Easter holiday

Howdy. It's already Tuesday, is it? Geez. Time flies. Quick wrap-up: worked on Saturday, it was very tiresome and boring. Came home, and after a while we went to Maisa's 21 birthday party. It was a comfy affair, with food, wine and music as the main entertainment. On Sunday we cleaned up the apartment and went to Minna's parents for the classic Sunday supper. On Monday I went downtown and picked up three tickets for a Scandinavian Music Group unplugged concert (for me, Minna and my brother). I also Checked out Anttila because I had heard that they had quite a few good DVDs selling for cheap. Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 were selling for 11€s a pop, not bad. I got myself something else though. Memento for 6€, No Man's land for 12, and finally: Napoleon, for 22€ (yes, that wasn't cheap, but hey - it's over 6 hours long!). I wonder when I'll ever have the time to watch them.

I spent over 7 hours today struggling with Sebbe, we were working on an investments project that's half the grade of the course. What a way to spend the 'holiday'. I've completed 1800 words / 4500 for the English project. Yay! I have a week left to do it. Better start the typing right after I'm done warming up my fingers with this blogpost!

Still no sight of a proper summer job, though I've been turned down from a couple of places. It's looking to be another spectacular summer. Fucking hell. I don't remember being this stressed in a long time. Looking for jobs which are hard to find is the worst, let me tell you. That, plus this totally unnecessary stress regarding schoolwork is getting to me. It's lowering the quality of my life. When did I start to care? Have I grown old? Well, I am turning 25 this year. Maybe that's it. Then again, maybe it isn't. Who is to know? All I know is - I'm on my holiday, but it is near impossible to enjoy it. You're NOT on vacation if you have serious shit to do. Anyone who has ever been worried about getting a career or hell, let's just call it "a job that doesn't fucking blow", must know what I'm going through. I'm sure I could have made it in the IT industry. I have the credentials to show that I can walk the walk. But it just got so boring.

Hell, maybe after I'm done with my current studies, maybe I'll just apply to study History at the University of Helsinki. Now there is a topic that's always been close to my heart. Computer stuff I know, but I don't read computer literature on my free time. History books, I do. I watch programs about it, browse websites... I'm hungry for the stuff. I had a conversation with my schoolmate and upstairs neighbour, Conor, about this. We both noticed that the respective fields that we are studying are not really enough for us to be even remotely interested in the literature. At least, not enough to read that stuff on our own time. For me, that's almost as good as saying I'll never make it in the field. For an example, the guys and girls on the TV show Apprentice or Diili make me want to puke. But then again, reality TV in general does that to me.

I suppose that if you want to be really good at something you should prolly have natural crawing to do so - and some capacity for learning it. Right now I'm basically semi-interested, and am just stuffing all these courses and all this material down my throat. I'm getting through the exams with decent grades, but forgetting most of it inside a few weeks. Economy and how money makes the world go around are still interesting topics to me. But perhaps my real interests lie elsewhere? I originally explained it to myself that it is better to keep history as a hobby, since I didn't like the idea of being forced to read about time periods and people that did not interest me. I don’t see how I figured that it would be more enjoyable to be required to read about shit that didn’t interest me half the time. Go figure! I have to end this rant, as it’s too long and I have to get back to the English Project.

My blood pressure is slightly on the rise, by the way. Is it possible that my body finds stress un-agreeable?

Telegram

Priorities elsewhere. Holiday starting soon. English project dragging behind. Work tomorrow.

Week went by

Hello there. Happy womens day, to those of you who it applies (I guess only one girl's reading this blog.) I've been keeping busy. School sucks as usual, it's taking up most of my time. So far no summerjob, but I've scouted quite a few potential candidates. I may end up working for the city of helsinki, of all places. Let's see what happens. I'm gonna send out a bunch of applications in the next couple of days..

Today was my investment's exam. I'm expecting somewhere between a 2 and a 4. We'll see. Next midterm is Business strategies. Enough of school. I've started reading Peter Englund's Poltava. Seems pretty nice. I've gone through three of his other books, and they've all been absolutely superb. If you ever want to get into the 30 years war & the 1600-1700 era, he's your man.

I bought Minna some tulips, and did the dishes, but ran out of energy and bought a frozen pizza for supper, sorry hon :P It's gonna be another of those busy weeks when it seems that you have no time for anything that you would like to do (outside your compulsory commitments).

I'm looking forward to week twelve, when I'll have a luxurious week's holiday. May it come soon.

Tuesday Whine

It's been great weather for the last week or so, it's really making a difference. It is light after around 7am, and gets dark only around 6pm. Plus it's great to see the sun. Blues skies rule!

On Thursday it was Minna's little brothers 17th birthday, and we went to eat some food downtown. Had 3 beers there. After having finished eating we come home, and Jake calls me up. We go to a nice local joint, Vanha Mestari for some 8-ball (games tied 3-3) and beers. On Friday I was hung-over and having cold chills. I went to my employers health care place and got a day's worth of sick leave for Saturday. I could have just called and agreed with my boss that I wouldn't show for Saturday - but since I was feeling sick I thought I might as well take it as sick leave. We had plans for the weekend, you see.

On Friday evening we set out to Hartola (~200km towards & beyond Lahti), Minna’s aunts cottage. It's a fantastic place and we had a lot of fun on the first evening. Good food and wines, sitting by the fireplace. We walked on ice (lovely frozen lake), and looked at stars. You can't see even 1/10th of them from Helsinki. While on ice, we played tag a little, it's surprisingly funny if you're in a jolly mood..

On Saturday, shit hit the fan. Minna works in kindergarten, with children from ~1-5 years old.
There's been a series of eye infections rampant
there lately. So Minna apparantly received her eye infection from there. She could barely open her eyes since because of the oozing, yellow colored eye secretion making it difficult! After a quick breakfast, Minna's parents took her to a doctor where they gave her some eye drops, which started to help after a few administrations.

Anyway, while they were at the doc’s, I stayed at the cottage and was typing away at my laptop (well, it's borrowed: my brothers work laptop), trying to get the Academic Writing Project rolling... I was feeling sort of weak and chilly. I measured my temperature and had a lovely 38.7'c. I continued typing for about an hour still, drinking hot rum toddy. I only got about a page done.

What a waste!

The rest of the weekend was spent mostly lying in bed, drinking both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. I grabbed Burana's only before eating, because my appetite isn't the greatest if my temperature’s high.

Yesterday I went to the company healthcare place again, and received a throat culture (throat and tonsils swab). I'm about to call in for the results. It's possible I have a strep throat (forgot to mention it earlier). I'm getting sick of being sick! Fuck this, man. I got so much stuff to do and I can't afford it. It's starting to get so bad, that I'm starting to think of dropping one course. Guess which one? The Academic Writing Project. I'm not throwing in the towel just yet though.

Wish me luck, I'm stressed, pissed off & ill :P