S
Storytelling. Sri Lankan way of explaining things is far more context-bound than the short and snappy Finnish style. So, I just wanted to warn you in advance that these postings might become longer and longer every time, as I’m adapting to the local way of beating around the bush before getting to the point… Shit, I’m doing it already.
So…
Squiggle. When Janne asked the letter “S” to be showcased, his argument was that “it’s a nice squiggly shape”. I loved that argument because I’m a squiggle myself. Have you ever heard of Psychogeometrics? It’s a quick personality analysis based on the idea that a certain personality type identifies most with a certain geometric shape (circle, triangle, rectangle, box or squiggle). I wouldn’t go preaching in the name of it’s scientific applicability but I do think it’s about 80% accurate with most of the people. Moreover, it seems that Dr. Susan Dellinger was more or less serious when developing the concept. If you want, you can take the test here.
Sentimental. Saying Janne’s name made me realize one eerie fact: My team mates from last year are the people I miss the most (together with my girlfriend, family and best friends of course). How many people can actually say that some people they worked with previously are the ones that they miss the most? How many people tie true life-long friendships at the working place? How many people get a chance to experience something like that? Teamwork that I experienced last year in the leadership of AIESEC in
Saturday. My flatmate, Katty, was just fiddling with her laundry and said “Ooh, it’s good to be home on Saturday. Saturday is such a nice day.” There was a certain truth in that sudden outburst of feelings towards just another day of the week. I don’t long for being a tourist every weekend. I don’t have a need to go around the island and see the marvels of it. Of course, I’ll do it one day (when I have the three-week holiday with Paula!!!) but before that I’m just happy to chill at home.
Sauna. I need to find a sauna! I don’t want to go to any hotel for that but I want to find a proper Finnish sauna. I know there are Finns in this city and I know one or two of them had to be crazy enough to build a sauna somewhere. I was so desperate that I was trying to find one Googling, but search “sauna +
Smoking. Three weeks, 2 cigarettes, half a cigar and half a joint. That’s a dramatic decrease of what it used to be: pack a day. On Wednesday I fell for it the first time. I had my first mentoring meeting with Sifaan and somehow I just thought I deserve a smoke. I didn’t feel guilty at all. I just let it pass, like in the meditation. Now, yesterday, after the football we were lying on the lawn and I bummed a fag from one of the Germans I played with. At first it didn’t feel like such a big deal, but afterwards I felt really bad… physically! It gave me a huge headache and I had to hit the sack at around 10 pm already. I won’t judge myself if I still smoke one ciggy every now and then but now I at least know the physical addiction is gone, it’s not good for me anymore. My body rejects.
Sex… aika hiljasta.
Sinhalese. After the initial craze of “trying to be the best trainee ever” I haven’t been able to push myself to learn the language, although it was one of my initial goals for the internship to learn the language during the first six months. I know it’s only a matter of prioritization and discipline and that it would be really helpful for me while living here but for some reason it has not seemed that urgent yet. Kattellaan syssymmalla, sano Hynynen.
Serving. Some people in the trainee community here have showed me what it means to “Selflessly Serve Others” (one of the teachings in the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari). Without asking they are taking your used plate and washing it, asking if you want tea or doing other favors you didn’t really expect. It made me only think how selfish I am by nature. I still don’t know where to draw the line. For instance, when it comes to giving money to the beggars I’m really having mixed feelings. On one hand, these people need the 50 rupees more than I do but on the other hand I cannot get rid of this “guilt of not giving” with one or two donations. It should be continuous. Of course everything, eventually, is made for selfish reasons (see e.g. Mark Twain: “What Is Man?”). Like in this case I don’t want to have the sniggering feeling of guilt and donating would postpone the feeling until the next beggar comes into picture. Again, Erica is a good example. She used to donate a certain percentage of her salary to charity and she said she had been doing that for a few years already. I hope she’s still sticking to that virtuous habit. Although the salary in the member committee is not big, it’s a good start for sticking to a habit. Let’s say she gave now 10% of her salary to charity (around 50 EUR / month), in a few years it will already be 500 EUR / month as she proceeds on her career. But for her it’s still the same 10%. (Sorry mummo for using you as an example, I don’t know what’s your real situation at the moment.)
Stories. Usually when you go to someone’s blog you just skim it through without spending too much time on it. If it happens to be a good friend of yours, you might want to read a whole posting. But hardly ever, you go and savor the whole blogging history, posting by posting. As I found Alicia's Blog, I was stuck with it for the next couple of hours and I had to come back the following two nights to read it through. Alicia is a friend of mine, who was on her AIESEC internship in
Salmiakki. This is the best candy ever! It’s especially handy in
Serendipity. Everyone should know
Shopping. If writing this blog posting doesn’t take the whole day, I will go and do some shopping today. So far, I haven’t wasted that much money in clothes and all… I’ve bought two ties, three collar shirts, sarong, a pair of socks, some underwear, jeans and sandals and it cost me 7200 LKR. Additionally, I bought football and basketball shoes (4800 LKR). So, altogether that would be 12000 LKR, around 100 EUR. I need to buy slippers (Shreya, the Indian ones started malfunctioning!), fancy shoes (Paula, can you bring my black Eccos!) and fancy trousers (so far I’ve managed with one pair of these trousers, might want to wash them one day).
SOLD. When I was six years old, me and my parents moved to a newly built house in Ylamylly (that should be “a” with the dots). My dad drastically cut down the trees and made our yard much bigger. He built a barbecue hut and a large warehouse/carage. We planted dozens of spruce trees so that after several years it would become a fence. We renovated the interiors many times during the years and made it look a whole lot different, better I would say. Mom moved away as I was ten, but home stayed in Ylamylly. I moved away as I was 19, and home moved with me. Now, after being away for five years, it doesn’t hurt me to say that the place is sold. Dad and his fiancée got rid of the house and are now staying year-round in our “summer cottage” (in reality it’s a house, not a cottage). Although I don’t feel that sad for the house as such, it was a bit emotional when my dad asked me through SMS: “We’re moving. Shall I throw away your old books and drawings?” However, I’m happy for my dad. It’s a good new start for him. Slowly but surely he’s preparing to become a happy pensioner, a life where he can concentrate on whatever he wants, without having to go to work every morning just to feed the family. My mom is also in a similar situation in Joutsa. Though she’s sometimes feeling a bit sad and lonely, I do hope that both of them will live happily ever after. To be frank, I miss them and I’d like to be there at least once in a while to make sure they are enjoying life to the fullest.
Shower. I’m so happy; we got a huge improvement in our house, a new jet shower! Previously we had just a strand of water coming from a pipe, now it’s a real shower. Of course there’s no hot water, but I don’t miss that too often.
Saimaa. I hope my local committee is doing fine. I’ve had a couple of chats with Valtteri, the current local committee president, and I’m confident their team is able to get the act together and take the organization to the next level. Happy 30-year anniversary AIESEC Saimaa!!!
Suomi. That’s
Sleeplessness. I have had some serious insomnia issues since I moved into this house. The thing is that I had two mattresses in my bed and because of that the bed sheets were falling off every night. Now I removed another one of them but I don’t believe it completely solves the problem. See, I have woken up a couple of nights because some icky bug has crawled into my bed. One night it was just a small one and I managed to squash it in my linen (eeow!) but the other night something was crawling in my hair. Shit, I jumped up and did my “Prodigy: Firestarter” performance to get it off. I still don’t know what it was but my guess would be a cockroach. Indeed, the very next day there was this 5 cm roach strolling in my bed when I came home. I don’t know if I ever get used to this. I don’t know if I have to…
Sun. I have got sun-burned twice already! Me, sun-burned… I never burn! Two weeks ago it was justified; I was reading a book for a few hours in direct sunlight. Conversely, last weekend in Mirissa it wasn’t sunny at all but splashing in the waves for quite sometime managed to have its effect although it was cloudy. Now my dead skin is peeling off and I’m gradually losing the tan. Maybe I just have to admit that I’m Caucasian and not Native American or Hawaiian as some people have claimed. Btw, it’s funny what kind of conclusions people draw of Finns in general when they deal with me. One guy said as any good researcher, “I’ve come to understand that all the Finns have long eyes”. I was like: “Dude, I might have a bit Chinese-looking eyes, but it doesn’t mean all the Finns are like this”. I just wonder what kind of image they have of Finnish food when they hear me complaining that Sri Lankan food is not spicy enough.
Strategic leadership. One of my dreams might come true sooner than expected. I haven’t really let myself get too carried away with the idea yet, because honestly I think there are more urgent, though highly operational, work-issues to be solved before. Ruki, my boss and colleague, has started implying to the possibility that we should write and publish a book. We’re both these people who pitch in ideas all the time, so I don’t know how serious he is, and how ready I am. But deep down I know that I’d love to make it happen! Already when I was writing my thesis, my professors said that there’s only one problem with it: I’m writing in too interesting and catchy tone, scientific text should be more to-the-point and… well, boring. But they encouraged me to consider writing a book, where my style would be not only justified, but preferred. And what it has to do with strategic leadership, one might ask. It has everything to do with that. First of all, like I implied before, currently I’m too focused on operational day-to-day deliverables to take initiative and make this kind of longer-term project start. So, at the moment I’m falling into the trap that lurks for every manager: becoming too operational, instead of being a strategic leader.
SugarCRM. This is a great open-source product for customer relationship management, way better than anything I’ve used before. The only hardship for a business graduate is the installation part. I have no idea what they say in the installation instructions. Umm… what is a Java server MySQL applet? Anywho, this reminds me of the fact that our entrepreneurial plans are starting to actualize. We almost got the start-up capital gathered, first customer is knocking on the door and there is now a core group of three people taking things forward. Antti and Jukka, thanks for being so active! This is the start of something spectacular. Keep the faith!
posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Saturday, September 16, 2006
2 Comments:
"You appear to be a COMBINATION of more than two Shapes.
You could be quite a complex person, or perhaps you haven't given enough thought to the questions!"
Very accurate indeed :)
Tomi,
Meilläkin on ikävä sinua. Janne ja mina sanotaan "Moi!" Lego-tiimi on hyvä. Kauan eläköön Lego-tiimi!
Terveisin,
Erica
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