oops

so maybe booking a trip to london my last weekend here was a bad idea. at least after the volcanic ash cloud decided to wreak a little havoc once again and keep us grounded an extra night. which wouldn't have been a big deal if it didn't keep me from my last crit/sort of pretty important final presentation for a project i've been working on all semester with alcatel lucent/bell labs. our job has been to research and develop from start to finish a communication tool (think skype, facebook, gmail) for a specific user. (i ended up designing something called "mailbox" for elementary school aged kids.) i'll admit that i was skeptical about the class at first, but i really have learned a lot of valuable things along the way. everything from product analysis and positioning, user research and ethnography, wireframing and mapping, how to use the student's t-test, and really getting to the nitty gritty of interactivity. it would have been nice to wrap the project all up with a bow today, but i guess i'll write this post about it instead. thank you mother nature. we are officially fighting.

jet lag is for losers

and i tried very hard to not look like a tourist taking these pictures. here's hoping i get better at that. more soon. (as soon as i find "wee-fee" somewhere other than mcdonalds and my school.)

paris calling

ok. so spring 2010 is sorta far off... but there's just something about the planning stage of things. (and a july 15 deadline to give you a kick in the pants.) here's the plan: parsons paris.

plus pulling together a portfolio, writing a statement of intent, obtaining letters of recommendation, and making a seperate petition application. (because, go figure, parsons paris isn't on mica's list.) sort of a daunting summer task. to add to the french fun, i have the rosetta stone to make my way through now. (thank you, dad.) good thing. two years away from any formal french classes and i am unbelievably rusty. i couldn't even write my email to mademoiselle asking for study abroad advice en francais. so sad. but i'm going to try to get as far as possible on my own with that prep this summer while i have some time. (there'd be no way when school starts again.) the rest i'll just have to leave up to immersion.