Busy, busy, busy

Lately I've been hearing from friends and family that they're having a hard time visualizing what I'm up to. So here's a post with visuals! Check it out.




Here's Building 32 on the University of Southampton's Highfield campus. New, very modern and whizzy steel, concrete, glass structure with all the latest tech built in or in development within. I have a desk now on the fourth floor with the 'Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia' group. No computing gear as yet -- I need to spec out my needs and they'll order it up.


Lost in thought. ;-p























Looking east across the River Itchen estuary from my wee office at my Priory Rd. lodging.








And here's a look at Priory Rd. just out front of the house where I'm lodging for now. Mine is the one with the third bay window from the right.
















Ok, so I start lectures tomorrow and participate in a meet & greet for postgrads in the Engineering, Science and Mathematics schools. Then back home to burn on some network analysis studies. Busy, busy, busy.

Ready, Set...

This is the peaceful part. The easy, end of summer, laissez faire bit where you get to cruise. Blue skies, puffy clouds, easy living, getting acquainted with the neighborhood, whatnot. But only just for a spell. Pretty soon all hell breaks loose, as usual. In my case, it'll be lectures and deliverables. The lectures, not so bad. These deliverables are serious socks. First up is a comparative review of Network Analysis from two points of view, that of computer science and that of sociology. I'm tearing in right now -- wish me luck.

First Steps

The summer of 2008 in southern England this year has been, by all accounts, a washout. Endless miserable rainy, gray, windswept days and nights with scarce silver linings. Now in mid-autumn the cycle appears to have broken. Since arriving in England I have not witnessed rainy or windy conditions, nor anything more intemperate than one or two cloudy skies. Mornings have been generally bright, cool, and crisp; afternoons warm, sunny, and pleasant. It's really been a treat, as I'm unaccustomed to any stretch of continuous cheerful weather in these climes.

I've taken a small room with a tiny office in a shared house on the waterfront in Soton, so I'm situated in that respect. Had a brief meeting with my sponsor, Wendy, the same afternoon, wherein we discussed supervisors, advisors, communication, and first steps. I allowed an interest in Manuel Castells writings and apprised her of a lecture Dr. Castells is due to deliver at OII in Oxford in late October. After some consideration, we agreed I'll read his "Internet Galaxy" and write a review for our next meeting on 29/9.

So here we are on 21/9 and of course that means it's EVAN'S BIRTHDAY!!! And now he's a TEEN!!! Yikes! Happy birthday to you, my beautiful boy!!

Fast Forward

Right. So it's been quite a spell since I've written and this here's my update.

Summer has come and gone, the way it will, and our collective wheel has turned. We made the brutal move off the island I love so well, and have created our temporal separate paths. Jena and Evan have taken residence at our Tukwila condo, proximate to Evan's new school, Seattle Christian Schools. I have made my way across the pond to Southampton, where I'm to take lodging tomorrow in Priory Road, St. Denys, Southampton, Hants, UK.

All good so far.

I've lately spent a day and a half getting acquainted with some of the putative practitioners or perhaps just teachers of web science at a curriculum-setting meeting at Uni Soton. It was a good session, good to make some new acquaintances, and good to hear the discussions of what taught elements might necessarily fit the rubric of web science.

Now it's a lovely day here and I'm guessing I'd best leave this writing for a bit later and go enjoy before it fades away.

Progress

We sent Evan (right) off to Hyak with his pal Gunde (left) for the weekend, so we have all this spare time for relaxing, talking, getting in touch. We'll just vege here by the fire on this rainy Saturday, then enjoy some sunshine tomorrow. We've been tossing around ideas about summer plans, living arrangements, investments, downstream plans, etc. Feels good to be brainstorming these things -- feels like progress!

Speaking of which, I heard from Professor Wendy Hall at Southampton at last, late in the week. She said, "We rushed your application form through the system today. Expect to get notification of acceptance soon." She also said, "I have a very good feeling about this." Me too!

Making Plans

So Jena and I sat down last night for a chat about future plans, my grad school jones, her need for change and, mirabilé dictu, discovered that we had been thinking in similar directions! Now I'm all hot to get into the nascent Web Science program being created at the University of Southampton and MIT and she's been simply mad about moving away from Vashon Island for some time now. So we kicked around a few scenarios and agreed to a rough outline:

• we'll keep the Vashon Meadows rental through the summer so Evan has the island stability and can do the summer camps and hang with his peeps
  
• meanwhile, we'll look into our living, school, and employment options in Southampton
• we'll also check into schools and living options for Jena and Evan in Anthem, AZ
• if it clicks one way, we'll live en famille in England for a year
• if the other, we'll live apart in UK and AZ for at least my six-month baseline requirement at Soton
• if I get on well in the program, we'll move together to Cambridge, MA for the MIT leg of the adventure
  

Onward and upward!

Roasting

A fine Sunday on the island. Evan's had a good day, what with a bit of clarinet practice, reading homework, and time out at his buddy Seth's house. We had another good French lesson with Laura, and even found time for a game or three of Pente. I spent some time looking at lectures from the ecs.soton.ac.uk site. Now Jena's just rolled in from her weekend retreat on Shaw Island where, we're assured, a great experience was enjoyed by all. Now Evan & I have had the fire going for a spell, and it's ROASTING in here.

Incidentally, I wrote an essay in support of my application to ECS Uni Southampton's Web Science program, entitled "Research Challenges in Social Networking."