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A month from independence day today I’ll be heading to Pearson airport on my way to San Diego! I was one of the fortunate students who’ve been accepted to volunteer at this year’s SIGGRAPH being held at the San Diego Convention Center. My Chariot of Fire partner David was accepted too. I can tell you that the application process is quite competitive since I was put on the waiting list until a few weeks ago I got an email saying I got accepted. Travel assistance and housing accommodations are provided to a select few and since I was on the waiting list, I guess they gave them all out before I could get one. David was fortunate to get an offer early on so he was able to get some travel money and housing.

On the application form they asked a lot of questions relating to your interpersonal skills rather than your interest in computer graphics. For those who are considering to volunteer in the future, here are some of the short answer questions (max 200 words) they asked on this year’s form:

• Describe your cross-cultural and interpersonal skills and experiences.
• Provide a recent real-life example of how you have handled stressful situations (especially those involving people).
• Explain one goal you set for yourself in the past year and how you achieved it.

And finally they had a creative thinking question. There were three topics to choose from. One of which was:

• Finish this story: Nothing seemed unusual when I looked around the room until I noticed…

I don’t remember what the other two were unfortunately. You also need one reference from anyone that’s within the graphics industry or from a professor/teacher you know at your school. If you seriously want to volunteer but don’t know any prof in your school, then it’s time to consider making relationships with some of them.

Since I didn’t get any travel assistance or housing, I’m going to have to pay for everything out of my own pocket. I’ll be staying at a hostel which is much cheaper than staying at a hotel. My costs so far has been:

• Plane ticket: $615
• Hostel (6 nights): $28 x 6 = $168
• Travel insurance (inc. baggage, medical, cancellations): $60

So that’s comes up to about $850. Quite an expensive volunteer position I must say.

As part of the package this year, they’re giving all student volunteers a year’s membership to ACMSIGGRAPH – yay! I don’t know if I’ll be using it a lot but hey it’s more “free” stuff.

Oh, and here was my answer to the creative question:

… I noticed a couple of rats ran out of a corner and across the side of the dark room. I was standing in the middle of the room quietly thinking until I was frightened by the rats and jumped back. As I did, my back hit a heavy old wooden clothes hanger. It toppled over and made a loud bang as it hit the wooden floor. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down then looked over to where the clothes hanger had fallen and saw something which looked like a door handle. I went closer and sure enough it was a trap door. Being curious as I always am, I opened the door and was greeted by the stench of wood. I went down with my flashlight in hand and was surprised to stacks of books everywhere. There was one particular large stack of books that caught my attention. The first book on it was called Graphic Gems II; and underneath it was Graphic Gems IV. The entire stack was the collection of the Graphic Gems series! So this was where father kept his graphics books; I feel like the King of the treasure hunters.