"it's a big world out there (and i am scared)" - Kurt Vile

I've really been overloading myself with information lately. There are so many things I want to be doing but I absolutely have 'no time'. I say no time because I can't seem to really dig out 2 hours of my life to sit in front of my computer to get on with some coding.

In the modern age, or rather a society masked and dominated by the Internet and technology, it almost feels like you never have to time to catch up with technology and the vast distribution of information alone. I'm a pretty old-schooled individual and I love the feel of books and the satisfaction of running my fingers through the endlessly finite pages of text, and more text. 

The books I've recently been reading is a reflection of the topics I studied in college. I focused mainly on political economy. You know, if you ask me what the definition of political economy is, I probably wouldn't be able to give you an answer. I probably could. But I tend to get distracted when defining political economy. I think Douglass North has a good definition in his rather dry and mundane history and illustration of Political Economy. It's a rather fascinating topic to study. I personally think it's a more mild version of Economics but then the term 'political' always gets in the way. At times, the studies and works that reflect political economy is yet another typical portrayal of stagnant progress in today's society (you know, just by studying environmental economics or simply put, climate change could drive one insanely miserable). 

That being said, I picked up several books in hopes to reconnect myself with political economy. I've also been interested in it, and I might as well distract myself from information overload and focus on a piece of tangible thing - a book.

Second, I came across this article about coffee and helping farmers in developing countries. Sounds like a trade thing again. Oh, and you know something along the lines of sending more aid to these countries. But is that really a solution? Anyhow, the interesting thing is how Grameen and Starbucks are partnering up to provide financial assistances and also developing a mobile strategy for them. It also sounds like a side project I could potentially be working to brush my UX skills. I'm embarking on my journey to become a coffee master at sbux. I really want to use that opportunity to discuss sustainable development and improving the lives of coffee farmers in less-developed countries (LDCs) as my 'coffee' project.

I haven't been doing too much in regards to my UX design class. I have been trying out Omnigraffle for my wireframes and InVision for some basic clickable prototypes. I suppose the next step would really be building a high fidelity prototype with all the colors and typography embedded into the design. So stay tuned!