A single lone question mark in an instant message has no meaning.

The snow is falling like a blanket to the city. It was silent and almost still. Cars moved slowly on the road. Nine at night, I stood and looked up at the sky catching snow in my face. Warmer than a few days ago.

I haven\’t experienced many snowfalls. This is only my second winter and possibly last in an area that has \”real\” seasons. Most of the time, I spend inside not noticing the outside. Today, I left a great fondue party someone had conjured up to be held in our lab (complete with cheese fondue and chocolate fondue). The snow fell down like powder, coating the parked cars covering everything in the sameness of white winter snow.

I stood at the corner, near the bus stop and headed to an area with benches underneath the falling snow. My friend walking home found me dancing in the snow, getting my pants inadverdently wet and cold. I was packing the snow together to make another mini-snowman (or to some passerbys, a snowball). I wanted to roll in the powder. Eventually, I decided to stop being a child in the midst of the other students who were hiding in the bus shelter. I stood outside the bus shelter letting the snow fall.

When I finally got on the bus, someone said outloud, \”Frosty! Snowman!\” As I walked in the aisle, trying to find a seat, snow fell and dripped off my hat and my backpack. Any movement I made, a lump of snow fell to the ground.

I got off the bus, enjoyed the silence that snow brought. A stillness like no other.

From time to time, I see something that makes me wonder why I chose hci–a field that people won\’t recognize because our job is to make things easier. As I say in my bio on the mhci page, I want to design something that seamlessly blends in with the world, that will change the world, so much so that people won\’t notice it.

When i was younger, I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to do the opposite of hci. I wanted to create something that put in front of people, would change their perspectives, make them think differently. I wanted to have the ability to make them feel something, to imagine a different world from where they are now. A better world or perhaps make them appreciate what they have now. I would have liked to be…an artist. Creativity.

Today, it was the Building Virtual Worlds showcase. Every single world was amazing. BVW, as its called by the students, is a class (24 units which translates to 24 hours) at the Entertainment Technology Center. Generally, the masters students–most who go into the video game industry as entertainment programmers or designers–take this class. They each had 14 days to create a world comprised of teams of designers, programmers, storytellers and a producer. At the showcase, people acted out the world using amazing technological techniques such as light sensing, space detection, or even flashlight movement. One memorable world was the one that the professors called \”dangerous\”. In this world, the audience was given \”rocks\”. The world included a large ugly green monster and a little girl. We would watch as the monster befriended the girl, but then someone in the back of the audience would shout \”Stone the monster!\” People would throw the rocks at the monster and then…the monster would die…giving a flower to the little girl. Awesome.

Today, a man screamed.

It was 23 degrees outside, just barely above freezing. There was a group of us–at least 10–waiting at the bus stop right at the corner of the house. Ten minutes had passed and no bus had arrived. My fingers were feeling numb and cold despite wearing my leather gloves. I made a fist with my fingers, pulling my hands into the sleeves. The little snowman I had made a few days ago was still up, slightly smushed when I had tried to force the snowballs to stay together. I considered playing with the snow again, just to distract myself from the cold. But thoughts of my upcoming presentations distracted me.

And then the man screamed. All of us glanced him, mentally backing away from him not because of fear, but because we all understood we had a crazy one here. The cold was bad, sneaking into our layers of clothes. Soon though soon hopefully, the bus would come.

A bus did come. It was packed with passengers. The driver did not open the door as it pulled to the traffic light. The man started yelling at the bus. \”I need to get to a class!\” he yelled and kicked at the ground.

The bus–filled with possibilties of heat–only pulled away. The man screamed at the air as other people glanced at each other. All of us looked in the distance, the bus stop before ours–looking for hints of the next bus.

Another bus came shortly after, still somewhat full and did not stop. The man screamed again. He was upset. Finally, the next bus barely filled arrived. He was the first one on and he complained loudly, \”Fifteen minutes! Fifteen minutes!!!\”

The bus driver, a young African American with dreadlocks, took no such nonsense and told the man to quiet down. The man apologized without regret and said that he was very upset with the timing of the bus system. The driver again told the man to lower his voice or he would have to get off the bus. The rest of us shuffled into the bus, happy for the warmth. People exchanged murmurs of the man, opinions of how disruptive he was. But in the end, we could understand his frustration–we like everyone else don\’t want to be ignored and most of all, left behind.

I just noticed that in the dock, ical shows July 17 when it is not open. When iCal is opened, the little calendar icon changes to the current day. However, when iCal is closed, it returns to July 17.

That\’s it. More icon replacements from my latest favorite artist, David Lanham.

My dad sent my sister and me the following poem titled \”Happy Holidays\”:

The holidays are coming
The girls are homecoming
We have no planning
Books and supplies we will be buying
The girls will not be on the street standing

Ching, ching, ching

One day the old man will be smiling
A Mercedes good to travel
The old lady will not bellow ‘cause
Too many trips to marvel

Yep yep yep

The girls ask why the old man’s rapping
He replies time’s changing

Ching, Ching, Ching

My mom gave me a package of lychee jelly to take back when I went back for Thanksgiving. When my friend saw them, her immediate reaction \”Aren\’t they illegal?\”

To my surprise (and maybe not), they have been banned in the United States and all across Europe. Maybe I missed the big news a few years ago, but they apparently are no longer sold in stores because they are choking hazards for children. Unless I am wrong (and the lychee jelly cups have not changed in content), my mom obtained this bag illegally. Or perhaps she didn\’t know that and wanted to surprise my sister and me with some nice sweet treats.

They are deliciously unhealthy and horribly messy, but for me, they recall a time of nostalgia in high school. Where it\’s exoticism, fascination.

Amazingly, I was able to convince my very stubborn housemate to pay me the rent this month yesterday night. My thanks to Dale Carnegie\’s How to make friends and influence people and all the self-help books/websites I have read over the years.

It\’s not that I am afraid of confrontations. I am the type of person who can see myself doing many things, but when I actually do it, my initial assertiveness and strength completely disappear. But over the years, I have learned to keep myself from cognitively tunneling, to be mature, to really want to say what I want to say rather than fall to childish accusations of you suck, no you suck.

When I heard her walking on the stairs, I rushed out of my room and asked if I could talk to her for a second. We started discussing the issue. In my left hand, I held the sublease contract. I pointed to the third paragraph which stated the definition of a security deposit. My hands were slightly shaking out of fear as a result of my unnatural behavior–standing up for myself. Yet, I never took my eyes off of her, always trying to maintain eye contact even as she looked away about 50% of the time. We debated a bit about the living situation–how her expectations were different from mine.

It started escalating to the point where we were almost interuppting each other, almost a full-blown argument. I starting holding back my tongue even as she made accusations that were exaggerated and untrue. As much as I wanted to correct her, I remembered the way to calm down an angry, anxious horse. As the horse stomped back and forth, the trainer also stomped back and forth. The key was to become as angry and anxious as the horse, so that the horse will want to calm down the crazy trainer. Anger is often an internal state. The words people make are not a true representation of themselves. Rather, it\’s a way to express an imbalance from within. I agreed with her on some issues without resorting to a \”yes…but\” and asked her how she felt about things. I took a counseling approach asking why she felt frustrated and why she felt uncomfortable. A how do you feel about that.

Empathy. Always a key. Everyone wants to feel important. By listening to someone, that someone feels important. I asked her how she wanted to see things done. I basically let her vent. Then I sympathisized. Then I complimented her and told her things that I admired about her (related of course). And in the end, she calmed down and gave in. I gave her reasons why I could not accept her security deposit as rent.

I was just surprised that it was that easy. My other housemate called it manipulation. I call it compassion.

This morning, I left my house at 9:45 am knowing that I had a 10 am meeting. It was cold and chilly as a result of last night\’s first snowfall. I looked automatically to the intersection near my house. The 61a bus was just crossing. I quickened my pace and to my relief I saw the 61c bus behind it. I planned my strategy and was about to jaywalk across the street to catch the 61c bus. Then suddenly I noticed that the light was turning green for the bus. So I rushed toward it, clopping my way with my boots (meant to keep me warmer). The bus driver stopped at the green light and waved at me that he was going to wait, even though I was looking at yet another bus behind me.

I climbed onboard giving my thanks. He responded saying that I shouldn\’t rush (because I could slip due to the cold weather) and told me that the buses come often enough. I said that they come every 10-15 minutes. He insisted that they come every 5 minutes and that was enough despite my bus riding experience over one year.

And I sulked to the back of the pseudo-crowded bus. Always in angst when the bus driver doesn\’t understand how passengers are frustrated with the \”norms\” of the Pittsburgh Bus system – back doors are only controlled by the drivers and passengers cannot push them open, you show your pass when you get on when you\’re going downtown and after when you\’re going away from downtown and this pervasive misunderstanding of why people stand near the front rather than stand near the back (because if the back door cannot be opened, then you need to be at the front otherwise you\’ll have to push through lines of people).

I live on a busy bus line. There is the 61a, 61b, 61c, 61d, 61f, 59u, 56u, and 501 that go to school and back. The unfortunate thing is that these buses often come all at once. Then there would be a 20 minute gap between the last bus and the next even when it is supposed to be 5 minutes spaced out. This is fine most of the time if it was not freezing or if I had a meeting in less than 10 minutes.

So, why do buses come in threes?