Blogelstein!

soundcloud:

It’s Friday again, that means it is time for our weekly employee interview series that we have dubbed “Tea(m) Time”! Today, help us welcome Jean Edelstein to our team in Berlin!

Hear our new copywriter speak about why she applied to SoundCloud, how easy her relocation to Berlin was and what she is most excited about in her new role!

Specifics: Jean, originally from upstate New York, has lived abroad since she was 18, copywriter.

Favorite places: London and Montreal.

Favorite sounds: The sound after a large snowfall.

Relocation: It was easy! The SoundCloud People Ops team help tremendously!

Passions: Writing — Creative writing & journalism. Yoga, throwing dinner parties, riding bikes.

Why she applied to SoundCloud: To have the opportunity to shape the language that SoundCloud uses.

Hear more on the blog.

So, this is what I’m up to now.

1:37 pm | October 5 2012 | 17 notes | View comments

On German class

I chose to take German in middle school because German class was rumoured to be the choice of intellectuals. Twelve-year-old intellectuals. French class was for the glamorous kids; Spanish class was for the sporty types. Also, my brother was already in German class and I was impressed by his skills, which is to say that he would often say things in German to me and laugh hysterically. I assumed they were mean things. I wanted to know what the mean things meant.

On packing

Is there anything that highlights the folly of ownership more than moving?

Despite my pretences of having spent my nine London years prepared to flee overnight, leaving no Nectar points in my wake, the painful truth of nearly a decade of accumulation has hit me over the last few days as I’ve sifted. Here are some questions I’ve actually found myself considering:

How many items of clothing should I possess that I only wear while having the flu?

Is there anywhere I can exchange this Gambian currency?

Have I ever deployed a gift soap?

And then I packed all of the books that I am allowing myself to take (Why have I ever bought any books at all, why do I persist in thinking that they are better than their digital versions? Why am I about to pack my copy of Underworld that I have never finished reading, not in the eight years I’ve owned it?) and then I unpacked all of the books that I am allowing myself to take and repacked them in two smaller boxes because I realised that it would not be humanly possible for anyone to carry them downstairs. And then I started to feel very upset, really a little agitated, about the low quality of the packing tape that the moving company has supplied.

Recently I explained to a friend my long-haul flight approach stress management: I hate flying, as I’ve mentioned once or twice before, and while these days I can get on a plane and travel places, I exist in a heightened state of pained anxiety until the wheels hit the ground. On short flights this is manageable, but on long-hauls, especially red-eyes, it’s excruciating. The thing I do to endure is focus on the knowledge that it will have to be over soon: as the hours tick past I think, well, in seven (or six, or five, or whatever) hours I will no longer be on this plane, certainly (and hey, maybe it will crash but I’ll still not be on it anymore, so it’s still a win).

And now focusing on endpoints is my overall strategy for stressful situations. Like this one. For while I am filthy, wearing the same t-shirt I’ve been in for three days, sorting coins from every holiday I’ve been on ever (I have rarely been so in favour of a single currency), I do know that one way or another, it will have to end, because on Sunday afternoon I will be on a plane. A practically pleasant prospect.

1:41 pm | September 27 2012 | 3 notes | View comments

guardiancomment:

The message from every patriot pressing food on Obama and Romney: what’s more important, acid reflux or America’s feelings? Jean Hannah Edelstein looks at etiquette and food overload on the US campaign trail.

Photographs: Larry Downing/Reuters ; Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty ; AP Photo/Gerald Herber

2:10 pm | September 25 2012 | 39 notes | View comments

Nine English things nine years in England have never taught me to appreciate

1. Avoiding eye contact

2. Recreational queuing

3. The Smiths

4. Binge drinking as a reasonable conduit to romance

5. Aristocrats

6. Shirtiness over regional identity when the regions are less than 100 miles apart

7. Talking about what you got on your high school exams when you are over 22

8. Tea rounds

9. Metric measurement

5:04 pm | September 20 2012 | 15 notes | View comments

Nine English things nine years in England have taught me to appreciate

1. Yeast-flavoured spread

2. Weather banter

3. Synecdoche in national political debate

4. Packing my own groceries

5. “All right?”

6. Escalator rules

7. “Plonker”

8. Pessimism

9. Non-mixing taps

4:50 pm | September 20 2012 | 9 notes | View comments

World’s greatest car, snapped in Geneva by my friend Ben.

If some strange person drove up to me in this car and said, ‘hey, hop in!’ I think it would be the single instance when I wouldn’t automatically assume they were an evil kidnapper.

4:38 pm | September 20 2012 | 22 notes | View comments

benb-t:

Next month’s Future Human salon is going to be a belter. Discussing female business practise and how it can enrich smart companies, with Cindy Gallop, Rebecca Harding and Servane Mouazan, plus Jean Hannah Edelstein introducing it all. Buy tickets.

12:14 pm | September 20 2012 | 2 notes | View comments

Last night I decided to go through and throw out the contents of some boxes that I never unpacked the last time I moved. In fact, I think I haven’t unpacked them since I moved into the sixth place I lived in London. Quickly, I understood why not: because they’re full of heartstopping things that have no function but can’t be thrown out. Including the last roll of film I ever had developed, before I went digital. Containing evidence that one time, in 2003, I had an actual tan.

9:49 am | September 19 2012 | 6 notes | View comments

barackobama:

Don’t boo—vote.

(via the-other-burg)

12:25 pm | September 18 2012 | 10,869 notes | View comments

The seventh place

The seventh place I lived, where I will live until next week, is on Barnsbury Road, in Islington. But for the first few weeks after I moved in I kept telling visitors that it was Barnsbury Street, which is actually five minutes around the corner. ~~Hilarious!~~ Mildly amusing!

The sixth place

The sixth place I lived in London was near Emirates Stadium, off Holloway Road. It’s the home that my friend Lisa still lives in, so I won’t specify the address, but it is both a lovely flat and located so near to the stadium that you always know how Arsenal is doing, from the ambient roars.

The fifth place

The fifth place I lived in London was on Ufton Road, in De Beauvoir Town, which is a leafy, pretty enclave on the border of Hackney and Islington that is most famous for being the home of the so-called Mole Man. I did not live with the Mole Man.

thedailywhat:

Afternoon Snack: Meet the lesula, a species of monkey whose“discovery” is being heralded around the world today.

Just to clarify: Not Photoshopped. Not a man in a monkey suit.

[cnn]

What a nice-looking monkey!

Also, tell me again why some people don’t believe in evolution?

(via lyall)

6:06 pm | September 14 2012 | 1,469 notes | View comments