Author: steven

I’m happy to announce to two upcoming events:

On Friday, March 9th, I will be presenting a lecture at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth entitled “On the design of blue”, a presentation on my music software blue, demonstrating the software as well as discussing the ideas and thoughts that influenced its design. More information is available here.

On Thursday, March 22nd, from 3:30pm-4:15pm, I will be presenting a demonstration of my music software blue at the 5th International Linux Audio Conference in Berlin. More information about the demonstration is available here.

If you are in the area and will be attending either presentation, I will be looking forward to meeting you!

Thanks,
Steven

Today I woke up and peered outside to see a gentle soft snow coming down. The thermometer read -10 C, a little chillier than it has been. We had decided a couple days ago to wake up and get out of the apartment a little early today to go have breakfast at the Wedel Chocolate Shop in the city center, one of our favorite places to have breakfast here in Warsaw. The landscape white, we walked briskly in the cold air and on the softened ground until arriving to the lovely shop.

With only three breakfast options, we ordered our usuals(the Sniadania Jana for myself, and the Sniadania Karola for Lisa) and listening to the caribbean music in the background, enjoyed another lovely breakfast there: hot chocolates and orange juice, rolls, smoked cheese, tasty jams and chocolate sauce, croissants, and danishes amongst a couple other things. The rooms elegantly done, the service incredibly kind, and the music at a volume to make things comfortable but distant enough to easily hold a conversation.

Afterwards we went to do a little shopping and then proceeded to go home to do some work. It had stopped snowing but had felt colder for it, a small breeze at this temperature chilling our face, feet, and hands. Home now, the thermometer now reads -12 C, the sun beginning to leave for the day.

I had expected weather like this when we got back in the beginning January but it seems to have only gotten started the past two weeks(though, it was about this cold for a couple weeks in November). At night, the skies have had a pinkish color and radiate throughout the night, never feeling quite dark enough to fall asleep to. I haven’t gotten out much the past couple of weeks and I imagine that I won’t be out much as long as the weather remains like this. Cozy and warm inside the apartment, it’s nice to look out and ponder during breaks from working away…

The past week I traveled to the Philippines to help out one of my brother’s best friend’s family to do some Flash and web programming consultation for their company. Never having been to the Philippines, I didn’t know really what to expect nor did I do much research before going as I imagined most of my time would be there to help out on programming and work for the company.I arrived on Wednesday morning and the first couple of days were mostly getting to know the business, the company, and the code behind the software. It was neat getting to meet everyone and to be involved in work like this after taking a lot of time away from it. I also found that everyone there was very friendly and kind, which made it easy to get involved and comfortable to work.

The first few days we worked but in the evenings we went out around town, playing pool, drinking at bars and clubs, and just having a good time at night while working during the day. After the first few days I got to working a lot with the head development guy at the company, spending a lot of late nights working out code and software architecture, up until the very last night on Tuesday. Although we didn’t get to finish everything, I think a lot of good work was done and that they’ll do well with what we worked on together moving forward.

Most of our time was spent in the office or at the apartment, both right in the middle of the financial district of Manila, so I know that I did not have too many chances to observe and understand a great deal of life in the Philippines in the short trip. There were a few things though that I wanted to note down here to remember for the future:

• Manila is a very big city, or really a number of cities all connected. I think that something similar would be New York but without the rivers separating the boroughs, as if it just a large continuous city. It was amazing when we were driving around to just feel the city surrounding us, going on and on.
• The weather is quite warm there, being a tropical climate. It was nice to leave the cold of Warsaw for a week of wearing just a t-shirt to walk around in!
• The population was much larger than I expected, and apparently one of the largest resources of the Philippines is workers. I remember noticing that 7-11’s and Starbuck’s and many other places employed security guards that would also open the door and greet you when you entered and left the store. Taking a taxi is very cheap (well, relatively to what I am used to from America and Europe) and I think it is not uncommon for people to employ housekeepers (live-in as well) to cook and clean, as well as drivers to drive you around.
• People are generally very respectful of others, and they would often refer to people as “Sir” or “Ma’am” when talking to them and always appending “Mr.” and “Ms.” or “Mrs.” to everyone when talking about them in the third person. This was the case at least with the service at restaurants and bars as well as the employees of the company I was at.
• Paying for a service was quite cheap compared to the costs of similar services in America or Europe. The cost of goods themselves were generally about the same or perhaps slightly cheaper I thought.
• I found it interesting that men would court women for a long time before even going out on a date (six months to a year I think was not uncommon). In a way though, I think that culturally that creates a sense of romance and preserves something that seems to have been lost in human relationships in some Western cultures.
• The male culture there seemed much more effeminate than other cultures I’ve been in.
• The culture seemed to be not so much of an angry culture… that’s a bit hard to explain, but I found it was nice that it seemed that people would rather laugh away problems or just take things that happens just to be what they are rather than to stew on troubles. Perhaps it’s the warm weather or the mostly Catholic population or maybe it was just the culture, but I found it refreshing to be in a much more positive environment.

So for my first time to the Philippines I left with a very good impression of Manila and its people. The trip was short and filled with a lot of good hard work and enjoyable time with good people in the down time. It was a great pleasure to have met the people I did (whose kindness and hospitality were exceptional) and I will remember this trip very fondly.

After a wonderful time home in Georgia for the holidays we returned yesterday to Warsaw.  I had forgotten that it begins to get dark here around 3:30pm this time of year, and surely enough the evening dim greeted us on our return. It is nice to be back though and our little apartment here was quite cozy to return to.

Today has been one of mostly organizational work: seeing where I had left off on my projects, seeing where I’d like to go, and thinking about how to incorporate resolutions for the New Year.  As much as I miss my family and friends, I’m also very excited to be back here in Warsaw.  The holidays were very relaxed and refreshing and I’m feeling ready to once again work away…

We’ve been back in the States now almost two weeks and I have found this world quite strange (in an email to a friend I had mentioned it was as foreign a place as I have ever been and I even speak the language!).

I’ve noticed that each year coming back to Georgia to spend holidays with my parents that it has changed more and more as time passes. I remember when I lived in New York and telling people that I was from Georgia that they would always say that they had heard that it was a good place to raise a family and that you could buy a home and that the cost of living was low. So, each year I came back to see more new buildings (and sadly less trees…), more homes, more traffic, and more of just about everything (including pollution: I remember one summer visiting here and driving and seeing a smog alert sign, something I had never seen when growing up…).

I come back here now and think about all those people who I met in New York saying what they said about Georgia and thinking that a lot of people with that mentality must have moved here. I feel such little connection with the people I see, as if I’m standing in the same place with all these people and we’re all looking at the same things but seeing things completely differently…

Having lived in cities for the past seven years, I always find having to drive everywhere awkward. I don’t know if it is from our time in Poland and being used to walking, taking trams, or the metro there, or if it is just the fact that another year has gone by, but this year feels as strange as ever to be driving around Marietta and Atlanta. In cities where getting around by walking and public transportation are primary, I’ve found a real sense of connection with the place and the people. Driving everywhere I find the world passing by and oddly distant as I get from point A to point B with little notice of where I am, only just moving along between the lines and queuing up at the lights…

Some time having passed, I feel a bit more at ease being here but am definitely looking forward to returning to Warsaw in a little over a week. The time spent here has been very enjoyable to see friends and family, but now as December begins to wind down my attention is beginning to look forward again, to January and Warsaw, to setting and following a path, to all the work that lies ahead…

December is always a welcome time of year for me: a time to see old friends, to see my family, to pause a moment and to simply observe all that has happened in the past year. A time for quiet thoughts and observations, the peaceful sense of time has always been rich and full with experiences…

I feel that the many tasks which I have felt myself committed to are finally coming to point where they are not so pressing, and I will welcome when they are finally finished. Over the past two months I have recognized that there were too many tasks that–while all worthy endeavors in their own way–have taken too much of my time away from the deeper musical work that I have long desired to submerge myself within. I am looking forward to when the last of the current tasks are complete and I can disappear for a while to focus all my energy into the pieces which have been laying dormant and are now beginning to awake…

It is December now… a time to reflect, a time to look ahead…

Since we first got to Warsaw some four months ago I have been working on a piece. For the first couple of months, as I usually do, I spent a lot of time listening over and over to the material and the fragments of ideas that were there, slowly adding a little here and there, exploring.  I remember for a few weeks I didn’t get to work on it so much, and when I got back to it about a month ago I finally understood what was going on–and that I had to start over again.

It’s difficult to do, to spend so much time involved in a path a piece takes, only to find that it is not going to work that way. In some ways it’s perhaps more difficult to start over than to simply leave it and move on.  However, the material is good, and as nice as it was unfolding in the original, it now has something the original was lacking.

It’s also not time misspent.  Going through the work of the original path illuminates the new path, and so in a sense was a necessary step to get to where things are now.  That’s sometimes hard to realize especially when you first get to the point where you’re contemplating this type of change.

Sitting here and writing this, listening to the piece now, the sounds are breathing, gently moving along, serene…