About Me

1. Short Bio

I’m pursuing a bachelor’s degree in graphic design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco (classes start in Fall ‘08), but I plan to graduate from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. I would eventually like to hold a master’s degree, and in the future of my dreams, I’m working at Google to help design the look and feel of up and coming open source projects.

In short, I’m a design geek. Crayons and cryptography, line art and linux, stencils and source code.

But I still get outside. I love traveling and culture shock and trying new things. And although I’ve been diagnosed fairly recently with some medical conditions that have put a temporary halt on my athletic endeavors, I used to be on a junior olympic archery team and competed in karate tournaments (and would have gotten to go to Okinawa). Someday, I’d really like to swim competitively, too. For now though, I can still toss a frisbee around with my friends at least, and that’s fun to do for an hour or two at a time.

As I wait to be able to do all of those physical activities again though, I’m actually pretty content. I’ve definitely noticed that it’s trendier to emphasize or even invent one’s victimhood, but the reality is that things are pretty good and I’m pretty happy. For instance, I spend more time writing now than most people, and that’s fun for me. I first started writing short stories and novels in fifth grade, and now I’ve expanded my storytelling to tabletop and online text-based role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, which is basically collaborative storytelling when it’s done right.

Some even dorkier interests of mine are political science, theology, and jurisprudence. I’m usually much more interested in the theories and philosophies than I am with the kinds of things like local or national news, which I suppose makes me one of those “ivory tower” types. I figure that’s okay though since I don’t run my mouth off about those things or force other people to talk about them. However, I’m told by others that I’m a convincing and interesting speaker when I do get to enter a discussion, which I don’t deny makes me happy to hear.

I also play video games, even though I’m a lot more casual than a lot of my friends, who get pretty intense (playing Counter Strike with them is just miserable since they’re so good). Going to the movies is fun even when the movie is horrible, I am familiar with lots of different anime shows but am not militant about it like some people, and though it would be a lie if I said I was absolutely always reading something, it would be equally untrue to say that I couldn’t happily spend my life inside a Borders bookstore. Oh, and every so often, I feel the urge to play my guitar.

And yeah, I do sing in the shower.

2. Random Things That Make Me Happy

  • People who turn their cell phones off at the movie theater instead of just setting them on vibrate or silent. It just makes me smile. The fact of the matter is that everybody can still hear your phone vibrate, and even if you just set it to be silent, everybody can still see the bright light when you take it out and start using it. And standing up and going outside to make the call is still a distraction even if you’re sitting on the end.
  • When my friends let me buy dinner, pay for the movie, or share my candy bar and soda stashes in exchange for not making me drive. It’s actually a much better deal for them too if you weight the cost of gasoline versus the cost of dinner, the movie, or even the candy bars and soda usually.
  • Heath bars, Reese’s cups, Toffifays, and homemade brownies and cookies. Especially with root beer.
  • Being emailed, instant messaged, or texted instead of being called. It’s simultaneously more relaxed and more efficient.
  • When I’m on the couch or stretching out on the floor and somebody that isn’t going to tickle/destroy me reaches over to rub my head or give me a massage. I positively melt.
  • Drawings of any of my characters or me, especially when it’s in the manga style.
  • Steak, lamb, salmon, prawns, and chicken.

3. Pet Peeves and Things That Should Go Away

  • Being sent links without explanations (it’s spam when you do), or with the expectation that I’ll immediately stop whatever I’m doing to check it out.
  • Idle chatter. I don’t feel the need to “just talk for a while” to show that I still like you even if we haven’t talked in a while. If a conversation is forced or taking effort, there’s a problem.
  • When you go out to a restaurant and the people who had supposedly come to eat with you surprise you by saying they don’t plan to eat. This happens all the time to me.
  • Having to drive, ever. I just find it stressful, and people have noticed that I physically get all tense and exhaust myself. My mother says I just need to drive more, but unfortunately, the more I drive, the more I dislike driving. If you want me to be your best friend forever, do all the driving and let me pay for gas or dinner or anything. I’m very sympathetic to when other people say they don’t want to drive, too.
  • Whining. Look, nobody cares that you’re tired especially when you declare it a billion times, and if you aren’t having fun, figure out a more positive way to get what you want or excuse yourself without trying to guilt-trip the rest of the group. Grow up and stop being unpleasant.
  • Having to guess what you want to do or how to make you happy. People like to make people they like happy, and I’m no exception. Don’t make it hard for me. I usually have an idea for something to do, but if you don’t want to do that, then say so. And then if at all possible, say something that you do want to do. I’m not picky, and I probably want to hear your ideas.
  • When people invite themselves over or ask to come along on something they weren’t invited to. It’s just invasive.
  • Always being the one to call and ask if you want to get together and do something, and never being the one to get called. When I was a little kid, my mom told me it was polite to take turns with my friends inviting each other over to play. Of course, you also couldn’t ask them to invite you over, because that’d defeat the point. In spite of not telling any of my friends about this “secret rule,” it worked great. It’s nice because both parties feel wanted this way since it’s not always once person asking the other to come over or do something.
  • Mint, cauliflower, squash, zucchini, and cucumber.

4. Personal Credos

Here are some of the things I believe. Some of them are quotes from figures ranging from Mahatma Gandhi to Eric S. Raymond, while others are just old sayings and observations.

  1. Treat others as you would wish to be treated.
  2. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
  3. Every day is a good day.
  4. A sensible judge is neither stubborn nor spineless.
  5. Pursue expertise, self-awareness, and honesty.
  6. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
  7. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
  8. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
  9. Freedom is good.
  10. Attitude is no substitute for competence.

5. Brief Resumé

6. Online Networks

Thanks to HelloTxt making it easy to update them all at once, I’m in several online networks. Here they are in order from favorite to least favorite, just for kicks. All of the links go to my profile pages.

  1. Plurk - A really simple site where you update your status. You can also use it to link to pictures and videos to send to friends, but I don’t do that. I just love the way it looks, and I think the time chart is really interesting. Clean, simple, and fun even.
  2. Facebook
    - For a while, my opinion of Facebook was pretty low since it was being completely overrun by applications that sought to turn it into another messy MySpace. The new design cleaned it up and organized it very nicely though, and in my opinion, has sufficiently restored Facebook to it’s original status as the ordered, sophisticated MySpace alternative.
  3. Digg -
    Stories and articles with the most votes make it onto the front page.
    It’s interesting to see what things friends are digging.
  4. Last.fm
    - It’s easy to set up, and automatically keeps track of what you’re
    listening to. It can make recommendations, and you can see what your
    friends are listening to if you’re curious.
  5. BrightKite - Another status update site. I love the design for this one too. The “new idea” behind this one is that in addition to status updates, you can also do location updates, and then see stuff from people near you.
  6. Deviant Art - This would definitely be higher on the list if I wasn’t ashamed of how much I neglect uploading my own work and updating my profile page. The whole point of this site is to upload and browse art, and you can subscribe to people you like.
  7. Tumblr - It’s so ultra clean that you really can’t tell just how many features it has until you make an account. You can make different kinds of posts for regular text entries, quotations, videos, music clips, and so forth, and it stays very neat and readable. If I were going to make another blog, I might very well just use this instead of just using it as a status update thing. The only thing is that the ultra cleanness is a little constraining.
  8. Pownce - A very, very simple status update site. I think the design is very fresh. It’s basically a prettier Twitter, if you ask me.
  9. Twitter - An incredibly minimalist status update site. It’s got a big community, which is good since the more friends you have on these networks, the more fun they are. But to be honest, I think that even as minimalist as they are, they also get cluttered.
  10. Plaxo - I appreciate how ambitious Plaxo actually is, and I also see what they were going for with the site design. But at the end of the day, I just feel a little bit overwhelmed and bored by all the info I can plug into it, and I feel like the layout could be more intuitive.