Hello good people of the Internet, sorry that Friday Stories is running a little late this week due to a birthday. Mine! So, to commemorate the once-a-year event, this week we ask what triggers your sense of your age. Does the smell of rain bring back memories of playing in the afternoon rain as a child? Or when the feeling that you could go on forever mid-marathon inject you with a sense of youthfulness? Or that the weight of familial responsibilities reminds you of your station in the life cycle? And, what makes you lose track of all these age-triggers?

The Stories

I feel young when the sun shines, the air sparkles, and the grass is perfectly emerald.  That is when I can empty my mind and look at everything as though I was encountering it for the first time.

I feel old when I hear very young and sweetly naive people talking.  Their innocence and lack of experience make me feel silly and old.

I forget my age when I am with the people I love the best.  Then I am just myself, accreted age and all.

It’s not quite an external stimulus for me. On days where my mind can jump off ideas toward new ideas, I feel young. And alive. The agility of the mind doesn’t seem like something I have direct control over, but has tremendous impact on the way I feel day to day. It’s strange that it is sort of an internal stimulus, but not one that I can activate on demand. Obviously, then, it is on days where my mind drags through any material (the absolute inability to find interest within anything) that I feel old and stiff. On those days I worry about getting old and losing my groove.

The Experiment

Each week on Friday, I will post a random question on Design, Thunk. Tell us your personal story: what happened? what led to it? how did you feel? what struck you most about the incident? Your story can be as short as 2 paragraphs, or a long page. It’s your call. And, there isn’t an ideal answer. We just want to understand your world.

High school graduation. Entering the final year at college. Getting your first paycheck. Breaking up with your fifth girlfriend. For some events in life, we can anticipate that our lives are never going to be the same again. Some are social milestones; goal posts painted for us when we were mere children.

What about the other stuff that don’t follow a timeline? Perhaps a realization that a close friend wasn’t who you thought she was, or an epiphany about your own life.

How did you know that things were never going to be the same again? And what did it feel like?

The Stories

I knew things would be different when I said goodbye to my best
friend from high school on the eve before I moved to college. I didn’t
think college would be all that different, and I especially didn’t
think that our friendship would be somehow forever changed. But the
look he gave me after we hugged goodbye and I got ready to head home
to sleep, as though he’d never see me again, made me wonder – will
things ever really be the same again?
He was right, things never were the same again. I would have no idea
how much I changed in college until six months later I saw my friend
again. Things were different and it wasn’t because he had changed – it
was because I was different. I don’t think I’ve stopped changing since
I left home that next day.

It was the moment of emotional clarity when I knew in every bone that I had to be a liberal arts major. There was such a distinct pull and resolve in that moment, quite unlike anything I’ve felt in my life. It almost felt like my life was a blur prior to this point.

After trying three times to get myself into the Industrial Design course and finally got it on the third try. That was the moment i really felt jubilant, literally jumping with joy, and knowing i really get to do what i like ‘academically’  for the first time in my life.

when everyone i know has an iphone…and all i want is a blackberry. screw you steve!

I don’t think you ever realise things are different in fateful “eureka!” moments… although romanticism would have us believe that. I would have wanted to believe in that.

But I think you know only after a series of happenings, a period of confusion and reflection, a long-drawn session of utter happiness and total heartbreak. Then you realise things are different… when you finally see things as they are.

The Experiment

Each week on Friday, I will post a random question on Design, Thunk. Tell us your personal story: what happened? what led to it? how did you feel? what struck you most about the incident? Your story can be as short as 2 paragraphs, or a long page. It’s your call. And, there isn’t an ideal answer. We just want to understand your world.

Email your stories to grace[at]gracecheow[dot]com by Thursday 10 Dec, and I’ll publish them anonymously (or with your initials, if you prefer) on Design, Thunk on Friday.

The Stories

that the chinese are making a hell lot more money then i will ever get. But at least i shave my armpits.

Thank God I’m alive, with a healthy, happy family and friends I can count on.

I ask myself the same question everyday at the start of the day.
“What do i have to clear today?”

That I am so happy to be studying what I am studying.

Since I alternate between feeling highly suspicious of mantras and periods of excessive preoccupation with self-help books, I rarely have a mantra that I repeat to myself. Or sometimes, some days, I’m not self-aware enough to talk to myself. Perhaps the faint thought flitting through my head is that today is another day that should see something accomplished, no matter how small. I think I see a lot of people around me who are just struggling to survive on a daily basis in Beijing that such thoughts, mantras, mottos seem really quite pointless. So maybe what I do think about everyday is how privileged my life truly is.

1) What have you done with your God given talents?
2) Have you served others before yourself?
3) End of day: Have you reflected and given thanks to it?
Last one is a statement. Look forward to tomorrow and start anew when it arrives.

I tend to ask myself “What interesting things am I doing today?” I am inherently a lazy person, and if left to my own devices, I revel in sloth. The question pops up when boredom hits, and more than anything else, it is a reminder to do something unusual and learn something new daily. I can’t claim credit for the putting this question in my head though. A close friend whom I greatly admired for the adventurous path of his life told me that anyone could have an interesting life. It’s all a matter of taking charge and making it interesting.

If I’m lucky, when I wake up I
1) remember my dreams, and try to make sense of them
or just appreciate how strange it is to dream at all and then
2) “What do I want to accomplish before lunch?”

I don’t usually say it aloud but just think it. I probably don’t ’say’ anything to myself daily,
other than a few choice expletives and the occasional deep sigh.

The experiment

Each week on Friday, I will post a random question on Design, Thunk. Tell us your personal story: what happened? what led to it? how did you feel? what struck you most about the incident? Your story can be as short as 2 paragraphs, or a long page. It’s your call. And, there isn’t an ideal answer. We just want to understand your world.

]]> http://gracecheow.com/friday-stories-the-experiment/feed/ 0 http://gracecheow.com/friday-stories-1/ http://gracecheow.com/friday-stories-1/#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:25:54 +0000 Grace Cheow http://gracecheow.com/?p=245

The stories

I put personalities in my toys, complete with voiceovers.
All my stuffed toys are somebody, I have my own “Sesame Street” in my bedroom!
I’m a bedroom animator.

It will have to be fitness coaching which has absoutely no relevance to my current professional career. During National Service some 10 years ago, I went for a couple of coaching certification. At that point, it was a natural progression from the instructor course I took when in Army. I must say, it has changed me to become more open to different people.

What struck me most is the number of different people I met while I am a gym instructor there. From the aunties to teenagers who want to look good and fit for different reasons. To me, being fit is a journey rather than a destination which many tend to view it that way. Once they attain their desired look, they stop. It brings me to relate to a business, career or marriage where its the journey that really matters. Very much like fitness, which we constantly need to maintain and upkeep regardless of age and time. A journey where many events and people will cross your fitness path.

being able to read while walking.  it’s too frivolous.

I can fold my tongue into a U-shape. When I was 7, my aunt showed me this trick and convinced me that only a special few could do it. At that time, I couldn’t fold my tongue no matter how I tried. Using my fingers to make my tongue hold its shape, trying to get my brain to will my tongue muscles to move, nothing worked. Naturally, I got pretty peeved. Persuaded that I was not one of the select few, I moved on with my life. Then one afternoon in high school, a couple of friends and I were trying to tie knots in cherry stalks using our tongues. I was hopeless at it, but I think the workout did the trick. Since then, I’ve been able to fold my tongue!

Each week on Friday, I will post a random question on Design, Thunk. Tell us your personal story: what happened? what led to it? how did you feel? what struck you most about the incident? Your story can be as short as 2 paragraphs, or a long page. It’s your call. And, there isn’t an ideal answer. We just want to understand your world.

Curious about this experiment? Here’s the idea.

How do we know the (designerly) things we know?

Design Research has been called many names and projected onto many different platforms. From observing like a fly on the wall to role-playing as a participant; from collecting personal stories through an eclectic collage of images to utilizing focus groups as dipsticks to approximate product success rates; these methods have been useful in gathering (social and cultural) knowledge that design needs to know in order to do designerly things.

But questions of utility lead us to designing for task accomplishments; are there human events or experiences that current design research methods have yet to lead us to explore? Can questions about the internal lives of people and fragmentary clues provide us with a sensibility towards radical design?

To put the objective in its simplest form, I hope that we can uncover new ways of knowing and interpreting internal human events and experiences that existing methods are not designed to accomplish.

I’d like to run a little experiment to see if the field could use this method of inquiry to inspire design concepts. And I’d like you to do this with me.

The experiment

Each week on Friday, I will post a random question on Design, Thunk. Tell us your personal story: what happened? what led to it? how did you feel? what struck you most about the incident? Your story can be as short as 2 paragraphs, or a long page. It’s your call. And, there isn’t an ideal answer. We just want to understand your world.

Email your stories to me by the following Tuesday, and I’ll publish them anonymously (or with your initials, if you prefer) on Design, Thunk on Wednesday.

We can run this for 3 weeks or so, then have a discussion about the methodology (what works and what doesn’t). If it proves to be good fun for everyone, we can extend the experiment for a period of time. Hopefully, with time, we’ll gain some ground towards a new and plausible design research method that is useful for designers and innovation strategists.

So.

To be honest, I have no idea how this experiment will turn out, but I’m hoping that we can uncover some cool new stuff about design research in the process.

So, how’s this? Yay or nay?

Friday Stories #1

Friday Stories #2

Friday Stories #3