London. That same day I went to help the International Society sell tickets for today's trip to Edinburgh. Tickets were being in sold in the round reading room and although I arrived just one hour late all tickets were already sold out. Many people still came trying to buy one.

On Wednesday I was fixing Joelle's laptop. She has this nice red Toshiba laptop but, as it's usual, it was full of spyware and similar stuff. I spent a long time applying antivirus and all that sort of stuff. Apparently her laptop was working fine afterwards, but later I found out her computer is deas, i.e., is just restarting over and over again. I always said that whenever I'm called to do some support I hear the strangest computer stories ever.

On Thursday we had our first pub night at The Primary. After some debate wheter we should continue having our pub nights there or somewhere else, we ended up in the same place. I was documenting the event taking photographs using Carlos' camera. Sadly, I haven't been able to upload those photos yet, since he still has them all. (Update: I finally uploaded those photos)

Like any other pub night, I met lots of people... my problem is that I have never been good at making casual conversation... and so, I get to know lots of people, but my number of friends remains the same.

Yesterday night I went to have dinner with Joelle in Antipasti and then we went to the Grosvenor Cinema. We watched a not very good movie called "The Black Dahlia." After this I went to visit Maggie and make up peace with her. I went to her new flat. Now she's sharing a flat with three other Chinese guys. She's staying in this flat for one month and a half while the actual resident is in China. We came to my flat very late at night. Poor Maggie, yesterday shopping she ran into a small cement pilar and now she has this huge bruise in her right thigh... and she has two nasty bedbug bites in her left leg too.

I lost my mobile's charger and I have no idea where it might be. Because of this I was without mobile for around two days. Maggie lend me one of her mobiles.

I haven't been to the gym in two weeks now. This Monday I will start all over again.

Well, this week was not as exciting as before, but it was fun anyways.

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A New School Year at the University of Glasgow

The past days have been full of things to do. On Wednesday 13th and Tuesday 14th September the International Office had its first social event with all (or at least lots of) new international students for an evening of Ceilidh dancing.

As members of the International Society, we were invited both days to advertise our society and get new members. This occasion reminded me that last year I was there (on the second day) as a new student myself in this university. Relieving those days was really nice. It made me think, and Miriam remind me of that as well, that last year, on September 11th, 2005, I was leaving Mexico City and arriving to Glasgow the following day. One full year is already gone!

Returning to this social event, we signed around 150 new members (but I think they were more) in both days. After many months, I did a little bit of Ceilidh dancing, and as usual, it had me sweating like crazy. Fortunately, I had my hand towel with me, but it ended completely soaked. Lots of new students... lots of girls... so many, that is actually difficult to focus in one at a time.

On Friday 15th, Annu-Maaria, Maggie, me and all my Mexican friends went to Edinburgh to celebrate our Independence along with the Mexican society at that university. Besides paying for the train, we had to pay £5.00 for the entrance that entitled us to some Pozole. Annu-Maaria and Maggie loved it. Maggie said it remind her of some Chinese food. She was surprised to find pork in it. I don't know what Sascha, Christiane's boyfriend, thought about all this. Sadly, we didn't get tostadas because they ran out of them... and they were charging £1.00 ($20.o00 pesos) for each one!!! All in all, it was a really nice evening. I suggested we should add Viva Conacyt!!! to the traditional "Grito de Independencia" (Independence Shout). Maggie and I were doing a little bit of Salsa, which, I must clarify again, I don't do, but, as they say in Mexico, "En la tierra de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey," (In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king). I have to say that Samantha and her Czech boyfriend were really good... but how did he learn it? Maggie and Annu-Maaria really enjoyed the pinata and the traditional dances. It was funny to try to explain the concept of "China poblana" (town Chinese) to Maggie. She said, however, that those colors reminded her of similar clothes in her home town... :-)

On Sunday 17th, the International Society had its Welcome Party. We were signing lots of members too. We had a brief Salsa lesson and I was doing some dancing and sweating (again) afterwards. Calum had the great idea of getting a map for Europe and another from the whole world and have students put stickers on their own countries. This idea seem to have been very popular and most of the people seem to have enjoyed putting those stickers... I had a similar idea before, but I was thinking of pins that students could use to pin their names on their countries... but I was never able to solve the issue of what would happen once the map is removed from the wall. Obviously, Calum's idea was better.

Maggie moved to my flat on Tuesday night (Sep 19th). I had to help her pack and move all her stuff to my small student flat... well, to be true, on my suggestion, she left books, food, TV and kitchen stuff in her old flat. She would need to get those things later. On Wednesday night she left for London and she's supposed to be coming back next Wednesday morning... thus, I need to finish my last review of my First Year report by next Tuesday night.

On Tuesday and Wednesday (Sep 19th and 20th) I was again helping the International Society at the freshers fair, where all other societies have a stand. By now, I think we have around 450 members.

Today, I tidy-up my bedroom, rearranged Maggie's stuff, did some laundry and I even did some hoovering. Annu-Maaria was coming in the evening to watch some of my films. We watched Audition and Oldboy. (Irealized I can't play some of my movies in my laptops, despite the fact that I was able to play them in my office desktop computer. By now, I don't know where/what is the problem, is it in my blank DVDs, the DVD burner or what?) It's always nice to be with Annu-Maaria and talk about our love stories, HCI, movies and many other things. I'm already thinking that I will miss her like crazy when she leaves next March... yes, still several months to go, but I can't avoid feeling already anxious about that.

Annu-Maaria is going to Finland next Friday for four days. I told her she should go to the open house of the new Finnish temple. She told me her boyfriend over there is planning to visit it himself along with his friends... but not before watching the South Park episode about mormons... Annu-Maaria wanted to see it too, so we did... and of course, I had to show her this one too...

Well, I had made but a brief summary of the past few days, and I'm sure I'm leaving lots of stuff out... Hope to write more frequently in this blog (since now I have three), whose purpose is to keep an account of the everday, common things of my life...