Lately I’ve been busy with assignments for university. I’m currently following the ‘Quality of Online Journalism’ bachelor seminar at UvA. In this seminar we discuss journalism, traditional media, participatory journalism and implications of online journalism. I shared my blogpost assignment last week here on elocutio .nu :D I still have only one 1500 words paper to go before I can wrap up this course. I also have to retake a final from hell *sighs* It’s been keeping me back from graduating since I’m not able to do a special research course nor write my bachelor thesis with a sufficient grade for this final *very big sigh* I have failed this final a couple of times now, so I really hope to get it right this time. I have been able to score some great results for my bachelor seminar so I hope I can keep it up and finally pass this final *growlz nerd mode onnnn*

Of course one can not study hard without the much needed relaxation. I’m really looking forward to watching some great movies in the cinema such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) which I’ve been looking forward to since last year. I’m also very interested in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (2010) starring one of my fav actrices Cate Blanchett. And last but not least, I definitely have to go and see Sex & The City 2 (2010) *tee-hee* Of course I will write a full review as soon as I caught them in the cinema!

Now it’s my turn to nominate the blogs I love to read. I actually love all the blogs I listed on my fav blogs list. I’m really bad in picking favorites, so I’ll just name all my fav bloggers: Becky, Elizabeth, Jen, Jenny, Manda, Matthew, Melody and Tiger Lilly :D Feel free to place the logo of the Sunshine Award on your blog in a post and spread the love by nominating your favorite blogs/bloggers ~

In the past I must say that Jen from sushi-cat.net was my blogger example. She really inspired me to start a personal blog. At the moment I really like to stop by Independent Fashion Bloggers. Even though I’m not a fashion blogger I really love the articles, tips & general information that can be found on this blog. It really makes me think of what I want to write & how I want to write it. If you’re interested in growing as a blogger stopping by IFB ♥ definitely isn’t a bad idea.

Ok I must be honest: the video above has no relation to the topic of this post .. but well … I actually ‘go Dutch’ (?) pretty often *blush*

Lately I have been thinking much about the language I’m blogging in. Even though I have been blogging in English for the at least 5 years I’m not a native English speaker and I’m sure I don’t write perfect English 100 procent of the time. I have always surrounded myself with things in the English language, I prefer books written in English and on a young age I had a preference for watching the Disney films in their original form. I actually still own a few VHS imported from the UK without any Dutch subtitles at all!

But as a blogger I noticed I started to get more interested in writing about things here in The Netherlands. Of course I could write this in English too, but I think a post about my thoughts on Dutch politics (with the elections coming up and all) is more relevant for the Dutch speaking visitors of my website. I think I realized not all Dutch people who are active on the internet are sufficient enough in English. I also think it would be good for me personally to write some articles in Dutch again since I noticed my Dutch writing skills have become a bit ‘stale’. Nowadays I only write Dutch for my academic essays and stuff *gulp*

Don’t worry though! Elocutio .nu will still be a 98 procent English written blog. I will also keep my Dutch blogposts friendly for International visitors, by placing a short summary at the start of a post. This way international visitors will still be able to read in a nutshell what I’m talking about ~

Even though I always thought the comments of a blogpost or YouTube video was a good place to ask questions, I noticed some of the questions I got on my YouTube video’s kinda drowned in all the comments. I’m interested in shooting more YouTube vids in the near future and I would like to find a good way to handle Q&A. Next to promoting my new YouTube video’s here on this website via a blogpost, I plan on listing important questions I received via YouTube in the blogpost as well.

I set up my formspring.me/ALEIDA84 account for those who would like to ask me an anonymous question or just want to ask random off topic questions.

I will also give up the domain and the website will close down at the start of April this year. I have decided to move some old posts over to this domain. Since I kept the original ‘posted on’ date you can find them archived under various categories and not in my recent posts list.

To make it easier to find the posts I have added the full list of the articles I’ve added from RENOVATIO lucis below :

• Google : an inside look
• Holland Doc : Another Perfect World
• Virtual Games & Psychogeriatric Care
• Wii & Adults
• Trendspotting San Francisco

Pour-soi .NETWORK

I will document my activities at RENOVATIO lucis over at my collective website www.pour-soi.net.

It’s time to reveal the true book lovers and movie buffs. It’s time to announce the winners of the 2009 challenges !!!

As I announced in an earlier post I decided to not hold the challenges in 2010. I want to thank everyone who joined the challenges in the past 4 years over at pour-soi.net and of course here on elocutio.nu.

To me the challenges have always been personal, because I wanted to discover new books & movies. I never imagined others would enjoy doing the challenges as well. Again thank you so much for joining. I hope all participants had fun even though some of you didn’t complete the challenge at the end of the year.

With love,
Aleida

Read 12 Books in 2009

The participants who completed the Read 12 Books in 2009 challenge are: Kayla, Andrea, Amy, India & Shazz. Congratulations and thank you so much for joining!

Watch 150 Movies in 2009

It seems to have become a tradition, because at the of the Watch 150 Movies in 2009 only 1 participant completed the challenge. This is similar to the result in 2008 and I believe only two participants completed the movie challenge in 2007. So a big congratulations and much respect go to Nicola for completing the challenge this year! Thank you so much for joining.

The Challenges in 2010

Even though I will no longer hold the 12 books & 150 movies challenges, I am working on a new challenge and have plans for future competitions together with KITCHEN84. More about that will follow later.

While checking out participants lists I noticed some will continue to compete in the challenge in 2010. If you are continuing the challenges (or have another challenge) and want other people to join you? Feel free to leave a comment with a link to your challenge!

A big thank you goes to Roel for picking up the Watch 150 Movies challenge. You can join the challenge for this year here (Dutch) ~

I originally made this for my YouTube channel only, but since we also celebrate 2nd Christmas Day here in The Netherlands … I thought why not post it on here as well? I wish you all much love, peace & happiness during the holidays!

I will probably post a whole lotta updates in the coming days. Because I still have so much to write about before the year ends. So stay tuned for that! I will definitely see you guys in 2010 ~

With love,
Aleida

It’s December which means it’s time to look back to 2009 and forward to 2010. There are a lot of things that happend online and offline, but there were also things that have pretty much stayed the same. So what are the things visitors of elocutio .nu can look forward to in 2010 ?

Wrapping Up 2009

Before I will shed some light on things to come I will first give some more information about the challenges. I first started these challenges on pour-soi.net 4 years ago! I started the challenges because I really wanted to stimulate myself (and others) to go out and look for fresh books to read and movies to see. Participating in the challenges have stimulated me to pick up books or movies I wouldn’t have normally. But after 4 years the challenges grew into ‘number grinding’ lists: quantity over quality. I missed truly thinking about the movies I watched.

I’ve decided to hold the challenges for the last time in 2009. I will go over the participants list just before January 7th, 2010 and will post the awards for winners on that date! I will probably post the winners in a blogpost and close the challenges section on January 31st, 2010.

The year 2009 was an important turning point for me as a blogger. I felt more and more interested in writing a semi personal blog and focus my attention on the things I like without writing about my very day to day life. In October I decided to reset this blog in Hello again!. Even though it might sound like it was a simple action it truly felt as if I closed a chapter of my life and started a new one. Some activities I did for my music . first project sure helped a lot too. Going out to parties, blog & tweet about it and even look for people to interview was a lot of fun!

I guess you can say I feel a lot more comfortable blogging about the things I love. I’m also not afraid to go after or shape a story by exploring new things & meeting new people. There are so many things in this world that offer inspiration.

Looking forward to the New Year

Even though I won’t hold the challenges in 2010 anymore I will hold occasional give aways here on Elocutio .nu or via KITCHEN84 such as iTunes Gift Cards, PlayStation Network Cards, Flickr PRO accounts, cd’s other things. I will probably announce them via my Twitter account @elocutio and my YouTube channel.

In January I will also officially launch The Book section where you can find my favorite links to websites, shops & restaurants and random favorite things. Of course I plan on updating this blog on a regular basis and keep on writing about all the things I love and would like to share with you. I will probably include more YouTube video’s in my blogposts since I’m really starting to like making video’s.

Well, there’s definitely a lot to look forward to in the New Year. I wish you all HAPPY HOLIDAYS and I hope to see you back in 2010!

Regular readers, visitors, lurkers might have noticed the archives are gone and this blog starts with a clean slate *eeep*

After long delibiration I have decided to back up the database and all the images belonging to the posts before ‘resetting’ this blog. I felt I needed a new fresh ‘diary’ to start in and the archive I took with me when I moved from pour-soi.net to this domain dating back to 2006 … it was just too much baggage.

During all the years I have been blogging I never let drama slip over to my blog entries. So it’s not that I wanted to erase my old entries from the world wide web because I feel ashamed for writing them. I’m simply … not 22 anymore and my focus has shifted. For some time now I wanted to write differently (if that is possible at a semi personal blog), but by continuing my pour-soi.net blog here … it never really happened.

So I’m closing that old diary thing, tie a ribbon around it and put it in my bookcase. I’m too soft to truly delete it, so a back up of the mysql database table will do fine. I actually thought it would be scary to start over a blog. But I’m feeling lighter than ever and so inspired. New beginnings can be pretty damn awesome!

With love,
Aleida

p.s. For all the participants of the challenges – they are still here !