Candy in the Slipper

It's Christmas time and it is the time of glorious lies that parents tell their children. "Be a good kid and Santa will bring you nice gifts!". Not many parents really write down what their child does or doesn't do within an entire month. They mostly just use Santa as a tool of manipulation and then buy their children whatever presents they were going to buy anyway.

The same goes for elves - I mean Santa's Little Helpers, not Legolas and Arwen. In Estonia elves put candy in the slippers or stockings of good kids every night. In the morning children get up to go and see if they had been good kids. This is easier for the parents because they only need to judge behavior one day at a time.

Elves visit even Siiri's slipper. Every morning she finds one candy there. The first morning I was getting all enthusiastic, "Siiri-Siiri! Go see if elves brought you anything!". Siiri saw me pointing at the slipper but walked the other way. I followed her and took her back to the slipper. "What's inside here?". Siiri looked at me, looked at the slipper, felt that it really did have something inside and then got bored and walked the other way. Now the elves have consistently visited her slipper for over a week. Today, in the quiet haze of morning, I asked Siiri, "Siiri, go see if elves brought you anything." I had barely finished my question when Siiri ran to the slipper, pulled out the candy and started laughing maniacally as if she just struck gold. And -really cute- she took the candy, her most prized possession at that moment, and without hesitation handed it over to me so I could open it up and cut it into smaller pieces for her. So even if she does behave somewhat mischievously one day, how could I really have her find the slipper empty the following morning. She would be so sad and confused with her empty slipper. Conclusion: elves don't inspire cute kids to behave well.

I had another one of those religion themed seminars and at some point the lecturer said something like, "it is very hard for us Christians to find sense in some of the controversies in the Bible". I had two automatic thoughts about it. First, "it is very hard for you Christians indeed" and second, "well, if something proves time and time again to be full of controversies, then perhaps it's time to realize it's false.". I didn't comment anything about it but it seemed like a step forward. I did not feel any inner hesitation whispering that I belong with them. I have gotten used to the idea of not being a Christian. And I still believe in God, just not in church or the Bible.

By the way, you know you have spent too much time in a lab when 50 uL (that's an entire drop! )suddenly seems like a large amount of liquid. Or when, in the evening, you think about playing Oblivion but it seems too much strain on your hands after all that pipetting. I am still playing Oblivion. It's an old classic open world role-playing computer game that was adapted for Xbox. The game is kinda boring and tediously slow-paced, and leveling mechanism is a disaster. It is actually possible to level up into being much weaker than all the monsters. But there is a system: if you level up in the exact right way every time then it's possible to create a powerful Jack of all trades - master swordsman, master mage, master thief, master assassin - THE MASTER OF EVERYTHING in a stupid boring game.

When I heard how much effort some people go through to level up in this game, I thought it was totally pointless and I simply laughed at them. I myself started playing Oblivion only to get Xbox Achievement points and to pass some time. Pretty soon my game went very sour - my character was so weak and I started to understand the mechanism behind building an overpowered badass. I could not resist! I made a new character and I planned it right from the beginning. Now I'm over level 30 and I have 4 attributes maxed out. I constantly fall asleep while playing it and I'm not even all that interested in playing the game. I just want my character to be all-powerful. Soon (in Oblivion time) I will have 100 in all the attributes and then I will go get the achievements.

I'm gonna leave you with this: