Onward!!

This isn’t going at all how I envisioned it would. First, my fun-loving bohemian flatmates have managed to somehow screw up the council tax payment so that we are now either due in court or have to cough up extra money. For once, me being piss-poor at registering for anything I have to comes to my advantage, as I’m not actually on the list of the council tax payees for this place. However, it’s still unfortunate and because I have informally agreed to participate in the council tax (I just consider it an extra thing in my rent) so I think I’ll have to cough up the court avoidance fee.

The internet connection we got is, in theory, pretty good. In practice, I think the architecture of the house is giving me grief with connections, as I seem to lose connectivity every few minutes. It may be just me typing in my bed that makes it flaky, but I’m directly above the modem on the next floor up – there shouldn’t be that bad an obstruction to disrupt the signal.

Oh, and another thing. Work. I had somehow envisioned me working nearly full time over summer, as ever since I started at my part-time job people had been telling me good things about the money. Now my boss has posted a schedule that people can tack their desired shifts on. But get this: He actually says “for the time being, please do not take consecutive days.” What?! So not only would I be splitting a five-day work week 4 ways (as there are four of us), it would mean I wouldn’t be able to split it in the most sensible possible way (have one full week at work, one week off, say) that would allow me to actually have some holiday time as well.

I somehow didn’t see this coming. I knew there would be less shifts to go around during the summer, but also thought there would be less people staying on. I’m still a bit dazed from all this, as I’ve just woken up. In any case, it looks like I’ll have to find a second job to cover my expenses of staying in London. And how will I respond to the email from my boss? I’d need to indicate my availability for shifts on specific (non-consecutive) days that would fix my schedule and therefore prevent me from planning for any contingency. How is one to deal with this kind of situation? Damn.

No, O2 didn’t send the text message they promised. It’s now nearly 11 o’ clock in the evening and I convinced my housemate to give me the box and let me try and plug it in – what’s the worst that could happen? All the documentation say not to try it if no message has been sent, but I thought Wednesday means Wednesday – it had better work.

And here I am. Working like a charm. I’m not sure of the achieved speed, but it isn’t too bad. Now I can do all the silly things again like chat on MSN from bed or listen to eclectic internet radio while hanging my laundry. I’ve missed the convenience. Maybe I can get the re-found excitement out of my system by the time it’s time to get back to serious research, so that I’m not constantly being distracted by the wonders of the internet.

I’ve got to hand it to O2 Broadband for making appealing marketing. From the floral box the modem arrived in to the “happy home” ads and perky documentation, it all feels very nice and friendly. Apparently they’ve been very good at keeping the flatmate who ordered the package up to date with text messages about activation and delivery times.  It’s a rare thing when documentation can make you laugh out loud, but that’s what they managed with their description of the accompanying software CD, saying it would make a beautiful coaster but that maybe it’s a good idea to keep it somewhere safe.

If the actual usage experience is anything like the cheerful and nice image they put out, I shall be a very happy customer.  Activation is on Wednesday. I can’t wait.

Talking to conservative hardcore neorealist students of International Relations is about as stimulating as talking to your average economics student. With the former, everything comes down to Iraq, bombs and more power. The latter incessantly spin up statistics and hypothetical future markets into discussion as if they really knew what was up. After my International Political Theory exam two weeks ago I had apparently managed to come across as “really intimidating” because I had dared to say that I don’t think more destructive and persistent weapons are necessarily the way to solve the problem of international terrorism. That led to a certain person at last night’s party merely glancing at me warily and not saying a word, probably as a lot of her posse from last time weren’t there to back her up.

Didn’t bother me. I had a good time, though I spent most of the night talking to fellow Nordic people, or extolling the wonders of the Northern summer to others.

One similarity between Finnish people and Brits I hadn’t encountered before was the kind of passive aggression I witnessed last night. The party was held in a basement flat, and though we were making a fair amount of noise standing around in the courtyard, apparently it was nothing compared to the music the upstairs neighbours played regularly. All of a sudden after 1am someone said that we would have to quiet down and turn off the music as a council representative was at the door investigating a complaint. A council rep! At no point had we heard any complaints from upstairs or even seen anyone in the windows. I for one, and I bet a lot of other people, would have put the lid on things immediately had someone stuck their head out the window and told us to shut up. It reminded me of Finland, where angry neighbours rather call the police to a party than go knock on a door themselves.

I didn’t know council representatives were up at 1am on a Sunday. Maybe they only do that in posh areas like Marylebone. In any case, I took that as my cue and headed off into the hot night. The night bus ride would have been quick and easy had some genius not tried some shenanigans with his ticket when boarding on Westminster Bridge. Or, that’s what I think at least – I only took off my headphones after about 10 minutes of the bus waiting at the stop.

Flying back to London after only a few days away felt like coming back to a place I hadn’t seen in ages. Of course everything was exactly as they had been when I left, just as pretty much everything was exactly the same in Helsinki.

A long weekend break has left me bewilderingly confused about my sleep pattern (as I rose on Friday, wrote my exam and proceeded to party pretty much until my plane to Helsinki, followed by my brother’s graduation party and ending up coming home from the club on the last night bus at 4am) and with quite a substantial hole in my wallet. It’s time to take the coming two weeks as lightly as possible money-wise so that I can actually live through this month. Well, it was my choice.

Helsinki was interesting. Since it is so small, I randomly ran into people I knew when going out with others. I managed to meet people I hadn’t seen in four years, and it was nice to see we still hit it off, as sometimes a long time apart serves to illustrate how people grow apart. The sunshine, clean air and general cleanliness of the place were amazingly refreshing. It was amazing to walk home with the sun coming up and birds singing, with homes around me still sleeping and the mist hanging over the fields. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back. It was, of course, nice to be the centre of attention with people I hadn’t seen in a while. I could have more of that too.

It’s not all bad. London is full of possibilities for me now. I finally explored the area around my house some more this morning. I’m looking forward to doing fun stuff with the people left in London from Uni as well as other people I know. But to get some sense of order into my life it’s perhaps a good thing that I’ve signed up for some significant amounts of work in the next few days.

Summary: If you’re buying, I’m up for it, but it may have to be after I get out of work.