And a very happy 50th birthday to my dad!

Today is my dad's 50th birthday! If there is anyone in this world who makes 50 look young, that's my dad!

So Happy Birthday Dad!

At first I was going to post a picture of either my sister or I with my dad when we were babies but I can't find the photo anymore... oh well. In case anyone is interested, here is a photo of us 24 years later, taken this spring. In terms of people who have heavily influenced my life, my father is right there at the top. I doubt I would have gone into research if he wasn't in that also. I certainly wouldn't know what GABA receptors and NMDA are if it weren't for him... He's done some crazy things with me, he's run the Marseille-Cassis a bunch of times just to help me stay motivated even when I was ready to give up at 100m away from the top. He's reworked the whole garden at the house, he's completely rebuilt the shed there. Hopefully sometime in the next year we'll be able to go climb some ridiculous mountain, I suggested the Kilimanjaro or trying for the holy trinity of Japanese mountains. I think the highest we've ever climbed together was somewhere around 3500m or so which in the end isn't that much compared to what's possible out there. Still, he's climbed about every mountain in the ex-USSR in his youth, that's how awesome he is! Bah. That also means that I'm turning 25 later this year and I should really start thinking about acting my age... but instead I just told my whole family that we're going to Parc Asterix because I haven't been there in ages. How's that for acting like a grown up?

Day 210

Day 210 - 02.06.10

Breakfast food at 8pm. Why not!

Those Montreux photos will never end!

Yeah... try going up all the damn time. Isn't there a story about someone who tried to go to fast and then they ended nowhere? I remember the story of the guy who tried to fly too high and ended up crashing... but the other one. It wasn't really the hare, the hare just went super duper fast and then ended being tired. Oh well. I sucked at those stories anyway. (Btw, the above photos are from a hike I went on while in Montreux, further photos under the cut, it was really lovely but walking up all those damned stairs killed me and I could barely walk because muscles I didn't even know existed started hurting.) The point is that today I went to a meeting for international staff about some new stuff at our "new" university. For those who didn't know, three universities in Helsinki joined forces and became "Aalto University". Why not University of Helsinki? Because there is already one... so they looked for another name and what exports well besides Muumin and Marimekko? Alvar Aalto. Plus the name starts with a double A, try beating that to be the first one on the list. Anywho... as previous seen it really looks like they're doing everything too fast! I remember that when I came to TKK a little over two years ago there were just starting to talk about Aalto University. It became a reality about a year and a half later and it seems like a huge mess! We didn't get any clear answers! We still have no idea about the tenure tracks, who'll finance them, what are the specific areas, etc. And now they also announce that the university will not be three schools but six because the current "School of Science and Technology" (ex-TKK) will be separated into four schools based on the current faculties. Bah. I have a feeling that when I leave to do my year in France everything will change again. I'll come back and I won't even recognise Otaniemi! Alright, so maybe not to that point but still so many things will change and perhaps a tad too fast. I really hope that they're just really bad at presenting stuff to people and that they know what they're doing because it would be a shame to lose great people who could have come to work for the different universities in Finland. That was the "Gali must complain about something work-related at least once a day" part of the post. Now let's go back to Montreux! ( Read more... ) Oh yeah and the fun part is that I just found some more photos of food from Shanghai I haven't posted. I really should get around to that!