this post is an unusual one: i wouldn’t usually post job-ads, but i’ve heard of a couple of interesting opportunities, that can maybe be of use to someone out there. i hope so. :)

* i received an email from greenpeace international, noting two positions that they have available for portuguese speakers. bad timing for me, but if you’re portuguese or speak the language, and looking for a part-time in amsterdam, maybe you should give them a look. the jobs available are web-editor and media relations specialist. you can apply on their website.

* also, the company where p. works is looking for php developers familiar with symfony, to develop web communities.
you have to either be in shanghai (or willing to move here), be passionate about what you do and be able to demonstrate your know-how. the team is very multicultural, they pay well, have a new loft/warehouse/office (complete with 2 very neat gigantic aquariums!), in-house cook and english/chinese teacher, and a bunch of cool bonus. oh! and the overwhelming experience of living in one of the biggest cities of the world is included. :) interested? leave a comment or send me an email.

mimo, directamente da holanda, na forma de mini-stroopwaffles. perfeitas para o dia cinzento de hoje. obrigado cláudia, chegaram inteiras! :)

* bonuses: design*sponge guide to online shopping, made by bloggers: part 1 and part 2. filled with link goodness and lots of interesting suggestions for different kinds of gifts (artwork, lightning, ceramics, vintage, hidden gems, etc). worth a check.

it’s been almost 2 years since our trip to schiermonnikoog, a dutch island on the northern sea.

a mix of laziness, lack of budget or decent photography shops made me lose interest in developing the film i shot in the island back then. i was curious to see the pictures, but while i still had the memory of the events i shot, and all the people with me… there was no real need to “see” them again… (i guess i’ll never understand the people that peek at the pictures when they’ve just taken them, on the backscreen of digital cameras). so i let the film stay in the shelf.

i have quite a few of these “forgotten” films. they have travelled all the way to the netherlands and back, to the states and back, and now here they are in china. they’re stored in identical canisters, with no reference to what’s in each one of them. little pandora boxes, with with unknown age or stories.

to me, photography is not about rules, big lenses and trendy bags, keeping negatives in the fridge and looking out for x-rays on the airport. it’s about fun and framing. i shoot when i feel inspired, when friends are around, when i feel like being a tourist, when there are not many cameras in the area. i develop when i have the time, the patience, or whenever i itch to discover what forgotten secrets are hiding in one of those black canisters. what about you? do you develop your films right away, or not so much? do you peek on the back screen of your digital camera? :)

more, on flickr.

* bonus: two weeks with garry winogrand, by mason resnic. garry winogrand was a prolific photographer who died on 1984, leaving a total of 12000 rolls of film that he never looked at. peculiar philosophy.

dear friends.
after six months here in portugal to wrap things up at the university, i am now, officially, an “engineer”. a pretty clueless one, career-wise, but i’m working on that bit. ideally, i would like to develop my designing skills, as i realize i still have a long way to go to get any good. i like information visualization and interface designing, but i want to explore a lot more before i choose what i really want to focus my attention on.

on a different (but related) subject, and since i’ve told it to my parents and most friends, i can give the rest of the internet the big news too: we’re moving to shanghai, me and p.
yes, shanghai. the biggest city in china, the 8th in the world, the “pearl of the orient”.
after my one year in the netherlands, and p’s 6+9 months in the netherlands and the usa, i think the “exploring bug” really got into us.
it just seems right. the right timing, the right city, the right person to hold my hand on the plane. and besides, if you don’t trust your intuition, what else do you have?

the details of the process of moving there include job hunting, a house, plane tickets and luggage allowance, visas and plenty other details that will keep us busy on the next few weeks. i’ll try to keep you posted. wish us luck! :)

on the follow-up of the previous post:

* i remember reading an(other) interview at lecool about amsterdam based artist laser 3.14 (pi), who writes sentences in containers and other temporary surfaces. i spotted a few phrases when i was there - he’s hard to miss if you get a bit away of the main streets. take a look at his huge gallery.

* which on second thoughts, remembers me of the “wall poems” in leiden.

hipolito, l’écrivain raté from amélie’s movie should have gone to the netherlands. they would have understood him. :)

i know one shouldn’t judge a country by its stereotype, but sometimes, you find a specimen so typical, so ironically representative, that you forget all about impartiality.
as i was leaving the netherlands, i met an american guy from los angeles, arriving for a small exchange period. he asked us to use the internet on your computers every once in a while and we got the chance to talk on one of those “visits”.

him - you know…the dutch people… they’re so…
me - what?
him - like… not technologically advanced.

me - hum? what do you mean?
him - bicycles. who uses bikes these days? that’s so… backwards. i gotta get a car here.
i was shocked and speechless and then i laughed inside, secretly wondering if he knew about the dutch gas prices (only the highest in the world), and, let’s be honest, of how stupid he was, really.
the dutch are backwards because they use bicycles? ever heard of environmental friendly way of transportation which is also cheap and good for you? … i thought so. forget the car, try to find some brains instead.

ps - luckily, this stereotype was changed by another student i met later that week, from seattle, which was polite, moved normally and was nice to talk to. but then again, someone told me seattle was not a exactly a typical city… :)

ps2 - i’m back! no more exams for now! :D

“When arriving in a city, we see streets in perspective.
Sequences of buildings with no meaning. Everything is unknown, virgin.
Later we’ll have lived in this city.
We’ll have walked in its streets.
We’ll have been to the end of the perspectives.
We’ll have seen all the buildings.
We’ll have lived stories with people.
When we’ll have lived in this city, we’ll have taken this street a thousand times. After a moment, everything belongs to you because you’ve lived there.

It was to happen but I didn’t know it yet.

Urquinaona. Groningen.
This thing that sounds weird was added to the long list of old weird names
that we have somewhere in our brain. Urquinaona, slightly slipped next to Mouffetard, Bondoufle, Ponteaux-Combault, Marolles-en-Hurepoix, Mandelieu-La Napoule and Knok le Zout.
Groningen, slightly slipped next to São Vítor, Ermesinde, Britelo, Areosa and Porto.

It becomes normal and familiar.”

from L’auberge espagnole, the image is from kokjebalder.

now that i’ve settled down and i can say “i’m back”, i realize how much i miss all the little things i called “home” last year.