• an academic journey
• a cultural journey
• an intellectual journey
• and an emotional journey

Next to these categories you can of course still read every post from start to end. And also, read my report for the HKU (although it is in Dutch).

Thanks for being an audience. Although there weren’t that many reactions on the blogg itself, I got a lot ‘offline’. All supported me and learned me new stuff. Thanks for that :) Frida recently told that a friend of her was following both our blogs with a feeling of inspiration. That was really wonderful to hear. I hope it was interesting. For me it helped a lot to write things down. And it was an easy way to update the people ‘back home’ :)

For now I stop this blogg I think. I don’t have the need for it that much anymore. It is something I did when traveling. The posts from this blogg will go to an archived place on my website to which I will link from here. And one day I will have another blog of another travel; which for sure, will come :)

One thing to close, the tips I wrote in my report for HKU for other traveling students.

“The tourist sees what he came to see. The traveler sees what he sees.”

Go without too much preconceptions, look at the world like it is and remember, that how different people may be, the country is not in a crisis, so apparently, their way of working works fine too.*

Culture is so much more than just ‘fine-art’ culture. It’s how people act and think. Which structures are being made, what people think is normal, what things they completely overlook because they never do that kind of things and how close you are with people. If you’re starting to see that, you’ll ’see’ a lot more. If you hold on to the glasses of conclusions and preconceptions you actually are holding on to your own culture which makes it a lot harder to learn from the other culture.

* Which says something interesting about countries being in a crisis right now :)

Clearly recognizable, not from someone close (not close physically, although close to the heart). Thanks for the card and the candy :)

I’ve been doing a lot of things this week, but mainly I’ve reorganized my room. The mess I left before I went to Sweden was still there and with all the dust having their winter sleep in my room it was quite some work. But now I have a new life and work environment.

It helps a lot in feeling fine and being able to do some other work. Like evaluating the last half year for HKU and starting new project and work for an income here.

My new view from my desk (include a nice sky like this):

Luckily, not everything stayed the same. People changed. And that is good – the first lecture in Sweden they already ‘warned’ for coming back and you’ve changed but nobody else did, which leaves you with a complete changed view on the world and nobody understands you. None of that, but the environment didn’t change that much. I can still find everything on the same place (also meaning I have to do some room cleaning, still as I left it). I don’t have to do any thinking or searching, I can just join in the household here and things work the same. A very strange feeling, also because in some way I don’t feel a deep continuous longing for going to Sweden again.

In Sweden we had some 8 different garbage places under the kitchen sink, for the different garbage you have to separate. Just a month before I left there, two more were added. Or, actually, one of them was separated further into 3 different categories. Which was a good thing, but meant more space needed. ‘Here’, in the Netherlands, we maybe had something like 4 (paper, glass, compost and the rest), but only 2 of them (compost and the rest) were under the kitchen sink. Paper was in the hallway and glass in the garden.

Now, apparently some time ago, things changed here as well. Now plastic needs to be separated. So, more place needed under the kitchen sink. But there was none. There is the garden stuff and other cleaning stuff. And of course the olive oil… Ok, logical to replace that right? Enough places come to mind. But no, not possible; “it is good for olive oil to be in a dark place”.

But actually I do. Or, I started, I started having that longing for going ‘back’ again, back to my own place, our place. Stings in this household still go slow now and then. Things don’t happen, they don’t change. No experiments. All new thoughts are going down directly because this or that. There is always some ‘rule’ or ‘knowledge’ that prevents things from changing.

So nothing changes. The olive oil stays in place. The plastic is placed next to the cats, not really nice, but ok.

Oh, and it is not that I’m not playing a part here. It is just the combined atmosphere or behavior in this house. But I don’t want that anymore. I want to initiate new things.

Oh yeah, about the vacation adventures..

On vacation in your own house. “Where are you?.. over..” “At the vacation photos of 1991.. over..”

Do I still want to continue with HKU? I’m not thát sure anymore. Although it might not be bad for me and also give me a nice few projects again. (Something practical finally! I’m quite done with the theory here..)

I found the Interactive Institute here. Looks like a nice place for projects. I’ve been thinking about staying there for some time. If at all I get in here at some place. Without diploms, without the language (which is more important here than in the Netherlands).

And spiritually the Netherlands would be a very interesting place. A lot of things are happening there. So maybe we can life there for some time. Start new projects there, explore what I want on that green sphere.

I’ve started to work again, small things, but still. Yesterday I continued walking through the methods I use in projects I did. The step of yesterday was making a mindmap of everything. Quickly the paper (A4) became too small :) There is a lot that I know, a lot I’m experienced in, a bit too much maybe? At least I should structure it a bit more now. I want to describe the methods, for myself and for ‘clients’.

And when I was going through some past projects I saw Lones again.. Did anybody made those things for real? I could use them now.. Or, in two months would be ok as well ;)

“This our concept video of the Emotion Stone, that transfers warmth, emotions and gestures over long distances. This video gives an example how it could work.”

Click play or go to the gallery to view the photos in large.

The last weekend and the evenings around that, we – me and Frida, were moving together.

We’ve been installing new lights, packing, moving the packed boxes and placing everything in the new apartment.

But it takes more time than just that one weekend moving. Also cleaning the previous apartment, dealing with – and nervously waiting for – the rental company, and somehow, unpacking takes more time than packing.

And then come the more practical things.. A clock comes back in the apartment. How to deal with this and that? Were to place these things? How should this look? As said, moving takes more than 1 or 2 days. We’re welcoming the new adventures and conflicts :)

And things start to feel differently. The bed with the two nightstands suddenly looks like we’re a couple. Ah but wait, we are :)

And, we can now enjoy the new balcony.

The portraits of the international students we’re going to make end up in the Mälardalens högskola first. But after that they will travel through several locations in Västerås and Eskilstuna, like the city hall, museums, science parks and other public places. Some nice small rooms, so the visitor can enter the room with just one portrait in it and fully experience it, like having a intimate fika with the person. Some interesting walls in which you have more space to walk around the portraits. Or some places with interesting light effects where we can play with the light on the paintings.

We also want to attach some physical things to it. Not only a printed portrait but adding drawers, music, booklets, etc. By digging deeper in the persons life, looking into their cd-rack, opening their drawers, listinging to their music, opening their cupboards, you’ll get to know the person more, see more photos of the persons life, etc.

More to come :)

* Another post not about school.. Indeed, no lectures this week. Last week they were not that interesting I thought, and now comes Easter, so no lectures until next Wednesday..

(…) it’s no secret that the most beautiful thing you can wear is an authentic smile, and that the most beautiful people among us would be just as beautiful barefoot or in burlap, rather than in Manolo Blahniks. We’re a weird species that will spend fortunes to have the latest things, only to throw them away a season later, or spend our time and money on things that cover our bodies rather than make our bodies as healthy, fit, and beautiful as they naturally could be.

There are these moments, mostly about education, creativity, understanding or being yourself like above, that give me goose bumps. It reminded me of a blogpost about a woman giving a presentation on goose bumps (Dutch only). In a way it shows me what the things are that really hit me, that go deep. Are those the things that I should actually spend my time on?

The past week I’ve been thinking a lot. Nice thoughts about life, the universe and everything (*). Sadly, I didn’t came out on 42.. I spent a lot of time on thinking a lot of things, but when I think back of it, it is still ‘a lot of things’. Not one nice conclusion. It will come once I guess. I’ve had this for longer that I got the/my point of a discussion a day later.

Oh yes, and that book about design and sustainability.. It isn’t about this I guess. But it does look good. The book begins with defining ‘design’ and ’sustainability’ before it goes in the ‘real stuff’. The author, Nathan Shedroff, excuses himself for having to define things first. But I think that those definitions are exactlywhat makes this book stand out from all of the other books on design and sustainability. Here is an interview with the author and the excerpt of the book. Go and read “Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must Be Sustainable”.

Thinking of the world out there, what to do in that world?

Two weekends ago I went to Stockholm, there was a Russian film festival where I went together with Maaike (’nr 2′, the one who stays in Stockholm) and Niklas (a Swede/Belgium guy she knew). We went to Closed Spaces, a bit weird film, expected though because I chose to see this movie because it was a bit weird :) And also pretty funny, and nice arty because it left us with the feeling not fully understanding it yet.. Now I read the website and the director’s comment it gets even better (read: try to see this, with subtitles :)):

The idea is that all origins of our psychological problems, our victories and defeats, all happiness and unhappiness are in our past, in the family. The key of all “doors” of adult life is in the childhood. It seems to be obvious, but on the verbal level this thesis does not make people act. Every psychological book contains the story that children repeat their parent’s mistakes. The model of their behaviour turns children into hostages. And it repeats from generation to generation. How is it possible to stop this repetition? Emotional influence that exists in films is in need. “Closed spaces” is about that. The film shows what key we have to choose and what door could be opened with it.

And last weekend I went for another hike along the Mälardalen lake. It was planned by the hiking club, but I went alone in the end. First I was somewhat later because I had another train and couldn’t reach them to ask to wait for me. But, as I found out yesterday, they went to another place anyway :) So I went with my map of the Eskilstuna commun (the county here) at which the part I was walking stretched for about 10cm.. I guess I didn’t really follow the normal path, but that didn’t made it any worse, I think it was way better actually. Mostly I just took some path. Paths here by the way are only paths because people or animals have walked there before, no path is made with wood, stones or seals, no marks along the path eighter.

The forests change pretty quick, at one point you only see long bare trees and then suddenly you’re in the middle of a green coniferous forest. It looks more beautiful than forests in the Netherlands, you can notice that the places here are visited by less people, nature still is a bit nature. Just listening to the birds and the water.

See some more photos in the hiking album.

It was a good introductory lecture about things you already know but are good to now have the words for; stress is not having a lot of things to do; stress is about (not) being in control; stress is about (re)interpreting situations to gain this control. Another one was the thought that positive stress doesn’t exist, as stress is not having control anymore, about going over your taxes, it is always negative. Positive stress is just pressure. Another interesting one for ‘leaders’, if you want to help somebody with stress, don’t do their tasks, rather give them control over these tasks.

An interesting puzzle we’ve been taking as an example for the past lectures is the following:

You’re lying on a railway track. You’re stuck. In the far distance, you hear a whistle blow. What do you think, feel and do?

More after the meeeep..Most reactions varied from “I’m going to die”, “see your life flash before you”, “fear”, and “say goodbye to your loved ones”. Nice examples of giving up life..

But you can also take a more stress reducing – and also way more positive – approuch. Look around, what do you see? Maybe there is a second railway track next to you? Maybe there is a canal with boats (with wistles)? Are you tied stuck or is it just your leg which you can get out of? Are you maybe lying in line with the tracks? Are you actually in the middle of the city and are there a lot of people around to help? After these thoughts, you can start doing something about them :)

All about interpreting the situation. Look at the possibilities this situation gives you. I was thinking that maybe all stress comes from a too rigid interpretation of the situation. You think you won’t be able to handle this, you think you will fail. Based on experiences from previous situations where something went in a certain way, you’ll judge the current situation and think it will be the same. By really looking at the situation you’re in, looking from other perspectives as you learn at any creative study, you should be able to solve the situation.

Depending, of course, on how much you can do about it. Although I think the last step you can always make is change your mind, change the way you feel about something. Your attitude towards a certain situation.

On Tuesday I went to Mestute, an outdoor shop in Eskilstuna. I’ve been there before and met very nice people. So I went again to have a chat about the new stress course.

Hans, one of the owners, told about the two helpers he has on his shoulders. On his left shoulder sits anxiety, on his right curiosity. He has to listen to both, balance his shoulders. People who try to reduce their anxiety also lower their curiosity. Resulting in walking with hanging shoulders :)

We also had this in the first course, anxiety (and uncertainty) are reduced as you get to now people (or situations) better. But in the same way that anxiety shouldn’t grow to high, it also shouldn’t be reduced completely. If there is no anxiety or uncertainty you not doing anything new.

Hmm, interesting trying to explain this. Learning through teaching..

The idea is to make a portrait of a number of international students including photos from their ‘home’ “back home” and the home they created here. Their own portrait – face – as a bridge between these two environments.

Together with Nikki, I was invited to join this project as interaction designer. Yesterday we had the first meeting over a fika in the student restaurant Kåren. Apart from Hubert ans us there were four others, of which one photographer. The rest I hope to get to know better in their roles here (I know some from the hiking); for the next meeting we planned to see what we came up and to devide the (flexible) tasks based on that :)

One of the ideas from this first brainstorm was from beauty product commercials enlarging a wrinkel on a persons skin and displaying facts about that part. The idea is to encircle the wrinkels in the students faces – as experiences in their lives, moments they laughed and cried – and to link these to the photographs around.

I really like the creative mood this whole projects gets me in again. The courses mainly got me in a philosophical mood. I miss the moments with Roy (a classmate from HKU) in which we just tried weird experiments without any direct goal. I got the feeling that these moments came from all the creative projects at HKU.

A new one first (full size):

Look dizzy until you see four grey dots. Than you can try to look dizzy at other points, for example your own finger moving back and forth. You’ll notice that the distance between the dots will differ on where you focus. You have to focus until the two middle dots are one, they come together. So then you’d see only three dots. That is the right focus, focussing on the picture then would ‘make it 3D’.

Another way of seeing 3D here is to focus on your nose. Move your face in about 10cm of the screen and focus on your nose. Then slowly move back. There will be a moment at which the focuspoint on your nose is the same as the one needed to see this image in 3D.

It remains hard to explain something which has become second nature. I can see these images within a second now and I’ve noticed my eyes always correct me when I try to ‘destruct’ the 3D view. My eyes just start to focus until both middle images are one again :) But, when I was learning it, it costed me a full day.

It was good for me to list again what it was that I came to do here. Which in the end turned out to be 1) rest, 2) the intercultural leadership courses, 3) some unfinished assignments for the HKU. So all the rest, all the projects and nice activities, is not part of that. Learning the Swedish language came from the affection with Sweden I think, and it is absolutely nice to learn, but again, not priority. So I should stop it. So I did :)

And that same day, when I received a SMS (hm, in English that is called ‘text’ I think) in Swedish, I could completely read it, just taking all the time to understand every part of it. It felt like when I took the pressure off, it suddenly goes way easier. Not that surprisingly, but very nice to notice.

The last weeks I’ve started to more and more direct act on my feelings which feels very good to do. A lot of stress gets off, things don’t pile up in my head anymore. Write down that thing what I have to do, speak out what I feel, go outside when I feel like, eat when I’m hungry. And now that I do it my feelings help me even more. I’ve noticed a pretty uneasy feeling when I don’t act on a feeling.

Act! Just do it!

Again, in Dutch. I’ll keep on doing that because there are some people who want to hear my ‘native’ voice. But some English subtitles can be found at dotSub (oh, what a horrible website..).

I’ve restarted Inbox Zero – a technique to process your email faster and ’spend less time in your inbox’ – and I’ve been able to continue it for about two weeks now, feels very good. At the same time clean out all those blogs I’ve been following, the snail mail, the photos and other files on my computer. Cleanes up a lot, more than just the things themselves, also my head.

Now only to do something useful with the time I ‘created’.

It was good to be in a project again. Very different from the project at the HKU. First of all because we had a group of four ‘leaders’. But also because we had a week for the whole project and it was hard to make a good separation of the tasks. Then it becomes more of a problem that we’re all leaders, because we were for example all responsible for the documentation, all responsible for the presentation, all responsible for the research.. Good learning moments. Also I finally experimented with putting together a presentation with my knowledge from the last years of interaction design. Thinking about every step, what to do, what effect it has, what do I want this step to lead to, etc.

Since my time experiments of the last weeks I’ve been trying to slow down more. But interesting enough my frustration inside the group came from me going to fast. Though I thought that this friction with other people’s time might be the hardest, it was not the first problem I encountered. The first difficult thing was that – much more than I thought – time was enclosed in my personal culture. How this striving for being in time is in every task I preformed. Wanting to finish something instead of going for quality. Going for quality also suits me way more, but actually doing it is step two.

—

Well, we thought it was less social. During the experiment we held at our presentation the observing group noted that the group with the large bags was more social because they ate less. Of course not counting for the right environment and group differences, but still.

For my last course – which I finished with a ‘pass with distinction’ grade, the highest possible – I had to write a book review and I reviewed ‘A Geography of Time‘ by Robert Levine. Levine describes very interesting differences between our experience of time amongst different people / cultures. How our experience of time influences our whole structure of life and how not every culture lives with the calendar as we know it. Not only starting the counting of the year at another point in time, but also having different week, month and year lengths.

The most interesting point he makes about time I think is the difference between clock time and event time. People living on clock time let events start when the clock ‘tells’ them to do, whereas people living on event time let the events themselves tell this, also more feeling when the time is right to start something else. An excerpt from my paper:

Take the example of being in a conversation with someone. In a clock-time culture you would keep an eye on the time and try to work towards an end in the conversation when the clock tells you you have something else to do. If this doesn’t work as good as you want, you need to abruptly end the conversation to be in time for the next.

In an event-time culture you wouldn’t mind what the clock says. The conversation continues until both parties have the idea that it is over. This is more likely when a goal has been reached, when you feel that there is nothing more to say. After ending the conversation in this way you still don’t look at your watch. Instead, you’ll see what comes on your path next. This then, is the next event.

This example gives a bit extreme view on clock- and event-time though. Not all conversations will be ended abruptly because time is up and after a conversation in event-time you can take a look on the calendar to see what to do next. Nevertheless, the tendency is towards these examples.

Further Levine gives some lessons you should learn when you’re ‘time traveling’, traveling to a culture with another experience of time. I added a part in which I tell how to change your behavior if you’re staying in the same culture but want to adjust to another time anyway :)

One part of that is ‘learning to appreciate doing nothing’. In clock time cultures ‘doing nothing’ is mostly seen as a waste of time, time in which you could have been doing something else. In event time cultures ‘doing nothing’ is more an event on its own, as good as other events. You spend time looking around you, thinking, not thinking, talking, eating, waiting, feeling. As you see, you still do things, the difference lies in doing things without a direct goal. ‘Doing nothing’ is more about not having a direct goal and just feel what you’ll do and not feeling awkward about it!

So that is what I’ve been doing a lot lately. I spend a weekend with Frida just doing nothing. Talking, looking, listening to music, eating, thinking, laughing, healing. Later this week I saw an older couple in the IKEA restaurant, they already finished their meal and were doing nothing. Looking around, at each other, digesting, thinking, talking a bit. Very cool to see.

(…) Al hoewel het niet mijn bedoeling is een toeristisch reisverslag te schrijven maar mij te concentreren op (…) onderzoek (…) kan ik het toch niet nalaten dit park aan te raden!

In Dutch he says that he is going to blog about research done on Antarctica and not a writing a tourist blog, although he cannot fail to recommend this Torres del Paine park.

What is interesting is that the rest of the blog is a pleasure to read I think. It is of course about this goal they had, getting to know the research done there. But more than just ‘in between the lines’ he tells about Antarctica and what they experience there. And I’ve never been into the Dutch royal family that much, but I really liked reading it, sad it only lasted for four days / posts.

What I also noticed is that he didn’t had any pictures in the blog which I hardly could understand. But after some looking around they were in a seperate photo gallery. What was more interesting is that this seems to be maintained by other people as the captions read, i.e. ‘De Prins van Oranje kijkt door een microscoop’ (’The Prince of Orange looks through a microscoop’) whereas the posts are signed by ‘Willem-Alexander’. I thought about the security-card system here at Mälardalen högskola, we’re not allowed in all parts of the university, only in the departments were our courses are, not in the staff corridors, etc. Which really conflicts with the general atmosphere, and in particulary the relationship between students and teachers, which is very informal.

Systems not really adapted to the people inside.

When I got home I thought about how we give compliments to each other – sorry, the introduction has hardly any relation with the following I think. When you’ve worked together with someone and you like the way the other did something you say, “you’re good at .. communicating” for example. I’m brought up by my environment to reply with “thanks”, but I never really adapted to that, always found it a bit strange. I mostly mumbled something like “yeah” or “ok”. Then after some time people around me started saying that I should learn to receive compliments. Now I suddenly knew why I never got around that, why it feels strange to do so.

It is not something I can be thankful for. It is just something I do, something I’m capable of. If someone says that I did something well then that is more a thing someone else notices which for me is already clear, is a normal way of life.
And I also thought this might very well be related to the individualistic culture we grow up with in the west. A culture where personal achievements lead to a higher status, to getting a job, to performing well in society. This makes that when somebody tells you that you’ve done something good, you thank them because they, so to say, ‘gave’ you an achievement. Because the people around you attribute things to you, you climb up the social ladder, you do or don’t get the job.

Something I never could understand. I do understand why now, but I still don’t like it.

– I went to get something to drink –

Ah, now I also now what the relation with the introduction is. Nice how this getting out is helping you to remember things.

Before we went out for a walk I put my backpack in my apartment because I just came from the university. I showed my apartment and she said something like that it was nice. I think I answered with “yes”. At that moment I thought about this getting ‘compliments’. The nice apartment to me was also just something normal. Of course it is something that I created and thus something that someone can compliment me on, but still it is just who I am, what I create around me.

At the station I bought a Balder (a sandwich with the same name as my brother) as I didn’t had breadfast yet. Than the guides which would take us into the old part of the city came, almost excusing for the fog. When we started walking it was clear what she meant, you could hardly see any building which was further than 100m away :)

But this actually gave pretty nice views of the city. At some places it made me remember of Paris, for example this picture on the right, but also this square and this passage next to the train. Maybe all old cities look alike?

Often, we had to imagine the great view which we would have gotten if there hadn’t been such a heavy fog. But it also gave views for some great photo’s; such as the fairy tail castle on one of the bigger islands, also hosting a lot of museums; our own clothings collecting dew; and the photo below near the royal castle which got me interested on taking photo’s of the people of Stockholm.

Not all creatures in Stockholm are people though, they also have animals there, sitting on lanterns and by the river. And statues, but they’ll get their own story. As well as the interaction design in Stockholm :)

After lunch a we went with four people to the Moderna Museet. Where I finally saw Duchamp’s urinoir after talking about it so often in the Interaction Design lecutres! One artwork was about birth and time. Pictures of a rising belly with poems, one read:

One is born into time. And in time, introduced to language…
Or rather – One is born. And through language, introduced to time…
Perhaps even – One is born, in time, through language.

Further they had a nice tree. Really strange. It was like a tree, cut inside another tree. When I saw the bottom I thought that the outer tree was actually made of two parts.

But upon viewing the other side that was clearly not the case, this made the mystery even bigger.. There you could see how a tree’s branches are branches inside the tree too. Not that strange when you think of it, but that is it with these unconsiousness things, you never think of it.

Or wasn’t it the reality?

After the museum of Modern Art we went to the attached Architectural museum where they had some nice examples of how to build a city. Explaining and showing the different ways of housing and patterns to make the city accessible, explorable, interesting, efficient, quiet or cozy.

As the evening fell I went for some diner for which – after some search – I ended up in a standard Chinese restaurant. It was pretty hard to find something ‘local’, or maybe I was just in thew wrong neighborhood. But maybe you need to be a local – or have one with you – to find the better Swedish restaurants. Well, I want to go to Stockholm again for a few days, so than I’ll go to some more Stockholmish places :)

Stockholm at night

This Saturday I went walking (or ‘hiking’) on Björnö, an island near Västerås. I joined a hiking club with people from the university. I think about 20% was Swedish, so this is like a new kind of hiking, intercultural hiking :)

We had nice views on the forests, walked on the Mälardalen lake, saw a number of deers and – as the guy from the outdoor shop in Eskilstuna said – a lot of good talks about life :)

One girl from Iran, who was here already for a longer time, told that the ‘multicultural improvisation’ course was in the second part of this semester. This is really nice because I might be able to follow it then! It is a course in which a group from the different cultures of the international students gather and prepare a play about cultures.

At Friday I was looking around at Wikipedia to see what this ‘hiking’ was about. I learned about the ‘Ten Essentials’; a list of items you should always bring with you when hiking. Most of it I didn’t have but that wouldn’t be so much of a problem. The path we would be walking was 10km long. Still it kind of got me and when packing I took more than I would really need. Typically me again, worrying a bit too much :) So I got rid of must of the stuff and got rid of more stuff.. (lagom anyone?) And still I got more food than I really needed. But that came in handy when another vegetarian didn’t brought that much food for the barbecue and when the train back to Eskilstuna had a delay of “en timme och åtta minuter”, lasting a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes.

A number of teachers – but also my own experience in reading research in books – changed my mind. They learned me that it are things that you might already know, but the research makes it clear, how exactly (according to the research) and gives me a way to formulate that what I already knew*.

A quote** from an old commercial from the NRC (a Dutch newspaper):

those who never change there minds never learn anything new (wie nooit van mening veranderd heeft nooit iets geleerd)

And this leads to something I now know how to formulate :) The topic of fear for immigrants in the Netherlands came to mind immediately when I read this.

From a research of Stephan and Stephan (1985), Wilder and Shapiro (1989 and 1996), Wilder (1993).

When we fear the interactions with another group or person which we don’t know, this fear might grow so large that it biases the way we see this group/person. We process the things we see, only in a simple way; we only see the things we already expected (based on stereotypes of this other) and we neglect the things that don’t fit that expectation.

Thus we are not able to gather new or changed information about the other and thus we won’t be able to explain accurately why they behave as they behave.

Duh ;)

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* Disclaimer: I’m not saying that all science is about things ‘we’ (the general public) already know.

** Disclaimer 2: The NRC quote is not exact, they speak of ’seldom’ instead of ‘never’.

At the end of the lecture I invited everyone to take one of the tomato pies I had been making. I told it was common in my culture to bring some snacks with when you’re celebrating your birthday (my actual birthday is tomorrow). So that got some talk going about celebrating your birthday in different cultures.

When I grabbed my coat and looked back at the group, I suddenly noticed everyone was just hanging around and having a nice chat while they were eating. Nothing weird, people hanging around for a while and enjoying a nice conversation, but I just didn’t expected it for some reason.

So I, not in any hurry, left my coat and joined the conversations. But as I later realized it probably was already too late. Grabbing my coat in the first place was enough non-verbal communication and the conversations soon stopped and everybody took its own way again :)

—

For tomorrow I invited some people for a housewarming. Some have replied they can’t come, but most haven’t replied yet. Now I’m wondering if this is common in this culture.. Will they now suddenly show up tomorrow?

Well, I think I’ll go out tomorrow and explore some of the forests around – I have a bike (cykel) now! After I got the bike I already ended up in the forest per accident :) The distances are very short here, or is it the map with a different scale to what I’m used to?

If it goes too fast, click pause and navigate it yourself.

It feels very good to create an own home like this. It gives a lot of rest too.. I slept well and woke up easily :)

I just need a few more things. A nightstand, a bed lamp and a table cloth. And a juicer and a kettle, which are very hard to find.

Nikki helpt with following the IKEA manuals and creating a bed, table, chairs and a closet out of the seperate parts. Now I also now a little bit more what Your van ‘t Hek (a Dutch cabaretier?) ment with getting the IKEA slatted bed base (lattenbodem) together.

The room doesn’t have that ‘I just arrived here’ look anymore. The blankets on the ground are now replaced with a real bed. I put some of the stuff from my suitcases in the closet and in boxes.

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Most -offline- reactions I get are about the blog being in English :) I do that mainly because I want to document my experiences for a broader public. Not only my Dutch friends, but also the non-Dutch and other people who stumble upon this blog. I also found another blog a few weeks ago from a Dutch guy who also went on exchange to Mälardalen university here. So I write in English to tell my experiences from the university, from the course context and from the country, to more then only my friends.

Further I hope to develop my English writing in this way. I’m also translating parts while writing in English because I don’t know them yet. And a last thing, as soon as I enter another country, I start not only to use English to speak, but also to think. Then the same applies to my writings, as I already think of things to say, in English.