Flowzine, September 2022

A new study year has started at Tilburg University. Flow would like to welcome you to our study association! And of course, to all our already known Flow mem bers, welcome back after your holidays!

A new study year also means a new Flowzine! This edition will be the last one of this InFlow Committee. We wish the whole association good luck with the coming Flow year and in parti cular the new InFlow Committee ’22-’23, which will take it over from us after this Flowzine.

Much blue and yellow love, Désirée van den Berg

commissioner

The Five - Cultural Spotlight: Dutch Hometowns

By our Dutch InFlow members

11

Meet the Daily Board!

By Désirée van den Berg & Lynn Willems

Time Traveling: The Way it is Presented in Sciences Fiction

By Maria Mouratidi

Interview with dr. Neil Cohn

By Isabel Prinsen

14

CONTENTS 03 05 09 15 17 19 21

Game: FLOW’S CROSSWORD

By Désirée van den Berg

Column - Niche Hobbies: Mechanical Keyboards

By Sherwin Lee

Get to know To Communicate Blog!

By Désirée van den Berg

Lucid Dreaming

By Femke Monshouwer & Sophie Vullings

Recipe - Malaysian Char Koay Teow

By Sherwin Lee

Cultural Spotlight: Dutch Hometowns

Lynn about Heijen

As a proud ‘Limbo’, I will be talking about my home town Heijen. With approximately 2000 citizens, you could say this town isn’t the biggest. Even though it might not be that large, a lot of people do know it because of one thing and one thing only: Center Parcs Het Heijderbos! For more than 50 years Center Parcs has been the place to be for a nice, relaxing holiday. All their parks are in the middle of beautiful nature reserves, with cottages in the heart of the forest or at the water’s edge. Another amazing thing is the famous subtropical swimming paradise Aqua Mundo! We also can’t forget the indoor tropical Mar ket Dome and the wide range of indoor and outdoor activities. So, if you are ever thinking about visiting Heijen, definitely do! You might even get a free coffee at my house.

Sophie about Venray

Venray is a town located in the north of Limburg. Just like in Tilburg, carnaval is very big here. But in Limburg, we rather call it “vasteloavend”. I guess we just like to be different. Throughout the rest of the year, it’s a relatively quiet place. The nature is quite beautiful if you look in the right places. There are a couple of fo rests you can go to for a walk or a ride on your bike. But besides the beautiful and diverse nature, there is a rich history as well. During the second world war there were some big battles in and around Venray. We now have a whole museum dedicated to these battles and the victims they made. Its purpose is to pass on the stories to younger generations, so that everything that has happened won’t be forgotten.

Femke about Rijsoord

The town I live in is called Ridderkerk, which is close to Rotterdam. To be very specific, I live in a small village called Rijsoord which is part of Ridderkerk. You can’t find any stores here; it is pretty basic. But this does

make way for very beautiful scenery. If I walk around 100 meters down my street, I’m at a river called The Waal and, approximately 500 meters further, you can find a forest. All of this is 10 kilometres away from the big city of Rotterdam. Rijsoord used to be a place where a lot of foreign painters would spend their time. Back then it was a picturesque village, and it still is.

Isabel about Venlo

I’m from Venlo, which is the second largest city in Limburg right on the border with Germany. Becau se of this, it’s a very popular destination for a day or shopping trip to many of the Germans in the area. You can also see the connection in the local dialect which borrows a lot of German words. The other thing Venlo is well known for is how we celebrate carna val, though like many other towns in Limburg, we call it Vastelaovend (meaning: evening before fasting). Having one of the oldest carnavals associations in the Netherlands, you can find the whole city out to party. Our official colours are red, yellow and blue, though unlike here in Brabant, we don’t really have the tradition to wear them, focussing more on extra vagant costumes.

Désirée about ‘s-Hertogenbosch

‘s-Hertogenbosch, which we call Den Bosch these days, is the wonderful capital city of one of the twel ve Dutch provinces, Noord-Brabant. You can find the medieval architecture in historic buildings, storefronts, museums, restaurants but also in the fortresses and old cannons on the outskirt of the city. Additionally, you can experience Den Bosch through the years via a boat trip through the centuries-old canal system under the city. Moreover, the city has a warm and welcoming atmosphere thanks to their jazz cafés, restaurants, and nice bars. Den Bosch is also very well known as Oeteldonk, which is their name when it is carnaval in the end of February and the beginning of March. In a nutshell, Den Bosch natives definitely know how to enjoy the good life! Hope to see you there!

MEET THE DAILY BOARD!

Bart Dijksterhuis – Chair

Hello! My name is Bart Dijksterhuis, I am 20, almost 21, years old and am a 2nd year CSAI student. My roots find themselves in Voorburg, next to The Hague. Last year I was a member of the Sports & Games Committee and really found my place in Flow. In my free time I like to lie on my couch with either a good movie or video game or you can find me in the gym. I’m excited to get to work and make this year a great year for Flow!

Isabel Prinsen - Secretary

My name is Isabel and I study CIW. Originally, I come from Venlo in Limburg, but I have been living in Tilburg since my first year. After going through two exhausting corona years, I became active at Flow this year. Since then, I enjoyed writing in the InFlow Committee and got to know a lot of great people. Throughout last year I realised that I wanted to contribute even further to Flow through a board year, and I still find it hard to believe that I am actually in it as Secretary. I’m looking forward to this year!

Laurens Scheepers – Treasurer

Hi! My name is Laurens Schepers, and I am currently studying the Master Commu nication and Information Sciences specialising towards New Media Design. Before this study, I have studied both International Business on a Secondary Vocational Level, and International Business and Management Studies at a Bachelor’s level. My passion has always been Dance music, both in the event industry as well as in music production. For music production, I have been releasing music on different record labels and have several artist brands. However, for now, I am the Treasurer of this academic year’s board of Flow!

Rianne van Zijp – Internal Affairs

My name is Rianne van Zijp and I am 24 years old. Originally, I come from a town near Rotterdam called Maassluis, but since November I have been living in Til burg. I am a lover of food and drinks, taking pictures and videos, music, and playing golf. In the first semester of last year, I completed the Pre-Master CIS and I have now started the Master. Last year was my first at Flow, in which I acted as the commissioner of the Career Committee. Since joining Flow, I have met a lot of new people, learned new things, and especially found my place in Tilburg.

Jurre van der Mast - External Affairs & Vice-chair

Hi everyone! My name is Jurre van der Mast, I’m 20 years old and I am born in Breda. In my first year as a Flow member, I was part of the IFAC, and in the past year, I was the commissioner of the Weekend Committee. Up to now, I have real ly enjoyed my time as a Flow member and all the activities I attended. That is why I’m very happy and proud to be the External Affairs and Vice-chair for this year. I am really looking forward to it!

Gavin Dam – Educational Affairs

Hey everyone! I’m Gavin Dam and I’ll be the new Educational Affairs of Flow! I’m 20 years old and originally born in Breda, however, I grew up in the small village of Hoeven. Last year with Flow I was commissioner of the IFAC so if you’re down for a drink hit me up! I also have other hobbies outside of drinking with friends, like playing basketball or cooking. I’m also very social so if you want to chat, come to the Flow office!

When did you realize you wanted to become part of Flow’s board?

Bart: Last year I was part of the Sports and Games Committee and really enjoyed all the activities organized, not just by us, but by all the other committees as well. As I was having such a good time, I started thinking about wanting to give more to the association and contemplating a board year. Around March I made my decision that I was going to try and become part of our Daily Board to give back to the association and for the challenge it poses.

Rianne: I was talking about it with friends and that kind of got the ball rolling. I thought of all the benefits it would have and the amazing time I had had with Flow up to that point and after talking to my parents I made the choice to apply.

What do you look forward to most this year?

Isabel: I’m really looking forward to Lustrum. I’m very happy I get to be Daily Board in such a year.

Gavin: I look forward to everything! I have never wanted a summer holiday to be over sooner.

What will probably be your biggest challenge?

Laurens: Personally, I think I will need to improve my planning skills. Sometimes it can become very busy and keeping a cool mind in that case would be hard.

Jurre: I think my biggest challenge will be when something does not exactly go the way I want to. When you work hard on something, it is nice to see that eve rything is going according to the plan. However, there will always be some set backs and I think it will be difficult for me to deal with that.

If you didn’t have to look at time or money, what would be your dream activity?

Bart: I would love to go and play laser tag or paintball in a Tilburg University buil ding at night. I think it would be a really cool experience and a lot of people would be interested in something like it.

Laurens: Well, as I have some form of affinity with the event industry, I would be organizing a massive festival.

Isabel: My dream activity would be would be to take all of Flow to the Efteling.

What is your favourite memory of Flow so far?

Gavin: My favourite memory was either the first drink of the past year or the Study Trip. These events both confirmed my love for Flow and made me realize I was in the right place.

Jurre: Although I have enjoyed almost every Flow activity I attended, my favou rite memory is our Announcement Drink. At first, I was a bit insecure about my an nouncement: what if people where not enthusiastic about me being in the Daily Board? Luckily, these feelings disappeared very soon. It is a unique experience to be the focus point of all the attention. I have never been congratulated by so many people, I have never been on so many pictures and I have never laughed so much on one evening. I enjoyed this drink for sure!

Is there something you would like to say to all our Flow members?

Rianne: Keep being you, because everybody’s unique personality is what makes Flow such a special association to be a part of.

Isabel: We really have some amazing stuff planned for this year, and I hope you’ll be there to enjoy it right alongside us.

Jurre: This year will be a very special year since we will celebrate our Lustrum. The re are a lot of fun activities coming, so I hope to see you all there. Together, we will make it a year to remember!

VOTE FOR EACH OTHER!

Biggest fan of euro shots at VHZ:

Laurens

Knows the most bars and clubs in Tilburg:

Jurre, Gavin & Rianne

Couldn’t sleep without her stuffed animal: Isabel

Best VHZ-dancer: Rianne

Knows the most about Flow’s history:

Gavin Can’t live a day without coffee:

Laurens Parent of the Flow Board: Rianne

Likes pineapple on a pizza the most: Bart

Will have the longest Flow membership: Gavin & Jurre

Time Traveling The Way it is Presented in Science Fiction

Time travel became more popular in fiction in the 80s and is still used in many books and films nowadays. Science fiction fans are usually invested in the timelines that their favorite heroes go through and have pointed out some patterns that these time ‘journeys’ happen.

Time dilation & Wormholes

We know that time travel is not proven to be possible yet unless we count realistic scenarios based on Einstein’s theory of relativity as time traveling. In simple terms, this theory entails that time passes the same way for everyo ne, but at different rates depending on their speed (time dilation). Other realistic scenarios that could theoreti cally allow for time travel (not practi cally tested yet), are wormholes, which appear to be structures that connect distant points in spacetime.

Time machines & Incantation

If we want to escape the realm of reality and explore more fictional ways to travel through time, we will discover that fiction creators have suggested time machines or incantation. Time ma chines are supposed to be construc ted by scientists and function partially based on real physics. A great example is ‘TARDIS’, the time machine operating based on quantum mechanics presen ted in the ‘Doctor Who’ TV series. When it comes to incantation, we see that in

Harry Potter movies, there are special necklaces (hour reversal charms called time-turners) that allow wizards or wit ches to travel back several hours back in time.

Having talked about the means scien ce fiction characters can use to travel through time, now comes the most in teresting part; How is the course of his tory affected by time travel? There is no right answer, different writers have had different ideas. We can divide time-tra vel types based on how they influence history into two categories: Self-consis tent and new-history time travel.

Self-consistent time travel

Let’s talk about self-consistent time tra vel first. Self-consistency in time travel is defined based on the following questi on: Was the time traveler there the first time the event happened? We can see such examples of time travel in popular movies like ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Interstellar’. In these cases, there are no new time lines generated. The characters simply exist in both the past and the future. Going back in time means they were

always in that location in the first place as time travelers! Perhaps this limitation sounds less exciting because charac ters cannot freely change the trajectory of time but there is also an advantage to it. Logical consistency is important in science fiction because viewers or readers can get a sense of consequen tialism. The fact, let’s say, that each action has consequences that cannot be ‘undone’ or changed and have a real effect on other characters.

New-history & Do-over time travel

For new-history time travel, you can pretty much guess what it is by now. Characters can make changes in the timeline, restart at points in time, and generate new outcomes. We can also define some more specific sub-catego ries that fall into new-history time travel.

First, in Do-over time travel, as presen ted in the movie ‘Groundhog Day’, characters are reliving an amount of time (i.e., a specific day) over and over again. During the do-overs, they can make new choices and change their outcomes. In more deterministic ca ses (like the ‘Russian doll’ Netflix series) characters find out that regardless of their efforts on each loop, they are una ble to change the final outcomes.

‘Anything Goes’ & Duration

Another type of new history time tra vel is ‘anything goes’: Like in ‘Back to the future’ and ‘Star Trek’ movies, characters can change the course of actions of the past while creating multiple versions of realities. This is the most unrestrained version of time travel,

in the sense that anything can happen anytime.

Last but not least, a special type of time travel is the one that has a duration. Some movies like ‘Primer’, require a certain amount of time to wait in order to go back in time. The number of hours a character has to wait equals the number of hours they go back in time. For example, if they want to travel to yesterday, they need to wait 24 hours to get there. This means that the far thest they can go back in time is when their time machine was first created or turned on. Differently, there would be a contradiction where they could time travel without the existence of a time machine.

All in all, it is very interesting to study how different creators view time travel, whether their stories are self-consistent or create new timelines. It is yet left for viewers or readers to judge which type is the most entertaining, or whether certain occasions are more suitable for a specific type of time travel. What about you? Do you like movies, series, or books that involve traveling through time? What do you think?

(Based on the ‘minutephysics’; Youtube Channel)

Interview with Neil Cohn

About the fluency of reading symbols and comics

You had some experience in the comic industry before working on your research, was that an influence in your work? Did that help or maybe hinder you in some way?

Oh, absolutely do I think it helped. I started working in the American comic book industry when I was a teenager. Even when I was like 10 years old I had a mail order catalog where I would send to family friends. People would order hand drawn comics from me and I would send them in the mail.

We read most symbols and comics as fluidly as we do any text, but not a lot of people stop to consider why this is. This is the research field of dr. Neil Cohn. We asked him about his latest project on the topic.

What first sparked your interest in the similarities between normal language and visual language?

So I have been very seriously drawing comics my whole life. Then in college I started noticing the way they talked about language and the way lan guage was structured was exactly the way that I understood the structure of graphics and the way they communi cated to the reader. So I started explo ring it more.

“People would order hand drawn comics from me and I would send them in the mail.“

I already knew visual languages were languages, right? In order to have insights about this language, it helps to be fluent in that language. The fact that I had such a substantial fluency in my language, I think helped me gain insights on visual languages in general and the linguistic nature of graphic communication.

When did you start noticing that there were very specific cultural differences within visual language?

So I read some early translated manga, but my best friend’s brother went to college in Japan and would sometimes leave some manga behind. My friend never knew what to do with those, and he’d give them to me.

So I’d been given these untranslated manga where I couldn’t read the text,

but I could read the pictures and un derstand everything that was happe ning. I knew that meant that there was a process going on that didn’t rely on text, but purely on the visuals. I remem ber the first day I read them. I intensely read a whole bunch of these books. It was my first time reading from right to left, reading manga, in Japanese… I remember my head really hurt after wards, because it was so demanding to process.

After that I was like: Well now I want to read comics from all over the world, so let me look at French comics. I looked at French comics, and I hated them. I hated them, but they also felt very different. There was something going on that I didn’t like as much, that I did like in the other one. All of them were different, not just in style, but in the way they tell stories and are structured. Many people think visuals are universal, so you would only need to explain the universal properties. However, when you start to see the differences, it forces you to describe things in a way that accounts for the differences between groups.

Is that also where the TINTIN project, where you are trying to build a databa se with analysis of comics from all over the world, came from?

Yes, for several years I had students in terested in analyzing all these different comics. So here in Tilburg I had students that were like: ‘Let’s look at Dutch and Flemish comics!’ Eventually we had these interesting analyses from different cultures and when we pooled them to gether we saw really clear cultural dif ferences. So that’s what motivated the

TINTIN project. We had those precurs ors, but now let’s really look at it with a bigger scope and proper analysis.

We are now optimistically halfway through. We have students and speci ally designed software to help us ana lyze and investigate the properties of comics from different cultures. The aim is 75-80 countries and hopefully a 1000 comics. It’s a lot, but we’re hoping. And it has been especially difficult during a pandemic. But even in these early sta ges we’re finding very interesting things and I am excited about the potentials.

When will the project be finished?

Well the funding runs out in January of 2025. So the projects that are running with my PhD students and other stu dents that I employ have to be done by then. But the data can be conti nued to be used for many years. We are committed to developing more over the next couple of years and then writing about it for who knows how long.

Part of what’s fun about it is that once it’s done we are just going to put it online and make it available to other people. We are going to do the first round of analysis, but then others can do their own analysis and write their own papers.

You have also designed several emo ji’s. How do you start working on a de sign knowing how difficult it is to make something understandable cross-cultu rally?

When I was approached to help with the emoji, there were a couple of diffe rent routes that we took. One route was that we already did studies on different symbols, symbology and morphology in manga. Manga morphology was the original basis of many of the first emoji, and we had this list of different man ga symbology, so we looked at that and said: Which ones have already been created as an emoji, and which ones could become one? We used those ones as cues for emoji, becau se enough people would know these cues from manga that they would understand what they mean. It’s not universal, but it would be widespread enough. Like the dotted line one. There was no emoji for introversion or feeling not seen, and there was an understan dable manga symbol for it.

The other route was that we had a concept that needed to be communi cated, and developed an emoji that fit. A good example of this that hasn’t been published yet is earthquakes. There is no emoji to communicate that people are in an earthquake. The chal lenge is how to depict it. A crack in the ground? That’s a little weird. Buildings shaking? Then we have a cross-cultural issue again, because what do those buildings look like? So I had the idea of a face emoji that’s shaking because of the earthquake. Then people could also use the shaking one for non-earth quake shaking, like being shaken or being cold. However, it hasn’t been approved yet, and there are ongoing debates on how to best show shaking in an emoji.

“... language works by how the community defines the meanings of different signs.

Do you see a difference in how peop le from different cultures or those that don’t know the context use them, now they have actually been published?

We anticipated certain meanings, like that the melting emoji would be used for ‘it’s so hot I’m melting’. However,

I know people are using it for climate change right now, which wasn’t in our heads at the time. I definitely know that the breath face emoji, which is suppo sed to be somebody sighing or being cold- Several people pointed out to me that it is the best thing to show smoking pot.

But that’s perfectly fine, the important use of emoji when designing them is that the meaning should be clear, but still flexible and usable in different con texts. You only have so many emoji to go around and when they are flexible you optimize their usage. If people then create new meanings beyond those, that’s also fine! Because language works by how the community defines the meanings of different signs.

I would like to believe at least that the emoji that i have been adding are the ones that people look at and go: Oh those are the fun ones that’ve been added. But they are kind of quirky and weird and fun, those are the ones I’ve been doing.

FLOW'S CROSSWORD

Across

2. our website is called...

6. a member from Flow is called a...

7. if you are in a committee, you have become...

8. the people who lead our association are the...

10. the third letter in CSAI stand for...

12. drinking beers and sing is called a...

Down

1. our magazine is called the...

3. our Association is called...

4. the first letter in CIS stands for...

5. this is free when you are a member...

9. Flow organizes this every month...

10. ex-students are called...

11. our newsletter is called...

Mechanical Keyboards

Column by Sherwin Lee

When you think of a keyboard, you would usually think of the keyboard that comes with the desktop computer or the in-built keyboard on your laptop. In recent years, mechanical keyboards, widely considered to be an improvement over the standard membrane or rubber dome-based keyboard, have seen quite the reconnaissance. But there exists a small niche of keyboard users that thought: “Can we do more?”

The history of the mechanical keyboard can be best explained as a roller-coas ter. The first sight of a standard QWERTY layout keyboard was first developed in the late 1800s for typewriters, with the staggered keys being designed to prevent stuck internals. When personal computers started becoming more po pular, computer keyboards were mo dified to be included with most com puters in order to act as input devices. These computer keyboards were me chanical, with individual key switches such as the Alps and Cherry MX key design. Perhaps the most legendary mechanical keyboard ever released was the IBM Model M, with a buckling spring mechanism that created a very satisfying and tactile feel. But other mechanical switch designs also gained popularity, such as the Alps and Cherry MX switch designs. Unfortunately, with high demand and expensive producti on costs, companies slowly transitioned into membrane keyboards. These were widely considered to be inferior, with a mushy feel and less reliable, but they

were far cheaper to produce. Some companies such as the Alps halted production, but Cherry would continue to produce their switches.

Around the mid 2000s, the typists’ search for better keyboards led to the resurgence of mechanical keyboards. Cherry MX switches were used as they were the most durable and afforda ble, and companies such as Logitech and Razer soon adopted their switches into their keyboards. In the mid to late 2000s, the passionate yet niche custom mechanical keyboard scene was discovered. The roots of the custom keyboard scene is not very well do cumented, but it was assumed that it originated from Korean enthusiasts. Ent husiasts would manufacture their metal cases for their keyboards, or even take apart their current keyboards to lubri cate their switches for a smoother key feel and better sound. As the custom keyboard scene grew, community members would start designing their products, more mechanical switch vari ations based on the original Cherry MX design were produced, and methods of customization grew exponentially.

While I have your attention, you might be wondering “How do I get into this hobby?”. First off, it is important to first understand the basic anatomy of a mechanical keyboard. For beginners, the key components consist of a key board case, a print circuit board (also known as a PCB), switches, a plate, and keycaps. The case houses all the components, and the plate acts as a securing mechanism for the switches. The individual switches will slot into the plate and connect with the PCB, and keycaps are added to finish the build. It may sound straightforward, but that’s where the simple steps end. Mecha nical keyboard components have an almost infinite number of permuta tions that can all lead to a different keyboard, which means every perso nalized keyboard is different to some extent. It’s just a blank canvas that is waiting for you to paint on.

“Go crazy and make some thing that’s truly yours, the sky’s the limit.”

Members of the custom community understood early on that it is quite hard for everyone to purchase every key board just for testing purposes. That led to many members arranging their own meetups for other custom mechanical keyboard users to join and let others see and try their beloved collection. The community has always revolved around preference and personality, and meetups became the de facto place for users to experience what others would experience daily. Liste

ning to others talk about a passion that you share can provide you with more insight into why others enjoy what they do, as well as just being able to geek out over this niche hobby together.

I could spend the most time in this co lumn section in an attempt to explain every small yet significant detail that this hobby may have, but you may be thinking “why would I invest this much money and time into what is eventu ally a basic input tool?” Well, that is a fair question. The best way to put our reasoning into context is your desk and chair. If you’re someone who has to work at your desk and sit on an office chair for hours, you’re more likely to invest in a chair that has better ergono mics for your back, or even a desk that could enable you to work while stan ding. That same logic applies to key boards as well. It allows you to make something unique, while being miles better in terms of key feel than the best mass-produced keyboard you could grab off the shelf. If you’re a student (like myself) or an adult that’s spending a lot of time working at your desk, why not invest in a keyboard that matches your preferences exactly? Why not en joy this rectangle that sits on your desk? Go crazy and make something that’s truly yours, the sky’s the limit.

“It’s just a blank canvas that is waiting for you to paint on.”

Get to know To Communicate Blog!

Most of you have probably seen the blog come by in the newsletter, on social media, or on the tocommunicate. nl website. At first, the To Communicate (2C) blog was only hosted by us, Study Association Flow, but last year 2C was upgraded by partnering up with six sister associations. In January, the website was relaunched with a redistribution of tasks and roles behind the scenes of our blog, among the sister associations. Who are these associations and what is 2C all about? Find out in this article!

On January 20th, Flow reintroduced the To Communicate blog, but this time together with the following six sister associations from all over the country: Babylon, Commotie, Communiqué, SV Contact, I.F.A. ACE, and Mycelium The blog is made for students, and teachers, but also for other interested parties to read more about what is happening in the (research) field of communication and information sci ences. The subjects are very broad but they all have something to do with communication. From fashion shows to the primal source of creation and from comments on research on persuasive communication to an interview with film journalist and scrip writer André Nientied. So, in the end, there will be at least one interesting article for every sin gle reader! All the articles are written by enthusiastic members of Flow or one of the six sister associations, so it’s our own content!

The role of Flow

Two members per association partici pate as a 2C-member. Flow can be seen as the host association for the website and for leading the meetings. Last year our Flow members Sophie Vullings and Femke Monshouwer both wrote an article for the blog so that the InFlow commissioner (Désirée van den Berg) could start and lead the cooperation between the associations. This year Désirée will pick up the role of 2C-team leader so that the InFlow commissioner will no longer be directly involved with 2C to provide a reduced workload on this commissioner. The 2C-team leader will lead the monthly meetings and will be involved in all three committees, which will be ex plained in the next paragraph.

2C Committees

Our 2C-team consists of three commit tees: the Design Committee, the Con tent Committee, and the Social Media Committee. The Design Committee im proves the website and communicates a lot with the Social Media Committee to transit the same corporate identity in the website, promo material, and social media posts. The Social Media Commit tee designs all the social media posts and thinks about the textual content of these posts. The Content Committee checks if members upload their arti cles on time, chooses two articles per month, and uploads those to the web site.

Experiences of Gracia Nolten (SV Contact) and Désirée van den Berg (SA Flow) as team/hostmembers of 2C Gracia Nolten (SA Contact)

“What an honor it is to write a piece for your Flowzine! My name is Gracia Nolten and last year I was the president of SV Contact, your sister association from Utrecht. Together with your former chair, William van Wijk, and another Daily Board member, we made To Communicate a sister association. This year Désirée got to take over the 2C-ro le from William and we hope to learn more, write more, and above all grow more in the upcoming years with the To Communicate Team. Take a quick look and don’t forget to follow us on Insta gram and LinkedIn!”

Gracia had the same issue. So this year you’ll see Gracia and me back again at To Communicate Blog as your 2C-hosts and we’ll have the time to improve 2C more and more! Hope to see you then!”

Already interested? Go check our web site tocommunicate.nl. Here you can also find more information per study association!

Or do you want to post your article on 2C?

an e-mail to

Désirée van den Berg (SA Flow)

“Hey everybody! I’m really thankful for the possibility to tell you about To Communicate in our Flowzine! Since I was the Inflow commissioner ’21-’22, I actually had two committees to lead: the Inflow committee, but also our 2C-team. Luckily Gracia could help since she knew a lot about the sister as sociations and about designing, which helped me a lot. I’m also very happy with the effort from the other sister as sociations. I’m sure we would not have gotten as far as we are now without them! It was also very exciting to get to meet them and to work together! But there are so many things to improve and unfortunately since I had a busy Flow year as the Inflow commissioner, I didn’t put the effort in 2C I wanted.

Don’t forget to follow To Communicate

Lucid Dreaming

Dreaming is fun. Everyone dreams for approximately two hours every night. You don’t always remember this since most of those dreams will be forgotten. There still is a lot unclear about the purpose of dreaming and why the brain creates these stories while we’re asleep. Some scientists think dreams are pointless: just a result of higher brain activity. Others think dreams may help you to process the day you’ve had.

We do know that dreams mostly occur during rapid eye movement sleep, also known as REM sleep. This is the stage when brain activity most closely resembles our awake state. Dreams in this stage also tend to be more vivid, emotional, and story-like than those that take place in other stages of sleep. This is where lucid dreaming can take place. These are dreams in which a person is aware of the fact that they are dreaming. During a lucid dream, the dreamer can sometimes even have control over the narrative and the characters inside the dream.

For a long time, there has been a lot of doubt about the existence of lucid dreams: dreams, of all things, are something you just can’t control, skeptics belie ved. Were the moments of lucidity not just moments of awakening? To prove the existence of lucid dreaming, American psychophysiologist LaBerge asked his test subjects to give a signal the moment they got control over their dream. They had to do this by making a certain pattern of movements with their eyes. This worked: while the subjects were still asleep the pre-arranged pattern was being registered. Since this memorable study more and more research has been done on lucid dreaming. Around 50 percent of all people occasionally have a lucid dream. One of five of them at least once a month.

As more and more information on lucid dreaming became available this informa tion was applied for useful purposes. Lucid dreaming can have very practical ap plications. It can be therapeutic, especially with recurring nightmares, which may affect a person’s quality of life. When someo ne learns how to become lucid during a night mare, they can gain control over themselves or the nightmare itself. For example, you could take on superpowers or special abilities to fight back against an attacker in your dream. Lucid dreaming also has the potential to help people with phobias, such as a fear of flying or a fear of spiders. The environment of a lucid dream provides an interesting opportunity to practice with, for example, exposure therapy. This is a form of therapy where you gradually

expose yourself to the thing you’re afraid of, in an attempt to gradually overcome that fear. In a lucid dream, the dreamer is aware that they’re not in the real wor ld, so it makes it a safe environment to conquer their fears.

Does lucid dreaming sound exciting to you? Well, you can start practicing. Anyo ne can learn to do it, but some people have more talent for it than others. Howe ver, there are all kinds of techniques out there that are unsuitable or just very im practical. For example, letting someone shine a flashlight on your eyes when you start dreaming, an eye mask you wear during REM sleep, or even pills claiming to improve the possibility of lucid dreams. Now you know what not to do, you could try the three-step plan sleep researcher Victor Spoormaker put together.

Step 1: Remember your dream

The most important part is to learn to remember at what exact moment you are dreaming. To do this, you first have to know what you dreamed about. This can be difficult because people often forget about their dreams. Remembering is easier when you try to remember your dreams the minute you wake up. Try to write these down, maybe in a special dream diary.

Step 2: Recognise your dream signals

Try to find some patterns in your dreams. Are there things you dream about that are very unlikely to happen in real life? Are there specific people you dream about more often? These are your dream signals. When you come across these dream signals in your dream, you can assume you’re dreaming.

Step 3: Do a ‘reality test’

The last step to lucid dreaming is an exercise for during the day. Ten to fifteen times a day you ask yourself a whole list of questions to check if you are, at that moment, dreaming or not. What am I doing? Is that actually possible? How did I get here? The idea behind these questi ons is that once you ask yourself these questions frequently enough, you will carry the habit into your dreamst.

Now you know a bit more about dreaming and specifically lucid dreaming. Hopefully, these tips can help you with lucid dreaming. Sleep well!

Malaysian Char Koay Teow

(By Sherwin Lee)

One of the most popular street food dishes of Penang - when made right, you can smell the smoky flavor of the stir-fried rice noodles from far away. Perfect for lunch and dinner, it’s delicious and relatively healthy in comparison to other street foods.

The version that we will be discussing for this dish has slight alterations to ensure that ingredients can be found easily, either at a local or Asian supermarket. If you do try out this recipe, feel free to share it with your fellow students!

Ingredients (4 servings): - Peanut oil/vegetable oil/lard - 12 shelled prawns - 3 cloves of minced garlic - 3 finely diced shallots - 400 grams of flat rice noodles - 2 cups of bean sprouts - 4 eggs - 1 bunch of chives (preferably Chinese chives) - 2-3 tablespoons of chili paste

Sauce ingredients (mix well): - 5 tablespoons of soy sauce - 1 ½ tablespoons of dark soy sauce - 1 tablespoon of sugar - ½ tablespoon of fish sauce - ½ teaspoon of salt - 2 dashes of Grounded white pepper

Optional ingredients: - 2 Chinese sausages, cut diagonally - 400 grams of extracted blood cockles

Tools required:

Non-stick pan or wok

Cooking Char Koay Teow in Twelve Steps:

1. Before cooking, you want to first submerge the prawns in cold water with 2 ta blespoons of sugar for 30 minutes.

2. Remove the bottom section of the chives and cut the remainder into about 2-inch lengths.

3. Rinse the bean sprouts in cold water and drain them, making sure to remove any impurities.

4. Soak your flat rice noodles in warm water and slowly peel them apart, being careful to avoid clumps, and strain after. Do not soak the noodles for too long, otherwise the noodles will become soggy.

5. Heat up your non-stick pan to optimal temperature (medium high heat), and add in your oil or lard (If you’re using a wok, spread the oil around and replace the oil with cold oil).

6. Add half the portion of garlic into the oil and quickly stir them around.

7. Take six of the prawns out of the water, put it into the pan and start stirring. If you have Chinese sausages, add it in as well and stir until the sausage aroma is obvious.

8. Add around half of the bean sprouts into the pan and stir shortly, and add in half of the flat rice noodles. Make sure not to overcook the bean sprouts to retain crunchiness.

9. Add half of the sauce into the pan and stir vigorously to mix with the noodles. Add a little oil at the side, and break in two of the eggs. Break the eggs with a spatula and cover the noodles with the egg.

10. Add in around half of the chili paste (adjust according to preferred spice le vel), and if you have cockle clams, add them in now.

11. Continue to stir-fry the eggs and other ingredients. To finish off, add in half of the chives and quickly stir for about 20 seconds.

12. Repeat steps 6 to 11 for the other 2 portions. We cook them in two parts to avoid overcrowding and to achieve an even stir-fry.

Then serve on a plate with some optional additional chili paste at the side, and enjoy your meal! The optional ingredients are recommended to achieve an improved taste, but even without them, the stir-fry noodles will taste great. Add some garnish such as spring onions or even some chillies, invite some friends over and have a nice meal!