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WEEK 55

At the HvA I continued working on the Mediatheory course. I prepared a lecture on databases and one on protocol. The first was relatively easy. I did not take a technical approach on databases, but looked at the meaning of data in our society, a little history of the database and the concept of big data. Protocol on the other hand was a bit harder to tackle. It is quite a complex object, and to translate the theories of Foucault, Deleuze and Galloway to something understandable for second year students was hard. I did have a nice discussion with one of my colleagues about the way the internet is build [protocol wise] and what this means for the medium and this might have given me a new approach for the lecture.

I also worked a bit on figuring out the best way to coach students that are behind. How can we approach them, make sure they get to understand what their problems are and help them to catch up? In the environment I am working in, it is hard to make the most out of the limited hours you get for a task because a lot of things are not really efficient. But we are working on a solution.

For SAAM we made a product video this week. I helped by playing the hand model :) It was a fun afternoon and I am curious about the result.

I also had time to visit two museums. On Friday afternoon I went to the Howard Greenberg Collection at the Joods Historisch Museum. Definitely worth visiting. And in the evening I went to Foam, where JH Engstrom showed us his exhibition. He is a Swedish photographer who lives in Varmland. This is the area Alex and I spend our summer, so it was really nice to look at the area in his photo’s. 

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WHAT I ATE 26

Last Monday I made an extremely nice aubergine curry. Be warned, it takes quite some time to make it, but it is definitely worth the work.

Ingredients:

3 red peppers | 6 garlic gloves | knob of ginger | 2 lemongrass stalks | 2tbsp turmeric | 1tbsp chilli powder | 3 aubergines | 1tbsp olive oil | 1tbsp sugar | 6 shallots | 1 tbsp soja sauce | 400ml coconut milk | 400ml vegetable stock | some coriander | rice

Cut the chillies and take out the seeds. Put the chillies, garlic and ginger in a food processor and make it into a paste.

Mix together the turmeric and the chilli powder in a bowl. Cut the aubergine in parts and rub them in with the herb mix. Heat up the oil and fry the aubergine until all sides are brown. Take the aubergine out the pan, leave in the herbs that are left behind. Add some more oil to the pan and add the cut shallots, chilli paste and the sugar. After a few minutes, add the aubergines. Add the soja sauce, lemongrass, coconut milk and the vegetable stock and let everything cook until the aubergine is soft. 

Serve the dish with rice and put some coriander on top.

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WEEK 53

Week 53 means that my blog is a year old already! I started blogging to make sure I write something each week, to show myself I still do valuable things. Shifting from working as a freelancer to a ‘regular job’ made me scared that my working life would become boring. And to be honest, it sometimes is. But the great thing about that is that I can spend time on other things. Instead of stressing out and being kind of addicted to working ridiculous hours, I am a much more relaxed person. I have read more books than I have done in the past five years, and I am probably a lot nicer to the people that surround me. And having more time also allows me to become better at the things I do, and learn from it afterwards instead of running to the next job. I am curious what the next year will bring me. 

As a starter I am beginning on a new project with Alex. We are writing a proposal for the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Journalistiek. We are trying to gain a grand to develop a new research tool.

At the HvA I attended the presentations of my graduate students. Some interesting projects and nice presentations. I prepared everything for next week to start finalising the course I am giving and to start the other courses I am teaching. Still a pretty slow week but that will be over soon. 

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WHAT I ATE 24

Soup is great. And so easy to make. Here a recipe for a really simple lentil soup. 

Ingredients:

1 ltr bouillon | 500ml water | 300gr red lentils | 150gr baked beans in tomato sauce | 1 onion | 1 bay leaf | 1/2 tsp kumin | 1 tsp cayenne | lemon | popcorn & amaranth | pepper & salt

Basically, add everything together, wait for 30 minutes and you have a great soup. 

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WEEK 52

This is the first week back at the job. After an amazing five weeks of holiday. 

I’ve spend the first three weeks of holiday redoing the kitchen, relaxing, spending time with friends and enjoying the sun. The last two weeks I went to Norway and Sweden and made a canu tour. The nature was unbelievably beautiful. It took some effort to paddle 20km each day, make our own fire, cook, and sleep in the wild. But it was absolutely great and I reloaded my batteries for the coming school year.

The first week back was all about reading dissertations for students that want to graduate in August. I’ve read some good ones and unfortunately also a couple that are not sufficient enough. As a first, second and third ‘reader’ I had a pretty full week. And apart from that I managed to answer all my emails, set up my desk and clean my computer. I am ready for the new semester!

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WEEK 43 & 44

boring weeks when it comes to my weeknotes. I spent all my time grading graduate students and finishing all the loose ends before summer begins.

I also continued putting together the new course Mediatheory for next schoolyear. I’ve read Code/Space by Kitchin and Dodge and a few essays from Fuller’s Software studies as a start for a lecture on software studies. ‘Protocol’ by Galloway and ‘Control and Freedom’ by Chun for a lecture on protocols. It is taking me more time than I have to prepare the lectures, but it is nice to have a goal to re-read some old books. 

Of course there is also time for some fun! I went to an opera from Philip Glass with my collegues from the HvA at the Muziekgebouw aan ’t Ij. The Radio Filharmonisch Orkest performed The CIVIL warS, an opera composed in 1983. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

On Sunday I went to Welle, in Belgium. Once a year they have a garage sale that the whole village participates in. I have bought some nice items for my house, and also to re-sell on Marktplaats.

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WEEK 42

This week I spend most of my hours on reading and grading the work of graduate students. There were some pretty nice projects between all the work. The next two weeks will be busy with grading their final presentations and soon, holiday!

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WEEK 41

This week started with a knowledge-morning at the HvA. The idea is that every other few weeks, we talk about subjects in our field of study as colleagues among each other. Interesting this morning was a presentation about the work of Daan Andriessen. He is leading in the field of design research, and finding a balance between traditional research and research that applies to design education. 

Further, I spend a lot of hours this week on setting up a new course for next year. I already had the outlines of what I want to do, but this week I started filling in the weeks. The course is called Media Theory and I would like to centralise a media object each week, and give dept to it with different theories. Quite some work left before the summer starts, but the beginning it there. 

On Wednesday I spend the day with possible new students. Each new student needs to follow a day with different courses, to make sure they make the right decision. 

After that I visited the final presentations of the Sandberg@Mediafonds masterclass. The theme for this masterclass was Quantified Reality, and there were some interesting projects. 

On Saturday I ran 10k for the We own the Night Nike run. It was fun to run in the dark [we started at 10.30] and a fun night!