things start to settle a bit

The last few weeks have been really hectic, lots of things happening simultaneously:

• looking for a new person to take over my responsibilities at my old workplace
• when we finally found the person then I had to start handing things over to him
• last weeks in school have been busy as well, I had to catch up with some of the things I had not done during the semester - as usual
• looking for a new flat in Tartu. As I decided to buy the flat, it was a bit more thorough process than just renting it
• starting some activities in the new workingplace
• and, as if all of that wasn't enough, I also took the motorcycle license course and have been busy with that also.
  

But, now things start to settle. The school is almost over (just couple of exams left), daily responsibilities have been handed over in the old workplace, I have found the place to live and the formalities are also almost done.

The main things left for June-July:

• getting up to speed in the new workplace
• actually moving my life from Tallinn to Tartu and setting up the new flat
• closing some final projects in the old workplace
• doing some exams in school and trying to transfer my student status from ITK to University of Tartu, faculty of Mathematics and Informatics.
  
• and finishing my motorcycle course. This will actually take some time as there are quite long queues in ARK.
  

As for the short-term, next weekend seems to be again one of those "event-accumulation" weekends:

• graduation party in Riga
• birthday of a close friend
  
• an opportunity to go skydiving
  

Seems that first two options will be the winning ones, but even there I finally will have to make a choice. Oh-well, we'll see.

And, in case you remembered my birthday and wondered how that went - this year I was really original and I managed to get ill for the day. So I spend the whole day in bed, trying to get better. Eventually I did, and now the general condition is almost back to normal.
But I guess there will be no celebration in the short-term - too many other things on my mind and the weather is not favourable either.

want to stay young forever?

Maybe in couple of decades, you can. New Scientist reports: Why humans grow old grungily

back from the biking event

The whole event was quite nice - despite some rain, some drunk youngsters (although the whole thing was supposed to be 100% non-alcohol) and some cold nights. The bike was also excellent - very comfortable and as it is powered by two persons, it seems easier to handle those distances. Especially nice is going downhill - the weight of two persons builds up into quite a lot of inertia! And as the event took place in Otepää (Southern Estonia) then there were a lot of ups-and-downs. :-)

This Friday seems to be one of those overbooked Fridays again, there are three events already:
* birthday of Kaisa
* birthday of Paul
* welcome-back party of Margus

And, it could well happen that on Friday I will sign the (preliminary) papers to purchase my new flat in Tartu! :-)

up next - biking fun!

Next weekend (Fri-Sun) we are planning to go for a biking "trip" (me, Elina and a bunch of people from KoondisTempo) . Estonian "green/nature movement" is organizing their annual biking event, this time near Otepää: rattaretk "Kuidas elad Otepää?".

As I was planning for quite some time already to buy a "tandem" type of a bike, this gave me a good push to finally go ahead and fulfill my plan. So now I'm a happy owner of a Schwinn Tango Tandem!

First experiences: it is damn big! So it is difficult to transport it with public transportation (bus or train). So far I've managed to use the transportation services of the shop chain I bought it from but we'll see how I manage to transport it in the future. Maybe CargoBus or some similar service.

Boat rallye

Hehe, during the weekend I managed to open my "wet season". No windsurfing yet, but instead I participated with Taimar in the annual boat-rallye competition in Tartu Studentdays - with a surfboard. :-)

Some pictures:

• taking off
• in progress
  
• back from the adventure
• getting out

On the whole, I must admit that the idea of getting two persons on a surfboard is not the smartest (it was my idea! :-)) - as the board is meant for one person and for strong wind (that should pull it out of the water). You can guess the end result - the board was submerged quite heavily and out speed decreased close to a halt. But we finished! :-)

Trying to go on a surfboard alone is probably a better idea but it is not so much fun - the element of teamwork is missing! I'll see what sort of vehicle we'll think of for the next year.