Massive Life Update

In the last month, I:
- got an Iron Ring
- finished my last exam in the Mathematics and Engineering Program at Queen's
- was accepted for a Master's in Computer Science with the Dynamic Graphics Project at the University of Toronto, where I'm hoping to focus on Human-Computer Interaction and Ubiquitous Computing.

Phew! Post-graduation, I was also looking into the Master's of Digital Media program in Vancouver, but decided I wanted to follow a more academic route. After lots of soul-searching, I realized I'm more of a researcher than a business guy, and if I continue to follow the academic stream I get to keep teaching! My specific research interests are pretty fuzzy right now, but the advisory possibilities at UofT are really fantastic and fluid. More on that to come.

So this means I only have four months left in Kingston, the city I was born in and have lived for the past 11 years, after stints in Calgary and Vancouver. Although Kingston has its own funny hijinks, it's going to be weird to leave this quaint place for the big smoke. I'm really looking forward to Toronto's theatre scene though - I know that I'm going to keep doing improv and theatre wherever I go.

This summer, I will be working in the Human Media Lab on 3D videoconferencing from multiple 2D capture (details to come), but that's pretty much all I've planned for now. On Thursday, I wrote down a very broad summer to-do list:

Buy a guitar and start learning stuff on it
Buy a camera
Write a play or short story
Buy a laptop and get it all pimped up
Buy an OLPC XO and learn how to program on it.
Have sex outdoors
Read Ulysses
Finish Godel Escher Bach
Learn about Information Theory
Be on stage at least once
Learn about Decentralized Control Theory
Bike greater than 50 km in one day
Buy/Fix my bike
Get glasses (my old ones broke)
Find a house in Toronto

And then on Friday, I went on a bike for 35 km! Maybe I'll have to increase that goal. I'll keep you posted.

ps. playing through Bioshock now. Despite it's flaws, its pretty awesome.