Rather decent tidings

Well now. The skiing holiday was a trip. Sitting in front of a fireside is one genuine pleasure. Adding wood when needed, drinking something warm (Stroh+water+sugar) & just relaxing. Hartola is pretty nice place. We have been there a few times together. It's Minna's uncle's old family place, a couple of cottages by the lakeside. Beautiful scenary, fresh forest air. We got lucky and managed to have one cloudfree night. The stars shone something incredible. It's simply impossible to see so many stars when you live in a city. Makes you feel rather small.

A few days away from Helsinki does one good. You get to tune out. Wake up when you feel like it, eat good food, drink wine & other alcoholic beverages. I enjoy being outside, but not so much in the city I guess. Having a sauna over there is different as well, as the bathhouse stove is manually wood-heated. The washing water has to be obtained from under 30 centimeters of ice.
This includes a few tasks. A littlee ice-boring, water-pumping, and bucket carrying. By the time you're done and actually have the sauna warming up & ready to go, you'll be needing it :)
Anyway, I got to know last friday that I was picked for the job. Excellent! I'll start working there from the beginning of May. I'm eager to see what it really is, though I can't say I'm expecting too much. But at least I will get to know something I've learned in school, even though I'm not specializing in financial accounting...

Finland vs Sweden in the Olympic hockey finals! Tomorrow's game is going to be a huge nailbiter. Let's hope we finally win gold. It's about goddamn time, and the team's good too!

Quick update

We just returned from a 4 day skiing holiday. And yes, indeed - it put on ski's for the first time since like the 80s! Wow. A proper update with some good news shall be given tomorrow. Now it's email frenzy & a quick roundup of what I've missed due to being disconnected for 4 days. Tomorrow also marks a nasty return to everyday life. Lectures from 8.30 to 16.00. Son of a Bitch.

It has begun.

Good day to everyone. With bacon and eggs on the stove, I begin my quick typing exercise. My final thesis is on the way! It's a humble beginning, a mere page: managed to type out a bit of an introduction. Only what, 39 pages to go? Hurrah. It's still something. I have yet to hear from the potential employer to be. I'll try not to get nervous about it. But I have to say, I was expecting an email to be sitting at my inbox saying 'welcome'. [The author returns to the kitchen to flip over bacon & eggs - returns] Sizzling - every now and then it's good to have a proper unhealthy breakfast. Or dinner. I confess, I slept a bit late. It's not so bad, I only have lectures from 3 to 6pm today. [The author has quick breakfast - returns to chair with a cup of coffee]. Simple pleasures, folks. A bit of the old salty & peppered bacon & eggs followed by a cup of joe.

Let's have a recap on the weekend:

Friday evening: King Remedy: honest rock n' roll @ a seedy bar downtown. Came home around 2.30am. A bit of a latenight snack & off to bed...

Saturday: Rather uneventful, a bit hungover. Did not get much typing done at all. Spent most of the day maintaining my windows XP installation on C: partition. I had not done a proper backup in 4 months. Speaking of which, stay the hell away from Norton Ghost 9 or 10. Keep to the 2003 version, or perhaps Acronis True Image 9. Why? Because Norton has gone shit. While going through all sorts of backup options, I managed to get my computer infected with a rather nasty worm. I managed to clean it out without using any antivirus program, but it took bit of time. Now I've Norton Antivirus 2006 installed - but I plan on uninstalling it. It didn't find anything wrong with my set, other than the zipped files I had made of the worm infested dll's & exe files. What a wasted saturday that was. I could have done a lot more interesting things than backing up my files, geez. That was my fun for the first free Saturday in ages! Pathetic. Just goes to show that weekends are overrated. Relax & get some piece of mind whenever you can...

Sunday was bit more eventful. Me, Minna, my brother & Martti & Pia went to do some sliding at the peaks of Paloheinä (using classic model plastic sleds, aka Pulkka's). I have no idea how long it has been since I had last been on one. It must have been in the early 90s. A lot of fun! We started out rather roughly at the highest peak. (yes yes, it pales in comparison with the bad boys). But let me tell you, were up for a rough ride. Consider around 140 kilograms of manflesh riding down a semi-steep, ice-covered, hillocky descent on top of a flimsy, treacherously crooked pulkka, it's serious business! Only my bro managed to ride it all the way down without tipping over. I failed both with Martti & Minna. The first ride with Martti ended up in disaster after we hit a big bounce. We both got thrown out of the pulkka, rolling & tumbling - eventually sliding downards in prone position for maybe 20-some meters with the sled who knows where. Nice! I was foolish enough to leave my wallet in my right hip-pocket. When we landed down after that big bounce, all the change I had in my wallet (which was all neatly packed in one corner of the wallet) struck me rather nicely at abductor magnus muscle. The bruise is not very visible, but it hurts. Pooey. The second descent on that peak was with Minna. It started out rather nicely, but then something went wrong again. We fell over properly. I actually ended up somersaulting over Minna! Dangerous business. I remember seeing her rolling downhill (this is all happening in split seconds), she was all hair (it had spread out like a fan!) and I was just trying to keep out of rolling over her... Luckily neither of us got hurt, and it was all laughs :) Later on in the evening, I did have a bit of a headache. Suppose it was more due to the constant small bumps on the hill, rather than the big crashes. Sliding is not too dangerous since you are right on ground-level. It is only the damn bumps that screw it up! There were many more fantastic descents, but I think you get the picture. What made this trip really rather out of the ordinary, was that 1. It was on a Sunday 2. It was during the day (1.30-3pm) 3. There was no alcohol involved! It was great though, and we intend to do it again, inside 2-3 weeks time.

By the way I fixed the link on the right-hand side. The lastFM one should be working properly now. You get to see what kind of music I have been listening to lately. Or rather, what has been played in our winamp. After all, it is not I alone who use it. This turned out to be a rather long post as opposed to the short 'morning update' I had envisaged. Time to head out for my Synthesis I:Import/Export class.

Let us hope this week is a good one!
I'll update later today if I get the email...

Score!

The interview went rather well I must say. While I was waiting at the lobby, I met an old co-worker from my ICT-specialist days. We had not met in 3 years, and it was really good to see her! It was most convenient too. As my interviewer arrived, we all three took the same elevator up. The former co-worker gave my interviewee a quick recommendation on my behalf while we were ascending. Nice start indeed. Then what followed was the usual. "Would you like some coffee?" etc. The interview took about an hour, and it was easygoing, face to face. I'm pretty sure I got the job. She said she will call me today or by Monday at the latest (slyly noting, that she's pretty sure we'll be seeing each other again soon enough). I hope so. That would make my future all set until the late fall, or perhaps even beyond. The only big question mark is: accounting - is it really for me? That remains to be answered. Nevertheless, the least I can do is give it an honest shot. Maybe it's not all that bad. Though I must say, sitting in a cubicle surrounded old women does not sound excessively tempting. The main thing is that I get to try my hands on a job on the same field where I've been trained to work in. Though it's not only accounting I can do. It's actually perhaps the least favored of my possible orientations, alongside with marketing. Finance & Investments is where it's at. Perhaps a little human resources? The IT-sector is still quite close to my heart. A job in the purchasing side of a large company would be quite interesting. Speaking of which, my potential & probable future employer is rather large in size, with net sales in billions... There will be loads and loads of insider-only job advertisements. In fact, my old co-worker said that she came to the firm just to get her foot in - and managed to land a much better job within a year. Nice! She's working on the 6th floor, while I will be on the 7th. I'm looking forward to having lunch together getting to hear all the dirty gossip about her last days at our former workplace.

Now it is time for me to convert the amount of the hours I've been putting in as a sales rep into decimal format. The wages clerk will be most happy to get my time list pre-done. I can't wait until next Wednesday to get paid. After fixing the numbers I'll eat something quickly and head off to work. Good stuff. The only thing bothering me right now is the fact that I've yet to begin typing my final thesis. That's a real son-of-a-bitch of a boulder on the sole of my shoe! Glad I have this weekend off work, so I can perhaps commence work on it. Here's hoping!

Over & Out.

The defining moment

Dear readers! (I know there are very few of you, but bless you nonetheless). This past week has been good to me. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened, but I have enjoyed it! Work has been great. Social life acceptable. Squash good.

Tomorrow I will have a job interview at 10.15. Wish me luck! It'll be a job closer to my field. I like my current sales rep thing just fine, but they cannot promise steady 40 hours workweek for the summer duration. Let us hope all goes well. I've a good feeling.

On a sidenote, isn't it strange how caricatyres - or should I say 'offending drawings' - can create huge friction between groups? I'm observing the 'Denmark/Norway/West/Freedom of Speech' vs Islam situation heating up with a steady and unnerving pace. Expect an angry Muslim outburst in Paris any day now. Strange times...

Existentialism

I finished a series lectures on existentialism today (lecturer was Professor Robert Solomon— From the University of Texas) . It was a 12 hour audio book. The lecturer went through some ideas by Camus, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger & Sartre. And what did I learn? Good question. The lectures revolve around responsibility & passion. The latter give life some meaning - we can choose to follow them! Do we exist in a sense that we live our life to the fullest? Or do we perhaps just go along with the crowd ("so called existance"), just doing what we're supposed to, being good persons etc. We're encouraged to take hold of our own lives, towards realizing what & where our particular talents and virtues are. Existentialism argues that life is about is about passionately throwing yourself into the work you do, thus "becoming the person you really are". No excuses: our personal choices and commitments define us. However, it doesn't tell people what to do, or how to do it. The choices, passions & discoveries must be made by you. We are in charge of our lives, we make ourselves. I thought it was entertaining and enlightening. A bit on the heavy side though.

I have yet to begin typing my final thesis. Research needs to be undertaken first. The first few books have been reserved from the library - I should go and pickup the first one that came available today. Naturally it would not hurt if I knew exactly what I am aiming at. Needless to say, some clarification and discussion is needed before I continue. Survey or interviews is the main topic. The thesis requires solid & useful first hand material.

Current weekly schedule: 20 hours of school, 20 hours of work. In addition, all homework & projects, and whatever time I put into the final thesis. Next week will bring some changes. I today (partially) finished 1 course, but have 3 new courses beginning shortly. The current bane of my life has been accounting. I did the final exam (second out of two) for it today, it went well I suppose. Now I need to quickly do a monster of an assignment for it - and take the midterm as a re-exam on March. If all goes well, everything will be passed & I will be a happy man. I flunked that on my first year, and never got around to doing it again. I thought the course was starting on January, but it turned out they had begun already last November. Therefore, I had quite a bit of catching up to do. My good luck was that the teacher split the course into two parts. 1. Proper accounting (double-sided, T-accounts), and 2. Understanding & evaluating financial statements. This latter part was cake, as I had already taken Finance & Investments. I really dislike the first bit though. Now I have to make a monster excel assignment by Monday. Bitch. Thursday & Friday will be full-blown workdays, with little energy left in the evening. Saturday is just 4 hours shift, so maybe that'll be the day to do it.

That's it for now.