Post #110: Where is Kalle?

Oh so it's my last day at work. I have actually gotten some writing done too which is nice.

Oh but horror of horrors. I was on the internet booking myself a time to get my hair cut. Finally by my favorite hair dresser. But as I said "horror of horrors" - he was not on the list anymore. He does not work at the place any more. Where has Kalle gone? Really horrible since I was trusting him to be there and ask me about my studies and such and even remember that I went to Germany even though I go there way too seldom and it's weird that he remembers. But he just was not working at the place anymore. (I'm repeating the horrid fact.) So now I had to choose someone else to cut my hair. It was made easier since they had pictures of the people. So I went and chose a woman. Maybe I will try the others each one at a time till I find someone nice. But I guess one can't expect a young guy to work at the same place for years and years. Maybe he started his own business or just moved. I'm sure I'll get over it in time.

Better, faster and full

Climbing yesterday was great. Which is great since it was most likely my last time for a while. My boss got up her "champagne wall" which she has been working on for ages. And so on Thursday, my last night, we will be having some champagne. Quite great really. I did way good too since I got up like one wall I didn't get up last time and then like a few hard one's I had gotten up and to top it all off I was trying this wall for the first time and it was like grey/red and since it was 5-/5 as a combination, 6 something as grey and 5+ as red I was thinking I'd do it as a combination since we'd been climbing for quite a while and I was sort of tired. Well then I started out with the reds since in the beginnig the colors were sort of separated. Then I get some ways up and I'm like "I've only been using the reds so let's see how long I can keep doing that". And well I just kept doing it all the way up. It was really great since I'd seen like loads of people trying to climb the wall earlier and I'd not tried it since I thought it was too hard for me but it ended up that it wasn't. How great is that? I've really improved. It's nice to be better at something "than the general public".

On Saturday we went to eat at my favorite restaurant that I think all the people who have visited me after I found it know about. It's like authentic German with like local foods but it's no way like touristy since there's usually just German people there. Well I had my favorite food there and it was great. I even had a salad to start and some Apfelstrudel with ice cream to finnish it off. Boy, was I full. Full but happy. The food was great. Then we went to get drinks at the drink bar across the street from the restaurant. I was so full I could not drink my fruity drink at all fast. I didn't even eat the pineapple slices. I wanted to but I was too full.

Well I cleaned my appartment for most of yesterday. Then I don't have to do so much cleaning just before leaving.

Oh yeah. I bought myself a new digital camera on Saturday. It was of course way expensive but I was/am just so sick of my old camera. It is sooooo slow. But like compared to the old one (4 years old quite exactly) the new one is just great. I can take pictures way fast and don't have to wait like a minute till it is ready again and the pictures are way better. And well it has cool little features that of course I won't use that much but it was fun playing with it, changing brown to green and having pictures with only green and the rest black and white. (You can of course use colors other than green but you know me...) So it's a Canon Ixus 800IS. I won't be telling you how much I payed for it but just having checked out the finnish prices I did get it cheaper than there. And I would like to point out that it was actually a lot cheaper than the camera I bought 4 years ago. That's technology for you.

Anyone want to buy my old camera? Fujifilm A303. In great shape. Works good with no problems except that it's slow. You get two memory cards that will fit altogether like 150 pictures in the best quality of the camera. It's battery operated with like 3.2 megapixels.

Two more work days. :D

The dinner

Yesterday's dinner was quite nice. Nothing to complain about really if not about the waiters pouring me too much wine. The dinner consisted of a whopping 7 courses. First we got champagne and today I noticed that it was in fact the first time, to my knowledge, that I drank real champagne. I have to say it was quite good. Then we got this bread appetizer thing, then like antipasto, then a soup, after that the course before the main course and then the main course. Then this fruit thing before the dessert after which we got the dessert and then to top it off coffee. By the time we got to the dessert I was really full but dessert does go to "a different stomach" so no problem. So we got like a white and a red wine which were both quite good and most likely very expensive and I have to admit with them pouring more and more I must have had at least 3 glasses of the white and 2 of the red. So I was a bit tipsy.

The conversation was quite smooth I think and most likely everyone had a good time. At the very end the waiters went around with this quite impressive looking cart of different after dinner drinks. I could have gotten a cognac but decided to not since as I said I was quite tipsy by that time and drinks just before leaving are quite a bad idea. No good can come out of them.

But yeah. I had fun. Today we are going climbing again and I hope I am not too hung over. In the morning I was kind of feeling it even though I got to sleep at around 11. But I best get going now since I have to go to the store and still have time to relax at home. Have a nice weekend!

Writing, dinner, climbing

I feel like I've done nothing of importance today. I mean I did clean up my desk and trow away all my samples, which I do not need anymore. Other than that I've done nothing really. I'm just waiting to hear back from my professor about my experimental part. I sort of feel liek "the calm before the storm" or like I'm "in the eye of the storm" or so silly other figure of speech. Like when I get the thing back I am so sure I will have tons to do and only like a day or two to do it.

So I'm going to the company's nice restaurant today to have dinner with my boss, her boss and the like project leader of the project that is paying for my work. It should be interesting. I hope they have good food. Like I'm sure they have good food but possibly not good vegetarian food. That's just how it goes.

Climbing yesterday was fun although I noticed I had not been there in ages. It was really funny actually cause at one point I was going up this wall and I was like "I can do this, no problem, I've done it many times before" and then my arms would just not work. They were so tired. But I did get up this wall I'm sure I've written about that I just could not get the last move on. It took some determination but I finally got it. (Hands sweating.) And well after climbing, not very surprisingly, I saw these dreams about climbing. I slept quite bad as a consequence.

It's quite funny how in all my inline skating I just smoothly jump on ramps and all and it's great and fun and I sleep great but not in my climbing dreams. Like last night I actually fell off a wall and snapped awake. I mean I was on a rope in the dream so it was safe and all but still. But like a funny thing is that in this book I was reading there was this woman hanging from a cliff. So I get home and continue with the reading with my mind, or body, still on climbing and then I read about something like that. It may have influenced my dreams.

But I will actually get going home now. I was supposed to go straight to the dinner from work but it's at 18:30 instead of 18:00 so I have time. And well spending two more hours doing nothing at work just seems like a big waste. I'd rather be chilling at home reading a book.

Your work is corrupt

Yeah so yesterday I was sending my experimental part to one of my professors and she couldn't get it open. The file was "corrupt". I was like "ok, I think refworks was saying that too. I wonder what it means..." So I google and stuff and was like "oh, I can only get the text of it back? It opens fine on my computer". So I was not really worried since it opened fine on my computer and was working great. I'm talking about a 10,000 KB word document. Big I know and that's not even with the appendices that are like another 20,000 KB. So saving it again and doing stuff to it didn't seem to work and I was like "I really don't want to just take the text and do all the formatting again." Another person might have panicked but as long as I can open it and copy the text and such I saw no problem.

So yeah I did finally solve the problem by converting the whole thing (and my theoretical part, which was also corrupt) to rtf format and then back to word and there is like no change to the actual document by doing that. So problem solved. Made me happy since I did get a bit worried about it and wanted to solve it fast before the documents possibly stopped working for me too. So today one of my professors is reading my experimental part. The whole 62 pages (introduction to conclusion). Not including the 100 pages or so of appendices. I hope by tomorrow she'll get back to me with corrections. Hopefully not many corrections since I haven't got that much time anymore.

Oh I did find this theoretical mistake in my work today after I turned it in. I'm sure no-one else would have noticed it and even I noticed it due to this new source I got this idea for a summary table of these rules. And I was like "WHAT? It's more instead of less stable then?". So this sort of affects my results but not in a big way since the rule that I had gotten wrong was not really truly applicable for my work. But I'm glad I have it correct now.

But I best head home now. I have one more structure to refine and then my landlord is coming over to show the appartment to someone. And we are finally going climbing again. We haven't been in like ages since my boss was sick. I hope I haven't forgotten everything. (Uh oh, hands sweating...)

Monday, monday...

I was supposed to go shopping today but it looks like I'm gonna have to do it tomorrow or Wednesday. It's getting dark and I'm hungry and still at work. I had all these things I had planned to buy and such but no doubt they will be in the stores tomorrow if they had been there today.

The weekend was nice. Not much to say about it. I did look at like old pictures on my computer and had this weird moment of fondness for the coffee maker I have in Jyväskylä. "Oh that is my coffee maker... buhuuhuu. Oh yeah I get to see it again soon." And then another for sunlight. "Oh that is exactly how the sun used to shine in my window in the morning and light up the whole appartment and it was way good for the plants. Buuhuu. I miss the sunlight in the mornings." Yeah well I may be freaking out. I mean my coffee maker is not special at all and like the cheapest model I could find. It's like there were also people in the pictures and I wasn't all buuhuu when I saw them. And I would like to think I like my friends more than I like my cheap coffee maker. But I can't help how I feel now can I. Maybe my eye just hit the coffee maker in the picture as I was having an emotional response to something else. Or the coffee maker was just a symbol of the life I had and like the appartment and it was just the whole thing I missed.

I think I should get a more interesting book to read so I won't have to look at old pictures on my computer. Or else get more dvds or something. No need for any more silly emotions.

Time's running out

It's Friday again. Having a four day week sort of makes it come loads faster. Well I actually think I've only today gotten some work done. I don't really think I deserve a weekend really but I won't be one to complain.

8 more days of work to go. That translates to like exactly two weeks till I'm in Finland. The time is actually pretty right too at the moment if I'm remembering correctly. Maybe I should start figuring out what to do and where to go from the airport when I get there. Or maybe I should just concentrate on getting all my work done here.

I've actually not been in the city across the river since I got back here after Christmas. I've been thinking I should maybe go on a big shopping spree and buy loads of stuff that is cheaper here before I go back. I just can't figure out what to buy. I mean I don't really need anything. The only thing I should probably buy is a snowboarding helmet. It would come in handy right when I get back since I'm going snowboarding for a long weekend. I just sort of need someone to tell me to buy it or something and I would. I was thinking of going shoping tomorrow but the weather is nice and we are most likely going climbing outside for the whole day. It's nicer since I can't climb in Finland on those rocks but I can go shopping in Finland. And well if I buy stuff I will have to take it to Finland and I'm not sure I have space in my bags. I don't know when I should start figuring out all the packing and cleaning the appartment.

I think every time I walk into the lunch room I let out this big sigh. Like "here we go again - the stupid lunch room, my stupid unhealthy lunch and all these other people who must think I am way out of it". Also, every time I go get my bike key I think I do the same thing - big sigh "oh I have to say hallo to this lady in the office again and get the stupid bike key and write my name in the notebook, try to smile at the building master who seems not to like me and then do it all again the next day". And then one more big sigh - "oh I have to get off the net, turn off this computer, get my things from one locker, walk down the stairs, change my clothes, say bye to people in the locker room and get going home".

Today

Complaints section - Oh no. I don't "feel like" writing my theoretical part. It is no undone I can't believe it and "I'll never get it done". All day (ok so anly after lunch) I have been trying to write the intro and it's like 2 pages of crap. I know the problem is that I've already written all the "easy parts". I've just never been good at wrinting the theoretical parts to lab reports and now I have to write at least 50 pages of such.

Happenings section - So today there has been like this tag from someone's panties on the bathroom floor at work. And it's like for size XXL. I found this funny. Maybe I'm an evil person making fun of big people. I'm sorry. I don't know why someone took their tag off in the workplace bathroom and left it lying around. I don't really care to know either. I just find the whole thing sort of funny.

It's Valentine's Day. "Oh wow." (I seem to be writing sarcastic comments in quatation marks in case you have not noticed earlier.) Happy Valentine's day everyone! I sort of like the finnish translation as friends day much better. I guess it's because Valentine's day refers to cute romantic things and pink hearts and such and I'm really not at all romantic. I may just be way too practical and uninclined to use time, thoughts and money for such things.

But I'm skipping work early again now. I can't get anything done.

In Ireland

It was just my Birthday weekend. It was great since I did and saw new things, had fun while doing them and spent time with people I care about. I actually got tons of present too though most are the kind where one jsut gets great memories and maybe some pictures. Like the whole trip, which was the present I gave myself.

So my sister called me up on Thursday when I was waiting around at home till I had to go catch the bus to the airport. (I was 30 minutes early to the bus stop. Well like I really did not want to miss that bus and I had nothing else to do and the weather was not that cold.) Well see on the phone my sister goes "would you like to go to a ball... Ronan Keating might be there". I was like "well this is quite surprising, let me think... ok yeah what do I need?". See there was this ball for like Ronan Keatings (the singer from Boyzone and like of that song from Notting Hill in case someone is looking confused) and his sisters like fund raising thing for breast cancer since their mom died of it like I don't know when. Well anyway. I grab my dress and shoes (yes "in case of emergency" I had taken one dress to Germany) from the closet and pack them in my bag and off I go. (Waiting for the bus way too early.)

Trip to Ireland went well. The people where kind of roudy on the plane but no biggie. My sister picked me up from the airport so I didn't even have to know where I was going. so on Friday we go out shopping for things for the ball and well I end up buying a new dress. It was great since wearing it just made me feel all the more special at the ball. My sister did my hair great and I think we both looked really great and sort of similar since both our hair was curled. Just like real sisters, which we are. We got to the ball late but we only missed the champagne and it was not such a bad thing since we didn't miss the food or the wine or really that much since at the coctail thing before the dinner we would not have known like anyone anyhow so would not have had so much mingling going on. Oh but yeah the food was good. We especially liked the "way too strong" champagne sorbet that was served before the main course. It was way strong. Like putting frozen stuff into one's mouth does not ordinarily heat up one's throat.

Oh and we were like THE party table when the dancing started. We had our own dance floor near the table and the band ended up asking us to join the real dance floor. It was great. I really liked dancing too. It's been a while again since I've had a chance to do that. (See post #80) Oh but yeah. I forgot to tell you... Sadly Ronan was not at the ball. "I'm just so disappointed since he is my idol and I just totally loooove him." But his sister did sort of touch us since she pinned these pins on us. "Oh, totally one of the most exciting moments of my life." And well this man and woman did sit in our table that had a son who like won the Popstars show in Ireland. (Like popstars is the Idols show where they make a pop band of the winners.) So yeah, loads of celebs.

Oh but it was really educational and like weird to go to a fund raising ball. Cause like they are for rich people. Like the man who bid 2200 euros for pearls and then gave them back to be auctioned off again fro another 2000 euros. I mean that's like two months salary for me at the moment. But well I guess it is going off to a good cause so respect to the people giving so much and all. My sis did end up donating a total of 50 euros that night since it was sort of expected but when you add up the fact that we got a five course dinner with wine and we'd have gotten chanpagne if we hadn't missed it that does not end up being do much really. And well it was like a really great Birthday gift too. It's not every year one gets a ball with a make-over and everything included as a present. It was really great. I felt so pretty and special.

Loads more happened. Right now I'm just skipping work early to go home. I'm too tired and have to go to the store and everything. I'll tell you more highlights from the trip later.

You will be assimilated.

Resistance is futile.

Ok, so I bought the Borg-box of Star Trek episodes on Saturday. Now in the past few days I have watched a total of maybe 12 episodes. I can't help myself since they are just so exciting and I've not even seen most of them since they are Voyager episodes. I even finally saw the episodes where captain Picard becomes a Borg. Mission thus accomplished. But like the scary thing is that the episodes are scary and it all reminds me of when we went to the Borg-experience in Las Vegas and how that was really scary to have Borg going around even though they were just people in costume. So yeah I have probably the scariest episodes yet to watch. I think I actually understand the Borg better now. It's all good even though you personally might not be a big fan.

Oh but Sunday was great. (No, I did not watch Star Trek all day even though it might seem I would have had to to get so many episodes watched.) We went bouldering to the forests in the hills/mouintains near here. The weather was just perfect. The sun was shining and it seemed very warm and I was just taking in the rays, producing D-vitamin and all. We did not find very good boulders to climb on but the weather and the otherwise really nice place just made up for that. I mean it almost felt like summer. It was great. I took some pictures with my bosses camera. If they turned out good I shall post them somewhere when I get my hands on them.

But yeah. I should head home to refine some more structures and draw pictures since I'm giving a version of my experimental part to my boss on Thursday before I leave for Ireland. Yeah, I'm going to Ireland for the weekend, a long weekend. It should be great.

Structures to refine

It's Friday. Way hey. I need to go to the supermarket and then I think I'll try to refine some crystal structures tonight. I have like at least 10 of them to make into publishable quality and it's great that I can do them at home. I think it will be something I'll be doing a lot of in the future since I'm going to be a crystallographer for the group I'll do my doctorate studies in. At least now I have material on which to practice. And practice, and practice since I should be getting three new structures soon.

So now I have 43 pages in my experimental part. That is from the introduction to the conclusion. I think it will get to be a lot more when I get around to drawing pictures of the structures I'm refining. I think the actual book done from it will be rather thick since I have like at least 30 pages of appendices. I think I have to cut down a bit on those though it seems they just keep building up all the time. But that's what one gets for ordering tons of analysis and getting loads of results. I shouldn't be complaining.

I only have three more full weeks of work. Or actually one full week and two four day weeks since I'm going to Ireland. (Oh oh, panic... Ok it passed.) I think the last three days I'll just clean up the last messes I've made and bounce around not knowing what to do. I mean it will be weird to leave sice I've been here like 7 months now and that's like along time. Well maybe not on a lifetime scale but experience wise loads of things can happen in 7 months. Not that loads of important life-altering things have been happening to me really but they could have.

Oh but I gotta get home now. Noticing I only have the one full week and such made me motivated to refine those structures all on the weekend and draw the pictures. I mean I gotta get things done.

Have a nice weekend! (And do someone write me e-mail. I "never" get any.)