In case it’s not apparent, I’m currently in Montreal at CHI 2006. The last few days have been a blur, and at this point I’m quite exhausted.

As a student volunteer, I’m required to work 20 hours this week. In return, I don’t have to pay conference registration fees (~$450), and I get a free hotel room for a week (~$1,000), which I’m sharing with Richie.

In the last 2 days I’ve finished about 17 hours of work. This has made me quite tired, but the work has been interesting.
Yesterday I was in a workshop about collaboration…which was not all that collaborative. Maybe it was just me…but it seemed like everybody in the room was bored. This morning I was in a course that was taught by Karen Holtzblatt, the queen of Contextual Design. I was reminded in that session of all the mistakes one can make when doing an interview, and how to alleviate those problems. This afternoon I was on “quick response” duty…which had me complete a number of tasks in rapid succession. I like helping, to a point…it makes me feel important, but soon I want to start attending sessions that I’m interested in…tomorrow, hopefully.

Definitely the best part of the conference so far is bumping into people from my past and hanging out with my IU friends. It’s just starting to hit me that this is my last opportunity to be a student volunteer, since I won’t be a student anymore in a week or so. That makes me sad…being an SV is an experience that cannot be fully expressed. It’s just a bunch of fun.

Anyway, i’m tired, so I’m out. Peace.