Fade to Play

It was one year ago, that I was shaken to the core as I heard how students in Virgina Tech lost their lives in a tragic and sudden way. As a fellow student here in Canada I felt deeply affected, scared, and a little lost. On this day, we remember.

Sent to VT from UBC last year

Relevance: Sad that students full of life and promise didn’t come home from college that day.

from the Facebook group A tribute to those who passed at the Virginia Tech Shooting

Today according to Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) is Good People Day. It is a day when we celebrate and talk about the good people in our lives. It is a call to action to share with the world who these people are and why they motivate us and give our lives meaning. Although I have met many good people (and even have some twitter crushes — you know who you are!), I would like to focus on one person.

Celebrating Sophia

Her name is Sophia and she is my Vancouver bff. We first met randomly on the Vancouver transit late one night. She is fun, engaging, and always has time for her friends although she is super busy with school and work. She has volunteered in Africa as a schoolteacher and organised a local band night to raise funds for her trip. She motivates me to work hard and to stay happy even when times aren’t the greatest.

To know Sophia is to know someone that loves life and that’s why I am celebrating her on Good People Day.

I am so excited today. I have been jumping up and down since going to my mailbox after arriving home late tonight. On Feb 21st I ordered my MOO cards, on Feb 25th they left MOO headquarters via DHL in the UK and today they arrived at my Vancouver residence.

Wow. I am in love with my MOO cards. Thank you MOO!!!!!

Relevance: I am so happy that my MOO cards arrived in time for SXSW. I am so worried and I very glad I didn’t use Canada Post.

Recently Susan Reynolds found out she had breast cancer so today is Frozen Pea Friday. She has created a blog called Boobs on Ice where she is sharing her experiences.

This is a really cool example of the Twitter community coming together as I first heard about this from Robert Scoble’s tweet which he expanded on in his blog.

There are a number of ways you can stay involved and show your support.

Twitter: Follow PEAple
Flickr: Change your avatar to frozen-pea inspired and upload to the Frozen Pea Friday group (must be a Flickr member)
Website: Join the Official Frozen Pea Fund and the proceeds go to Making Strides against Breast Cancer from the American Cancer Society.

Although I do not know her personally, I can identify with her struggles.  Stay strong Susan and all the best. Cancer is touching more and more of us these days either indirectly or directly. I wish you luck with the tough days ahead.

Relevance: Social Media comes together for a cause.

Yesterday I attended our campus Remembrance Day ceremony.

My flickr pictures of the event are here. It is important to remember those that sacrificed their lives for our freedom.

For people applying to grad school, danah boyd offers helpful tips.

Already Jane McGonigal offers great advice in the comments which I agree with.

Apply to programs in places you would be happy.

For example, If you don’t like rain, don’t come to Vancouver. If you don’t like snow, you probably won’t like Montreal.

Technorati Tags: danahboyd, graduateschool, phd

I have changed my blog name and address as I wanted to get off my university servers and it gave me an opportunity to try out Wordpress and do a little coding with php. I had forgotten how much time this takes. I am super tired tonight as I didn’t get alot of sleep last night. This blog also better reflects my research interests in games especially location-based and mobile environments as evident by the title _Fade to Play_. As I make my final push towards completing my thesis and graduating, I will share my experiences here.

Technorati Tags: games, personal

IMG_41421

Originally uploaded by tyfn.

Tonight we had our Spring Gala in our residence. It was great to get out and take my mind off my research and the other “major” issue going on in my life.

It is great to spend time among friends.

For the last few years, I have been watching the Academy Awards online at oscar.com. I much prefer to watching it on tv. The really cool thing is that they show the reporters room where the winners are interviewed. It is fascinating to hear the different questions that are asked and who gets chosen to ask first. Technology rocks!!!!

Technorati Tags: oscar, academyawards, technology