{"id":95,"date":"2016-07-31T20:30:10","date_gmt":"2016-07-31T20:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/07\/31\/july-pocket-monsters-mondane-practices-microsoft-excel\/"},"modified":"2022-11-15T20:36:54","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T18:36:54","slug":"july-pocket-monsters-mondane-practices-microsoft-excel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/2016\/07\/july-pocket-monsters-mondane-practices-microsoft-excel\/","title":{"rendered":"July: Pocket Monsters, mundane practices, and Microsoft Excel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Statue<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s a rainy Sunday evening, and this weekend is the second one in a row which I enjoy in solitude and stimulating aimlessness \u2014 eating food, going out for coffee, catching some Pok\u00e9mon, meeting friends I don\u2019t see enough. We probably won\u2019t get a cloud-free, diaphoretic summer this year, but you know what? That\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n

I saw them standing in small groups on sidewalks and in parks this month: Young people catching Pok\u00e9mon, everywhere. When I finally tried the app and walked around my neighborhood, I was approached by a young boy on his bike, opening with the common question \u201cEy! You play Pok\u00e9mon Go, too?\u201d I took the chance and asked him about all the rules, which I still don\u2019t fully understand (Make use of the stardust! Walk two more kilometers to hatch this egg!), but it was a nice encounter\u2014which I probably would never have had without the game.<\/p>\n

I remember being obsessed with those Pocket Monsters in the early 2000s. I spent all my money on the playing cards. My main interest wasn\u2019t the game itself, I also never owned a Game Boy; I was more into the character design (subconsciously, I assume, but still). The original 151 Pok\u00e9mon were all drawn by Ken Sugimori, and I still can draw some of them<\/a> from my muscle memory. Unfortunately, this whole Anime thing was quite big when I was child, and I am not able to fully erase it from my style of drawing.<\/p>\n

Change of scene: In the beginning of August, I will have my last days as a full-time employee at Edenspiekermann. After three years, I am saying Goodbye to an awesome agency and crowd, where I learned and grew enormously. This place made me a better designer, team player and communicator. I am moving on to work more freely on design projects, and to go more into design and technology research. When I applied at the university for a masters program, I realized that I haven\u2019t had the feeling that something really counts for me for a while. I always took work very seriously, but it was never so close to me personally. With my application, this was different.<\/p>\n

Applying for a master\u2019s program required a proposal for a research topic. When we\u2014I together with 12 other applicants\u2014presented our ideas, we all got the same feedback. \u201cThis is too abstract! You are designers, bring your thoughts into shape! Design [Gestaltung] is always a direct artifact!\u201d I am not sure if I agree with this statement of the professor fully, but it sparked an interesting thought: Most sciences, most abstract research, most ludicrous studies are based on very basic, almost mundane practices. To be a surgeon, you must likely cut open a human. To be a sexual therapist, you most likely must have sex. To be a designer, you have to create something. This thought makes me calm and motivated for my next chapter.<\/p>\n

One other thing I found out in July: While we spoke of childhood memories before\u2014do you remember Nelly\u2019s and Kelly Rowland\u2019s musical fling \u201cDilemma\u201d from 2002? I never realized that in the music video, Kelly tries to text Nelly on her Nokia 9210 \u2013 by using Microsoft Excel (YouTube link<\/a>). I love this ragged and faulty use of technology on TV. It reminded me of the awesome Source Code in TV and Films<\/a> tumblr, which analyzes the \u00a0code\u2019s actual meaning.<\/p>\n

On that note, I\u2019ll leave you to a good start into August. It\u2019s the last proper summer month, so make it count: Cycle the city, try stand-up paddling, eat cucumber ice-cream, visit the outdoor cinema, make your own lemonade, and\u2014thank god this trend is back\u2014wear shorts and socks in sandals.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

By the way: If you enjoy these monthly ramblings, you can sign up to my e-mail newsletter here: Christel\u2019s Corner on Tinyletter<\/a>.\u00a0\u2728<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a rainy Sunday evening, and this weekend is the second one in a row which I enjoy in solitude and stimulating aimlessness \u2014 eating food, going out for coffee, catching some Pok\u00e9mon, meeting friends I don\u2019t see enough. We probably won\u2019t get a cloud-free, diaphoretic summer this year, but you know what? That\u2019s fine. … July: Pocket Monsters, mundane practices, and Microsoft Excel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1206],"tags":[140,44,41,40,175,3,39,2],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christels-corner","tag-140","tag-christels-corner","tag-english","tag-newsletter","tag-pokemon-go","tag-schreiben","tag-tagebuch","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2978,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/2978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}