Digibury 2.0

I can't say anything about early editions of Digibury as I am a new digibee (yes, I just made up a word - Oxford English Dictionary here I come!) at attending these lovely gatherings, but I can only appreciate the evolution of the event. I mean - have you seen the new website? I love it when things evolve rapidly and naturally and there is no doubt Digibury has this down to a t. Check it out if you don't believe me!

Last event's structure adopted a slightly different format which allowed members not only to interact with the speakers and ask questions, but to physically play with Arduinos and to create our own light painting artwork! Yeah, that's right, now's the time to pity yourself if you've missed it!

Really grateful to meet Emily Turner from 100and40 which taught me a really valuable lesson - there are no such things as social media experts! What?? Yeah, they are just as bogus as Santa or the Easter Bunny! (Exception being that we like Santa and the Easter Bunny's all right I guess).  I think it is incredibly reassuring to hear that you do not have to be an expert in something when we live in a world where everybody needs to brand themselves, where most people are sceptical in social situations unless they know at the start what their mission is and what they'll get out of it. It's such an immense pressure to label yourself as an expert these days, that just hearing Emily's words lifted a massive weight off my shoulders.

Learning about Arduinos was a lot more fun than expected! I am not qualified to get into the techy part and explain it to you, but they let us program the LEDs which meant that all present were thinking about how we could transpose our new gained skills into creating magical light shows for our Christmas tree...We actually got to create our own personalised message on camera.



This is when I realised I don't know how to spell my own name backwards... (Disappointing. Really disappointing.)

I won't even try to describe how much fun this was, you can check all the cool paintings on the #canthack website. <--- must see for all interested in programming and maybe even DIY one of a kind Christmas lights making?

Amazing evening, had so much fun and a big thank you to Deeson, Simon, #canthack and Emily - for making all this possible, but personally I must mention a massive THANK YOU to Emily, who gave me the courage to put this out for the world to see:

My name is Ioana and I am absolutely positively no expert in anything. I like loads of stuff and enjoy a whole bunch of other stuff, I can go as far as saying that I am good at doing some of the things I do, but I am positively 100 % NO EXPERT at doing anything!!!...not even at eating chocolate unfortunately...and you know what?

That's fine with me. 

Blondie's gone

I had enough of my old hair colour which over time changed from a nice shade of blonde to a really hay-e looking kind of colour and I just had enough of.

I got the kit and the colour that I chose, but the most important element in hair colouring can not be bought in stores - make sure you have a friend who is willing to get down to business and get their hands dirty LITERALLY. I used to do it myself, but after getting multiple shades of colours for the spots I had completely missed, I decided to get (un)professional help.

Plus, let's face it it will be fun having a night in playing beauty parlour and gossiping about stuff. My friend, if you see this, thanks for agreeing to go to work tomorrow with black spots on your hands and I will be explaining the black spots from my ears, forehead, neck, cheeks and hands. It's been great fun, though!

And that's my thought of the day!

The golden apple

I need to express my gratitude and congratulate Apple for their excellence when it comes to customer service. I've had my phone for nearly one year now and even though it did seem to be a dodgy piece of kit since day 1, I somehow managed not to report it until 1 month before the end of my warranty.

Spoke to my network supplier on Friday evening who put me through to Apple customer service. Without too much fuss, they made an appointment for me to go see them at the Apple store in Bluewater today at 7.50 pm.

I had to go, but I was pretty disappointed thinking that it was too close to closing time and the staff will be grumpy so I was sure nothing will get sorted.

My phone, as crazy as it was, would freeze or decide to terminate my running applications whenever I was doing something relatively important...but whenever I tried to show this to someone, it would work perfectly normal. Damn black sheep undercover!

So obviously, when meeting the guy from Apple...my phone was not working to it's normal default standard that I was used to.

Great shock when the Apple employee just said that they'll replace it without too many questions asked. They did not want me to leave their store in disappointment. And I sure didn't! I got my new phone which works unbelievably well (I was probably too used to the faulty one) and I am currently writing this on my new phone. Apple do really have outstanding customer service and they sure got a little fan club in our household!

It still felt like I was pulling the plug on an old friend when I had to erase everything of the old one...all i can say now is goodbye my dear friend!

And that's my thought of the day!

Weekends are short

How is it fair that you have to work 5 out of 7 days and spend just 2 days with the ones you love?

How is it fair that out of a 24 hour day you sleep 8 hours, work an average of 8 hours and get 8 hours to spend with your loved ones?

Who chooses out of free will to spend an equal amount of time with family and friends and work colleagues?!

Even worse, if we spend as much time with work colleagues as with family, why do we not get a vote when hiring new people? No matter if you like them or not, you have to spend an awful lot of time with them...

All in all, I think it's unfair that we gotta work as much as normally acceptable to be able to secure a pension to allow us to do what we wanted to do in the first place.

But I guess it's just me moaning about a Sunday night knowing I've got to wake up early again tomorrow... Promise to have more cheerful thoughts tomorrow!

And that's my thought of the day.

Warhorse

I will keep this one short and sweet. Have you seen the film Warhorse?

I refused to watch it until today as I knew it was going to be emotional. And so it was, but in a different way than I had expected. It was so much better than I had ever thought.

Absolutely loved it and am curious to see what other peeps think about it. Are you like me and refused to see it to spare yourself the tears or were you brave enough to watch it when it came out? What did you think about it?

And that's my thought of the day.

I ♥ innocent people

What are you interested in?

✔ Men                 ✔ Women

I love the fact that there still are people out there who can take a simple fact like this Facebook question and still interpret it in a really innocent way, with such clean and pure minds, without having been touched by the dirty rules and perverted games encouraged by today's society. There still out people out there who use social media for SOCIALISING rather than stalking old partners and flings and today, I want to thank these people for probably making our world just a little bit better.

Now, for all of you who went straight into laughing and thinking about the exact same thing I did when I first read this statement on someone's profile...shame on you! :)

And that's my thought for today.

Thought of day 1 - I am a tall shorty

They say to be careful what you wish for as it may come true. And so it did!

For some strange reason, my height is so embedded in my brain that whenever I buy new trousers I need to buy long ones or I believe that they are too short for me to wear. I need to see the word ‘long’ written on the label or I won't buy them. However, I hate being tall! Absolutely bloody hate it!

Today, the lovely sun decided to finally show Canterbury some good lovin`, so I got to wear my flip flops in a sign of celebration… and my jeans kept slipping down getting caught between my heal and the shoe, making me step on them with every single step I took.

Now, most of you would generally most likely find this annoying, but I loved it! I finally got my wish and I felt really really short!

And that's my thought of today.

#canterbury

You are probably here out of mere curiosity, trying to find out what the meaning is behind these little cards that have been lingering around Canterbury lately, without having any real clear message or appeal.

I will just throw this out there clearly from the start, this action was taken without any hidden message or trying to trick people into viewing my page. The main purpose is to create some sort of twitter community for people who reside in our city. I chose to direct people to my page rather than to my twitter account because I wanted to make sure you know why I am doing this and not just let it become background noise.

I absolutely love this city... the Cathedral, the shops, the people, the pubs...they are all so special and have so much personality and quirkiness in them. There's always something to do and someone to see for the ones who are 'living and breathing Canterbury' all day long.

So why not get as many twitter users as possible to start supporting the #canterbury hash tag and see if we can get it trending?

What's in it for you, you ask?

Well, we will show the world that we are a community and make it a lot easier for us Canterburyians to receive news and updates from around our area.

Let's make our mark on the world of twitter...spread your hash tags and fly!

Digital Canterbury. Digibury

'There's always something to do in Canterbury'

You know what? I truly believe this to be a 100%, full proof, spot on accurate statement. This is, indubitably, if you know where to look for fun and interesting activities and events...and I do mean this, unfortunately, as you do need to know how to push Google’s buttons, to be able to find some of our lovely and weird, ambiguous and fascinating events that are happening in my little city.

Yes, you definitely need to know where to look for them and in absolutely no way whatsoever, just stumble upon events by chance, decide to attend them and then be absolutely mind blown by the fun you had!

Okay, okay! Hands up, hats off, you've got me! I must admit that in the following paragraphs I may possibly be referring to an event I recently attended and that I have spotted on twitter... I was in fact not looking for anything related to evening activities that might imply in the slightest the existence of the infamous 'life after work' and that, in fact I was just having a minute break from my work and decided to check up what was new in the world of twitter. 

Nonetheless, so what if it was a simple, unplanned, last-minute discovery? I still had to take the decision to attend, didn’t I?  So surely I can at least have a weensy tiny pat on the shoulder for my discovery!

Well, I believe that I was instantly attracted to this particular event as the name itself acted more as a brain stimuli for me, by having an irresistibly interesting and eye-catching name..Digibury.

By having previously expressed my love for the magical city of Canterbury and being absolutely and irrefutably addicted to my digital universe, the name ‘Digibury’ had me mesmerised and completely brainwashed in matter of seconds, involuntarily finding myself asking for more details about the night’s event. What a beautiful synergy…Digibury. Digibury. Digibury....Digital Canterbury.

Digibury's website promotes a monthly event that represents a clear stepping stone to the fascinating world of the ambiguous and futuristic. The scope? For people to meet up to hear other people speak about digital, engineering, hacking and start ups – just to name a few. Sounds pretty interesting, doesn’t it?

On arrival, the crowd at Farmhouse looked more like a friendly gathering involving drinking beer in a relaxed atmosphere rather than in a public house, surrounded by fascinating strangers. However, I hint that the venue did gracefully complement the nature of the event and made it look so comforting.

The first presentation was from Animate & Create (a local animation studio based in Whitstable) and it was so fascinating that it completely made me forget for a second that I did not know a thing about animation!

Streetvite’s founder managed to win the audience over by sharing his business journey, with funny and heart-warming ups and downs about starting his own business. Weirdly enough, I did find myself talking to someone about it and I believe the app to be a real success - just a click on Streetvite and I can find out what’s going on in Canters. Woohoo!

The last speaker of the night, was Al King who showed us how he makes these wooden CD cases which turned out to be so cool that I was thinking about how many I would need to buy to put them together and create unique furniture for my flat? lol

 Absolutely loved the evening! It was so motivational, so inspiring, fun and so different from anything I have attended so far in Canterbury. I definitely recommend you check it out if you are round! If you don’t leave the event feeling inspired by these people…then you must have no soul!

Mwah hah hah!

Welcome to your first edition of the ioana show!

It is my pleasure to welcome you into my part of the digital world! First of all, allow me to introduce myself - My name is Ioana and I like to think that I am a global citizen, currently residing in Canterbury, UK. I've been here for a while, but originally I come from a wonderful part of the world, one which some people think of as a fictional place, called Transylvania (no, that's not in the US, it's in Europe - Romania to be precise). I moved to the UK 4 years ago for my Uni degree and I have fallen in love with the mysterious and magical Canterbury, so I have decided to stay here.

To all who don't know me, I am a cheerful, colourful and happy person who usually speaks out her mind. I do have a lot of thoughts and opinions and when I normally start talking....well, let's just say it's pretty difficult to stop. I like to think of myself as a really complex character and I don't mean this in a posh way. Au contraire, what makes my character complex is the fact that I can love hot pink one day and the next to refuse to wear anything else but black. I can be really childish one minute and ridiculously mature the other.

In simple words, this is what defines me: I love fashion. I watch cartoons. I love creativity. I am a shoe addict. I love music. I love branding, advertising and anything marketing orientated. I could not live without Converse. I love make up. I love art. I love colours. And most of all, I could not live without a huge smile on my face and appreciating the little things in life. These are all reasons why I like to consider myself complex.

Please feel free to comment and get in touch with me if you also have a sparkly and colourful personality!

Ioana