And that's what's wrong!
No idea how many people are reading this who don't know German, but apologies to you.
I just stumbled over the perfect example of what's wrong with Germany on the Titanic website, and this is it:

Daniel Sibbe, on Titanic website
"Daß Job-Center bei der Vermittlung von Zeitarbeitskräften nicht immer ein glückliches Händchen beweisen, erfuhr ich bei meiner studentischen Aushilfstätigkeit in einem namhaften Lebensmittel-Discounter. Während der Inventur bemerkte ich zufällig eine Schülerin, die mühselig ein Überraschungsei nach dem anderen zählte. Hilfsbereit trat ich auf sie zu: »Entschuldigung, aber mach es dir doch leichter! Auf jeder Palette sind 6 mal 4, also 24 Eier; es sind insgesamt, Moment, 6 Paletten, sprich: 6 mal 24 gleich 144 Eier, und auf der ersten Palette fehlen 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; ergibt somit: 144 minus 8 gleich 136 Eier!«, woraufhin sie nach anfänglichem Stirnrunzeln freudestrahlend ausrief: »Genial! Geht das auch mit der Milch da drüben?"

Picture-perfect example of everything that's wrong with education levels in Germany and their immediate effect on jobs, life, unemployment rates and everything else.
If I can be arsed, I'll translate it later today, now bed calls.

Ta-taa.

Caught in the act
Last week featured a field testing trip to Düsseldorf, and on Thursday night we went out to a club called "3001", where this shocking piece of evidence was shot.
Truly caught in the act ... and I'll be damned if I remember it, even though that looks like a particularly nice back. ;)

Read more about the FT trip here.

I'll write something again soon(tm), now it's back to bed for me, had a little fight going on with my stomach today, need some rest.

Ta-taa.

Back in town
Riga last night was a blast, the nightlife as mesmerizing as it was promised to be, with an abundance of bars, terraces and nightclubs in the center.
As much fun as I had last night and today when I was walking around, I also couldn't help but notice the glaring difference between the distinct clean and "western" center of the city, where all the nightlife, shopping malls and "places to be" are located, and the gloomy, partially abandoned, sometimes ruined and collapsed houses of suburbia, all with quite a tangible sovjet touch to it. It was quite an experience to see those sharp differences...

In any case, I'll have to go back there again, the city has quite some charme and it deserves more than half a day of walking around with heavy luggage.

But now, I'm off to bed, the office calls again in the morning and I feel quite a bit exhausted.

Ta-taa.

There was a young lady of Riga...
Well, from all I can say so far, there are quite a lot of young ladies here, and my-oh-my they're good-looking!

I'm currently staying in a hostel in Riga on my way back to Tampere, and I'm about to get involved with the local nightlife, which is said to be shimmering and enthralling. Wish me luck so I don't run into any problems (I doubt I will, but better be safe etc), I'll report again when I've arrived in Tampere tomorrow night.

Ta-taa.

And there was an update...
Work's been buzzing, I've been traveling a lot, been to Helsinki 10 days ago due to another project I got involved in at work and had a most relaxed weekend in Mannheim, Germany, where I visited NH and saw parts of "home, sweet home" for the first time in 3 months. It felt good!

I've still not heard from SOAS, but since I got my contract renewed until end of October, that's more of a formal issue now, with university having been put on ice for the time being. If I'm actually accepted, I'll have to phone them and ask if the offer is good for next year as well due to the changed circumstances at work and all. Unlikely, but who knows.

I'm enjoying Finland and working, but I'm not sure how long it'll take for boredom and routine to settle in and get the better of me; so I'm quite happy that the renewal was only until end of October, another 4 and a half months for now.
If I still like it, I can still go and try for another renewal.

If I don't ... well, that's the crux, really. Got a lot of ideas stuck in my head at the moment.

Been thinking of going back to Germany, back to Bonn. I like the city, and I'll still have a few people there, at least until the end of the summer next year. I could most likely start in "my" bar again, another place I like a lot, along with the people. Work until end of next summer, re-apply for SOAS if needed, move to London and get a degree after all. Wouldn't be the worst idea I've had, and would sure as Hell calm down my parents a bit, as well as offer new opportunities.
Alternatively, I could re-apply at University of Leiden, use my idle time until the summer to learn Dutch properly so I don't have to put up with that bachelor bridging year they impose on people who don't know Dutch.
Those are the "normal", quite safe and sound plans, I guess, if it all works out.

Then there's the idea of just packing it all up and heading off to China or Indonesia for a while, or both, working as a freelancing teacher for German and/or English and taking the respective language's classes then and there, in a surrounding where I have to learn and adapt my knowledge quickly. If I save up a bit of money in the next few months, living expenses there should easily be covered, and I'd obviously get paid for the teaching part.

Then there's moving back to Bonn, working in the bar and some other stuff on the side, and get a foot into the travelling stuff Quug and I have been idioting on about. That'd require quite a bit of cash though, not sure how easily that's attainable ... not to mention the heat I'd probably get from my parents.

In any case, my immediate future's somewhat unclear at the moment, and I can't say I don't like it. I feel I'm getting more spontanious and adventuring again, and I like it; in fact, I've been missing it a bit. I even started writing and drawing a bit, although it's frustrating how slow, incoherent and flat it all is. I remember I used to be better, but that was 8 years ago and I wasn't spoilt by real life that much I guess.

Bah, I sound like an old man. I clearly don't feel like one though. ;)

Anyways, time for bed here, work in the morning.

Ta-taa.

Time of abscence
So I've been busy having a real life for once, and truth be told, I'm starting to enjoy and like it this way.
I've had a series of great weekends, finishing last weekend in London with what probably was the single most awful hangover I've had. Ever.
The trip to London was awesome nevertheless.
I managed to meet up with RP, whom I hadn't seen in 5 years since she went to Princeton to study, and although it was a short meet - I arrived at around 2:30am on Saturday, she left around noon the same day - it felt good seeing her again and talking a bit. Admittedly, I'd have loved to talk more, catch up a bit and chat about all the stuff that's been happening since we last saw each other. Guess I'll have to take a trip to Cambridge one of these days.
Saturday was mostly spent walking through London, checking in at most of the downtown tourist places and finishing it off with a quick food-shopping trip before diving into The Party.

The Party was just awesome. Tons of people I didn't know before but were really enjoyable company (some even more than in just the regular way ;)), quite a nice amount of booze (and then some) and lots of fun.
Along came Sunday, with The Hangover and my flight back, a combination that I can't really recommend. I left my personal mark in three different bathrooms at Stansted Airport, in 3 of those funky paperbags during the flight and then once in one of the bathrooms at Tampere Airport. Yes, I was feeling a bit woozy in the stomach...
Unfortunately, Sunday was April 30th and thus the day before May 1st, more commonly known in Finland as 'Vappu' and incidentally the biggest commonly celebrated holiday after New Year's Eve - which basically means nothing other than everyone drinking themselves out of their mind and going crazy on the streets, including costumes and all that. For Finnish people, "getting drunk out of their mind" means that they lose their ability to walk straight; which is a very scary thing considering the amounts they can drink before that happens.
So there I was, stuck with a Hangover From Hell and Vappu. Luckily, people had been drinking the night before already (or were drunk already), so I got away with just water (and God was I thankful for that).

Now everything's back to normal again. Which also means I'll continue having a real life as much as I can. Blog entries will be a bit rarer again, but I'll try to keep everyone up-to-date with the bigger events in my life. See you around,

ta-taa.

Why you should learn to pronounce words correctly!
OMG, you simply have to hear this.
It's comedy gold and definitely not work-safe!.

My stomach hurts from laughing, this is just wrong on so many levels...

Parental Advisory: This might cause your head to explode!
So I received one of those annoying chain mails today. After scrolling down the list of forwards and stupid one-liner comments like "oh well, usually I don't do this but " for a few minutes, I got down to the gist of it, and here's it:

"For every person you send this mail to, Bill Gates will pay you $245, for every person you've sent this mail to and who sends it to another person, he will pay you $244, and for each third person that receives this mail through the person you sent the mail to in the first place, Bill Gates will pay $243."

Now, it was obvious to me, that this was no different than any other of the 2379582394 generic chain mails that go around, but for some reason I wanted to find out exactly how many mails it would take to bankrupt Bill Gates if that mail's content was true. After a few hours of discussion and math explanation (my math sucks, big time!) with a friend from school, he had not only figured out a comparably easy formula (I was expecting a way more complicated one!) but had also managed to explain the formula to me in a way that my way-below-average understanding of math had been wrapped around it.
For example's sake, I will assume that every person receiving this email will forward it to another 10 people, who will then forward it to another 10 people and so on.
So it looks like this:

1. person sends 10 mails
2. persons sends 10 mails, resulting in 10x10 mails sent
3. persons sends 10 mails, resulting in 10x10x10 mails sent

thus it is true that the first person receives 10*245+100*244+1000*243 = 269850 Euro

Since every 2nd and 3rd persons who send that mail thus become a 1st person, as soon as their mail gets forwarded again, we have a nice loop here, which effectively, at least for a linear and easy way to calculate Bill Gates' bankruptcy, makes everyone in the chain a 1st person.
Considering the amounts of people I've seen in the recipients lists of those wretched chainmails so far (sometimes going beyond 50 recipients), I think I'm on the safe side when assuming that reaching 10 different persons on each level works even in today's situation of social networking...
According to Forbes Magazine, Bill Gates is worth $48 bil, which is roughly € 39,9 bil, which I will round up to 40 bil for calculations sake. Getting back to our calculation, while taking Billy's whopping net worth of € 40000000000, and our previously calculated € 269850 per first person, it would take this amount of emails (or different 1st persons) to bankrupt Bill Gates:

40000000000 / 269850 = 148230 (and a bit)

If you take the log_10 of that, you get the amount of levels it needs to get to that amount of emails (it is roughly 5.1).
It is safe to assume that Microsoft/Bill Gates would never go through with such a wild idea of wasting his money, ever.

The formula, for those who're interested in playing around with it, should be:

log_10 (b / (x₁*m + x₁*x₂*(m-1) + x₁*x₂*x₃*(m-2)) = n

with

• b = Bill Gates' networth
• x_n = amount of persons involved for payout (you could change this to x, y, z (etc) for distinction purposes)
• m = amount of money being paid
• n = levels required for bankruptcy

A boatload of thanks to Roland, who led me through this and worked out the formula. Thanks for wasting your time with me on a completely nonsensical calculation that serves no real purpose other than being posted on this blog. ;)

Ta-taa.

Real life goes sci-fi
If any of you ever read or played anything related to cyberpunk sci-fi (Cyberpunk 2020, GURPS Cyberpunk or Shadowrun), "artificial muscle", "muscle enhancement" and similar terms and the ideas behind them won't be new to you.
What used to be part of the cyberpunk/sci-fi world of games, books and movies is now becoming reality though. As reported The Observer, "scientists have developed artificial, super-strength muscles powered by alcohol and hydrogen, which could eventually be used to make much better prosthetic limbs. The artificial muscles are 100 times more powerful than the body's own (...)".
Welcome to the 21st century. Where can I get my set of cybereyes, 12x zoom, low-light and IR vision modes included?

Ta-taa.

This goes to my little brother (who really isn't that little at all)
Next week, your final exams begin and I remember the dread I felt when I first was where you are now. Keep in mind that it's just another exam though! Everyone goes all fuzzy about them, but they really don't differ that much from regular exams, other than they're the last ones, and one is oral.
I'm not saying you shouldn't try to make the best of the remaining days to review whatever you feel is most necessary to review, but don't let all the stress that people tend to attach to those exams get to you, it's really not worth it.
Despite any fights we've had and despite the things I might've said, I know you're a damn smart person and truth be told, I think you're way fitter to pass these exams than I ever was. So go and show them that we might be weird and complicated but capable nevertheless. And after all, it's about being capable and nothing else.

I have your back. Kick some n00b teacher ass for me!