There is great value in things that take a long time

I have started riding my bike a little bit more, as much as my hip and schedule will allow for, and it is weird. My brain still thinks that I am fast and that nothing has changed in the last 1.5 years since I got injured and stopped training. Because of this, I have a tendency to underestimate the difficulty of the road ahead of me in order to get back to racing.

But actually, silly brain, if you stop riding your bike for 1.5 years, you get pretty slow. In fact, I think my quads are half the size they used to be.

So I have a tendency to say "I am slow" a lot, which isn't to mean that I am extra hard on myself, but a reminder that I have a lot of work to do and that I need to remember how slow I am so that I don't get lazy. It's for motivational purposes.

So here are the facts:

1. I am currently very slow.

2. I have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was.

3. This is going to be difficult.

4. This is going to take a long time.

5. It is going to take me an especially long time to get my bike handling skills back.

6. That is okay.

7. There is great value in things that take a long time.

This is a lesson in patience and in remembering that I can learn a lot from things that are difficult. I just need to accept the difficulty because otherwise the task at hand seems too daunting.

A new kind of athlete

Well, here I am, about 9 months after hip surgery, and things seem to be finally improving. When it does flare up, it's only for a day or so, and not nearly as bad as before. Definitely moving forward, but I'm still not really riding my bike.

There's a reason for that. I secretly promised myself that I wouldn't start training for any specific sport until I can do normal recreational activities without any issues. This includes running. Now that my body is back in alignment and I seem to be functioning in a normal movement pattern, running seems like it would be ok. In fact, it seems like it would be better than cycling because I am upright when I run, so it doesn't stress my back and cause any referred posterior hip pain.

The other reason is that I just haven't really felt like riding my bike. I've been riding a little bit here and there without much issue, but I certainly don't have any desire to start serious training anytime soon. After being injured for over a year, I just want to enjoy exercising for awhile. The problem is that every time I get on my bike, I instantly think about all the training I could do. Bad. Bad. Bad. I also have a pretty daunting quarter ahead of me, during which training will be difficult.

Anyway, today I was feeling daring, so I did 5x[9 min walk, 1 min run] and it actually felt pretty darn good. I have a theory that running is going to help me more than cycling, but for now it's just a theory. Part of my hip issue all along, in addition to the anterior labral tear, was an issue with the posterior capsule. My hip wasn't sitting right in the capsule, which inhibits my glutes and screws up the way I move. Often at PT and massage, they push my leg into my hip joint to help it sit better in the joint. Running happens to be a similar motion, where with each heel strike, the impact pushes my leg into the joint. I was able to do my walk/run workout without any anterior or posterior pain. We'll see if it flares up tomorrow, just in time for a 10 hour plane ride, but I don't think it will be that bad.

It's been awhile since I've been able to exercise without really thinking about my hip. There are many things that I miss about training and racing, which include:

-Fresh air

-Riding my bike really, really hard

-Running really, really hard

-Competing in triathlons when I'm only somewhat prepared

-The solo creep (long solo workouts)

-Trail running

-Breath control so it doesn't look like I'm going really, really hard

-Lifting weights and feeling strong

-That comfortable tired feeling after a long workout

So for the next few months, I'm going to focus on these things. No watts. No speed. No regimented plan. A watch only as a rehab tool. Just breathing.

I tried to "buy" local

I often get annoyed by the "buy local" mentality in Seattle. "Buy local!" says the guy using his Macbook at a non-Starbucks coffee shop. This doesn't make sense to me, since both Microsoft and Starbucks are local, and they do more to support the economy in this area than the little coffee shop down the street. Those large companies drive the economy, and without them, people wouldn't have money to spend on local things.

With this in mind, maybe we should say "buy local and support large Seattle-based businesses!" Then, we could have the best of both worlds: support the large companies so they stay in business, and support the smaller mom and pop places, too. I know this sounds like I contradicted myself because it's unlikely that a Starbucks employee would buy a latte from Cafe Vita, but we could achieve some harmonious compromise. People drink enough coffee around here that I think we could *gasp* support both types of coffee shops. Or at least refrain from saying how much Starbucks sucks.

Anyway, back to my point. Ever since I moved to Seattle in 2008, I've tried to support the local, public pools. I've adjusted my schedule to accommodate the random, 1-hour lap swim sessions, and I've traveled to pools outside of my neighborhood when the hours at my pool don't work. Even with this, though, the hours are quite limited, and now that I work ~30 mins out of Seattle, I just can't make it.

Adding to this, when I'm in school, I dislike swimming at the UW rec center because the pool is set up with 3, double-wide lanes, which makes it impossible to swim fast.

Today, I finally found a public pool time that would work, so I drove to West Seattle, where there is a nice, 50m outdoor pool along the Sound. Upon arrival, I discovered that the pool was closed because I guess 60 degrees is too cold for outdoor swimming? I was unaware.

Frustrated and defeated, I joined LA Fitness. I feel guilty about this, but my rehab has suffered because I haven't been able to swim very much.

Also feeding my guilt, I purchased a 1 year membership (with 1 year free and no initiation fee!). I did this because:

1. I hate monthly fees.

2. I can afford it now. When I return to school, that $75/month will seem pretty pricey.

3. I used to be a personal trainer, and I thought about how the poor guy selling memberships lives on commission, and there probably aren't a ton of members since everyone in Seattle is "buying" local and exercising at the nearby, dungeon-turned-fitness-center, the Olympic Athletic Club.

The only downside is that the LA Fitness smells funny.

Where, oh where, have I been?

Ah! It has been awhile! Where have I been?

Well, I've been working. And for the first few weeks (of my summer internship, mind you), it might as well have been winter.

But this week, summer struck. As a result, we've trended towards taking leisurely lunch breaks that involve beaches.

And Mexican food. Maybe by the beach. Returning to work is often hard after this, but I've managed so far.

I've also watched bag pipers march in the 4th of July parade. Nothing out of the ordinary here; just like any 4th of July in Gates Mills, OH.

And finally, I have a summer reading list, which I haven't done a great job of getting through, but I'm working on it.

Oh, and I added too many feeds to my RSS reader. I'm having trouble keeping up, but it's a good way to force myself to follow tech and ux trends.

My hip is doing ok. Back and forth but sources indicate that it is trending on track.

As I'm writing this post, I'm realizing that the blogger interface is really irritating. Why is the text entry area so small, but the rest of the page is empty? I'm generally annoyed when I post pictures because it's hard to move them around since text entry area is so small. And it always lumps the pictures at the top of the page, so I have no choice but to slowly drag them to where I want them. Come on, google, you can do better than this!

The Usability Superheroes

When I tell people that I am in graduate school studying usability or human-centered design, they blankly stare back at me, or they think I'm making bionic limbs. It's time for some clarification.

Usability professionals are modern superheroes. We try to save companies from making, and continuing to make, terrible decisions. We do this by finding problems in interface designs (interfaces such as your favorite e-commerce website, your mobile phone or your word processing program). Problems such as how the interface is structured, how things are labeled, and how many clicks/screens are required to complete a task can really wear on users.

One would think that designers and interface developers with experience would know how to design things intuitively, but unfortunately, that's generally not the case. This is because the designer is not the user. The concept of the visionary designer who creates a "masterpiece" that no one else touches or sees until the final release is in the dark ages. The user might have more or less education, be younger or older, or want something different out of the site than what the designer expects.

So, we run tests on real users where we have them interact with the interface. We give them a list of tasks, and we record things like the time to task completion, where the mouse moves, where their eyes move, and more subtle/qualitative things like what they say or how they perceive the experience. From this, and a slew of other user-centered tests and activities, we create design recommendations that reflect what the user really needs.

The problem, though, is that many backward-thinking companies see usability as "that trendy thing" or a waste of money. What those companies don't realize is that the companies that do employ sound usability practices are kicking their asses. They also don't realize that spending some extra time and money upfront saves a ton later. And lastly, keeping your users happy by providing them with nice, usable interfaces improves the customer experience, which improves loyalty, which is HUGE. Because loyalty is everything in business, but that's another story.

That's where the superhero part comes in. We balance between finding problems and trying to save the world while simultaneously trying to convince the world that these problems are legit.

So there you have it. I'm trying to become a superhero.

It has been awhile...

The end of the quarter consumed pretty much all of my time. But now I am done! Hurrah! I ordered 3 books on interaction design, so I am excited that I will now have time to read them.

Anyway, time for show and tell. For my research job at school, I edited videos and made a series of animations explaining different education techniques. I also created a pilot web-based assessment tool to see how comfortable professors would be with implementing these techniques. The animations are meant to introduce each technique, and additional example videos provide the survey participant with a clear understanding of the technique. Here are the best animations:

These are just for the pilot tool, so they will likely be adapted next year after we get feedback from the pilot testing.

Oh, and the pilot tool looks like this. My first crack at making an interactive video player.

My Progression

Today in one of my classes, we talked about social media. Social media is like candy to me. I understand it well, I find it really interesting, and I think I have a knack for it. Actually, it was probably the most interesting 4 hours of class I've had since I started grad school. I've thought about this before and wondered if maybe I should be in school for something else, but now I am starting to see how all these pieces fit together and how my experiences will prepare me to hold a unique perspective in this field.

I started out in marketing, which I really liked. I especially like consumer electronic marketing and other things in that realm. I'm also really interested in customer experience. Initially, with this program, I thought that I wanted to focus more on the HCI/programming side, but as I slog through hours and hours of fruitless javascript programming, I just don't think that's where I want to be. This doesn't mean that I don't have any interest programming, but rather that the time goes by faster and I find more enjoyment when I am doing things towards the other end of the spectrum.

I also realized something else today. If I try to position myself more on the engineering/programming side, I just don't see how I can ever catch up and keep up with the people who are really good at it and have been doing it for a long time. In this setting, I feel like I will always, or at least for a long while, be the least knowledgeable of the group. But if I move towards the other side of the spectrum, I have more technical, creative, and natural skills that put me in a better position. I feel like I have more to contribute to this end, mostly because I like it more and because a lot of user experience people don't know much about marketing, branding, SEO, etc, things that are really important.

The Bike Racer Mind - Pea Soup in a Blender

It's been over a year now since I began my quest to rid my hip of pain. It's been a long journey, and I'm still not very close to returning to the racing scene. The physical therapy is still up and down, and although I think it will help, the jury is still out on what the end result will be.

Despite this trying year, I still want to race my bike, and I still think of myself as a bike racer. Erin broke his jaw at Seward on Thursday, and each time I put pea soup in the blender so that Erin can drink it through a straw, I think "all this, for bike racing?" I also think of the other people I know who have crashed badly lately, and I wonder if this is all worth it.

On paper, bike racing is a pretty dumb sport. It's dangerous. And unpredictable. And about 90% of the time, it doesn't go the way you want it to. Unfortunately, these drawbacks are the exact reasons why I can't give it up. Bike racing terrifies me. Each completed race is a victory for me. Each moment on the journey is a challenge. I've entertained thoughts of making a triathlon comeback, but triathlon was always sort of easy for me. Easy in that it's predictable, I'm pretty good at it, and it comes naturally to me.

But bike racing doesn't come naturally to me at all. No one believes me when I say this, but I'm actually pretty bad at it.

I think challenging myself in this way is really important. Sometimes in my classes, people talk about how they aren't comfortable speaking in front of the class because they get nervous. This isn't an excuse, in my opinion. Throughout my whole life, I've done things that make me unbelievably nervous, such as bike racing, horseback riding, competitive figure skating and competing in general. After zipping through turns in a big pack or crashing on pavement, speaking in front of a class isn't so bad at all.

Actually, I can't really think of anything in daily life that is scarier than bike racing.

Burke Gilman Race Report!

Today I got involved in a heated race with this guy:


Leading up to this big race, I embarked on a new, more aggressive recovery operation. This includes:

1. More aggressive physical therapy with relatively aggressive joint mobilizations.
2. Acupuncture every week plus little needles left in throughout the week.
3. More ice. At least twice a day.
4. More exercise. It is time to start moving again.
5. More work to break up the scar tissue.

With this combined effort, I am starting to feel pretty good. Sore, but not in pain, so I registered for the Sunday Afternoon Sunday Burke Gilman World Championships. My main competition was this guy. The race breakdown was like this: he passed me, stopped, passed me again, stopped, I turned around, he turned around and passed me, he stopped, then passed me again, then we got stuck at the light and he passed me again. 5 times, he passed me. I put in a good fight, but unfortunately he must have more fast twitch muscle than me because he rode away from me and that was that.

The good news is that competitive spirits die hard, and it takes absolutley all the mental energy that I have to not ride harder and pass people. At least I didn't get passed by a roller blader this time...

What are they doing to you?

I keep wondering what they are doing to my poor bicycle.

I like to pretend that he ran away because I didn't ride him enough. I could forgive this. I am sorry that I didn't ride you more, but I was injured. You know you were high up on my list of favorite bikes. I am sorry that I locked you up outside.

And then I wonder what the robbers looked like. How did they steal you? Did they strip you down into pieces? I hope they at least let you keep your dignity. Are you crammed in a room with a bunch of other bikes, like a train on the way to a concentration camp? Are you sad and aware that you have been stolen? Gosh I hope not. Maybe they covered you with a sheet so you can't see.

Oh, Yeti, I am sorry. I know I should have ridden you more. Please come back and I will make it up to you.

Conclusion: The world does not want me to be a bike racer

I am finally starting to feel better, so I commuted to school by bike. The first day that I've been able to commute since October.

And then my bike got stolen.

Yeti Arc-X cyclocross bike with SRAM Rival, Ksyrium SL wheels, and a janky Bianchi saddle.

I filed a police report, and it is a pretty obscure frame, so maybe it will show up. The cop said there is an 85% recovery rate. Not sure if I believe that number, but we will see.

I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

At least I rode hard enough on the way to school for my legs to feel achy, and my hip does not hurt at all.

Now I feel dumb for locking up my Yeti outside, but it is the cheapest bike I have. I had a feeling before I left today that it would get stolen. I thought to myself "my car has never gotten stolen from the parking lot." ...

This weekend I...

-Watched a marathon of 16 and Preggerz because Erin is out of town and he hates that show (understandably), but now I can watch it all I want!!

-Walked far enough to start sweating. First time in a while, and I went to Elliott Bay Park, which is really pretty and along the edge of the Sound. I had never been there before, and now I have a new appreciation for the recreational areas in this city.

-Got angry about the unjustifiable claims that researchers are making in some of my assigned articles. I think my class on empirical traditions is working because now I feel angry towards the majority of the research that I read. I used to just enjoy things, but now I can't. My margin notes say things like "WTF?!?!" and "YOU CANT MAKE THIS CLAIM!!" and occasionally "This is retarded" when I get really angry.

-Ate beets and ice cream for dinner. I always get nervous the day after I eat beets (especially 3 of them). Do I need to see a urologist?

-Felt like a nervous mother because my friend/teammate crashed hard at Walla Walla, and I couldn't find details for a few hours. I took out my nervousness by making this: Heal Fast!

The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Realm of Medicine

I started acupuncture a few weeks ago as a last ditch effort to make my hip feel better. I think it is working.

I tried acupuncture last year when my back was hurting, but I wasn't convinced, and I didn't go back. The acupuncturist that I've been seeing lately is a bit more convincing. He talks about trusses and structures and mechanics, not blood lines and energy.

He also leaves little needles in my hip for the whole week. They are itty bitty needles, sort of like thumb tacks, with bandaids covering them. Sometimes if I move too quickly, they hurt. And they itch a little bit, probably because I'm allergic to bandaid adhesive.

But I think it is working. I was able to walk more this week, and I was in a lot less pain than usual. My hip has been tender to the touch ever since surgery, and this is the first week that it is not tender.

I don't really care about justifying why it works. I just want it to work. I don't think it's placebo, though. I've wanted a lot of things to work this past year. I am starting to feel antsy and lazy, which I think is a good sign. Being in pain for over a year is tiring and stress-inducing, but I think that stress is finally lifting. The acupuncturist told me not to do anything different these first few weeks, and it's taken a lot of effort to not try to ride my bike. Next week, I tell myself.

I am finally being forced to commit to things in my life, with regard to school and this new profession. This feels weird and makes me squirm a bit, but if I squirm too much, the needles hurt. Good needles. Keep me in check.

Cough Drop Logic

I have a bad cough, so I got some cough drops. It said on the package that your cough would be better in 10 seconds! This had to be too good to be true, and it was. 5 cough drops later, I'm still coughing as much as before the first one.

But then I started thinking, how would a cough drop actually stop me from coughing? My cough is in my lungs, and this cough drop juice is going down my throat to my stomach. Based on this logic, a cough drop won't ever work unless maybe I inhale the cough drop into my lungs. I suspect, though, that a cough drop in my lungs would make me cough more. I feel duped.

On another note, I got a summer internship offer. I am quite relieved by this because I have been working constantly since the first week of school to find an internship. I looked on every company website that I could think of in the area, went through 5 interviews, 2 portfolio website iterations, and innumerable portfolio content iterations. I was starting to get nervous that I wouldn't be able to find anything, but alas! My secret final cut pro editing skills saved me. Usability intern, here I come.

Grad school is hard.

This quarter is weird. Last quarter was relatively easy. Most of the projects we did were practical in nature. We carried out user-centered design activities and played with sticky notes.

But this quarter, there are no sticky notes. Our readings are long and dry, and for some reason, whenever I try to print them, they print in all black.

In addition to eating up all of my toner and frustrating me beyond comprehension, this also makes it very difficult for me to engage in active reading. I have trouble reading from my computer because I have the attention span of a 6 year old, and I check my email approximately every 10 minutes. Even if I do not check my email while trying to read an article, I will think about it until the urge becomes so great that I have no recollection of what I've just read. Old habits die hard.

This is also the first time I have felt dumb and inferior on a regular basis. I sailed through undergrad without much trouble, and I was pretty confident in my abilities. I'm taking one class in the night program, and many of these students have years and years of related experience. How do I compete with that? Work harder, I guess. I am only 24.

Additionally, this is the first time that I have had to take a difficult class that I do not like at all. It is easy to do well in fun, difficult classes or easy, boring classes, but difficult, boring classes are a whole new realm for me. I am trying to find something to grasp on to make the class more interesting as a means to trick myself into liking it. I can trick myself into doing VO2 intervals on the bike, and I can trick myself into mopping floors for a living, but I am having a brawl of a time tricking myself into this one.

The good news is that I am not alone. And I am only in my 2nd quarter.

Xylophone Playhouse

Welcome to the Xylophone Playhouse, a place for you to play with visual xylophones (because I haven't gotten to the sound yet), and a place for me to practice input checking and other fun bits of code with javascript.

I'd imagine that when normal people experiment with javascript code, they just make plain, generic web pages that prompt the user to enter information.

Ah, but I am not normal. I practice with the Xylophone Playhouse. Try a few of the higher xylophone piece options (like 6 or 7), then try 2!

This will get more complicated as I continue to practice.

So then I thought I'd mosaic the coffee table

I kept having visions about painting or mosaicing the coffee table. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because it was plain and boring, like the rest of our Ikea furniture. Thankfully, I spent my childhood watching home improvement shows like Interior Motives and Trading Spaces, so things like grouting tile and painting walls are just tacit knowledge.

So I bought some stones, drew out a rough pattern, and went for it.

I did a pretty good job of guessing how many tiles of each color I needed. I was almost done setting the tiles when I ran out. So close but so far.

So I got more and finished:

I didn't take pictures of the grout application phase because I assumed all my loyal readers have watched a million craft shows in their lives, too. Perhaps this was a bad assumption. I also had to buy a border to go around the edges, so I got some steel edge pieces from the hardware store. Then I had to saw them to fit around the table, which made me really sore. I'm not so strong anymore. I put the grout on after attaching the steel edges with epoxy.

Ta da! All Done:

Turned out pretty well, I think. Back to school tomorrow.

Canadians lie and they are not our friends, oh and Travelocity sucks

*note: this post is a gross generalization and not meant to reflect all Canadians

Erin and I went to Vancouver for the weekend, and we learned some things about Canadians.

1. Canadians lie.

A. I booked a room at the last minute through Travelocity because I guess I hadn't learned my lesson that I shouldn't use such agencies to book my travel accommodations. I've had issues in the past when things went wrong and I couldn't change or cancel a reservation, but none were quite like this. I booked a room on Travelocity, but shortly after, I realized that I got the wrong type of room. I clicked "change reservation" and went through the steps to switch the room type, but instead of switching it, Travelocity booked a second room. I canceled the first one and since Travelocity said it was canceled, I figured it wouldn't be a big deal and I'd work it out when I got to the hotel.

We arrived at the hotel, and the receptionist said that we had 2 rooms and that she had to charge us for both because they hadn't gotten confirmation from Travelocity that the 2nd room was canceled. We called Travelocity, and they said it was canceled, and the hotel even talked to Travelocity on the phone, but the hotel still needed written confirmation that the reservation was canceled. It was cute when the hotel manager referred to the random Indian lady who answered the phone as our "travel agent." Anyway, our first "travel agent" didn't send this written confirmation, so we had to call again and go through the whole process a second time (waiting on hold for 10 mins, explaining the complicated story, etc). Finally our second "travel agent" sent the hotel a confirmation, but I think the hotel had a conspiracy against us. Maybe they even threw the first confirmation away. (Ok, this one isn't such good support but more so a reason for why you shouldn't use Travelocity if there is a slight chance that you will have to change anything)

B. The concierge (read: guy standing next to the shelf of pamphlets and newspapers) said that the paralympics was over and that the closing ceremonies were the next day. Good thing we didn't listen to him because in fact the sledge hockey gold medal match was the next day! We went and cheered on the USA to victory. (Note: paralympic sledge hockey tickets are over $50 each! I guess it's for a good cause, though).

C. The complimentary water bottle in our hotel room was definitely refilled. The seal came off with the cap, the water level was much higher than the other bottle, and it smelled/tasted really bad.

D. The aquarium advertised sea otters that clap their hands and wave at you, but this one was sleeping. Liars!

2. Canadians don't like us. Most of them rooted for Japan in sledge hockey. This surprised me a little bit because I would have rooted for Canada. People were handing out Japanese flags, but no USA flags. Betrayed by our own neighbor!

Torture

beautiful weather + spring break (lots of free time) + injured hip (for almost a whole year) = torture.

April will mark one year since my hip really started hurting. That means it has been almost an entire year since I've been able to go outside and just enjoy riding my bike. Or hike. Or even exercise, really. There was that one bout in October, but that was my attempt at faking it and muscling my way through the pain. It didn't work.

I am trying to be patient and hopeful, but it is starting to get difficult. I am running out of things to do! There are only so many interesting crafting projects. I started working on Fall From Grace: Part 2, but I lost my motivation, partly because I am not too excited about the plot, and partly because I decided to use Flash, and I really don't like using Flash. But based on the plot, I need to use Flash because it requires frame-by-frame animation. Blahhh.

I'd like to think that my hip is on the mend and that I'll be better soon, but any time I try to swim or ride my bike, it gets worse. I also still have that weird posterior pain that hasn't really been accounted for and has gotten more noticeable as I've increased my activity level. I'd like to think that it is improving because it feels like the muscles are activating in the right patterns, but I'm just not sure because it still hurts most of the time.

So there has been a lot of waiting and wondering and speculating. I am ready for something else, but there isn't much I can do to speed up the process.

Finally Moving Forward

This week, I finally started to feel like I am moving forward. For the last few months, I've been pushing full gas through this grad program, pushing pushing pushing, trying to get somewhere, and I was too busy and scared to stop for a moment and think about where I actually am.

Last week, I realized that I was still having trouble letting go of last year. The start of the racing season stirred up feelings of disappointment and resentment because I am most likely going to miss the whole thing. In addition, I have a new job at Cycle U helping with their triathlon club, and I had a bit of trouble adjusting to this, also because I'm currently a broken athlete.

But, this experience has been really good. It is forcing me to push beyond the psychological discomfort into a new realm of acceptance. I'm also learning what it means to be an ambassador to the sports of cycling and triathlon. I've noticed that the general bike racing scene in Seattle is really negative. It feels like people are waiting for others to fail, and when someone does well, it's not based on talent or skill, but rather "he got lucky" or "well she won, but she's sketchy and didn't do any work." Why can't we genuinely congratulate others?

Cycle U and the triathlon community are reminding me that sport is not about us vs. them, but rather, it's about sharing experiences and knowledge to help the whole community grow. It's been interesting to compare people with very similar athletic experiences who explain and utilize their experiences in completely different ways. Some athletes present their experiences like they are trying to prove something about themselves, but others use their experiences as examples to help others overcome obstacles and achieve goals in the sport. I think it's a matter of accepting your athletic achievements and coming to terms with the shortcomings.

Anyway, I've decided that I do not want to be the disgruntled, negative person who wants others to fail. I've struggled with letting go of last year because I know that I was misconstrued in this regard. I genuinely want others to do well, regardless of what team they are on or who coaches them. Thus, I am committed to being a resource in any way that I can be. People can say what they want about me, but I will just keep pushing to be the resource that I know I can be.

I learned a lot last year, and I am finally healing.

Marketing and UX -- mutually exclusive?

I've been reading a lot of articles for school about how user experience fits in a company hierarchy. All of them make a clear distinction between marketing and user experience. They say that the marketing objectives (selling) are different than the user experience/design objectives (making things usable*).

As someone who worked in marketing, I don't fully understand why these entities have to be so separate. Why can't marketing people use UX concepts to gather their information, too?

I always think of my experience at the startup. We were frantically planning for an event (as usual in reactionary startup-ville), and the marketing people threw together this new campaign called The Republic. It was geared towards teenage skateboarders, in an attempt to create a street team or affiliate program. It had that whole revolutionary, we-take-the-world-by-storm-via-helmet-cameras vibe. It also required people to wear bandannas. I remember thinking "hmm, this is a weird idea." Right before launch, someone realized that this was actually not the product demographic at all. In fact, the users were 25-40 year old action sports enthusiasts. Perhaps if we had incorporated some user requirements gathering techniques (such as interviews, surveys, focus groups, etc), we would have been able to produce a more fitting marketing campaign. This isn't to say that companies don't use user requirements techniques in marketing, but it's definitely not common practice in smaller organizations.

The articles always talk about how the design team gets requirements from marketing but not vice versa. To create a truly successful product, I think this information flow should go both ways.

Look at the new Windows 7 campaign - Windows 7 was my idea. They are leveraging their UX practices to sell things. I don't know why this isn't done more frequently. After all, people like technology that works. Plus, if user experience practices didn't help companies sell more things, companies wouldn't use them. So why such a strong distinction?

Maybe it's just a case of academics over-analyzing these concepts and trying to create clear distinctions between similar fields. I don't think it's so clear-cut in reality.


*Not to be confused with user-friendly.

New Pens

This weekend, it was 60 degrees and sunny, and I don't think there is any type of weather more inspiring for drawing. I got 6 new pens ranging between .8 and .05, oh and one brush pen. My skills are a little rusty, but I'm hopeful that they will come back quickly.





I tend to just draw random lines and then make creatures out of them. I feel like I've had a mental/creative block lately. I can't seem to write coherent sentences, and I feel like I am functioning in an endless loop. Perhaps this is just an end-of-the-quarter slump. I am trying to get it together.

I am also contemplating a triathlon comeback. I think I did better at bike racing (or at least had more fun) when I didn't take it so seriously, and when I incorporate swimming and running, my body is more balanced. I also have some unfinished business, such as that 2:15 olympic distance goal that has eluded me. I was right there, but things never came together, and I didn't get a chance to perform when I was at my peak fitness. Gotta take it slow, though. I'm not sure if I want to be that serious again. I still want to race bikes, but the thought of crashing on my hip this year sounds really unappealing. I may wait until next year.

This is still a ways away, obviously. I swam a few times last week without any issue. Then on Saturday I got dragged on a bike ride around Magnolia. This was hillier than I remembered, and longer, so of course it flared up my hip. I knew it was a bad idea, so it's not too surprising. Riding a bike is weird because my body still thinks it's fast, and I felt fine during the ride, but it always takes a day for the hip pain to respond. I just need to rest a few days and then I will start swimming again.

Back to PC!

Ok, so perhaps my last post was a bit of an exaggeration. My classes are relevant for UX applications, and I don't even want to be a technical writer anyway. Still, I do feel like I need to work hard outside of class in order to get a decent job. And I haven't lost all hope on bike racing.

Oh, I have a big announcement! After using a mac for about 3 years, I have switched back to PC. My shiny new Dell XPS arrived a few days ago, and I am quite happy with the switch.

Why did I switch back? A few reasons:
1. The "wizard behind the curtain" aspects of mac. When something goes wrong or the computer starts slowing down, I feel helpless. Generally because I am. At least on a PC, I can clean out spywear or defragment, and it usually helps.

2. Document organization. I don't like how mac just dumps stuff wherever it sees fit. Like when you put a file into a folder, it drops the file wherever you let go of it, not nicely in line with the other files.

3. Excel and Word. I hate, hate, hate the mac versions of these programs. Actually, I dislike pretty much all mac programs. I like my programs contained. I do not like the toolbars and components of the program floating around in free space on my desktop. I also do not like when the document gets stuck under the toolbar and you can't get it out.

4. Form over function. Clearly, macs are mostly about image. They look sleak, but I went through 3 batteries and 2 heat sinks on my macbook. That cool, sleak design does not allow for adequate cooling.

5. Price. I got a 64 bit XPS for much less than a macbook pro would cost.

Downsides:
1. Helvetica, but there are ways around this.

That's really all I can think of.

Our hero tirelessly presses onward until she stops for a minute and thinks "why am I doing this?"

I have reached the "Why am I doing this?" moment of grad school. This is for a few reasons.

First, my program is highly theoretical and conceptual, and this conflicts with my rational, job-oriented mind. I know that I need skills in order to find a job in this profession (by this profession, I mean HCI, UX, technical writing, etc). But since the program is so theoretical and broad, I haven't been learning any of the technical skills in class. Thus, I've taken it upon myself to learn these skills outside of class, on top of all the coursework.

I also spent a few days this week doing some really hard "writing exercises" for some undisclosed, California-based tech giant. It's worth reiterating that these exercises were really hard, and they required me to learn about things like the DOM, REST, SOAP, and more scary acronyms that require research just to understand the research. Now, I like to think of myself as pretty tech savvy. I know some C++, and I can code HTML/CSS websites by hand. I know Flash, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Motion, etc, etc, etc. But, this test opened up a whole new world of things I have to learn. Really, it never ends.

After 48 hours of tirelessly working on the aforementioned exercises, I returned to normal life where I completed projects for my classes. It's pretty impossible to overlook the discrepancy here. The projects in class are just not nearly technical enough to help my technical writing. And they don't emphasize the code and design techniques to enable me to learn about UX design or research.

In addition to all of this, I built my portfolio website, and through that experience, I discovered that I need a lot more stuff for it. Will my future classes provide me with the opportunities to create useful portfolio pieces? Or should I do them on my own?

The interesting part is that it seems like other people in my classes don't share the same sense of urgency that I do. I think that some people are using the program as a crutch to wait out the bad economy. I hear things about how there are no jobs out there, so people are switching to the PhD program so they can stay in school longer. Then there are others, such as myself, who are using the program as a stepping stone, or even a launch pad, to something much, much greater. I, for one, am trying to get out as fast as I can so that I can start doing things.

But perhaps this is what separates me from the majority of the world. I am striving towards something greater than myself, greater than anything I've previously done, and I am not stopping for anything, especially a bad economy. From my perspective, if there are no jobs out there (which there are, you just have to work to get 'em), I will just make one for myself.

So here I am. The motivated, rational part of me wants to start doing things, and sometimes it feels like grad school is a waste of time. I know, though, that it's necessary and it's enabling me to do these things. I just don't want to get stuck in the grad student mentality where I stay in school and over-analyze things and lose sight of reality.

Lastly, I am juggling three separate lives - the grad school life, the marketing work life, and the bike racer life. Obviously juggling all these separate, secret lives is not sustainable, and the daily transition between unrelated work life and school life is really unpleasant. And each day, I continue to let go of the bike racer life, partly because my hip still hurts a lot and partly because I am thoroughly losing interest.

Surprise! You have hip dysplasia!

I had my 7 week follow up appointment today, and it wasn't very reassuring. I know that it's only been 7 weeks, and I still have to wait and see, but I am not recovering very quickly. I still have a lot of pain, I'm pretty limited in my activities, and after he made me bring my knee to my chest, I could hardly walk the rest of the day. It's not terrible, but it's not great, especially considering that the tear-related damage wasn't bad at all.

So while I know that things should get better, there is still a concern that they won't. Today, my doctor revealed to me that I have hip dysplasia, and if the hip impingement surgery isn't successful, we can look at fixing the hip dysplasia (requiring open hip surgery, yuck). No thanks!

Just considering the 'if's:
-If this surgery doesn't work, I'm pretty sure I'm done with competitive sports. I am already contemplating my future in athletics anyway, but open hip surgery and the years of issues that typically follow are pretty good reasons to quit altogether given that I'd like to be able to walk when I'm 50. And maybe go on a hike.

-If the surgery does work, it still seems like a good idea to avoid activities that might cause problems (mainly activities with hip rotation, high impact, and probably the ones that cause my good hip to make terrible grinding/popping sounds). So that would mean goodbye breaststroke, goodbye running, goodbye weird dynamic stretches. Maybe this will be easier to adhere to now that I have a reason.

I do think, however, that focusing on something other than athletic competition might be good for me. So far, school has been a pretty good avenue to channel my competitiveness. I've attended a few networking events, and I already have a solid full-time job lead. In this economic environment, you gotta work to break into a new field, and that is exactly what I'm doing. This seems like it will be more rewarding long-term.

Week 2 or 6 depending on how you look at it

Well it's the 2nd week of school and my 6th week post op. My hip seems to be improving. Walking around campus last week was really painful, but this week it's not as painful.

The weird thing is that riding the bike seems to make it hurt more. My theory is that when I ride the bike, both legs work equally, so the left leg (the one operated on) thinks it is fine. Then when I try to walk afterward, my brain thinks that leg is fine, so I try to walk like normal, but then it hurts because the range of motion is still limited on that leg. It is similar after pool walking, too, but not as severe.

Part of me is slightly panicking as I realize that I am in graduate school and actually deciding on a career path. I feel like I am limiting myself, and I keep wondering about all the other things I could be doing. I like school, and I think it is interesting, but I still wonder.

I am also learning in my classes, though, that constraints are what allow systems to function well. Without constraints, people don't know what to do. Ex. great art work comes out of constraint, either constraint of materials or constraint of the artist's situation. Another ex. Professors can't hand out a blank school assignment. It needs to have constraints so the students know what to write about.

So, as a whole, I keep reminding myself that constraint is good and that something good will come of this.

Back to School!

Yesterday was the first day of my masters program. Returning to school is a weird transition after working for the last 1.5 years.

First of all, I don't really know a whole lot about what I am studying. Luckily the subject matter itself is inherently not that confusing, but there were still a few minutes in each class where I had no idea what the professor was talking about. In each case, though, I figured it out pretty quickly. If I were looking at engineering problem sets, I would be in trouble.

Secondly, for the last 1.5 years, I've pretty much done what I wanted. My jobs have all been pretty autonomous. In working for myself, I can do whatever I want. At my current marketing job, as long as I can prove that it will work, I can also generally do what I want. It is weird being told that I have to write journal entries every week or that I have to read all these articles. I suspect that my perspective towards school has changed. Now instead of worrying about grades, it seems like I am more concerned about learning.

Thirdly, the transition from marketing coordinator to graduate student is weird. In marketing, you can write however you want as long as it is effective, succinct, and increases your sales. You can make it catchy and endearing and use bold letters wherever you see fit. As a result of this, though, I've forgotten about school writing conventions. Am I still allowed to write in an endearing way? Can I start my journal entry saying "Since I spent the last year attempting to become a professional bike racer, naturally I chose RoadBikeReview.com for this project." I just don't know, but part of me doesn't really care because I think my perspective makes me unique and I don't want to lose that.

Oh and one more. Walking around campus is difficult. I didn't think it would be so bad because things are pretty close together, but I was really tired by the end of the day. My hip is doing ok considering, though.