Oh, how I love being European in the world economy of 2009.

The guys in Bali have decided to operate on a steady currency instead of Indonesian Rupiahs (a wise choice as such), so everything is paid in US dollars. However, while the steadiness of euro has been rock solid, the value of USD just hit its all-time low at .66 euros. I just paid our 5-figure course fees and accommodation, saving several thousand dollars just by living in the this specific part of the world!

So, we have the flights, we have the course payment on its way, and we have accommodation waiting in Helsinki after New Year’s. And it seems like we’re getting to visit Vuohijärvi as well!

Tags: it's good to be me, money, planning, practical stuff

Okay, let’s have a checklist. Just in case we’ve forgotten something.

We are in the process of getting visas for Bali. Our passports have more than a year in them left.

I’ve found suitable flights for us and we have someone to take us to Helsinki first. There’s enough time for transit in Singapore even though we will have to transfer our check-in baggage by ourselfs.

We can pay for courses, flights and visas any day now without going bankrupt. And I still have my final salary payment ahead of me.

We have an appointment with a doctor for health certificates and we have all the necessary vaccinations in effect.

Are we missing something hugely important here?

Tags: Bali, let me know, planning, practical stuff, travel, vaccinations

I’m going to the office tomorrow to sort out the details of my short but interesting post-Bangalore career in the Corporation. Most probably I will go back once or twice after that, but that’s about it – I hope. I’m not going to say anything as fact before having something about this on paper.

Still, it’s good to be back.  Clean streets, peace & quiet, me blending in the crowd… Oulu is a lot better than most of people even realise.

Tags: planning, practical stuff, work

I have been very quiet for some time (again), because I really feel like I’ve taken one too many hits from the stress on this whole assignment. Although my anxiety as such does not feel so overwhelming anymore, the somatic symptoms prevail. Muscle ache, sleepiness (10 hours a night isn’t enough), sweating of palms and feet, being out of breath and gastrointestinal disorders could result from a number of things, but my best guess is a sort of anxiety disorder. I hope to know more on coming Friday after consulting a doctor.

In actual news, there has been some progress in the repatriation negotiations. I would love to give out more details, but there are so many company confidential ones I don’t want to take my chances. I hope it suffices to say that Corporation payroll will be missing one specialist by the end of this year.

I’d be jumping up and down from pure excitement if I was feeling well.

Tags: oh bugger, planning, sleep, stress, time, travel, why I wanted a change, work

The packers-and-movers will be here on Friday, and we’re moving to the hotel on Thursday. So basically all we need for survival in Finland needs to be packed in the luggage, as well as stuff we’re contemplating to take to Bali. Just the thought of packing again feels slightly dreadful, although I do know that this is just another leg on our long trip.

It’s not all bad. The ‘hotel’ we’re moving to is Oakwood, where Heikki stayed before moving in to RT Nagar. They have a swimming pool and a gym, and the best restaurants are in the same building. (sushi, anyone? pasta, pizza…?) They also have a net connection, which is always a plus. (geek? who, me?) We have a bit less than a week there, and then it’s back to the winter wonderland of slush and darkness. Here’s hoping Finland gets more snow soon, so it won’t be so damned bleak.

And then we get to live in other people’s houses once again. Hopefully not for too long, and hopefully not in the same place for the whole time, but chances are we won’t be setting up our own home there – chances are that we’re gone before that.

So what to do meanwhile? Thus far I’ve sewn myself two shirts and read an innumerable amount of pages on the ‘net. I’m planning to stitch up a pair of pants while I’m at it. I’ve also played on the Xbox, drunk countless cups of coffee and chai and learnt some yoga. Three sessions to go before take-off. I also managed to get a crick in my neck so that my head wouldn’t turn to the right during the weekend. Luckily it’s heaps better already. I expect to do some serious swimming now that I have the chance and read some more, on and off the net.

… and try not to stress about things I can’t affect. Just chill.

Tags: accommodation, hotels, moving, planning, practical stuff, travel

They usually say that no news is good news, but right now I’d like to have some. Almost anything would do, but one thing is hanging above everything else: I would very much like to have a schedule and know the terms for our move.

What I know right now is not much: we will have our honeymoon in Maldives, come back to Bangalore, repatriate to Oulu and then get going to Bali for our IDC (SCUBA instructor) internships. I will have some severance pay from the Corporation, but we still need to gather some more cash for the whole trip to be feasible. If we are going to stay in Finland for more than a few weeks, we also need a place to stay, and that will complicate things even further. Our furniture won’t reach Finland before end of this year, and getting an apartment for one or two months would anyway be far from practical.

It would be easy to fill the gap by selling some of the furniture we have, but by the time we’re supposed to head southeast, our cargo will be evading pirates somewhere in the Somalian seas. We could of course sell them in advance, but the last expat to leave Bangalore had a nasty surprise in the box when they opened it – the whole crate was sprayed with bug spray that destroyed every single piece of cargo and they had to discard it all. Claiming the insurance money after something like that would be the quick and dirty way to liquidate our assets, with significantly better prices and all, but still…

A lot of questions are still open and a lot of loose ends need to be caught, but I think we’re on top of it again. Most likely I forgot to mention hundreds of things, but if something bugs you, please leave a comment.

Tags: holiday, money, moving, planning, practical stuff, time, travel

I finally got the call.

We’re travelling back to Finland next month.

Next destination: the sea.

Tags: it's good to be me, moving, planning, surprises, time, what?

I’ve always tried hard to make everyday living work smoothly and in a timely manner. My number one option so far has been staying in Finland where the infrastructure is good and things are well out-of-the-box. Everything is bloody expensive, but for that money you get a reliable road network, tolerable bureaucracy and very low corruption rates. Things just… work.

I’m sure you already know what India is like in this regard. I may be rich here, but it doesn’t make everyday life as easy as in the civilised world. I could spend my whole salary on domestic help, bribes and everything, and still be a long way from the quality of living Finland provides. So this is not the place I want to settle down in.

The problem with both Finland and India is that I’m heavily dependent on the infrastructure and other people. A lot of stuff I do requires electricity, special skills, buying something or travelling somewhere. Things are really complicated, and on top of that I have to sacrifice more than half of my daily time in a job that doesn’t give me much more than money. While it’s nice to have a good salary and a “good” job, I don’t find satisfaction in the lifestyle anymore.

The following two paragraphs may seem irrelevant to the ones above, but bear with me for a while. I’ll try to explain in a moment.

The nature of the problem is the same as in video game industry today. In the 1980s anyone could buy a C64, learn how to write code and put up a semi-decent gaming experience in a couple of weeks. Twenty years later, it takes a team of n+1 professionals, expensive development tools and at least a year (or something?) to put together even the tiniest Xbox Live Arcade game, not even mentioning “real” games. One man creations are really few and far between, and in a bigger project you can easily find yourself doing something completely meaningless just because you were told to do so.

And this is the exact problem I have with the Corporation. I worked on a project for two years, saw a prototype of the end product once (not in action), and the whole project was shot down shortly after that. Two years well spent, thank you and here’s the next one. Motivation, anyone?

The common denominator of these topics is the lack of personality and individuality. Being just a faceless part of a huge group – be it a company or a nation – just doesn’t cut it for me. I know I’m an individual person with my friends and relatives, but being a greedy bastard, I want to be one in other contexts too. This includes the ability to create something meaningful by myself and keeping my work in touch with the real world, not just fiddling with bits & pieces that are useless without hundreds of other people.

And that’s why I intend to change careers after this assignment, even if it means that my income will be cut by 90 per cent or so. I know there are endless possibilities out there, and life is too short to be spent on something I don’t like doing. IT might have been fun once, but it’s time to move on already.

Tags: friends and family, luxuries, money, planning, prices, ways of working, why I wanted a change, work

I had an enlightening experience this morning as I finally figured out what the problem has been all the time. It is not lack of communication per se, but lack of knowledge. I have read through every single guideline and policy I could get my hands on, but apparently this hasn’t been the case for all the other relevant people. Even my manager-to-be isn’t familiar with basic details like my working hours. Add in the misconception that everyone involved knows at least as much as I do and we have a problem. No wonder they couldn’t give any realistic estimations on how the process goes.

I also got to know that the contract draft has been approved and it should be on the way for my approval. I should have it in my hands during this week, so the previsit is still possible during the planned time frame. I’m not holding my breath, but there’s the slight maybe in the air. We’ll see in a couple of days.

As it seems that I am actually going to India, I had the courage to do some longer term plans also. According to current calculations it takes until September 2010 and we should be off to have a diving vacation of at least three months in Thailand. I can hardly wait.

Tags: colleagues from India, diving, holiday, oh bugger, planning, practical stuff, travel, ways of working