Day 15: At Work and Other Tidbits

Well, I called the apartment administrators this morning and it seems like this problem has occurred before and they know about it. Said they would send a plumber over as soon as possible. Hopefully, the water system will be repaired by the time I reach back to the room tonight.

It snowed last night. I think there was about 3 to 4 inches of snow on the ground this morning. While it was new to be walking on such ‘thick’ snow again after so many years, kudos goes out to the public workers for clearing the ground so quickly. It makes the streets so much easier to walk. I’d never realised that their hard work only made our days more pleasant, here and in Singapore. Imagine waking up at unearthly hours and starting your day while the rest of the world is sleeping comfortably in their beds, and what you do is often met with disregard and scorn. They are often the unnamed, unseen, unheard, and unsung heroes of any society. Without them, we cease to function the way we know it. And of course, in Singapore, the cleaners and garbage collectors are usually foreign workers or people we feel are uncouth, and do not want to associate ourselves with them. Horrible, isn’t it? But they are a necessary part of society, and no job is too demeaning. Who knows if I will end up as a table cleaner in my later years?

To the road cleaners, the trash collectors, table cleaners, basically the REAL public administrators, I salute you for your work and the effort that you put into making our lives more comfortable.

On a much lighter note, Sweden is indeed the land of babes. Eye candy galore. Everywhere! Almost. I revel at standing at the bus-stop every weekday morning. Deserts are not necessary here. Lest I appear too hum sup, I don’t ‘feast’ too obviously. I’m sure all guys in the world know how to look without appearing to be staring. It’s a skill. As for the SPGs back home, don’t worry. You have your share of sweets as well. The world is fair. What I can’t understand is when it’s so cold, how to they stand wearing low cut blouses?

I love the apples here. Unlike in Singapore, where Fuji apples abound and it’s so difficult to find Washington apples or the gor kee kah (5-legged) variety. Here, all they have are the gor kee kah apples and I don’t see any fuji apples. Great. They taste much better.

The computer at the SLU office is finally up and running, but I’m a total klutz at using the keyboard. While it’s still basically the QWERTY typing board style, the punctuation marks are in different places because of certain letters not found in the English alphabet. Like Å, Ö, Ä. Plus the functions are also somewhat different. For italics, we use Ctrl-I, while they call it kursiv and use Ctrl-K. The same for bold (fet). Ctrl-B versus Ctrl-F. The controls are totally reversed from what I’m used to using.

Me: Ctrl-F = Find or Search; Ctrl-B = Bold
Them: Ctrl-F = Bold; Ctrl-B = Search

I’m a total klutz at this. And they can’t add my notebook to their IP. Afraid that my anti-virus is not updated and will infect all the other computers in the building. Hmm… then why do we manage to log on so easily onto the school network without such problems? You mean we don’t care about viruses?

I can change the keyboard style to US and all problems are solved. Except one. Some times I don't even know where some of the less common punctuations and symbols are and rely on the keyboard for that. So changing the style, while the printed letters on the keyboard remains in the Swedish style, I also got problem. Oh well, all it takes is some getting used to the keyboard style. No biggie.

The best part of all the trouble this morning? I finally have my internet connection at the second office! I'm a total addict. I admit that.

I don't know what to cheer about today, but who cares.

Cheers!

Or we do it in Singapore, during wedding or major chinese celebrations, (deep breath now) Yaaaa.............................................um Seng!