Though it is reminiscent of the 'unit tests' , its syllabus brings back memories of the 'boards'! They are rollin' from day after tomorrow.

Its tough...and its confusing, but do we have an option?

2 days to go

Anyways, this year's Durga Pujo was a lot different from my previous outings. There was no tension of exam-devils hovering over my head...and I was free to roam about in the pandals as if I am alone. Here's a small account of my Durga Pujo '08 ...

• Panchami : Went for 'Anondomela' at Noida Kalibari, Sector 26. This is generally the first evening of the Pujos and on this day ladies put up stalls of food that they have cooked, and people come and have it. Its generally a contest. This time though, the variety was pretty minimal. Nothing much to be experimented with.
• Shashti : Had bhog (normally has khichdi(khichudi), a tarkari (torkari), dal and kheer (paayesh)) in the afternoon. Evening was show-time. My aunt had a ballet performance and I had a musical night to indulge in. Everything went pretty smoothly. Had a hell lot of fun playing Aadat in front of a pretty responsive crowd.
• Saptami : Bhog in the aftrenoon, and Kalibari in the evening. Kalibari is a pretty happening place during the Pujo, and we cashed in to savour some delicious rolls and kebabs! Watched Nachiketa (a Bong singer) with his troupe in the sector - 50 pandal, which I must say, was pretty well made.
• Ashtami : Spent most of the morning listening to Pink Floyd  :D , and spent the evening at Parsvnath Prestige. Did 'dhunuchi-naach' ..which is an ultimate experience for any bong who is fit enough to participate. Had to turn up for the 'sondhi-pujo' at 3 am next day!
• Navami : Was sleepy throughout the day because of my adventurous night where I had to contend watching tigers roar in unision on NatGeo till 3 am and then attended the sondhi-pujo, which went on till 4.30 am!! There was this Dandiya program at Parsvnath, which was pretty vibrant, so I managed to do a li'l jig!
• Dashami : Most of it was spent amidst shouts of 'Aashche Bocchor, Abaar Hobe' (next year, it will be held again) at the immersion ground at Kalindi Kunj, Delhi. The evening passed in conveying Bijoya greetings to everyone around.

As you might've guessed after reading this, my Pujo was pretty busy this year. Here's wishing you Happy Dussehra/ Shubho Bijoya !

Aashche bocchor....Aabar Hobe!!!!! :D

And I have the entire afternoon alone at home for cleaning and cooking and preparing for shabat. No kids to stumble upon.. no screaming, no begging, no small fingers to keep away from the stove, no stolen oven mittens, no fighting in the kids' room, no small (or big) feet making new footprints where I just cleaned, no kid that badly needs to pee when I just got started cleaning the toilet, no baby freaked out by the vacuum cleaner, no comments on every single move I make, no questions about how and when and what and why, no hubby trying to hug me when I'm in the most tricky part of the recipe, no baby sitting under the table eating dry macaroni and nasty bread crumbs (and crayons and small suspicious pieces of plastic).

I love to hear the voices in my head again!!

Don't take me wrong.. I love my family! But it's just SO nice to have one afternoon alone.. to be able to do all these things without "help". And there is SO much more energy left when the evening comes..

men

när jag kollar på den här bilden på  min mamma, blir jag lite glad måste jag erkänna..
haha

Jag har as tråkigt.
Felicia har inte hört av sig och hon svarar inte på mitt sms..
jag som trodde att jag skulle få se den där söta tjejen ikväll, men tydligen inte.
Då blir jag lite ledsen.
Sen ringde Thony när jag satt och käkade, så jag skulle ringa upp men
när jag gjorde det så svarar han inte.
Plupp plupp plupp..
Vad ska jag då hitta på?
Ingen ide alls, faktiskt.

ha en trevlig kväll gott folk

Volume interviews Alberto Iacovoni from Ma0

At the occasion of Ma0’s presentation in Venice in the Italian pavilion, Volume had an interview on what proved to be the hidden theme of this year’s Biennale: sustainability. The Italian office Ma0 (emmeazero, acronym for Media Architecture Office) has for more than 11 years been engaged in research and design with special focus on architecture as medium and the interaction with media.

Usually we don't regard Ma0 as a 'sustainable' architecture office in a strict sense. But you are always looking for new kinds of lifestyles and sociality in liberated public spaces. Perhaps sustainability can be achieved in other ways, maybe not thinking only in terms of carbon emissions and energy savings...

Nowadays architects are dealing with sustainability focusing only on how technology can reduce the emissions, how we can reach a kind of self-sufficient climate balance etc. This is very important of course but this is not the main question about architecture. We can make very efficient buildings without dealing with the idea of the form of the building itself, or how the 'sustainable city' could be imagined. In other words, we can find sustainable solutions, from the energy point of view, to be applied to any kind of architectural form and language.
We should on the contrary focus more on how the form itself can contribute to a sustainable environment, not only because – as the studies by Newman and Kenworthy on the compact city were pointing out – a specific form is more or less dissipative, but also because from a true ecological approach, sustainability cannot be reduced to an energy issue, but should concern the social one too.
The word 'ecology' refers to a kind of totality, a holistic vision of the environment.
In our work sustainability is seen from this point of view. I like to say that our research is a research for an ecology of form. Let me explain this.

The contemporary city seems the most unsustainable environment that mankind has ever built, not just as regards the large-scale consumption of energy and environmental resources (generally known as the urban footprint), but also and above all for the forms of occupation and organization of land at every level. Mechanisms increasing the value of areas continually fuel phenomena of expansion, in which the land on which the new city grows is an unspecialized, intensely subdivided space. The expansion of surface car parks, the proliferation of boundaries and barriers between different properties, and diverse areas that are interconnected only by a capillary street network, produce a sprawling, fragmented and dissipative urban structure.
If ecology is according to the Ernst Haeckel definition, the science of relations, to be really ecological we have to rebuild the relations in this fragmented reality. Relations between spaces, people, and environments. Therefore architecture should concentrate more on connections, than on the objects themselves.
That's why one of the keywords of our research is continuity, that is to say, something that has the capacity to connect things. Of course this thing is public space. For example, our proposal for this Biennale, Footprints, is a further step in this research on continuity that has been ongoing since the founding of ma0. Recently we did an urban study for the city of Almere in the Netherlands, focusing specifically on this theme.

Footprints is simply made of images, visions on how this concept of continuity could work in the city. With Footprints we propose to reverse, to overturn the common point of view on the city. Not to focus on architecture, buildings, but to talk about what is in between buildings, what is connecting buildings, that is to say, public space – traditional public spaces as parks, streets and piazzas, but also more green, natural spaces, woods and spaces for leisure activities. I short: we have to work with voids, with spaces more than buildings.

Another main issue of sustainability is how a built environment can change and adapt to changing conditions. One of the main theoretical assumption of architecture in the 20th century was the power of the project to manage in itself the complexity of the future development of the city. The failure of many of those projects that have been realized shows us that we cannot tell in advance what will really happen...
So, one of the important questions of sustainability today is trying to produce systems that are in some ways weaker than the ones of the 20th century, able to adapt to the changing conditions as living systems, more than as dead concrete bodies.
That's why another keyword in our architectures is play, which means the research for a performative quality of form, for an architecture that can meet the ever changing needs and desires of people who live in those spaces. An architecture which opens its inertial boundaries to interaction and intervention of the inhabitants.

From this point of view the continuity concept is something necessary to define the playground, the platform for interactions, a loosening of borders in the city to multiply the opportunities of a social play.

Maurizio Giufré in an editorial in the Italian newspaper il manifesto of September 12 pointed out that architects today cannot present real critiques of contemporary society...

That was really hard about the Biennale...

Indeed. You mentioned this idea of playscapes. How do you see this idea in relation to our consumption society? Is it a kind of liberation from the money economy, or are new ideas destined to become valuable marketable goods?

I don't remember who said this, that every weapon that we use can be turned against ourselves. We operate in a capitalist society. So, if we really want to escape this kind of society we should maybe not start from architecture, but from different things, such as direct political action. I think architecture is a really compromissory activity in itself. It's in the middle of dynamics which are much stronger than the architect and his/her ideas. But at the same time there still is a little freedom of action, for producing visions, for interfering with these dynamics.

It's always very dangerous to say 'ok, I’m really liberating things'. For example, these images that we have produced about this idea of continuous network of empty spaces going through the city at the same time can appear as a system of borders between isolated communities. So, I know that every image we produce can at he same time be looked at as its reversal. If you look at the history of the 20th century, you see that all utopian visions have been realized with the opposite value. The utopia of mass-society with everything mass-produced was an idea of liberation but in the end it became a tool for caging people. So in some ways I think that, as Guy Debord said, theories are made to die during time, so you always have to change your position.

The idea of play in some respects meets the capitalistic needs. For example, new media are now used to make people play in their little bedrooms, sometimes getting them less conscious about their own material conditions, separating people from each other. So, play is a really powerful tool to make people forget what the real problems are.
What is interesting in architecture is that this idea of play can on the contrary be politically very provocative.

Just to make another example: we won a competition in 2003, in one of the Europan sessions in Drancy, in the outskirts of Paris. The motto was 'Playscape'. The program asked to make a proposal for the renewal of a low-income housing project in Drancy, and playscape was the idea of a neighborhood that could be really open to the direct intervention of the inhabitants. We got the first prize, just because we had Herman Hertzberger in the jury who was really enthusiastic about our project. But then when we met the representatives of the city, they told us something very simple: 'the space is not public, it belongs to the Republic. It's the Republic that really decides what to do and what not to. At this moment, we don't want people to decide about that space, and we would make any project on it, but not yours...’

If you bring play out of the private space and you put in the public one, you are liberating some real interconnections between people, and also liberating some conflicts, of course. So this becomes a provocative theme which can address some central questions in the present political debate.

Architecture is something related to really material stuff. This because it is strongly linked on how the market goes. Once you try to put this kind of thinking, you are discussing about some really fundamental things of our society. I don't think we can really overturn this, but I think it's our duty to try to put – as we say in Italian – some grains in the gears, something which can produce some frictions, to make some slight perturbations in the system that could lead to some unpredictable consequences.

On the other hand, in a moment in which the debate on public space is more and more about safety, about controlling people, the idea of play can be seen as something really inactual. But I think that if we don't talk about this, then what shall we do? We could also accept more and more gated communities and controlled space, but if we have some kind of free thought, we have in some ways to try to produce some visions that are against this destiny of this gated and controlled contemporary city.

This is from a cartoon called "Squidbillies" that's on Cartoon Network's AdultSwim late at night. While the lyrics to the song are a bit crude, they do give a different perspective on the Christian Poem "Footprints." Some things in our lives as Christians become so cliche that it's hard to remember the depth of them, and that they really mean something. This clip reminds us that Satan really is along for the ride, every step of the way. There are temptations all around, all day, everyday. God doesn't expect us to be perfect...that's why when we give our lives to Him, when Satan is digging his claws into us, that God carries us through.

Kimbo has been exposed as a farce. I don't exactly know who the guy is, but the name is familiar. Wikipedia says he's a MMA fighter.

Death redefined by doctors to save more lives through transplants. This is actually deserving of an article. I'll return to it.

Oldest tracks of a creature using legs to move around have been found. Also deserving an article, I think...

Karl Rove projects Obama will win. This will probably be covered by the pro-Americans around here. :)

Credit crisis threatens car industry. Thank God this is in the US. Who knows what might have happened if it had affected people bringing cars in from Germany...

I did not actually take the time to read the last 2, but for some reason I felt they should be 5 in total.

(source: Yahoo)

Man kanske skulle ta och tvätta idag?

Well, for a person who just had a whale of a time going in a truck to get the idols, or shall I say, 'Protimas' for the Durga Puja...this is pretty apt for a title. The appartment complex behind mine, i.e. Parsvnath Prestige, sector - 93A, has been organizing a Durga Puja since last year. This time, as I am pretty much free from break-neck studies, I am freely participating in the 'ultimate week of the year' for any average Bengali. Hence, I was supposed to go with my father and a lot of people from Parsvnath, to get the idols yesterday. So I did..in case you thought I slept through :D . We left at 9.30 ish with two trucks, as one is not enough to carry all the 5 dieties together. The journey was so awesome. The truck driver must've thought it was some sports car that he was driving...he was going at 70-80! For a truck, that is a LOT! When we reached, we found out that the idols weren't yet ready and would take some 2 hours more to be ready for taking it with us. We came back..the Parsvnath people went to have their dinner at their homes while I went to a Muslim restaurant with my father. We treated ourselves to sumptous kebabs and headed back to the idol-maker's workshop in the same truck, with the same speed! After that, it was the time for pulling hard at the idols and placing them on the truck. We returned with the idols at 3.30...and we slept at 4!

Almost had our night up, but there was no real tiredness.

After all, we had 'truck-ed' our way and back!

Nu kom jag hem
sen ska jag sova, kanske.
upp i tid imorgon och åka till vår kära skola och repa
sen hem igen
så kommer Jonas
den här helgen går snabbt

god natt, fin hatt

Sugar Spankshock

話說那天早上回籠給他睡到爽以後、吃了個不怎麼樣的早餐 （我們晚餐加早餐在遠來吃了兩家餐廳都不怎麼樣！）、就出發往這趟的主要行程：太魯閣去了！

從遠來開到太魯閣印象中好像也要一個多小時。我們到了以後先去了遊客中心一趟看看那邊是圓還扁。我們全家人似乎都很久沒到太魯閣了、我就不用說了、老爸老媽也都不知道那邊路都是新開的、很多路段都變得又寬又直的。我在遊客中心稍微研究了一下那附近的登山道。。感覺還不少、不過這趟來時間太短、又是跟爸媽、所以可能要等Ｎ年以後才有機會吧

1.

長春祠是紀念中橫公路施工殉職工人的地方。。。。

2.

3.

這邊很多步道 馬路 都是像這樣直接從山壁鑿出來的、很難想像當時施工的困難度跟危險度啊

4.

5.

6.

我來到這裡真的是忍不住喊出 “怎麼會有那麼美的地方啊！！！“

7.

垂直的山壁及他美麗的紋路是河流侵蝕及造山運動的證據！

8.

其實我從吊橋上拍照的時候、手很抖、流很多汗。我很怕高啊！

9.

新路及隧道開出來以後、以前的舊路就變成人行道了。剛好可以慢慢的走慢慢的欣賞大自然的創作。

10.

11.

12.

13.

據說這邊在九二ㄧ過後其實地質都還沒有穩定下來。如果碰到下雨天最好幾天內都不要隨便來晃、免得遇到落石。沿路很多“落石地段請勿逗留“的牌子、也看得到欄杆被落石砸爛的痕跡。來看個風景也是要頂著生命危險的。。 圖中那一堆落石就是無預警的情況下掉落的說（官方講解標示寫的）

過了燕子口、九曲洞之後、我們一路走走停停的開到了天祥、吃過飯以後才折回來。不過我在九曲洞過後換上的第二張記憶卡掛點了、所以照片只能貼到這裡 Ｔ＿Ｔ

我還想再來啊～ 這邊實在是太美了！沒有來過的人一定要來一趟。我拍的照片完全無法表達太魯閣的美麗、那是一種要親眼看到才能了解的感動！！！ 我想、有機會的話我想來這裡慢慢的走個幾趟。 中橫從入口走到天祥也不過二十幾公里、ㄧ天應該走的完吧？另外他裡面的登山道我也想去走走看。。。 改年吧！

More Photos

After meal, to my amazement, the people on the next table almost kept the dishes intact. And then I was asked to take leftovers home. While I was packing the food, I was excited of course but the feeling of God's mercy took hold of me deeply.

God is merciful and abounding in love. He loves to satisfy my heart's desires even I am sinful and wetched.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretched like me...

Nu ska jag sova

Jag saknar er mina söta bästa fina vänner!

Then the rock fell, much of it burned up in the atmosphere, but what was left was significant enough to have crystallized itself, burn the land around it, kill half of the world, and change the landscape significantly from the lushflatlands tht it had once been.

Hiking over the crater, Alain called to his friends - archaeologists who had only ever learned about the Rock from books, newsreels, pictures and stories. Now that they were adults, now that they made their own choices, they chose to research the only thing that made the most significant impact on the world since its creation.

The Rock was grey and cold to the touch, craggy and dusty. Allain had tried to mentall prepare for what he was going to see, but to be in its prescense was somehing he couldn't have imagined.

I have also gone through very specific stages about these persons and friendships in my life.  I started to use the word, "phases", but a phase would seem more fleeting and passing than what this has come to be for me.  Stages of development, growth, understanding.... that is what I describe here.  For every person that has entered, and since left, in some cases, my life, there is a lesson and a message that I will take with me for the rest of my life.  Until recently, I wasn't sure that I wanted to know what those lessons were.  Otherwise, I would have to come to some type of acceptance about a person having been in my life, and then, well, sort of fading away out of my life.  I wasn't sure, even as recently as a few months ago, if I wanted to try to have understanding about why that person, or persons, was no longer an active participant in my daily living.  What could be any valid reason that a person would leave my life, without being told to do so?  What explanation would make any sense whatsoever of why a person was unable to answer a telephone call, an email, just to say hi?  What would keep someone that I had known in the past from staying in touch?

I am no longer haunted by these questions when it comes to those who have entered my life over the span of time, and then left it again.  I have come to a peace with it, a peace that has been much time in coming.  I recently had a person seek me out, and find me, yet will not tell me who they are from my past.  At first, that concerned and upset me, because I could not recall who this person is, from the vague clues being given.  Now, I realize that it does not really matter if the identity is ever revealed to me by this person; what matters, is that they were a part of my life, a meaningful part, in the past, and that there were lessons in that.  I am not sure why the lesson of the lessons of others has picked now to show itself to me and have full meaning.  It isn't like I didn't want to understand before; I guess I really was not ready to fully understand.

Now, for me it has become so simple.  A person crosses my path, comes into my life, walks with me along the path for a day, a month, or ten years.  Or, maybe they are always walking the same path with me, sometimes a bit ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes right beside me.  Whoever it is, whatever face is on that person, and for however long that they are with me, the lessons are clear to me now, for each one.  Some of the lessons that have been brought to me by these angels on earth are self-love, kindness, sobriety, resilience, intelligence, giving, integrity, fun, and humour.  Even with those persons who left my life under very negative, hurtful circumstances, the lessons are still there, and they are not lessons of bitterness, resentment, and negativity, which I anticipated being so.  I think that they are not so tainted because I have embraced forgiveness, compassion, and understanding for what they did, and why they needed to do it. 

Those that have come to my life with a purpose, left their footprints forever on my heart.  For some, that trail of footprints is long; others are there only briefly, but the mark is unmistakable.  In my memory, those footprints have been formed as one tread softly along, not stomping on my heart.  Even if we had struggles, now they do not feel painful, but rather, as two people just doing the best that they knew how to do with and for one another.  Footprints in the sand, like on a beach that has no tide, so they never wash away.... those are the footprints that I imagine to be on my heart left by such visitors to my life.

I believe that over the course of time, I have left my own size 8 1/2 D width footprints on the hearts of others as well.  Maybe one of those persons is the one who is seeking me out, maybe others will over time as well.  I cannot know for sure.  All I can know, is that the impact that they have had on me is forever and signficant, and I can only hope that my own on their lives, my footprints, will be there with them for all eternity.

Do you leave footprints, or have footprints left in the sandy beaches of your heart?  Do you forgive, and let go, so that you can gain understanding for another, and for the lessons learned?  For me, understanding brings freedom, freedom to walk the beaches of our hearts and souls and to know that when we live our lives in true love, so will we be given, and so will we be able to continue to journey and love and understand one another.

Och nu sitter jag här, Jonas har åkt hem, mamma har åkt hem, så det är bara jag och Olivia kvar.
På nått vis längtar jag hem, jag saknar pappa. Och så får jag inte åka hem i helgen heller.
Typiskt, men men, ska på musikal med mormor och gänget, haha, det är ju mysigt iaf.

Nu ska jag duscha
och tänka
Jag känner mig låg på nått vis

This photo worked even better than I expected it to. I took this whilst walking along the promnade at Portobello; I noticed the footprints and tried to capture the indentations made by them. However, what I had not anticipated was that some trick of the light has shown them not as indentations, but rather as little mounds of sand, this is much more obvious when the larger version is viewed.