Training Day

Song of Friday:
Slipknot - Pulse of the Maggots

Went to the Helsinki office yesterday for an introduction to another project I'll participate in for 2 weeks starting next Wednesday. It's a survey and I'll basically be doing customer support, but according to the project managers, there shouldn't be many problems other than participants who need to be pointed towards re-reading their agreements and general FAQs. Sounds like 'rtfm' all over, but it might prove valuable and should give me insight into something completely different from the stuff I'm doing in Tampere.
The assistant project manager, who's also the person responsible for Germany, France and UK in that project (and thus the person who's CS work I'll be taking care of for the period of her vacation) is quite a hottie, as well as enjoyable company for having a conversation. I just love working with people that appeal to me on both a mental and a physical level. :)

Overall, the trip to Helsinki was pretty nice and enjoyable. Had Nepalese for lunch (reminded me a lot of the Indian place we have in Tampere), and was so tired when I got back home that I ditched the idea of going to the gym in favor of taking a "nap" .. which turned into a full 5 hours of sleep. Now I'm quite awake, let's see if I manage to go back to sleep.

Today's gonna be the company's Spring/Summer happening, promises to be great fun and if we're lucky, the weather's gonna play along.
Self-defense lessons, drinking and sauna all on one day ... if that's not gonna be an interesting corporate happening, I don't know what will be. :)

Back to sleepies now,

ta-taa.

Hello-Goodbye

Song of Wednesday:
Machine Head - All Falls Down

It's final: London's on ice, Finland is the hottest thing!
Got the offer to have my contract renewed until the current project ends (estimated to last until mid-October), and according to the HR person, chances of repeated renewal are fairly high as long as there are no fuckups on my side (ie no complaints about me from the bossmen).
Since I still haven't heard from SOAS, I put the whole university thing on ice, and maybe I'll actually thaw it up at some point; but right now, I enjoy Finland, I enjoy the job, and I'm gonna stay here for as long as I can and for as long as it's still fun - and if future projects are anything like the current one regarding the fun-factor and the gratification I get out of it, I might be in for a longer ride through the Finnish seasons.

... either I'm going crazy or I'm actually growing up. I actually enjoy working. What's wrong with me?! ;p

Mysterious party injury

Song of the day:
Fear Factory - Act of God

So it appears I was a bit too wild last night: my right foot has a mysterious party injury, and I don't have the slightest idea what I did or how it happened. It doesn't really feel like I twisted my ankle, more like I kicked the sole really, really hard on some edge.
It's very annoying, because it's quite noticable when I'm walking, and it even stings a bit if I just have the foot "resting" on the floor; kinda highly pressure-sensitive at the moment. :(

On top of that, my back is a total mess today. Guess that's why my mom always told me to not go out with nothing but a light jacket when I was all hot and sweaty. I need a long trip to the sauna I think .. luckily, tomorrow will feature gym again, which includes sauna. \o/

But now, I think I should catch up on some sleep again, so..

Ta-taa!

D'n'B #2

Song of the night:
Gorillaz - Fire coming out of the Monkey's head

The Drum'n'Bass madness continues. I really tasted blood now, and last night's 'Breakbits' event at Klubi (link in Finnish) was a blast. Talked to one of the DJs a bit last night before he went on stage, and he said if things go right, it'll become a regular event there, with one Saturday per month being dedicated entirely to breakbeats and Drum'n'Bass. Hallelujah!

The whole show started at around 10pm, but due to a holdup at M's place (good God, they just wouldn't finish their beer!), I only arrived at shortly before midnight. Turns out that wasn't all so bad - although I was mightily annoyed on the way there - because at that time, the Eurovision Song Context was just about to finish and hardly anybody had been dancing anyways.
I grabbed a drink to stock up on some liquid, then headed for the dancefloor ... and pretty much stayed there until shortly before 4am, with only short breaks to get new drinks in between, switching to "just water with ice please" at around 2am. I'm sure I haven't been sweating so much in the gym yet... ^_^

At some point, one of the other few early people on the dancefloor started chatting away with me in the short breaks of slower beats, later invited me to come to his and his (omghot!!) girlfriend's place for some weed and philosophical debates about music, life and everything else (that's almost a direct quote by the way!) .. and if it hadn't been for his girlfriend disagreeing with his intentions, I'm sure I'd have spent quite a nice afterparty as well. Ah well, it was good as it was!

In any case, I arrived back home at around 5am, and pretty much just dropped dead into my bed after having some warmed-up pasta for early breakfast, and only woke up about an hour ago because my mom called.

Other than missing the company of S for the dancing, it was a most awesome Saturday night for sure.

Time to grab a shower and head off to the gym, the rest of my body should feel about as tired as my legs/feet do right now... :p

Ta-taa.

PS: Oh, and Finland won the Eurovision Song Contest. Haha, how hilarious is that! ^_^

I'm not like other people (no shit!)

Song of the day:
The Herbaliser - Mind in the frame

In Finland, the sun hardly ever shines, it's cold, people are introvert and don't like foreigners and it's overall very depressing. At least that's what people say.

In Finland, I've had more bright blue skies and sunshine in the past 10 weeks than I remember having in Bonn in the entirety of 2005, "cold" is a relative term and, having experienced +28°C first hand, I don't think it's the correct term in such a general way; people have been very open-minded, friendly and helpful, I've met some awesome Finns that I feel closer to than to some of the people in Germany I've known for a year or longer, without spending more time with them. Finland is a great place to be at. At least that's what I say.

Now, I have no clue exactly when I turned into such a disgustingly positive thinking optimist, but I have to admit that I begin to like my attitude and prefer it over my formerly defeatist, supposedly "realist" line of thinking. I'm guessing it's the age that finally gets to me... ^_^

In any case, my time here so far has been a blast. I'll have to admit that I have yet to experience The Finnish Winter (insert horror-movie music here), but I'm bound to believe that there's plenty of upsides to a few crispy cold, snowy white and not-so-light months.
For starters, how could you appreciate and look forward to sunny Spring and warm Summer, if it wasn't for the dark and cold Winter?



...come to think about it, I really should be more careful with the Happy Pills. ^_^

Ta-taa.

So long, and thanks for all the fish...

Song of the timespan since last post:
Metallica - Nothing else matters

I've had a busy real life, which resulted in hardly any internet life of any kind. So if I missed any 'important' online events, I'm terribly sorry ... or maybe I'm not. I'll see how fast I can catch up with some of the blogs I've been frequenting, but chances are I won't go further back than one or two posts.

Work's being a blast lately, and although it's still occasionally frustrating to the pulling-my-own-hair level, there's also more and more occasions where I notice that all the effort comes to fruition. Bugs getting fixed in the way you suggested is a nice thing, and it's a way better feeling to read your own translation in a dialog or setup wizard than I would've thought. It's amazing, really.

After two months of working, I've finally settled into being used to procedures and I'm being quicker with adapting to new problems and solving them. Our senior test engineer seems to consider me competent enough to handle special tasks, which is very nice although it means more work. I'm becoming an achiever in my old days it seems...

In completely other news, I've started to work out at one of the local gyms, finally beating that little voice in my head that kept me locked down so often. I didn't remember how good doing some physical excercise can feel, and although I'm far from my days in the army fitness-wise, at least I know where I can get again if I only put some effort into it.
Not to mention all the cute girls at the gym... ;)

In any case, it's almost 1am already again, and I gotta get up early in the morning.

Ta-taa.