I’ve waited to write this until after I moved out of my flat as I wanted a bit of distance. I chose to live in a Halls of Residence, which is student accommodation. I assumed I’d be dealing with loud music and drunken parties; however, my room-mates are from India and Malaysia and drink very little or no alcohol and generally retreated to their rooms to watch videos. They’re all in graduate study programs like mine and are around 24 years old. Other students in the building were more like what I had …

I’m now finished all my school work and am on vacation before returning to work. The last stretch to get my dissertation done was stressful, even though I was a bit ahead of things when I talked to my classmates. However, until you have submitted everything, you still feel as much pressure as if you’re weeks behind. Everything we were doing in the final stages was new and I didn’t know how long each step would take: putting everything into In-Design, developing all the graphics for it and then …

The London 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony was yesterday and I’m really glad that I was in the UK this year and able to enjoy all of it, from the torch run through to the Paralympics still to come. Back in 2005 when it was announced that London would be the host city for the 2012 Olympics I emailed a friend in the London HOK office and asked if I could sleep on her living room floor and come and see the games. She’s back in …

I took a few days away from my dissertation to travel to Berlin, which was one of the destinations I wanted to see while I was in Europe. I was last there in 1980 before the wall came down and it was a city, or two cities, of contrasts. West Berlin was brash and vibrant with little charm, while East Berlin was sterile, grey and buried in the past. It was a fascinating place to visit in 1980 and I wanted to go back because once the wall …

The Olympics will be starting in a couple of weeks and there are signs of the building excitement everywhere. Most of the events are happening in the London area, but some are taking place in other cities. Coventry, which is near Birmingham, has some of the soccer games and I’ll be attending an afternoon of Women’s Football where I’ll see the Canadian Team playing South Africa. I just bought the ticket yesterday having heard some were available and I want to support my fellow Canadians and wave the …

Birmingham Made Me Event

This past week I helped out at an event called IDEA Birmingham, which started as a business think tank led by Birmingham City University (where I’m studying for my Masters degree). The founders of this  group, which include iconic companies like Jaguar-Land Rover, want to increase the  visibility of Birmingham as the Original  Design City as this is where the industrial revolution had its beginnings. The  home of many Midlands based companies has typically been noted as the UK, but  they feel it’s time to let the world know that much …

I had the opportunity to spend a lovely day in London recently. I went to the Chelsea Flower Show with one of my classmates planning on enjoying a breath of spring and unexpectedly learned about another piece of English history. The flower show has taken place on the grounds of the Royal Chelsea Hospital since 1913. This is the home of the Chelsea Pensioners and was founded by King Charles II as a residence for retired soldiers. It was designed by Christopher Wren and completed in 1692. The …

I’m now into investigating and writing for my dissertation, which is tentatively titled ‘Succession Management in Design Firms’. I’ve been doing a lot of reading for the past five months on this subject, while researching and preparing work for my other courses, but I’m now able to focus solely on this. We have three months from beginning to end for our dissertations, which is not much time. However, I want to try a few things that I haven’t done previously, just to see how effective they were.

In order to kick off my primary research I wanted …

Before coming over to school in Europe I asked a friend who’s been to Trade Shows around the world what show in Europe he would recommend as the best to see. I was glad when he said the Milan Furniture Fair (Salone Internazionale Del Mobile) as I love Italy and welcomed the idea of going in April and asked my sister to come along. Part of the reason he recommended it was the sheer size of the fair as virtually every manufacturer in the residential market shows there …

One of the unexpected pleasures of doing research is the things you find out that you weren’t looking for. I was doing research on Strategic Alliances between Design Associations and was having a hard time finding much that was relevant. These associations are important to us in maintaining our professional status, but no one takes much time to do any specialized research around them. One of the strategies is to look for other areas that might relate and apply the research done for them to your work. I decided to look into Twinning for Cities, as often the effort to do so is run …

I took 10 days off from my school work (got ahead of things and was prepared to go like stink when I got back) in order to go to Nice for the Figure Skating World Championships. I have been before to the Worlds in some great locations like Washington, LA, Gothenburg and Moscow, but I think Nice was the best due to the beautiful location and the warm weather. It was sunny every day and approximately 21° Celsius (around 70° Fahrenheit). …

All of our courses at school, except one, have been individual work, although we have team discussions in class and are encouraged  to participate in study groups. I like working with other people as it gives me another perspective and I always thought I was a reasonably good team player and team leader. My experience with our Team Project has changed some of my ideas about myself. It was a challenging course for a variety of reasons. We were actually part of two teams: one composed of a group of Design Managers and the other was management of a group of Graphic Designers from …

My main way of getting around Birmingham is by walking; it’s also my main way of keeping fit as I don’t belong to a gym here the way I do back home (partly due to the student budget, partly due to the fact that nothing is as great as my Aquafit class at the main YMCA in Toronto). Initially I just took all the sidewalks for …

I’m feeling quite cheerful as it appears that spring is here, or maybe I should say almost here. It depends on the day, as sometimes we have 16° C (60° F) and then it might be down to 10° C (50° F) the next day; either way, it’s been warmer than Toronto. Just a few weeks ago I was enjoying a little bit of crunchy snow in the Cotswolds and now there are crocuses on the lawns of Aston University. All the buildings are planting their spring flowers …

It’s been a really busy week for us at school, our last week before we start ‘Independent Study’ until we finish our degrees. We have a couple of presentations to the rest of the class ahead of us, but the next one is still six weeks away. To make up for it, this last week was a bit crazy. We had a team presentation on Tuesday that was worth 30% for one course and submitted the final assignment that was worth 100% for another course on Thursday. That was actually plenty, but on top of …

Snow at the Uni
At last, we’ve now got snow here in Birmingham yesterday and I finally get to wear my warmer winter coat and hat. I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t see any snow as it’s been the warmest winter in Britain for many years. There’s been snow up north in Scotland, but none in this area. I’ve wanted to see the reactions of people to snow, as there’ve been a lot of funny stories in the past few months, at least funny from the perspective of a Canadian. There was …

We’ve received our marks from two more assignments for the first semester and I’m pleased to say that I’m an ‘A’ student. I expected to pass as I’ve been enthusiastic about the classes and the subject matter I chose for the assignments. I wanted to do as much as possible in each course and am happy that my marks reflected my commitment. It’s been interesting to see the difference in how I react to the assignments and how the rest of the class appears to react. We get a brief and if it has a reading list I’m on BCU’s library website right away …

For some time I’ve been wanting to try winter walking in the English countryside and this year was my opportunity. I booked a walking tour at Whitby on the coast in North Yorkshire soon after I arrived in England for the week of New Years. Last year there was so much snow and ice that they cancelled all the walks as it was too treacherous, so I took plenty of warm clothes for my walks. This year the weather was very nice, about 7° Celsius, so I still …

I’ve just come back from Paris and can recommend the City of Light at this time of the year. There aren’t quite as many tourists as usual and it is beautifully decorated for Christmas. I went on a five-day trip with a small tour group of 8 walkers, two of whom I’d met previously in October. We travelled there on the Eurostar train through the Chunnel; what a pleasure as opposed to flying, although there were still security checks. Our hotel was within walking distance of the Latin …

This week I attended an Obsessionista exhibit at the BCU School of Jewellery. One of the professors at BIAD put the exhibit together and invited staff and students to submit their collections, whatever you might be passionate about and has compelled you to amass an assortment of things that most people would pass over. It was quite an interesting range of collections and revealed a lot about the individuals who submitted. I have never been a collector of much more than memories, as I never knew where to put the stuff and properly display it, but …

Getting my feet scanned
I feel really lucky to be in the MA Design Management Program as we’re given a variety of opportunities in addition to the course curriculum. The latest one was in Chemnitz Germany (near Dresden) to participate in a workshop with students from Germany and business people from Spain. The program is funded by the EU and one of the professors at BCU is part of the organisers. The premise is to bring people together from diverse countries and backgrounds, work as a team and come up with a creative solution,
while applying business principals. Four of us went from BCU, our tutor Ian, and two other …

One of the reasons I was glad to come to UK to go to school was the opportunity to walk in the countryside. I joined the Ramblers Club in the first week of arrival in England, and have only just been out with them for the first time for a walk nearby. However, a couple of weeks ago I went on a four-day weekend to West Sussex to an HF house. I have been with them a number of times in the past for a week of walking when I was visiting over here and knew that they would provide good value for the …

Our classes in Design Management use examples from many design disciplines and industries. I’m very familiar with management of interiors projects, but it’s nice to see a different perspective in the management of projects from another design field. We had a graphic designer, Simon Knibbs, come in as a lecturer and talk about how he worked with a small client to develop a logo for them as well as brochures, displays, etc. He spread a lot of samples on our table of plastic horse shoes and talked about Imprint, a company that have a product for equine foot care. I have always loved the stage in a project with a new client …

I have to read all these books

I haven’t been in a library to take out books for a very long time and I was surprised about what it’s like dealing with a library now. My niece, Jennifer, works in the Medical Library at McMasters, but we have talked more about refreshing the finishes in the Zeidler building from the 70’s than about her actual job. I knew that librarians were more than what I remembered from my youth: people who helped you check in and out books, might order one for you if they considered it a good acquisition for the …

Thanksgiving – it’s a time for family to get together and share good food. I wanted to make dinner on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend (about seven weeks before the US) for my flat-mates, as they’re my family while I’m here in the UK.

Shopping: I knew there would be challenges to prepare the traditional meal, but was surprised at some of the ones I encountered. The oven we have is relatively small, so I bought a large chicken and made the bread stuffing. The day before I had a green garbage bag on my bed with a loaf of bread shredded into small pieces drying …

Tons of Reading
Some people have been asking me if I am going to school, and the answer is ‘Yes, sort of!’ We actually only have one day a week on Thursday of face-to-face classes with our professors, but that doesn’t mean we are free the rest of the time. On Monday we receive direction through ‘Moodle’, the on-line teaching website of what we need to prepare for Thursday. On Tuesday we have a group session with our student mentors (two mentors that have just completed the program). On Wednesday a number of us have signed up for a course in Photoshop, Illustrator and …

The first week I was in Birmingham I headed out to the Cadbury plant in an area of Birmingham known as Bournville and not only had some great taste testing of the products, but also learned a lot about George Cadbury who was an early proponent of the idea that the common man deserves a better life than what many were getting during the Industrial Revolution.

When you start the tour they hand over two chocolate bars to nibble and you get more tastes of liquid chocolate and another chocolate bar as you go. Although highly commercialized and a bit Disneyish (there was a ride that reminded me of It’s a Small World at the Epcot Centre), the tour was …

There were a number of design oriented events in London last week, so I headed there on the weekend to renew my love affair with the city and also see the 100% Design show. As per their website, ‘It brings together three inspiring exhibitions under one roof: world-class interiors show 100% Design, innovative surfaces at 100% Materials plus emerging talent showcase 100% Futures.’ The show was oriented more to the residential market, but a lot more varied than some residential design shows that seem to feature only kitchen and bathroom design. The ‘Futures’ area had a lot of single products from young designers or new companies: lighting, furniture, pottery, artwork, etc. The posters with the entire text of a book …

I’m living in the Halls of Residence, as they are known in the UK. The flat I’m in has six rooms, each with its own bathroom and a shared kitchen/living area. There was absolutely nothing in the bedroom except a mattress on the bed frame as well as a desk and chair, so I needed to go out and buy pillows, duvet, sheets, towels, etc. The kitchen was also entirely devoid of everything, so I spent quite a bit of time shuffling back and forth to various stores on foot or on the double-decker buses for everything. I got soaked carrying one load in an incredible downpour. It has been extremely windy …

Chancellor, Deborah, Mayor, BCU Head of Student Services
Enrolling and Orientation at school nowadays seems to be a lot more complicated than I remember, but maybe it’s because I’m an international student and a lot of it is geared to people coming from a different language or cultural background. We’ve been back and forth to the main campus everyday this week and I am now finally enrolled and should be able to connect to all the special student websites. I’ve had presentations on British Culture, Safety in the City and at your Residence from the local Police, presentations on Banking and Budgeting, etc. A …