2018, the flipside.
Normally I post my year in review somewhere near my birthday, but time got away from my in December. It is generally not the easiest, and this year we were combining Lies' winterdip with Rory who decided to go for learning to walk before years end. Suffice to say that my last few weeks were beautiful and utterly exhausting. Can't remember starting the new year with a battery this low.
The big one is of course finding my feet as a parent. Can't say I've got it all down, nor do I believe I ever fully will, but I immensely enjoy my time with Rory, our time as a family and facilitating her development in whatever she decides to develop. She babbles, is figuring out all the tech in the living room, walks at a decent speed for about 10 steps, crawls at high speed and is enjoying her friends at daycare. She is a social, happy, relaxed child that likes to go explore things as long as at least one of the parental units is near. Daycare also means that Lies started work halfway through the year and I am particularly happy with that. We did the peak-family thing by going to Euro Disney which we all really enjoyed.
Work-wise I will start working for Doctors Without Borders in Amsterdam somewhere this month. It'll be a cool challenge, and as I am wholeheartedly supportive of this NGO I am also looking forward to getting to know the people working there. So far my initial meeting was inspiring, which can be rare in my field of work. I will accept needing public transport for the foreseeable future as an acceptable price to pay.
My orga-highlights this year are Styx and Dauntless. Styx was a lot of fun organizing and participating in, and made use of a whole slew of interesting mechanics to tell the story of a family gathering of the Greek Gods, with all attendant drama and dilemma's. Dauntless was super-unexpected - I'd found the Mercuur in Vlissingen, an old Dutch navy minesweeper, and we boldly inquired if we could use her for an event. After a few emails and a visit there we were allowed to use her for a one-shot that became Dauntless - that had to be put together in less the five weeks. I had to bow out from organizing it in regards to time and the fact I had committed to Styx prep, but I assisted as a ship's cook which was cool enough to see and experience. And we get to use the Mercuur again this year, which considerably more prep time.
My player experiences at among others Vampire Utrecht, Omen en Frontier were all awesome, with al lot more emphasis on calibrating experiences and helping others tweak theirs. It felt like working with being more conscious about what sort of play we want and facilitate, and that is cool. I am looking forward to tackling some bigger projects again, tho - whether some new swag, plans or specials. I took a back seat this year due to logical circumstances, but I feel ready to add a bit again ( though far below my capacity pre-parent - that is a given ).
My coolest larp experience this year is College of Wizardry - mainly due to the location and the awesome community. The people I played with made it all supremely cool. With a rock solid family with a wonderful dilemma, a boyfriend, werewolves, a murder to investigate and being part of a band of vigilante students I had plenty to do with Finn coming to life as more of a top level Witchard then I had anticipated. It also felt like a bit of the redemption of Sander the High School Student, as I had brought my old schoolbag from those days to be Finn's school bag. And that really worked.
Personal-wise I am doing okay-ish. Re-calibrating as a parent is cool, but it left precious little space for some other bits of me This is pretty much a given in a child's first year and perfectly acceptable. But now that the mini is ( sometimes literally ) up and running I am looking forward to spending more quality time with my loved ones - with or without the mini in question.
I am also looking forward to writing more again - I have the core of five articles on the larp platform standing by if I can only order to thoughts long enough to do some proper editing on them. Also, as a lot of friends struggle or have struggled with their own questions of identity I am considering writing up some of my own journey in that regard - but I want to do that proper justice and proper context. And that will take brainspace.
In regards to health I am not too dissatisfied, slowly shedding the stress-weight of Lies' pregnancy. My main aim with getting a fit-bit is fix my sleeping pattern, which has allowed me to raise my weekly sleep average to over six hours a night. I want to get it back up to at least seven - and move from the roughly 8k steps a day I do to a more wholesome 10k. Still, that is all pretty okay.
So, 2018 was... acceptable. Magical. Wondrous. If 2019 can be that with more time, more sleep ( how paradoxical ) and some more writing I'd be pretty happy about it. So lets make that happen. Hope to see you all out there in some capacity this year.
The big one is of course finding my feet as a parent. Can't say I've got it all down, nor do I believe I ever fully will, but I immensely enjoy my time with Rory, our time as a family and facilitating her development in whatever she decides to develop. She babbles, is figuring out all the tech in the living room, walks at a decent speed for about 10 steps, crawls at high speed and is enjoying her friends at daycare. She is a social, happy, relaxed child that likes to go explore things as long as at least one of the parental units is near. Daycare also means that Lies started work halfway through the year and I am particularly happy with that. We did the peak-family thing by going to Euro Disney which we all really enjoyed.
Work-wise I will start working for Doctors Without Borders in Amsterdam somewhere this month. It'll be a cool challenge, and as I am wholeheartedly supportive of this NGO I am also looking forward to getting to know the people working there. So far my initial meeting was inspiring, which can be rare in my field of work. I will accept needing public transport for the foreseeable future as an acceptable price to pay.
My orga-highlights this year are Styx and Dauntless. Styx was a lot of fun organizing and participating in, and made use of a whole slew of interesting mechanics to tell the story of a family gathering of the Greek Gods, with all attendant drama and dilemma's. Dauntless was super-unexpected - I'd found the Mercuur in Vlissingen, an old Dutch navy minesweeper, and we boldly inquired if we could use her for an event. After a few emails and a visit there we were allowed to use her for a one-shot that became Dauntless - that had to be put together in less the five weeks. I had to bow out from organizing it in regards to time and the fact I had committed to Styx prep, but I assisted as a ship's cook which was cool enough to see and experience. And we get to use the Mercuur again this year, which considerably more prep time.
My player experiences at among others Vampire Utrecht, Omen en Frontier were all awesome, with al lot more emphasis on calibrating experiences and helping others tweak theirs. It felt like working with being more conscious about what sort of play we want and facilitate, and that is cool. I am looking forward to tackling some bigger projects again, tho - whether some new swag, plans or specials. I took a back seat this year due to logical circumstances, but I feel ready to add a bit again ( though far below my capacity pre-parent - that is a given ).
My coolest larp experience this year is College of Wizardry - mainly due to the location and the awesome community. The people I played with made it all supremely cool. With a rock solid family with a wonderful dilemma, a boyfriend, werewolves, a murder to investigate and being part of a band of vigilante students I had plenty to do with Finn coming to life as more of a top level Witchard then I had anticipated. It also felt like a bit of the redemption of Sander the High School Student, as I had brought my old schoolbag from those days to be Finn's school bag. And that really worked.
Personal-wise I am doing okay-ish. Re-calibrating as a parent is cool, but it left precious little space for some other bits of me This is pretty much a given in a child's first year and perfectly acceptable. But now that the mini is ( sometimes literally ) up and running I am looking forward to spending more quality time with my loved ones - with or without the mini in question.
I am also looking forward to writing more again - I have the core of five articles on the larp platform standing by if I can only order to thoughts long enough to do some proper editing on them. Also, as a lot of friends struggle or have struggled with their own questions of identity I am considering writing up some of my own journey in that regard - but I want to do that proper justice and proper context. And that will take brainspace.
In regards to health I am not too dissatisfied, slowly shedding the stress-weight of Lies' pregnancy. My main aim with getting a fit-bit is fix my sleeping pattern, which has allowed me to raise my weekly sleep average to over six hours a night. I want to get it back up to at least seven - and move from the roughly 8k steps a day I do to a more wholesome 10k. Still, that is all pretty okay.
So, 2018 was... acceptable. Magical. Wondrous. If 2019 can be that with more time, more sleep ( how paradoxical ) and some more writing I'd be pretty happy about it. So lets make that happen. Hope to see you all out there in some capacity this year.