Happy 2008

Happy 2008

Wishing a great year for all!

Person of the Year

I have been reading/listening/watching numerous lists of best of 2007 and I thought in my opinion is the person of the year. In Estonia it is without doubt prime minister Andrus Ansip who not only hit the jackpot at the parliamentary elections in the Spring, but managed to create a coalition government excluding the Centre Party. However, in the world there are several people who could be up for the title: Benazir Bhutto for example, for her courageous return to Pakistan which unfortunately recently became a fatal decision. It could also be Steve Jobs for leading Apple into new heights with the iPhone and gorgeous Mac OS X Leopard and Macintosh computers (and for breaking the 200 dollar share price among downward spiralling tech share prices). The person of the year could also be Al Gore for his environmental campaign, although I still think he should have run for president of the US (perhaps he still will).

However, for me personally the person of the year is Richard Dawkins for his tireless fight for reason and science. I read his book the God Delusion and it had a big impact on me, restoring my belief in many ways to reason. It is really simple what he is trying to say and he is right: blind faith should not be outside of criticism and religion should not be tolerated as much as it is. I hope many people read his works and listen to the voice of reason. Then the world will be a better place for everyone.

Update: Some links:

The Official Richard Dawkins Website
The Time 100: Richard Dawkins
First chapter of The God Delusion
Richard Dawkins on BBC’s Have Your Say

Death at Christmas

World: Benazir Bhutto died today.
Estonia: Jaan Kross died today.
Personal: I am going on Saturday to a funeral of one of my relatives (my great-grandmother’s sister’s daughter) who died of cancer on Christmas Eve. I really liked her.

We are all mortal
We all share at least one trait
We all die one day
Mortality is our shared human trait

But to really matter when we die
We must have really lived, had an impact

Christmas greeting video

Here is a seasonal greeting from me to everyone.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays to everyone from me. I hope everyone can use the holidays for something they have been meaning to do for a long time, but were not able to, because of work. I also hope that you not only can relax your body, but recharge your mind with magic and goodwill for the next year.

I am spending Christmas with my family, as usual. We just finished another several hours of playing the Settlers of Catan with the expansion pack Cities and Knights of Catan, which my mother won. I also got some nice presents which I was able to pick myself, including a very nice new silk bathrobe.

Relationships

Christmas is an emotionally difficult time for me every year as it is a time one should share with loved ones. I do share it with my family, whom I love, but it I also feel sad that I do not have that special someone, a person I could share this and other events in my life. I did not have this need before or it was not so urgent then, but now I do feel sometimes unhappy not to have a committed relationship with someone. Actually, the road I must travel before getting there is a long one, but it has to start some day and with someone.

I have issues with self-esteem and self-image, which means I find it very difficult to make first contact even with someone whom I really like. The saying that the sleeping cat catches no mouse rings true to me, especially when a distant relative of mine told this to me at a party I was some time ago. He had found his love, but he also spent a long time before entering into a committed relationship. I am prepared to live alone, but I am afraid of the person I might turn into without getting the love I need. I also think that loving someone will make me a better person.

In any case, Christmas-time is a great time, but it is not so great as it could be for many people who are alone.

My Body Mass Index

I have calculated my body mass index and found out that my BMI is 25kg/m2. The good news is: “The people who lived the longest of all were those with BMIs of 25, which lies between the ideal and overweight margins.”

Welcome to karijournal.com

Welcome to karijournal.com

I have moved my blog to a new address and I am using WordPress instead of Blogger now.

Next week: Tartu

I have decided to escape from Tallinn for the next week (especially as it is the Blue Week in Tallinn) and go to Tartu. It is a peaceful and quiet place, and I hope I can relax there. I will pop back to Tallinn briefly on Wednesday.

Plans, of course, have the tendancy to change, so who knows what and where I will actually be.

P.S. I have bought a ticket for the Enrique Iglesias concert, those who know me should not be surprised as my taste in music seem to be awfully similar to what a 13-year-old girl might like. I can’t help it.

Hooked to my bookmarks

I spend too much time online, consuming all kinds of information. In the last year or so I have started to rely on bookmarks for my browsing needs. These bookmarks are mostly to RSS feeds of interesting blogs and news sites. They are divided into my areas of interest such as the technology (Mac), Estonian politics, MJ, etc. So whenever something happens in these areas I know about them almost immediately, because I am checking these sources multiple times a day.

While I do not need most of this information, I still have it out of habit. And it stops me from learning other things, spontaneously wandering around the net to find new and exciting things, not to speak of the huge waste of time. So why is it so? It seems I have just too many bookmarks, I add them too easily and do not bother to remove them once they are no longer relevant for me. The other things is, I am not a very patient and quite obsessive person so whenever I see there are new items is some of the feeds I just need to check them out (the same goes for mail, I cannot tolerate the little red circle with the number of unread mail messages in my dock).

So what I have done, is to clean up the bookmarks and removed those I did not use. It feels much nicer now…