Looking back

The past three weeks have probably been the busiest time of my life.

So what have I done?

Graded 40 tests in the Programming course and failed half of my students :(
Gave a talk at institute days and at the open doors day
Managed to inspire two students to keep on going..
Fixed the schedule for Introduction to Informatics.
Wrote up a homework assignment
Took a test and an exam
Finished programming the division protocol for Sharemind
Did its error calculations.
Participated in a 24-hour programming contest.
Attended two conferences on "science and media"
Attended various get-togethers (collegues, family, friends)
Had a Dr. Who marathon with my now ex-roommate.
Dealt a little with the Thing that Shall Not Be Mentioned
Went to 1 Taiji practice each week.
Played Bass (not as much as I would have liked)
Slept.. not too much but still

The first conference was pretty cool. Met a lot of new and interesting people and also got an overview of what the state of Science in the Media currently is and what direction things are moving.

I was pretty much the only one asking questions, initially. After the first session, I asked Aare Baumer why noone else was asking questions. He immediately interpreted it (correctly) as weltschmerz and recommeneded "Sex, Drugs and Rock-n-roll" as the only viable solution. I kind of have to agree. Never mind it was completely out of context and inappropriate. Needless to say, I like the guy even more now that I know he is completely insane. The Dr. House phenomenon, I suppose.

J. Aavik also gave a pretty good talk.. about science wars and how Guilliotine did not actually fall victim to his own invention, but did have to change his name after the revolution. And about Avoiding Boring People, an idea that Watson (as in Watson and Crick) has been popularizing for quite some time. Most of the other talks were also quite good.

After the dinner, a few people stayed behind talking and when the restaurant started closing, headed on to a nearby pub. Two people from Archimedes, two from Uni. of Tartu Research department, a girl who did her PhD in Canada and then me.

Also, met K. on the conference. Would not have expected to see her there. Then again, I hadn't seen her for over 4 months, I think. Then again, both of us have been busy...

Speaking of improbable meet-ups, I have two more recent cases. In the beginning of the semester, I walked into one of my psychology classes and saw a familiar face - one of the students from previous years "Programming 1" course, a math or stat student. However, since you do not expect to meet your statistics student in your psych lecture, I just assumed it was someone who looked like her. However, I ran into her at the second conference two days ago.. and since she was wearing a name-tag, It was pretty clear she in fact was who I thought she was - and indeed, it turned out that she had found statistics too hard so had switched to psychology mid-semester... and did not regret the decision :) And - of course - you do not expect to see your programming tutor in your psych lectures, either, so she had been equally shocked to see me :P

The second one is a bit different. A. called me just yesterday, as we were watching a movie with Riinu and her boyfriend.. I asked her to come over, which she did. Its kind of weird because we had not seen eachother since mid-summer, and it was usually me contacting her, not vice versa.

Looking back on the previous post. I have noticed one very sad tendency - nearly all of the girls whom I find interesting are just as busy or even busier than I am.. so chances of anything developing are.. well, nonexistent. Especially combined with the fact that I will (with very high probability) be leaving Estonia for 1-2 years next autumn.

Life. One day at a time. Ideally.

Why I love my work - and why I hate it

Some people even experience an entire career to put off building meaningful relationships

- zeFrank (on procrastination)

I love my job. The fact that there are so many so varied things that I can do, the fact that I get to learn all the time and the fact that I get to work with people individually and the fact that I occasionally get to speak in front of a hundred people (yes, I am a bit vain, but as Andi Hektor said today in a lecture - If a person has no vanity, there is just no motivation for him to get in front of people and speak). The fact that I sometimes manage to inspire people or at least make their lives better also helps - considering that even now, I sometimes think myself useless to the society, I really could not imagine my life if that really was the case - I need meaning in my work and giving back to the world is an integral part of it.

At a dinner discussion with Peeter Marvet (Tehnokratt, although he put that job down two years ago because it didn't pay enough) and Andi Hektor, the latter made a crucial observation that in IT, you see a lot of fanaticisim - people willingly putting 48 straight hours of work into something, just because it is fun (a la Garage48). This is seen in other fields too, but it seems much more common in IT - the reason, they conjectured, is that it is hard to disengage from something (inter)active, while most other fields are markedly passive (mostly consisting of routine chores, which often give no immediate feedback). Even in other sciences, the prevalent mode of work is passive - reading or observing, as opposed to doing yourself. The only other field of human endeavor where the same problem applies seems to be art - and indeed, I recently met an artist who seems to be having the same problem...

I do have to admit that programming has that entangling quality. I have been putting 30+ hrs into the division protocol for Sharemind the past two weeks - not because I had time for it, but because I just could not get it out of my head. Same tends to happen with mathematical problems (even simple ones), which also require such an active approach (and indeed, most famous mathematicians are also known for periods during which they did barely nothing else but think on a problem). Both math and computer science require intensive thought to solve a problem, while in most other sciences, at least part of the solution is usually fairly routine (finding subjects for the experiment) or at least requires a markedly lower amount of conscious effort (i.e. putting up lab equipment).

However, this same aspect of the job is also the one aspect which I really hate - it being so engaging makes it very difficult to disengage from it at times. It is very easy to overwork oneself and, more importantly, to use work as an excuse for not dealing with other important things. Relationships, for instance.

It is so easy to fool yourself into thinking that what you are doing in terms of work is more important and that it helps you to become "better" - smarter, more famous, richer - and, while this may well be true, it is also completely irrelevant. It does not matter, how "good" you are (whatever your criterion for goodness is), if you just do not have time for anything else. That goodness becomes self-reproducing - it becomes a thing in itself, disconnected from what is really important in life. Which is dangerous - especially because the person himself usually does not notice this is going on since his own priorities are the things that change. In short, he will start to think that the thing in itself is important as a thing in itself and that it is the most important thing in the world and that everything else is irrelevant.

Which will leave the person completely broken once that illusion is shattered for one reason or another...

If relationships are important to you MAKE TIME FOR THEM, if you can at all afford doing so (i.e. if doing so means you will lose your sustenance and die of famine, that constitutes a valid reason for not stopping. The facts that you will have less opportunities or be exposed to fewer things, do not)

A night with an Angel

Spent working and talking...

Sobering experiences

Today something happened to me that has never happened before during my 5 years of studying math in the university. I went to the lecture hall, received the test paper and realized that I did not have the slightest clue how to solve 2 of the 5 exercises. I managed to visibly shock both the professor and my co-students by asking "I don't think I have ever had to say these words before but - can the test be retaken later?". I guess I have become somewhat overconfident in my abilities.. and so has everyone else...

I then went to give a lab session in the introductory programming course. Of 30 students officially registered, only 13 were present (as opposed to the usual 22-26). A student later explained that they had just had their first official course party the day before.. And I almost thought it had been my bass playing which had scared them away.
(I walked around with a bass guitar while they were taking a test last week - I mean, what else do you really do when you have to guard a test?)

In the evening, a friend sent me a message saying she just realized she is going to break up with her boyfriend.. whom she has been together with for the better part of her life. I would be fooling myself if I said I knew how she felt - but at times like these, there really is nothing you can say... just being there for the person is the only thing a friend can do...

4 hours of sleep again. This time not by choice - I went to bed at 11, but got to sleep only at 3.30, after two episodes of House MD and some bass practice (since I really just could not fall asleep).

And it is snowing...

Estonians really cannot take compliments

Today, at the supermarket, I was loading my stuff onto the belt. There was a lot of it (I hadn't been to the store for over two weeks, I think). A woman came up behind me with just three items, and the clerk called to her saying that she should come before me, sso whe would not have to wait a long time. I relayed the message and the woman got her stuff checked out and paid for just as I finished unloading my basket.

I then said to the clerk "That was a really nice thing you did for that woman".. to which she replied apologetically "She just had three things, so it would not take too long... of course, that was unfair to you and... ". "I genuinely mean it, it was a nice thing you did.. Im in no hurry. No-one with as much stuff as I have could be. So it was a really nice thing you did".. but she still kept apologizing..

Sigh

Frantic, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tock

I cant remember the last time I prepared food before this evening. Must have been over a week.
What have I been doing?

Grading tests, writing a homework essay, studying for an exam, programming Division protocol for Sharemind, having a development interview and a medical check-up, preparing and giving a talk on the research groups in UT dpt. of Comp. Sci., attending a party two co-workers threw (and leaving early, sadly), and, most recently, spending two very pleasant hours with a nice girl whose name also happens to start with L.

What I haven't been doing is eating or sleeping properly - two of the things I do not like to compromise on, and haven't had to for a long while. Nevertheless, it is good to know I still can if I have to...

Hopefully, things will get a bit less hectic now. I still have a few things to take care of, but chances are that next week I will at least get back to regular sleeping patterns..

Some fun stuff

I happenned on the Tartu-Tallinn student bus yesterday.. along with one of my students.
Nearly halfway through the journey, one of my students came to me with his laptop, and asked if he could show me he homework assignment for grading... Of course, I agreed.

Today was my grandfathers 85-th birthday. A family gathering again. Had a pretty interesting discussion with my (not-unwealthy) uncle..

For instance, he described a few of the lecturers from his time in the university. He had to pass an examination somewhere during the term.. so when he went to ask when he could do it, the professor said "I have 5 minutes now. When does the judicial bond end?" My uncle, clearly caught off guard, thought a bit and then replied "On death". Professor said "Well, yes, but that is a pretty gloomy way of thinking about it. For instance, if you are riding in public transportation and you get asked for the ticket, do you really have to wait for the controller to die?"

Also, he had a lot to say on the following topic:

Basically, Swedish baks are actually making pretty good profits on the loans that went bad, since they can buy the real estate back, sell it to their daughter firms who then rent the places out and simply wait for the prices to increase again.. while the poor people who lost their homes are still paying back the part of the dept that was not covered by the estate being resold.

Also, a funny incident about one of the famous people in Estonia A. L., who basically got famous by robbing a jewelry store in Finland and being in jail there for a while for the crime.
Well, one night, this guy is walking in the old town of Tallinn, at a slow pace, whistling.
Thing is, a jewelry store had just robbed about 300 meters where he was walking. A friend of my uncle had just passed the robbed jewelry store and now informed A. of that fact and, as my uncle quoted "he had never seen a man run as fast in suede leather shoes".