After two years wandering around in the U.S., I finally came back to Japan.
I took a subway the other day, and my train was delayed for a minute (note the fact that train comes in every 2-3 minutes). The operator announced his “deepest” apologies for not meeting the schedule and how the train delay might caused any inconvenience. Knowing this kind of sincere apology never happens in New York, where subway delay is part of your day, I was overwhelmed by the politeness of Japanese public transportation.
Welcome back to Japan! Okaeri =)
Commencement tickets, flyer, and purple wristbands
I am not sure how much I am ready to graduate, but I picked up my attire and commencement tickets. There seems to be a grad alley happening on campus too, so I am excited to take my parent around.
Purple nails!
In preparation for a commencement, I changed my nails yesterday to pure purple that matches with the color of my university logo. Put rose stickers to add some love =)
juridesign.com version 2.0
I’m in the process of re-designing my portfolio site at www.juridesign.com. I’ve released the first version today. I will be tweaking and retouching the pages from now. I wanted to release it before things start getting crazy with a thesis project, classes and an internship.
Now it’s time to debug…
Comments are welcome.
Which way?
I’ve been thinking about my post-ITP career path. I’ve looked up some jobs of interest, including interaction designer, user interface designer and front end web developer, to find the criteria and expected roles, while researching the overall job market in Japan and the US to assess the market demand for a kind of work I would love to do. The search for the perfect match isn’t over yet, but I have a feeling that my Mr. Right Job is just steps away.
To marshal my thoughts, I decided to post quick notes. I will be posting more as I continue clarifying my thinking and further explore the future career.
Eventually, I want to answer a question I often get: “Are you a designer or a programmer?”
Read more
One of my new year’s resolutions is to improve my poor circulation, a common problem for Japanese females, by eating well. I started reading many blogs and cooking sites about recommended ingredients and recipes for warming the body. On Sunday I cooked a Japanized Korean Samgyetang (蔘鷄湯 or 삼계탕) for dinner with chicken, ginger, garlic and vegetables. It turned out pretty nicely and I enjoyed the leftover for lunch next day. Another thing I did on Sunday was to try FreshDirect for the first time. I was always interested in using their convenient service, but never had a chance or a particular reason to do so. Luckily they have a campaign for new customers that whoever register gets 25% discount on the first two purchases with no delivery fees. Why not give it a try? So I decided to order a little bit of everything to see how they are. Here are the items I’ve ordered:
- Cheese: formaffio fresh salted mozzarella
- Dairy: Dannon Activia (for a special price of 4pks for $3!)
- Organic: broccolette and Silk Soymilk 1qt
- Veggies: green bell pepper, hass avocados and a bag of yellow onions
- Meat: Boneless chicken tenders 12 pieces and wild flounder fillet
All for a total of only $24 with the discount.
The box was delivered to me this morning at 8am.
freshdirect delivered fresh to my door
I think it’s extremely convenient to have your groceries delivered especially if you have heavy stuff including a bag of onions and milk, things I usually do not want to carry.
So far so good, freshdirect
All veggies and meat look fresh. I already opened one Activia yogurt for breakfast. I will freeze the chicken for a later usage, and will probably cook the flounder for lunch or dinner.
I may purchase items from the FreshDirect again since I still get the discount as the newly registered user!
I’m very looking forward to the improvement of my circulation by the end of the semester 
Whitney Museum's new website
I was reading one of blog articles by Mark Hurst at Good Experience, and found that the Whitney Museum has recently launched a new website. I love the fact that they put the “Visit” section prominently on the landing page. They made this section AJAX-based (like Google’s Gmail) that allows dynamic interaction, so visitors can get information without reloading a page or jumping to another page. It’s great.
One issue, which I think is so critical, is the choice of white text on black background. Is Whitney a funeral company? The landing page looks acceptable, because there are more images than text. But when I go to “Get Involved” page, for example, the black and white contrast kills my eyes and takes over my attention that I cannot focus on anything else. I hope the website’s color palette is a temporary experiment or something specific to one of exhibitions. I will come back to the site in a month or so to see if they changed the color.