White Teeth

White Teeth is a rather brilliant book on the life of immigrants in England through a couple of generations. I read it quite a while ago, but today the topic sprang back into mind. Not the immigrants, though, but the white teeth.

As I'm sure some people who may or may not stumble across this blog already know, I'm having a rather large project with my jaws and teeth, and I get to be 13 again and got braces (the orthodontic kind...) again last winter. Brushing my teeth has been a fairly mechanical operation ever since; how can you really judge the job when you can't even see your teeth from all the metal contraptions. I just brush for a while and that's it. But apparently that's not enough, and I got to go through a 60 minute training today on how to properly clean my teeth, and the whole operation is starting to feel like rocket science. I mean, I now have four different kinds of brushes for brushing my teeth and tonight I stood about 15 minutes in the bathroom trying to brush my teeth like the nice dental hygienist girl had instructed me. It's pure hell and I don't see myself investing 30 minutes every day for brushing teeth. It's just too much.

Anyway, 2-3 more years and then I'll have a nice smile, or so they tell me. Too bad I don't usually smile that much - such a waste...

Pressure...?

My schoolwork is going straight to hell. Forgot to sign up for that damn Algorithm Analysis & Something course and the DL for the obligatory home exercises is this evening at 8; 1.5 hours away. Well, I wouldn't have needed the 5 credits anyway... Accounting & Profitability? Skipped the exam, hadn't had time to... No wait, I just hadn't prepared. 3 credits... Puff! (Granted, I'll take the exam in January.) And so on. And the courses that I still actually do still have left all have exams and exercise deadlines coming up; a router emulator needs to be written by Friday, the multiple choice questions and an essay on some random topic need to be done by Sunday. Then the Software Development Methods exercises, which have taken way too much time already... (Try doing all the work intended for a competent three person group all by yourself due to... Well... Some unfortunate circumstances.) Pressure? Pfft! What's that? Bring it on!

Umbrellas

Just stumbled across James Smith & Sons again today, and I think that I will have to get one of their umbrellas. And no, this isn't a trip down snobbery lane, it's much more of a thing related to quality, as I recently described. Luckily I just talked with a friend of mine and he told me that he was planning a trip to London in early 2007, so I guess I'll have to try to get him to grab me one of the umbrellas while he's there...

Shoe maintenance...

One of the best feelings in life is the one after taking a long shower, putting on a crisp and clean white shirt and freshly polished shoes (and then of course the other clothing articles, too...). There's actually a joke in Finland regarding how you can determine whether or not a business traveller at an airport is a Finn or not; just look at his shoes. And like behind all jokes that are based on stereotypes, there's truth behind this one too.

On introspection...

Introspection is quite a fun hobby, and I think quite many of my blog entries actual deal with a certain need to understand myself (yeah, and because of this, they may not make for very entertaining reading to others, but that's not really my problem, now is it? :) . Even though many people have commented on the fact that I supposedly am very open and give out a lot of information about myself, I would actually describe myself very reserved and keep certain inner topics closely to myself, and to a select few others (aha! it's only now that I can precisely define what I meant earlier). The people who actually know me very well in turn have commented that if I'd spend all the effort I put towards introspection towards something "useful" (their definition, I think that's relatively subjective :), I'd be able to achieve quite many things. Oh well, I guess I'm doomed, then.

Anyway, I've acknowledged the fact that according to the MBTI test I'm an INTJ (Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging) and that I fit the short description of the type. The problem with short descriptions are that competent people can usually craft short pieces of text with which anyone can reflect against - think about horoscopes, most of the time they don't actually say anything, but you feel that it's meant precisely for you; the horoscope itself is just so general that everyone can reflect his or her personal situation against it. That's why I've been fairly sceptical with the results of the MBTI test (especially when considering the fact that I don't really feel like shelling out ~100 dollars for some test like that and have only done some unofficial, free tests).

Now, I was just going through random topics on Wikipedia, and stumbled across the INTJ topic. I'd read it before, but had missed quite possibly the most interesting stuff there; the external links. Turns out that there was a page with a relatively detailed description of the INTJ personality, and it was eerily close to me, my views, etc. And I know this thanks to the endless introspection that I do. It also offered some clearer and more exact solutions to stuff that I hadn't yet been able to fully explain and motivate for myself. But(!), not so much good that not something bad; there were one or two things that I didn't fully agree with. For one, the article suggested that INTJs are very loyal to organizations/goals/etc. I sort of understand and associate with this, but I would suggest that instead of being fiercely loyal to an organization, I'm even more loyal to myself. I don't do charity unless I see something in it for me. I guess that's the cynic inside me talking again, but that's how I feel. The endgame or motivation for something, however, doesn't need to be purely selfish. I may do something classifiable as charity just because I feel that it furthers something that's close to me, my beliefs and my views.

That said, I'm afraid that this entry may actually be one of the most honest and open entries that I have written or will write in the future.

Christmas is coming...

... and I'm buried in a shitload of work (both workwork and schoolwork). I've already done ~11 hours today (~8.5 hours at work, ~2.5 hours of school stuff) and I've yet to get anything finished. The Software Development Methods phase 4 deadline is on Thursday at noon and that's going to take at least a couple of hours more today and about six hours tomorrow. Then I have to get my hours for this week in at work and that means going in on Friday. And on Saturday I have my Accounting & Profitability exam for which I've yet to start preparing for. Yay! Top that with some social obligations tomorrow evening, and there's no more spare time.

And if that wasn't enough, the CN course exercise is due on the Friday, December 2nd, and that's turning out to be slightly more tricky than I had predicted...

Now for some interesting math... I would guesstimate that I do about 30 hours of work-work a week and something like 35 hours of schoolwork on top of that. That's about 65 hours of work per week. Now, the student allowance for me is roughly 320 euros/month and I get paid for something like 20 hours per week at work and that's about 900 euros/month of salary for a total of 1100 euros/month minus taxes. Now, 65 hours/week equals 9.3 hours/day (if spread out evenly through the entire week) and with 30 days in a month, that's about 279 hours/month.

Now divide the 1100 euros/month with 279 hours/month, and you get about 3.95 euros/hour minus taxes. That's less than what they pay at McDonald's. And according to Kela, I make way too much money and I get to pay back the student allowance eventually. So overall I earn about 3.22 euros/hour minus taxes. There's something inherently wrong with the system. In order to study and live a decent life, I need money. And because of the small amount of student allowance I get, I have to work part time to earn a bit more (and I'm being paid too little at work, too). And then Kela decides that I am too rich and I have to pay the aid back. Amusing.

All the while the leaders of the country want students to graduate faster and get employed right away in order to start earning more money which can then be taxed at a higher percentage. And in the meanwhile companies also want us to graduate, but that's not enough since we should also have work experience on the side. And right now that I'm gaining more work experience and furthering my studies, I get slammed by the government, which wants its money back, and by the company, which pays me too little.

Ah, it's certainly fun to be a student.

The problem with blogging...

We've been promoting the use of wikis and blogs at work as means of collaboration and dialogue amongst people. The initially reaction to wikis was very positive and we actually witnessed that people started adopting them fairly quickly. However, there were some concerns voiced and the largest issue was that of restricting the viewers and editors. That itself goes against the nature of wikis (and also blogs). The idea is to allow anyone and everyone to read and contribute, and if we institute measures to restrict access, the whole nature of the system changes. The cool thing about wikis is not the technical stuff, but instead the social aspect.

Now this brings me to the problem with blogging. As much fun as this is, the problem why I stopped blogging the last time (and the time before that, and before that too...) was that I can't just type anything I want here. Granted, obfuscating names goes a long way, but people are clever enough to still figure out what's going on. And some things are just not meant to be written down. A pity, actually, but I guess that's just how things are. There'd either have to be multiple levels of access control or multiple blogs for different subjects, and that's not fun anymore. Oh well, no discussion on endgames and long-term personal strategies on this blog, then. :)

Journey to Reims

Every year there are one of two things that will be engraved into your mind and they'll set the overall theme of the year - or how you'll remember it afterwards in the following years. As I've been bitching and moaning lately, this year the theme will be "All work and no play destroys T's social life". Unless some drastic measures are taken, my social life will have consisted mostly of school, work and going out to bars with the same core group from the uni, and even that's been declining a bit on my part. Well, at least the salary's good... *cough*

So anyway, following my previous encounter with the theater (which was brilliant), this Saturday it was time for some opera. Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims (or Journey to Reims) had been brought to life by Dario Fo & Co. at the Finnish National Opera, and granted, I was a bit skeptical on whether or not I'd make it through the three hours. It turned out, however, that it was pure brilliance. Even though it was written in the 19th century, it still covers some topics that have recently become increasingly relevant in our 21st century lives. And when the curtains closed for the final time, it wasn't relief that I felt. In some way I think I could've just went on and watched it again. I could go on and rave about it further, but suffice to say that it was great. And the company was also great, a big thanks for H for taking the time out of her busy life and accompanying me there and making sure I didn't do anything too stupid during the show... :) I think I should just learn to focus more on doing fun stuff and cutting back on work+school lest I become a boring person who lives in a cubicle and you get the idea.

On snobbery

This topic is something that has been troubling me for a while and I can't give a clear answer on it. So let's see if I can get something rational about it down on paper...

Being a snob is something that has become a sort of long running joke with a friend of mine. He accuses me of being a snob, but I don't really consider myself one. I'll grant that I get annoyed of people who buy fake Louis Vuitton bags, and other such things, and I would typically leave something unbought than to buy a fake, or a copy. But that's not because of snobbery, as defined by dictionaries. The primary reason is that I don't like cheating, plagiarism, or anything of the kind. And with fake goods, the problem is two folded...

First of all, someone went through the trouble of designing something, creating a brand, etc. It isn't easy to create something like that. That's something that should be recognized and given credit to. By buying fake stuff, you're in fact not supporting or giving credit to the original creator, but just acting in a childish "I want, I want, I want" fashion. The motive must be some sort of posing, since fake goods are typically of lower quality. Which brings me to the second point...

Because of the cheap price, the goods are typically of lower quality. I'm a firm believer in betting on quality over quantity, mostly because poor people can't afford to buy cheap. It's not because of snobbery, it's because I value quality, that I try to always buy the best that I can afford at the moment. If the quality which I can afford doesn't satisfy me, I just don't buy it. And this seems to be something that may appear as snobbery to some people, but the motives are what distinguish between snobbery and something else.

So to sum it up, no, I wouldn't consider myself a snob, as I'm not trying to elevate myself to some class I'm not in nor am I trying to imitate such classes. And as far as I know, those are precisely the key points of snobbery. I'd rather like to think that I lean more towards perfectionism and value traditions and handicraft. As a matter of fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that the people buying fake purses are in fact a rather large group of snobs themselves. Granted, the end goals are sometimes the same (e.g. I wouldn't mind wearing an Omega Speedmaster), but whereas a snob would obtain something - the Omega - to show off, I would want it because of its beauty, elegance, quality and because I value the knowledge and skill required to make a watch of that calibre. And that's the key point.

Move over, movies...

I'm slowly starting to assume the stance that while movies are ok and all, theater and other forms of art may be even better. Or maybe I've just had luck with the stuff I've seen so far. As I blogged before, the stuff during the URB festival were excellent and tonight I saw €uroja Taivaasta (Euros from Heaven, sorry, the site's only in Finnish), which was just brilliant. Granted, it had quite a bit of Salo-specific stuff which wouldn't be understood by people who haven't lived in Salo for at least a couple of years, but. And unlike with big Hollywood blockbusters, the money goes more or less straight to the actors and people behind the entertainment, not to some faceless corporations. And that's always a plus.