Blogging,Buying books etc....

So one more saturday morning and keeping true to weekend ritual i woke up at 5.30am something difficult to do at weekdays.Arrrrrrrrrgh !!! WTF...

The other day i was busy at work when 'Tasin' sent me the link of Mark Jen,the poor fellow who lost his job with Google,Inc for blogging.He wore a nice smug on his face(i am sure of it) and cautioned me about blogging.Ok, the news was true but it does not apply to me for these reasons:-
i.I dont blog about my work(BS7799 securtiy totally respected)
ii.I dont blog from my office(though its not restricted), i have a cool 2Mbps ADSL connection at my apartment which i very much use for blogging.

Now coming to buying books,i never realised how pampered i was in India when it came to buying books.You can get all kind of books in any city of India,there are huge bookshops everywhere.You dont need to order a book simply cause you name a book and they have it in their stock.Other thing is cost,in India I can buy books at a fraction of the cost here,Veera has a explanation for this "your Indian salary is fraction of your Finnish salary" thats what he told, totally forgetting the Finnish Income tax that i need to pay every month.

So yesterday i bought one book of 'SCM' from an online bookshop in London at friggin 37.34 GBP which turns out to 54.02Euros(thanks,www.xe.com),in India I am sure that book wont have cost more than 300 INR.They said that they will dispatch the book on tuesday and it would reach me in 3 day by airmail.So now I am patiently waiting for it.On a side note 'I love scottish accent' this i came to know when the lady at the online bookshop was talking to me in cool scottish accent :-p.I think i will order few more books from that bookshop,though online.

P.S- This weekend i am trying to pick some HTML skills so that i can enhance my blog and add links to other blogsites i frequent.

Got it back..

Today my ATM card was back in its place in wallet,for four days my wallet seemed empty.They sent my ATM card with yesterday's mail alongwith a covering letter and the thick manual about how to use the card.I couldnt make out what was there in covering letter and thought bank ppl were pissed off with me and so they sent a manual(in Finnish and Swedish of course),swearing at me "this is the way you should use the card...".I had to wait till next day to work where i could ask 'Jussi' to read the letter for me, he clarified that the covering letter was innocous as far as swearing at me was concerned.It merely said that this is your card and it is linked to your account and you can use it as soon as you get it.Sigh of relief for me,more so cause there were two more letters from the health insurance company and it was 'Jussi' again to say that they were asking that why i am delaying in filing my claim for the amount spent on medicines,obviously they got to know that i had visited the nursing home as my insurance card was swiped there.So all's well that ends well.

Now some interesting comparison between ATM's in India & Finland:-

1.In Finland there is only one brand of ATM (Otto),in India all the banks have their own ATM.

2.Indian ATM's allow you to deposit cash cheque etc..no such provision here.

3.You can change the PIN of your ATM Card in India but not in Finland,may be if you make a special request to the Banks they would change it but not from ATM.If you loose or forget your PIN the new PIN mailer that you receive will have the same old PIN.

4.If you use cards of Non-Finnish banks then only you can have the interface in English or else olnly in Suomi(Finnish) & Swenska(Swedish).

5.There are two slots(Yellow & Blue) in Finnish ATM's to insert your card,one for money and one for loading Euros in your card for making phone calls.Indian ATM's have only one slot i.e to do monetary transactions and Indian ATM cards cant be inserted in the Public phone booths to make calls.This feature i must say in Finnish ATM is very useful,though i dont remember which slot is for money and which one is for loading Euros for phone.

6.Indian ATM's are enclosed in room or cabin like structure with a security guard but Finnish ATM's looks more like windows in aparments no enclosed space, no door and no guard.

7.In Finland there are kiosks for doing internet banking, as the for paying bills the culture is to pay it through Net Banking and if you dont have Internet or Computer (rarely) you can use these kiosks.

8.Just to digress there is difference in net banking too,here also you have a user id but the password is not of your choice, there is different password for every login.They give you a set of something like 30 passwords and you have to strike them as you use them so that you know which is the next one for next login, the older ones wont be accepted.Yes of course you need to carry that paper all time time with you if you want to do Net Banking from different places.

So that was it and now its midnight here so i am going to sleep.

Invictus -William Ernest Henley

________________________________________________________


Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.


In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.


Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.


It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

Vicious Circle

I have got myself in a vicious circle and probably need to revisit the concepts of time management.It not that i have too much work to do or i am doing some mission critical things.My life is as simple as it could be yet i am lagging.

On friday while leaving for the day i just listed down few thing to do in the weekend all related to surfing and collecting some information like doing reviews of Digicams before i can buy them etc..But i donno what i did on the weekend it was Sunday evening and i had not completed all of those so i thought ok Monday i would complete them not a big deal.I completed them on Monday but two jobs of Monday remained to be done and on today i did the jobs of monday but for tuesday few are left..and now this is the perfect text book type vicious circle.

They are nothing very tough to do, simple personal work like downloading your bank statement and reconciling them,checking for some books online which i intend to buy.I guess sometimes its lack of will power and my inability to come out of comfort zone while i am on internet (btw my comfort zone on internet is having a cup of coffee in one hand and browsing the newspapers with other hand,its hardly surprising that though i am in Finland i know each and every happenings of my city and sometimes when i talk to my mom i let her know the news of the city where she is living :))...)

But today i think i would sleep a bit late and finish them and try to break the vicious circle or else i need to read 'Fifth Discipline' again to find how to come out of it?

Wish me Good Luck!!

Here I Go

Skiing Trip

For the first time in my life i did skiing yesterday.It was official trip from office to Messila resort(www.messila.fi).I had booked a teacher for me and rented out the Ski's also.

Our teacher's name was Juha,he was excellent at skiing and he choose a less steeper slope as it was my first stint.He taught me how to put on ski's and how to take it out and then how to stop it,but somehow i wasnt able to learn how to stop the ski's.I would go downhill with great speed and i would try to mimick the professionals by holding the sticks as they would hold it :-P and at the bottom of the slope there was no other way other than to fall down so i would take a somersault and reach the end and then take the ropeway to reach up.

It was tremendous experience,i fell down many times broke my left knee and today my whole body is paining.I was sweating profusely for the first time in Finland.We took a break in between and went for drink and to eat something to get our energy back and then we did skiing till 9pm when the resort was closing down.

It was such a fantastic experience and it was great fun returing to Hameenlinna from Messila with our colleagues.When we used to fall down our colleagues could not control their laugh ..he he...but they were so good at skiing.Even we saw kids doing skiing with so much ease and lots of them even snowboarding.

Well i want to do skiing again as soon as my knee is ok.

I have few pics of mine from the skiing trip which i would post shortly.

Otto

Otto is the name of the ATM chain,it services the card of any bank in Finland.You dont have bank specific ATM's here.So far so good,the only problem is that you have only two langauge option there Finnish or swedish and if you use international ATM card then you are lucky to have the menu's in English.So it happened that i went to ATM to withdraw cash and since i have account with Nordea bank(a Finnish-Swedish bank ) the menu came up in Finnish.I have used ATM only twice till now cause most of the transaction can be done directly through cards and rest through Net banking so i never need to carry cash.So when the Finnish menu came up i tried withdrawing the money and i dont know what options i used the ATM withheld my Card and i was left with no card and no money.I had gone to Helsinki yesterday as our EVP HR was coming there from corporate office to meet all of us.When i went to Nordea to withdraw money they wanted to see my passport as identification and since i was not carrying passport i couldnt get money withdrawn.Luckily i always carry my credit card so didnt run into any trouble.

Well our EVP HR gave a presentation and we were shown the video clip wherein our company recieved the best Employer's award from Hewitt Associates.

The good thing was that after that meeting we had nice and excellent Indian dinner.Donno from which restataurant it was brought but it was better than the last office dinner during diwali celebration.After Dinner which was over by 8.30 pm Marcus suggested to go for drink in some bar so me,Sofia,Vijayendra,Praveen and Marcus went to a Belgian Bar.It was a good bar with nice ambience and was pretty crowded by Finnish standard.We had nice chat within all of us we discussed everything from Finnish drinking habit to the Tsunami in India.Marcus was pretty much inclined to keep the show till wee hours of morning but we had to come to Hameenlinna and our last bus was at 2345 so we all left.Anyway this was the only best thing that happened yesterday and maybe for today pending the outcome of our Skiing trip that we are going late evening today.

Sunlight
Posted by Hello


These are few pics i took of sunny morning from my window but then it took me whole day to figure it how to post it.

Bright Sunny Morning

Today i woke up quite early, at 4.31am to be exact, though yesterday i thought since it is satday i would wake up late and slept at 12 midnight but i think i was seeing some bad dreams and that woke me up.Its quite strange during weekdays however hard i try i cant get up before 8.30am and literally need to drag myself to work and on weekends i get up so early that i can prepare morning tea for myself.

Upon getting up i checked the temperature on net it was showing minus 5.6 C but i am sure the thermometer in the kitchen would be showing minus 7.6C, no the temperature is not faulty but i think the met department's observatory is in some southern outskirts of city.I was browsing newspapers over a cup of tea and wow i could see faint sunlight coming through the window.Its so special to see Sunlight in Finland and in half an hour it was bright sunlight coming to my bed and it is actually falling on the screen while i am doodling this post.Its such a nice view the trees have turned green(the snow cover over them has melted) and the thick layer of snow is gittering and the lake is frozen and reflecting so much sunlight that its difficult to see at that direction.Sunlight makes any day special in Finland and since spring is coming so we would have more of these special days.So it was worth getting up early today.

I have lot of work piled up for today i have thought of cleaning my apartment, taking care of laundry(always the toughest job for me ....but luckily none of our neighbours use the washing machine on satday so i never had a schedule clash..) and my weekend task going to supermarket for grocery shopping.

One thing that has changed after moving to Finland is that i never have to worry about work or have to go to office on saturdays and its blashphemy to call your colleague at home on weekends..weekends are totally segregated from office work .so much so that the planned skiing trip from office is on Thursday evening and not on saturday cause no one would come on saturday...isnt it cool !!!

So i should now get offline and complete my weekend chores...

Tribute

I have been rumbling on this topic since yesterday but didnt get time to post it.So as the subject suggests mine this blog is a tribute to those peoples who i am going to describe in this post.

There are whole lot of people or may be in majority in this world whose motto in life is to be Materialistic & Opportunistic.Nothing is paramount to them than lust for power money & status.Honesty is something alien to them and cheating is their way of life.They can speak lie at any moment and to anyone.The dont know what TRUST is and gratitude is a word of past generations for them.

They dont care for anyone except themselves, they dont care how much their behaviour actions and words are going to hurt others.They can very well camouflage themselves and only when they have cheated someone,one can recognise them.

I dont know how much they require in this life which is nearing its end with each passing second.Its just one life so what they would do with this much but all this doesnt affect them they just keep on going and betraying cheating and hurting all of them whom they meet in their days in life...

Anyway may God be with them and wish them long life......

Beautiful Quote

Just now came across this beauitul quote ........

"
When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.
— Chief Aupumut (1725), Mohican.
"

March Blues .....

Well once again March is round the corner and the financial year is coming to end.Newspapers are full of ads with those instruments where you can invest to save your tax.So now i also need to ascertain how much tax i have already paid what can i do to save few bucks of my hard earned money?

Well this time i need to file two returns one for Finnish tax system and one for our own Indian Income tax deptt.But in Finland there is no trouble as there is no way i can save tax so no trouble to choose where to invest and here we have Deloitte which will file our returns.But for India i am still undecided where to invest in NSC or PPF or Bonds..uff ...

One thing is good that now everything can be done online i can buy insurance and Bonds online.There was news that NSC's would now be available in demat form ..hmm need to check out India post site.Well the news also is that assessee in some of the cities in India can file their IT returns online and Bangalore is one of them anway there is lots of time for filing IT returns officialy it is July 31st but every year it is extended.

Just now saw one article about consideration of taxing perks in the coming budget,perks as negligible as free lunch in office...it seems salaried class are the perfect choice for any FM to milk ..i will save my comments for this contentious topic after budget is presented.

Last year i got my refund peacefully lets see whether this year i get some scope for getting any refund or not.

Best Time

"
........the best time to get out of project is when things are going fine,leave your mark and get out but make sure the mark is not water mark ......."

I am NOT fine ...........

I am not feeling perfectly fine today.

Though it was minus 1C today but i was sweating in the apartment so when i came to office walking through the snow covered streets i wasnt wearing jacket, cap and gloves.I knew that time only that something is wrong with me and now when i am sitting at the desk, my head is feeling heavy.I am not feeling like doing anything.

To make the situation worse i have one meeting right after lunch hours at 1pm where i am sure i would be ripped off.God ! when will people get the sense that weekend is not the day for scheduling meetings.This meeting was scheduled for last week and it was postponed and i assumed it wont be there this week too but yesterday evening out of blue i got the mail that the meeting is today.

Now i am shuffling through the power points trying to get hold of something to save my *** going on fire.

Its so yukky to know that when something is wrong everything else would also go wrong.

Homesick ....

Its now exactly four month that i came to Finland but today for the first time i am feeling homesick here.May be its cause that i slept in the evening after i came from work, sleeping in evening always makes me feel uneasy.I was just browsing some newspaper and when i got up at 8 pm i realised that i had slept.

Something is troubling me from inside but i dont know what it is.Anyway since i was not feeling well so cooked a simple dinner and now i would again go to sleep.

Just now i realised that its going to be a year since i last went to my home.

Joke of the month

I can easily vote this as joke of the month.

1st Guy - Valentine's day is coming ...
2nd Guy - So what's new about this ??
1st Guy - Actually i got the invitation from my ex to spend the V-day with her
2nd Guy - are you sure??
1st Guy - Yep
2nd guy - (takes a deep breath) i am not sure about Valentine's day but one thing is sure April fool's day will be coming a bit earlier this Year.

Good one indeed.