Vandaag (zondag 31/08) ben ik wakker geworden in mijn eigen bed. Het was de eerste keer sinds eind juli. Ik sliep uit, ook voor de eerste keer sinds lang geleden.

Om twaalf uur begon ik uit te pakken, op te ruimen en op te bergen. Na een paar dozen realiseerde ik mij dat ik honger had en dat geen eten (voor mij) in de keuken zat. Echter is de keuken vol met eten, maar ik weet nog niet of het delen van voedsel met mijn huisgenoten toegestaan is. Dus moest wat boodschappen doen: een lastige taak op een zondagmiddag maar ook een gelegenheid om mijn nieuwe buurt te bezoeken.

Eindelijk heb ik een AH winkel gevonden die geopend blijft tot zeven uur. Het moest dé zondagswinkel in de buurt zijn: het stond zo vol met mensen dat ik tegen minstens tien personen erin botste. Op de weg erheen en terug realiseerde ik mij ook dat ik nu in een grote stad woon, door de eindeloze opeenvolging van gelijksoortige woonpanden langs de straat naar de winkel. In deze buurt standen ook panden met meer dan vier verdiepingen, een andere teken van een drukker bevolking.

De tweede deel van de middag was tijd voor schoonmaken. De eerste stap was het inventariseren van onze reinigingsmiddelen. Zoals ik vreesde vond ik een tekort… Na de vakantieperiode verwacht ik dat zo'n studentenhuis wat minder onderhouden was: de drie stofzuigers zijn bijna buiten gebruik, de ene gebroken en de twee andere met volle stofzaken. Natuurlijk kon ik geen vervanging vinden. Dan was het schoonmaken van de grote badkamer, de keuken en de deuren met een kleine spons en een ineffectieve zeep geen aangename taak. Eindelijk had ik meer geluk met het dweilen, want de vloer was al wat schoon en dus was de afwezigheid van vloerzeep geen zware last.

Vandaag heb ik ook kennisgemaakt met mijn derde huisgenoot (alleen maar één moet ik nog ontdekken). Dit snelsprekende meisje informeerde mij over de kosten van onze internet aansluiting, en over het feit dat ik mijn eigen ruimte in de keuken mijzelf moet veroveren. Met haar hulp heb ik een eerste plek van twintig centimeters op een rek gekregen. De rest ga ik bespreken later deze week met de anderen.

Het resultaat van de dag: een grote wanorde in mijn kamer, wat eten klaar in de koelkast en maar drie dozen verlaten om uit te pakken.

Morgen is mijn eerste dag op de Universiteit. Ergens deze week moet ik weer naar Rotterdam om wat meer spullen te halen. Tja, dat ga ik niet vanavond plannen. Nu is weer tijd voor slapen.

The goal was simple: bring the stuff I need to Amsterdam, the rest to a storage space (courtesy of a friend).

Initially I contacted several moving companies. The high price they asked for caused my attention to shift to the (well-intended) advice I was receiving from friends: organize the operation by my own means. In the end, I realize it was a misguided choice…

The costs added up quickly:

• subscribing to a post forwarding service
• buying cardboard boxes
• renting a small vehicle to carry some stuff to storage space
• offering dinner to the two friends helping
• renting a larger vehicle to carry most of the stuff to Amsterdam
• filling a gas tank
• feeding the 3 people on board during the trip
• offering dinner to 3 friends for help afterwards
• hiring some help for the washing machine
• buying train tickets for 5 trips
• storing some stuff at the station
• asking a taxi to help on the last way between my old place and the train station

Note: I do not own a driving license nor a vehicle of my own.

For a grand total of approximately 1200€ — not counting:

• the stress of the organization,
• the time and energy spent packing, unpacking, unbuilding and rebuilding of the furniture,
• the sweat and energy spent carrying bags, boxes and other things on my own back,
• the time spent thinking and acting the move (nearly a work week),
• the strain on the relationship with my friends.

Retrospectively, delegating the entire work to a team of experienced movers would have amounted to around 1000€ without worries…

And yet, I do not feel frustrated. The physical exercise I performed was worth the effort, as it does help me feel healthier and overall more confident in my physical abilities. Involving my friends in my moving may have helped make the transition for them, smoothing their realization that I am actually leaving their usual surroundings for the foreseeable future.

As far as the stereotype about urban gay men approaching their forties goes, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren do not deceive while adding a pinch of seriousness to their worldly concerns by means of glasses with thick black frames.

I have never been a fashionista myself, and will probably not become one. The thought of spending any significant amount of my time hunting new designs and attending the mass leaves me totally unphased. Yet, a one hour excursion on the third floor of the Barbican Arts Centre in London proved to be both a refreshing and enlightening experience.

A friend, dear among the dearest, brought me to a fashion exhibition in the City of London. He intended this experiment both as an initiation and as a test for my taste — I would hear “I wonder if you will like it” at least thrice before we eventually squeezed the last hours of our trip together in the Barbican Centre.

The key works of Dutch fashion designers Viktor and Rolf were on display in a two-floor exhibition hall. Visitors are there invited to follow a sequence of rooms around a central doll house, where each of the hall's rooms would match a room in the doll house and contain a couple models and a projection screen.

Describing the collection and its qualities would far exceed my vocabulary skills, so I will not dwelve into details here. However, the purpose of this note today is to stay as a reminder of how touched I was by the amount of creative work and creative diversity that was concentrated in these fifty-something models. Unexpected in a fashion exhibit, I felt more respect and admiration for these tailors than I have for many painters in art musea.

Add this to the brutal style of the estate of which the Barbican Centre is part, its stained grey ragged concrete walls and columns contrasting with the lush and lively yet constrained small lake that it contains, and you get a picture of a foreign urban world of sorts — obscurely pure and devoid of irregularities, where nature is enclosed, and where the only form of art is worn somptuously as unique and breathtaking clothes.

I discovered a world of dreams, made for and by them. London is a city of many surprises.

The ability of social networking sites such as FB, Plaxo or Hyves to display information from RSS feeds is an easy way to broadcast to many people.

But then comes the question of where should more personal stuff stay and how can it be communicated. Obviously it cannot be broadcasted in the same way — even if it stays publicly reachable.

The solution: a simple gateway.

Imagine.

Imagine you meet someone. This person wears an eye mask on both eyes, and uses a white cane to find their way around. It does not take long for you to figure out that this person is blind.

Then this person comes up to you, knowing that you have a keen ear for others. This person explains: “I have never seen a picture in my life. Recently, I acquired this camera and I wanted to take pictures of the world around me. Unfortunately, I cannot see the pictures taken by this camera. I am very sad.”

As a kind hearted person, what would be your reaction?

A colleague of mine wisely suggested: it is important to be kind, but this person could be explained clearly and easily that their expectations were not set properly. A camera does not make a blind person able to see pictures, and there is not much more to be said about the situation.

End of round one.

To your other self, now imagine. Imagine you witness the following situation, as an external observer.

It is day in a featureful neighborhood in a friendly city. The day is bright and sunny.

You see a person, otherwise healthy and without unusal traits, holding a camera to take a picture of the scenery.

You notice that the flash is activated as indicated by the pulsing LED indicator. However you can see also that the flash is oriented incorrectly, i.e. pointing in the direction of the person holding the camera instead of the direction of the scenery.

The person actionates the trigger, and receives the light in the face.

After a few minutes it appears clear that the person recovers their sight but expresses their inconfort with the situation to a another passer-by also interested in the situation.

The person and the passer-by talk for a while, apparently discussing the features of the camera. You overhear the passer-by suggesting confidently: “your eyes have expressed pain when you took the picture. Our shared common sense recommends that you mutilate them.”

You observe (with no means to interfere) that the person agrees and dutifully blinds themselves permanently. For the purpose of this “dream” you can let yourself imagine that the mutiliation completed quickly and was relatively painless.

Then this person comes up to you, knowing that you have a keen ear for others. This person explains: “I have never seen a picture in my life. Recently, I acquired this camera and I wanted to take pictures of the world around me. Unfortunately, I cannot see the pictures taken by this camera. I am very sad.”

As a kind hearted person, what would be your reaction?

End of round two.

Statements:

• knowledge and wisdom can help avoid complex situations.
• knowledge makes it more difficult to deal with complex situations.
• lack of curiosity and painful narrow-mindedness can be interchangeable.
• ignorance makes people weak.