well it was for a safe short term anyway.
four people, http://an.org/theflat/, plus
two neighbours made it us six, the tribe.
now we have been separated for ages already,
it feels. one in Japan, me here close to
the Nordic Arctic, one flying around Europe
working for SAS, one been back to Norway but
now in Amsterdam again .. one in Germany as
far as I know. well this is all normal.
that's why it is important.
this happens to everyone all the time. well,
to some people often, that says in real.
young travelling, moving people or something.
Rheingold wrote in Virtual Communities, that
I of course have never read, about how (in U.S.)
people grow up in (s)one place(s), go to school
in others, to university in another place again
and then work in different places. the net
would be the stability. home. what stays. that's
exactly what i wrote in http://an.org/inet98/
but the real is so much more! the concrete. the
hug.
so what's born offline is now what is using the
online worlds to survive. i don't know what's
coming of these, but i feel, that having wrote
again one months happenings in one burts to
those friends i used to live with in another
real warm wonderful world something great has
just happened.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 18:55:00 +0200 (EET)
From: <@an.org>
To: @an.org
Subject: Immele's address? and some livings
Hi friends :)
I don't think I remember this Doris, but she was in the hospitium last
year and sent e-mail asking how to contact the Belgian Immele, who I do
remember .. wonder if any of you would happen to have her address? Would
be nice to be able to help Doris.
Wonder how you're doing otherwise .. living your lives, in Amsterdam,
Sendai, Heidelberg? and flying around Europe! I've been mostly in Oulu
now, altough we spent the new year's in Lapland in Ylläs, then in the
beginning of January I worked for about a week in Helsinki and last
weekend we visited Tromsö in Norway. Was my first time to that country, to
those mountains and waters!
I loved it. Have never been so far up north before in my life. Was the
first time I saw the very north of Finland, even, and then even further in
Norway it was so amazing. The group was great too, about 50 students from
Oulu, most of them studying cultural studies, languages and TV and film
studies as it was an excursion to a filmfestival, http://www.tromsokino.no/
Great films and wonderful people so the weekend was a perfect break.
Well, now we're back in Oulu again, happy working after getting to rest a
lot earlier this month when I was ill (flu, fever, that normal stuff) and
being otherwise lazy too.
There's a new course, that is also a sort of teaching experiment, as I'm
trying to guide the students most over the net while they are at they're
homes, workplaces or where ever .. working at very different times too.
They are also getting a lot of freedom choosing their topics, as long it's
about digital media. Interesting to see where we get there.. I'm nowadays
quite sceptical/critical about all this new media hype that's going on,
but not less interested in it than before. My own thesis that should be
starting to get to be something sooner-than-later will be about Internet
mediated communication, but the focus (uh) is not quite clear yet.
The dance group we have has had already some little performances during
concerts and club nights, but we've just started putting together the real
show that should be ready by the middle of March. I also set up a small
web page for the group, there's on picture you might have a look at,
http://www.an.org/era/
Since December I've been living together with a friend, Heikki, who also
did his alternative civils service at the Internet-library in Helsinki
where I was just before coming to Amsterdam. Gee, that feels like ages
ago. Well, anyway, he moved back to Oulu in December and we've shared a
flat since in the center.
Did I mention about the birthday party I organized there? The theme was
teletubbies .. there's a tradition already, that the local techno/house
club has a good night on christmas night (the 25th), the club is called
Undergroove, http://www.interactive.labra.com/undergroove/
After the dance there we went to our place, for the first time with a
group of friends, and had a perfect colourful happy-joyous childish time
there opening small stupid presents I'd put there, wrapped in nice papers,
under the christmas trees and playing with the small things (cards,
drawing boards, ..) that were there .. and of course eating pizza and
loads of ice-cream (with no spoons :)
The idea was to wait for the Teletubbies TV-show that is on (dubbed in
Finnish for the kids :) at 8am every Saturday morning .. so it was 4 hours
we had to try to stay awake after the dance party. This is northern
Finland, so nobody luckily uses any nasty chemicals (well, except alcohol
of course, but some dancing people avoid even that) .. so the card-playing
and eating and talking was what kept us up. Oh and I also gave a little
presentation about the sexual symbolism in Teletubbies and we listened to
the soundtrack to prepare ourselves. Well, finally the show came and after
the laughter everybody went home dead tired and I got to rest too, having
stressed awfully lot .. it was the first time I organized anything for my
birthday.
I guess all that reminded me of the flat/tribe times and the parties we
had there. The everyday life here is definitely nothing like that - mostly
we live quite quietly and there's not too much going on .. just reading,
writing and TV watching I guess, but that one night I got a little taste
of having that kind of parties again. Sigh. That was also more than a
month ago .. how time passes.
Wow this message became quite long, hope you had a little time to look at
it .. and that it wasn't too confusing, I've been working for more than 10
hours already so I'm quite tired and should head home now, to eat and
sleap and watch TV or something. A quiet, normal Tuesday that is.
Hope you're all fine, and that we can find Immele's address for Doris!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 16:20:18 +0100
From: <[email protected]>
To: @an.org
HI!!
I guess this e-mail will be delivered to Tony from Finland!??
Anyway, I want to tell you that the idea of this home page is brilliant
and that I just love looking at the pictures. I was also in the
Hospitium last year, but only for 8 weeks (for my thesis) and lived on
the 4th floor. It's strange to be back in boring Austria and whenever I
look at your pictures, I get homesick again...
The 2nd reason I'm writing (apart from telling you how great this site
is) is that I've got a problem: I've been trying to get the address of a
Belgian girl for half a year now, but all the people who are likely to
be in contact with her don't answer my mails. The thing is that I'm
sure she doesn't know I don't have her address since she's written to me
without putting her address on the envelope. She's been a real good
friend back then and I miss her, so I'd really like getting in touch
with her again. The person I'm talking about is (xxx) from
Belgium (Gent) and she lived on the 4th floor for the whole study year.
Maybe I can trace her that way, this is my last hope, really. I'm
extremely thankful for any help or clues whatsoever.
Lots of love from cold Austria,