ava's blog 1 weeks ago

i need more rest [everything i did in 2025]

A while ago, I wrote about intentional times of boredom for easier task switching, because I noticed there was an inner resistance when I had let go of a task in favor of another. In response, I gave myself the space and time to just sit there doing nothing. That meant a proper pause between activities, and it also bored my brain into complying, because at some point, even doing the dishes or doing the hard part in your studies is better than just sitting around. I've slowly, without realizing, dropped this habit and piled a lot on my plate in general. Even just my past four months were very full with exams, visiting family and friends, attending a conference, some seminars and conventions, the new semester at university starting, doctor's appointments, my own birthday (I am now 30!), and more. I just continued pushing through, because my motto for this year was basically to have two years in one, as last year I was constantly sick and mostly lying around. I felt like I had to catch up, and initially, I had the energy to do so. In my mind, this would only be temporary and I'd get to rest a bit "soon", but "soon" was put off again and again. An overview of what I managed in 2025: I noticed that I constantly felt overwhelmed and slightly panicked, like I wanted to cry, but nothing would happen. I craved a sensory deprivation tank, or for everything to just stop. Even easy things were really hard and it seemed as if I am just not recovering from anything mentally. The problem is that when you are low-energy and constantly in fight-or-flight, you lose the ability to prioritize correctly, as everything feels equally important and urgent. As such, there is lots of decision fatigue, and more often than not, you'll start one task while thinking you should do the other and repeat; or you lie down due to feeling dizzy and tired from the internal pressure, and end up doing nothing significant at all. It prevents you from dedicating your all to one task for even 1-2 hours, as you keep questioning your choice and feel guilty no matter what. I was constantly mentally bouncing between some aspects of my fulltime job, more studying, more case translation for noyb, more blogging, finally filling up my notes vault so it isn't still so empty, job search and applications, fitness, drawing and other creative pursuits, responding to emails, reading books, managing parts of the household, and more. I also suddenly felt terribly behind in general, feeling pressured to finish my degree as soon as possible and find some other certificates to do as well for my career. My chronic illness is also really good in instilling a sense of urgency in me... like I might run out of time. I made the mistake of not having a weekly plan, not even a loose "Friday's the main study day!" or something, just going with the flow always. You'd think that this would permit a very flexible and relaxed attitude to all the things I wanna do that takes my fluctuating energy levels and health into account, but now I know that it just leads to me completely underestimating how much I do in a week while thinking nothing gets done. Not having scheduled things for specific days meant that at every free moment, I had about 10 things in my mind that I should be doing, while being unable to choose. I couldn't go "No worries, that's safely scheduled for the other day", no reminder in the schedule that I had already spent x hours on a thing already that week. I also made the mistake of thinking I could keep up my study load from summer in the winter. That led to me enrolling in four classes for 30 ECTS total for this semester (exams in March 2026), but I realize I have to focus on doing two of them well, and making the other two optional. I am already at the end of a very exhausting year and there are lots of phases in winter when I just won't study as much (sick, birthday, holidays...), so I need to be realistic. Yesterday, I made an effort to truly rank and prioritize everything I want to do with external help, and create a proper weekly plan that includes a lot of dedicated rest as well. Something I don't want to repeat with that is thinking that indulging in media or doing easy work is proper rest. I just cannot get by long-term with using supposed downtime to do things I consider a bit easier, but that still are productive, a chore, or need my attention. I need to do nothing, because otherwise, my brain never gets proper downtime and it affects the quality of sleep, or the ability to fall asleep. For me, not giving my brain that time of just silence expresses itself in two ways: Either there will be constant thoughts while trying to fall asleep that keep me awake (because when else does it have the space to surface those?), or my brain is so used to constantly receiving and processing things that lying down to sleep is too boring, which also keeps me awake. Then I can put on a video or soundscapes, which ironically also feels bothersome as I feel overstimulated from everything I have to do all the time and actually need some silence. It has led me to staying up very late until I am so tired that I can't help but fall asleep pretty quickly, but that's no way to solve the problem. So hopefully now, with the new prioritization, the weekly plan, the acknowledgement of the problem, dropping some pressure and seeing how much I have already managed this year, I can go back to guilt-free breaks, intentional boredom, and focused work without burning out. Related song: ADÉLA - Death By Devotion Reply via email Published 03 Dec, 2025 I got married! That had to be planned and managed as well. Got around quite a bit: Traveled to France with friends for a few days; went to conventions like the HeroesXP, the Veggienale and more; went to my first data protection law conference in Munich; visited Fürth, Nuremberg, Erlangen, Tübingen, Gießen, Offenbach, Zirndorf, Koblenz and Oberhausen. Started visiting a game store ('LGS') to play Magic the Gathering in person occasionally. New personal best at the gym: 30 minutes of consecutive jogging. Finished at least 7 books this year; might be more, but I am unsure when I finished some exactly. Started volunteering for noyb.eu as a Country Reporter for their GDPRhub project in June, and have summarized and translated 6 cases so far. Finished the data protection law certificate ('Diploma of Advanced Studies') in just 6 months instead of the intended 1.5 years. 10 exams: 7x Data Protection Law (one in my Bachelor of Laws, six for the cert), 1x Antidiscrimination Law, 1x Conflict Management, 1x Rhetoric; this adds up to 20 ECTS in March 2025, and 45 ECTS over the summer until October 2025, meaning I managed to tackle 65 ECTS this year while also working full time. Writing 256 posts on this blog for ~60k people and 35 posts on my matcha blog for ~1k people in the last 12 months, if the unique visitor analytics are to be trusted. Most popular this year was probably the Blog Question Challenge ! Next to my usual job role, also helped with an environmental certification (EMAS) at my workplace; the audit is soon, and it's been a lot of work together with our environmental management and vice president. Was on People & Blogs and was also asked some questions for New Public . Number of received emails from the indie web this year until now is a little over 900 total , and I still have some left to answer from the past couple days. Made a zine . Reworked my blog a bit! Created a public knowledge base , first via Quartz and Obsidian, now on Bearblog. About 270 crosswords with my wife (we do the daily one on Merriam-Webster). Over a 140 hours of Hello Kitty Island Adventure :P

Career

ava's blog 1 weeks ago

AI as procrastination and bandaid

I can empathize with using AI sometimes; like when a search engine shows no fitting results, or when searching for a loose synonym or jargon with a vague description. Another use case would be generating silly, annoying filler text no one wants to write (like motivational letters) or when you’re not understanding a code problem or parts of the documentation. But also, I notice I am most inclined to use it when my mind circles around uncomfortable decisions that aren’t easy on me, that don’t have a definitive, all positive, straightforward answer and are a confusing act of weighing the pros and cons. The outcome of it seems to switch every day depending on my mood. It’s been a confusing process getting myself to go look for jobs, growing comfortable with leaving what I know and facing the idea of moving. It’s a lot to consider career-wise and privately. My current employer cannot give me this and that, but it feels safe; on the other hand, I’ll also stagnate and not gain the experience I need, and I won’t live closer to friends and family. Nonetheless, employers elsewhere are a mystery and you’ll never know what you’ll get, not to mention they will likely not give me the exact niche I want. It’s easy to feel like I’ll make a mistake no matter what I choose, and a fearful part of me would rather freeze and make a mistake by not acting, than move and actively make a mistake. It’s no way to move through life, and something I will get over, but it’s understandable. To add salt to the wound, moving is hard. Merging two households into one is harder. I dread having to apply, to perform, to beg for an apartment, and find an affordable one that is big enough for two, on only one income. It’s stuff like this that has urged me thrice in a span of two months to enter my different concerns, predictions, possible paths and dilemmas into the text box and expect some guidance and reassurance, some easy way out I hadn’t thought of before. The result: I often get some reassurance through its sycophancy, a chance to sort my thoughts a bit, and a level of feedback I can’t get from people because either they don’t (have to) think about career the way I do and don’t know what to do either (irl), or I don’t wanna completely doxx myself in front of them with all the fine details of my work and plans (online). For the little reassurance and guidance the AI gives that make the path forward seem more clear, it is simply a bandaid also, a way to further procrastinate. Instead of taking the actions I know I have to take, something in me thinks to roll the slot machine once more to advise me in hopes of finding something better that is not as hard, the option to have my cake and eat it too. It’s equivalent to spending all your time buying supplies and doing research for a project or hobby than actually committing to it. The option to consult the bot has quickly trained me to think that if I just reword it one more time, add this and that detail, or add another question, that it will suddenly spit out an ideal path forward for me to follow in which I will have to make no concessions, despite knowing that that’s impossible. Life is simply full of hard decisions and concessions, and difficult times make us grow. Even after just indulging in it so little, I understand now how people worldwide get hooked on this virtual pacifier for their fears. The obsession of that thing to create lists and 5-year plans over anything makes it all look more bearable, even if half the suggestions don’t exist or don’t make sense. It’s tempting to hope that with all the data behind it, the machine will conceive of something you couldn’t have, will find and present something you didn’t know of that changes everything. It’s genuinely just a coping mechanism, a crutch. It’s not even productive to do this. I hope you can catch these behaviors in yourself and act accordingly. Don’t postpone what you know you have to do and don’t outsource the decision to a bot. Reply via email Published 01 Dec, 2025

AI Career

ava's blog 1 weeks ago

the overstated importance of connectivity

I sometimes wonder if we have too uncritically accepted the marketing narrative of social media companies about how connectivity is always good and preferable, and that they as the mediators always need to be the ones facilitating it in their own way. I’ll have to narrow it down: Of course having friends, family, a support network is good - even needed - and work connections get you further professionally, both offline and online. That’s not what I mean. What I see critically instead are tech companies continuing to advertise their services as facilitating these connections, when they actually do so less and less in favor of more sponsored content and AI bots, and that the best way for connection to happen is to have an endless supply, and on their platform. They were extremely successful in convincing many of us that merely having potential access to more people, and many more people having access to us directly, is an advantage and counts as “being connected” (meaning: more than the simple software connection between us). I just don’t believe that, at least for a private person who doesn’t need to win over customers or become a brand. We can see daily that most of us are just not equipped to handle thousands or more people coming at us online. There’s good reasons why famous people used to have a more filtered access to fans via fan mail, interviews, magazines and the occasional meet and greet, plus a PR team and media training. There is a sweet spot when we have relationships to just enough people to be happy without the attention becoming a burden. These companies have conflated a sort of passive consumption, access and surveillance with “connection” and “relationships”, using the image of keeping up with friends and family via a platform to imply that thousands consuming your posts without ever talking to you and more or less surveilling you as a stranger counts the same. They have facilitated a business model around parasocial behaviors with influencers via this exact narrative. They also want you to believe that you need their platforms for relationship maintenance, and they have succeeded, with many claiming they would not be able to get a hold of their inner circle or know about their lives if they deleted their account… which is sad. The idea that you cannot interact with family anymore without this platform, that you can go through millions of strangers to find your next best friend or partner or other opportunity, keeps you on it. The exchange of posts across millions of people keeps each other on the platform too, as you’re always looking for new posts and never run out. No one would use it if it was dead, and they’d use it less if a post couldn’t generate these juicy numbers. That reinforces itself. There’d be less posts to consume if most people limited their profiles and posts for privacy, and ragebait loses its teeth if everyone just blocks the poster or blocks each other too freely. People are also expected to make themselves available 24/7 and overshare, which helps mine additional data and creates more attractive and scandalous content round the clock for the other users to consume, as opposed to just using it for an hour a day. All of these factors have in common that huge masses of people need to be almost constantly available, active and not walled off to each other. That means no limits via settings, friend lists, block lists, feeds that only show who you follow, friction or time constraints, because then the free flow of “content” is disrupted and people spend less time on the app. That could also mean your friends and family drop off too, so you don’t stay there either, which means less eyes on ads and less data to harvest. So of course they’d want to counter this possible risk with the notion that the average Joe needs to open himself up to the eyes of millions because "connection is good!" and maybe you’ll even go viral and earn money. Don’t you wanna be “connected”? Why are you isolating yourself? You’re so weak for blocking that person, and you’re missing out by privating your profile or deactivating it, and you’re antisocial by not posting! Meta went notoriously hard on pushing its capability to be hyperconnective: In Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams , she describes again and again how Mark Zuckerberg met with lots of important authorities and key political figures to underline how the platform could connect, just to get more users 1 , without taking responsibility for what their platform would enable in some of the most heated regions - even hiding their role in the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election by pushing their narrative about openness and connection 2 . They also disregarded the setting not to import phone contacts and implemented the "People You May Know" feature 3 to make more "connection" happen, jeopardizing people's safety and privacy to do so. In general, bringing internet to other disadvantaged and cut-off countries is a good thing, and they did launch Internet.org (now: Free Basics) to allegedly aid with that 4 ; however, it quickly devolved into just providing rudimentary Facebook versions to these countries (Facebook Zero), becoming essentially the entirety of the internet in these places and therefore controlling it completely just to gain more users and influence 5 , and only pleaded with countries under the guise of connection to get unblocked, especially by China 6 . They even created a Connectivity Lab in 2014 7 , invested in a Connectivity Declaration and spent over 1 Million dollars on full-page advertisements for it. They even got positive press by CNN and Reuters about pleading with the UN that connectivity over their platform could eradicate "global ills" like extreme poverty 8 . Not only that, but as many probably already know, Meta has been pushing chatbots and fake AI profiles on their platforms (especially Instagram) for a year or so now. The goal is to keep you there still, as less and less people actually talk to each other while just passively consuming content. As the net gets taken over by bots, what’s the advantage of connecting with them? Connection at all costs huh, even if there's no human involved? That is where the idea of it starts to crumble and fall apart. Which is why the need for connectivity in the way these companies mean it and push it is a big lie just to further their financial interests and has nothing to do with how humans actually pursue, facilitate and experience true connection, and we need to question it. Discussions around isolation and viewership online are a bit skewed for me for that reason, especially when they happen outside of the mega-platforms and are about blogging, because they apply the marketing we internalized on social media to other spaces who don’t depend on this lie. My friend Suliman said something very sweet recently about discoverability in the indie web: “But what's the point of a home on the internet if you're living it alone? There's a saying in Arabic that says "a Heaven without people is no Heaven" and I think it's truer in our modern day than ever. We're already so isolated, so why isolate ourselves even further?” I think this is true for the offline context, but I am not convinced about how well it works for the online world. I am concerned this view on connection uncritically applied to online spaces is playing too much into the financial interests of Meta and others and is, at least partially, learned behavior from growing up on their platforms, and growing up in a capitalistic era that urges you to use everyone you know for professional networking, extracting favors and all to attain better work, housing, and donations. I can only speak for myself, but the reason why I would be able to be completely alone, unread and ignored online is because I already get all the connection I need offline. Online is a bonus, or a fallback. Not to mention that it could overlap and only my offline relationships could read my blog. Would that not be enough? Connections I have offline are people I can visit flea markets with, play board games with, we share beds and food and I can rely on them when I’m sick. Meanwhile, the online people I am supposed to crave being connected to en masse can give me an upvote, and an email - which is very appreciated, but it is just not on the same level. Online people absolutely can become offline people, as I met my wife online and have had good internet friends. But that, as shown above, has nothing to do with the widespread passive consumption and access that is presented under the guise of connection by these giants who abuse it. I don’t feel connected by simply witnessing someone exist; neither on social media, nor around the blogosphere. To me, saying I need people online to notice me to not be isolated is like telling me I need to go to Times Square on New Years Eve to not be lonely. All that will happen is that I’d feel lonely while surrounded by other people and noise. We should not value quantity over quality, and I don't want to pretend that the attention economy that these companies have instilled to further their own power is my way to find true connection. Reply via email Published 30 Nov, 2025 Small selection: Pages 81 (Myanmar Junta), 108 and 168 (Colombia), 181 (panel of several presidents in Panama), 186 (President Roussef) ↩ Page 256 ↩ Page 62 ↩ Pages 106-108 ↩ Page 203 ↩ Pages 144-145 ↩ Page 107 ↩ Page 194-195 ↩ Small selection: Pages 81 (Myanmar Junta), 108 and 168 (Colombia), 181 (panel of several presidents in Panama), 186 (President Roussef) ↩ Page 256 ↩ Page 62 ↩ Pages 106-108 ↩ Page 203 ↩ Pages 144-145 ↩ Page 107 ↩ Page 194-195 ↩

Media Culture Business

ava's blog 1 weeks ago

my data should not be your cookie jar

It’s 1970. You walk into the store, grab a bunch of apples, go to the cash register, pay with cash, and walk out. What kinds of data have been automatically processed about you while doing that? Very little. Most likely, none, as CCTV footage relied on the development of VHS to be viable, and IP cameras transmitting video over networks only took off in the 90s. Fast forward to today. Depending on where you live, your supermarket has good cameras everywhere; some, like the super fancy new experiments, have recognition technology that detects what items you grab so that you can just pay without scanning, or even just walk out, having it subtracted automatically from your account. This isn’t just Amazon stores; German store Rewe is trying to get into that too, as I know someone personally who works in their sub-company Lekkerland’s “Smart Store Rollout” department. A more mundane but very common thing for the big stores is tracking you with RFID technology: They track where you are and how long you stay at specific spots by using a network of fixed RFID readers via the RFID tag on the loyalty card or shopping cart (or the individual scanners Rewe offers nowadays!). By noting the time and location of each tag read, the system can create a map of your path and duration of stay within the store. Your supermarket might also have an app to get specific sales and offers. Mine, for a little period, even made it seem as if you could only buy specific products if you pay through their app instead. They dropped that after a while, but I’m sure it got many to download it and make an account - as, of course, you could not use it without one. At the checkout, you might opt for self-checkout now. I’ve seen that stores in the US distinctly record your face and your hands scanning the products, so in case you try to sneak something, they have clear proof and identification options. That video gets analyzed and stored for a while. Either way, you might use a loyalty card you signed up for with your real name and address to collect points or get a discount, tracking exactly what you bought, and you’ll likely pay via card. Your bank account has a bit more information about where you shop and when than if you had just withdrawn cash. If you’re like me, you also pay contactless via phone or watch, giving the processor like Google Pay or Apple Pay some info as well. All that for quickly getting something at the grocery store, something that would not have given the companies much meaningful data about you specifically even just 55 years ago. Of course, some of these things are avoidable and no one forces you to use apps, bank and loyalty cards, but still. These things are not presented as the data harvesters they are, but as convenience and a way to save money or time, targeting vulnerable groups the most. But why even go to the store? Maybe you live in a country with delivery options like Instacart and the like. One more service related to the groceries you buy that is an app, a user account. What if you can’t or don’t wanna cook? Just get a delivery via DoorDash, UberEats, Lieferando or the equivalent in your country. More data about you, and that’s just food. What if you aren’t buying apples at the grocery store, but you’re buying lamps, frames, or a new bed cover? Nowadays, you’d most likely either have a similar shop experience as in the grocery stores, or you’ll online shop on the company’s website or app, that may or may not also show ads and place tracking cookies or reads other data on your phone. They might get you with a 5% off coupon if you just sign up for their newsletter! So you do. Not many use a throwaway mail address or immediately unsubscribe. Now they have constant access to you and your attention if they want to, not just while you’re at their physical stores. A marketing email popping up at the right time creates desires and a suggestion to do some online window shopping, again creating data as you use their website or app. And then there’s the shipping companies… What about the news? You can still buy magazines and newspapers at the store and the corner shop/kiosk, or maybe those little newspaper vending machines that drop one if you put in a coin. But everything is moving to digital nowadays, saving waste and printing costs, so to read the same newspaper online, you have to either pay with your data or pay more than print used to cost, and even then, still pay with your data . Subscribing to the digital version or unlocking a single article via a one-time-payment still tracks you and still shows you ads on many, many news sites. And what do you pay for? If you’re unlucky, it is the same article copy pasted across 10 different newspapers, or a completely AI generated article with zero human effort. For comparison: Just buying the print at a coin vending machine leaves them completely in the dark about you. That was just normal . I notice this in all kinds of industries and parts of life now - it’s why everything now requires an app and a sign-up. Your local café, your hairdresser, your e-scooter. Hell, I even saw nailbiter nail polish now comes with an app. New washing machines and refrigerators are reporting back to their companies. Why is every place, every product company now accepted to be a data aggregation company as well? Why is my data the cookie jar that companies frequently get their hand stuck in while acting entitled? Hello, I already paid you, why are you not ashamed of your obvious greed? What tires me about all of this is that we are supposed to pretend this is all normal and as if it has always been that way, and pretend that this isn’t just double-dipping . I pay money, and then I also generate money with my data. In cases of the loyalty cards and discounts, you could say that there is a fair trade as the price gets lowered, but this is the minority. The majority of the time, we are tracked and profiled with no advantage for us, no compensation. And even if there is, and default pricing is higher if you don‘t share data, that ends up being financial discrimination and affects your choice significantly. As prices rise everywhere, paying with our data gets us almost no relief and is just an ever-growing additional income stream on the side for these companies. Despite having this pile of digital gold to pad their wallets, they still pretend that they have to raise prices all the time for all kinds of situations, and then never lower them when they resolve, as the profit of doing so and selling to advertisers and AI companies is concentrated at the top of the chain. Companies used to be fine selling via means that did not track and invade your life this hard, now we’re supposed to pretend these things are essential. Essential for what? More ads? More manipulation? Better sales numbers? More money for the CEO? They are not essential. We could drop 3/4ths of these mechanisms with no discernible changes to the user experience or product access. The reality is that literal essentials are gatekept by being subjected to this constant harassment and evaluation. How long until not complying with this surveillance regime downright hurts? When you cannot pay cash, or you cannot get into the store without scanning a QR code via their app for authentication, or pricing is personalized based on the profile they have about you - compiled with not just the store data, but other data they bought from data brokers? Your loyalty status, past purchases, your income information, credit score, propensity-to-pay algorithms, Meta social media info, …? Premium loyalty tiers where you ironically pay for more privacy? Predictive technology wrongfully classifying you as a high risk for stealing and banning you from the store? I’m tired of every niche jumping on this opportunity to be the next Cambridge Analytica. You are a hardware store, not a data broker company! I keep swatting your hand out of the jar, but you are just back in there every time I look. Reply via email Published 29 Nov, 2025

Data

ava's blog 1 weeks ago

job market websites suck

Both my wife and I are going through the annoying process of trying to search for new jobs. I’m still at my current one, but I want to see if something better is out there in the region we wanna move to. But it is absolutely nuts . How have these services not gone out of business? My experience, almost entirely the same across many websites like StepStone, Indeed, and more: And for what? So that you’ll make an account and give up all that data and get harassed via e-mail for information that is freely available on the company’s own career page! What are we doing? This is silly. Companies have already revealed that they hate and don’t consider the “Quick Apply” options these platforms offer, so what gives? And why are companies still using these slop platforms? It can’t be about getting more applicants, because these websites do anything they can to not show you the relevant job postings or information about them. If the search sucks, the preview is half-blurred and I can’t click on it without a pop-up urging me to make an account, you guessed it: I am actively discouraged from applying, prevented even, in many cases. I shouldn’t have to make an account with a third party just to even consider an employer! No, I will not create an account, and I will also not make a LinkedIn or Xing. These services are not helping anyone, they are leeches. They have an interest in keeping you on their site searching jobs for a long time, and that goal is antithetical to connecting you with potential employers quickly. Companies are better off advertising elsewhere and keeping it on their own website so all potential candidates can access it. It’s a bad look seeing you on these enshittified platforms. The way I have been coping with this job search is just using these websites to get a list of companies that have jobs in my niche and then researching them separately, using their own career pages and application portals. Also, relying on job listing websites ran by the government as these don’t use deceptive tactics to get you to sign up. If you’re lucky, your professional niche has their own jobmarket websites (see, for example, rustjobs.fyi ), or popular magazine publishers that are relevant in your field have a career sub-category on their website. If you have any other tips I missed, let me know (email or your own post is fine!) and I’ll add it. Reply via email Published 28 Nov, 2025 The on-site search is terrible to use. Search engine is easier. Most of the results are ads. Anything after the first 3 results is completely unrelated to the field you want. You aren’t allowed to see the job posting without an account, or only as “Recruiter”. The preview is almost completely useless. Partially blurred-out information that you are only allowed to see with an account.

Career

ava's blog 1 weeks ago

it feels like a calling, finally

Content warning: Brief mentions of disordered eating habits. Whenever I am deeply and actively involved in my passion topic (data protection law), I don’t care about the superficial stuff anymore. Writing, researching, talking to others about it, attending events just completely takes me out of the usual thought spirals and needless worries and makes me feel so at peace, so happy. I mean the things that the internet is especially good at convincing you of, even if you aren’t on specific platforms or in certain bubbles; the things that drip down to you from elsewhere, seep through the barriers. Beauty standards, looksmaxxing, pretty privilege, the current emphasis on making money via your looks as a social media or OF career, the idea of a dating market, dating strategies and having to optimize your value and constantly self-improve. The hope that by leveraging looks and weird manipulative books on how to win people over, you’ll get further professionally, as people perceive you as more competent and trustworthy. You need to be perfect because if you can’t even take care of yourself, how will you handle anything else? Together with a lot of memes about how “that’s how ugly you look if you (negative behavior)”. The message is clear: If you are sick and/or ugly, something is wrong with you and it shows on the outside to warn everyone to stay away. Some girl putting on makeup is telling you what’s chic and not chic, creating fear that people will not choose you, will even exclude you for minor a faux-pas. Things like considering a jaw shave to make my face more symmetrical or moving my hairline or doing Invisalign or losing another 10kg or considering a fitness regime to develop visible abs… only pop up as a sort of static noise and circular obsessive thoughts when I am lonely and/or directionless, hopeless, lost, questioning my path, not engaging actively enough with what I love. Whenever I am fired up for my passion and engaging with it, I don’t care about my looks or my weight. All I care about is treating my body well so I can do more of what makes me happy, and serve that passion well, devote myself fully. It feels like my calling, it feels like something I want to give myself to entirely, like a farmer is giving themselves to their harvest completely (cringiest thing I have ever said on this blog, but I don't know how else to say it!). I no longer care about eating as little as possible, and trying to postpone it as long as possible, while choosing low cal options that are as filling as possible to cheat my body. Instead, I care about eating enough and at the right times so I can read complicated texts, write, analyze, learn, am able to follow a lecture, and feel stable enough to travel and make it somewhere. I value it as the fuel that it is, to keep this meat mechsuit going that enables me to do the things I do, together with exercise for strength, not calorie deficit. I cannot do my part if I'm dizzy and weak. I also stop obsessing about how fat or asymmetrical my face might look from an angle or while I smile. Instead, I care about what I develop inside, and what comes out of it; that my ideas and words are meaningful, true, helpful. I care about understanding things correctly, of being able to explain them well, and about being able to afford my dreams and goals (further education), not beauty. I finally get to focus on giving my cognitive power, my presence, my body for the cause, not the eye; because I feel like this is my mission, and to pursue my mission well, I can’t starve myself, I can’t prioritize risky elective procedures and recovery, I can’t withdraw out of fear of being perceived as ugly or weird when my desired field compels me to talk to people more knowledgeable than me and learn. It really is true that beauty standards hold us back so much, distract us, take bandwidth and focus away. It can be so hard to break through the fog of these thoughts that tell us to provide value with our bodies and not our thoughts and words. I’m not going to be a better expert at this topic by being underweight or having abs or a smaller cheek, so why waste time on it pretending these subtle changes will help my overall success? The work ahead is straightforward, and nothing of it involves beauty. The internet drastically overstates the importance of these things. I already have great grades, a great work ethic, readers, an amazing mentor, the drive and intelligence. All of that is much more important for my success and happiness than fixing superficial flaws that no one but me is really noticing. My body is already going through enough, it deserves better. Reply via email Published 27 Nov, 2025

Writing Career Culture

ava's blog 1 weeks ago

i need more freaks in law

'Freaks' is used affectionately here to describe all kinds of creatives, weirdos, misfits, outcasts, alternative individuals, leftists, queers, furries and all that in a loving way. Where I live, law has a reputation to be dry, boring, business oriented, full of ex-nobility and wealthy people, and it's not wrong. You'll find lots of well-off conservatives and neoliberals, apolitical people just there to make a big buck and to get clout, and people with some questionable sense of justice. Makes sense then that most people think you need to fit into that sort of group to be interested or have a good time in law: be boring, be professional, stone-faced, serious, rich, holier-than-thou, capitalism-lover, wear muted colors and perform gender and sexuality in the approved way, be straight-laced and rule-loving. But honestly, law needs the opposite! Law needs you. I miss you in law. I miss all you freaks. There is space for you here. Your perspective, your input, your boldness, your intelligence and creativity is needed. There is no need for you to boycott law altogether even though you see it critically. Even if you rightfully acknowledge that lots of law is there to protect wealthy interests, you do better if you understand it. These are still the rules we currently have to live under, which means you're better off understanding, analyzing and utilizing it rather than pretend it isn't there. You cannot protest and change what you do not understand. Moreover, your own need you. Oppressed groups need you. Consumers, tenants, workers, children all around the world need help with their rights, they need help getting explanations for what's happening to them and how they can fight back in the language that the state speaks. The environment needs you, privacy needs you. Law benefits so much from a critical analysis through a queer lens, an anti-capitalist or abolitionist lens - whatever you want. You don't have to be a judge, or an attorney, or a lawyer getting people and companies off the hook for terrible crimes, or getting more people into the prison system. You can instead use legal expertise to help in your local chapters or NGOs, you can work in consumer associations or tenants association, you can help with legal resources for disability rights and domestic violence. You can also work with anti-surveillance groups, with environmental justice groups or civil liberties and racial justice groups. You can become a legal journalist or write about law online on your blog. I miss you when I go to conferences and other law spaces and there's not a single freak, just a sea of old white men that smell like shoe polish and money, waxing poetic about what scummy pharmaceutical company they helped evade consequences. I miss you when I sit in lectures and my peers argue for why a mentally ill person stealing food in the supermarket should go to jail. I miss you when it's time to discuss transgender laws. You don't need to conform, you don't need to kiss ass. I'm here too, and I love data protection law. Reply via email Published 27 Nov, 2025

Career Culture

ava's blog 2 weeks ago

the superiority complex of the screen minimalist

During my decoupling from almost all online services and apps I had (2016-2018), I was prone to looking at the people around me with concern and judgment about their digital consumption. It was the typical sort of short-term enlightenment phase you get when you realize something big and change your life around. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and because I was so freshly into deleting my social media and installing website/app blockers on my devices, every person on their phone in public was a consumerist victim addicted to the screen in my eyes. The prevalence of that view made it feel like a national emergency, a contagious disease ruining us all. Smugly, I looked around and thought: Wow, thank god I’m not a zombie anymore! I’m totally in control of my own thoughts and consumer behavior! I’m self-aware and no longer have my attention hijacked! As these people are on their phones endlessly scrolling, I’m reading a non-fiction physical book, which is so much more worthwhile and healthier for my brain and attention span! I still don’t have social media accounts, and I don’t even need any blockers anymore. My phone isn’t tempting me and neither is my laptop. I’m okay with my screentime . Since then, I have mellowed out. For one, it became the new normal, and also, I recognized that I made up stories in my head to feel superior to others. The truth is: By looking around, I don’t actually know what anyone else is doing. It’s just a baseless assumption in alignment with my own worldview, a self-serving one at that. While looking at their phone or tablet, others might be reading an e-book, studying, messaging a friend, doing their shopping list, journaling, making an appointment, searching for recipes, looking at maps or checking off a to-do list. While having their headphones in, they might be listening to a guided meditation, an audiobook or voice messages by friends, or just use noise-cancelling while nothing is playing, or use it as a deterrent for others to leave them alone. I can’t know that. And even if they aren’t, and they’re playing Subway Surfer or scrolling on TikTok while listening to music, I don’t care anymore. They don’t owe me the opposite, and they aren’t out in public to impress my opinionated ass. Why should they engage with only what I personally think is good? I will probably see about 10 minutes of this person’s life before never (knowingly) seeing them again, and it’s not nearly enough time to get an idea of their digital habits. Seeing them as someone who can’t sit with their own thoughts, a sort of addict, is an unfair view. In the end, the places where I noticed the most glued-to-the-phone-behavior were the most boring places known to man. What did I expect looking around in doctor’s waiting rooms and public transport? And why did I have to compare myself to them and come out on top? Why did I feel like rawdogging these moments with no entertainment would earn me a medal? Ohhh my god you didn’t check your phone so far today? Should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? Should we invite Cal Newport? 1 Related: It may not just be the damn phone . Reply via email Published 21 Nov, 2025 Meme reference to Ohhhhh my god u only had a iced coffee to eat today? should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party?should we invite bella hadid ↩ Meme reference to Ohhhhh my god u only had a iced coffee to eat today? should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party?should we invite bella hadid ↩

Culture

ava's blog 2 weeks ago

📌 i got my data protection law certificate!

On the 30th of October , I officially finished my data protection law certificate! I'm a bit late to post this because I was so busy and still needed to wait for the actual paper to arrive plus getting a frame and all. :) The certificate ('Diploma of Advanced Studies') is intended for 3 semesters in part-time. I finished it up in one semester with a grade average of 2,2 1 while continuing my other part-time degree (a Bachelor of Laws, LL.B) and full-time work. It is quite a bit more intensive than the 2-week crash courses to be a data protection officer and I had to write 6 exams in total, but it enables me to be one plus the permission to call myself a certified consultant for data protection law. I'll have to refresh it every 4 years with a refresher course, or lose it. While I love to write about commercial tech and social media through a privacy lens here and burn for that topic in private, I intend my career/professional focus to be about health data and AI. I already work with pharmaceutical databases in my job, and I wouldn't wanna miss that part of my work day. My first of hopefully many pieces of paper on that wall 2 . Would love to do AIGP, CIPP/E, CIPM and ISO27001 Lead Implementer some time, and obviously finish my Bachelor degree and start a Master's in data protection law. This cert consisted of the first 3 modules of that Master's degree already, so I know what's ahead of me and I know I can do it. :) Now I'm off to another MRI, because my body is being difficult. I hope to post more soon <3 Reply via email Published 20 Nov, 2025 In case there is confusion, it is the opposite of the American GPA system: 1,0 is good, 4,0 is bad. ↩ I may even get a second frame already to also put up the actual grade records next to it. The one on the wall is just the naming rights proof. ↩ In case there is confusion, it is the opposite of the American GPA system: 1,0 is good, 4,0 is bad. ↩ I may even get a second frame already to also put up the actual grade records next to it. The one on the wall is just the naming rights proof. ↩

Career Data Security

ava's blog 3 weeks ago

the GDPR is under attack

A while ago, the European Commission launched a Digital Package on Simplification . The goal was to focus on regulatory and administrative issues in the digital law space ( 'digital acquis' ): Reducing burdens on businesses and citizens, updating parts to the current technological advancement, and providing clarifications on some overlap between laws like the GDPR, the AI Act, etc. This included: There was a call for evidence sent out by the Commission in September to get input by stakeholders and experts on how to simplify the rules around data protection, cybersecurity, AI and more and any pressing issues and concerns 1 . The deadline passed in the middle of October, and an official proposal developed from these insights is supposed to be released on the 19th of November. The hopes for this proposal were high: So-called small mid-cap enterprises ('SMCs', between 250 and 750 employees, annual turnover between 50 and 150 million) 2 were introduced as a group earlier this year, and the companies falling into this category expected to be exempt from the more time- and cost-intensive regulatory parts of the GDPR specifically. EU citizens all over wanted a better way to handle cookie consent that does not result in 'cookie fatigue' and still respects their choice. Noyb.eu and others suggested an automated, browser-integrated setting tool for cookie objections called the Advanced Data Protection Control (ADPC) . 3 A version of the proposal document leaked (undated) and I'm writing this to give an overview over the 156 page document, focusing on the relevant bits for end-users, and some juicy stuff. The proposal, as it is right now pre-release, would suggest to: There's a separate proposal to amend the AI Act aside from this omnibus, too. All this doesn't have to immediately be bad, as this is kind of what the whole thing set out to do. We have to look closer as to what the actual amendments are and if the repealed ones are superfluous and merged into the appropriate law for clarity. The most important scoop, specifically Article 2 amendments to clarify other articles: Changes the definition of personal data under Article 4, stating that information is not considered personal data for a controller (= company, etc.) if it does not have any means that could reliably identify the person. This would enable companies to avoid the obligations of the GDPR for quite a lot of what was before thought of as personal data. It is particularly problematic, as it introduces ambiguity around what is or isn't personal data based on what each controller subjectively is capable of based on their own unique capabilities. Conclusively, it would remove pseudonymous data or indirectly identifiable data from GDPR application, when it used to be covered before, significantly lowering protections. (Page 17) Processing of special categories of personal data (Article 9) is changed. For one, it is not strictly forbidden unless a specific rule of allowance is met anymore; instead, it is only prohibited if it directly reveals (instead of infers) a person's sensitive personal data (health, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion etc.). That would ironically mean that people who don't want to disclose their sensitive information would lose all protections while those who share it outright via processing would be protected. Another one of the exemptions would be for the residual processing of special categories of personal data for development and operation of an AI system/model , and for verification via biometric data (think, verifying someone's identity via fingerprint). (Page 18) Article 12 is clarified to specifically include that the right of access should only be used for the purpose of protecting personal data, nothing else, and if it is used for other matters, the company can refuse or charge a fee. In practice, it indeed was used a lot to get additional ammunition in court cases, especially between employer and employee. There's a lot of court cases where employees and citizens have used their right to know what data is processed and getting a copy of it to get a hold of internal communication that helps their case against that entity. It's going to be interesting seeing the courts decide whether the motivation of a data subject was truly for data protection reasons or not; a simple court case against an entity should not bar you from enacting your rights. (Page 18) Article 13 (which is the obligation of a company to inform you if they process data about you that they get from you directly) is changed so that there is no obligation to inform you if there is reasonable grounds to expect that you already know this, unless they also transmit the data to other recipients, third countries, there is automated decision-making or there is a high risk to your rights. Seems like in practice, this won't change much, as almost all data processing where they get the data from you directly fall under this - just think of creating a user account on Facebook or a bank account at your bank. But still wanted to include it as it still fits into this overall image of the omnibus attempting to create some loopholes and less restriction on companies. (Page 18) Requirements for automated decision-making in Article 22 are clarified. It previously said that people have the right to not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing and profiling that has legal or significant effects on them, unless some conditions are met. These conditions are when the decision is necessary for entering into or performing a contract, it's authorized by law, or there is explicit consent. The proposed change concerns what “necessary for a contract” means, clarifying that “necessity” does not depend on whether a human could make the decision instead. That's... not really helpful? Then what could necessity possibly else be? This is clearly just to enable more AI decision making, when we all know almost all AI decisions (like in hiring etc.) can be done by a human instead. (Page 18) Article 33 and 34 deal with reporting requirements when a data breach happens. Previously, they had to always notify the authority unless the risk is very low, and only notify individuals if the risk was high. In this proposal, it is suggested to significantly loosen the requirements, stating both notifications (to the authority and to individuals) would only be required if the breach is likely to result in a high risk to people’s rights and freedoms. The notification deadline is upped from 72 hours to 96 hours as well. That means significantly less oversight and knowledge about data breaches and more time for it to do some damage before relevant parties can start to act and protect themselves. (Page 18) Processing of personal data on and from 'terminal equipment' (= phones and computers) is supposed to be handled solely by the GDPR now instead of the ePrivacy Directive, and cookie regulation is intended to be aligned with its principles. (Page 6) The proposal intends to pave the way for automated, machine-readable indications of individual choices in the settings and calls upon the standardization bodies to develop a standard. Once that standard is set and implemented on all kinds of browsers and devices, there should be a 6 month grace period before website controllers are obliged to respect these settings. This sounds very close to, or exactly like, the Advanced Data Protection Control (ADPC) I mentioned above, which means we could one day have just a setting in the browser instead of banners and checkmarks. (Page 6) Unfortunately, they write: "Considering the importance of advertising revenue for independent journalism as an indispensable pillar of a democratic society, media service providers as defined in Regulation (EU) 2024/1083 (European Media Freedom Act) should not be obliged to respect such signals." Which means you can get ready for every news site to track you to hell and sell your data under the guise of democracy. This unfortunately shines a new light on how the EU is willing to handle "Pay or Okay" cases moving forward, which is very disappointing. ePrivacy Directive: Tracking allowed without consent if it poses a low risk to rights and if it is needed to fulfill a contract. That could significantly lessen our protections and rights against ubiquitous tracking online... (Page 5-6) Unfortunately, the main omnibus proposal document only includes contextual references to AI Act changes, but not the specifics; those are in a separate document here . In short (Page 3, 11-12, 27): They expect possible savings of at least 1 billion EUR annually, with an additional 1 billion savings in one-off costs, amounting to a total of 4 billion over 3 years by 2029 (Page 12-13). It seems like what companies and the average citizen have hoped for was made true - bureaucratic relief for companies and some of the overseeing bodies alike by loosening requirements, shortening them or making them voluntary, as well as paving the way to tackle the cookie banner problem via an automated setting across websites. But: Even though the document repeatedly says they look to keep the high protection standard and ethical core of the regulations intact, I can't agree that they succeeded. Changing the definition of personal data in such a way that it would significantly shift application of the GDPR is messing directly with the level of protection and raises several concerns. Most of the changes really are not in favor of the data subjects; instead, they just make it easier for companies to not have to comply, to not have to tell, to not have to record or report, while making it easier to track and collect data without consent, further bolstering "legitimate interest" and supposed contractual obligations or the subjective capabilities of identifying an individual as valid reasons. It seems to me that the Commission is fully willing to go the path of 'all or nothing': That, if you sign up for certain services, you are fully consenting and have no granular control over what happens with your data, because it is all lobbed under the doubtful reasoning of "providing a service for you". We all know Meta doesn't need half the data it collects to provide that service to you, but it seems like the times of holding companies accountable for this have passed as this business model is legitimized and the EU is scared of being left behind in innovation if we want to stick to the rule of law and democratic values. It's not taken into account how many people feel forced (whether by their environment, their employer, their industry peers, their job chances, their own emotional reliance) to use these services who'd prefer to use them in the most data-restrictive way possible. Citizens should not feel the need to have to sell themselves out fully just to access a digital job marketplace or a digital flea market. In practice, it's looking bleak for what once made the GDPR special. We'll have to see the final version on the 19th, and then look whether the proposal is accepted and how it is put in practice. If you want to read the doc yourself, here is the link. Reply via email Published 13 Nov, 2025 There was a lot more than that, but if you want the details, read this , page 11. And: The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) also asked for feedback on the Guidelines 03/2025 of the interplay between the DSA and the GDPR, and you can find that here . Interesting to note: You can publicly see the feedback that was given by Google Ireland , Meta Ireland , and Amazon EU . ↩ Not to be mixed up with SMEs, which stands for small and medium-sized enterprises. According to the proposal, SMEs now include SMCs, when they previously didn't. ↩ Here is the initial news of the tool from 2021. ↩ a digital fitness check based on the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added-value, as well as a digital 'omnibus' , which means large-scale amendments across many existing acts and regulations, streamlining them to be more cohesive and easier to apply. amend the GDPR, the Data Act, the AI Act and the ePrivacy Directive amend the NIS2 Directive (<- cybersecurity) repeal the Data Governance Act repeal the Free Flow of Non-personal Data Regulation (FFDR), and Regulation 2019/1150, which is for promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services (also called P2B Regulation) repeal the Open Data Directive Changes the definition of personal data under Article 4, stating that information is not considered personal data for a controller (= company, etc.) if it does not have any means that could reliably identify the person. This would enable companies to avoid the obligations of the GDPR for quite a lot of what was before thought of as personal data. It is particularly problematic, as it introduces ambiguity around what is or isn't personal data based on what each controller subjectively is capable of based on their own unique capabilities. Conclusively, it would remove pseudonymous data or indirectly identifiable data from GDPR application, when it used to be covered before, significantly lowering protections. (Page 17) Processing of special categories of personal data (Article 9) is changed. For one, it is not strictly forbidden unless a specific rule of allowance is met anymore; instead, it is only prohibited if it directly reveals (instead of infers) a person's sensitive personal data (health, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion etc.). That would ironically mean that people who don't want to disclose their sensitive information would lose all protections while those who share it outright via processing would be protected. Another one of the exemptions would be for the residual processing of special categories of personal data for development and operation of an AI system/model , and for verification via biometric data (think, verifying someone's identity via fingerprint). (Page 18) Article 12 is clarified to specifically include that the right of access should only be used for the purpose of protecting personal data, nothing else, and if it is used for other matters, the company can refuse or charge a fee. In practice, it indeed was used a lot to get additional ammunition in court cases, especially between employer and employee. There's a lot of court cases where employees and citizens have used their right to know what data is processed and getting a copy of it to get a hold of internal communication that helps their case against that entity. It's going to be interesting seeing the courts decide whether the motivation of a data subject was truly for data protection reasons or not; a simple court case against an entity should not bar you from enacting your rights. (Page 18) Article 13 (which is the obligation of a company to inform you if they process data about you that they get from you directly) is changed so that there is no obligation to inform you if there is reasonable grounds to expect that you already know this, unless they also transmit the data to other recipients, third countries, there is automated decision-making or there is a high risk to your rights. Seems like in practice, this won't change much, as almost all data processing where they get the data from you directly fall under this - just think of creating a user account on Facebook or a bank account at your bank. But still wanted to include it as it still fits into this overall image of the omnibus attempting to create some loopholes and less restriction on companies. (Page 18) Requirements for automated decision-making in Article 22 are clarified. It previously said that people have the right to not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing and profiling that has legal or significant effects on them, unless some conditions are met. These conditions are when the decision is necessary for entering into or performing a contract, it's authorized by law, or there is explicit consent. The proposed change concerns what “necessary for a contract” means, clarifying that “necessity” does not depend on whether a human could make the decision instead. That's... not really helpful? Then what could necessity possibly else be? This is clearly just to enable more AI decision making, when we all know almost all AI decisions (like in hiring etc.) can be done by a human instead. (Page 18) Article 33 and 34 deal with reporting requirements when a data breach happens. Previously, they had to always notify the authority unless the risk is very low, and only notify individuals if the risk was high. In this proposal, it is suggested to significantly loosen the requirements, stating both notifications (to the authority and to individuals) would only be required if the breach is likely to result in a high risk to people’s rights and freedoms. The notification deadline is upped from 72 hours to 96 hours as well. That means significantly less oversight and knowledge about data breaches and more time for it to do some damage before relevant parties can start to act and protect themselves. (Page 18) Processing of personal data on and from 'terminal equipment' (= phones and computers) is supposed to be handled solely by the GDPR now instead of the ePrivacy Directive, and cookie regulation is intended to be aligned with its principles. (Page 6) The proposal intends to pave the way for automated, machine-readable indications of individual choices in the settings and calls upon the standardization bodies to develop a standard. Once that standard is set and implemented on all kinds of browsers and devices, there should be a 6 month grace period before website controllers are obliged to respect these settings. This sounds very close to, or exactly like, the Advanced Data Protection Control (ADPC) I mentioned above, which means we could one day have just a setting in the browser instead of banners and checkmarks. (Page 6) ePrivacy Directive: Tracking allowed without consent if it poses a low risk to rights and if it is needed to fulfill a contract. That could significantly lessen our protections and rights against ubiquitous tracking online... (Page 5-6) Unfortunately, the main omnibus proposal document only includes contextual references to AI Act changes, but not the specifics; those are in a separate document here . In short (Page 3, 11-12, 27): More simplifications, flexibility in post-market monitoring, exemptions for R&D scenarios, and delaying some obligations. No obligation for AI literacy of staff anymore, only encouragement to foster it? High-risk AI systems (especially those used by public authorities!) get an extension for the deadline to comply - until August 2030 (for comparison: general purpose AI systems need to comply by 2027). Isn't that insane? The high-risk systems should be the first to have to comply, as they are, by name, high-risk. They expect possible savings of at least 1 billion EUR annually, with an additional 1 billion savings in one-off costs, amounting to a total of 4 billion over 3 years by 2029 (Page 12-13). The proposal aims to create a single-entry point via ENISA through which reporting obligations can be fulfilled for multiple legal acts, saving on some administrative burdens and no more double-reporting needed. But it also centralizes power on EU-level, reduces national control and transparency. (Page 7) The P2B Regulation is suggested to be repealed because the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) are considered to largely overtake the old one. (Page 7) The Open Data Directive's rules are absorbed into the Data Act. (Page 8) The Data Governance Act (DGA) which specifically handles how data can be shared and reused across the EU by 'data intermediaries' (companies that help others share data, like AWS Data Exchange or Microsoft Azure Data Share) and 'data altruism organizations' (entities that collect and share data voluntarily for the public good, like the European Brain Data Hub in Belgium) is supposed to be amended so it's easier for data-sharing services to grow. Unfortunately, that means that complying with certain legal requirements under the DGA is turned into a voluntary framework rather than an obligation. Also, currently the DGA requires that a company offering data intermediation services must have a legally separate company to run those services to avoid conflicts of interest, for example. Under the new plan, that strict requirement would be relaxed and companies wouldn’t need a separate legal entity, only a functional separation (for example, separate departments or IT systems), as long as they meet certain other conditions to ensure independence and trust. The overall compliance requirements for data intermediaries are supposed to be drastically shortened for fewer administrative or reporting duties, and reporting and transparency obligations for data altruism organizations are removed. (Page 15) The requirements of when to do a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) are harmonized in terms of how, when, and what high risk means. There will also be harmonized templates.The European Data Protection Board would be obliged to prepare a proposal for a common template. (Page 18) There was a lot more than that, but if you want the details, read this , page 11. And: The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) also asked for feedback on the Guidelines 03/2025 of the interplay between the DSA and the GDPR, and you can find that here . Interesting to note: You can publicly see the feedback that was given by Google Ireland , Meta Ireland , and Amazon EU . ↩ Not to be mixed up with SMEs, which stands for small and medium-sized enterprises. According to the proposal, SMEs now include SMCs, when they previously didn't. ↩ Here is the initial news of the tool from 2021. ↩

AI

ava's blog 4 weeks ago

one year of hair growth

At the end of October 2024, I cut all my hair off, and let my wife shave it off to 9mm. I wrote about that here . I did it because various illness and medication effects made me a lose a lot of hair. In November that year, I shaved it once more, down to 5mm, then let it grow. This is the current status: Have done nothing to it except letting it grow. It looks and feels healthy and seems like the hairloss has stopped and reversed. :) I still wear wigs most of the time I'm out of the home, though. Reply via email Published 12 Nov, 2025

Writing Health AI

ava's blog 4 weeks ago

disability and living for yourself

I am scared of the point in disability when you are seemingly just living for other people, not yourself. The point where all of your personal goals and dreams have been shattered, developing a new identity is gatekept by your abilities and your caregivers, and your purpose seems to just be existing as a reminder to everyone else that they should be grateful for their health and life. You can’t die (yet), because that would make everyone sad, and it would cease to be the inspirational story of never giving up and always smiling through it all that they want it to be. They want to look at you, be happy they’re not you, but simultaneously also want you to keep fighting so they know that even if they became you, that life is still worthwhile and happy. Bearable. It’s too painful to admit that maybe it isn’t sometimes. I think people love disability stories like Stephen Hawking because people like him were still able to leave a mark, did what they love, had tools to move, and functioned (mostly) under capitalism. They love to think that they will also score similarly on the disability roulette, and I hope so too, but we also tend to forget that these people often had vastly different resources and privileges than many, too. It reminds me of the liberal disability advocacy that tends to push mostly healthy people in the foreground with a caption that’s something like “I might look different, but I’m just like you!”. The message tends to skew towards something like “People with Down Syndrome can still work in your company!”, fighting discrimination based on a sort of ableist lookism or fear of wheelchairs, and focusing on the fact that they can still be productive. You can see something similar happening in certain autism advocacy groups led by allistic parents, who love to push low-needs geniuses (“savants”) as the face of autism. The cynical might see this as an admission of the fact that many can only stomach the disabled if they somehow make up for their disability via another good or even exceptional quality that can be monetized or contributes to the greater good. Many disabled people are just not that. It might be the reverse: looking just like you, but the illness(es) make studying, reading, writing, thinking, or formulating and voicing things, difficult or impossible. It doesn’t even have to be outright cognitive damage - chronic fatigue, chronic pain, lots of doctor’s appointments and more can make education hard, especially if it’s in a school setting or a degree, in a rigid schedule, lots of text. When my chronic pain is high, I can’t even keep up with my Zoom classes, and I can’t retain what I read. Writing is okay, but speaking is hard, and I blank every couple seconds, and stop multiple times in the sentence, searching for words. I lose words, I mix them up, I stutter. That’s the same person writing all of these posts though, the same person enrolled in a law degree, the same person holding down a fulltime job. It’s the same person with dreams and goals that might be significantly altered or shattered down the road against my will because of illness progression. I thought about all of this because of a YouTuber I like to watch, Vereena Sayed. She has created videos for years, but I only discovered her last year when I was very sick. I loved seeing her on her pink motorcycle, riding with her dad while I was in bed, in pain. But soon after, I found out that she was in a horrible accident since she uploaded those videos, and barely survived. She was in a coma, with 9 broken bones, a shattered spine, a broken jaw and a TBI. For a long time, no videos were uploaded, but recently, she has started uploading again. She’s showing very candidly what her life now looks like: A wheelchair, needing help 24/7, lots of physiotherapy and… pain. On Instagram, she recently admitted that she tried to kill herself. In her latest video, she says: “I hope this video motivates you to not end up like me.” The accident wasn’t her fault; there’s nothing she could have done to avoid this. It hurts, seeing her have to resign herself to being a memorial or an inspirational story, because her old goals and path are dead, and there is not much else to do than live for others when you can’t live for yourself (yet, or ever). It also reminds me of another quote I heard recently, that I also wrote in my notebook: “I’m scared of losing the rest of my worth.” Reply via email Published 10 Nov, 2025

Culture Media

ava's blog 1 months ago

my loot drop - what's in my inventory?

You've slain me. On your quest to rise up the Bearblog Trending mountain, you had to go past me. As your final hit rains down on me and my HP bar depletes, my body pulsates on the floor and slowly evaporates. What I leave behind are the following items: Matcha Drink Powdered green tea beverage with a nutty, slightly bitter taste. +5 Energy . Benji Charm Legend says he has provided strength in the most hopeless nights. While holding or keeping the plushie nearby, you gain advantage on saving throws against fear, despair, or stress-related effects. Crystal Ring Ring It hails from the far away fae lands. Forged from living quartz harvested under a moon. +2 Strength . Law Book Spell Book Forged by sages and legislators who believed privacy itself was a form of sacred protection, this tome channels the invisible rules of data protection into tangible wards and bindings. Spell: Right to Be Forgotten Effect: Erases traces of your identity from archives, magical records, and memories weaker than your Intelligence modifier. Enemies who knew you must pass a Wisdom save or simply forget your name. “Knowledge is power, but consent is sacred.” — Preface to the Data Protection Codex, Volume I AirPods Equipment Ancient blacksmiths of the techno-age forged them to fend off the chaos of constant noise. +4 Focus. Drawback: While active, you may miss crucial social cues or warnings. Other players gain advantage on Stealth checks against you, especially when they are of the type "wife". Pirate is hosting the Bearblog Carnival topic this month , inviting us to consider what we have in our inventory. I wanted do it less like a "what's actually in my bag", but more game-oriented. :) Reply via email Published 04 Nov, 2025

Gaming

ava's blog 1 months ago

checking in - october/november

Small update! I am halfway through my really full weeks :) I was at my first data protection law conference last week. Even with the reduced entry fee, it is still too expensive in my opinion... but I still loved that I signed up and participated. Lots of new stuff learned; pages upon pages of notes in my notebook, and a lot of things I need to read up on. I think my notes vault will see some action soon. I felt a little out of place; surrounded by industry veterans and important thinkers in the space, in a really luxurious building. Everyone sort of knew each other and worked for known entities, in the well-paid industry that is law, and then there's me - the only student, first timer, grew up rather poor, just finished with my certificate. Yes, I did get my final grade while there, and am now an officially licensed data protection officer! I don't want to get too much into it, because I wanna make a separate post once the piece of paper arrives in the mail. Anyway, gross display of wealth and status always makes me uneasy, and I felt like a peasant with bad table manners in-between all of these lawyers, but I stuck through it. I'm proud of myself that I was willing to invest so much of myself into this opportunity and making it work somehow, despite my current ongoing AS flare up. I even attended the Veggienale in Nuremberg, and a birthday party by a friend, plus had brunch with my in-laws, who kindly let me stay with them so I could commute to Munich for the conference from there :) The Veggienale (an event for vegetarian and vegan food) was super small, not that busy, and really nice. Had a good talk with a rep from proveg, had some taste tests on some booths, bought spicy oil, got a sort of grain coffee for free, and had other good food. I did not like how much veggie food overlaps with the sort of 'alternative health' people you do not want . I just want cool and fair food and initiatives, not "there's an oil for cancer!" sort of shit. My AS flare up got better during my travels (survival, I guess), but now back home, has been absolutely horrible and taking revenge on me overexerting myself; especially yesterday, but today, too. I had my rheumatology appointment yesterday and we're testing more inflammation markers, I'll get an MRI to see the current progress in the spine, and an infliximab antibody test to find out of I am now resistant to my medicine... also got Celecoxib, but to be honest with you, so far it doesn't do shit. After the rheumatology appointment and a sweet cafe date with my wife, I went to the gym, already feeling more pain coming on. Exercise usually helps squash it for a few hours, but that day, I increasingly felt absolutely horrible on the treadmill. Spinal pain, numbness in my legs, and towards the end while even just slowly walking, I suddenly got a sort of panic attack. I felt like I was dying and had to stop after just 30 minutes. Went home in a lot of pain, and the rest of the evening is a complete blur, except for knowing it felt like I was in a vat of lava. I couldn't lie still, always squirming from the pain. Today, I dragged myself into work for a work event I looked forward to, and later on, the pain got so bad I had to lie on the office floor because I just couldn't sit anymore due to bad sacroiliac pain. I was already 1200mg ibuprofen in at that point. The pain drives me insane. Typing is okay, but verbally, I am a mess. I blank on everything, I search for words, I forget what I wanted to say. I talk super slowly. I have a hard time focusing on things, depending on how bad the pain is. I'm trying to keep it together and hope for better times. I am sorry if I am not responding to emails as timely as I used to, it is definitely because of my health and calendar. And honestly: Me when I am complaining about my health . There is so much I wanna do; currently I am: I have more cool stuff lined up still, another meeting with my mentor at work, and my birthday is later this month. :) Have some pictures. Reply via email Published 04 Nov, 2025 studying for my four classes I enrolled in this semester in my parttime degree fulltime working in my job role and also in our environmental team at work separately; our EMAS certification appointment is coming up, so we are prepping for that traveling around a lot, visiting friends, conventions, conferences and more searching for ways to cut costs for CIPP/E, CIPM, AIGP, and ISO 27001 Lead Implementer so I can do them (each of these certs is really, really expensive, and I don't think my employer will pay for them...) attending data protection law events and lectures reading some books (just finished Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, love her books) writing these blog posts, and some posts on my matcha blog every now and then researching and reading up on some things from the conference I attended continuing to help translate and summarize court decisions for GDPRhub by noyb summarizing and reworking notes for my notes vault so it will hopefully be a lot more there soon and not so barebones

Career

ava's blog 1 months ago

notebook 11 - many doodles

Writing

ava's blog 1 months ago

your AI hiring workflow comes at the cost of my loyalty and motivation

At a conference I was at, two companies talked about implementing AI into all areas and layers of their company. For the talk, they specifically zeroed in on AI in the hiring process. They began to describe that their goal (which they are about halfway there already) was: It would save them a lot of HR employees, costs and time. Putting aside the obvious legal issues that will still need to be hashed out, the categorization into the AI Act risk groups, and the human oversight and additional documentation needed that still costs them; Who wants to work at a place like this, and who wants to remain loyal to a such an impersonal and cold company that threats you like meat on a conveyor belt (even more than they already did)? Imagine not talking to a single real person at a company until you meet your coworkers. I know it might sound great at first if you are socially anxious or prefer to talk less to others, but you’ll still have to perform the same song and dance anyway - just this time, it’s an absolute blackbox you cannot be sure of. The analysis of your mood and answers plus the end summary might go wrong and there’s nothing you can do about that. How do you prepare to impress an AI (one that is allegedly trained to ignore prompt injections)? And don’t forget: This is also about stealing the opportunity away from you to get a feel for who works there and the company culture itself. I find that part incredibly important in the interview! I need to feel like the company fits me as well, and the people leading the interview are an important part of finding out. I wouldn’t want to work for a company like that. I would cancel the application process, or, if I went through with it, I’d give the same energy right back: the bare minimum or less, and no loyalty. Why should I give my all to a company (or if handled more directly, boss) who did not even bother interviewing me or giving me appropriate training? In my view, you already treated me like you hate me before I even started. You know, these companies are really funny, talking about “shortening hiring times”. You could shorten hiring times by not putting the applicants through 3-7 rounds of interviews, you imbeciles. You are out there creating hiring processes neither the interviewers nor the interviewees enjoy and that waste costs and time, and instead of rethinking the charade, you’d rather worsen it by offloading it to a complex set of algorithms you don’t understand and rent from elsewhere. The shitty thing is that this will become the norm, and we will no longer be able to boycott and avoid this stuff as we all need to put food on the table and can’t afford to say no to a job over this mistreatment. The only recourse you have whenever AI was involved in the hiring process and you were denied is suing. Make them expose how the AI was used, on what, how, prove human oversight, prove the human final decision, and more (if mandated in your jurisdiction). Let them produce all that in documentation and keep their lawyers busy. Make them pay extra in bureaucratic busywork and court fees. I see no other way. Reply via email Published 01 Nov, 2025 Using AI to write the job listings. Using AI to scout potential employees on LinkedIn and Xing and messaging them. Using AI to automatically sort applicants and possibly even score them (!). Using AI to send out the invitations and rejections. Using AI to lead the job interview - with AI Avatars in a video call. Using AI to summarize the video interview and suggest a decision. Using AI in onboarding and training, letting the employees train themselves via a chatbot they can ask, and training materials by AI.

Career AI

ava's blog 1 months ago

my physical experience with autism

A while ago, I reflected on my troubles during my commute with other autistic people I know, and it helped put things into words that are difficult to talk about. It also helped to realize that they experience it too. My commute via tram is an hour long. A good experience for me is when the sun is rising, the tram is (mostly) empty, I have my noise cancelling headphones in, immersing myself in typing something on my phone, or reading a book; maybe looking outside just basically daydreaming until I arrive at my destination. It enables me to completely detach from my surroundings and my body in a good way and makes it feel like 10 minutes max, no physical discomfort. All that is usually given in summer, when I can take the tram between 5-6am (unpopular time) and it’s already light enough outside at that time (so no internal lights). That’s very enjoyable and doesn’t drain me, I even like it. A hellish commute is the opposite: Full of people, lots of noise and no noise cancelling, overwhelming scents, harsh lights from the top. That tends to happen when it’s late (popular commute times) and during winter, when it’s still dark outside for long and the lights inside the tram have to be on. By default, most tram rides fall somewhere inbetween those two, and it’s very exhausting for me anyway. It’s the reason why I only go into the office twice a week (the immunosuppression, too). Depending on a lot of different factors, including my own sensitivity that day, I start to feel really sick in the tram. It’s my autism. I get headaches, nausea, my bones hurt, I feel tired and like I suddenly have the flu; I dissociate, my brain feels foggy and heavy, and I’m very impatient and angry. I get the urge to exit the tram constantly and I have to fight that all the time. I keep myself still to not draw attention to myself or to not be weird in public, so I can’t squirm and or wiggle my leg or rock to deal with the situation. That’s also an area where autism and my chronic illnesses interact: When I feel that flu-ish during overload, my illness spots start to act up too, sometimes temporarily until I’m removed from the situation, and sometimes for weeks as these experiences accumulate, maybe through being outside more and traveling more. It’s stressful for my body. This doesn’t just happen in public transport, but also some other places like supermarkets, loud cafés and similar spaces. It’s why I don’t go out that much, don’t travel much. I like parks and forests as most other spaces don’t feel welcoming to me at all with how full they are, how loud and smelly they are and everyone’s conversations all at once. I shut down when I have to sit there for a while, feeling like I am watching my life through a screen, unable to muster up the energy to interact, and often unable to filter the conversation directed at me from the background noise. I usually don’t talk about this because I don’t expect anyone to understand. What are bosses supposed to think? Oh, your body hurts really bad and you feel sick and exhausted before even arriving at work sometimes because you have to sit in a tram for an hour because of light and noise? Sounds lazy, sounds like you’re making shit up to not have to come in. But really, it’s bad for me and I would not be able to do this 5x a week. I already do everything I can to minimize what bothers me (by noise cancelling, taking very early trams etc.), but I can’t eliminate it entirely, especially on the way back home. I think if I had a shorter commute and/or I could walk or bike over instead, I could handle a lot more office days. I can push through this if it’s warranted - I come in extra for trainees, for extra meetings, for in-house events, and I am willing to travel for educational purposes (like the data protection law conference this week). But it comes with a toll, a physical discomfort that goes beyond what’s average or considered “normal”. And it adds to my chronic pain. Now, the second day of lots of commuting and sitting in a conference listening to presentations for hours, my body is hitting a limit and my hands and feet pulsate with pain. Still, I have a board game evening, a birthday party, a veggie food convention and a brunch with in-laws ahead of me this week. Oof! Reply via email Published 30 Oct, 2025

Programming Culture

ava's blog 1 months ago

you radiate knowledge

I don’t know if you’ve felt that way too, but I certainly have hundreds of times: Looking at others around you who are really knowledgeable on specific topics and you wonder: How do they manage to learn so much about that and keep on top of everything? Or, looking at the standards in your field of work, wondering how you’ll possibly reach that level of competence. I’m writing this during the lunch break of a data protection law conference I am attending this week, and it has made me appreciate how much knowledge is radiated, is trickling down. Industry experts and specialists of all areas and years of experience congregate at different places every other month to share about news, their experiences and more. Through these events, you get to know more people and can keep up with them, you get access to more literature and magazines which again have more information inside. Hints to upcoming events and ongoing decisions, recommendations for books and websites. So many presentations and articles! So much of it is word of mouth. “Hey, in case you missed it, there was this!” “This is my area of expertise, let me tell you about it” “I was interested in this problem and researched it, now I’m sharing what I found so you don’t have to” You don’t need to know it all, especially not by heart. We manage all of this by each researching and advancing and sharing so no one has to reinvent the wheel by themselves. You just need to know where to find the documents, the presentations, the papers and articles of the people who do know, and you need to know who to ask, who’s fitting for this sort of topic. And you too radiate knowledge! I got so much secondhand knowledge just from people sharing about their day - their hobby, their work, their special interest. Things I never would have looked for or cared to ask otherwise. It doesn’t need to be in an educational setting, on some conference or class. Blog posts are great, a casual video is cool. Or just hanging out! It’s something that’s reflected in the way I try to write about law on my blog: I want to write about it like I would explain to a friend on a walk or at a table, with the added benefit of being able to show my sources and prove my claims. I want to strike a balance between accuracy and talking about it in a way almost everyone could understand. And through that, knowledge trickles further down. We are all knowledge filters and disseminators. You don’t need to know everything there is about data protection law, but I’ll let you know of things that might tangentially relate to your every day life. In turn, you’ll let me know about programming, gardening, architecture and more. Reply via email Published 30 Oct, 2025

Career

ava's blog 1 months ago

pain management

Allow me to crash out for a second. Since roughly a month, I’m experiencing a flareup in my spondyloarthritis (Ankylosing Spondylitis or Bechterew’s disease…). This is a type of arthritis that primarily affects the spine and usually some other joints. I first noticed it in the base of my right thumb that was painful and a bit stiff (this has now mostly resolved) and plantar fasciitis (the fascia in your foot arch, basically; my body loves attacking in this area for some reason, as I used to have frequent Achilles tendonitis as a teen). This first caused unexpected pain in some moments of walking and also resulted in issues using my phone, using a controller, and every day stuff that needs thumb mobility and pressure on the thumb. I also noticed general aches especially after resting and following some exercise. One example was having weirdly stiff elbows and shoulders after indoor cycling, which I hadn’t had in quite a while after treatment worked. This was followed by sacroiliitis (inflammation where hip and spine meet im the lower back) first on the right and now on both sides, and sharp pain in the upper thoracic spine (between the shoulder blades). That means while walking, sitting, and lying down, I have pain in the whole area of my lower back and hips, and as I breathe and my upper spine moves, I am in pain as well. Every time I breathe in, there’s a knife in my back. As nerves are affected too, I have shooting pains down my legs and into my shoulders and neck. My right leg occasionally randomly collapses away from under me due to this, but I haven’t fallen yet. Unfortunately, everything gets worse with rest (both sitting and lying down) but obviously, I can’t exercise 24/7. It’s generally difficult to hit the sweet spot each day where exercise helps and doesn’t further aggravate everything. I recently had such a great workout (30 minutes treadmill, 20 minutes cycling, 20 mins mix of yoga and pilates) that made me feel as if I had just gotten a dose of heavy painkillers, but that relief only lasted for about two hours max. I still need to sleep, study, and do an office job. I tried to go back to a low dose of Prednisone and it obviously helps a bit, but I don’t wanna be on it - I was on 80mg last year, tapered down to 50mg, and then couldn’t go lower for months until new treatment worked. I had the whole experience of side effects, even medically induced Cushing’s Disease and issues with my blood sugar. When I recently tried between 2mg-4mg, I was immediately back with the constant thirst and peeing (= blood sugar issues). It was so disrupting I had to stop. It’s sad seeing everything fall apart again. I see it in the way more stuff is lying around in the apartment than usual. Chores take longer or get procrastinated on. I am low energy. I barely go to the gym anymore and prefer to exercise at home. I heat up a heating pad for my back like 4 times a day, it’s not more than that only because I’m often too lazy and stubborn to do it more often. I try so hard not to take painkillers. You aren’t supposed to take ibuprofen with Crohn’s disease, but I have to sometimes. But when I max out my limit for it, I add paracetamol, which works less well but helps at least some. I’m especially careful with that so I don’t harm my liver. So it all becomes this big monster of trying to get the energy to exercise and making time for it in my day, then holding myself over with heating pads and stretches and distractions, before turning to painkillers as a last resort, and alternating/mixing them. I almost treat it like a luxury good, something to indulge in, because of weird shaming around it. I remember this absolutely disrespectful interview with a doctor I read this year in which he was clutching his pearls about people taking ibuprofen and that it’s so dangerous and poisonous and that people should just stop. He talked about it as if people just take these for fun over a papercut. I wish I could shit on his doormat. Peak example of a healthy and non-menstruating person with zero empathy. So every couple days, I allow myself to take them, and my inner monologue is really like “Oh well, I deserve this. I’m splurging on it. It’s okay for today, I held out long enough. But it is kind of extra. Maybe I could have skipped this one too. Is it even bad enough?” And then they kick in and I truly realize how bad it was. You get used to it after a while, your brain kind of tuning out some of it, but it’s still this constant static sound in the background that ruins everything. Realistically, if I’m being honest, I would need painkillers every morning and evening every single day. And if we’re being even more real, they would not be the freely available pills, but the highly controlled patches. But that also opens up a whole lot of other possible issues. It sucks! It fucking sucks. I throw myself into my studies, into my volunteer work, into lengthy blog posts and anything like that so there is finally some focus away from my body. If I’m in a flow state, I don’t have to be in here, I don’t have to witness this. I love slowly getting tired on the sofa and falling asleep while doing something else (like watching something) and I love being busy with something (like studying late) until I’m dead tired and then crashing into bed, falling asleep quickly. Because the alternative is going to bed in a timely manner and lying awake, being hyperaware of everything that hurts, and it starts hurting more and more as time goes on, and I’m lying there wondering how I can possibly manage the next 30 years like this, wishing it was over. I don’t have to endure this forever, of course. This flareup just needs to pass, or I need to switch medications, or I finally try and get a proper pain management going for these phases, and then everything goes back to normal. But in these moments, none of that matters. I just want it to be over. Every morning I get teleported back into this hurtful mess, and everything that would help causes more issues. It makes me angry and close to tears all the time, and makes me worry if I’ve developed antibodies to infliximab. My injection this week changed nothing. Next week will be super busy with traveling and attending events, and I’m tired of portioning out the relief. I’ll take what I need to make it, and I hope the rheumatology appointment the week after will be helpful. If anyone takes anything away from this, it should be the obvious fact that not all pain can be successfully treated with lifestyle changes and people aren’t necessarily taking “the easy way out” with painkillers. And if you look at people and think you know what causes their pain, you should consider that you never know what came first - the pain or the other things. With pain like that, it’s no wonder many people choose to avoid exercise, eat to feel happy, or self-medicate with drugs that are easier to get than a fent patch; and if people regularly get stuck on months of Prednisone, that does not help. My usually ~58kg self ballooned up to 75kg on ~6 months of Prednisone. After a year off, I’m 10kg down, 7 more to go. Reply via email Published 26 Oct, 2025

Science Programming Data Analysis

ava's blog 1 months ago

con impressions and more [photo dump]

I went to the HeroesXP con in Cologne! Really liked the event and won't mind checking it out next year too. I love big artist alleys, and theirs also felt very diverse, very creative and cool. Artist alleys are my highlight and where I love to spend most of my time, and this con was basically 90% artist alley! Also had some German VA's of popular media (even Spongebob) and Paddy from Toggo. Have some pictures of the stalls: My other favorite stall aside from Miss Marie and Moonbia was Sarah Pluis and her lofi art. :) Here's my haul - I just love buying stuff from artists. Lots of stickers, finally a black beanie (been searching for a while for one I like!), washi tape, Cinnamoroll jewelry, some Sanrio minis. The con also had a 'Con Hon' - a convention book that travels from event to event, where you can draw, write down your impressions, advice, your social media handles and more. Was very cute, and the art in it was impressive. I obviously had to do my part and leave a little note. Aside from the con, some impressions: And also, very thankful and happy about a shirt I got. <3 Reply via email Published 22 Oct, 2025

Culture Entertainment Gaming