Beauty, Inspiration

Soundtrack: Sony Advert - Soundville

Read Director Juan Cabral's comments on the making of here.

And another one by the same director, aren't those bunnies cute? Especially the little yellow one at 0:35 :)

Link

I love this city

And while I'm discovering the little corners and places around Zurich that are not about LV-bags or big cars or self-conscious "Szenies" (hm, how to translate that, maybe hipsters?) C. posts this link on fb about the website (and the blog) of a genevan girl that collects cute shops, cafés or other places and presents them by neighbourhood. Makes me miss Geneva a lot, places like "La Sixième Heure" a café/secondhand furniture shop where you can have an old-style hot chocolate and then buy the cup if you like it, or the chair you're sitting on. Or "Les Recyclables", a secondhand bookstore where I love to browse through the english-section and then start reading the book I bought while having coffee and homemade cakes... awwww... I think I have a goal for the next three months, start discovering places I like in Zurich, be it like them or different, be it about the people or the environment or the objects.

the one life that we've got

Soundtrack: Imogen Heap - Wait It Out

indeed, time heals everything...

Wow.

It's been a month since I last blogged. Wow. I think I've rarely gone that much time without blogging and I suspect it's due to two things: 1. the abundance of time spent in front of a computer and 2. the lack of time spent on a train.

In the last month I just happened to move to Zurich, subscribe for a 10km run, prepare an Apéro for 30 people because my parents were on holidays and welcomed Sheer Khan's second round of babies for this year, kitten therapy all over again :)

Oh and yesterday I did Zurich-Lausanne retour, enjoying the beauty of the landscape, and the unmistakeable signs of autumn.

Inspirational reading for today

"I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try."

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

Read the entire speech here.

If I was in Zurich tomorrow and had the afternoon off...

I'd first go visit the lifefair.2009, the exposition for sustainability, where restaurants, magazines, environmental protection organisations, the airport (?), networks, tourist offices, tofu producers, university institutes and the administration and many more are presenting their products and services or maybe their efforts in the area of sustainability.

And at 5pm I'd go to the Traktor Getränke-Apéro (Info here) at the "Day of the open wine bottle" - that's what it's actually called, I'm not kidding! :)) to enjoy some of their swiss made organic smoothies.

(to the right is one of their redesigned bottles, the labels are really cute!)

Or, alternatively, I'd go first to Traktor, then to the Opening Event of Lifefair on "Green Business" at 7pm (subscribe here) and keep the exposition itself for Saturday or Sunday :)

It's time to move to Zurich I think...

for inspiration

Ashoka's New Fellows Annoucement:

		New Fellows Announcement August 24, 2009

Please join us in celebrating the election of these leading social entrepreneurs, elected as Ashoka Fellows from December 2008 to April 2009. Read on to learn about their system-changing and innovative work. HUMAN RIGHTS Alito Alessi, Mexico, Senior Fellow Eliminating prejudices and misconceptions towards disabled people through mixed-abilities dance that enables expression for all people. Read more here. Tasneem Siddiqui, Pakistan, Senior Fellow Overhauling the traditional housing scheme by granting former slumdwellers access to affordable and developed plots of land. Read more here. Asad Danish, Afghanistan, Fellow Bringing harmony to war-torn Afghanistan and the Pushtoon tribal belt in Pakistan by encouraging a culture of reading and increasing the literacy rate. Read more here. Junior Smart, UK, Fellow Providing new avenues of reintegration for prisoners through a peer mentoring system led by ex-offenders. Read more here. See the complete New Fellows Annoucement with people working in the areas of Health, Economic Development, Learning/Education, Civic Engagement and Environment.

Eat Real. Eat Local.

So until I get that great name for a food blog that isn't taken yet I'll just post about things related to food here :)

Like this initiative by Hellmanns, a canadian mayonnaise producer. Weird, I know. Why would they care about good food? They have a pretty ok explanation over here (click on the jar on the bottom). While I don't know their motivations, I do like the points they're making in the video about the amount of food imported into Canada and the benefits of local produce. Watch it yourself:

Hellmann’s - It’s Time for Real from CRUSH on Vimeo.

Insights at 8am

Alain de Botton - A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

That's why I love TEDtalks, because talks like the one from Alain de Botton suddenly give me a new insight, a different perspective to look at things and because I'm made to think differently.

Love his thoughts on how we have replaced god with nature, to worship something non-human. Oh, and his explanations of "snobbery":

(...) A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are, that is snobbery. And the dominant kind of snobbery that exists nowadays is job snobbery. You encounter it within minutes at a party when you get that famous, iconic question of the early 21th century, "What do you do?". And according to how you answer that question, people are either incredibly delighted to see you or look at their watch and make their excuses." (...)

No wonder we care about our careers so much :)

(...) So what I want to argue for, is not, that we should give up on our ideas of success, but we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas, and make sure that we own them, that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it’s bad enough, not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want, and find out at the end of the journey, that it isn’t in fact what you wanted all along. (...)

Alles Neu

Soundtrack: Peter Fox - Alles Neu

if you see a crazy person in a blue and white striped shirt dancing on the streets of Zurich, iPod in her ears, it might be me :)

ya, I know, I'm kinda late with liking Peter Fox, but what the heck. Check out the video, especially the last 40 seconds :)

"Nur noch konkret reden, gib mir ein ja oder nein.
Schluss mit Larifari, ich lass all die alten Faxen sein."

Ever heard about Edupunks? :)

"The challenge is not to bring technology into the classroom, he points out. The millennials, with their Fa.ce.book and their cell phones, have done that. The challenge is to capture the potential of technology to lower costs and improve learning for all."

Read the whole articel at Fast Company:

How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education

And the challenge is to get swiss schools and universities to see how technology is not substituting a teacher but transforming learning.

things that caught my attention

are now often posted as links on my fb profile, don't know why, it just happened like this and I think it has to do with the automatic reaction that comes when posting a link: a selection of thumbnails to choose from, a few lines from the website the link goes to and some space for me to comment. The downside of this? I don't post these things on my blog, and therefore will never look at them again. Gonna change that :)

the relaxing effect of cleaning out the iTunes library

Soundtrack: Keith Jarrett - Köln Concert

If I would do just one more reflection session, that's the music I'd put :) Just discovered it again after getting it years ago through Napster, good old times :)

I'm just wondering

Is it practical or sad that I learn about friends' weddings on fa.ceb.ook?

I guess it depends on the definition of "friend".

still beautiful

Soundtrack: Imogen Heap - Canvas

freaks :)

Soundtrack: Ebony Bones - The Muzik

I need to

be on my toes, alert, awake, pro-active, take initiative, move first, move faster, spark, spark, spark, think ahead, focus, focus, focus, interact, engage, contribute, construct, look for inspiration, reflect, think, analyze, consider, decide, apply, implement, practice, try out. every day.