Wednesday, October 21, 2015. It feels somewhat omenous to be traveling to Taiwan today, as it is Back to the Future Day and the year 1985 was around the time I last lived there. When I graduated from Taipei American School in 1986, I was all too happy to come back to the United States. When I lived in Taiwan as a teen, I had a mixed-up sense of identity. Am I Taiwanese? I’m not like the Taiwanese who grew up here. Am I American? I was what is now called a Third Culture Kid” internationalized to the extent that my core pre-teen through teen experienced didn’t match up with most Americans back in the States. I had clung to “American” as my identity, which helped me cope with my poor language pick-up skills. And so now I’m heading back for the first time by myself since 1987, by my own volition. I’m trying to maintain a positive attitude, but the childhood reactions are dug-in pretty deep! I’m telling myself to remember to smile and be happy to be there, which I think I can do, though my insides are churning with ill-defined concerns. (more…)

Monday, October 19, 2015. While I’m waiting for my flight on Wednesday, this is a good time to work with my cousin Ben on our interactive project with UCLA/IU. I don’t have a motion tracker rig at home, but Ben has one, so we were able to track down a bug that only appeared on Windows systems that used tracker data. It ended being an issue with how we were processing data using an old hack, so once we figured out that was the problem we were able to fix it.

Next, we also talked a bit about the next phase of development now that we have a critical mass of supporting systems to start building real activities. A lot of these new systems, such as our behavior-tree based “AI”, takes some getting used to; I’m not even 100% clear on the best way to use it. So we just talked through it, face-to-face, and came to a general understanding. It will be interesting to see if I can work on these systems while I’m in Taiwan, as I will not have the luxury of my multiple-monitor setup. In fact, I’m finding it challenging just finding a table and chair to put my laptop on as I travel, which creates neck and arm strain issues as I work. I guess I’ll find out when I get there. (more…)

Sunday, October 18, 2015. San Jose and its surrounding neighborhoods remind me how sparsely populated my part of the world is. While Nashua is a fairly large town of 80,000 people, it’s not a city by any means with a strong focus on either technology or community life. This hadn’t been apparent to me until I spent some time with my cousin’s family walking around the town of Campbell. There are parks everywhere, and people doing activities together. Nearby there are all sorts of ethnic restaurants, local venues, and street entrepreneurism with a light rail system. I’m not used to seeing so many people in one place being so relaxed and out in the open. Maybe it has something to do with it being sunny outside all the time. (more…)

Saturday, October 17, 2015. I had a flight booked on Southwest Airlines from New Hampshire’s Manchester-Boston Regional Airport (MHT) to San Jose (SJC) via Chicago Midway (MDW). The great thing about San Jose, other than it being kind of a neat little city nestled in Silicon Valley, is that it’s also one of the airports that All Nippon Airlines (ANA) flies from. I’ve been wanting to try ANA for quite some time, as it has a reputation of being a premium airline. That they base flights from San Jose is great because it means I can visit my cousins, then hop on a flight to Taiwan. It’s not a non-stop flight to Taiwan, unfortunately, but I guess that will give me a reason to brush up on my international travel skills. (more…)

This month I’m leaving my nest in Southern New Hampshire to fly to reconnect with my extended family and culture in Taiwan. It’s also an experiment to see how well I can work away from home, testing my ability to adapt. I am not naturally an adventurous person, and I am horribly self-conscious about ,y poor language skills. Now that I’m a grown-ass adult, though, it’s time to see if I’ve learned any skills to help me cope with my shortcomings. I’m declaring this as an official personal challenge for October 2015. Read on for the details! (more…)