Chia

L (pictured above) is, among other things, one heck of a guitar player. He's been entertaining me for more than ten years and I am constantly amazed by his ability to pick up a guitar and play, play, play. He's got a new project now a band they're calling Chia. You can read about it on his blog (in German) and listen to one of their original songs by clicking here.

Oslo Weekend

I've been in Oslo for the weekend and having a wonderful time. We arrived on Thursday, went to the art museum on Friday afternoon. Saw Werner Herzog's White Diamond outdoors in the rain (they provided ponchos) that night. On Saturday, we hiked up to an IKEA decorated cabin for an overnight. Magazine-coordinated interior, but no running water or electricity. On Sunday, we had a long wander down fron the cabin and then went for coffee and waffels over-looking Oslo, and visited town, including a peek at the awesome opera house, today. To make it even better, the weather has cooperated. It's gotten warmer and sunnier every day. Also, my friend here takes full advantage of her local public library, which happens to house the comic and graphic novel collection, so I've also been reading loads!

Today, me and Peanut are on our own, so that gave me a chance to indulge in some guilt-free retail tourism. We stopped at Ahlens (think of Target household items if you're American or HEMA if you're Dutch). Picked up some gorgeous fabric. It's 100% cotton and if I get my way, will become a summer skirt.



Right now, Peanut is taking a nap while I type. We're heading back to Haarlem and our so-called real life in a couple hours.

Annotation Tool

A few weeks ago, colleague told me about a new note-taking tool. Annotation Tool allows for collaborative note taking of .pdf documents on-line. Instructors can post .pdf documents on-line and then students (or others) can highlight sections of the text and add their comments. It's an easy to use, intuitive website and pretty, too. Sounds to me like a great teaching tool and also a neat tool for seminars or group work where everyone is reading the same texts.

I spend a lot of time thinking about taking notes and reading about taking notes. It's fantastic procrastination. For my work and research, I do a whole lot of reading. Let me rephrase that, I am supposed to do a whole lot of reading. It can be rather overwhelming, though. There are more bookshelves in our house than any other type of furniture - maybe even chairs. Wait a minute, now I'm mentally counting... There are five chairs (not counting folding) and seven bookshelves. Wow, I was right.

One of my biggest challenges with all this reading, though, is note taking. Where do I take notes, how do I take notes, and, most importantly, how to I take notes that will be useful in the future. In order for notes to be useful, I have to be able to find them, read them, and find the text (especially citations) that they refer to. Taking notes on the page seems to make the most sense. But there's a rub. There's always a rub. I try to keep most of my pages legible so that they can be photocopied for teaching or sharing if necessary. Taking notes digitally also seems logical, but it's a mess. Then I have to have a computer around when I'm reading. Furthermore, I'm tied to one computer or stuck with trying to remember whether the most recent file is on my memory stick or on the hard drive. On-line note taking with google docs is helping that, but then there's the internet thing.

There are a lot of potential solutions for me and I have the piles of notebooks (all sizes) and binders to prove it. Maybe the Annotation Tool will help me save a couple trees and embrace a little more technology, too!

Grumbling about the internet

Listening to a This American Life podcast this week, I heard about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It sounds utterly fantastic and stars Neil Patrick Harris (yes, Doogie Howser). It's available on Hulu. I cannot watch it because I am not in the US. How wrong, sad, and frustrating is that?! So much for a borderless internet... sigh.

Van Nelle Factory

One of my responsibilities at work is to visit students who are doing placements (internships). That means travelling all over the Randstad and sometimes further. Some of these students end up working in nifty buildings, like converted houses in the Amsterdam grachtengordel. Earlier this month, I went to Rotterdam and visited a student working in the old Van Nelle factory. I'm familiar with Van Nelle because I bought a second hand Van Nelle tin. They used to make coffee and tobacco.

The factory has been magnificently converted into work and event space. I was blown away by the beauty of the conversion. Details like pipes within the building were preserved. They haven't gone in and ripped out everything in order to install an office complex, instead the renovation preserves the massive windows, exposes the steel structure, and incorporates industrial looking design elements.


These types of projects seem to be more common here than in the parts of the US where I come from. Closer to my home, they have been working on converting the silos of an old sugar factory into what looks like office space for nearly five years. It looks like they´re done now. The silos are the tallest thing around and there are colored lights in the windows that can be seen from miles away. It´s quite a sight!

It's North Carolina, everyone!

Imagine my delight when Design Sponge not only posted a Durham, North Carolina guide, but also included a link to my favorite bakery on earth, Guglhupf. Granted, I'm not from Durham, but you know, it's close enough when you're this far away!

OK - after reading this I had to check out the food blog, Carpe Durham to see if they have reviewed Guglhupf yet. I don't think they have. They only mention it as a point of comparison. For example, "but sadly their baked goods just can’t compete with Guglhupf." There's a compliment in there.

Did I mention that I miss Guglhupf? Carrboro? Home? Where is spring?!

Blogging Research

Over the past couple of years I, and a few folks I know, have ventured into blogging. It's kind of fun. It's sometimes just another thing that I'm not getting done. The obsession with finding out how many people are reading it is probably not very healthy. What has been most interesting for me is discovering the many, many blogs out there. I started out following a couple of knitting blogs and friends. Then some design and productivity-type blogs. Now I'm leaning more towards sewing blogs (many) and especially mama-blogs, of which there are quite a few. These tend to alternately inspire me and convince me that (1) sending my son to daycare may be pretty darn selfish, (2) my craftiness is a blip on the screen of craftiness possibilities, and (3) I have got to learn to take and post much better pictures of my boy!

There's another category entirely, though, that's catching my attention now. It's the blog in which someone chronicles a project with a view towards writing a book. I'll call it the research blog. Now, some of the blogs out there are kept by ladies (for some reason, I follow almost exclusively female bloggers) who ended up writing a book. But I know of at least two cases in which the blog specifically chronicles the research leading up to a book: The Happiness Project and Living Oprah. And here's the reason I'm writing about these two ladies: what if I were to blog my dissertation research? I can't imagine how mind-numbingly boring that would be for anyone reading. At least, that's my first thought. On the other hand, it would also be an opportunity for receiving comments and suggestions that might otherwise never reach me. So, it's kind of tempting. I'll have to think about it.

But first, let me add a gazillion links to this post and get it on-line. Then check my stats...

mental health day

From Life in Holland

So, today I'm doing nothing. Well, nothing technically productive. It's 11:45 and so far I've read a lot of blogs, written a few emails, reduced my inbox to 100 through liberal use of the delete function, chatted with a girlfriend for nearly two hours on the phone, and drunk two cappucini. That means I haven't checked work email, read another chapter of From Higher Aims to Hired Hands, finished my presentation for class on Thursday, deposited money into our joint account (although that might actually have to happen), folded laundry, put away dishes, or really done anything on any to do lists. But you know what, we had house guests for a month, it's grey and cold outside, and this really is all OK. Tomorrow's another day. I'm going to embrace my mental health day an go to the thrift store for a wander.

my secret city

St. Bavo and the Vleeshall, originally uploaded by erdapfelgal.

A long time ago (November 2008), I was tagged by myyear for my first ever meme: my secret city. Now, I'm finally getting around to it. I believe proper meme etiquette is to tag someone else... but to be honest I seem to have lost any readership I had, so I'll hold off on that for now and just work on getting some blogging done again!

Haarlem has been my city since July 2004 and it has been a delight to discover. One of Haarlem's biggest secrets is that it's next to the Kennemerduinen, a natural park area that's great for biking and walking. On the other side of them is Parnassia (which I posted about a while back), where you can stop for a drink or a meal. They've undergone a renovation in the past year and it's pretty fun for looking at inside, too.

Then there are the food secrets. The best burger in town is at Dikjers. Best place for a good beer and a cheap dinner is Bruxelles. Favorite lunch place and great name story would be de Overkant (no website, just good food!). The husband's favorite is Applause, which has a pretty interior and yummy pasta. I always order a soup and half order of pasta.

My happy little treasures include the Filmschuur, which is an independent movie theater. The Adriaans windmill, which is open for tours on Saturdays, has nifty models inside. From the top of the V&D downtown, you can see a great view of the city. The Schalm is a great thrift store and organization that helps people who've been out of work for a while. They've added a furniture workshop and sewing project in recent years. These folks are the source of almost all the English language fiction I've bought in the past five years. There's also the public library, which has a surprisingly big collection of English language books. Every spring and fall, the staatstuin near my house has a plant sale where they sell off extra plants from the botanical garden. They're a steal and they grow like crazy with very little attention. And last, but not least, the 300 bus, which is my direct connection to Schiphol!

Queen's Day and a fork

19 May: fork in belly image removed. email me if you want to see it!

Yesterday was Queen's Day here in the Netherlands. It's a day off, usually great weather, lots of drinking, and the free market. My favorite is the free market. In a land where garage sales are not done, once a year, people gather in town to spread their old stuff on blankets and tables in order to sell it at cut rate prices. At least it's usually cheap. I loaded up on a bag full of baby clothes, poker chips, a printer for two euros (hope it works), and an umbrella stroller rack for my bike. The rack you can see on this site, it's called a "buggy drager."

So basically, I had a good day. Not so for others. In Apeldoorn, someone tried to ram an open bus carrying the royal family, killing a number of bystanders in the process. It was a horrible and shocking incident and as a consequence, a lot of major Queen's Day events being either canceled or scaled down. The driver died overnight in the hospital. It's a shame that a holiday that I always think of as fun, hopeful (it is spring, after all), and benevolent will carry a shadow from now on.

Closer to home, someone drank too much on the night before Queen's Day and decided to swallow a fork. See evidence above. As a result, someone in our family spent all day working. It's an IKEA fork.