June 2011
Accepting/Choosing, Ambition/Satisfaction
It's interesting how different one can look at a situation, depending on if one just got caught up in it or if one chose for it to happen. A rather practical example of this: how would you feel if you were told you had to stay in a very shitty, dirty, disgusting, crappy apartment for a month and there was no way to get out of it? Considering that you're not given any alternatives you'll probably try to make the best of it. Now compare that to how you'd feel if you actually had to choose that crappy apartment yourself and consciously decide to live there, despite grokking its crappy nature. Speaking from personal experience, I'd try to squirm my way out of making that choice by any means possible.
I think different people handle these choices differently. People with more foresight might choose a better apartment. People with more hindsight may regret their choose more after having made it. Me, I'd probably accept whatever choice I had made in the past and go on with life. After all, regretting a choice that you made yourself is like doubting yourself. It won't lead anywhere.
On a somewhat related note, can someone with ambition ever be satisfied? They seem to be two opposite concepts to me. If you're ambitious then it's in your nature to find flaw with your current situation. The next step would be to try and improve your situation, but if you're really ambitious then you will just find another flaw that needs to be fixed. It's related to accepting/choosing in that one must choose to be ambitious, whereas one must accept to be satisfied. There's really no other way. Can you accept to be ambitious or choose to be satisfied? I don't think so.
For me the crux of ambition versus satisfaction lies in how you handle unexpected situations. What do you do when the hotel you already booked suddenly doesn't have a room for you? What do you do if a friend drops by unexpectedly? You can substitute 'What do you do' in the previous sentences with 'How would you feel' and it might make things more clear. Would you feel frustrated that things are not going according to plan (thereby defeating your ambitions), or would you just roll with it and see where the situation leads?
Some of the most (professionally) successful people I've met are also the ones who hate unexpected situations the most. But if I'm any good at detecting happiness in people, then I'd say that people of a more accepting nature are more happy. Ambitious people would challenge that, of course. It's just one more thing that would improve their life if they choose not to accept that statement. And happy people would gladly accept.
I think it's fairly obvious which type I am. Which type are you?
New version of Moodlogger!
Well, it's not quite released yet, but the updated app is pending review. I added a whole bunch of new moods as well as the ability to select from different sets of moods. I wanted to do a lot more, like implement an offline mode, clarify the registration procedure, add twitter/facebook connectivity etc. But I just don't have the time right now. I made preparations in this version for the offline feature though, and I also made it a whole lot easier for me to release new moods and new moodsets without having to update the app; everything just downloads from the server automatically, meaning it's a whole lot easier now to do incremental updates.
The website didn't change in terms of design, but the back-end was changed quite a bit to support mood sets and the soon-to-be-introduced offline mode. There's still some work to be done, but fortunately I can do it while/after the app's been reviewed, giving me a bit more time.
I've been thinking about starting a dev blog, but since there's precious little to report if I don't have time to work on it, I've decided to keep all the Moodlogger reports here on CFW for now. Hopefully I'll have some more to tell you later.
Deep Blue Sea
(Click for massive version!)
Ah Seychelles, how I miss thee..
A Nomadic Existence
For a while now I've been contemplating about where to go. No matter where I go, I can't see myself working at the same place for several years, although I felt the same way when I went to Japan and I ended staying there for 5 years. In any case, I've been looking at ways to make my existence more nomadic.
There's three things that are absolutely vital when moving to a new place: finding accommodation, arranging transportation and getting a job. The relationships between these three things are incredibly intricate. Depending on where you go, it may be favorable to find a cheap flight first, and then arrange accommodation. For other destinations the price of a flight may pale in comparison to the monthly rent. And in both cases, if you manage to land a job then you can probably afford to worry a lot less about both accommodation and transportation. But getting a job is a whole lot easier if you're already accommodated in whichever city you're planning to go to. One thing needs the other, yet having one of them might mean having less trouble finding the other two.
The biggest dilemma perhaps is to look for jobs or to look for accommodation. I've been doing a bit of both, and had success with neither. Personally I'd feel more comfortable already being at my destination and then looking for jobs, rather than flying back and forth, landing interviews and hoping for that lucky break. Getting a place to stay first shows my resolve, and it means I can worry about one thing at a time. In my particular case I'm rushing things a bit because I have to be in London in July anyway, but logically it makes more sense to find accommodation first and then booking the flight. In fact, if you look at it that way, I'm doing things in the worst possible order. The best would be to get a job first, have them pay for the flight, then stay in a hotel while arranging long(er)-term accommodation. I got the flight first, now I'm looking for accommodation, and then I'll find a job. Oh well.
More importantly, I've been thinking about the long term sustainability of such a lifestyle. Provided one can find contract jobs that last between 3-6 months (of which there are plenty, it would appear) it should be possible to repeat the same trick later in a different city and country. It would be quite tricky to get a job without a face to face interview, so getting accommodation first would probably be best. But that means you're basically gambling with your life, hoping that the right job opportunity will pop up in front of you in the short time period that you are there. If it doesn't, you could always relocate to another place and repeat. It's just like gambling: if you land a job, you profit. If you don't, you have a nice long holiday in a city you've never been to.
Either way, it's more fun than staying with your parents.
Chaos
It would be an understatement to say that my life is quite busy right now. I've decided to move back to London and I've only got 2 weeks to find a place to stay. I'm in Holland right now, but will be taking the JLPT level 2 on July the 3rd. Worst case scenario is that I won't be able to find a room in time, which means I'll have to spend money on flying back to Holland, and then back to London once I do find a room.
There is method to this madness, albeit slight. This may surprise everyone who knows me, but I will actually be trying to find a job! Ha ha. No, I'm serious. I'm looking for a contract or short term position in London to finance some more travelling. I'm still quite reluctant to let go of that holiday mood that has been so ever-present in my life, even considering alternatives like staying at a campsite with my bicycle or buying a cheapass camper van. As someone told me recently, maybe I do have a bit of commitment issues. ;)
A contract job would be the perfect compromise for me. 3 to 6 months working on a project will undoubtedly be more exciting than having a permanent job, and if I manage to land one I'm sure it'll pay well too. At the same time I"ll be living my life out of a suitcase. It's not quite as minimalistic as touring on my bicycle, but it'll have to do. And I get to bring a bigger laptop.
So much to do! Finding a room, finding a job, cleaning up the mess I am leaving behind in Holland, buying things I'll need for my new lifestyle. It's a wholly different feeling from 6 months ago, when I was preparing to settle down in grey London forever and ever. This time there's the prospect of excitement and summer, and perhaps something more than that as well. I really can't complain about anything. It's been a long time since I felt this good about my life.
Seychelles!
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It's been over a week now since returning from the Seychelles. A good time to write up my thoughts on the trip. It only takes a little while to forget all the things you dislike about a place, leaving only the good memories behind. I've all but forgotten about the sweaty humidity and the sandiness. I still remember that it was hot and sandy, but that seems less important right now compared to the beautiful blue skies, the white beaches and clear waters. How could I possibly forget that? Seychelles was great.
The thing I'll remember most was the laid-back atmosphere. Our trip took us from the biggest island to islands ever decreasing in size, and as the size of the island decreases, so did the laid-back-ness increase. Life seems a lot simpler when you're on a tropical island with not a care in the world. I remember encountering a British guy in a bus on the way to the beach. We started talking, and I learned that he was an accountant who escaped Britain so that he could live on Seychelles. That's possibly the best place in the whole world you could do accounting. Or any other job, for that matter, although I think Java software developers are not very high in demand over there.
When on Mahe we failed to get a rental car for the busy weekend, so we tried our hand at hitch-hiking a couple of times. Every time we tried it was successful, and we got some nice rides, as well as some interesting conversations. On the day we left Mahe to go to Praslin our pre-booked taxi driver slash tour guide failed to show up in time, so we went to the roadside and tried to hitch a ride. It wasn't long before someone pulled over. Our driver turned out to be working for the water company in Mahe, which is just about the most important job one can have over there, as water is a precious commodity. It's thanks to the water company's efforts that the tap water is actually drinkable. The driver told us a bit about how they purified the water for drinking and then dropped us off right next to the ferry to Praslin. Excellent.
On Praslin we rented a car, which proved to be the right choice, as there were not a lot of taxis on the island. 2 days was just about enough time to check out every road on the island, which included some fun (30% incline) slopes and narrow, twisty roads. We also did a full day island hopping tour which brought us to 3 different islands and gave us plenty of chance to see the local wildlife. On the third day of Praslin we returned our rental car and took the ferry to La Digue, an even smaller island. Bicycles are the transportation of choice on La Digue, and we enjoyed cycling across the island during the next two and a half days, doing plenty of sightseeing, swimming and snorkeling along the way.
The hotels we booked were quite interesting. The Mahe hotel (Le Surmer) turned out to be quite crap, but in a fun and quaint way. We had to move from a tiny, well air-conditioned room into a bigger room on the second day. The water turned off after 10am, so no lingering about. Upon returning to our hotel that evening we found that we did not have electricity, a problem that only seemed to affect our room. That was soon solved by the manager, but 5 minutes after turning on the air-conditioning the power went down again. This whole process repeated itself a couple of times until it was finally fixed. The day afterwards it wasn't just our room, it was the entire hotel that got its power cut. An employee even came by with a candle. Cute, but I wouldn't recommend the hotel to anyone. Compare that to Praslin where our hotel was really great: no problems at all, quite clean and an excellent view to boot. Very nice. On La Digue we stayed at Vanilla Guesthouse, which had a completely different ambiance from the Praslin hotel, but not in a bad way. Vanilla was cosy and warm, and full of interesting things on the walls and floors and tables. A great experience.
As I'm currently looking for a place to stay in London (again!) I can't help but compare the cost of staying at Seychelles to staying in London. Seychelles is a lot cheaper than staying anywhere near London! I can completely agree with the accountant we met, who fled the UK to stay in Seychelles. It's good to have the skills to get a job anywhere. In my case my profession limits me to major cities, unless I take a major pay cut and/or do something I'm not specialized in. I guess that's life telling me to expand my horizons.
I recommend everyone I know to visit Seychelles. Stay at one of the small hotels (the government no longer allows large hotels) or guesthouses, hitch-hike your way to places or take buses, cycle around on La Digue and go swimming and snorkeling at Anse Lazio on Praslin. It's definitely something you won't soon forget :) .
Dubai
Dune Bashing in Dubai. Quite entertaining. Also bloody hot.
My generation
My generation is the people who don't want to work. We work, but we don't enjoy it. We just graduated but we're not motivated to find a job. We just want to have fun.