reading & walking

I am making some progress on the city exploration plans. Still more theoretical as the rainy weather is not the best for biking or hiking. However, I started noticing places.
This is the monument of Pestalozzi, very central in Zurich. I never really took notice of it before. Probably because this is also the place where there is always someone collecting money for charity.

Pestalozzi was an interesting person, they still call him "The father of modern education". He was very much influenced by Jean Jaques Rousseau and even called his son Jean Jaques. Pestalozzi's methods however completely failed on his son: little Jaqueli did not show any great talents in learning. And in general it appeared that Pestalozzi was much more successful in building the theory behind education than in teaching himself.
No doubt a great man.

Two Sundays, two places, two passions

Last Sunday we went winter hiking to Melchsee-Frutt.

The initial idea was to rent snow shoes or sledges. However, once we reached there and saw the options for simple hiking, we decided to stick to it.

 

Our target was the food place at the end of this path.

And today is the second day of a working weekend as a heavy training season started.

My Good-bye to an Awesome Year

These days I notice that people naturally tend to look back to their experiences in the past year. Well, I also had a look at the endless folders with pictures in an attempt to remember some special moments. And one of the first pictures I came upon was this.

So, this is not going to be a post about what happened to me but rather about the discoveries I made last year.
To go back to the picture - this was one of the best books I've read - 'Kornel Esti' by Deszö Kosztolány. A friend gave it to me on the first day of summer holidays. There couldn't have been a better time to read this humorous and elegant collection of stories (or maybe a novel?)....

Then of course come all discoveries I make all the time in Switzerland - a world so different in its structure and orderliness. As I've found out many people write about their experiences in this special country. My preferences, however, go to Swiss Watching, which I find informative and pretty amusing. But OK, I couldn't miss sharing this.

Obviously in Switzerland it is possible to buy your ticket after you get off the train...

Then I found out how inspiring online learning could be.

I discovered the fun of skiing in Bansko and Switzerland.

...and wrote an article in a real travel blog.

My latest sports passion is aqua gym.

I discovered Hungarian cooking, and re-discovered cooking in general. My cooking book library is growing, and so is the quantity of tried out recipes.

 

And I discovered new joy in my job by shifting the focus to more creative training topics, such as Drawing simple graphics for presenting...

  ...or Using colours and images in presentations...

Now I am looking forward to a year at least that exciting and encouraging as 2011.

mosaic logo

Our new company logo is finally ready. I really love it! The guys from punkt are now working on our site... Or maybe theirs?

on a creative journey

In the middle of the preparation for our first Creativity training.

It takes a lot of drawing...

...and a lot of surprises...

...and the camels are my favourite part.
I am so eager to see it all working...

Color Palette Generator

While I am not a designer, I need to sometimes make very basic design works for presentations, workbooks and other visual aids I use in training. I found this tool today, which I believe will save me time and help me be more consistent in choosing the right colours.
You need to just copy the URL of a picture and the "generator" generates ;) a matching colour palette.
The picture I used to test it is taken during our company team building at Thassos in September last year. Would love to visit the place again.