Work Blog

For my work, I just started a blog to organize my research. If anyone is interested in reading about what I am working on (sustainability in interaction design), or about the topic itself, check it out!

I am organizing a symposium about sustainable interaction design in the living and work contexts. This involves writing a benchmark analysis report (sort of literature study) on the current field. Additionally, it could include some side projects on wirelessly networking energy monitoring devices. We'll see how far I get. For that I am learning Max/Msp although that is going pretty slowly :/.

Wintersport

image: view of Morgins from the lift

Two weeks ago I went to Morgins, Switzerland to go snowboarding with my house mates. I had never snowboarded before, but now I'm hooked. I took morning classes while the boys boarded to France and met up with me for lunch afterwards. It snowed almost constantly and I only saw sun on the last day; on Wednesday it snowed so much that the lifts in Morgins were closed and I spent a day at home reading and drinking tea. We had an idyllic cabin to stay in, thanks to Tim's parents, equipped with an open fireplace, radiator for drying damp things and of course fondue and raclette sets (yum).Thankfully all the powder meant that I didn't fall very hard or get bruised (except when Andre mowed me over by stopping in my back :). By the third day I could go down the mountain by myself, and by the end of the week, I could do most things adequately. Mostly now I have to work on not being scared of going fast on straightaways...can't wait for next year!

Pictures here and here.

Books:
I am reading about a million books simultaneously, which isn't getting me anywhere fast. But, I did just finish reading Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. A Wild Sheep Chase was very entertaining, and I especially liked his description of ears and the part of the book where the main character is sitting in a desolate mountaintop cabin. It reminded me of wintersport of course. I am now reading In the Bubble, a book I would recommend to anyone, but especially designers.

Videos:
1. Twin Peaks - I want to watch all episodes of Twin Peaks with Alexander before he leaves for Vietnam. Love it so far, especially the subtle yet creepy, pervasive music + imagery.
2. Classic Albums - Nirvana, Nevermind

Lists

Even though the New Year (both Western and Chinese) have both just come and gone, I have already been breaking all sorts of resolutions. One of the broken ones is to blog more consistently, which I haven't been doing (Ellen you too!). Today I try to catch up a bit before I leave for snowboarding tomorrow in Morgins, Switzerland. Maybe I will elaborate on these later, but for now they will remain lists.

Recent projects:
1. Symposium on Controls and Modelling
Logo, splash and bag design
2. Krashna, Next Generation Project
Poster and flyer design
3. Editing for the university's new research portfolio brochure
The perk is that they picked my photo as the cover image :]



Sanne, Jorn's niece..

Recent events (reverse chronological order):
- Joined KTK in playing Makeup in the volunteer's party of the IFFR in the Schouwburg, kleinzaal. Awesome party.
- Chinese New Year's celebration in den Haag complete with dragon dances, fireworks, dimsum, and mahjong.
- IFFR Filmfestival
- Live in your Livingroom, very cool concept of having bands play in random people's livingrooms
- Skating in Nieuwkoop and at the Delftsehout.

Films:
- 199 Ways to be Happy (2.5/5)
- Achilles and the Tortise (4/5) This one was too long for my frame of mind. Was pretty funny though in both understated and ridiculous ways.
- Still Walking (?/5) I fell asleep during this one. Very intense family drama in Japanese and subtitled in Dutch. I think I might have really liked it if I stayed awake...
- Art of the Devil III (2/5) Fun to watch but really convoluted plot. I loved the gore, but everything happened too fast, the dying that is.
- The Pot (4/5) Made me feel sick while watching it, nice psychological thriller.
- Grand Turino (3.5/5) I didn't end up seeing this at the film festival, since I had watched it a week earlier. It turned out to be the surprise film that I had left all you can eat sushi for.