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--- michka:transiency_summary [2014-11-25 14:56] – michka
+++ michka:transiency_summary [2014-11-25 17:33] – michka
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 Amélie and I had been together for a few months at the beginning of this Transiency. Thanks to this new period opening in my life, we now had breakfast together every morning. We also spent the Aikido-free (on my side) and teaching-free (on her side) nights together, often doing nothing else than having a tasty (vegetarian) lunch together, and chatting.
-Compared to the lifestyle I had in Paris,
+Compared to the lifestyle I had in Paris, in which I would pile up conferences, projections and meetups on top of my full working days, I can say that Amélie really helped me discover the world of [[https://lib.fo.am/doing_nothing|Doing Nothing]]. And I deeply appreciate it.
+===Delaying===
+{{ :michka:delaying.jpg?400 |}}
+In January, I was lucky enough to receive a job offer from my Master Thesis Supervisor. He was (and is) starting a small company on the topic of artificial closed-ecosystems, a life-support system which uses living organisms to filter water, cycle nutrients and transform carbon dioxide back into oxygen. Such a system is essential for long travels in space, as we cannot carry everything we need to survive several month in space if we single-use them. Such tehcnologies are not only relevant to space though, they are also relevant to sustainability, as they can lead to very efficient pollution control and recycling technologies.
+He proposed me to join in as the first employee of the structure, starting from March.
+Even though the Transiency work had not been easy so far, I could not think about stoppping so early. I had a lot of deep personal work to do, probably way more that what I envisioned in the first place, and I would definitely not even be started with most of it by March. I had to say now.
+I understood in this experience how hard it can be to say no to an offer when you do not know exactly how to phrase what you would do instead, and you can only intuitively feel it is very important.
+Hopefully, my Master Thesis Supervisor did not take it the wrong way, and offered me the job again last August. But more on that later.
+===Cooking===
+{{ :michka:cooking.jpg?400 |}}
+FoAM Brussels being a temple of cooking, I spent some time trying [[http://lib.fo.am/michka/know-hows/recipes|a few recipes]], and cooking lunch occasionally to the FoAM team.
+In addition to reducing my reliance on industrial food, it also helped me decelerating & reconnecting body & mind.
+===Teaching===
+{{ :michka:teaching.jpg?400 |}}
+In September 2013, [[http://fo.am/people/cocky/|Cocky Eek]] from [[http://fo.am/network/ams/|FoAM Amsterdam]] proposed me to come as a guest lecturer in her [[http://www.interfaculty.nl/lab/tactile-research-lab/|Tactile Research Lab]], a class she is teaching to [[http://www.interfaculty.nl/|ArtScience Students]] from the [[http://www.kabk.nl/|Royal Academy of Arts]] in Den Haag for several years now.
+I felt very honored to be proposed to co-teach in such an environment, and was very happy with this experience. We helped a small group of students try to figure out how they could integrate their artpiece in long time frames, make them "sustainable" in the deep initial sense of this word.
+I was confronted their with highly creative students, and a complete new way of teaching. This way of teaching is way more personal, intricated with the personality & life trajectories of these students.
+I wish I could bring part of this way of teaching to my engineering school, as I think it would help have engineers concerned with society, conscious of their personal issues, and more able to question the myths and taboos of the society they live in.
+===Gardening===
+{{ :michka:gardening.jpg?400 |}}
+One of the initial objectives of this year was also to learn practical know-hows to include more DIY in my daily life.
+FoAM Brussels gave me a "carte blanche" for a garden on their small balcony. I went to purchase seeds to the marvelous [[|http://www.bio-logiques.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=175:fraternites-ouvrieres-a-mouscron&catid=100&Itemid=518|Fraternités Ouvrières]] garden, and started some seedlings. Which died when I travelled - see below. I started again some seedlings, which died again. A few lived through my periodic travels, and managed to give some fruits - mainly red radishes, carrots and tomatoes - both yellow and red.
+This experiment in itself gave me an idea of how hard it is to rely on my own food production, and how devoted and sedentary I had to be. Which made me re-think completely the self-sufficient hypothesis.
+====Spring - Seeding====
+After decelerating, and hitting in different ways the reality wall, I needed to plant seeds of what a post-Transiency life could be. I was lucky, it was Spring, a good period to plant seeds.
+===Reading===
+I needed to feel inspired, and learn from others' experiments. So I picked up to experiment-based books from my reading list: