What Happens - Or Not - When You Live Abroad
I don’t know.
On Thought Catalog, Chelsea Fagan wrote:
A very dependable feature of people who live abroad is finding them huddled together in bars and restaurants, talking not just about their homelands, but about the experience of leaving. And strangely enough, these groups of ex-pats aren’t necessarily all from the same home countries, often the mere experience of trading lands and cultures is enough to link them together and build the foundations of a friendship. I knew a decent amount of ex pats — of varying lengths of stay — back in America, and it’s reassuring to see that here in Europe, the “foreigner” bars are just as prevalent and filled with the same warm, nostalgic chatter.
Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe it’s just the fact that there’s not a whole ocean between me and my home country, but just a few rivers. I never went into this kind of foreigner bar to share my nostalgia with other strangers ex-pats, with strangers from different countries, other countries, my country.
The only time I ever sought something German in Paris in the past two years was when I was looking for German Christmas food for a party.
And the foreign housemate I had for the first year was a truly Francophile, so he missed France more when he was in his home country, than missed his home country when he was in France.
Or maybe I was just too busy all the time to wonder whether I missed Germany.
(via Photography on Pinterest) Quite addicted to Pinterest…
@ramit here’s what I would do
with that virtual assistant you are giving away for free for one year at iwillteachyoutoberich.com. I entered the contest and here is what I would do if I won:
- Help me create the huge to-do list for moving to wherever I will be moving in 2012
- Help me find freelance jobs (illustration, translation, web content, graphics, lifestyle & fashion & geek style articles) to make some quick money for moving and buying new stuff
- Help me set up my business idea of helping students with their university and stipend / grant applications
- Find the best gym, language learnint center, choir, theater group, web 2.0 meetups in the area I’ll be moving to
- Find doctors, addresses of public administration… in the city I will be moving to
- Research material for the articles I’ll be writing next year
- Help me compare investment options
- Help me boost my visibility as a freelancer through Google tools and general social network buzz / profile update
- Do the footnotes and bibliography of my Master’s thesis
- Research other relevant documentaries, TV ads and movies I haven’t found yet for my thesis
- Find the best CPE prep materials and / or courses so I can pass the CPE before moving
- Download public domain / free-to-use images for my graphics
- Create a motivational, intellectually stimulating, and inspirational portfolio with my favorite artists, quotations that come in handy in conversations, basic knowledge about contemporary business gurus, important CEOs and institutions related to internet and virtual worlds
- Constantly remind me of writing that SF/fantasy novel which will never be published and discuss it with me
- Keep me updated about new gadgets and handhelds which may be relevant for what I will be doing in 2012
I really like this gedankenexperiment, except that thinking about having to do all that stuff by myself if I don’t wind kind of terrifies me. Keeping my fingers crossed, haha.
Limited Edition
814 / 5,000 spots filled
The Sketchbook Project Limited Edition Vol. 1 is a collaborative series of art books created by 5,000 artists from around the world.
Anyone — from anywhere in the world — can participate in the project. Sign up to receive a blank sketchbook in the mail, then fill it up and send it back. Your work will be cataloged in the Brooklyn Art Library and published in the Limited Edition art book series.
For illustrators & Moleskiners - Yes, you have to pay to participate, that’s the downside of it. But at the same time, it is quite a motivation to finally be a little more prolific… and the themes are quite interesting:
Time and the way we travel
Distance and time
How to spell and other things to learn
The science of story
Thread and surface
The last word ever spoken
Why did the owl make everyone laugh?
Create and capture
The secret and how to tell it
Pictures and descriptions
(I chose “The secret and how to tell it”, looking forward to the arrival of my sketchbook — which will hopefully be after I have finished the Ph.D. application stuff).
Anyone else participating?
(via Gone with the wind by *Miss-Nefer)
I just realized my second year in Paris is about to start on October 5. Vive l’université.
Happy 4th birthday, tumblelog. I’m a little early this year (the official birthday is on June 23), but my mind and body will be somewhere between Munich, Brussels, Paris and Stanford duringthe next few days, so I thought I’d rather post a few days too early than forget it.
A new design will be online soon, as well as one for my Moleskine tumblelog (nakiskine) and my brand new TED tumbelog (TEDle). Cheers!
Photo: “We do it the Hard Way”
To know helps to feel.
So we installed cables and satellites and created a global network of which we would like to think it covers the whole planet, whereas in reality, there is still lots of divides, such as the knowledge and digital divides. So we globalized our economy, we say “think global, act local”, we interconnected our national networks for the internet, the network of networks and we thought we could realize this imaginaire, this utopia of the information society, the collaborative global internet community, growing together as one cultural sphere with a free economy and the partnership of equals.
But although we teared down the wall, revolutionize(d) all across the globe, interconnect, travel, trade, exchange, we still don’t know enough about each other. We are still too different, because we exclude groups we don’t know. We are scared of going to certain countries, because all we know about them is that there is terrorism and that people are killing each other. We suffer, but we suffer only with those we feel close to, with those we know. We have each our own reception filters, our frequence, our own channel of selective empathy through which we perceive the world and choose what touches, when sometimes there is more that should touch us.
And why? Because we don’t know each other well enough. Because no one ever told us about those who are suffering outside of our frequency. But of course it’s only us who can play with the regulators to extend our frequency. But how? Well, someone needs to tell us, teach us, give us the books to read, introduce us to the people, show us everything we need to see, so we can adjust our frequency.
But who?
I don’t know. I’d like to.
Reading science fiction for a more critical view of our society?
I am currently working on a research project where I try to prove that reading science fiction can help adolescents to develop a more critical regard of our society. What do you think?
How can science fiction serve as an educational tool for aolescents? Is it possible to analyze the dreams and fears of society with science fiction narrations? Can we encourage young people between (12-16) to develop a more critical view of society by explaining society’s problems in science fiction to them?
If you want to help me answer this question, I would like to invite you to fill out my questionary: http://bit.ly/sfqu2011 Please don’t hesitate to send me a message or to reply with your (critical) thoughts. If you want to find out more about my current research, here’s a brief explanation on my website: http://sinaspace.net/?p=368
Thank you very much!
PS: I just recognized a few typos and the question about the profession is listed twice. I am sorry about that. However, I don’t dare to edit the form, since Google already overwrote my whole survey once.
via Wikipedia - yum.
My Little City vous donne la parole !
Partagez votre meilleur plan tête-à-tête.
A gagner :
- une soirée magique avec cocktail, dîner et nuit au Konfidentiel à Paris
- jusqu’à 1000 euros de bons plans
Chez Gladines, 30 rue des cinq diamants (13ème). Dans ce petit resto basque, un ambience rustique, vif, culturellement mixte nous attend avec des plats délicieux, y compris des portions assez grands pour les hommes et des salades délicieux pour les femmes prudentes. C’est parfait pour un gars avec la faim d’un lion et la bourse d’un chaton - et les filles, elles profitent de tables très petits pour être proche de leur chéri…
Inspired by browsing surreal art on deviantART. Oh, my gallery is available on deviantART as well. Work in progress.
Looking forward to the #TRAA concert on Tuesday! #Paris #Nouveaucasino
#Epic #Paris is epic. SCNR.
TED: Recommended to Get Inspired
I was at my first – hopefully not my last – TEDx conference on 10/16, namely at TEDxParisUniversités at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris. It was a surprisingly inspiring journey – and surprising due to two reasons. But wait, we should first get to the point where I explain what exactly TED is, why there’s TED with an x and what everyone could do to contribute to this project.
New blog post at http://sinaspace.net.
Are you ready to #GTD? Thoughts about lifehacks, GTD and the benefits of analog Moleskine notebooks.
