I've noticed something lately while checking my stats and I have been wondering what's going on. Most of the time when people google for certain things it has to do with TV shows or anything else that's been recently in the media. What's interesting in my case is the amount of queries coming from two different continents which is 20% of all queries leading to this website. It has been like this for a few weeks already and these searches make me wonder...

Recent queries:
Eurasian faces [4 different searches]
Eurasian clothing
Eurasian clothes design
Eurasian surnames
Eurasians attractive
Eurasian races photos
Eurasians pictures
Why are mixed blood people attractive
Full Asian but look like Eurasian England

I read that in 2007 the Malaysian government had plans to reduce the number of Eurasian faces in advertisements which caused a stir among models and presenters. It's interesting to see how some people seem to feel threatened by the 'Eurasian look', if there is one anyway. In parts of Asia, Eurasians carrying traits from both sides, are considered a beauty ideal especially in Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.

I was adviced to register with model agencies age 16, back then one agency told me I was 'too dark'. Their clients wanted fair-skinned/haired models so I was sent away, these days, they're craving the 'Eurasian look'. I remember I was upset about the discriminating remarks. When I told my dad he said to be always proud of who I am and ignore the narrow-mindedness and ignorance of others; what did they know about my culture[s] after all?

I am proud of who I am and I like my mocha tan, although it always tends to look yellow over wintertime. I'm proud of my exotic background and embrace it but I don't want people to label me as exotic because I have a lot more to offer. I love to prepare the odd 'rice table' because it's part of me and not because it seems to be the 'latest culinary rage -along with Sushi- among the [belanda] expats' to show off at dinner parties.

I'm proud of my grandfather's friendship with a headhunting Dayak and the sword that he was given in honour because he saved this Dayak's life. I feel more Indonesian than Dutch, but I haven't found a home country nor culture yet. I love a Kopi Toebroek and I wish it was warm enough in London to wear my sarong. I crave Soto Ayam and Rempejeh. I've never visited the Pasar Malam in the Hague but that doesn't make me less Indo.

Despite of what some [Asians] seem to associate 'Eurasian' with, I'm not the daughter of a soldier and a pr0st1tvte; my dad was Indonesian and met my mother in the Lowlands, that makes me 50/50. At times I wish people wouldn't feel the need to put one in a pigeonhole. Then I wouldn't feel the need to identify myself, I would be 'just' me, balancing between two worlds and two cultures, embracing the best of both and be proud of both...

Then there would be less 'Eurasian' google searches since the name tag wouldn't really matter.
Just a thought...

It's been so warm for at least a week now. I haven't slept very well because of this heat and certain behaviour of nice ground-floor neighbours *sarcastic*. So whenever I can, I open all the windows hoping there might be a bit of a cool breeze out there peeping in. The temperature in my office studio has been between 28° - 36° and makes it hard to concentrate on projects that need to be done. I'm often distracted and end up doing other things like getting rid of clutter, reorganising and throwing out stuff. I did this all morning while I should've been working on a website but at least the room is all neat again and I've thrown out lots of crap.

I'm heading for Scotland Friday morning to visit my best friend Inge [she's Dutch] and enjoy a party they'll be throwing for 120 guests in the evening in their barn. Saturday evening I'll finally see the military tattoo at Edinburgh Castle and a huge fireworks display right after. Inge offered to go there when I visited her in Pitcairngreen, seven years ago but I think I had a bit of a cultural overdose back then since she already paid for a three days tour around parts of Scotland to see some castles, churches, the smallest distillery, the Wallace monument [summit of Abbey Craig] some wonderful [golf]sites and towns near the coast and a lot more.

I'm so looking forward to staying with her, they invited me so many times and I don't understand why I didn't go sooner. Last year after the break-up they wanted me to stay there for a while but I had too much on my mind back then to be able to relax. They moved from their cute cottage in 2002 to a wonderful huge old farmhouse, where they keep chicken, sheep, three dogs, a few hens and their neighbour's cows on their land to mow the grass. So I'm off soon to relax and enjoy nature, a wee dram, long walks with the dogs, jokes about anything expat related and my friends' company in general.

Bliss... One day I will move here with my Kekasih and keep some goats, I'm such a dreamer but I know this one will be real... Below is where I'll be staying [I'm showing you while walking around the house *hehe*]:

I meant to write a follow-up about Beck's Canvas exclusive preview party last week but I found myself being busy redesigning the gloves online shop which seems to be a much bigger design project than I could've imagined. Not just design-wise there's also a lot of code hacking and tweaking. It's fun, it's definitely a learning curve and adds to the skills department. Odd thing is -or perhaps the positive side- that I noticed some are charging £1000,- for an ecommerce redesign and it doesn't look half as good as what I'm doing [and I ain't bragging].

I wonder if I might have missed an opportunity or perhaps I'm creating a new one... The 'garden landscaper' website is almost finished and hopefully will be going live next week, I'm waiting for hosting details. Once that's online I could start one for Monica, another that will be exciting and challenging. Yes life is busy and focused... In the meantime I'm suffering from a serious cold and high fever since a few days now. Not fun while it's also 28C° in my office, I'm gonna keep it short so I can get away from the computer every now and then and rest a bit.

About Beck's Canvas... I went to Farringdon to pick up M. from work, we took the Circle line to High Street Kensington, from there we walked passed the Dutch embassy to the Royal Academy of Arts where the paparazzi was waiting for us outside. Later at the reception I was told that some celebrities were expected, some were actually there. No I did not ask, I just stared... *hehe* My friend K. and her partner missed their connection so they showed up an hour later. In the meantime M. and I went in, went straight to the bar for a drink -because waiting for others makes you thirsty- and had a look at the exhibition.

I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the exhibition but kindly received some through the PR agency which I will show below. My favourite label was by Riitta Ikonen, she's got some cool stuff on her website. I love her sense of humour, have a look at her amazing mail art and her 'Snowflake project'. I really like her artwork that's used on the label of Beck's. And since I was allowed to take pictures of the reception I will leave you now with a small selection. I had a great evening, got slightly intoxicated, met some really nice people and bought a lovely chocolate ice cream on my way home to match my dress...

ps I received my friends invitation this morning and only realised today that next week I'll be in Scotland, time flies! She told me she had received lots of wonderful reactions about the invitation [which I designed for her] and I'm so looking forward to seeing her! She was in the Lowlands and brought back purple plastic wine glasses from the Hema for the party. Only Dutch would see the fun in that and especially those who live abroad *hehe* There is no such thing as Hema anywhere else... which is a true shame. We love our Hema!

Last Monday I was on the phone for two hours with my aunt in the Lowlands, she is my friend, my 'mother', my mirror. We always seem to have deep conversations about life and lessons to learn. That day I tried to explain to her what was going on here in London and while I was telling her about goals, dreams and realities she suddenly made me realise how much I've achieved over the last year. How I was thrown in at the deep end, how I nearly drowned struggling and how I slowly start to get back on my feet... I had to let go of a million things: personal things, most of my possessions and friendships, only to make room for new ones.

People tend to forget about you when you've left the country. Emails come in sparsely over time or even the odd reply seems to take much longer than usual. At first, friends, were a major reason for me to move back to the Lowlands if I feel I had no other option left. These days I realise it has become less important. It seems to be shifting: I couldn't do without the friendships I have in London nor the ones online. I still value some in the Lowlands but I realise most don't have a clue of what is going on here and it seems the interest isn't there either. It's life, people have their own path to follow and they're slowly untying the relationship.

I understand because I'm in my own process of untying/tying and although I have accomplished a lot it's odd how I still need others to remind me that I have. My aunt is a reminder, my Kekasih and so are some of my [blog] friends. I've learned about different realities over the past year, my own and those of others but I've learned to respect one in particular. His taught me patience and gave me freedom to roam my creative realms, his made me grow and fed my hunger for knowledge. His showed me what contemplation looks like in all it's different shades of beautiful blue. His taught me how to ignore poisonous words of others.

His gave me comfort, support and the most beautiful gift, a new reality: ours... I have been quiet for days because I couldn't find words to describe this feeling, I'm not even sure if I want to. Sometimes things are beyond words and don't need to be written down to become real, I know what's real and what isn't. Sometimes reality stares you in the face and you suddenly become aware of it's wonderful colours. It doesn't blind you that particular moment because you choose and wish to see the beauty in it's perfect reflection. It's when you find yourself speechless, in stunned silence and almost in tears but with a huge smile on your face.

So it's best to just be quiet and contemplate and since I love the wonderful smell of fresh baked bread in the house, I decided to bake a nice garlic and rosemary focaccia for lunch today with a plum tomato and feta omelette. Cooking is a way to relax to me and find my balance. I'm practising to get the perfect result so I can give in return to Kekasih one day what he gave to me earlier this week, I think I came pretty close to 'perfect' ;)

The weather has been pants for a few days now: I've had thunderstorms and vertical rain. I don't really mind because I don't have to go anywhere and have been extremely busy sorting out chores that have been on the to-do-list for ages already. I finally started to mend some dresses and skirts and I finally finished my chocolate satin dress. I don't know what happened but last week one thing led to another and all of a sudden I was sick and tired of the mess that has been lying around for some time now waiting for me to fix it or finish it. Oh... I remember what caused it: be prepared to dive into my warped mind...

Last Friday I received a wonderful surprise in the post all the way from New York, the package from Ismoyo that I'd won a while ago. Thank you, it's totally sweet! So I wanted to take some pictures, I always take pictures of everything and that's what it all started: me wanting to take pictures. I have a small desk near the window where my sewing machine sits and it's the best spot to take pictures since the light conditions are always perfect. But the desk was piled up with dresses that needed fixing. So basically I ended up cleaning up the mess. Halfway I decided to sort out my CD collection too, all the archive CDs that is.

And before I knew it I was throwing out stacks of old CDs that my Mac refused to read and burning Gigs to DVD, reorganising years of archiving. Then I got all hyper and realised that I only have two LaCie Porsches that I really needed to sort out because I don't have the extra backup space anymore. Well I do basically but it needs a lot of reorganising. So while working on websites for clients I suddenly realised that if one of those Porsches would crash I would have a serious problem: I don't have the extra backup available, the second Porsche became home to my music collection instead.

What happened next is that I started my online research for internal and external HDs to see if I could afford one. I asked Christiaan for advice since I had a slight idea what I wanted but wasn't sure if that was the best option but he confirmed my feeling *thank you!*. So I decided to buy an extra 500Gig internal HD since that is the cheapest way for now and I do need to invest in this if I don't want to get myself into trouble. Over the weekend I ended up wasting time waiting for others to help me so I lost a few hours there but have been catching up these last few days.

Why the detour you wonder? Because I need to get rid of clutter: all the clutter around me on desks, the clutter on my Mac which used to be organised but most of all the clutter in my head. I'm probably over-criticising myself again because some from the past told me I was the most organised person they'd ever met and I guess I can see why. But you see, I can't design new projects if I don't have a neat place to work: neat place clean of clutter means no clutter but room in my head... So I decided to throw out and declutter starting with the pile of clothes waiting to be mended.

And since I finally have a clean window desk I finally took some pictures. Now if you'll excuse me I need to get back to decluttering so I can start some web design soon!

I received an invitation last night from Barbara and one a while ago from Inci, both good friends and both (ex)student Graphic Design at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam where I used to work. I can't remember which year Barbara graduated but Inci graduated two days ago *congratulations!!!* and both invited me to their parties in Amsterdam which unfortunately I won't be able to attend because of some obligations. Their invitations reminded me of something that was brought to my attention recently, another invitation which I received through this blog...

I'm talking about the art project Beck's Canvas organised by Beck's beer in collaboration with the Royal College of Art here in London. Beck's Canvas offers talented artists a way to expose their artwork to the public using the label on Beck's bottles as their canvas. On the evening of the 16th July, Beck's will announce the four artists selected by a panel of judges from the Royal College of Art to showcase their art on the labels of over 27 million bottles to be distributed nationwide from August 2008. I've been invited to the exclusive launch of this event which will take place in exactly two weeks from now.

Beck's have championed talented artists without compromise for over 20 years, a very interesting, unique collection and taster can be found on their website including artists such as Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Jake&Dino Chapman, and Tatsuo Miyajima. Beck's Canvas marks an evolution of their ongoing support for emerging artists and their vision to bring inspiring and challenging artwork to a broader public. I'm really looking forward to attending this gallery exhibition and see the actual artwork of the four finalists on display. I hope I'll be allowed to take some pictures and show them on here!

Watch this space after the 16th...

I had a really relaxed weekend after a bit of an annoying week. You see; I have been trying to get some sample urls from a client for three weeks now, to see what kind of design they would prefer and to get an appointment with them to go there and discuss things. I never received a response from the person who was supposed to contact me until Tuesday night, last week when J. -her boss and friend of A. who's really eager to get things done- forwarded her email to me because she'd sent it to him instead of me.

So I read the email just after midnight when I was on my way to bed and noticed that she expected me to be in the office the next morning [I don't think so!]. Ever since, I have sent emails, have been on the phone every day and left messages to call me back. No reaction... Here I am thinking: I'm doing you a big favour -I am actually- and you can't find two minutes of your precious time to respond to my email or give me a call back? What on earth is your problem, do you want this deal or not?

In the meantime I'm getting more work in and I've about four websites to design so time is running out since this particular client needs to have it all done by the end of August. I've installed the software, played with it and I realised while checking it out that this is not going to be a simple job. Normally with this amount of work at least one developer and designer would be assigned and be given three or four months. I've been given less than two months, while other work needs to be done as well. See my point?...

To stay focused on the serious clients I arranged to meet up with K. over the weekend to get some input from him about what he would like. He's a landscape gardener/designer and he is extremely creative so after our brainstorming session I left having all these ideas and images in my head and I couldn't wait to get started. He showed me some amazing gardens that he did for these millionaire clients: owners of huge old Victorian houses with huge gardens in the West End and South End of London. Truly inspiring!

K. was extremely enthusiastic about having his website done and came up with really nice ideas. I took his portfolio with me so I can scan some of his drawings and I'll have to do some research later today to see if I can find some leaves and stone structures. I'll also have to redesign his business card once the website is done. K. was so enthusiastic that he had told a friend about it and this friend -who's in education- is really interested in having his website done as well. So... things are picking up!

After the meeting with K. I went over to C. to work in their garden. We've been cutting and trimming down a large bush to clear the path while enjoying the beautiful weather. Their garden is amazing but it's all growing wild now since they haven't done much maintenance. I helped cutting last year but they neglected it ever since while I offered my help so many times. I really love working in the garden, so I had a bit of a gardening theme going on all Saturday and a nice BBQ to end the day *hehe*

I was totally knackered when I came home, knackered but relaxed and Sunday... well... Sunday was just a typical Sunday...

P.S. C. made a really interesting remark, she said: 'those who are sincerely busy will always make time for you, those who are not busy at all need to pretend to appear to be busy thus won't make time for you...' I think she has an excellent point there!

'The worst-tempered people I've ever met were the people who knew they were wrong.'
Wilson Mizner

I went to the Summer Fair yesterday and was extremely disappointed about the whole thing. I thought it would be some really interesting design show but I didn't see anything new or innovative just a repeat of what has already been out there. And this fair claims to be about the latest trends, well sorry... but it was all waaaaay to contemporary and just plain boring. I can't believe people would actually be willing to pay an entrance fee for this [25 pounds I think]. I've seen far more interesting stuff on the internet design-wise by independent artists and/or designers and for free.

Perhaps I've got it all wrong, perhaps I have different standards and I dare to admit that these might be slightly high but I do recognise when hot air is being sold. I got this 'Disneyland' feeling *being sarcastic* while I was there so I guess my expectations were too high. Also an incident with a trader from Isleworth who seemed to have some personality issue on the edge of paranoia/aggression, made me want to leave. The other people at the stand had to make up for his behaviour by apologising about five times... I'm sure his attitude and his so not-worth-mentioning-products won't bring him much business.

There were a few really nice stands though, there was one that showed amazing furniture and accessories handmade from natural reclaimed and recycled materials. And another that had funny metallic wind spinners, unfortunately the links to their websites don't work so I can't show them here. Still I was in and out in about 45 minutes and spent the rest of the day enjoying the unexpected sun and the wonderful company of my friend Karin and her partner. It was quite windy though, 28mph according to the BBC weather forecast, but it was nice to have a stroll around the area.

Back to work today... I'm gonna be sketching for a few hours for the online glove shop and will work on my own project which happens to be an online shop as well.