I arrived on campus 15 minutes before orientation started, so I went to the design office to turn in my time card for the Emergence conference website. No one was in the office except some guy.

He was sitting in the administrator area, so I assumed he was an administrator. He asked if I was a new graduate student. He then said, ??????I??????m John Zimmerman.??????

??????Oh, JZ,?????? I said. I had heard of him. He will be teaching my interaction design class this fall.

He continued to engage me in conversation and asked what I wanted to do when I got out. I told him I didn’t know yet. He looked concerned.

Previously other faculty members had said they didn??????t expect me to know what I wanted to do when I was done. I decided to dig a deeper hole, ??????I??????m still having a hard time defining interaction design.??????

JZ looked puzzled.

??????It??????s designing for interaction with stuff,?????? he said.

Pause.

??????That seems too simple,?????? I said.

He disagreed and went on to say what??????s hard is figuring out what interactions I was going to design for, and said I should start thinking about that. I heard he was tough, in a good way. I assumed this was an example.

Actual Orientation

We met more faculty, the design students that were not here over the summer, and many of the second-year students. We got breakfast and lunch. And we got our laptops and picked our studio space. This took most of the day.

Tonight there??????s a party at Shelley Evenson??????s house. I hear she has a nice place. And a big dog, or two.