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February 24, 2006

first investigations: done! :)

well, today we had our final reviews and presentations of the first Investigations design projects, themed "Energy". *it's confusing these different namings of projects since in the booklet they've taken on the names of Ivrea programs, but in reality it's a very Domus curriculum*

for the last four weeks, i've been working on this project together with liliana and raul. our project is called iFlow and soon i will put up the flash project presentation on my portfolio site *i'm procrastinating here, i keep saying i'm going to update my portfolio site and i never do*

our presentation went well; spontaneity and ad-lib is key. i was dismayed to find out that our group had to present last. i much prefer to present first or second, out of the six groups we had in interaction design.

yesterday, we printed up tshirts with the iFlow project logo on across the front and we wore that to the presentation today. everyone had a laugh over that.

here is the project abstract if you're interested...

iFlow concept abstract:
Play and free-movement in a designed urban playground as a physical activity to energise commuters.

Our project proposes a series of designed "zones" in which users can participate in free-movement to energise themselves, either as a personal exercise or a networked social activity.

The activity uses urban architecture, furniture and signage to achieve this goal.

It encourages:
- [re-]discovering of new areas within the city
- interaction with others of same interest
- exercise + fitness
- creativity + fun

next week we will start the Applied Dreams projects, which is a two-week innovation workshop, working with live briefs from clients.

i had to pick between "play" and "identity" and i picked the latter since i felt there was too much play and games in my projects and i would like to branch out more, and "identity" appealed to me in terms of identity, micro-economics and socio-cultural aspects of interaction design.

it will be an intense two-weeks.

have a good weekend, everyone!

Posted by Yasmina at 12:31 PM | Comments (2)

February 22, 2006

love therapy

last saturday, angela, kathya and i walked around corso di porta ticinese and naviglio area again. in search of shoes. :)

i bought a couple of t-shirts from love therapy. an orange one with the white words Love Hotel printed on the front. and another in red, with the Coca-Cola slogan in white, except it says "Enjoy Milk" instead of "Enjoy Coca Cola". when plastered across my chest like that, it's just politically incorrect *or so angela says* but i think it's funny!

anyway, i love how the staff wrapped my new t-shirts in these tins! angela and kathya were wildly jealous when i came out of the shop with a cool shopping bag and my new purchases... so they went back on monday and bought t-shirts for themselves too, hihi...

Posted by Yasmina at 12:44 AM | Comments (4)

February 18, 2006

kathya + angela

on thursday, after a very hectic crazy way of getting to milano, kathya and angela finally arrived! they'd missed their flight to bergamo, had to catch an afternoon flight into treviso (which is near venezia and nowhere near milano) then take the train from venezia into milano and some further added confusion of meeting up with me in centrale FS...

friday night the girls walked around and then we met up in the evening after i finished school. we went into every shop on corso di porta ticinese. bliss. shopping with girls and not having husband drag you quickly past handbag shops.

dinner on naviglio, at a wine restaurant. dessert was at fabbrica, where i went on thursday night with some friends from school. on the way home, we stopped by the wonderful 24-hour bakery/bar, princi in garibaldi for some cakes to bring home with us.

today we are going to do more shopping. eva, yasmina, kathya and angela. 4 girls + 0 husbands/boyfriend = retail therapy + dancing + drinking :)

Posted by Yasmina at 12:39 PM | Comments (4)

February 15, 2006

cozzy-wozzy

spending time with my cousin, his wife and their four-year-old son brings to my mind several things:
1. why robert and i don't have kids [yet]: it's best to borrow other people's kids because when you get tired or they start behaving less than sweet, you can return them to their parents. omg, what a night i had to endure... put it this way, when i was four, i no longer needed a stroller, i could feed myself and somehow my parents managed to instill table manners in me at that age.
2. i really don't like shopping with other people: it's the designer in me, i don't just go into any shop, i look for certain objects of desire when i shop abroad. and i hate being kept waiting for over an hour, in the cold, carrying my laptop+ipod+schoolstuff in my bag.
3. i don't make a good tour guide, in the conventional sense: again, i avoid touristy places and i like to find cool hip places that are out of the way perhaps, but well worth the visit. i mean, my classmates are never disappointed by the places i suggest and lots of friends usually ask for recommendations for city breaks, so they can't all be wrong. oh, but they're all designers. so now i'm wondering if i'm being elitist.

but but but

it reminds me

how much i love my cousin

my cousin is visiting me with his wife, vonny, and three-year-old son, matthew. cippy and i were close as children. he is the son of my father's younger brother and before my parents had me, they spent all their time babysitting cippy and taking him round at weekends.

cippy and my dad has a close relationship that even i get jealous of. in a lot of ways, he was the son my dad never had. cippy went to law school at UI, the same one my parents attended in the 60s and 70s, and he considered following my dad's footsteps at the department of foreign affairs. something my dad always wanted me to do. but i went to art school instead.

cippy is a couple of years older and as children we grew up close to each other. cippy and i spent weekends at my grandparents where we played together. we also alternated weekends with tante ann and oom djoko, who at that time, did not have denny yet.

*yah, cucu dan keponakan kesayangan gitu deh... sekarang gue juga masih ngerasa gue anaknya tante ann dan oom djoko, sampe nyokap gue sendiri jadi jealous... dan pas gue kuliah di london, kayanya gue lebih sering nelpon eyang kakung daripada nelpon ortu gue sendiri*

i've been away in europe for eleven years now, and i always feel like i'm the long-lost relative. sure, some of my other cousins have gone to university in US and australia but they'd never been gone as long as i have. i drop in and out of my cousins' lives, always maintaining a comfortable relationship in a really weird way.

for the brief times we're together, i think they expose themselves to me more than to other members of the family. maybe it's because when i am with a cousin, i give them my full attention, and my time is exclusively theirs. and they think i'll go away with their secrets and problems and emotions in a bottle in my pocket and not tell a soul *which i don't*

cippy and i never really knew each other as adults; it makes me sad. but i am glad he is here.

for three days anyway ;)

Posted by Yasmina at 01:08 AM | Comments (4)

February 11, 2006

february friday

yesterday was overall a good day. francesco morace lecture in the morning, whose topic is completely in line with our project concept direction so raul, lili and i were the ones with perky attentive ears and mind. i have to say that i look forward most to ezio manzini + francesco morace's lectures the most. they're most coherent of all the lectures.

then it was apperitivo with the ivrea people. it was pretty cool. i met steven who actually works with karen in berlin, and had a nice conversation with him. i had a nosy poke at their bookshelves and i think i will be popping there for library visits :)

after apperitivo, ana and i went to lili's. carlos is over for the weekend and he had prepared a lovely dinner. marcela, who is colombian, and her italian boyfriend, maurizio, came over shortly with a neapolitan chocolate-and-almond cake (superyummm).

afterwards, ana and i raced for the last metro home, and the others went salsa-dancing at havana.

when i got home, eva's friends had just left, and she was cleaning up after the party. i was sorry that i missed the party, but perhaps she'll invite more people next week or so. we had a short chat before i went to bed.

now i have a bit of a headache. must have been the alcohol from last night. i'm going to do some boring errands then i am meeting eva for coffee somewhere in town. want to go to la feltrinelli to pick up some dvds and it's always a nice place to sit a while and read books. :)

tomorrow, lili, carlos and raul are coming over for brunch and a bit of group work.

Posted by Yasmina at 03:46 PM | Comments (3)

February 09, 2006

nosebleeds

*reviving my one-word blog*

i came down with a cold last night and before i went to bed, i took an aspirin for my brewing headache. when i woke up this morning, my ears ached and my throat was parched and painful. my entire head is stuffed up. i've been sneezing so much and maybe blowing my nose too hard that i've been getting nosebleeds all day. not pretty.

my blood comes out in stringy lumps. yuck. it's a fascinating color, a deep ruby red. when i was a kid, i used to get nosebleeds in the summer when it got real hot. i looked like i'd been punched or something.

*108 words inspired by the word 'nosebleed'

Posted by Yasmina at 12:40 AM | Comments (2)

February 07, 2006

bored... [updated]

to see the Flickr notes, click here

edit:
another lecturer, late again... i can understand that sometimes things don't work out as planned, and people end up running late, or not turn up at all (!). what gets to me is the way one tutor would take the microphone and apologise, saying, "well, students, you must understand... mr so-and-so is a really important and famous designer/architect/person, so he has a busy schedule..."

as if you need to be important and famous to have a busy schedule.

what pissed me off once was the fact that a certain guest lecturer notified the college at 6 p.m the previous day to say he could not make it. the DA staff didn't notify the students that class had been cancelled either via email or phone, but they just waited until everyone turned up the next day and were sitting in the lecture hall to announce the cancellation.

hell, if i'd known that, i would have taken my pbook + camera around milan to do some user research.

*griping session over*

Posted by Yasmina at 03:31 PM | Comments (2)

February 06, 2006

energy -- or lack of it?

well. we're doing our first project and i am in a team with liliana and raul. the theme is energy, which we really like. so far we're working really well together, we come from diverse backgrounds and work in different ways but the discussions are really fluid and we really get each other. energy runs high in our group :)

on the other hand, the weekend before last, my trip to netherlands was cancelled due to bergamo being closed down after heavy snowfall. not seeing dearly-missed husband puts one in a bad mood, hence low energy level. :(

Posted by Yasmina at 11:18 AM | Comments (3)