Jun 17
This is a picture @s0delightful took back in April when she was doing design research on what wellness meant for different people. She was specifically interested in knowing what the ac4d kids thought as we transitioned from those insane 8 months to what we would like moving forward.
I have never been one that thought much of work-life balance of sort. I do what I love and I love what I do (@justinpetro). When you feel your work life is a part of your life work, you care so much that you simply can't stop (@bobulate). But going away for a couple weeks then trying to get back into things, plus adjusting to life without Christina around, plus getting emails from 2nd year ac4d students asking about workload, got me thinking about this a little more.
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Jun 5
*The original post was published on the We Move Media blog.
Dear team,
Originally, my May update was going to be yet another post about my thoughts on interaction design and social entrepreneurship. But being in Hong Kong for 2 weeks gave my brain some room to think about something else, serving one of the trip’s true intentions.
I’ve always been able to relate when Renjie talks about his self-identity crisis and his quest to understand where he belongs. I certainly got asked a lot the question “Where are you from?” during my one-year exchange in Germany and the summer internship in Botswana. And of course, the answer changes everytime, depending on who’s asking or how much I feel like explaining. Having spent exactly half my life in Hong Kong and the other half of my life in Canada makes it hard to decide sometimes when both places shaped me in equally significant ways. Semi-living through Hong Kong’s transition from a British colony to a special administrative region (S.A.R) of China makes it even harder to ever claim a sense of belonging.
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May 18
*The original post was published on the Austin Center for Design blog.
So the school part of AC4D is over. But I think all of us recognize that this journey has just begun and I hope to continue to use this as a platform to articulate our thoughts, state our opinion, and design publicly. Coming into AC4D with some socent knowledge and having immersed myself in the ixd world for the last 8 months, I have been internalizing how the two worlds fit together, what they mean to me, and how I would talk about them. As Frank Chimero wrote, “Writing pushes forward”. So I figured the only way I would be able to figure that out is to begin writing about it. These are more of my general thoughts about the industries so they will sound awfully obvious to the AC4D students, but do comment and add to this if you agree/disagree.
First and foremost, there’s this common ground: Both interaction designers and social entrepreneurs aspire and have the ability to create something new in the world that fundamentally disrupts the way things are currently being done.
Now I want to talk about why I think they need each other.
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May 12
*The original post was published on the We Move Media blog.
Dear team,
This is not going to be a long reflective post. I have many many thoughts in my head which are going to require some time to be digested, and slowly, through writing, formulate and articulate themselves. But since my April update is long overdue; first thing first: I graduated.
If there was one thing I took away from this Ac4D experience and will keep with me for the rest of my life, it will be this: Never listen to what other people tell you what you should be doing with your life.
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Apr 8
The past two weeks have been tough. I felt like I'm finally getting burned out from juggling between work, school, and not being able to give either all of me. On top of that, I was also getting unnecessarily emotional about ac4d ending and the goodbyes that are to come. You know, one of those moments when you really just want to go home, be sad, and cry.
I've always said though, that people who do great things and are happiest in life, are people who have a solid group of friends supporting and believing in whatever they're doing.
So as I'm on my way onto doing great things and being the happiest I can be in life, I have friends like christina that give me this: a little happiness booklet that was made in 2008, and sweet enough, coincided with HourSchool's core mission.
I also have friends like kristina who say this to me when I whine about the same things for the 45th time given my inability to deal with my own self-doubts and insecurities:
you have to come to know/expect that things are going to change in the next few months, its inevitable, but who's to say that it can't be better? i don't think you need to learn how to draw lines, life is so short.
Wholehearted thank you. You're amazing. I love you both.
