We started deconstructing the phrase “rehearsing refusal”, from which words like hear, ear, sing and re were constructed. Then someone said the word “fusal”, word that I’ve never heard of before, but was spoken with a lot of confidence. I then asked this person for the meaning of the word to which I got the answer “Fusal…you know like fusal”. Which I thought was very funny. I searched the mysterious word in hopes that I would get an insight or clue, but sadly the only thing that I could find was something related to football or some sort of football. But I doubt thats what this person meant…funny

That day, Jisu and I did a little day trip to Amsterdam. Every time I’m there, I feel the need, no, the desire to have a pastry. So after walking around the center for a while, we had no luck with finding a nice cafe. I checked my Instagram saves; Panatopia seemed a good option (emphasis on “seemed”).

As soon as we entered, a girl asked us in a snobbish tone if we wanted to be seated or “take away”. She said that all the way from the stairs (mind you, the cafe had two floors). We simply looked at each other and nodded. She then asked us if we wanted pastries. I said yes, so she told us we had to go to another girl for that….ok? Such a procedure for a coffee and a pastry. To get to this other girl, we walked past the “coffee bar,” which was a circular structure that made getting to the pastries awkward. Since you had to walk through this narrow path (of 60cm approx). Anywho, we got to the parties, which were arranged on each plate, with no price or description. The girl asked, “Do you want me to explain them to you?” What other choice did we have? She explained. I chose my pastry, she put it on a plate, and they sent us upstairs to be seated.

Upstairs, there were only 3 tables with a marble-like finish, each with 4 fancy stools (quite uncomfortable if you ask me). The girl who first received us suggested putting our stuff in some shelves at the back, “We’re good we said. She then informed us that it was a shared table and said that if someone came, they would be seated with us…ok, I guess. She took Jisu’s order, gave us some water, and insisted on putting out stuff on the shelves (I'm guessing because it didn't look nice for us to keep our stuff).... “We’re good, thanks,” we said again. She then came back with my pastry (mushroom parmesan filling)  and Jisu’s coffee. The coffee was served in a beautiful cup, sadly paired with a corny plate, with the words “to travel, to love, to life” all over it. My pastry? Below average, it was dry, and the filling was insipid, and it was not even warm! Then why not just give it to me when I picked it? This, for the price of 7 euros, but it was not worth it. I think I could make a much better mushroom stew. I did get another water refill, though; in fact, I got more than 5 during our time there. Perhaps the best thing about the cafe. But once again, she asked about putting our stuff in the back, this time because a couple would be seated at our table. We still said no. The couple sat down, and their pastries arrived soon thereafter. I glanced over at the pastries and, in a way, they looked good but just as dry as mine, interesting. The best part of this experience was the toilet, a complete mess. The first thing that caught my eye was the tiles from the sink, which were falling out. The trash can was broken (and had no bag), the very fancy Marie Stellar soap bottle was empty, and opening the sink’s tab meant the water would splash everywhere. But they did have towels, a plus…I guess.

We paid and left, talked badly about the place between ourselves, and continued with the day. It was only during dinner, when we had pizza at Nnea (amazing by the way), that we brought it up again. “So pretentious,” Jisu said, which led us to talk about certain people. I questioned the meaning of the word, but without hesitation, she said the meaning “when you try to act better than what you are, but you can’t follow through with it”.

Still, I searched the word; she was indeed right..

literally no words...

I wrote the text Quentin had asked for right before the class, but as I reread the assignment, I was caught up by the phrase “anticipating structure.” Structure, and also Anticipated? Instantly, I started separating the words into phrases, and I stopped reading them as a single phrase. I thought: structure, construction, the anatomy of a system. And then anticipated, to come, approximated… I didn’t wait too long to search up the phrase, which very simply means “the structure that is to come”.

Wow….why did I not get this? Why is it that I couldn’t comprehend what these words meant together? Why was my instinct to separate and define each? Is it maybe that after so many encounters with bombastic titles such as “Rehearsing Refusal”, “Exploitative Productivity”, “Containers of the Otherwise”, and “Wonder to Awe”, I have gotten used to deconstructing to understand. Is this an effect of being here for more than two years?

I started some of the writing for the coding assignment in Spanish, and it quickly proved that my “searching for the meaning and spelling of words” was not because English is not my mother tongue. I wrote in Spanish, and still, I had to look up some words. One of the highlights of today was my first translated word for this project, “pastry”, which I could not think of the name of in Spanish. Turns out we actually don't have one, the closest thing would be “pan dulce”, it literally translates to “sweet bread”. It all makes sense now.

We normally have the class in the photography studio, but this time the class started in the cinema. They showed us a few videos from photographers around the world. After each video, we were encouraged to give our thoughts at the end, and stupidity was used a lot to describe her work. I disagree, but I didn’t voice it. I searched the word on the spot: stupid “behaviour that shows a lack of good sense or judgement, essentially unintelligent. Well, I think her work definitely had sense behind it. Yes, it was silly, humorous and absurd at first glance, but there was an unarguable underlying tone of cleverness. To be funny is to be clever.

That day was the midterm talks with Amy for our toolkit/
method assignment. I was in a group with Florens, Emma, and Disha. Florens went first; the project was on “Dog training as a method”. The word “training” kept being used, over and over, which led me to ponder it. Especially since we had a time restriction for our talks, one that Florens was unable to follow, nothing against that. But I thought it was a bit ironic to talk about dog training techniques applied to yourself, while being unable to follow someone else’s indication, which is the purpose of dog training.

On Thursday, after class, I checked my Design Research teams. There was a lovely message from Marthe that said our journal had to be pretty much done by tomorrow….there was no way. How?! I was nowhere near done, and having a really hard time writing it. So I was freaking out. I worked till 1:30 in the morning on it, and I was getting nowhere, so I told myself I would go to sleep and wake up at 05:00 am to work on it.

Thankfully, I woke up to my alarm (not always the case). I started thinking about the journal, but I was so tired that I decided to sleep for 5 more minutes. I was dreaming of my writings. The alarm sounded again, and I had more ideas, so I did it again for 5 more minutes, more ideas came, I repeated this till 06:46am (time to get up). I immediately opened my computer and began writing. I got to school around 08:10am and kept writing, but I was clear that I would not finish the entire thing, so I was very stressed. I got a scone with cheese and chives from Leffers as an attempt to calm myself down, but it was nowhere near as good as the ones I make, so it didn’t help. I was constantly chewing gum and playing with my ring, things that I do repeatedly that give me a sense of ease. For some reason, right before the group talk with Marthe, things cleared up for me; I had a clear idea of what to do. The stress started fading away. We had the talk; it was nice, and I stayed after class to keep writing. As I was writing “on repetition”, I realized a very simple thing about myself: I found comfort in it. Repetition can be a coping mechanism for many…Something else to add to my journal, I guess.

The whole weekend was “writing weekend”, yay. I’ve come to realize this is the most I’ve written in any semester so far…interesting. I feel as though it's also the one I have put more of myself into the work I produce, and I don't like that so much.

For the design research exhibition, we decided to do a script that would playfully deconstruct the titles that we each chose for our work. Some of them were quite straightforward; others required a bit more thinking. Luca’s was a tough one; I wasn’t very sure what his topic was, so I decided to work around the phrase itself, which took me some time to comprehend: “Exploiting Allowance”. Isn’t that the thing that you would get from your parents on the weekends to buy “kids stuff”? Well, after a quick little search, I found that it is far more interesting a word than I thought. “The amount of something that is permitted, especially within a set of regulations or for a specified purpose.”…. the amount of something that is permitted. Mhmmm a shorter version for I allow you this much _____”. Instead “The allowance of ____”. Nice

Rimbomante, such a fun word.

I used to do it way more—

really none at all

Thursday was crazy, I’m glad it's done. I worked on the research journal, and the result was not it. A big part of the day I spend forming words from other words or phrases, for example, language and gauge. Gauge is a word I constantly get mixed up with Gouge. To be fair, they are visually super similar; change the first vowel, and you’ll get the same word. But that is not the only reason why I get them mixed up; the first semantic connection I make for both words is to the eye. Whenever I hear the word gouge, it's in the context of “gouge someone's eyes out,” and my use of the word gauge doesn’t go further than the expression “gauge in”. I find it a funny way to say “take a look”.

We were having a group talk for the Design Research exhibition, which would take place next Friday. Patricia was the second-last to explain hers. Her topic revolved around embroidery, the community built around it (particularly for women), and the patience needed for it. She had two possible titles for her work, the first one mentioned the Bauhaus. As soon as she explained it, I could tell we were all confused, since the relationship to the topic wasn't clear, and the second was “The Grammar of Culture”.

Grammar…Doesn't grammar have to do with language? Isn’t it basically a word for referring to the system of language? I had to look it up, and I did. I was right, but maybe language in this scenario meant a form of communication rather than the spoken word. Marthe’s feedback was on point, tho: “Name things as they are”.

At this point for design research it feels as tho I'm making words up and forcing meaning into them.

the end