Mass Confusion

You know something is wrong when you name your father “Emelie” in the phone book.

News

Hello world – I hope you are all doing well wherever you are when reading this. I feel the need to blog about something, but – at the same time – it feels like I don’t have much to tell. We went to Stockholm last weekend, I’ll post some photos as soon as I get my new laptop. The trip was nice, but exhausting. It was nice seeing everyone at uni, the weather was fantastic and I had the chance to enjoy some really delicious blackberries straight from the bush. Unfortunately I didn’t find shoes for winter: that’ll be my mission when we go to Helsinki. TT needs to go to the Spanish embassy, and I’ll probably just tag along for fun (and some shoe-shopping).

Today is the last day of August (PAY-DAY!!), and summer is officially over. The other day I signed up for a class in Russian conversation, and so my schedule for Autumn 2011 is starting to look complete: Russian on Mondays, Hungarian on Wednesdays and Fridays. The rest of the time will be dedicated to TT, other studies and exercising. Today I will be meeting my PT: I’ve gone to a couple of her kettlebell classes and she seems to be really good at what she’s doing, so I’m hoping for awesome results.

 

Last but not least I have a thought on privacy: yesterday I stayed home because I needed to go to see the doctor. I called in sick and thought that’d be enough. And it was enough for most people, managers included. However, one colleague greeted me with lots of questions and comments this morning: “so, you have the flu then?”…”wow, it must have been really bad. Did you manage to get out of bed at all?”, “how horrible, having to stay in bed all day…”. What’s wrong with people? This person didn’t ask me how I was feeling, nor was she interested, she just wanted to make me feel uncomfortable and maybe get some gossip.  

Brain Fog

The other day I bumped into a funny word that describes not-so-funny-a-condition. The English term brain fog refers to a cognitive dysfunction. According to Wikipedia, it is usually “defined as unusually poor mental function, associated with confusion, forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating.”

 

 

Look who's returned to the living...

…today, for the first time in a long time, I woke up without that horrible headache. The whole week has been a blur filled with a lot of work; we are talking 12 hours a day. Anyhow, tomorrow we’re off to Stockholm for a couple of days. The main reason for the trip is not a very funny one, but as long as I survive six hours at university, it WILL be a fun trip. I’m thinking cinema, Indian food and shopping, not to forget socialising. Days like that are really important for my sanity. Speaking of sanity, I can imagine that this (academic) year will be quite horrifying (fun but extremely stressful), so I’m already planning a “you-made-it”-gift for June 2012. The options are a ridiculously expensive handbag or a trip – and that’s not any trip, no, it has to be a proper trip, which means that Europe doesn’t count (unless I’m not able to save enough money, in which case Croatia might be a good idea). The other day I spent a moment – or maybe five - daydreaming and managed to narrow down the options to include San Francisco, Kyoto, New Zealand and Buenos Aires. I haven’t been travelling “for real” in years (living in a certain country doesn’t count) and I really miss the excitement. However, Stockholm will have to do for now!

  

Help pt. 2 (top secret, don't tell anyone)

Today I’m meeting a very important person about a very exciting thing and I’m extremely nervous – sitting still is impossible. I can’t tell you more, but please continue keeping those fingers crossed.

Help!

Just keep your fingers crossed for me, everybody!

Stress Relief

2 jobs. Studying at 150%. And then suddenly, only one job. There’s plenty of time to relax, or to do something fun. But, the brain is groggy and the body just wants to sleep for a year at least. Any simple task (like writing an e-mail) turns into an enormous obstacle. Emotions run wild. I can handle a lot of stress while it’s happening, but as soon as it gets easier, or disappears, I feel like having been crushed by a train. A monster train.

Today is the fourth day of my “holiday” – uni starts again in a week or so – and today is the first day at work that I’m not freezing and yawning and being generally miserable.

 

Maybe the solution is to ALWAYS keep oneself occupied – that way there will be no post-stress phase.

 

How do you cope with stress?

 

 

 

Smile Like You Mean It

Today I heard an interesting argument – there is no need for any politics and politicians because there is a technical solution to everything, The social scientist within me wanted to shout in disagreement – man invented technology, and therefore technology can’t solve all our problems, there is also a social, unpredictable dimension. Technology might be regarded as objective and “fair”, but the world isn’t – there needs to be someone or something that safeguards our wellbeing. Politics and politicians are an important part of the system that shapes the rules in our society, so that we won’t fall into Hobbesian chaos.

Apart from discussions during the coffee break, today is being a tiring day – fortunately I have lots of fun things to look forward to later on in the week.

 

 

 

Living the Right Way

While staring at the rain today, I will quietly  repeat these words to myself. 

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
(Mahatma Gandhi)

Autumn 2011

The air smells slightly differently and the leaves are slowly turning yellow. Suddenly it’s a bit chilly in the morning. Autumn is the perfect time for making some resolutions – more than New Year’s it’s a new beginning. My Autumn 2011 Resolution is a bit vague, but still very important. I want to work hard for the last months of 2011 in order to make 2012 the best year ever. This will include Russian conversation classes, working hard on my dissertation and other uni assignments, sweating at the gym, having fun and working on my self-perception. 2012 will hopefully bring about some positive changes, and my plan is to be well prepared for them.

I have an idea, just a tiny little thought, growing in my mind. If I really want to go for it (still need to meditate on that one), I need to work hard – and one first step would be proving my language skills (at least in Finnish, Polish and Spanish). Proving one’s language skills is such a dreadful project, though, those state exams are scary!

 

Do you have any “resolutions” for this autumn?  

Happy Name Day...

… to all my namesakes! I hope you are all having a very enjoyable and special day.

 

Feeling Like A Rebel

Every girl needs to feel like an invincible rebel once in a while. I’m lucky, because in an office full of prim and proper blondes, rebellion is easily achieved – all it takes is a leather jacket and dark, long hair.

 

And right now I’m so angry – I hate people who boast, so I try to avoid doing that myself. It’s about integrity and all that. BUT – there are some things I’m really good at, most people are, you know. You probably know I’m referring to languages. I’ve studied Polish for many years, I have straight firsts in the language from university and I worked very hard on it. So now I’m angry – because people automatically assume that I cannot be very good at the language because a) I don’t make a big deal of it, b) the person in question has never spent hours and hours (totalling in years) of learning a foreign languages and doesn’t understand what it entails, and c) it’s such an odd language – why would anyone learn it?

 

Dobra, jeszcze im pokaze J

Asana

As you know, I´m hooked on yoga - I try to exercise it at least once a week in order to keep myself somewhat sane and relaxed. Now, there are lots of great poses out there, but I think my favourite is the plow pose - it requires focus and it feels great.

Which is your favourite yoga pose?

Picture

Quiet

Right now this blog is quiet because my laptop is being repaired. I can write, but adding pictures is difficult. Hopefully this will change soon, because there is so much I want to show you.


Have a great Wednesday!

Snowball Effect

One thing goes terribly wrong and suddenly bang. Everything goes wrong. And I´m not good at handling these kinds of things, as I end up blaming myself. For everything. Who cares if a server somewhere on the other side of the planet is having a momentary breakdown - of course it´s my fault and my fault only.

Incidents

Good morning! One of the best ways to start the day is to get up early so there´s plenty of time for getting ready (or waking up) before leaving for work.

This week will be very hectic - I have three assignments that have to be done before Sunday... AND my laptop died on me on Friday. This means that there will be little time for other things, such as blogging and talking to people.

I also realised that uni will start soon. One week of summer holiday is all I´m getting from my studies this year.   

It´s also autumn outside - grey and rainy... and I´m dreaming of going abroad. Staying in one place too long is just depressing. Right now my top 5 places of interest are:

- Ukraine
- Hungary
- St. Petersburg
- The US
- a Greek island or possibly a beach in Croatia.

 Sometimes I wish I´d create myself a hypercool job that would include a lot of money and travelling...

Entertained at Work

1)       Two people right in front of me are speaking in Polish. I understand what they are saying… muhhahahaha.

2)       We were given ice cream and homemade toffee sauce for dessert.

3)       I’m in love with my mint green post-its.

4)       One more hour and I can go home.

Right now I just want the weekend to begin. How about you, do you have any nice plans?

Dissertation

Today my mind has been devoting  a lot of time to think about the dissertation that I‘ll have to start writing soon. I want to combine several themes - immigration, government, and either decision or risk analysis – and that’s the tricky part. Anyhow, the topic is very fascinating and I’m so excited!

Just curious...

When I was little, my parents used to tell me how important it is to live within one’s means: don’t borrow too much; credit cards are evil and so on. Now, I know that personal finances cannot be compared to the state economy, but still, I’m curious and I have a question for my American (and Greek ones too, why not?) readers. Don’t take this the wrong way, please – our societies are very different, and there are some things I find really hard to understand… and if I’m wrong about something (the probability is high), feel free to educate me.

So, to the question. If a country is in enormous debt – how is it going to pay it back without raising taxes? The outflow of money seems to be really big, but how about the inflow? Maybe I’m not very clever, but I fail to see the logic here…  If money goes out, money also needs to come in. Politicians are talking about saving money, but how are they going to achieve that? What expenses are going to be cut? What expenses SHOULD be cut?  And now to an even more sensitive question: what’s so wrong about paying taxes?

And now while we are at it: how much tax does one pay in the US? And what do you get in return?

 

 

 

Breakfast

It’s Monday. It’s August. A new day, a new week and a new month. New mini-beginnings. Enjoy them!