Graduation + Halloween

It's been awhile since I actually graduated, but I finally got some pictures of my party thanks to Theo and Jorn's dad.

The actual graduation part passed in a blur. I was totally stressed out in the morning because I opted to sleep early instead of finishing my presentation that night. I only had to present at 1:45pm the next day, but found myself at 12:45 still making slides. At the university, I was pleased at the turnout of people; Inga, Alexander, Alex, and Lemke had rushed back from Eindhoven to be there, and I felt like I had a lot of support (and a lot of people to potentially disappoint). I am not usually one to be very nervous at presentations, but as I talked it seemed as if I was a partial 3rd person observer floating a bit above myself as I babbled. I watched myself on several occasions pause significantly at an inappropriate moment to gather my thoughts or futilely try to read my 12pt font notes in the dark. Eventually I got into the flow of things and as the quality of my slides went down, I finally got a hold of myself and finished(smoothly?). Afterwards, my mentors spent half an hour trying to extricate my diploma from the locked secretary office. The waiting time was interminable. Every bump and shuffle at the doorway caused my heart leap in fear. Eventually the ordeal was over; it was time to begin stressing about my Halloween party.

We didn't get much time to prepare for the party, but I was treated to a nice dinner at the de Kurk by Jorn's parents. Sean was also there (visiting for a week from the US, en route to more exotic places). We had time for dessert and then we rushed directly to the boat to start decorating. Guests did not show up until around 10 or 11 so we had plenty of time to decorate. It turns out Kakee is amazing at making spiderweb sculptures. The rest is documented in pictures.

The party was fun and passed in a blur. Daniel was dressed as Dracula and kept up appearances by drinking red dyed beer all evening. Many other characters had also shown up, including the preacher and devil's advocate. The beer ran out at 4am, and we polished off the rest of the liquor, not bothering to make even mixes anymore. Even after we were totally out of alcohol, the party went on for another hour or two.

Sander and I closed up at 6 in the morning. We ended up cleaning up most of the mess in a drunken stupor while Jorn slept peacefully on his chair.

When we were done, we wandered out into the morning fog to fall into our respective beds for a few hours...until the real cleanup.



photo by Theo Howard

Invitation

It is official. I am graduating, and you are invited, provided that come to Delft!

I am still scrambling to finish and print my report, make a poster and presentation. Maar komt allemaal goed..

Halloween/graduation party details to come...

Links to investigate further

Note to self:
1. Geovative.com, create your own GPS tours
2. Moving Audio and the 230 Miles of Love project, Interview
3. Roadtour.uk
4. Garmin, GPS navigation company
5. Blogging about 230 Miles of Love
6. Cool: tech and gadgets

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...

decisions, decisions

These past weeks I have been sending out a flurry of emails to different companies asking for a graduation project. I have also been picking the brains of everyone I know for contacts and project ideas. Finally, this last week I have finally been making some headway, which of course means that I am being bombarded with too many possibilities all at once. Here are a list of graduation possibilities that I am currently weighing and pursuing:

1. NorthernLight (www.northernlight.nl) - NorthernLight is a 10 year old exhibition design company in Amsterdam started by two product designers from the TU Delft. They are involved with all different sorts of science museums and do a lot of international exhibition design competitions. I visited them on Monday, and the office climate is really young and cool. They are interested in talking to me on developing some exhibits or fitting new technologies to exhibition design.

2. Kossman en de Jong (www.kossmandejong.nl) - Also an Amsterdam based exhibition design company founded by two architects. Their projects are less technical but more arty than NorthernLight as far as I can tell from the website. I have an appointment to speak with them on Friday (I conducted my talks with the secretary in Dutch!). More to come later on this!

3. Philips Lighting in Shanghai - Details of this project are still blurry. Many people are interested, and I do not know if I will be able to get this project. The most attractive thing about this project is the chance to work in Shanghai and to do another project with Philips Lighting.

4. Waanzinnig! (www.waanzinnig.nl) - Game development company based in Rotterdam. I went to visit them last week. They are developing a new innovative game for the city of Rotterdam to help them achieve their initiative to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% in the next 10 years. The project is headed by Han Brezet (big sustainability dude at IO) and the company Waanzinnig! Today I found out I have another competitor who is also interested in the same project.

I am also waiting to hear back from a couple of other places.. but no news yet.

In the meantime, I will be doing some freelance work with NorthernLight starting next Monday to help them in a design competition they are involved in. This can also serve as a sort of orientation and to get my feet wet in case I am resolved to work in exhibition design. Also, I am busy with doing student assistant stuff for Internationalization and contacting professors as possible graduation mentors or chairs.