Thursday, March 20, 2014

A Dean, A Project and An Office.

This morning before Elba arrived at 9:30, I cleaned up the apartment - not that there was much to do. I found beads all over (some things never change) and I will want to do a proper sweep this weekend, but overall it was in good shape.

When she arrived, Elba took me to the grocery store with her.  All she needed was water and some apples.  I ended up with a LOT more than that - but I am, after all, kitting out a kitchen devoid of spices, oil, and fruit.  There's still more to get of course, but one can only carry so much.

Especially since my ankle is hurting like stink, which is usually a sign that rain is on the way.  Which my phone's weather app agrees with but which the locals all scoff at.  We shall see.  The big dark clouds tonight are further indication that the weather might be changing.

We met with the Dean when we got in, and my schedule started to fill in.  Next Wednesday, I'll do a usability evaluation of the current UTP website.  Given my experience with it, we'll find lot of issues. Karla said that there have been many such usability evals, but that no one listened.  We're both hoping that they'll listen to me since I'm from more than 50 miles away and I have a briefcase.

My office, which yesterday was in a corner of an uninhabited room, was officially moved this morning so now I'm sitting with the professors.  Yay!  I want to get a plant to soften it up a bit, but it's just fine for a short stay.

The Dean, Nicolas, wants me to come with him to the Canal and then to lunch at his home in Casco Viejo!  Plus, he's very excited about taking me to the 7 "extension" campuses which has me floating at the thought.  All in all, we had a lovely meeting.

I spent part of the afternoon settling in before a team of Masters students brought their prototype of a "serious game" that measures attention.  Lots of good ideas - both the way it is now and the way it could (should) be if they changed it based on my "test" of their system.  I'm particularly impressed
that a team of 3 guys could work collaboratively together to produce this system.  That's something we need - (young) folks showing how well things work when we collaborate.

Even better than that, I finally met the incredible Karla Arosemena!  And she's gorgeous (which I knew from her photos) and TALL (which I didn't realize)  After so many months on the phone to finally meet in person was a huge gift.  And she's as amazing in person as on the phone.  Thanks, Karla.

In future installments of this blog, I plan to highlight some of the incredible people here at UTP, (like Karla, Elba, and the Dean among others) as well as other folks I meet.  Stay tuned.  I was going to do one tonight in addition to this post, but I'm out of steam.

I'm falling asleep once again and so am off to bed, even though it's only 7:30 pm here (and 5:30 pm PST)

Thanks for coming on the journey!

In which Tigger comes to UTP

This morning started with the Security Briefing at the US Embassy in Clayton.  What great people!  Apparently the main briefing was cancelled so Sarah Ferguson read me the security policy so I could sign it.  We did a bit of tag-teaming where she read and then I filled in the next bit.  We both found words that we didn't know - whoever wrote the policy was clearly a frustrated fiction writer who embellished the document with a number of archaic words.  But it was great fun also to talk about the security issues and how to avoid problems.  Yes, fun - because Sarah is such a lovely person!

I also had brief meetings with Public Affairs Officer Kristin Stewart de Rodriguez and Andrea Corey, the Cultural Affairs Officer.  Lovely people (women!) for sure!

After the briefing, I had the opportunity and privilege to have lunch with the Dean, Prof. Nicholas Samaniego, as well as Euclides Saminiego, Aris Castillo, and Elba (there was one other woman - help me remember!)  Quite a lovely meal with terrific food and even better conversation.  We discussed at a very high level the kinds of things that would be useful for me to do.  I'm getting a clearer picture with each meeting.

Aris then took me on a tour of the Computer Engineering offices, introducing me to a number of professors.  I must admit that, between my natural issues with names and my "brain-is-full" fatigue, I doubt I'll be remembering them for a while, but I'm hopeful.  There seems to be a lot of interest in (1) practicing English comprehension and speech and (2) a variety of projects.  However, after putting it all together, Aris and I plotted a bit and struck on the idea of doing a usability evaluation of the UTP website.  Should be very interesting.  We'll definitely have to nail tasks and recruiting.

But the title says that Tigger should be in this post and so he should be because I felt very very much like him all day today.  I keep getting more and more excited as plans firm up and I get to meet these most amazing people in a terrific department.  I'm very honored to get to work with them, but honestly, I feel rather like my feet are 3 feet off the ground and that I'm bouncing - bouncy, bouncy, bouncy - rather like the aforementioned Pooh friend.  I suppose that I will calm down a bit once things start in earnest - or not.  It's hard to tell with Tiggers after all.

Tomorrow, I will meet the faculty at a meeting.  Elba is picking me up earlier so we can accomplish great things together.  Stay tuned!

And thank you again for being on this journey with me.