p00p

Newton's third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. These past few days, I have finally discovered what the downside to living in the city of Delft next to the most picturesque of canals is...p00p.

Dutch people love dogs. Dogs must be walked. Because Dutch people love and therefore own dogs, they must be walked. But where? In the most picturesque of streets of course! The little tree boxes next to the canals in between the car parking spaces is coincidentally where I park my bike and the ideal place for these little doggies to do some biznass. Unfortunately, p00p is brown like the ground around the trees especially at night, and there seems to be a disproportionate amount of dogs pooping in these spaces. I've ruined two of my shoes in the past days and they are still sitting in the hallway waiting to be cleaned. Good thing I still have a couple of shoes left...

Snowy day

Yesterday I wrapped things up at school (minus one big thing: graduation project) and started moving into my new room. Also went to a Christmas dinner in Alphen aan de Rijn with Jorn's family.

It finally feels like winter. I might even start believing that once you could ice skate all the way to school on the canals. I was looking outside towards my new view yesterday and observed a picnic set out on the ice.

Photo: Delft, one day before I left for the States.

Heroes Dream

This dream will only make more sense if you have watched the series Heroes. Otherwise, it's just gory and weird. Basically the whole plot of the show was altered and none of the original characters were in my dream:

In my dream I had powers like Peter Petrelli from Heroes. That meant I could collect all sorts of powers by being exposed to other people's abilities. In this dreamworld, there were two main factions factions. The first was the "company," that was represented only in my dream through an eevil guy who was once a normal person. This once normal guy had gone through a lot of painful surgery and treatment to become this deformed, partly robotized, Sylar-like, power stealing machine*. He once had been part of this evil conglomeration, but had gone renegade by the time my dream started. This guy had a powerful injection and pill form drugs (to slip into people's drinks) that could disable one's powers just long enough for him to slice off your brain. The second faction was a fanatic and crazy group of powerful people who wanted to purge the earth/use their powers for genocide/conquer the world. Between these two groups there was me, other people with powers, and other people with various agendas.

I pretty much spent my whole dream running from the scary dude who wanted to slice my brain and staying away from the crazy people who wanted to recruit me. Since I was very powerful, this should have been an easy task... however, everywhere I turned, people's brains were getting sliced off right in front of me. Every time I tried to help someone else with abilities, they ended up dying. I spent half of my dream invisible, but this guy was somehow could track my movements (even through a surreal Chinese grocery store).

At some point, I went to a lecture by some researchers of the mutant phenomenon. It was a lecture given by a fringe group that was highly secret and mobile. In the seminar, we learned about a hidden lake where people with abilities could adapt to live underwater. I was very inspired by the whole talk and made it my mission to set off towards said lake. With my flying friend we set off towards our new destination. After narrowly escaping once more from the grasp of bionic dude, we flew off hand and hand against the backdrop of a city nightscape.

Soo, I really just wanted to remember this dream for that last part when I flew off. It's weird but sometimes in dreams I have stronger feelings for people and things than I would in real life. At that moment there was nothing better than being in love with faceless flying dude, the cold night air, and the city spiraling smaller and smaller as we flew away. Then I really had to wake up and pee.

*he cuts off people's skull caps to steal their powers.

tiramisu

I was sitting in the kitchen yesterday when I saw the words "3D tiramisu" scribbled on the Volkskrant. I asked Boris what that cryptic message meant. He explained that there was an article in the food section on how to make tiramisu that involved less work and less waiting. I commented that tiramisu doesn't involve THAT much waiting, which in turn made me reflect on how far I have progressed in life.

I realized that when I was younger I never had any patience at all (and I still don't, really). In real life that translated into others perceiving me as a blunt, impatient, and often rude person. I am still seen this way today, but to a much lesser degree. I still remember an incident when I stormed out of the dentist's office vowing never to go back after an hour of waiting, even though the dentist was our neighbor and a good friend.

In terms of cooking and hobbies, that meant that I hated making or doing anything that involved waiting for an extended amount of time (15min+). This hatred extended to making jello, my favorite Chinese almond jelly, baked goods of all kinds, and resulted in a lot of failed experiments in growing plants.

Nowadays, I have a live avocado plant, even after 6 months, and though I still don't l-o-v-e oven dishes, I don't really mind them. I think it's a positive reflection on course through life. Every day small steps in good directions. Maybe one day soon I will even enjoy waiting, but I won't hold my breath.

--
3D(ip) Tiramisu for 2:

-30g dark chocolate (at least 70%)
-125g marscapone
-2 tablespoons marsala wine
-1 tablespoon powdered sugar
-6 savoiardi (or lady fingers)
-2 glasses of hot espresso
-2 tablespoons cognac

Chop the chocolate so that you still have some to chew on (???). Add the mascarpone, marsala, and powdered sugar in a bowl and mix well. Add the chocolate through the mix. Deal the savoiardi over three dessert plates and set a bit of marscapone nearby. Divide the cognac over two glasses and pour the espresso in. Set the glasses on the plates and begin to dip (?)

*okay, I will get this checked by a Dutch person. I'm not sure about the translation. does 1eetlapel=1tablespoon?

waiting..

sitting in studio.
waiting till it's 2:30 for this group discussion to start and more importantly, to end.
waiting for the day to be over, that means after orchestra practice.
waiting for all my gifts to buy themselves.
waiting for Friday, then Saturday to go to the US
waiting for Christmas then New Year.
then waiting until I have to go back.
then more waiting...

things i want to see while i'm the US:
1. New Museum of Contemporary Art - New York, New York
2. IAC HQ - New York, New York

pheasant + dimsum

A few nights ago I prepared pheasant for the first time in my life. Michiel was on his way to Rijswijk to buy one and I came with him for a mini adventure, deciding at the last moment to also buy two for experimentation (on Meike, Katrin, Dries, and Jorn). The way was 45 min each way and we even took a little ferry for one leg of the journey for 2 eurocent each. It was a good thing we decided to bike!

To prepare the pheasant, I wrapped it in bacon and stuffed a lot of garlic and bay leaves up its butt before I realized there was an opening near the neck. We also made some mashed potatoes (aardappel puree) and stir fried veggies on the side. hmmm...though I had high hopes, it didn't turn out as deliciously as I had wished. However, the gravy we produced was pretty awesome. The meat was very gamey, which I don't mind, but the meat was dry and kinda tasteless. I think next time the bird should only be put in the oven for 30-45min.

The next day I made soup with Jorn from the leftovers and it turned out really well. We dumped in "asian spices" from the C1000, some chinese kool?, onions, garlic, salt, and pepper to taste. The whole thing was totally consumed by nightfall.

Additionally, because Lanna and Erika were in town this weekend, I took them to dim sum in Rotterdam Saturday morning. We went to Dong Hai, a place recommended by Yu Fang. It took us awhile to find the place, though it was only across the street from Tai Wu, another joint I'd been to previously. I just asked random Asian people on the street, and eventually found it. It was slightly embarrassing when I found myself asking a Chinese man where Dong Hai was, to have him point to a sign right in front of us with the name written in Chinese (then you know it's really authentic?).

A good sign walking in was there were no white people to be seen in the whole place and that the menu wasn't in picture format. The downside was I didn't know what/how to order. We tried to explain what we wanted in a mixture of broken Chinese and generalisms. Anyways, the food was pretty good; much better than Tai Wu. I miss having dim sum carted out on trolleys where I can point to what I want. The benefit of Tai Wu was the color plate images for each dish.

I have to say I am still looking for that perfect place for dim sum for brak Saturday and Sundays.

dim sum reviews (so far)
1. Dong Hai, Rotterdam - 7.0
2. Tai Wu, Rotterdam - 5.0

to try
1. Qi(2) Ling(2) Ge(2), Den Haag
2. Huang(2) Shang(4) Huang(2), Rotterdam
Growing list of some more dim sum/Chinese food recommendations from Yu Fang and other Chinese people.


Note: Have to remind Lanna to buy me dim sum flashcards. Next time I will know how to read everything on the menu.

Questions

This morning, the five of us were gathered at Sander's apartment, stuffing ourselves with brunch and reflecting on our process this last phase (2 out of 3) before receiving feedback from our mentors in the afternoon*. Several questions occurred to me during all this reflection and evaluation:

1. Why is it so freaking hard to externalize the design process?
2. How is it possible that the actual design happens in less than 2 days (which maybe only happens at TU Delft?)?? Everything else falls into conceptualizing or research or problem orientation.
3. What the hell have I been learning?

*I have been working on my IDP (integral design project) project for more than 3 months now, working for a mediocre company, on a mediocre topic, but on a positive note, with a nice team. The topic is roof safety. The company will remain nameless.