The greatest eloquence seems like stuttering

I gave an interview today, for a persona article in a local popular science journal "Tarkade klubi".

The interview itself took about an hour. What I enjoyed more was the photo session that came after - as me and the photographer got talking - about life in general and women in particular. In the end, the session took roughly 3 hours.. but I think he had some pretty good pictures... and we both managed to get a deeper insight into our problems.

In some level, it is normal - as a good photographer has to know how to get his subjects to open up and expose themselves. Then again, so does a good teacher. It was a learning experience, and a very positive one, as it rarely happens that you get to that level of conversation with someone who is basically paid to hang out with you. But instead of just "doing his job", he took a genuine interest, and was present in the situation not as a photographer but as a person.

To dare to be human. Something to which I also aspire to in my own work as an educator. But it is good to see I am not the only one doing so :)

Snow Leopard

Went out for a walk around Lake Harku.

First, I went to the beach, where there are a few swings set up. It is interesting but swinging is one of the most freeing and mind-clearing things that I know. Which I really needed. Christmas is a hard time for me, mentally. So, slipping off the swing and landing flat straight into the snow was.. well just what I needed. So much so, in fact, that I deliberately threw myself onto the snow carpet again, and just lay there for about a minute.

The path was snowed in most of the way, so for about half an hour, I was walking in half a meter deep snow where I often sank into all the way up to and including my knee. So it was pretty tough going, but that was what also made it so enjoyable.

Eventually, I arrived at a suburb filled with fairly new buildings, quite a few of which had fairly nice American-style Christmas decorations. I walked around there for a while, until I came onto a road that seemed to reach back towards my home.

I started walking, but pretty soon realized that this path (meant for cars) was also snowed in, effectively rendering that small suburb cut off from the rest of the world. I guess this is pretty common in more remote places in Estonia, but would not have thought Id see it so close to the capitol.

Also - Im currently reading a book ("The Snow Leopard") about an expedititon to the Himalayas. Today really helped me understand and appreciate the hardships that the author describes

The long journey home

I started from my home in Tartu at around 4 PM. I made it to my home in Tallinn at 10 PM.

What happened? Some accident on the railway last night, as far as I understood. Which to me as a passenger meant the following:

Arrive at the railway station 15 minutes before the train was scheduled to depart.

Then waited 40 minutes in -10 C cold for the train to actually arrive. Needless to say that what little I know of qigong came in very handy.

Then the train arrived. And departed, around half an hour later than scheduled.

And it only went up to Aegviidu, where we had to switch to busses.. which took us to Kose, where we got back on a different train, which finally took us to Tallinn - just in time to miss my trolley so I had to wait yet 10 more minutes in the -10 degree cold.

I would like to say I was productive and got a lot of reading done on the way. Sadly, that is not quite the case. I was somewhat distracted with thoughts about the previous two nights.

It's complicated. Thankfully, I'm too tired to overthink it so I just think about the good parts.

Mmmm... :)

Why?

I have been asking myself that question a lot lately. Why do I do the things that I do. And for most of the stuff I do not have a clear answer yet.

The only exception is teaching. There the answer is simple:
a) It is doing good to someone other than myself
b) I am fairly well suited for it and enjoy the process
c) Immediate positive feedback

Best example of the last point: I had my students grade all the lectures in my Introduction to Informatics course on a 10 point scale with 5 being "An average university lecture" and 10 being "The best lecture I have ever attended". The worst score any of the lectures got on average was 5 - which means, the worst lecture in the series was still considered "about average" :).

Even better, though. Of the 19 lectures being graded, The three I gave got places 3-5. Second place was just a little off and as for the first place.. well, Tõnu Samuel really is amazing and by far the best lecturer I have yet to meet - at least on the topics I have seen him talk on...

As for some other things, I have some general ideas, but nothing that specific:

Bass playing helps me relax and get my mind off everyday problems.

Taiji does the same, but on a somewhat different level.

Dancing (the course I have been taking) - mostly physical social contact - something which I do not get enough of otherwise, since I have a pretty high need for it which is somewhat hard to satisfy for a single young man mostly looking for a stable long-term relationship (as opposed to "just having fun").

Cooking - well, to please my friends and to get some positive feedback... although, force of habit is starting to kick in with this one :)

My main problem, however, is that I have no answer to "why do I do science?". To pay the bills? It is drifting more and more towards that direction every day. Maybe time is ripe for a change in that respect... either a change in topic (which I have been planning anyways) or a change in career path. Remains to be seen, which one it will be. For now, however, my PhD thesis still needs its last chapter and I have come too far on that to stop so little short of the degree :)

And on the 7-th day he rested

I hoped I would come back from Japan and could take it easy for a week...
Well, one may dream... In any case, it did not turn out quite that way.

I have:

Graded 40 tests for Programming course.

Prepared two lectures for Introd. to informatics course.

Done a lot of organisatiorial work concerning that said course

Programmed a small piece of software to help with musical training.. and tested it on musicians.

Participated in an art project that consisted of short video sketches.

Torn an old scar open.. again. I really should stop scratching it.

Taken an exam I did not have enough time to study for (and the only thing that saved me was the fact it was a take-home exam)

Taken another test myself, without having -any- time to study for it.

Attended a PhD defence and two business meetings..

Created 11 more problems for the make-up tests for the programming course.

And this has been this week (and mostly the past two days). I honestly do not remember what happened with the last one, but I remember it being just as busy, if not more. I think I programmed Sharemind a little, but Im pretty sure there were at least 5 more things.

It seems I have managed to get enough done to have one day of rest this weekend, though.

Thank god for that.

The long morning after

So, I went to bed after being awake for nearly 48 hours. I did not set an alarm clock.

I woke up 17 hours later. My personal record.

Also - oh f*ck, because I had plans for Saturday. To get on top of everything again.
Ah, well, plans change - what I planned to do saturday afternoon mostly got done, just a few hours later, mainly between 1 and 7 AM Monday morning.

At 8 I gave an inspiring lecture about attitudes to first-year students... which came out pretty good, if the feedback is any indicator. I actually got an applause when I finished :)

Then another 6 hours of work and school, followed by an hour of walking, half an hour in meetings and then an hour of dance lessons... and now I am back home.. and counting 22.5 hours uptime again.

My plans of resting this week failed. I have an exam next Monday, in a course I have not attended for over a month. I also have a small thing about Sharemind which needs to be done ASAP, but that should hopefully be a pretty minor thing. In any case, it seems I have my hands full again.

Ah well, at least I have a week of rest behind me, and am feeling pretty good about life in general :)

Big in Japan

I mentioned a few curiosities in the first post already. Since then, a few more things caught my eye whilst I was there.

Japanese gardens, though very reminiscent of their Chinese counterparts, are usually considerably bigger and somewhat more dense in terms of flora. However, both share a common characteristic - namely, the garden is built around nature, not of nature - so everything human-made is built so as to be in harmony with the natural things (trees, rocks, ponds) surrounding it. The gardens are also planted so as to bring out the essence of nature, so the feeling you get is like walking in the woods... only multiplied 10 times. Serenity cubed :)

Vending machines for drinks (and cigarettes) really are everywhere. Including temples, which usually have small designated rest areas with a few of them.

Recycling is big. Separate trash cans for bottles and soda cans can be found on every other street corner. Sometimes, there is also a separate container for magazines and newspapers.

Normal trash cans (for ordinary trash such as packaging material or food remnants) are often next to impossible to find. Considering this, I seriously wonder how they manage to keep the streets as clean as they do. However they do it, they are doing a good job because the streets are considerably cleaner than in Estonia, or even Denmark for that matter.

The center of Kobe is a designated non-smoking area where even outside, you are only allowed to smoke in certain places. I like the idea, I really do. On the other hand, people are stuill allowed to smoke inside in the restaurants, which they do, but thankfully not too often.

Maps are not always north up, like in Europe, and so one has to be careful when looking at the maps posted around the streets. I saw maps that were south up and east up, but I presume all 4 are an option.

The traffic in Japan is left sided and the traffic laws are obeyed more strictly than in Europe. For instance, people only cross streets at designated places. However, the laws do have certain oddities. For instance, a green light for pedestrians still means you have to watch out for cars that are making a turn onto the street you are crossing as they also have a right to move at that time.

Also, despite the car traffic being left sided, the pedestrian traffic posessed no discernible pattern of sidedness. In airports, they sometimes had signs saying that if you stand on the escalator, stand on the right (so people can pass on the left), but other than that, it was completely random. This seemed odd to me, because the pedestrian chaos is in stark contrast to the usual orderlyness of the Japanese.

Smartphones are indeed ubiqiutous, and so are high-tech toilet seats, but I saw no other clear indicators that Japan is more advanced than either Europe or the US.

Japanese seem to be as fond of Casinos (Pachinko machines) as Estonians are, which came as a complete surpirse to me. Sad, to say the least.

A lot of sweets are green in color. Green Tea taste - very very common. for instance, Ice cream often comes in just two varieties - vanilla or green tea.

Doors often slide rather than swivel. The slide function is often automatic and activated by lightly pressing the handle. Takes some getting used to, because the first instinct is always to grab the handle, not just simply press it.

Most small places do not have any staff that speak english, but they may have an english menu or (more commonly) a menu with pictures or even a stand with plastic models of the dishes. The word "vegetarian" is also in common use, so finding things to eat was usually not a problem. And the food is truly delicious, even in fast-food type places.

Many western food (Italian, French, Indian) places are around, but they usually seem to be locally owned and operated.

Green tea is often free in restaurants - as much as you can drink. If not, then cold water definitely is. At least one of these is brought to the table for you first thing you enter and they usually refill it for you if you empty it.

Coffe is either cheap and tastes like dirt, or expensive but really, really good. Any place calling itself a Cafe usually had the latter. Allen (who had been in the coffee business) confirmed that Japanese have a reputation of buying the highest quality beans they can find around the world.

Both green tea and coffee are just as popular served chilled as they are served hot. Even in high-end cafes they ask whether you want coffee hot or cold, if you do not specify which when ordering.

Japanese are very polite and very friendly. Example. Me and Allen were walking around in the rain, looking for a Kobe beef restaurant. We asked directions from a girl advertising another restaurant on a street corner. a) She did not know where the place we wanted was, so she asked a friend. b) She then took us to the competing restaurant, walking with us for 100 m. c) When we realized that we still had to keep walking, she offered us her umbrella (despite needing it herself as well since she clearly wasn't dressed for the rainy weather). I had a chocolate bar from Estonia with me, so I gave it to her for such kindness :) But seriously, you rarely see something like this in Europe.

Finally - you would think I would be an odd sight for most Japanese, being on average 35 cm taller than they are, having dreadlocks and dressing like a hippie. However, the look that did arouse attention in both India and China somehow seemed completely normal to Japanese. Noone seemed to be surprised by the sight of me or to think I was odd or out of place there. Im guessing its to do with politeness, as it is presumably not polite to stare so they did not do it. Still, I felt kind of strange, because I am so used to getting weird looks, even in Estonia, and I just didn't get any there.

I enjoyed the trip. More than I expected. A lot more, in fact. I made good connections, talked with interesting people, saw multiple incarnations of perfection in both Temple and Garden architecture. Despite the current sleep deprivation phase, I have not felt as refreshed and mentally alert for a very very long period. I hope I can hold on to that feeling, as a lot still needs doing and I have a todo list that will probably keep me busy until the end of February. However, I will try not to get overwhelmed by all of it again, like before.

Or, rather
"Do not try to do it. Just do it!" - Mimic