Broken Horse

Theory confirmed - pregnancy cravings are a sign of bad diet! When I was pregnant with Siiri, I barely had any cravings. There was only my relentless appetite for oranges. I also had a very nice scheduled diet. In the morning I ate porridge and two fried eggs, at lunch I ate a full meal with lots of meat, a bit of carbohydrates (2-3 potatoes or a little pasta or rice), then a fruit in the afternoon, always roughly at the same time, and a then protein-heavy dinner with lots of delicious salad. I made sure I eat a lot of protein and very little carbs.

Now I eat all wrong. I often eat my morning porridge with jam or honey, I rarely eat eggs, my lunch is always different, but often without veggies. Even when I have my dinner, the meal which should probably contain around 40 g of pure protein to compensate for the rest of the day, I usually eat carbs covered with a sauce that has some small bits of meat in it and some hidden vegetables for Siiri's sake. Siiri has an extra meal of fruits and vegetables so she's better off than I am. Now I've started to dislike sweet things and foods with too much carbohydrates. Yesterday I sprinkled my porridge with cheese flakes in stead of jam. With my diet from hell, it's no wonder that I keep craving pizza, sushi and cheese.

Pizza is really quite healthy with a large variety of vegetables and with cheese full of good protein. The little bit of bread isn't any worse than pasta. Pizza's major problems are high fat percent and high sodium content. Well, at least fat doesn't play with blood sugar so it alone isn't really all that bad. Salt is another matter. Some say it's very bad for our health. But if it's so bad, how come I'm craving it so badly?! We have reduced the amount of salt we eat at home, mostly to avoid feeding Siiri too much salt. But the tiny amount we have reached apparently isn't enough for a growing fetus. Suddenly I add more salt to everything I eat. The last time me and Erkki ate sushi, I kept soaking the maki in soy sayce and commented that it must be diluted with water quite a bit, but Erkki said it's all in my head and the soy sauce feels very salty to him.

Yeah I eat sushi. Anyone who has a problem with a pregnant woman eating raw fish can just go and find out the odds of listeria. Some say that it's always best to choose the best for your baby and to avoid all risks but I think it's never good to blindly follow some paranoid rules that have been created "just in case". When we talk about risk and odds, consider that all pedestrian roads are covered with a thick crust of ice - slippery and uneven, sometimes tilted just for extra challenge. I'm not gonna stay indoors until spring to avoid the slippery roads where I could very easily fall and break a bone or two. The odds of me being one of the dozens of people EVERY DAY who visit hospital emergency room because of falling on the icy street are much greater than say, me being one of roughly 10 people in a YEAR who get listeria in Estonia. It's all about risk assessment.

I also still go to sauna, because Sunday sauna night has been such an important part of our weekly family ritual for a while now. There have been some changes though. In stead of 80-degree (Celsius) sauna, which is already quite low, we now go to 60-degree sauna. Any less than that and we risk catching a cold in there. I can't even wet my hair before I go in, the water won't have time to warm up and that's not comfortable at all. Also, I switched my cider to non-alcoholic. That is, after I found out I'm pregnant. No worries, I was very careful with alcohol already when I suspected I might be pregnant, including on new year's eve. I drank more water than alcoholic beverages. In some countries it's still recommended that women drink an occasional glass of red wine or a bottle of beer which is full of B-vitamins and I don't know of any studies showing that small amounts of alcohol really do any harm. I think it's okay to taste something with alcohol in it, but even a glass of wine seems quite a lot and it's best avoided during pregnancy.

There is one thing I maybe shouldn't have done - I stopped exercising when I thought I might be pregnant, which was an entire month before I actually was pregnant. I just felt really uncomfortable with the idea of heavy jumping and energetic kicking in all directions until I'm sweating and panting and then at the end of the song letting myself fall to the floor to catch my breath. That can't be good for a pregnancy. I think that's just tempting fate. I know exercise in moderation is okay, but me and moderation don't really get along that well, especially when pumped full of endorphins from the cool moves, great music and the best exercise coach.

I do miss exercising. I'm just starting to realize how much I need to exercise. I have gained weight, I spend much more time moping - for a while I thought I might be on my way toward depression, I avoid walking to work and back. The slippery ice is a good excuse for that, though, so it's easy to hide that I've simply gotten so very lazy. Some of the recent changes must be from pregnancy, but I remember pregnancy making me more positive rather than negative. Maybe it will get better over time. I'm already getting my appetite back and I feel much healthier than last week.

By now the title of this post must seem very odd. No I didn't mean that pregnant women are like broken horses if that's what you imagined! We have a borrowed rocking horse at home, which Siiri sometimes plays with. Yesterday she took hold of the handles and started rocking it gleefully. She didn't notice that every time she rocked it, the horse moved a bit further until one end got stuck under the radiator. The horse stopped rocking. Siiri tried another couple of times, then stated casually, "broken.". I was on the phone but I told her from further away, "Siiri, it's just stuck, it's not broken.". Siiri already walked away and laconically replied, "is.". That's almost like dialogue!

Siiri knows so many words already. I showed her pictures from her picture dictionary and I picked the kind of words she has never said. I'll translate the words: "Siiri, do you know what this is?" (elephant) - "E", "How about this?" (Owl) - "ow", "How about this one?" (butterfly) - "utty". Yeah sure, she was unable to say the full word, but it was obvious nearly every time that she knew what the word really was.

She also learned how to jump. It was the cutest thing ever to see her train for the first time. She squats really low, almost to the floor, then pushes herself up as high as possible and ends up on tiptoes, barely keeping her balance. Then she walks a couple of steps in a random direction swinging her arms, almost like athletes do when they're hyping themselves up before a big challenge, "I can do it, I can do it..." and then goes for another try. I don't know what motivated her but the first time I saw it she spent a whole lot of time trying. Eventually her legs were so tired she kept falling into a sitting position when she squatted. Now she's been practicing a bit more and she can jump an entire inch, sometimes even more. She's very excited about it and I'm very happy for her.

I'm Pregnant

I haven't been quite honest with you. Or, more precisely, there's something I haven't told you - I'm pregnant. Currently it's barely less than 7 weeks and I know most people wait until they're walking around with a "basketball" under their shirt before they start hinting that they MIGHT be pregnant. That's so unlike me. Even the 3-week waiting time made me uneasy as if I have a big secret that I was really anxious to share. I had decided that I'll at least wait until after the doctor's appointment before I announce it on the Internet but after a while even that seemed exaggerated. I knew I couldn't be more pregnant with all the pregnancy symptoms and those three positive home tests. Yes, three! I had to be sure.

I don't know if it's a boy or a girl, I don't know if it's healthy or even viable. It's still so early in the pregnancy. However I do know that if something does go wrong, I don't want that to be my personal huge secret problem that no one even knows about.

If old wives tales mean anything then it's a boy. Mostly because I've been feeling my fair share of nausea this time around. With Siiri I had none of that. I'm also super tired all the time. It was only a couple of months ago when Erkki often came to remind me at 2 a.m. that it's getting kinda late and I hadn't even noticed. Now he often finds me asleep in front of Mass Effect (Xbox game) at 12 already and sometimes even earlier. I can't remember such exhaustion during my previous pregnancy, not even at 9 months pregnant.

Unfortunately this exhaustion isn't just physical. I'm having a really hard time focusing at work. It almost feels like I've had a concussion. Everything's in a blur and I just want to sleep. Mhh... Nausea is also one of the symptoms of concussion. At least I don't feel nauseous all the time. I feel a bit queasy in the first half of the day but quite okay after that. It's like that every day. When I pack my lunch in the morning I always think that I won't eat it and I wish I had something more appetizing to take with me, but during lunchtime I eat all of it and I'm sorry I didn't pack more food.

In the meanwhile, Siiri keeps getting wiser. She learns 2-3 new words in a day, although she can't remember all of them the next day. I also count the words that sound odd. Yesterday Siiri stepped in front of me and said, "Kaii". I asked, "käsi?" (Eng. hand) because she had her arms stretched out, but she seemed confused, and repeated, "Kaii!". I tried to figure out what she was pointing at: "Käsi? Lagi? Laud?(Eng. hand, ceiling, table) I'm sorry honey, I don't understand what you're trying to say." She gave up and started to walk away somewhat disappointed. Then I realized - she can't say the letter L and this was her version of "kalli" (Eng. hug). I quickly said, "hug! You were saying hug. Of course you can give me a hug!" and she stretched out her arms, ran back and gave me a hug. Adorable.

One time I was giving her a bubble bath. She sat there in the middle of a mountain of foam and toys and I was pouring water on her hair. Water level rose too high so I started to scoop out water and throwing it in the shower. Siiri panicked and tried to stop me, shouting "Whale! Whale!" (She says "aaaa" with specific intonation which stands for vaal, one of her favorite bath toys). I asked her, "Where is whale?". She sobbed and with a panicky look in her eyes pointed firmly toward the shower. I laughed and found her toy under the bath foam and gave it to her. After that she let me continue scooping water.

As time goes on Siiri's personality is more and more clear. She is a very daring person - she likes to try things that slightly scare her. She doesn't like being too close to Roomba when it's working but Siiri sometimes confronts her fear and hurries past Roomba simply for the challenge. She's also very careful. She rarely does anything dangerous after we've warned her of the dangers. She likes order. She sometimes insists that her letter cards would be put neatly in a symmetrical pattern. She's quite social and straightforward but that might just be age-related. She still doesn't feel comfortable around other children but I haven't had time to do much about it yet. I think she'll also somewhat grow out of it so I don't want to push her too hard. I can see Siiri as someone who stands up for her rights at any moment but only if she gets used to children her age.

We have raised Siiri to be independent and now it's becoming a blessing and a curse. It's not a problem for her to spend some time playing on her own. Yesterday I accidentally fell asleep for 2 hours and Siiri was just playing with her toys, rearranging the laundry basket in the living room, watching cartoons from youtube and doing whatever and seemed quite happy with her own time. But it's a curse because she doesn't want to be told what she should do. I don't like it when she spends much time watching cartoons, but sometimes she outright insists, "Paa! Siia." (iPad, here). I do understand that when something is important then no means no, but I'm not even sure it's such an important thing to forbid. It's almost like taking away her Legos because I want her to play spend time drawing in stead. I think the issue is not worth much drama and tears so I just distract her and offer an alternative activity. Still I kind of like that she has strong will even in issues that make my life more difficult. Strong-willed is always better than an obedient tag-along. She'll have much greater chance at success and happiness if we manage to raise her to be caring and respectful towards other people.

If the second kid is anything similar to Siiri, I'll consider myself a very lucky person.

Technological Standards

Over the years I have realized that I am a person with very high standards in some areas. I'm a bit of a perfectionist - I want things to be absolutely flawless. Or at least theoretically. Practically it takes so long to get some things perfect that I end up ignoring everything else. I can forget myself making the perfect Excel sheet but I forget to tidy up the desk or to ask myself if I even need the Excel sheet to be that complex. I can't name too many things that are more enjoyable than really obsessing about something that I have control over and then making it as perfect as I can. This need for perfection makes it very hard for me to appreciate modern technology.

It's been said that technology is as advanced as it can get. Anyone with any kind of mental capability knows that's rubbish. Technology is just getting started. My perfectionism will not be satisfied until:

1) All files could be connected from any device to any device and would be supported by every modern operating system/program. Don't you ever get annoyed when the computer plays an "avi" file and then Xbox can't open it and home cinema system can't even find it? Yes, the home cinema system is connected to the local network and ought to be MADE especially for playing video files. And getting the subtitles working is a nightmare in any setting. I know only one player that doesn't have a problem with subtitle files and that's some ugly piece of freeware called VLC-player. (By the way, it's the best video player out there! ). Windows Media Player is simply horrible and can barely open any video files, not even the ones downloaded from my photo camera.

If I ever get my way, there will be STANDARDS for what can be called a video player. The first requirement would be that it plays any modern video file without needing any extra codecs installed manually. It can open any subtitle file and subtitle size and style can be changed in less than 15 seconds. It can stream video into anywhere, even through local network into the TV. I mean, if both TV and computer are connected, what's the hold-up? It's rather mind-boggling that I even have to name these things here. Technology is very far behind on its potential.

2) All devices with a hard drive or anything similar can be connected to any other appropriate device and used as an instant flash drive. I am very disappointed that most devices can't even recognize a perfectly normal average portable hard drive. Most devices can't even recognize most flash drives! Like OH MY GOD how lame. I don't know whom to blame - the companies that make bad flash drives, or the operating systems that are horrible at finding hardware.

If I had it my way, I could take my phone or my camera, connect it straight to any TV and show what clip I filmed earlier. This should also work with any tablet or anything with a screen.

3) Technology should be smaller, faster and better! People say that technology is getting smaller but I say, not fast enough! It's nice that phones don't take so much pocket space anymore, or when they do, it's because of a good big touch screen. Touch screens are something I really approve. However, laptops are HUGE and so heavy. Do they really need to be that heavy? I'd gladly own a laptop, but then I'd want the store to provide someone to carry it around for me. It's not that I couldn't do it - I just really don't want to. Besides, backpacks are almost never cute or feminine, at least not the kind of backpacks that could fit one of those monstrous laptops. Laptop bags are normally one-shoulder bags and with the heavy laptop in it such a bag would simply murder my back.

I've seen the tiny laptops but who would want one of those - the screen and the keyboard are tiny too. Their batteries have too short lives and their processing power is way less than what I'd need. As for laptop batteries in general, I think it's quite ridiculous that laptops overheat fast and quickly run out of battery. I think cooling the processor must also take a lot of energy, so that too is being wasted. Can't they really find a way to lock up that heat energy? Why does it have to be wasted? Well, maybe that's impossible or so impractical that it's pointless but either way that's something that technology fails at.

I'm not even sure what would solve the problem of technology needing to be small but screen and keyboard needing to be big. Perhaps it will be some sort of touch screen that can be folded for transport or maybe it will be hologram technology that will eventually save the day.

4) Programs should actually work! I am disappointed at any program that crashes, freezes or works too slow. Large programs take more and more processing power when new versions are released. It would be okay if it were justified and all that processing power went to good use, but how come there are always freeware programs that do the same thing with much less resources. Lets give credit when it's due - Adobe programs are the best things ever. I'm a true fan. Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, Illustrator, Dreamweaver - there is no alternative! But do they really have to use up so much computer resources? I don't feel it anymore but when I had a slower computer it took forever just to start the program. Newer versions took even longer to start and offered little benefit aside from a prettier design. I bet most such companies build their new program versions on top of the last one and there's always some useless code left over.

A whole other standard is Windows Media Center. I gladly use Windows programs like Internet Explorer, Windows office, Windows 7 or XP so that I don't have to use Firefox or Open Office. I'm glad those exist - a little competition never hurts in this business. Windows Media Center, however is a horrible failure. It takes forever to start the program and then it doesn't play most files (if it can even find them) and doesn't like subtitles.

Also, Internet Explorer 9... I know I installed the beta version and I was warned that it will have bugs in it, just like any beta version. I expected them to periodically provide updates that would patch bugs until the program is good enough to be sold. The reality is, that I installed it nearly a year ago and am currently writing this post from Google Chrome because IE9 doesn't work well with Blogger.

Don't even get me started on how buggy Oblivion is on Xbox. The entire Thieve's Guild quest line the pointer was always pointing at the wrong guy, game froze unexpectedly, quests didn't update when they should have... I would forgive such problems for a new game that is so big but Oblivion was released in 2006 and fans have found, documented and FIXED all the major bugs. Unofficial patch for PC is available for free download. Couldn't the makers of Oblivion just download it and release something for Xbox as well?

5) Fast Wireless connection should be available everywhere for anyone who has a contract. In proper terms, G4 should be as widespread as good quality mobile network and shouldn't cost much more than that.

So, did I convince you that technology is very far from being advanced?

I was so excited about CES 2011, the big technology conference in the beginning of January but in the end I still haven't found a tablet that I approve or a new piece of technology that will give me hope for the future of technology in general. All the companies are still doing their own little things, making hardware and software that is incompatible with anything else and thus they are working against perfect technology. Maybe things will be better in 10 years... or 100 years...

Happy Hands

I wanted to tell you guys about something that happened today. I'm currently taking it easy and resting from the busy times. Conveniently now it's also Erkki's vacation so it's an excellent time to spend some family time. Siiri hasn't even seen her babysitter for a week and she absolutely loves spending time with her parents. Suddenly she's so attached to both me and Erkki. When she wakes up and Erkki goes to pick her up, she asks for mommy. When I go there, she asks for daddy. She shows me hew primitive drawings and she even lets me fix her hair. She also loves playing with my hair or combing it or just patting my head.

So it wasn't very surprising today when Siiri walked up to me and rubbed the tips of my hair between her hands. I was playing with Xbox and Siiri was running from one room to another. The rooms are as baby-safe as necessary with Siiri. There are places where she could harm herself if she got creative, and trust me, kids are very creative in that respect. However, she rarely ever harms herself in our home. When she does, it's mostly just by accident and it's things that could have been avoided if we kept Siiri safe in a locked padded room with no tables to hit her head and no corners to run into. Well, me and Erkki sure have a LONG-LOOONG way to go toward keeping Siiri "safe". I mean, we actually let her open and close drawers by herself and we have not taped up any cupboards. Heavy DANGEROUS books are at hands reach, and since we didn't have any bright ideas where else to keep our cutlery, Siiri also has access to table knives (which are sharper than some people's "real" knives). Well, if Siiri tried any funny business, we'd have it differently, but Siiri's just too bright to be kept locked in a padded room. She reaches cutlery easily and takes out spoons and sometimes forks to "feed" her dolls and stuffed animals. She never takes the knives. The first time she opened that drawer I explained why knives are bad. Now sometimes she very carefully touches a knife and says with a serious expression, "OW!" .

She's also super-fast. When I try to tell her, "Hey, Siiri, it's bedtime. It's time to put on your night clothing." and I reach the word, "beeedd...." PAT-PAT-PAT-PAT-pat-pat, and she's already in the other end of the apartment. I wait one second, she runs back to a safe viewing distance. I finish my word "..bedtime", she laughs maniacally (in a cute kid way) and off she goes to the other end of the apartment. She usually does this 4 or 5 times before she's in her night clothing. Unless I put her in chains, there's no way I can keep her from doing what kids normally do - run around and have fun doing it. This gives a whole new perspective to the typical slogan, "you have to keep an eye on your toddler AT ALL TIMES". I think that's just what childless people say. Of course I keep her close when we're outside and I keep household chemicals as far from her as possible because she can't read labels and can't sense the dangers involved but looking at her at all times is just ridiculous. At home, I let her run free until I get suspicious that she might be up to something. I'm talking about minutes here and I check on her immediately when she gets too quiet.

I'm getting awfully side-tracked, like I always do when I'm telling a story. But that all stuff was necessary to create the setting.

I was playing with Xbox and Siiri was free-roaming around the apartment. She drew a little bit, then took a toy from one room to another, then took a quick look if I've added anything fun to any of my drawers, closing them with a slam. All familiar sounds. Next she went to the master bedroom - the safest room in our apartment - and spent some time there. Then she came and rubbed and patted my hair. Then she ran off again. Cute! I kept playing and a moment later she was back. Again she came and rubbed her hands in my hair with great care, patted me and left. Mhh? I tried to make some dialog but she was too busy to notice. Then she did the same a third and a fourth time and ran back to the master bedroom. This time I put down the Xbox remote and followed her. She ran through the door straight to the closet. But in stead of playing with the clothes in the closet, she headed straight for the 2-inch/5cm crack between the closet and the wall. It's full of spider webs and dust. I never clean it because I'm arachnophobic and I won't even go near those spider webs. Siiri's not arachnophobic. She squeezed her hand into the dusty dirty crack, ("Siiri, no don't!") pulled it out and then rubbed her hands together to clean away all that dust. It wasn't very effective so she came to me and signaled me to get closer so she could reach my hair so she could rub her hands clean of all that dust and spiderwebs.

I should have known. Just a few weeks ago Siiri was eating (more like warming it up) some cheese and just wasn't happy with how greasy her hands felt. I gave her a paper towel. She rubbed her hands in it, put it aside and carefully looked at her hands. Then suddenly she demanded that I sit next to her RIGHT NOW. It seemed an odd request but I couldn't really ask her for any explanation so I sat with great curiosity. Siiri stepped up to me and patted me firmly from the top of the head to my shoulders, "Paaaaat!" (Estonian "Paaaaaai!", or "Aiiii" as she says it). Then she took another look at her hands, smiled, and hurried back to her toys.

Something I wanted to show you... Some of you will think, What the heck? and some of you will nod with understanding. Here's my Oblivion character:

Have a happy New Year's celebration and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Different Holidays

I don't think I've ever had a Christmas season like this before. I spent time in the lab during some weekend days, including the third advent Sunday. I had experiments, a verbal exam, text editing, graph touch-ups. I gave a scientific presentation in front of 50 something people, which I totally botched because my presentation was the last of the entire conference and I had built up so much tension that I couldn't even think straight anymore. My advisor later said not to worry about it, although "the people here will be paying you salary one day." Geee, thanks. Eventually I turned in a really long essay on the 21st and I could finally not worry about stuff. Until the 25th when I just had to go to the lab to save my plants from horrible torturous death by drought.

I wish all problems could be solved with watering. My computer, however, really wishes I don't try this in practice. Recently my monitor died. It started flickering and turned itself off a couple of times. Until one time it didn't turn on anymore. Me and Erkki had matching monitors before and now we got new matching monitors. That's when things really got weird. Erkki's monitor works like a charm but my monitor likes to surprise me with special effects. There I am just browsing and minding my own business when my monitor suddenly produces a mysterious light blue shadow. It appears to the right of every line of text, every dark area of a menu. It appears in the browser, in the image processing software, on the desktop and even on the start menu. It's everywhere! Then I open another browser window and it disappears, then I open a new tab it's there again. Then I open a third tab and suddenly the new tab looks clear but the rest of the screen still looks weird. I didn't even know this sort of problems were possible. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing video card drivers and I tried some sort of ATI tweaking tool. Now it's not as bad as before but the image is still corrupt whenever it feels like it.

Speaking of corrupt, one very influential Estonian politician Edgar Savisaar got caught asking money (1.5 million euros) from Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin. Savisaar is the kind of man that has no morals and who is as undemocratic as his power allows him. As the mayor of Estonia's capital Tallinn he uses city funding to publish his own propaganda newspaper and a TV channel. Not only is it dishonest to the taxpayer, but it's also totally creepy that he's getting away with it. Estonia's counterintelligence declassified their findings of secret fundings and now he's in a big scandal which might just be the end of his career. I'm afraid he'll just buy his way out with money, favors and outright lies (e.g. he announced he was working WITH Estonia's counterintelligence all along). Whatever happens in the future, Savisaar is certainly in a pickle now and this is one guy who's misfortune gives me much joy. Actually it's not even misfortune since he was the one who was going to sell out his power in Estonia out of his own free will. It's karma!

Good karma, bad karma. For Estonians and also for me, that's just a saying. People rarely believe in resurrection. We mostly believe that people collect their karma dept during their lifetime. Bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to... well, Estonians believe that good things only happen to BAD people. Anyone with any sort of financial comfort is a "crook, liar and a thief". So I suppose everyone in Estonia are bad people. That doesn't sound quite right. Nearly everyone I know are such good people...

Karma is nice though. I think I could easily be a Buddhist if they weren't such pacifists. And if they didn't meditate so much and if they didn't worship Buddha statues and if they didn't believe that rocks have souls and if they ate MEAT! Or perhaps I could be a Hindu - everything is allowed there if you find the right religious group. Except, again, I don't really believe in universal resurrection and that's not so negotiable. This religion thing really is tough. A few days ago I went to the bookstore to buy a good theory book about Spiritualism. You know what I found out? Surprise-surprise: Spiritualism is the religion of the Dumb. Spiritualism books are mostly in large print. They contain "wisdom" not much worse from TV-shop commercials for energizing bracelets. There was a book about haunted places - probably all just hoax and publicity for "haunted hotels". There were books about reading minds (along with instructions), reading palms, interpreting tarot cards, doing white magic, black magic, dowsing, etc. Even the most promising books about the spirit world ended up containing stupid self-help sort of advice for a cleaner spirit and quick tips to unleash your supernatural side.

That's not my kind of Spiritualism. My beliefs are pretty basic - there's a higher intelligence God, but it's not the sort of authority figure that in most religions. I mean, if God has ultimate power and ultimate wisdom, why would he micromanage everything people do. He already knows if those people are going to do the right thing and what would have to happen so that the right choices are guaranteed. The sort of micromanaging that organized religions enforce kind of defeat the purpose of free will. I also think people have souls and I think those souls persist even after the person dies. I don't know how long they persist, perhaps just a few hours before they become part of something else. I think there's a shared unconscious level where people communicate without words and I think it's even in places with no other people. That would explain why people get a vibe from other people as well as different places and also why people sometimes just know when they are being watched.

But maybe human mind is simply designed to imagine that there is something or someone out there that people can't explain. Someone who decides who's living a good life and who isn't, or who's naughty or nice. Someone who is all-knowing and remembers all the people individually. That sounds so familiar... Someone who is everywhere at the same time... Mhh... SANTA is god!!!!!! Someone should build the Church of Santa. Or is that what malls are for?

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: