The nice thing of staying in an India Hostel instead of a Sheraton is that you don't need to go to the museum to get an idea of what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. I visited this area before in 2001, so I was interested to what extent the city recovered from the storm. Kenny, one of the guys working in the hostel said the first thing that indicated the magnitude of the disaster was the silence in the city. The birds were gone. All gone. Then the water came. Max sitting with us on the porch of the beautiful hostel pointed toward his knees: "the water went till here". You can also see it on many houses that there is a dark line 3 feet on the wall above the porch. The guys who actually remained in the house during the storm said that they fled from the water to the second level of the house. The problem was though that the storm removed the ceiling, so they had a free view to the sky.
After the storm was over, everyone was in shock. Kenny said the government didn't do nothin but the ones who really got their hands dirty were people sent from churches from all over the country. It took the hostel crew 4 months to get the hostel up and going again. In the beginning, it was difficult because there were just no workers available because everyone was fixing their own house. After calling almost everyone they thought of the pool guy and that maybe the pool guy could help. He came over, checked the pool situation and was positive that he could fix the pool within two days! Getting overly excited to have at least something fixed, they eventually decided that the pool wasn't first priority but just knowing that the pool could be fixed was the hope that things will get better.
We are sitting together, when everyone stopped talking, i feel special to share this moment with these people, smelling the flowers and listening to the birds of New Orleans.

A little heat would have increased cozyness of the vernissage "Freiraum zeigt - zeigt Freiraum" in the Lukas church. But other than that, the exhibition didn't loose atmosphere. I bet that for people who went to this church every Sunday morning, it must have been shocking to see what it has become: an open space for vibrant streetart and an artistic space to breathe. The space of the exhibition will be re-modeled for conversion in the coming months. This is a pity, because the exhibition will need to be removed. On the other hand, its inception resulted from conversion. So I guess we need to be okay with change. 

The exhibition will continue until 27th of March. Lukaskirche, Planckstr.115, Essen Holsterhausen: Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays  Opening hours: 18:00 till 22:00.

 

The guys from Twente came up with a nice way to let kids sketch and simulate scientific phenomena. We learn that if you combine two different gears, the smaller gear rotates faster than the bigger one. What it doesn't show is that the torque of the bigger gear is much greater than of the smaller one. Which reminds me that I have to fix my bike...

Check out also the rest of their blog. But watch out (DANGER!): the site might include Dutch content.

http://modeldrawing.eu

Es war schön, dass sich die kritischen Stimmen nicht bestätigen konnten. Man durfte die Straße wechseln, man durfte auf den Gleisen spazieren, man durfte durch den Tunnel rasen, zu viel Bier trinken und spontan komische Dinge performen. Und tolle Afrikaner haben wir auch kennengelernt. Schön. Gerne nächstes Wochenende wieder.

Research says that skills concerning self-control increase with age.
This experiment shows that children have trouble delaying
gratification.

I really wonder whether it is true that delaying gratification is a
function of age. My roommate tells me every Monday that next weekend
he will stay away from heavy partying. And then, at the end of the
week he is off partying until Sunday whereafter he tells me that he
shouldn't have stayed out all night.

So here is a question for you: Can cognitive skills be trained? If
yes, do you have suggestions for training my roommate?

9 couches/beds later, I am back from the holy land. thanks to lots of
people, especially yael, sherman & melodie, avi, micky, dan, tamar,
tami, berry, eilat, rakheli & reuma, itay and the jugglers for hosting
me, taking time off from work, to go fishing, to share the challah, to
rock, to plan future projects, to invite me, to show me the most
wonderful and special places and most importantly to share their lives
and way of living with me.

During my visit at the Weizmann institute, Avi suggested me to visit
Chaim Weizmann's home, which is a Museum now, located at the grounds
of Weizmann institute in Rehovot. I was lucky to get a personal tour
by a sweet woman who happened to learn German. When we walked up to
Weizmann's sleeping room, my guide said: Now I will show you were the
Weizmann couple was taking a -what they called- "Schlafstunde". She
was surprised to hear that this word was not used anymore. I was happy
to add another word to her vocabulary book: Nickerchen. :-)

(1. Note the number on his passport)
(2. Imagine Music by Ludwig van Beethoven playing in the background)