Die Krähe

Well, I had to try it out and I can say for sure now. Telecommuting is not for me. I’m a social creature so sitting isolated at the home office for 8-10 hours a day was doing some serious damage. The other part is how much the boundaries between work and … er, different work… blur when you have a home office. It’s one thing to bring tasks home with you, that I’m accustomed with, and do not excpect things to change as long as I actually like what I do for a living. But when I also have home interferring with my work throughout the day, with unwashed dishes and, just now, cats meaowing for food and demonstratingly jumping on the keyboard, that’s when the equation stops making any sense.

So, set on a steady path to find me some colleagues and a place to hide from cats and dishes, I had been checking out open positions for a while when I accidentally stumbled upon my dream job. Turned out they wanted me and I want them, harps and violins played in the heavens and… I will start at The Telecommunications Software and Multimedia Laboratory at Helsinki University of Technology in March, as part of the Art & Magic research group headed by Tapio Takala. My first task will be with the research project Interactive Embodied Emotional Experience (IEEE for short) involved with research on embodied experiences, mimic interaction and emotionally responsive user interfaces.

As I am writing this, I feel really happy with my decision, even more so than yesterday when I went there to sign the papers. The combination of hardcore technology expertise with artistic and expressive interfaces is a delicious blend as such, but it does also provide for means to investigate many serious questions concerning user experience and interaction with/within information systems. This project will also allow me to return to my investigation of interactive sound interfaces, which has been on hold too long already.

From a physical health perspective, this winter has been close to catastrophy! The finishing touch was last week, when my lower back broke down leaving me more or less useless for almost a week. But yesterday was quite ok, and today I intend on doing a full days work.

The good (?) thing with all this back trouble, I am now extra consciencious with my exercising. Bought one of those big gym balls, too, because the doctor recommended it and it felt like a good way of motivating myself to work out more. One of the exercise movements with the ball is to sit on it and balance with your feet off the ground. Sitting is not really something I like, since that still makes my back hurt quite a bit, but I had to try out the move. Surprise, it felt really fine and did not hurt a bit! So today I tested sitting on the ball instead of in my work chair, just for a change to see how it feels - what a difference! I think I may well use the ball for a while instead of the chair, see if that helps keep my back in better condition. Should do so, since sitting on the ball it is nearly impossible to maintain a static position that will kill your back. Plus now whenever I feel like a short work on my abs, I can lift my feet up and try to balance. Tricky and effective! Oh, and I can bounce, too!

Now that I have had time to adjust to the new year, I feel I am up to making some promises. So here comes :

1. I will dump the use of ugly ‘mä’ and ’sä’ (short for the 1st and 2nd person personal pronouns ‘minä’ = I and ’sinä’ = you). Finnish is such a beautiful language, it deserves to be pronounced well. And while at it, I might also stop swearing. Except for a selected bunch of powerful words that really work on the rare occation when I drop a hammer on my toe. But the fill-out type that go into your speech without any significance, they are out. Not many of them left, since ten-or-so years ago, but I notice when I get angry, the few that are left still bounce off my lips like popcorn in a kettle.

2. I will think less about myself and more about others. This has absolutely nothing to do with altruism, it’s just for selfish feel-good. You know, when you think about others, you worry less about yourself…

3. Damn right, I’ll exercise more! But I’ll add this disclaimer and say it is not for weight loss. Nope, the reason is that I noticed last fall that a lack of exercise will leave me depressed and/or grumpy, so I think I need to watch that more. Especially since exercise often is the first thing I drop off my list when I get busy. Not anymore!

4. I will start learning Spanish. This has everything to do with my blossoming romance with flamenco. Dance classes like a lover, whom I sneak out to meet every sunday evening. Oh!

5. I will write more and become a better blogger. Now I often start out writing a post, then erase it, then rewrite it and finally I leave it as a draft and never publish it. A couple of months later I’ll forget the point of the thing and delete the draft. So in the future, I will think less and write more. Some may say that it’s better never to publish crap in the first place, but where’s the fun in that?

So, three draft versions later, the list is done! Pressing the p-word ->