Post number 99: Random happenings

This morning as I was putting on make-up I just had to sneeze right after putting on mascara. Well anyone who has ever done that will know what happened. I had mascara all over my eyes and not much left on my lashes. I was like "great". It was really silly and no there is no special reason for me to write about this.

I saw this dream I couple of nights ago. In the dream I was going to participate in an election of some sort as in me running for some position. There problem was that I had to choose a political party that I would run with even though it wasn't like an election for the government or anything but more like a society of some sort. In the dream I was going round the booths of some of the parties in some sort of fair. First I went to the left had party table but I was like "wait a minute - I'm not joining this party". Then I went to the table for the green party to talk to the people but ended up waking up. Weird dream. I was reminded of it again when I saw this sticker for, apparently, a demonstration against the left side and thus for the extremist right, I guess, outside my flat in the traffic lights.

I've picked out my professor. In the end I may have taken the easy choice but it felt like the right thing to do. I hope it works out for the best. I think I most likely haven't really yet totally figured out what the whole business means. I think I'm just so out of it recently, living a sort of second life away from "my life". My boss suddenly said to me that she is jealous of me since I'm starting the doctorate studies because it was like the best time she's had. That really got me thinking. I'll have to make it the best time for me too.

It smelled like fresh hemp at the mall yesterday. It was really weird and the smell was really strong. Now I keep smelling the same thing over and over. (Like the time I thought I smelled like a dead disected rat for a day after cutting one up.) Maybe the smell was something else altogether but my brain made some weird connection.

I figured out how to climb this wall yesterday but I did not get up it with one go even though I tried like 3 times after I figured it out. The last move is just so tricky somehow. I will get up there next time even if I have to try it five times. At least up to that one point the thing goes up really fast since I've practiced so much.

The weekend bouldering

The weekend was really nice. The weather could have been better since the rocks were wet and such some of them could not be climbed but it didn't rain or anything. On Saturday it was actually rather perfect in the afternoon with the sun shining and everything. The place and the rocks were great. There were just like tons of these huge blocks right in the forest. It was like regular forest and then suddenly there was this big bunch of rocks in an area of like a kilometer or so. Or well there were like many areas with such rocks in the area and we visited four.

I got on top of a few of the rocks too. It was kind of scary to climb up like 2 or more meters and then to actually get back down. It seems like as a kid it would have been no problem but now as I've gotten used to climbing with a rope it was just scary. I kind of got used to it as the day went by but the next day it was sort of the same thing again. We did have this pad thing under us while we climbed but other than softening the fall it kind of gave no special security to the thing. But I think it was fun so I would like to go bouldering, that's what it's called, again.

I really liked just hanging out outside and walking round the rocks too. Like when they were in big bunches and you kind of had to sort of climb a bit to get past or between them. It wasn't so scary and loads of fun. I'm not a big "out in the wild nature" sort of person but just going round a specific interesting are for the whole day and stopping to climb interesting boulders really seemed like the kind of thing for me. Of course the fact that we spent nights in a hotel in stead of like a tent helped a lot even though the hotel was really crappy. Well it's sort of like going to pick berries at Laajavuori when the point of the trip is just not brisk walking around but actually looking for things it's a whole lot more fun and you don't even notice that you actually walk quite far and get exercise.

So yeah. I think I actually want to start spending more time walking around the woods. Of course the fact that we had dogs along for the trip made it loads nicer too even though the little one was quite annoying barking all the time. Maybe there's a dog in Jyväskylä I could borrow when I get back. Else I might have to do something crazy and steal Ransu away for like a week in the summer or something. It wouldn't hurt him to ahve achange of scenery though I think it would hurt my neighbors.

Going nowhere slowly

I've been trying to write my experimental part but it's just not getting there. I mean, yeah, I've got like 34 pages of stuff but it feels like every other hour I have nothing to write do on it and then again it seems I have tons. Or it seems I have tons but I just can't figure out as to tons of what so I get nowhere. So maybe the situation is not half bad but I feel like I'm just wasting my days at work with not really doing anything but waiting to get to go home. As I have not much to do at home either my life seems sort of like a waste right now. I do "nothing" at work all day and then I'm still too tired or uninterested to really get out of my appartment when I get home. Ok, so I go climbing almost twice a week but not this week since my boss is in a seminar. And yeah the weekend trip is stilled planned unless it suddenly starts raining near Paris. And I did do workk at home yesterday night so I guess it's not hopeless. I may just be bored "since my life is so uneventfull these days".

I think I may just have to sort of give my experimental written thing to my boss and sort of ask her to tell me what I still have to do to it to get a good grade and such. I need some motivation I think. Well, more than just getting it done by some date in the not so far away future. Getting it done fast would be good since then I could concentrate on the theoretical part. See the problem is that some of my sources are books that I don't think I can get at in Finland. Problem. Thus I sort of have to get that done too. And besides if I do then the company will most likely pay for the binding and printing of it. They might also otherwise but money is a good incentive.

So yeah, nothing interesting. If you got up to here without going to another cite I'm surprised and would thank you for caring. So I wrote an e-mail to the other professor. I tried to be honest but did not really say one way or the other. Just had to inform that, yes, I am interested in using the given funding. I think the best thing to do is to wait it out a while and then get to the bottom of the matter.

But I'm off now and off for France tomorrow so have a nice weekend!

e-mail to write

I should write an e-mail to one of the professors on what I want to do. I'm bad at writing e-mails that are like sort of official so I'm putting it off. Well e-mails aren't really meant to be the sort of thing to have an answer on right away especially if they don't ask for it or have no specific questions needing fast answers like "you wanna go for lunch?" And as the e-mail is going abroad I have an extra day since normal post would not deliver on the same day. Well anyway, I'm contemplating on being all honest and open about what I want and think. That's not so easy. And well if I really get into the writing the mail will be like really long with me explaining all the things with my own logic and such. I think I like explaining myself rather extensively. So I shall put it off till tomorrow so I'll have time to think about it and then forget what I was going to write.

I think I got some real progress on my experimental part this morning before lunch. Like 2 to 3 hours of solid writing or correcting my old writing. Then I came back from lunch and nothing. I've not done much anything worthwhile the whole afternoon. Sure, I've been making the whole thing look nicer, moving bits around and such but that's not really what I need to do. I need to get it done. Well the fact that I just actually got these results that point toward like this new form desn't really help with the getting done part. But it's getting there. It has to. I'm thinking mostly done by the end of this month. Then of course there will be additions with new stuff form the possible new form but that shouldn't be so bad as long as all my conclusions don't go out the window.

What I have been forgetting in all of this is that - "I've landed myself a job". I'll get paid from March onward while I can (have to) still finish my studies. I'm thinking getting a job is cause for celebration. I don't know what I will do in practice or what I will get paid but that's sort of secondary. I'll be making money. Not much but I'll still have some of that academic freedom I love. And if I stick to it I'll have the job for the next four years if I do my doctorate. That means I might not have to move my aquariums for so long once I get them moved back into my appartment. Ok so I might spend a bit of it abroad or such but still. Now I just have to figure out how to celebrate. Maybe I'll wait till I get to Finland and then I can double the celebration with getting my work here mostly done. - I'm trying to orientate myself into thinking positive thoughts and it's working. :)

Little bit of a mess

During the weekend I got all into this doctorate studies thing and sort of got oriented to what it means and even thought about what I would like to look into and such. The only bad thing I thought of was not being able to go to tons of job interviews and thus get some self-confidence with that and thus grow up a bit. I guess that sort of growing up can wait or I can just apply for jobs for the "fun" of it. Well but that's not the mess the title is hinting at.

So as the thing went fast and such and the professor who had the place was not one of the professors that's guiding me with my work here there was apparently a conflict of interests and that's the mess. So the funding is for me, no problem there, but now I sort of have to choose which professor I want to do the studies under. And that's no easy thing. Partly because I sort of got oriented for the one professor already. And partly because as there is this mess with the conflict of interests I feel pressured to "do the right thing" and thus dissolve the bad air caused by the situation. Not that any of it is my fault so I really shouldn't care. Well if I want to be sort of full of myself I may think that "they all want me". Though why would they since the really don't know me. Apparently I was not the only applicant either and thus me getting the money means I was the best. I guess it was my grades, not that I think they are anything special.

It's really not a bad situation but it feels like it since I'm in the middle. It's like I'm used to standing in right-field where no-one ever hits the ball and all the sudden I'm the shortstop. (Yes this is a softball metaphor or some other figure of speech which I can use since I actually always played right-field in softball.) No way to just disappear from the center of the field. Oh I like to just step off to the left from some situations and turn a blind eye to people arguing.

It fells like this mess is all about money or academic interests with like people getting their names in journals and such. I don't really care about that aspect of it. I mean I like to have money and getting my name in an article in a scientific journal I think is cool but I don't really care about that. I'd like to actually learn things I am interested in if I am going to study more and have someone to help me with that in a manner that I think would benefit me in building my character at the same time.

And well the thing that bothers me about the situation is that apparently the other professor has like "first bids" on me since I'm doing my work for them now. I mean, really. Fight the system. "There ain't no-one can own me." "I decide who lives and dies." Ok so I should just let it mellow for a while. I don't think of myself as a diplomat.

Otherwise all good. Planning (well ok I'm just going along) a trip to Fontainebleau in France for the weekend. Outside climbing. Exciting.

Whoops...

Well. This morning started out good. I was sincerely planning on getting some good writing done. I got off to a start and my boss called. She was like "would you like to come to my office, I have some suggestion for your future". I was like "ok". I went to talk to her and well afterwards the day has just seemed a bit weird. I've not really been able to concentrate. That sort of thing can happen when there is something else on one's mind. See the thing is that like with 95% surety I'll be starting studies to do a doctorate when I get back to Jyväskylä. Surprising? Well I think so too. Well see there is this professor my boss just happened to mention me to and he just happened to have this place with funding but apparently no good student for it. And the deadline was like this meeting that happened today. So I went to my bosses office, she told me this and was like well what do you think. I was like "well, oh, öö, let me think, oh what the heck". I don't really have much else planned for the next four years or anything. Might as well decide in five minutes how I'm going to spend them.

Realistically the place is quite certain. The research has to do with what I am doing here. I'm interested. I want to be a crystallographer. Whether I really, really, want to do it is sort of unknown. I mean I was again planning to have an actual summer holiday and like take the spring easily with not much hurry to graduate though still working at it daily but having loads of time to spend with my friends and perhaps make some new ones at that. But starting to work on a doctorate? Where did this come from? Do I really want it? I've been trying to do things one at a time and starting work on a doctorate before getting my master's thesis done just doesn't seem to go with that program. Though it would make me want to graduate fast.

Ok so I really like living in Jyväskylä. I'd be able to continue living in my appartment with my fish and frogs and plants. Good reason?

But yeah. I can of course still turn it down and they might get to give the funding to someone else. I was sort of hoping to make more money than I'd get doing a doctorate once I graduate. Should that matter? Will I ever get a job in Finland if I do do a doctorate?

If I start doing a doctorate will people start to get intimidated by me? Should I start lying about my profession to people I meet in bars?

Am I really meant for independent research? Have I got what it takes? I know I'm quite lazy and I really don't take things as seriously as I think I should when it comes to my education sometimes. I just go with the flow, I think.

Yeah. I was suppesed to write about yesterday's climbing today. I got up the wall I had been struggling with but they had changed the part I could not get past so I don't know if it really counts. It was like a 5+ wall so it should have been difficult and it was not easy but anyway. See they had originally changed it because of this competition they had and had just not fixed it back to how it was supposed to be. I also got up other difficult walls and found some new ones I have to try next time. It is sort of weird that even though we go to the same place like twice a week there are still walls I notice and go "oh I could try that". Maybe it's cause I have to courage to try harder walls all the time. I'm not put down by not getting up the thing on the first or even the fifth go.

So whoops. What in the world have I gotten myself into. Opportunities just keep popping up. Oh I'd become an organic chemist too.

But I'd best be getting home to think about it and to clean my appartment. It's about time I did that.

Just writing

I wouldn't write right now but I don't feel like getting up to go home yet and I think I've answered all the e-mails I had to today and I don't feel like working on any writing for my thesis. I decided to have a lab day today and not write though I did do some things for the writing but nothing big. Actually I think I've been looking into a ski-trip for most of my time on the computer today. I'm kind of feeling quilty about that but what can I do. I'll have to plan what I'm going to do tomorrow so I actually get things done. I think I'm sort of at a stand-still in my writing. I should start analyzing my results but I don't really know what to say about them. Or mostly they are like crystal structures and I've never written about crystal structures so I'm kind of lost on what I should say about them. And I need to write the thing well so when we write the article about my work there won't be so much left to do. And it would be stupid to notice while writing the article that I could have written something better and gotten a better grade or something. So I have things I need to figure out.

I feel like I've forgotten something. Like a site I should visit on the internet or a person I should write e-mail to. Or maybe a thought I want to voice out to someone. Maybe it's just a feeling of being in between places. I don't know.

People have written about dogs in their blogs. I have to say that I miss Ransu. We became such good friends during Christmas. It's like we got an understanding we didn't have before. Most likely it's just me. He finally let me hug him at times though. Maybe he is just getting older and more mellow. I think our earlier dog died at about the age Ransu is now. I don't know if that has any significance.

There are dark clouds going past the window. Quite fast at that. They say western Germany has been hit by a winter storm. I'm in southwestern Germany. It is not so bad here. Windy, yes, but not that windy. No trees being uprooted or anything. Someone managed to hold on to an umbrella today too so it's really not so bad. It might get worse though. As long as I can bicycle to work there should be no problem. Ok so long as I can bicycle and stay dry while doing it there is no problem. There hasn't been any real rain as of yet. With my luck it actually might start rainnig when I step out of this building. I has been known to happen before.

Oh, I just noticed that I have to go get some bread on my way home. I should get going. Going climbing again today though my back is sort of aching from the last time. But can't go tomorrow or Saturday so it has to be today. It should be fun again.

More climbing

Went climbing yesterday. It went quite well. I got up two walls I had not got up the last time and then a few more new ones. It was great. I got home and made myself a smoothie, read a book till I thought I could get some sleep and then before midnight just decided to give it a try. Since during the week we go climbing at around seven and come back after ten it is quite hard to get to sleep afterwards. Like I can't get any sleep right after exercising. Well but I eventually did fall asleep but ended up dreaming about climbing the whole night. And well you might be able to imagine that dreaming about pushing and pulling oneself up a wall using all the strength one has is not very relaxing. Oh but I haven't been that tired today yet and I've gotten quite much done.

I really want to get better at this climbing thing. That may be all I have to write about. Like now I've noticed that I have to get my leg muscles better since I can't apparently push myself up with just one leg and that is exactly what I have to do to get up past this hard point on this one wall (the one that was my favorite till they changed it). And I have to do it with my left leg too which is harder. And it's also like kind of sideways. But at least loads of other people I see trying out the wall don't even get to the point that I got up to so that's something. I didn't try it yesterday since I had loads of other projects going on and sort of tired my hands in the third wall which was like negative, as in leaning downwards, and sort of crooked. Well I got up that one but boy were my hands tired ofter that. Sort of like I'd been squezing one of those stress balls for like 3 hours, though I've never done that soo I might be wrong. But I recovered after that and got up other walls that were hard but I felt it was not required to try the really hard one since I just didn't have all my strength. I'll have to try it out next time right after warming up with some easy climbs.

It's nice to nitice that I have gotten better at the climbing even in the short time I've been doing it. It just makes it more fun.

The weekend

The weekend was quite great. Friday I went climbing. I found some more challenges I have to try out next time (most likely tomorrow) and really pushed myself trying to get up some walls. What better way to spend a Friday than going up and down walls. Saturday we palyed the dancing game at my bosses place. They had it on a playstation. Surprisingly it was not DDR but DanceUK. I was like "oh I hope the up and down arrows aren't the wrong way round". They are in some games. But it ended up there was no reason to fear that since the game was otherwise quite different. The arrows came like from the center of the buttons and like from the background. (If you get my meaning.) And if that was not enough there were extra arrows in use in the corners. So there were 8 places to step in all. I was getting kind of suspicious that I would not do that good and that it may not be fun at all since the dancing mat of course was not as good as the ones I have at home. (Well "no-one" has as good dancing mats as I have at home...) Oh but I tried it. It was not so bad with just the 4 buttons. With the 8 it was hard or at least to begin with. But it ended up being way fun in a challenging sort of way. I kept laughing while missing the buttons while trying to jump on the right ones and ending up somewhere else and then trying to do better. What fun! I think I will have to get a game with all the 8 buttons in it. (Oh and just to clarify, there was no alcohol involved.) The only problem with the game was that it was not so easy to see which button should be pressed next since the only way to see it was the size of the approaching arrow. But it was an old game so maybe in new versions they have gotten it better. Certainly with time it would get easier to see the arrow so maybe it is not such a big problem.

Sunday we went walking in the forest some 15 km from here in the hills. The weather was great. Sunny and like 9°C. In addition to my bosses dogs we had an extra one, Buddy, from her neighbor with us. Buddy was so funny. He kept gathering sticks and at most he had like maybe 6 sticks in his mouth. And the funny thing is that he kept gathering them when my bosses dog who loves fetching put them on the ground for me to pick up and throw. It seemed like the other dog was putting them down for the other one to pick them up. Team work. Right now my calf muscles are aching because of the dancing game and the walking but at least I know I did something. I just hope they are better by tomorrow for climbing.

Oh but I best get going home. I'm very hungry.

Where do I live and other good questions

I finally got to doing things like paying back the student allowance I did not have the time to cancel and noticed that I had only cancelled the actual allowance for February and not the living help money. Now I did it again in the lovely internet service. I think the person who actually had to manually look at my case will be sort of messed up by now since I had to cancel the allowance and the housing money both now so thus I will have cancelled the allowance twice for different reasons. Complicated maybe. Then I was about to change my adress again to my sister's place but as I was doing it the starting adress was already it so I guess no point in changing the adress to that. Don't ask me where my mail will go though since my sister said that the post office had put one of those "check your adress information" stickers on my mail. So when I was in Finland and the TV payment person called me to warn about checks in "my area" I was already lost. Now I may think my sister may get one of those at her door though I said I did not have a TV as I don't. Well then Kela sends my mail here to Germany so they got my adress right at least. But I don't know why they paid me the housing help without asking which appartment it was actually for and such. Oh I have this feeling once I do get back to Finland and my appartment (if they still let me live there with the weird screw-ups with my paying the rent - oops not enough money and thus almost a month late and now with not knowing they upped the rent I paid too little and then made the change up today) all my mail will still go to some other place and I'll end up having to vote for the coming elections (I don't know when but it was in the news) somewhere really weird like Germany. Though officially I should still be living in Jyväskylä. And all would have gone right according to plan had the "6 months in Germany" plan actually happened.

Went climbing yesterday. It was great. Real exercise and yes thinking about it is making my hands sweat. They'd changed my favorite wall and now I could not get up to my favorite spot (a chimney sort of thing). Now I have to try it again next time. I'm determined to get up there. But the question is, who will come and climb with me in Jyväskylä. I'm really getting into the climbing thing now and I'd hate to have to stop because of lack of company. Though what better way to make new friends I guess. It just takes a lot of determination. And well new things by myself are at times sort of difficult for me.

The coffee machine is still broken but there is another one that costs. My boss bought me coffee today. Ok so it only cost like 50 cents but nice anyway. Our team had a nice little coffee break all together. Maybe having had coffee sort of made me more messed up while handling my student allowance, rent and adress stuff. It's all just a bit too much for just being someplace two months more. But of course it is just me making things more difficult than they need be. Oh I should get going home. Later.

Now in Beta (or well we are out of beta they say...)

So I got pressured to switch to the new blogger. I hope this not bring any changes other than hopefully this thing will work faster. (Though most likely it will not but here's hoping.)

My head hurts. It might just be that the free coffee machine is broken or that I have actually done lab work today instead of writing. It got sort of frustrating since my new compound does not dissolve as well as it should. So now work that I was supposed really to get done by lunch is going to continue tomorrow and till who knows when. Hopefully only till tomorrow.

Earlier today I am sure I had something to share but now it has slipped my mind. So just have a nice day! :)

Back at work

So here I am. Back at work. I think people looking at me may notice that I am not exactly thrilled about it. I must try to look more happy. It's not that I haven't gotten things done today or that the work is in any way stupid or anything. It's just that at lunch I was eating this sandwich which did not really taste that great even though there was no reason it shouldn't other than that it was German bread and cheese. The red peppers are good now. It just took incredibly long to eat the thing. I didn't even have a book to read so I just sat there, ate and took deep breaths of boredom before taking another bite.

I arrived sometime around 2 am on Saturday. Or well to me it was still Friday since the day does not really change unless I go to sleep. Though I was sleeping in the car. That seems not to count. Or maybe the new day begins around 6 am. Well anyway. I was feeling quite sick of the trip by the time I got home. It took some will power to not feel sick. All the eating on the road and not drinking enough or the right stuff and not even knowing whether one is hungry or not since sleeping most the day got to me. But I was good after a shower getting into bed. Saturday I just hung out at home. Well I did go shopping which is really doing something since it must have taken like almost two hours with incredibly long lines at the local supermarket and me not feeling like making anything for dinner. But I got food and like tons of fruit which is always good. I haven't really been good at eating fruit. Lately I have though so that's an improvement. (I'm sure you care.)

I would not advice people to watch like 11 episodes of a show dealing with weird ailments (House) in two days. I feel like I should be a hypocondriac (uh oh spelling), you know one of theose peole whi thinks they are sick even though they are not. (or well i might be wrong about the term and I'm just letting you know I know in case I am wrong) Other than feeling weird the show got sort of boring with them always checking the same things over and over. And they were always wrong first and almost killed the patient. But I guess that is just the point of the show. It's probably better if watched like once a week to just put one's brain on a shelf to rest. All the while I am quite annoyed that I did not have time to take more episodes.

Speaking of tv shows. On the boat we watched episodes of this show Extras. It was hilarious. Though partly I don't like watching people who are just really stupid and do stupid things even though they could have learned from the last episode. But it had like different famous actors on it for every episode. Of course I liked the one with Patrick Steward in it. I'd say the show would be good for Sunday mornings/afternoons after parties and such. :)

But yeah. I guess I should head home. Not that I have anything to do there. I need a new hobby. Thoug I think I will be going climbing like twice a week from now on. I can't see myself working at home on my thesis thing. It would jsut mean dragging tons of articles home and back or somehow getting the electronic versions smuggled out thoug I like reading on paper. And even then I am sure the whoel writing process would fail because I can't check anything on the net.

I sort of want a toaster. It makes bread taste good.

Happy New Year!

I've been in Espoo for the past couple of days. It has been fun. Yesterday was nice too. I saw smily face fireworks. And hearts. I cleaned my aquarium today with the caretakers. It was fun putting in the new external filter till we noticed that it leaked. It would have been nothing much since we had it in a bucket just for the precation of it leaking in the beginning. But the filter outer shell was broken. That's why it leaked. Kind of deadly annoying. But there is still hope since there is a guarantee and if the thing breaks the first time it is used it must be with the workmanship. I mean we did everything right so what else can it be. I don't think anyone has thrown it around or anything. Luckily Jaakko promised to take care of getting it replaced so i don't have to change my schedule.

I'm heading to Jyväskylä tomorrow. It should be fun. I hope I have time to do all the things I've planned and see all the people I want to see.