Category Archives: personal

Studying Pays Off!

Current Matters, personal

Right, I’m taking off. I am glad to announce my recent deunemployency. I am heading to the south coast of Finland, they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. They seduced me with title and money. I couldn’t have refused the offer otherwise either since it was the only offer I’ve received.

I’ll be doing programming in a big international service (among others) house. I am feeling like a cow in the spring being released to the meadows for the first time after winter… You can leave your well-wishings, words of infinite wisdom and confessions of infatuation in the comments!

/me continues Victory Dance.

Blessed Are Thy G-Forces

Current Matters, Hedonism, personal

I took it as my liberty to spend a day at a local amusement park. As usual, inspite of my minor efforts to hire people to join me in merriment, I was forced to enjoy by myself. It was smaller a hindrance to pleasure than I thought. Granted, it would have been probably a few ounces more enjoyably with a good friend with a similar outlook in enjoyment (it begins with a fear of death). I just have to admit I’m just not charming enough. The day was warm (borderline hot) and this being a weekday in June, the place only had short queues. The place was filled with happy, young people, and it all made me a bit nostalgic.

The rides didn’t make that much of a impression, but there was enough of gut-wrenching -sensation to feel pleased. The amusement park in question is located on a narrow cape, and all the rollercoasters are limited on a small space, in turn limiting the speed and g-forces of the rides. In fact, one of the new rides, where you lie down on your stomach, face down, was quite uncomfortable due to this restriction in space. It was all sharp turns after another.

Big Phat 5th Anniversary Posting

Current Matters, personal, This Blog

It was exactly 5 years today that this Blog began its existence as a simple HTML-page on my University of Tampere pages.  The idea of a “blog” was presented to me the previous fall at a New Media studies course by a prominent Finnish game researcher, Aki Järvinen. This proves nothing but that I’m slow.

The beginnings were more than humble and being first (or among the first) doesn’t mean a thing. My blog was left to the fringe when more controversal, better and more frequent writers took the stage. Pinseri hosted an official Finnish blog-list. I had some pleasure watching the relative position of my blog flactuate. Long term movement was firmly DOWN. I held to a belief that my chosen language was a reason for my poor numbers in readers. This belief was hamppered by a Finnish blog with a better standing that was written in Irish…

The bulk of my readers have been people who already know me from other venues of life, usually from academia. One interesting, yet small group of readers has been prospective employers. Now, I can’t prove anything, but I find it plausible that there’s at least one instance when the attitude of a prospective employer has gone several degrees colder after someone for her organisation had read my blog.

This blog has, in spite of everything, seen one self-proclaimed fan. For me there is no way to defend from this kind of attention, even taking in consideration all kinds of circumstancial matters, I have to admit, if I may, that, Katja, for this reason only, you hold a special place in my heart.

5 years is a short time for almost any kind of human project, for a blog it’s almost a lifetime. Technical, social and numeral matters in the blogosphere have changed immensely. I guess that the subsequent progress from now on will be something a lot different. I have felt somewhat priviledged to see the beginnings of this chaotic and influential and chaotically influential media.

“No, You Will Think! You Will Use Your Mind!”

personal

I was expending my time at the local Universitys cafeteria with some people who share my major. We were discussing on the subject one of their seminar papers that one of them had just finished.

The discussion concluded with the writer becoming, with one strike (as it appeared to me) of academic understanding, aware of that she really didn’t know anything about the subject she had written, about the reason why she chose to write about the subject and why she chose exactly those people whos ideas she wrote about. I felt priviledged and somewhat humbled to be in present with such happening. Some people leave the academia never to have experienced anything like she did. Hell, some people leave this life without that experience.

What she went through right there and then was, in my not-so-humble-opinion, the most solid offering the University can offer to you. In this case becoming aware of your own shortcummings as a knowledge-wielding creature. Doubt, self-reflection and mistakes are what keeps this boat going.

New Year Resolutions

personal

Normally I don’t make any attempts at New Year resolutions, but this year something happened. Some ideas I had for my future existence took and manifested themselves in Language. The content of whose follows.

First of all, more self-discipline. Self-discipline will lead to self-respect. Self-respect will lead to better life. The mechanism at work here is left as an exercise for the reader.

Developing self-discipline in practice means the development of body and mind. Development of body means acquiring more ninja-skills, pizza only once in two weeks, self-made only, alcohol consumed only within a social context, better diet in general, among others. Development of mind consists of, with everything mentioned above, adopting the idea I read in Larry Nivens Ringworld Engineers:”At some point you are going to have to do something to resolve this situation, why that couldn’t be now?” and putting it to practice in various, appropriate situations. I will also try and play more computer games, read more comics and literature.

Most important idea is however that there is no slipping back. I might progress slowly but that’s fine as long as there is genuine progress.

I will also strive to become a better, more frequent blogger.