30
August
2005
Märrie came for a visit, for the first time in over a year. She came by car, so we made excursions every day, in Switzerland but also across the borders into Germany and France. But we’d have had a great time even staying home all the time, because we always have lots of fun when we’re together.
The trips we took:
- Monday: A Magritte exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler.
- Tuesday: Bern, the Swiss capital, where we saw the floods from up close. Not that we’d planned on being catastrophe tourists, but it was fascinating in a scary kind of way.
- Wednesday: Along the Rhine to the Bodensee (Lake Konstanz), seeing the Rhine falls, visiting the old monastery island of Reichenau and spending some time in Konstanz.
- Thursday: Schloss Hallwyl, a beautifully restored castle that’s been owned by von Hallwyl family since the Middle Ages and houses a great museum.
- Friday: The Ecomusée in the Alsace, the biggest open-air museum in Europe, with about 70 rebuilt houses from all over the region.
- Saturday: The Roman festival in nearby Roman town Augusta Raurica.
On Sunday Märrie was supposed to drive home - but on her way down the stairs to put her luggage into the car, she slipped and hurt her ankle so badly that my mom had to take her to the emergency room, because unfortunately I had to go to work. The poor thing won’t be able to drive for a while - so yesterday, I drove her home and then took the train back. It was exhausting, to say the least, as I’ve never in my life driven such a long stretch (about 470km), mostly over German highways.
Now I’m back home and really have to work on my paper. I’m leaving for Singapore and Japan in 10 days, after all. Not that it’s going well at the moment. But I have to. If only I wasn’t so scatterbrained still…
Btw, the Firefly podcast I mentioned in my last post read an email I wrote to them (using my online nickname ‘Shirasade’) in last week’s show. That pleased my geeky heart quite a bit! *g*
Posted: Fandom, Life, Uni
19
August
2005
Currently I’m procrastinating badly on my paper. Not because I don’t want to write it — it’s definitely the most interesting (and close-to-my-heart) topic — but because I’m overwhelmed at how much information I want to include, which doesn’t get along with the 25 page limit I have. I mean, I’m already over 1/4 done, although I’ve not even started the main chapters. That just kind of paralysis me, I’m afraid.
But while I’m letting myself be distracted, I discovered a new fun plaything - podcasts. I came across it because of my love for the short-lived sci-fi show Firefly (created by Buffy’s Joss Whedon), which has now been turned into a movie called Serenity. Some fans created a podcast for it, called The Signal, and out of curiosity I downloaded it using iTunes and started listening to it while working on my paper.
In the meantime I have discovered that there are podcasts about all sorts of things. Basically it’s like radio shows — although I rarely listen to music podcasts (seeing that I already have several thousands mp3s on my external harddrive) — but you can simply download and listen to them at your own leisure, on your iPod (which is where the name comes from) or your computer. And by subscribing to a podcast you’ll automatically get the new episodes as they are published. Now I have to be careful not to get hooked on too many podcasts, because they just please my geeky little heart… *g*
Anyway, some links I’m using:
Resources
- iTunes Music Store: Podcast Directory
- PodcastPickle
- Podcast Alley
Podcasts
- The Signal (by Firefly fans, with interviews, etc.)
- Doctor Who: Podshock (by Dr. Who fans)
- Battlestar Galactica: DVD commentary (by Ron Moore, producer of BSG)
- Bored-Again Christian (Christian indie music)
- Lord of the Rings Radio (by LotR fans)
And just because I’m being so geeky, I feel I have to mention that we now have wireless internet access in our flat. That led to me sitting on the balcony working on my paper and looking up words in my favorite German-English dictionary. Geek heaven, indeed! 
Posted: Fandom, Life, Resources, Uni
15
August
2005
As an experiment I signed up for Google AdSense. Not that I want to annoy you with ads, but it might help me with my webhosting bills if people click interesting text links provided by Google. Well, we’ll see how it goes, I guess…
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Resources, Site
14
August
2005
After not going for the last two years because of my travels, this year marked the 7th time I went to the Streetparade in Zurich, where almost a million people danced on the streets to techno beats. It’s not really my scene anymore, but Sibylle and I dressed up (although not with as much effort as we used to) and had a lot of fun. Let me tell you - two girls on their own attract a lot of attention… Not always wanted, but still, a nice ego boost.
You can look at the photos I took (as well as some taken by our friend Beat, who was there ‘on the job’ for Partysearch.ch) on my Flickr account:
Posted: Life, Photos
7
August
2005
At least it feels that way, as I haven’t talked to anyone all day. I’m home alone for almost two weeks - my parents are on vacation in the mountains and my brother is a the Locarno film festival. I’m enjoying it, as it’s been a while that I had the house for myself. Not that I’m doing anything exciting: I’ve been holed up in my room working on my paper on online communities most of the day, and it’s been going pretty well, although I get side-tracked sometimes.
This is probably the best thing that could happen - no leaving the house, no talking to anyone, just focusing on my last paper, because I really want to finish before leaving for Japan in September. And in two weeks my German friend Märrie will come for a visit, which will probably cut into my study time quite a bit, although I’m very excited about it, as she hasn’t had the time to come to Switzerland for quite a long time. We’re going to have a lot of fun — especially if I manage to get ahead on the paper until then.
Yes, I am like a broken record these days. It’s called ’setting priorities’.
Btw, on Friday I procrastinated and put together a tentative itinerary for Japan. Just check out my travel journal for it and any other posts I make about or during the trip! *hinthint* 
Posted: Life
