The first week (partially) in the new year. It was still mostly a week off from work.
This week I
- Did some end of year financial transactions on Monday.
- Read stuff on the Art of Memory forum after reading Memory Craft by Lynne Kelley. A lot of the material is like on PKM fora, it leaves out what it is all for. Likely will experiment with one or two memory palaces in the coming weeks. The main question being, what is it that I want to remember that way? With Y talked about helping her remember the main classical Greek gods and their Roman counterparts, as she is into them based on a book she’s read.
- Stayed home the final days of 2024 as E was ill.
- Had a calm NYE with the three of us, E felt better just in time. Y almost didn’t stay awake until midnight but then liked seeing the fireworks from our top floor windows, even though she can’t stand the noise.
- Baked ‘kniepertjes‘, a traditional cookie in the northern and eastern parts of the Netherlands, made for New Year. My Frisian grandmother made them (flat before NYE, rolled up on New Year’s day). I only made flat ones, even if it was both before and after NYE.
- Read my first two books in the new year. One science fiction in English, one set in the Amsterdam student life in Dutch.
- Spent a day with E and Y in Nijmegen. About an hour away from us, it is a city I only visited a few times as a student. Visited the Valkhof museum to satisify Y’s curiosity about Roman history in the Netherlands, walked around, enjoyed coffee, lunch and a bookstore, spent some time in the main church where Y and I helped out knotting camouflage nets for Ukraine. Nijmegen is a pleasant city, and a somewhat odd mix of very old and recent buildings (due to large scale damage by allied bombardments and heavy fighting in WWII)
- Tried to do some work on Friday, as there are a few things that I had left unfinished before Christmas. I really struggled to do some work at all, had a strong distaste for it, hopefully next week I will find it easier and more palatable.
- Updated my Now page.
- Applied for a membership of the Utrecht university library. I hadn’t realised outsiders could get a membership at university libraries, but it sounds like a low cost way of opening up my options w.r.t. reading widely.
- Spent two hours with Y outside early Sunday morning to enjoy the few centimeters of snow that fell overnight, before rain took over. Y danced for joy in the snow. We had a snowball fight together at dawn, took the sleigh to the park, built snowmen and made snow angels. By the time we returned home at ten, cold wet and hungry, for breakfast, rain was turning everything into sludge already.