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.

Macau Project Pt. 2

It is an incredible sweltering day outside, but I did get a couple of things done that I am proud of. I finally completed and turned in my analysis phase report for my graduation project. This means I can get started conceptualizing and designing now. Woohoo. No more bleary eyed nights of typing and reading the small font of typical research papers.

Also, I heard from Alexander that they (NorthernLight and KisstheFrog) won the bid for the Macau project, which is the same project that got me involved with Kissthefrog.

Speaking of work, here is a top 5 weirdest lunch sandwiches Dutch people make:
1. Sambal + Peanut butter + hamburger bun (sambal is like that generic Chinese "spicy" sauce).
2. Apple syrup + cottage cheese on bread.
3. Butter + sliced strawberries + white bread

Ok, it's just going to be three for now because I want to stay accurate to observation. However I can think of some dubious ones off the top of my head which I might be inventing.

In other news, Holland vs. Italy tonight!

Ok, back to work now...

Naomi eating haring

almost there
Originally uploaded by raisin.detre

Hollandse Nieuwe Haring (herring) is the Dutch version of sushi. Most foreigners (and many Dutch people) dislike haring, due to the raw and pungent flavor of the fish, but I always make a point to eat one first thing on any given brack (hungover) Saturday. Knowing this, I warned Naomi of the fish and made the two of us have lunch before we ventured to the haring stand.

The following is why I love Naomi:
naomi: I can only foresee one problem
me: what?
naomi: I could really see myself becoming addicted to this..it is very creamy.
naomi: I bet it goes really well with soy sauce

Nuremberg, Part 1: Cultural Differences

I arrived in Nuremberg today via ICE (Deutsche Bahn's Intercity Express) train thirty minutes ago. Now I am sitting in my hotel room wikipedia-ing Nuremberg and waiting for our leader (just arrived from New York) to awaken from his jetlagged slumber.

On the way here I noticed a couple of things that my American mind, and maybe other people as well, might have trouble comprehending. The first point is regarding at least the Netherlands and Germany, and maybe other Europe. The second is regarding the color of U-bahn buttons.

1. In the bathroom there are two buttons for flushing one of the two major functions that can occur in a toilet bowl. One is significantly larger than the other by at least 2.5 times. The other is small and usually cut out of the larger button. Which one do you press for which function? Scroll down for the answer.


2. Buying a metro card for the U-bahn, I was confronted with a green, zuruck (back) and a red, abfart (continue). This is the complete opposite of logic especially when considering how the colors for go and stop in driving remain the same. Maybe it means CAUTION, you might be spending money on the wrong thing. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?

More to come on this topic and on other toy or Nuremberg related things...

--
Answer: big button = no. 2, little button = no. 1.

My logical answer would be the opposite. In my opinion, logically the button that should be bigger should be the one that is used more often not the reverse. Even after a year of pushing the wrong button, I still have the inclination to push the bigger one.

Poll: in your opinion, are the buttons logical?

Poll results, ok I lose:
Logical - 8: Athena (UNC), Gemma (UNC), Mike, Jenny, Jamie, Jean, etc.
Not-logical - 2: Shauna, Ellen

The results might be skewed by the UNC people because they are used to two flush functions.
--

Email from Dad

I don't think I have seen my dad in more than 5 years, but here is an excerpt from a recent email he sent me:

Dear Shauna*:

blahblah..

2008-2-7 is Chinese new year day and then the beginning of the year of Rats.
According to Chinese superstition, this is your "ben ming nian" 本命年, or
"self fate year". According to superstition, you have to do something to
protect yourself from evils. Despite theoretical "atheist" communist ruled for
over 60 years, most Chinese are still extremely superstitious. I found that
actually I am probably the only lone atheist in entire China.
Not only all commoners, also all communists believe in budda or ghost or
some other nonsenses. The first time I heard of the term "ben ming nian"
was only several years ago. And later I found it is a very serious big thing
in younger generations.

Lingling, who is my girl friend for a year now, is very nice to have
bought you a red waist ribbon which supposedly will protect you for your
"ben ming nian". She asked me to mail it to you before Chinese New Year
so that you will be protected :) So please tell me your mailing address
and I will mail it to you tomorrow. (I do not believe in such nonsenses, but
just for fun, and you may like it.)

blahblahblah. etc.

Sweet of him! Does that also mean when I was 12 I needed to be protected? and that I will have to be protected again when I am 48?

*Note: My dad never addresses emails to us (Lanna, Athena, and me) with "Dear Shauna", only "Dear X'nas" and cc'd to all of us.

Lichtjes Avond

Yesterday Delft celebrated Lichtjes Avond, or Evening of the Lights, a kind of pre Christmas celebration. The canals and buildings on the Oude Delft were lit with colored lights and smoke (with the help of Frank?). There were street performances, food stalls, merchandise stalls, and small exhibitions everywhere. We* forewent a real dinner and opted to eat broodje rookworsts and rijst kip kerrie in disposable containers simultaneously chugging gluhwine from stall to stall pushing slowly through the crush. Anna, Lieke, and Heleen performed a belly dance in front of the Tango, shaking the little gazebo with their rhythms. It was a great success, but I hope they don't get a cold. We saw Vaniek (my new housemate!) pass by on a dinghy turned party boat, and the sfeer was generally gezellig. After watching a second showing of the belly dancing chicas, I drank a couple of beers in the Tango before going home to sleep early full of gluhwine and happy memories.

In other news, I have a new house right in the center of the city. Jeej. At the Tango I bumped into some people whose house I had been to for an instemming previously. It was probably pretty awkward for them to have to say hello to a rejected roommate. But it made me really happy I didn't get the room. Now I have prime location, awesome roommates, beautiful neighbors, and I can get used to living right next to the supermarket again! When 5:50pm Sunday rolls around I just have to roll out of my room and saunter down the street.

Totally unrelated: it's funny to watch Dutch people cycling and smoking at the same time. Reminds me of watching Senior Haus football games where the Romanians would look so badass smoking while running after the ball (or was it only Virgil??).

Photo: Duko and Inga outside of the Tango
*Michiel, Duko, Inga, Daniel, Michel and later Katrin, Meike + boyfriends

Chinese hot pot

Jorn asked me Sunday morning while we were eating left over Thai food whether or not we would be eating exclusively with chopsticks at my house in less than two weeks. His comment made me realize how close I am to being home, and how much I have missed Chinese food this year. Nothing I can make personally compares to the diversity of my mom and grandma's home cooking. Speaking of food...

Sunday night after a whole afternoon of practicing for the St. Bavo Christmas concert, I finally got to sit down and start stuffing myself full of hotpot. Maybe one of the only good things to come out of the boatweek was that I got to know this girl Yu Fang, and two other Chinese guys Xiao Ye and Zhi Fang. We went over to Yu Fang and Ambeika's (sp?) nice apt, and Xiao Ye who is an expert cook set us to work preparing the hotpot. It was Jorn and Daniel's first experience with hotpot, so it was fun to see their reaction. We ended up eating 1kg of pork, a lot of beef, white asparagus, nian gao (new year's cake), tofu, cabbagey stuff, little sausages, sliced potatoes, and white fish. It was so delicious I thought I was going to explode. I kept rationing water for myself (to fight off the spiciness) so I would have more room in my stomach. Afterwards we ate ice cream and dispersed into the night..Ambieka promises to make Saag Paneer or some Indian dish from the south next time. HOORAY.

I realized that not only do I miss Chinese food, but I also miss sitting around the dinner table for hours taking small breaks in between gorging and talking. There is a social aspect that is too short to be satisfying in my normal eating habits.

Next time it's gonna look like this:


Also, my new resolution is to learn how to play badminton.
Note to self: ask Xiao Ye where to get hotpot stock.

long weekend

Every day this weekend has been excruciatingly long, though fun. I wonder if I will feel rested enough to be alive next week.

Daniel: the idea of a whole week of work and study is so depressing after drinking/playing away your whole weekend

Friday, directly after an afternoon of boatweek presentations, I hopped on the train to Amsterdam. The event was the opening of Anouk van Dijk's new studio, Tokoyo Studio's or something. I was there because Jorn was helping one of the dancers compose a live piece for the event. They had ordered green curry for us, which was nice because I went into a feeding frenzy before eating lots of hors d'oeuvres. The whole audience was mostly well dressed old people, dancers, and one or two random sound and lights guys. I felt pretty out of place, but I continued eating and looking like I understood Dutch. I watched a couple of dance performances, but the highlight of the evening was definitely the piece that Jorn had worked on with the one dancer.

To tell the truth, I didn't really understand the whole dance but I liked it. The piece started with the girl huddled in a corner wearing nothing but her underwear. The music was kind of ambient electronic sounds fitting in with the warehouse setting. Eventually she got up and started dancing/thrashing around. The nudity was surprisingly not that distracting and actually added to the dance somehow. The word "nu" (now) was interwoven into the music here and there reaching a climax, while the girl progressively fell on the ground and got dustier and dustier. At the very end she moved to a corner of the room, prompting the audience to also move from their original space. Taking off her underwear, she moved to stand in front of a projecter with an image of her nude self on her belly. On the belly of the projected self, there was also a smaller version of herself, dancing the previous dance. I don't know what it all meant.. maybe I'll try to decipher it later.

After the dance, we drove to Rotterdam picking up Kakee on the way to Ivo's house warming in a record time of 35 min. I was only there shortly because I was so tired, but his house is awesome. It's right in the middle of Schouwburgplein.

Saturday noonish, I started on my way back to Amsterdam to see Jorn play in the Melkweg as part of the band outfit for singer/songwriter (hahahha.. hate that term) Emil. On the way there, I managed to miss both the people I was trying to meet at two separate train stations, but we met up at central station so it didn't matter. Fuck the Writer won second prize in the Grote Prijs van Nederland. Everyone was boohoo sad. It was also conveniently raining to complete the depressing scene.

Having lost the others Pieter, Gaspard, Jorn, and I tramped around in the rain looking for the Koe. When we got there, there was a lot more waiting involved, but my rack of lamb was delicious. Afterwards, we drank some beer so we wouldn't feel like total losers going home so early. We even managed to just catch the 20:10 train back to Delft. Getting home from Amsterdam was, as always, an ordeal, but my spirits were high after watching Breakfast Club again.

On an up side, Lanna and her friend Erika are visiting me next weekend.

encounters of the dutch kind: hutspot

I had my first experience with hutspot recently. According to J.C. Diehl, hutspot is the most Dutch thing you can eat. Serendipitously, just as I had learned of this mashed potato-carrot concoction, we happened to make it for dinner, and it all happened because of Daniel's refusal to eat the bratwurst I brought back from Germany with just normal mashed potatoes (even though it was Sunday and the last supermarket had been closed for 5 minutes already at 6:05).

Our salvation came when we called Inga to eat with. She had carrots! As it turns out, a lot of onions, butter, and creme fraiche can make boiled potatoes and carrots go a long way. Jorn found this great recipe online, and the result was delicious even though everyone kept warning me hutspot was gross. The bratwurst was also soooo smaaaaaklijk, much better than the kind you can get here.

I put the candles I got from Pielter's wedding to good use, and we ate by candlelight. When we fed some to Bas, he told us that this was easily in the top five hutspot experiences of his life (out of 50+ times).

Recipe (source) boil carrots, potatoes in the meat stock. Add fried onions and everything else except the meat, mash mash. Ready the wurst and serve on the side.



Ingredients
1 kg kruimige (??) potatoes
750 gram carrots
500 gram onions
1 meat bullion tablet
20 gram butter
125 ml creme fraiche
thin sausages or spicy wurst
20 gram butter - fresh ground pepper

note: before I arrived in the Netherlands, I never liked potatoes much except in the fried variety...but now i know better (potatoes?)