02/02/2021 January retro with the design interns.

​ 02/10/2021

​ 02/21/2021

​ 02/28/2021

​ 03/2021 Postcards I received from Design Beans.

​ 03/09/2021 Things I learned this season

1. Every piece of design interviewing advice I've ever read online says to make a slide deck, but every time I've interviewed with a deck, people seem to be surprised that I made one. Both at Fortune 500 companies and startups! But I would recommend it if you have the time – it was helpful in guiding the story I wanted to tell.
2. Interviewing is kinda like user testing. You can get a lot of feedback based on what people ask about your designs and how they react.
3. Don't stress over things out of your control – easier said than done, I know. But if you tried your best, then the rest isn't up to you!
4. Cold applying on companies' websites works. You don't need referrals, or to go to a school with a co-op portal.
5. My favourite resources are LinkedIn and Discord.
6. Getting internships is like catching Pokémon.

​ 03/12/2021 Dispo.

​ 03/19/2021

​ 03/23/2021 When people have "Ask me about..." in their bios, don't they get tired of people asking them the same thing? ​

03/29/2021 I had a dream I was in Little Mix. We went to a Coinbase singing competition and won $3 million.

​ 04/17/2021

​ 04/2021 Started tracking my time this month.

​ 05/03/2021

​ 05/16/2021

​ 05/27/2021 In my dream, I was in the back of Coasters, but the kitchen was different somehow. 0355 was telling a story in the dark. Wonderland was empty. I saw dishes piled up in the sink at Risto Pizza Pizza. I ran away, then I was lying down. It was part of a game.

​ 05/2021

​ 06/05/2021

​ 06/09/2021 I took a day off today because I nearly fainted, threw up, and can barely move right now. Thinking about the sunk cost fallacy and if it applies to me. Might drop a course. ​

06/13/2021 Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I just think that working hard all the time isn't always the most efficient way to accomplish things. It perpetuates the notion that doing more equals more success, or better results, which is often not the case. ​

06/14/2021 At that moment, I felt like everything I had built could come crumbling down in a second, and the world would just keep on going, like nothing had happened. ​

06/18/2021

​ 06/25/2021

​ 06/26/2021 Girls in Tech Hack.

Citro Hacks.

​ 06/30/2021 From How to Work Hard by Paul Graham.

The only way to find the limit is by crossing it. Cultivate a sensitivity to the quality of the work you're doing, and then you'll notice if it decreases because you're working too hard. Honesty is critical here, in both directions: you have to notice when you're being lazy, but also when you're working too hard. And if you think there's something admirable about working too hard, get that idea out of your head. You're not merely getting worse results, but getting them because you're showing off — if not to other people, then to yourself.

​

06/2021

​ 07/06/2021 I knew I lost it when I started thinking about my closet as a component library. I have a lot of the same items in different colours, which are pretty much variants. Swapping instances of hoodies and skirts. ​

07/08/2021 I don't want to be a blocker to you.

​ 07/13/2021

​ 07/21/2021 I had a dream I went to go see the apartment. There were some girls, I checked out the room, and it was nice. As I was walking out, there was an Asian girl with her mom, who also wanted to see it. But I asked the girl if the room was still available, and she said it was taken by a machine learning YouTuber. I talked to her about my university journey on the way out. Then I saw 0112, and we saw Ms. 0173 working at a seafood restaurant.

0025 asked, "Remember the time we did a drama?" And no one at church remembered, except for me and her. Not even 0013, and he was the director. Still in the dream, I woke up. I had 16 mosquito bites and a note by my bed, to call a stranger's phone number. So I called, and it turned out to be 0136's dad, but when the person on the phone came in person, it turned out to be 0025's dad, but then it was actually my dad, which was actually my mom. And they were like, now you have to hang out with us every Thursday as punishment. I was so confused, what did I do? Well, can we do work together on Thursdays? And Mom said, "No. You have to have FUN." ​

07/30/2021 I dreamed I was giving 0345 a presentation about Depop. But I got a fake call from BrainStation for another presentation. 0356 was talking about how he was spending a long time on inconsistent data tables. I saw cake with ice cream and a phone on the window. 0025 was at church, and 0357's family was at home. There was a runaway boy who was either leaving from or going to Connecticut. ​

07/2021

​ 08/06/2021 In my dream, I was at a mall getting bubble tea and pasta. They messed up my order and gave me a piece of bacon instead of pasta. We had a PCA reunion in a car, somehow we all fit. 0132 is terrible at driving. First, we crashed into an orange car, then cruised over multiple cars.

Then I was hanging out with 0112, 0136, and 0002. We went to pick up 0026, and she dyed her hair really light blonde. We were trying to be nice about it, but it looked off. At 11:40 pm, 0026, 0134, 0139 and I got Marine Serre face masks for free. ​

08/07/2021 With 0026.

​ 08/16/2021

What do you study, and why did you choose this program? In my first year, I actually started off at Western. I wanted to do CS, but I was failing math, so kinda had to leave. And I decided to transfer to Digital Futures at OCAD for 2nd year. I enjoy it a lot more, 'cause for one, I don't have to take any math courses. There's lots of projects and not many tests, so I get a lot of freedom to try new things. I find the material really fun, and there's a lot of flexibility with what I want to learn, for example if I want to try 3D stuff, creative coding, or game dev.

What does the student experience look like applying to your program? My experience was a little bit different than if you're applying to high school, since I transferred to 2nd year. The main thing is that, in order to qualify for upper year, you need to have other post-secondary studio class experience, so if I just went to Western, then they wouldn't let me, but I actually did a 3 month bootcamp at a career college, where the instruction time was over 400 hours, which kind of qualified me to apply. And also most of the admission is dependent on an upper year portfolio, which is similar to the first year portfolio, I think you just need more pieces in it. Then through all those things, I got enough transfer credits to get into 2nd year.

What does a typical day in your life look like as a student? I've been doing full time school and work since January, so I'll work during the day. When it's back in person, I'm planning to just block off times in my calendar to go to class. After work and on weekends, I'll do schoolwork, and I don't know, take a break, breaks are important, like watch shows or something. If it's internship time, then I might spend that time working on my portfolio or preparing for interviews. And then to increase productivity, I try to focus on one thing at a time and try to limit switching between tasks, 'cause it takes the average person 25 minutes to get back into a task after being interrupted. So yeah, that's what I meant by "increase focus time" on the slide.

What are some extracurriculars you took part in that helped land your current role? I went to a lot of hackathons in first year, which is actually where I first heard of UX design. Hackathons are good, 'cause you can get some projects, make friends, learn, go to workshops, and also network with companies. And giving design workshops, if you ever get any opportunities to help teach other people design, I feel like it's valuable to learn to talk about design, and it helps in interviews. For side projects to build portfolio, I helped a recipe app startup with mobile app design, 'cause I was interested in that, and then I also wanted to learn some frontend and no code stuff, so I worked on a couple of websites for events. I think all those things helped me develop skills that I use in my current role, and also learn what parts of design I like, and what I look for in a job.

Any tips or tricks for students looking to get more involved in your field? So I always tell people use Google, what I mean is there's a lot of resources out there. There's gonna be a lot of things you don't know, so if you can be resourceful, you'll get very far in life. And being intentional and strategic with how you spend your time, if you can set goals to work towards and know what you want, you can help ask better questions and get more out of your conversations with people, and also just make better use of your time in general. And with iterate, just always like try to be better and improving.

What are some useful skills you learned that helped you be successful at your current position? Spending a lot of time in Figma, specifically for UX design. When you're able to put designs together quickly and thoroughly, it helps communicate and get your ideas across better. And also estimating and prioritizing tasks – it doesn't have to be from design related experience, even just like being in high school and balancing schoolwork with ECs or jobs, and knowing your limits, can help manage work and time expectations. And setting goals, I feel like I kinda mentioned that in the last one, so yeah. ​

08/17/2021

​ 08/21/2021

​ 08/28/2021 I tried taking three courses this summer, and I failed Electroacoustics... The only way to know your limit is by crossing it. You can't have everything. Life is about compromise and priorities. And you can't learn new things if you're scared of your grades. ​

08/2021

​ 09/01/2021 In my dream, I just remember being in a movie theatre, I was backstage underground. There were pretend ninjas, and some people might have been in black cat costumes. In the hallway behind everything, I saw a lot of free stuffed animals and magazines. I lost my phone, it was on a seat somewhere. The seats in the theatre were red, it was dark in there. COVID was a thing, but there were a lot of people.

I went outside to look for it, there were many hills. Someone asked me, "Is this your phone?" holding up a Hello Kitty phone case. No, it wasn't. 0358 or 0327 outside, from the year above us in PCA, I don't remember which one, I got them mixed up in my dream. ​

09/02/2021 A social media where you can't post words, pictures, or videos. Only shapes. And no one knows who you are. I like humans, but they are annoying and hurt my brain. I feel like everyone is arguing. Can we just send blobs? ​

09/03/2021 gm.

​ 09/11/2021 I picked up my metre sticks yesterday, and taped three of them together. Now I can use it to reach the light switch from my bed, without having to get up to turn it off. ​

09/18/2021 You can always start over, but you can't really start all the way over again. ​

09/21/2021 Annoying things When people are too nice When people don't know how to Google When people act like the world revolves around them When people just agree with everything, and don't think critically or have their own opinions ​

09/23/2021

​ 09/28/2021

​ 09/2021

​ 10/03/2021 I want a weather app that tells you what other people are wearing. ​

10/04/2021 I bought the toilet paper with hearts. ​

10/05/2021 I track a lot of things in my life – my time, my eating habits, finances (well, that one is more normal) – in a somewhat detailed manner, definitely more than the average person. If anyone who didn't know me saw, they might think it's obsessive. But I try to do it in an efficient way, so it doesn't take up much of my time. And I use the data points to better understand my behaviour, then make better and more informed decisions about how I spend my time, money, and food.

Isn't it psychologically proven that when people are more aware of their actions, they make better decisions? Like that's why we design dashboards that visualize people's progress. Or how some people lose weight simply by checking their weight every day. ​

10/07/2021

​ 10/08/2021 I had a bad dream last night. I went back to work at Wonderland while still at Cisco and OCAD, and then I lost my phone. ​

10/11/2021 0138 told me, "Out of everyone who graduated our year, you're definitely the one doing the coolest things." ​

10/18/2021 Place.

​ 10/19/2021 Someone I used to work with texted me that they have a crush on me, and I said no you don't. ​

10/2021

​ 11/06/2021 My worst fears Accidentally plagiarizing Getting hacked Clogging someone's toilet Losing important people

​ 11/10/2021 Your actions have an impact on others, even when you think it's only yourself. (I'm talking to myself.) ​

11/14/2021 I fell asleep and had a really weird dream. I was in my house, and there was some event where this special authority figure was coming to rank girls in our backyard. So a lot of random girls were coming to my backyard, and I wanted to go outside and see if I had a high ranking. But I was inside doing laundry, so I was like, I don't know if I can make it in time. When I finally finished, it took a long time to put on my shoes. Then I went outside, and the ranking guy was gone. But I realized that he was using PageRank, and the girls with higher ranks had better SEO. It was all a huge in-person human search engine thing. ​

11/16/2021 Growing up, I always thought we were rich. We're in Canada, and my dad would always tell me we're in the top 1% of the world. A lot of people in the world want to be in Canada. It took a long time for my parents to get here. And they were really lucky. ​

11/17/2021 I feel relieved. Might be sad later, but I'm turning a new page. 0369 moved out, me and 0370 talked about cleaning the entire place. Ended things with 0345, moving on. It was a good run, I learned a lot about myself. Just feels like growth and something new. Like I know things are gonna be hard, but I'm more sure of what I want.

I had a dream that I was on my way to high school. You were giving me a ride, and 0371's house was on the way. We stopped, since you wanted to burn a specific book under his house, 'cause he lived in a library. But then one of my friends from Wonderland came and persuaded you not to do it. Then the scene cut to the police chasing this random white guy. A firefighter came, and was trying to de-escalate the situation. But the white guy ended up accidentally killing the firefighter, by locking him in this room where a deadly green fire somehow got chemically triggered. Then the white guy was scarred for life that he killed someone. ​

11/19/2021 Very bad nightmare. My friend kept getting new girlfriends and killing them. I was getting hints that he was going to do it, and I always tried to stop him, but I never could. It was a stranger, but we were friends in my dream. I don't remember what he looked like. And I was friends with his girlfriends, and I had to watch them die, 'cause it was on the news. It was on TV, and two of them got shot at a McDonald's. Then I woke up. ​

11/24/2021 These days, I wake up earlier than my roommate, and sleep after her, too. ​

11/25/2021 In my dream, I was with my dad. I was going to order Starbucks on my phone, so I could pick it up, and we could save time. He said, "No don't do that, it's going to be really busy, and we're not going to have enough time." So I didn't get Starbucks. Then we were walking past the Starbucks later, AND IT WAS EMPTY. So I got really mad, 'cause I could have gotten Starbucks. ​

11/27/2021 Outfits I wore from May 4 to November 27.

​ 11/30/2021 I dreamed about playing Squid Game in real life, except we were in teams. The leaders were really strict. One of the games was like hopscotch. For one of the last games, it suddenly started right after we showered. I was still changing, and didn't have time. I went outside to participate in the first round, but I needed to change. Me and someone else went back inside to change clothes, but it was taking a long time, because things were wet. My team was waiting for me, and there was a huge glass wall. ​

11/2021

​ 12/01/2021

​ 12/02/2021 Majid Jordan.

​ 12/03/2021 In my dream, I saw a huge strawberry. We were painting with jam. There was clear nail polish. Me, 0359, 0345, and 0011 were in a circle around the computer lab table with no computer. 0359 was speaking Spanish. ​

12/04/2021 I dreamed I was at the 0060's house. 0020 had leftover mac and cheese. Me and my mom were eating it, 0019 and their dad also. Then I was climbing a tree with someone. Tiny rabbit, I don't want to accidentally step on it. We were in the shared backyard of our old house. It slowly got dark. ​

12/05/2021 In my dream, I was hiding with 0056 in green pockets inside of a long hallway. Sometimes people would walk by, but they didn't notice us, until Mr. 0360 saw 0056. But I escaped through a door on my side of the pocket, and went down the stairs. Somehow, 0361 was there. He asked me why, and I said I'm bad at math and music. He said, you're lucky, and I walked away.

I think I got teleported into a Brandy Melville. It was maybe a school trip to a shopping mall. There was also another store with a white lady who was the owner. It had lots of floors and sold different items like books, soap, and clothes, so I was there for a while. Other girls were there too, I think 0011. I ate croissants. We didn't have a lot of time left, and we had to leave. So the last thing I looked at was this shelf of vests and shirts from Brandy, and me and some other girls were organizing it. 0138 was also there. ​

12/06/2021 I had a dream that me, 0022, and 0025 were in the backseat. 0357 was driving, and 0191 was beside. We were going snowboarding, but I forgot my straps.

​ 12/07/2021 I don't remember my dream a lot. There is some type of business term that is two words, and starts with the letter 'O'. I'm connecting things on Are.na – fashion photography, Getty Images type gallery, digital and white background. 0085 is the source relating to the business term. ​

12/08/2021 I had a dream of Discord servers about tech and school. One of them had a channel that was just an empty space where you could walk around and do anything. It kind of reminded me of Figma, sometimes I saw 0362 in there. I found 0019's Discord, and started talking to him because we had a shared server. I had to find out some information about Waterloo, so I asked him, I lied and said I went to Waterloo. Then he asked if I could share my identity, and I said no. I think he caught onto who I was, because my profile had OCAD or something like that on it. So why would I lie? ​

12/09/2021 0362 from Design Buddies was getting mad about how Cisco AnyConnect wasn't working. The rest of my dream was about Cisco, 0363, and 0364, but I don't remember what exactly.

In real life, I had a group interview today, where each candidate has 15 minutes to present. So there were four people and we all got to see each other's take home. It was actually kinda fun. After mine, they said I had very strong interaction and visual design. And there was a fire alarm in their office building during the interview, so they had to go outside and call us from there.

​ 12/10/2021 I dreamed there was an Asian guy who died. Someone met him in public a few hours before he died, I saw it on Snapchat. And then 0365 posted about it on Twitter. He was posting a lot of photos of himself, and he had just received some kind of treatment or surgery for mental health problems, I think that contributed to his death. His face always looked very forced happy. The lighting was very yellow. He wore a fluffy white hat.

Still in the dream, there was a dog with very big ears. He looked hairless, and had white patches. It was in a meme format, with four frames. The dog had been taken away from the original owner, by a mean person who wouldn't give him back. ​

12/12/2021 On trying new things I was thinking about this after listening to talks about late bloomers and falling behind to get ahead. Something that makes people successful in life is willingness to try new things. I realized this is useful in both relationships and careers.

For you to find a career (or more than one) that you are happy in and do well in, you often need to try lots of things to learn what you like and what you don't like. At first it can look like people are behind because they are not progressing a lot in one specific area, but the benefits are more long term, it's like casting a wide net or whatever the analogy is. An added bonus of this is that creativity often comes from combining disciplines and you get to approach things from different perspectives and generally learn to be more adaptable. This is part of why it's valuable to do many internships while you are in school, so you can get a better idea of what kind of things you like to work on and what you are good at.

In relationships, this is also true, because it's hard to know what you want both in friendships, teammates, and romantic relationships, if you don't have experience interacting with different types of people. Also part of why it is valuable to talk to people that are different from you, to learn new things. But also, you won't be able to meet people in the first place if you don't go out and try new things. For example, all of the friends that I made outside of high school, were from going out and trying new things. ​

12/13/2021 I had a dream that 0366 tagged me on Discord, saying the images weren't loading on the website. I was about to reply that his wifi might be slow, but then he deleted his message.

I'm not sure, but I think this was also last night. I was hiding in a basement, but there were other people who lived here as well, like a grandma. There was a bunk bed and a garbage can, I think also a wooden desk with a desktop computer, and a pot of lavender. Maybe 0298 and 0299's dad were there, but for a while I was home alone. I had to hide in a lot of places though, like the washroom. I don't know why I was hiding, because some people knew I was there. It might have been a game. At first I was upstairs with someone else, but when more people came into the house, I had to go find places to hide downstairs. I had a backpack.

Outside, there is a neighbourhood. The street is empty, it feels far away from home. You have to get into a black van to go back. It feels like the same world as that place with the garbage can and large chain that many people walk along to get somewhere central, but I think the central place is like a parking lot. The floor is concrete, there is a motel. ​

12/14/2021 ABC stands for Always Be Cleaning. ​

12/16/2021

​ 12/17/2021 In my dream, we went to 0191's mom's grocery store. It was very small and organized. There was hand sanitizer. I went to the section with Asian medicine. There was a sign for one type of medicine that said "It was likely that Jesus had device control syndrome" in Chinese, and I was helping rewrite it in English.

We went upstairs, I sat at a table and got my book out of my backpack to read. It was fiction, I read three chapters. 0013 looked very small, he was watching a blockchain movie. 0022 and 0025 were asking us to tell them about my book and his movie.

Uncle 0367 was having a conversation across the room. I think it was serious, like family counselling. 0368 asked me if I could hear them. I thought he was asking me to try to hear them, and I thought that was weird, because they were having a private conversation. But really, he was just asking me if I could hear them or not from over here. ​

12/20/2021 I'm busy because I don't like disappointing people, and my standards for output are too high. When I meet new people now, I purposely try to seem like I make a lot of mistakes, and make an effort to talk about my failures more than my successes. But it's heavy to carry all your mistakes. Sometimes I think the worst of people to protect myself from being disappointed, but having low expectations from others can hurt them, too. ​

12/21/2021 I dreamed we were living in a shared city world. Family is there, and church people. Everyone already ate, I should get food. It's night time. Small street, I pass by 0025. McDonald's has pasta and three different types of potatoes. I wasn't hungry, but my mom said I should eat. There's a taco store, but I went to McDonald's. There was a line, but it looked fast. The person in front of me asked for pasta, and the cashier said it would take two hours, but they said it very casually, in a normal way, and the person who ordered it seemed completely unfazed. ​

12/26/2021 I used to think God's plan to prosper and all things working out for our good, was meant for our life on this earth. But now I think things working out for the greater good, isn't the same as things working out for my good. Sometimes I feel like we need to wait until we're not here anymore, for things to truly work out. I think a good plan can have a lot of suffering. I think it doesn't look like what I would expect a good plan to be.

​ 12/30/2021 I had a dream I went to Wonderland because my friend promised me free food. I still had my employee ID, so I got in for free, but somehow got looped into helping Coasters. Sitting with 0335 and 0209, I fell asleep while reading a book. When I woke up, there were more people at the table. This girl I didn't know asked if she could guess my name. I said sure, she said, it's Christina, right? I was like... how did you know. She said she heard of me at the council. I guessed her name was Samantha, it was a random guess, I was wrong. ​

12/31/2021 In my dream, there were lots of pretty K-pop girls in a pink indoors building that was Aespa aesthetic. It was some kind of game.