Locks - are they for safety or for trouble?

30th December, in the evening..
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Well, well, well.. What did I say about the powercuts. Yes, we haven't had them too many but today morning the office was without electricity. Except me and my colleague, we have laptops which had full batteries so we worked while other people were just chatting, reading newspapers, sipping coffee and planning to go to a movie since the HR manager suggested that. I felt stupid when I just couldn't take it easy and roam around. I really must a work-a-holic or something. My way of thinking: first use the battery and if the powercut is still on-going when the battery gets empty, I can relax and do something fun. "Ensin työ, sitten huvi" that is "First work, then entertainment" I have been told since the childhood. Maybe I just should get more experience of powercuts and especially of the longer ones. I just realized in here that we have powercuts really rarely in Finland. I remember it has happened few times during the X-mas or just before X-mas when most of the families baking, warming up the saunas, keeping the electric candles and other X-mas lights on at the same time. And last year during winter time once at my home when there was a transformer (muuntaja in Finnish) broken next to my apartment. At that time we had the powercut in our house only but neighbours seemed to have the lights on. I checked the fuse (sulake), or actually switch which just pops down if there's overvoltage or burn-out but I just lift it back then and try again. No need to change any fuse anymore. :) Our kids won't even know probably what is a fuse..

Yesterday evening I was again upstairs "on the roof" watching the stars and moon. So funny thing is that we do have the same moon also in Finland but it looks different in here. When it's getting smaller here in Bangalore, it is like a smiling mouth - it gets smaller in horizontal way. In Finland it gets smaller in vertical way, so our half moon or crescent (kuunsirppi) is like the letter C.

During the nights I really love the palm trees. They look so beautiful against the bright sky. I didn't remember actively the bats in here - until yesterday I saw again them flying in the night sky. My God they are BIG in here!! In Finland I've seen a bat once in my childhood when it got lost inside our greenhouse in the summer. That bat was small. I was a small kid at that time and the bat was like the size of my palm. In here it feels really creepy when you notice them flying just above you and it sounds like a pair of thin leather gloves passing you by (except there woudn't be so big OR flying gloves) - but the sound is somehow comparable to that what I can imagine. Anyway, here in Bangalore I haven't seen so much bats as in Kerala. Last year I was just watching them amazed in one evening near a temple: there were thousands of them and they really freaked me out. Also in the countryside in Kerala, when we went to see the relatives of my friend and walked in the forest among the banana and cardemon trees, I just wanted to see the sky and instead of the sky I saw a lot of bats flying around. I thought always that they are flying only during night but it wasn't night at that time.

I have been taking pictures from different signs on the streets and walls about different products. It's so funny to see a meter in the rickshaw, which is "Paras" brand. Paras is "the best" in Finnish. Or there's an advertisement "Raha - start stressless mornings from tomorrow" and they are advertising the mattresses but raha in Finnish means money. And a bottle of "bug poison", which called "Kissan"!! Kissa is a cat in Finnish and kissan is the genetiv form of the word, so it sounds more that it's continuing with something what we do not want to say loud, like shit or pee - cat's pee? Would it kill the bugs? At least it smells terrible. And the "lungi", the relaxed skirt which men are wearing in here. "Ottaa lungisti" in Finnish means "to take it easy" and yes, lungi is a dress for home and relaxing, unofficial situations. :) These things make me smile - always. We are not so far from each other anyway.

One thing which does not make me smile is the swastiqa but it makes me wonder a lot. Here you see swastiqa often at homes - on doors, walls and floors, as well as in the temples. For example when the jain people make "puja" ie. when they pray, they make a figure a swastiqa from rice while telling the "puja". In my eyes it looks definitely interesting since for European people it brings directly Adolf Hitler, War and dictators to one's mind. I have been wondering a lot where on Earth Hitler found this symbol. Yes, in here the swastiqa means.... Somehow I'm happy that I have now another meaning for that symbol and it has turned out to be good symbol instead of bad and evil after all.

Oh, I forgot to mention what happened on the first week when I came here to P.G.. I used to wake up much earlier than my roomies. In here I have woken up without the alarm whereas in Finland I have to alarms and clock radio every morning ringing and I tend to snooze the both cellphones approximately an hour while the clock-radio is playing some music and morning show the whole hour. Anyway, some miracles have happened here and I really wake up without alarm. So I woke up, took my towel, soap, shampoo, balsam, clean clothes, phones from my closet and locked the closet - and went to cold shower (since at that time I still didn't know that there would be warm water also coming). After the shower I came back to my room and wanted to take my rest of the things from the closet and the key was jamming. I turned and tried every single way but no, the door was locked and didn't open. "Damn" I thought, I have my passport, wallet and EVERYTHING important in there! How could I go to the work without those? I went to pick up "auntie" and asked her to try and the same result. Well, after trying for a while, begging the door and trying all the superstitious things I had to believe that I'm going to the office without my belongings - without passport and wallet. Lucky me, my colleague was picking me up by her car. Anyway, as soon as I reached the bus stop and started to wait for my colleague to come, there was a small accident just in the front of me. A scooter and a bicycle crashed with each other. :o I looked terrible in the middle of the morning traffic when there are hundreds of cars coming on every side but nobody else was hurt. Both drivers just got up, said sorry to each other, cleaned their clothes and vehicles and continued their way. I was the only one standing in there amazed my mouth wide open and following what's happening next. At that point I felt like "have I done something bad that the bad karma is coming to me?". I started to prepare myself for something worse - like the the sky would be falling on me or something. The whole day I was stressing about my passport, credit cards, money and everything which I had to leave on someone else care - someone who I didn't know yet so well. Afterwards I've been wondering how sceptic I must have seemed to be in the local eyes. *embarrased*

An interesting thing is also that I remember my grand-parents who didn't lock the doors in the countryside in Finland but here among millions of people, our gate is open the whole night and yesterday night the door was open when I went to sleep since my roomie was stopping by at her office and was coming late at night - and I didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night just to open the door. "Yes, nobody comes in, you can leave it open". :o OK... And this is really confusing - at the same time this city really feels often scary and safe. Similar feelings comes when you're crying and laughing at the same time and cannot decide which one you're doing/should do.

Hihi.. the sockets in here. You have to switch them on and off, like the lights. Probably there's a good reason for it, maybe it's safer in that way. First times when using the sockets in here last year I felt so stupid when suddenly the battery of my computer got empty anyway even though I plugged the wire to the socket. C'mon, it never came to my mind that I should switch on the socket since at home in Finland I just put the plug to the socket and that's it, I have electricity. Yes, we do have some extensions which you have to switch on before you get the power. And then here are different sizes of the sockets. Didn't realize it until I bought a really lovely tortch which you can load in the socket directly, no extra batteries needed. It was lovely here in India but in Finland - I couldn't load it anymore! It just didn't fit to any of the sockets. I didn't understand at all since I was able to load my phone in India anyway. :D So back at home I learned this.
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31st December, in the morning
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What did I write in the evening about the cupboard/closet lock? :D Today morning when auntie came upstairs with the breakfast, she rang the doorbell and I went to open the door. First I moved the door latch and then turned the doorknob to unlock the door. I turned again, and again, and to the other direction.. and tried all the possible bracket which could be moving near the doorknob but nothing, it just didn't open. The lock stayed locked and auntie stayed outside, me inside. I went to wake up my roomie and asked her to try. The same - it just didn't open. I told to auntie through the door and asked her to pick up the key and try to open it outside. She picked up the key downstairs and opened the door. But since she was amazed what has happened she locked the door again and tried. :D The same thing, the lock was stuck and remained locked again. Now we had auntie with the key inside the door and we were not able to go out. Auntie went next to the window and called her husband and daughter-in-law to open the door outside but she had to drop the key first downstairs. In the meanwhile I went to the shower and hoped that the door would be open by the time I have to leave to work. .. and yes it was. :)

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1st January 2009, in the morning

Yes, now we are there, in the new year. I have announced that I'm leaving the company and I will be facing new challenges. It is the third time that I get the opportunity to a totally new area clearly because of my attitude and character. I'm really happy about it since this is how I want also the world to be. When I start doing something, I really dedicate myself to that - it can be work or totally personal things but I do dedicate, I give my everything because I know how really much I also get. And this way of living makes me really happy also. When I know I have done my best, I can focus on other things - I don't need to carry the undone things in my mind.

Oh, now I also remembered why I love writing so much!! It's because I don't need to wonder the same things over and over again. Because once you write them down, you can forget them since you know where to find your thoughts again if you would feel like getting back to them. Writing definitely relieves the space in your brains. And once you have thought in certain way and write it down, you can see how your thinking is developing if you can go and check how did you think last time.

I have two weeks left in the company and I should not probably think during my leisure time how to spend the following two weeks @work. But I don't want to force my mind to think different things than what pops up to my mind. The best result to make good results is to set your mind free and let it be thinking whatever comes out. There are times at work also sometimes that some private things come to the mind so aren't we kind of balanced anyway? I try to write the thoughts down when they come to the mind since it might be that otherwise never come anymore. I'm very much aware that my unconscious is really active and in different environments I get different thoughts and ideas, so I do want store the good ones anyway.

Many creative people talk often about the inspiration. They know how to feed their mind and get the inspirations. I think I know also nowadays, at least the basics. The thing is that the more you learn, you notice that there's still much to learn but with the basics you can always get far if you just want.

So once I woke up, I started to think about the work. We will get one new team member on Friday and we have planned the induction to the work. The base looks good and the content in principles is clear but the content is still in work in progress. I have promised to tell about the Finnish culture and "working with Finns". I do have a lot of thoughts about it and I have a lot of opinions and my own way to present the things. I want to avoid stereotypes since like in all the nations, communities, companies and groups there are every kind of individuals which are of course influenced by the environment ie. background, education, family, culture, wisdom and especially the experience and attitude what they carry by default always with them. To be able to understand other people is probably very difficult but every day you can learn something new and useful. So instead sticking with the stereotypes I want to tell about our culture and society how it appears in Finland - what things Finnish people at least carry with them without consciously knowing it.

To my mind first comes the education. It is mandatory for all the Finns to finish at least primary school. We have actually pretty clearly defined content of our primary education. I has been changing during the past decades, which is great of course. So we somehow can expect what the people around us in Finland know. One thing which we can be really proud of - we are pretty famous in reading skills. Of course the level varies a lot but in general it has been researched that Finns are good readers. That helps a lot when you're trying to find information. The education for us is free but mandatory. We start the school normally at the age of six-seven, depending on the month you are born and your skills - how matured you are.

Second thing: equality. We hear and say often that we live in a welfare society. Yes, the government pays our education, which means that we all give money for our education via taxes. If people happen to be poorer by nature or become poor by accident for example when loosing the job, you still have money for living because our social system covers the eating and living costs, so it depends on yourself if you want to get up on your own feet or get totally lost. Anyway you have opportunities and all the possibilities to survive and live nicely, choice is yours. It's not always easy but possible. I would actually dare to say that richer people do not see so clearly what benefits the welfare system brings to us but since we have democracy and all the people can vote, it still sticks in our society and that's good.

In general I often say that the Finns are not good in talking but it might be clearer to say that we don't like telling the opinions really clearly and strictly. There are many reasons for that. Maybe we are not good in the emotions.

My dear expression: Perfectionists - yes, we do have a lot of perfectionists. An interesting thing is that you might meet a perfectionist without realizing it at all since if you go to a home of perfectionist, it might be really, really messy. The big picture gets too big and one cannot see the trees from the forest anymore. But once the perfectionist gets organized, there's no way to stop him to aiming perfect result (though we all know that there's not anything purely, definite perfect.

Will get back to the blog again.. one day. :)