Weekend!

Yeah! It's W.E.E.K.E.N.D!

The regular visitors of my blog, or the ones that follow me on twitter or facebook, will have noticed that I've been stressing out a bit this week. Which is why I'm so happy it's weekend of course :D
So, what was the fuzz about then?
Well, on Wednesday I had to present the results from three interviews I held for a course on 'Nähe und Distanz in der Wissensgesellschaft'. We collected quite a lot of data, which induced some nice discussions on the subject. Do jobs follow people nowadays, instead of people following the jobs? Has the place in which you work (office, home, café) become irrelevant, or less relevant? Are Dutch people more family oriented and less individualistic than Germans / Berliner?
And then today, I had to present (in 5 minutes) the paper that ought to have written until Friday last week on economic forecasting in brainport policy. Ought to have, yes, but hadn't. So I had to finish that first. Which I didn't...
But, the presentation went fine. Again, it was nice to discuss the different (and similar) results we all found. This afternoon, actually just now, I finally finished the report, which I am actually quite content with. Not perfect, never perfect, but quite ok :) [I might put it online here later, but I really wanna go get something to eat now]
So, it's weekend! For the moment... Two more reports to write until next Friday, so the weekend won't be that long. And some of you will be seeing some stressed out tweets again next week. But I don't worry about that now because it's ....... exactly

Mierlo FTW

Mierlo, a cute (or so it seemed) little town in the south of the Netherlands, has started it's quest for world domination on the g00gles:

Och, het is koers!

First time ever dat ik meedoe aan een tourpool. En dus ook de eerste keer dat ik de Ronde van Frankrijk uit eigen beweging volg, en niet omdat mijn vader de radio en televisie er de hele tijd op heeft afgestemd.
Daarvoor heb ik een paar leuke plekjes op de webs gevonden:
- de koers live volgen via NOS op de webs of luisteren op Radio 1
- leuke site voor newbies als ik
- en natuurlijk mag ik twitter* niet vergeten! de NOS heeft t makkelijk gemaakt

Voor de geïnteresseerden, mijn tourploeg:


* citaat van tijdens de borrel: nanne: "Ik ben een twitteraar", waarop C.: "Is dat een religie?"

First research data: Arema

My first free wifi location review. Written on location :)
The restaurant called Arema is located at Birkenstraße 30, close to U-Bahnhof Birenstraße (U9), in Moabit (district).
This is my first visit and I already love this place! Only a few minutes from my home and a real contrast to the Eckkneipen and Döner grills that seemed to be all one could find in this area. Nothing against Eckkneipen, but they're often a bit schmutzig, they attract mostly senior and elderly people, and definitly won't have (free) wifi.
So here I am in a beautifully decorated, quite large restaurant with a very nice, cosy, but still open atmosphere. The front room has beautiful old wall tiles that were preserved (although not on purpose) from an old store that used to be located here before the place was taken over by some supermarket who carefully hid the beauty behind its racks. The furniture is very stylish second-hand from the 50s (I think, not an expert). Dinner tables and chairs, coffee tables and couches, an old grandfather's clock, bookcases (with books!), a nice dark wooden bar, all fit very well together.
I also liked the menu. Quite a lot to choose from, but not too much, the latter normally being a problem for me ;) They serve breakfast (untill 16h!), soups, salads, cold dishes, main dishes (sort of traditional German), Flammkuchen, pasta, deserts, and lots of different drinks (even quite some wines, which is rare in Berlin). I had Schweinesteak with home-made Käsespätzle. It was very good and I was amazed by the Spätzle. Apparently, I ever tasted a good Spätzle before. The desert was a bit too much for my, but tasted so good I just had to eat it all.
The only bad thing I can mention is the waitress not being too kind. But hey, this is Berlin! Apart from Indians (and not even all of them) waiters with a smile just seem hard to find. [edit: Strike that! I went back today, one day after posting, and the waitresses were all very friendly :)]
But... I came here to study (which I did already, but haven't finished yet), so I'll leave my free wifi location data collection and focus on regional policy for the brainport region again.

Study stress and free wifi

Lot's of stress here with exams, reports and presentations. It's tough, I feel I haven't fully recovered from being overworked, but I'm managing. Somehow.
Unfortunately failed the exam of last Wednesday, so I'll have to re-sit. Also didn't manage to finish a report in time, which I had to hand in yesterday. Trying to finish it this weekend.
Since the interwebz don't work anymore at home (no idea why :( ), I'm currently working in the TUB library. Which is closing in 20 minutes...
So, I guess I'm gonna do some field research into free wifi bars/restaurants in Berlin. Found some on the webz: here, here and here. The last two links are not so good, because you can't directly see where in Berlin the bars are located. Still wanted to share them with you in case you'd ever want to find one yourself :)
Think I'll start my research with trying out this restaurant in my neighbourhood.