Lemon Cake

It was getting very late, and at least one of us had to be at work early in the morning. It wasn't me, but I tried to be a nice girl (maybe that was a tad too late?), and when I suddenly realized the little hand was reaching towards the first digit on the display, I thought I'd better put myself in the car and drive back home.

One of the last things he said to me before I left, half an hour later, was that I should be a clever girl and study hard the next day. "And write in your blog." That was a new one! I don't think anyone has ever told me to write before, and I usually don't need it either. Now I did actually; been having a little difficulty (again) with the form and content of the blog. Same questions, not necessarily the same answers. Why do I write? For whom? About what? What is a blog anyway?

It all started two years ago at a web design class with Dr. Jill Walker, and there we had to start a blog. Jill is one of the leading authorities on blogs (if not the leading authority) and what she doesn't know about the subject probably isn't worth mentioning. A couple of weeks ago she wrote an interesting post about it in her own blog, which triggered a lively discussion in the comments. She asked if the "novelty of blogs is wearing of", after having some trouble motivating her students to catch on to the blogging concept. I guess we're all asking ourselves the same questions about why, for whom and about what, and the problem might be that by answering those questions and defining the purpose it takes away much of the spontaneity of the writing. And writing for an audience is hard. Perhaps not if that audience is large and "invisible", in that case you'll just know that some will like it and some won't. But if you know who's reading your blog, be it your lecturer and tutor, your classmates, your mother, your friend or your lover, or "worse" - all of them, that makes it extremely challenging.

If I was smart I should probably go back to writing more academically, it's very good for the learning process to recapitulate a lecture and a chapter or two of your required reading by writing about it. In that case I should write about the lecture I went to yesterday, which by the way was absolutely wonderful. We had a guest lecturer, Sverre H. Holbye, who's an expert in universal design and "electronic accessibility", especially for the blind and visually impaired. I laughed a lot, and that is to me a good lecture. I usually remember those better, and also - they're a lot more inspiring. One thing that stood out what was he said about disability. We used to (and a lot of people still do) think about disability as a static condition of physical or mental abnormality. It's not. It's context dependent, and here's his example:

A young healthy woman is about to board the bus. With her baby in a pram. The stairs are not made for wheels, and she needs help to carry the pram on board. And therefore she is by definition disabled. Really makes you think, doesn't it?

Designing computer programs and user interfaces, in general usually is about making things more efficient, while designing them for the disabled are more about making things possible.

So what about the title then? Lemon Cake? What does that have to do with anything? Well, there's someone who might have an idea, but I'll just want to add something. When I grew up we didn't have all these rich and gooey, American style, chocolate cakes like we get now. Back than it was more traditional, lighter cakes, and one of my favorites my mum used to make was this Ambrosia Cake. The name implies it's divine, and Googling it leaves you with a zillion links to different kind of scrumptious recipes, but the Swedish one is a quite simple, light, orange flavored cake, and an icing sprinkled with dried orange peels. That kind of cake I haven't baked for years, it has been more of these already mentioned American kinds. But only a few days ago, I suddenly had an urge for something lighter, fresher. I didn't act on it though, my kids still crave their Brownies, but guess what someone had bought last night? Yummy Lemon Cake, and coffee with that. I'm almost starting to feel like the princess I'm treated as, it must be true what they say about "officers and gentlemen"...

This is what I'm doing now. I'm going back to the basics. Back to the things that work, and makes me smile. Life is quite simple, if you don't fight it all the time. And it's even possible to dance right through it...

To sum up this post:

• It's personal, but not too personal. Suitable for all types of readers.
• It reflected upon yesterdays lecture, and touched upon some academic issues.
• It was fun to write...
• It justifies this blog, then?