Week 35: 26 August – 1 September 2019

This week was all about finalising and submitting my final project for Space and Place, which is about Veloviewer Explorer.

On Tuesday I had a Zoom meeting with a second informant. I finished a rough cut of the film the same evening and sent it off to both informants for confirmation – they liked it! S watched it too and had valuable feedback on how to improve it.

On Thursday I went on a four hour Explorer tour to record some biking sounds (clipping in, spinning cassette, 8 bar tires against asphalt …). It failed miserably, as I almost only got wind sound, despite using both foam and deadcat on a shotgun mic (AT897). In the end I realised that the sound from the DJI Osmo Action is not half bad, so now I’m mostly going with actual sound, which I guess is a good thing, in a way.

I spent a lot of time perfecting the film and exchanging clips that weren’t working. I also polished the essay, which ended on 2,000 words (instructions said 1,500). The film is ten minutes (no limit, the 5-10 minutes I mentioned before was for Immersive Tech). On Friday evening I finally submitted, almost a month before deadline, and the feeling was as wonderful as always. I’m outta here!

Researching Veloviewer Explorer has made me rediscover cycling. I was out again today, in the beautiful area south of Königs Wusterhausen, to which I took the train (our student card covers trips in all Berlin, and you can bring your bike for free). Today I biked over 100 kilometers for the first time in maybe two years, so I feel very weak tonight. But satisfied. My square grew to 27 today.

Now I’ve only got one more study assignment before I’m off to Japan, which is to write an ungraded and relatively short research proposal. It feels great to finally be able to focus on my final project and its many readings.

I got another negative reply from a Japanese doujinshi shop.

I had some kind of throat inflammation this week and almost lost my voice, but today it’s coming back and the throat seems to be healing. So that’s why I skipped Critical Mass this Friday (also, I was tired from the Thursday tour). I spent Saturday reading another wonderful chapter in Michael Fisch’s book on Tokyo’s commuter train network. I love how he’s really pushing the limits for what an ethnography can look like. And I like his language, reading it is a bit like parsing code.

I’ve kept up this weekly study diary for a year now. It helps me to be structured and keeps me motivated.

Japanese

Nextbook 漢字:
- 小3 writing level 40–43 repeats)
Two short podcasts

Other

Articles

The Economist:
The Japan Times: Editorial: University of Tokyo failing non-Japanese students
Bloggbevakning: Karin Kajjan tar bladet från munnen ang sitt avhopp från Gardet
Karin Kajjan Andersson: Ånger gör dig inte till en ”före detta” förövare (non-https)
Natashja/Lady Dahmer: Hej du smal person som är här för att upplysa alla om att det är dåligt att vara tjock! (non-https)

Book chapter

Fisch, Michael. 2018. “Gaming the Interval.” Chapter 4: 121–165. In An Anthropology of the Machine. Tokyo’s Commuter Train Network. The University of Chicago Press.

Anime

Neon Genesis Evangelion, S1 E1–2 (1995)
Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho, E74 (1992, felt like a rewatch, I lost count of where I am)

Film & TV

Dressed to kill (1980, 104 min – we saw a clip from it in the Queering the Gaze seminar in the last inhouse).
Pixar:
- Monsters, Inc. (2001, 92 min)
- Toy Story (1995, 81 min)
Nancy Schwartzman: Roll red roll (2018, 80 min – on the Steubenville rape case and Anonymous)
François Cardona: Le Brésil, sous l’emprise des BBB: Bible, Bœuf, Balles (2019, 60 min – on Jair Bolsonaro and Silas Malafaia)