I didn't blog lately. I didn't really feel like writing and even if I did, I wouldn't know what to write about. Ok. Now is sunday night and for the whole weekend, I went twice to the local Carl's Jr, tried to read something and watched tennis.
In my real life there is nothing happening so far, and the events I was focused about during last two weekends are remotely related to me: presidential elections in Serbia and Australian Open Championship. You can read on many places how great those serbian kids were playing in australia. Here I am about to write how I feel about this ridiculous choices offered on the last-week elections.
First, I would like to say a few words about presidential elections in serbia. Like, all other elections in serbia, this one didnt lack demagogic messages of all sorts addressing appropriate voting spaces. If I tried to compare this particular elections with the earlier ones I can remember, I couldn't find anything conceptually different. There were two big guys, and a bunch of small fishes. The two big guys had two completely opposite views on almost everything they talked about and the final results of the first stage (happened last week) are in agreement with the observation that on every single topic one can think of, the serbs will be divided in two parts of virtually identical sizes.
What annoys me is the incredible inability of serbian politicians to react on real problems, and there are so many of those: education (from primary to adult), legal system, corruption on every layer of society, and so on. They rather choose to talk about abstract notions of Kosovo, "our pride", "better life". And then I ask myself, how could anyone vote for those demagogies. The only thing I am certain of is the insufficiency of explanation.
By chance, just a few days after elections I watched Virgin Suicide . I have seen that movie several times before, but this time I noticed a scary resemblance between those teenage girls (living in a small American Midwest town strictly isolated by their parents from the rest of the world) and people of serbia. In such conditions of isolation, refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them seems inevitable. And then the infantile voting for demagogies is nothing but a pathway to the suicide of the nation.
Although, I wasn't directly involved with those elections, the implications for my life are very, very strong. Simply, as long as majority of people in serbia votes for demagogies, I cannot see myself living there; where police need to check my ID every couple of weeks like I am a criminal. Therefore, until the serbian society grow up I would rather be a polish guy in a foreign country. Sadly, but even being a polish guy in ireland seems as less miserable option.
I will try to get some photos next week and post them soon. Be good.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Lemoncello and giant trees
I dont remember if I told you how I opened my bank account? (I repeated the same procedure two times, the first time I wasnt eligible; the second time everything was ok and I got my account opened). Although I have account open, my paychecks are still not deposited directly to the account, so I have to bring them to the bank myself. So, since last weekend was raining like in hell, and I dont really have time to go out on weekdays, I decided to go to the bank on saturday and get that money deposited. I woke up, shaved myself, and erased that scary look from my face. In the train to downtown I got the call from some american number. The guy calling me wasnt any of very few people that could call me from america. It was KURT!!!! He was passing by, and he said that we could meet in San Francisco for a pint!? I thought he is joking with me, but then why would he do it?
So I took the train and was in SF in less than two hours. We ended up in some italian place with one irish waitress who was flirting with Kurt all the time. We spend more than a hundred$ and I dont regret any cent of it (cmon, its only 70eur ;-). Kurt introduced me to limonchelo and i remember it as a lovely drinkable beverage. Well, after I wrote this paragraph, I realized that I had a bullet 68. in my "2007 list": "Kurt travels the globe and when he doesnt he gives me the lessons in drinking". It seems that now he gives the tutorials on his trips as well ;-)
After we had our nice dinner, I decided to go to visit my high school friends, across the bay in Berkeley. Berkeley is a lovely place to live in. But my memories are mixed up. They dont really have public toilets, which can be uncomfortable, sometimes. The indian place had a very dry fish. And the chip downtown hotel, was probably the dirtiest hotel I have ever slept in, and remember I am coming from eastern europe and I have been staying in many chip ho(s)tels out there. However, seeing Matic and Vukmirovic was a memorable event. I know them since 1994, and it seems we didnt change at all since high school. Same stories, same jokes, probably the same pairs of shoes. Everything was the same, except we were 10 years older.
We decided to go to Muir Woods for the sequoia trip and then try to go the pacific to check out the whales migrating to the south. We were just few minutes too late to get the chance to see the whales but the trip through those gigantic woods was amazing. We look so tiny compared to those 1000 years old guys.
I was asked 5+ times over the weekend about the origins. When I was walking to city center in SF, one guy, asked me a question and I just said "no" . He replied: "you must be eastern european, right?"!!!??? So what makes it so obvious? My hair? Clothes? Nose? The way I walk? I dunno.
The work is going ok. I am trying to code some efficient algorithm in C and after I started to play with hundreds of pointers pointing in each direction I felt quite frustrated. It took me a couple of days to revive those good old days, when me and pointers were friends. However, like most good old days, those ones were better in memories than in reality.
So I took the train and was in SF in less than two hours. We ended up in some italian place with one irish waitress who was flirting with Kurt all the time. We spend more than a hundred$ and I dont regret any cent of it (cmon, its only 70eur ;-). Kurt introduced me to limonchelo and i remember it as a lovely drinkable beverage. Well, after I wrote this paragraph, I realized that I had a bullet 68. in my "2007 list": "Kurt travels the globe and when he doesnt he gives me the lessons in drinking". It seems that now he gives the tutorials on his trips as well ;-)
After we had our nice dinner, I decided to go to visit my high school friends, across the bay in Berkeley. Berkeley is a lovely place to live in. But my memories are mixed up. They dont really have public toilets, which can be uncomfortable, sometimes. The indian place had a very dry fish. And the chip downtown hotel, was probably the dirtiest hotel I have ever slept in, and remember I am coming from eastern europe and I have been staying in many chip ho(s)tels out there. However, seeing Matic and Vukmirovic was a memorable event. I know them since 1994, and it seems we didnt change at all since high school. Same stories, same jokes, probably the same pairs of shoes. Everything was the same, except we were 10 years older.
We decided to go to Muir Woods for the sequoia trip and then try to go the pacific to check out the whales migrating to the south. We were just few minutes too late to get the chance to see the whales but the trip through those gigantic woods was amazing. We look so tiny compared to those 1000 years old guys.
I was asked 5+ times over the weekend about the origins. When I was walking to city center in SF, one guy, asked me a question and I just said "no" . He replied: "you must be eastern european, right?"!!!??? So what makes it so obvious? My hair? Clothes? Nose? The way I walk? I dunno.
The work is going ok. I am trying to code some efficient algorithm in C and after I started to play with hundreds of pointers pointing in each direction I felt quite frustrated. It took me a couple of days to revive those good old days, when me and pointers were friends. However, like most good old days, those ones were better in memories than in reality.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Moneytalks
Nothing special happened last couple of days/weeks... Last weekend we had a serious weather condition as we got 20cm of rain in two days. Thats a lot of rain, but hopefully it will be the last burst of rain of this magnitude until december :-) Before that, last wednsday I had a meeting with a guy with a wikipedia article. It was ok, but I couldnt really explain why my boss sent me to talk to him. So none of us wanted to be in that meeting and it was initially very uncomfortable. Then it got better, but generally it was a waste of time, his time (loss of my time is a few orders of magnitude less important so it can be neglected;-).
Then on friday my boss asked me whether I can/want to stay another few months. I quickly found an excuse, saying "I want but my irish boss dont let me".(I thought I would never be grateful to bob for not allowing me to stay in cisco for more than 3 months.). His relpy was something like "Why not? We can pay you and you can do research for him..." Anyway, I dont think I would be able to live there longer than three months. But, again, maybe I am wrong. Money can change the way people feel
Insomnia, I had insomnia most of nights since I came here. I dont know why. I am healthy, dont have any emotional problem, my body functions well, but when it comes to sleeping it doesnt work. I have been falling asleep for last 27 years, every night (almost every night) so I guess I should know how to do it quickly. But it doesnt work. I had the same problem few years ago but then I started to watch movies every night and it helped. Now even movies dont help. Can anyone tell me how to deal with this issue?
Btw, I signed up for netflix. 14$ a month and you can keep 2 dvds at all time. As soon as you finish watching a dvd you return it and in two days you get the new one from your wishlist. Amazing service. I wish something like this exist in ireland.
Finally, to illustrate my Gastarbiterism I will tell you a short story. I get roughly 3.08 hours of holydays every week, which is roughly 5 days for 13 weeks. So I was planning to use those days and go to visit friends nyc/boston for couple of days. Then last week they told me at work that all unused holiday are paid on the end of the internship, so I decided that having fun is not as important as geting a grand, so i will probably stay closed in my fucking San Jose .
Then on friday my boss asked me whether I can/want to stay another few months. I quickly found an excuse, saying "I want but my irish boss dont let me".(I thought I would never be grateful to bob for not allowing me to stay in cisco for more than 3 months.). His relpy was something like "Why not? We can pay you and you can do research for him..." Anyway, I dont think I would be able to live there longer than three months. But, again, maybe I am wrong. Money can change the way people feel
Insomnia, I had insomnia most of nights since I came here. I dont know why. I am healthy, dont have any emotional problem, my body functions well, but when it comes to sleeping it doesnt work. I have been falling asleep for last 27 years, every night (almost every night) so I guess I should know how to do it quickly. But it doesnt work. I had the same problem few years ago but then I started to watch movies every night and it helped. Now even movies dont help. Can anyone tell me how to deal with this issue?
Btw, I signed up for netflix. 14$ a month and you can keep 2 dvds at all time. As soon as you finish watching a dvd you return it and in two days you get the new one from your wishlist. Amazing service. I wish something like this exist in ireland.
Finally, to illustrate my Gastarbiterism I will tell you a short story. I get roughly 3.08 hours of holydays every week, which is roughly 5 days for 13 weeks. So I was planning to use those days and go to visit friends nyc/boston for couple of days. Then last week they told me at work that all unused holiday are paid on the end of the internship, so I decided that having fun is not as important as geting a grand, so i will probably stay closed in my fucking San Jose .
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Dump: short term memory
I dont know about other people, but i tend to have a short memory. In other words, if you ask me to list you things that happened to me over last week, last month, last year or so, the answers would be equally long. Thats the reason I tried to list things that I could find in my short-term memory as of today and hopefully google will keep it on some safe place so that i can replace it with some new stuff.
1. Losing drink-virginity: Me and Miske with 8 dunjas each.
2. First time in the US. Big cars and no people on the strets.
3. Dzhuna showed me Cambridge, MIT and Harvard square. Nesha showed me the rest of Boston.
4. First time in France: strike of french train-drivers and me losing flight from Barcelona to Helsinki (and spending extra 250E). People say, typical.
5. First time in Finland: sauna-lake-sauna-lake-sauna-lake....
6. Drunk girl in Leinster's Arms kissing 20+ guys and going home alone!?
7. Me, Jelena and bunch of erasmus in Clifden, Connemara where the rain flows horizontally.
8. A random couple in the toilet of a Hostel.
9. No rejected papers this year
10. Boar in Nish (my hometown), city center
11. Dunnes at 5
12. Rade is polish: cześć
13. Steve Davis and Ken Doherty in Maynooth!!!
14. Football on tuesdays&thursdays, noon. Basketball on fridays, at 5.
15. My foot is fucked. Spend 150E on phisio but it didnt help.
16. Ben and Dirk and the polish summer... And of course waitresses ;-)
17. Chile:Germany - 2:0... Since Stuttgart ;-)
18. Novak is stable in Top3; Jelena i Ana are stable in Top5.
19. Dirk showed me the world of Absinthe
20. Very bad movie, Deathproof. Quote: "Is this a tasty beverage or is this a tasty beverage". This link is not from that movie, but the message is similar...
21. Success, Dule and Audi Q7.
22. Success, Jonatan:Erasmus - 2:0
23. Useless success: Milan offered 100K+ job that he rejected.
24. Failure, Rade tried to install linux.
25. Moving to the postdoc salary. Now I have no problem buying Smokey-bacon meal in Supermacs after roost
26. My parents in Ireland. Fancy rooms on south campus are great.
27. Steven graduated, got a fancy suit and the same day Scotland won France.
28. Serbia didnt win any decent team in years.
29. Steffen had several cool shirts, russian/kozak style. I bought one for myslef, but it doesnt look cool on me.
30. Jacket, made in Serbia, 575$!?!?!?
30. Many boys in love with Ingrid(fr) and Ingrid (ch).
31. Memet is gone.
32. Gerd thinks... He also thinks linux is great...
33. Hard drive on my laptop: replaced.
34. Feta cheese from Aldi: greasy.
35. Lea and her lifestyle
36. Yann Tiersen in Dublin. I heard about it one day too late ;-(
37. Matthieu still breaks parties with his drums.
38. Florian's flickr, wikipedia, trivia, etc.
39. Summer in Maynooth: Italian/Spanish kids (Pericols non entrare) everywhere. No Jewish families this year.
40. Little miss sunshine... "Can I give you some advice?"
41. My first St Patrick in Dublin. Waste of time...
42. Stevens traditional St. Patrick party made me miss Kurt's birthday....
43. Feb/March, Jelena in Maynooth. Best month of the year. You know what I mean ;-)
44. Jelena in the house: healthy food (broccoli and little carrots, mmmm), tidy place, and 9-to-5 work.
45. Nice day in Bray, and a long, unintentional walk to Greystones (thats not set of geay stones)
46. Florian proud of his thickness and complains that most girls are too tight for his majesty. Steffi not too happy about it
47. I met an undefendable basketball player: Ignacio.
48. Summer in Montenegro. Me, Jelena and 20 other people in the house.
49. Got new Passport (5th in last 10 years). However, I must replace it in 2008!?
50. Becky:
51. Microsoft? no thanks.
52. People still compare me with Borat!? Maybe because of Mattias's blog?
53. Jussi is married!?
54. German girls are #.... Or its just me?
55. Chip cigarettes.
56. Alexia is daughter of Marc Farry!?
57. Slovenac had a crush on Candice ;-) Sweeeeet
58. My brother became an ex-brother.
59. I postponed my fucking military service until the end of 2008. I guess I should be happy about it.
60. Tipsarevic
61. Decent movies: Efter brylluppet, Derailed, Stranger.Than.Fiction.
62. Polish-mexican sisters working in Macdonalds around the world.
63. Failure, Elsa:Renaud - 0:0.
64. If Atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby, Renaud's facebook quote.
65. Nesha is uncle; Nidzha is daddy
66. Ingrid and Sara... always in the roost
67. Simone&Simon didn want to go public.
68. Kurt travels the globe and when he doesnt he gives me the lessons in drinking
69. One written paper this year... still not rejected ;-)
70. Dave's son Caoimhin learn how to walk this year. Ken calls it controlled falling ;-)
71. Germans in Hamilton: extended holidays in ireland ;-)
72. Andrea's sister in Maynooth. Wow.
73. In Andrea's house pissing while standing is not allowed! Even if you are a guy!
74. Ben bought a skype mobile phone. He is now available 24/7, for 10E a month.
75. I am still in love. Skype know it well, and I am sure they are happy for it
76. This summer Steve told me Bich is going to stay in Maynooth. Then I asked him: "How are you going to brake up with her?". He said "I dont want to brake up with her". I felt really embarrassed afterwards.
77. Bich and her S&M boots.
78. Black paint, great story. Or what to do when you feel a desire towards a person while in commitment... Thanks Slovenac.
79. Got several emails from a chinese student interested in my work. He actually read the papers!?
80. Peter Cook - One leg too few:
81. San jose: the city of engineers. In other words the major boring city of the world.
82. NUIM webmail system is replaced and I lost 600+ emails I sent using their webmail service. Moving to google forever.
83. An Inconvenient Truth . US government doesnt seem to care too much.
84. Modern ways of communication: email, IM, sms, facebook, myspace, twitter, wiki, blogs, rss, pub/sub, pstn/cell/phone/voip/skype, pdas, pagers, and PVRs,
85. Florian promoting iPhone, and other overpriced apple devices. Me, opposing it.
86. Strongman
87. I am not really into big boobs, but boobjob can be useful.
88. Trick question: Who is a girl's best friend?
89. The toilet graffiti: "If it is not for the toilet, when would a man think".
90. In a manner of speaking: Nouvelle vague cover.
91. Many new kids in the Hamilton.
92. I lost both of my life-goals: neither 5-kids nor 100-kilo goals are alive.
93. Cisco sales vs Cisco engineering. Who is better?
94. I have problem with sleeping. Lack of sex or something....
95. Finished school. Still no gray hair. Still dont need glasses.
96. However, developed carpel tunnel syndrome on the left hand as well.
97. Maynooth is my home now.... for another two years or so
98. Jelena might move in with me some day next year. We will see...
1. Losing drink-virginity: Me and Miske with 8 dunjas each.
2. First time in the US. Big cars and no people on the strets.
3. Dzhuna showed me Cambridge, MIT and Harvard square. Nesha showed me the rest of Boston.
4. First time in France: strike of french train-drivers and me losing flight from Barcelona to Helsinki (and spending extra 250E). People say, typical.
5. First time in Finland: sauna-lake-sauna-lake-sauna-lake....
6. Drunk girl in Leinster's Arms kissing 20+ guys and going home alone!?
7. Me, Jelena and bunch of erasmus in Clifden, Connemara where the rain flows horizontally.
8. A random couple in the toilet of a Hostel.
9. No rejected papers this year
10. Boar in Nish (my hometown), city center
11. Dunnes at 5
12. Rade is polish: cześć
13. Steve Davis and Ken Doherty in Maynooth!!!
14. Football on tuesdays&thursdays, noon. Basketball on fridays, at 5.
15. My foot is fucked. Spend 150E on phisio but it didnt help.
16. Ben and Dirk and the polish summer... And of course waitresses ;-)
17. Chile:Germany - 2:0... Since Stuttgart ;-)
18. Novak is stable in Top3; Jelena i Ana are stable in Top5.
19. Dirk showed me the world of Absinthe
20. Very bad movie, Deathproof. Quote: "Is this a tasty beverage or is this a tasty beverage". This link is not from that movie, but the message is similar...
21. Success, Dule and Audi Q7.
22. Success, Jonatan:Erasmus - 2:0
23. Useless success: Milan offered 100K+ job that he rejected.
24. Failure, Rade tried to install linux.
25. Moving to the postdoc salary. Now I have no problem buying Smokey-bacon meal in Supermacs after roost
26. My parents in Ireland. Fancy rooms on south campus are great.
27. Steven graduated, got a fancy suit and the same day Scotland won France.
28. Serbia didnt win any decent team in years.
29. Steffen had several cool shirts, russian/kozak style. I bought one for myslef, but it doesnt look cool on me.
30. Jacket, made in Serbia, 575$!?!?!?
30. Many boys in love with Ingrid(fr) and Ingrid (ch).
31. Memet is gone.
32. Gerd thinks... He also thinks linux is great...
33. Hard drive on my laptop: replaced.
34. Feta cheese from Aldi: greasy.
35. Lea and her lifestyle
36. Yann Tiersen in Dublin. I heard about it one day too late ;-(
37. Matthieu still breaks parties with his drums.
38. Florian's flickr, wikipedia, trivia, etc.
39. Summer in Maynooth: Italian/Spanish kids (Pericols non entrare) everywhere. No Jewish families this year.
40. Little miss sunshine... "Can I give you some advice?"
41. My first St Patrick in Dublin. Waste of time...
42. Stevens traditional St. Patrick party made me miss Kurt's birthday....
43. Feb/March, Jelena in Maynooth. Best month of the year. You know what I mean ;-)
44. Jelena in the house: healthy food (broccoli and little carrots, mmmm), tidy place, and 9-to-5 work.
45. Nice day in Bray, and a long, unintentional walk to Greystones (thats not set of geay stones)
46. Florian proud of his thickness and complains that most girls are too tight for his majesty. Steffi not too happy about it
47. I met an undefendable basketball player: Ignacio.
48. Summer in Montenegro. Me, Jelena and 20 other people in the house.
49. Got new Passport (5th in last 10 years). However, I must replace it in 2008!?
50. Becky:
51. Microsoft? no thanks.
52. People still compare me with Borat!? Maybe because of Mattias's blog?
53. Jussi is married!?
54. German girls are #.... Or its just me?
55. Chip cigarettes.
56. Alexia is daughter of Marc Farry!?
57. Slovenac had a crush on Candice ;-) Sweeeeet
58. My brother became an ex-brother.
59. I postponed my fucking military service until the end of 2008. I guess I should be happy about it.
60. Tipsarevic
61. Decent movies: Efter brylluppet, Derailed, Stranger.Than.Fiction.
62. Polish-mexican sisters working in Macdonalds around the world.
63. Failure, Elsa:Renaud - 0:0.
64. If Atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby, Renaud's facebook quote.
65. Nesha is uncle; Nidzha is daddy
66. Ingrid and Sara... always in the roost
67. Simone&Simon didn want to go public.
68. Kurt travels the globe and when he doesnt he gives me the lessons in drinking
69. One written paper this year... still not rejected ;-)
70. Dave's son Caoimhin learn how to walk this year. Ken calls it controlled falling ;-)
71. Germans in Hamilton: extended holidays in ireland ;-)
72. Andrea's sister in Maynooth. Wow.
73. In Andrea's house pissing while standing is not allowed! Even if you are a guy!
74. Ben bought a skype mobile phone. He is now available 24/7, for 10E a month.
75. I am still in love. Skype know it well, and I am sure they are happy for it
76. This summer Steve told me Bich is going to stay in Maynooth. Then I asked him: "How are you going to brake up with her?". He said "I dont want to brake up with her". I felt really embarrassed afterwards.
77. Bich and her S&M boots.
78. Black paint, great story. Or what to do when you feel a desire towards a person while in commitment... Thanks Slovenac.
79. Got several emails from a chinese student interested in my work. He actually read the papers!?
80. Peter Cook - One leg too few:
81. San jose: the city of engineers. In other words the major boring city of the world.
82. NUIM webmail system is replaced and I lost 600+ emails I sent using their webmail service. Moving to google forever.
83. An Inconvenient Truth . US government doesnt seem to care too much.
84. Modern ways of communication: email, IM, sms, facebook, myspace, twitter, wiki, blogs, rss, pub/sub, pstn/cell/phone/voip/skype, pdas, pagers, and PVRs,
85. Florian promoting iPhone, and other overpriced apple devices. Me, opposing it.
86. Strongman
87. I am not really into big boobs, but boobjob can be useful.
88. Trick question: Who is a girl's best friend?
89. The toilet graffiti: "If it is not for the toilet, when would a man think".
90. In a manner of speaking: Nouvelle vague cover.
91. Many new kids in the Hamilton.
92. I lost both of my life-goals: neither 5-kids nor 100-kilo goals are alive.
93. Cisco sales vs Cisco engineering. Who is better?
94. I have problem with sleeping. Lack of sex or something....
95. Finished school. Still no gray hair. Still dont need glasses.
96. However, developed carpel tunnel syndrome on the left hand as well.
97. Maynooth is my home now.... for another two years or so
98. Jelena might move in with me some day next year. We will see...
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