1
for some reason, i went to check out my old account at a korean web portal site where i hosted my immature homepage (never finished, in fact) for free 5 years ago. my account ‘froze’ due to no login for the past x months. again, all emails deleted. life management in the world of scattered digital traces is difficult, especially when you tried to do it for free.

2
in the same site, i wanted to check/change my personal information. took me 5 minutes to locate the link to do so. not sure if i am getting old or estranged from the conventions of the korean websites. it could be simply because of my lack of survival tactics that any koreans would accumulate on the subconscious level naturally over time of repeated usage. i wonder how much usability personnel these companies hire. point is, the more i know, i realize how difficult it is to master the art of being simple.

3
read the bit about paris hilton’s tmobile account which obviously synch’ed with her phone got hacked. of course if she was nobody, no one would have given a damn. but unfortunately her special career and celeb status has given every tiny bit of her personal information the status of ‘worth gossiping about’. whether this leak was a true hack or not, i hope the operators would learn it hard.

4
i have started to accumulate the unconscious stress about the scattered digital forms of my traces SOMEWHERE that i no longer remember or care about. its purely for sanitary reasons: you clean after you use the toilet. i dont know how long it will take to see a personal digital caretaker as official job title – but till then, got to take care of where i shit [digitally].

Why work hard? For the ‘good’ of human race?

Eating natto in the middle of open space in our office building..

usual morning.
while the apartment door was being shut
something hit my head hard with a clear ‘visual image’ of what i should have brought with me

mobile phone
key wallet
wallet (credit cards)

a calm smile spread around my face out of ridiculousness of the situation
went on my way to work
luckily i have my laptop and the badge

<< access key at work >>
my office building has RFID based access key system,
and you can’t get far without the access key unless you shamelessly
have a lot of time and the thick face to wait for someone else to open the door by chance
couldnt call anyone at work to open the door for me, so had to go to the reception to get the temporary key.
easiest.

<< mobile phone >>
at work we have a smart system called ‘corporate phonebook’
i can send sms to anyone in the company from there (through the web interface)
quickly sent messages to the guests i was expecting in the afternoon
also to people who may call me – to ask them to ‘call’ me  via intranet IM or email
once this was done i gotta admit that i had a period of peaceful working time
at one point someone insists on switching to the phone from the text chat
after hesitation (‘phones are extermemly personal exp. for our colleagues’)
had to confront the awkwardness of ‘borrowing’ the mobile phone from a colleague
amazing uneasiness of using other’s phone.
the fact that i have more than 20 functional phones lying around me amplifies this feeling:
ghost in the shell, souless phones, lost identity.

<< wallet >>
borrowed 20 euros from a colleague.
went to grocery on the way home.
shall i buy this  fruit organic or non-organic – will i make it within 20 euro limit?
perhaps i gotta forget about fresh fish today.
uneasiness of having the upper spending limit.
almost completely cashless lifestyle in helsinki trained me so.
on the checkout, handing in the bill, waiting with a pen in my hand
what comes back to me was, arrgh, coins instead of a white paper waiting for my signature.

so on, and so on.
rare experience.

Aka valentine’s day. Got suprise presents: cushion w print of a blond pinup girl (knowing i like cute chicks), and a nameless bonsai tree (i prefer trees w life than cut flowers, if a gift should be an inedible life form. Big responsibility follows though). though i cant touch soil with bare hands yet, i can be a diligent water girl. Like i do for the spider plants i smuggled to this country. The tree got a name tag that reads ‘bonsai’: it could have printed ‘manipulated tree’ or ‘not a flower’ as well -_- if anyone recognizes the identity of this tree, please leave a note here.

Happy at the thoughts.

They may look like a standard finnish couple at a first glance- but i soon noticed small details that made them stand out/made me smile. Man: wearing a small fox face broch. Woman: wearing a peculiar hat. Perhaps seeing them in a couple make it cute. Or perhaps such small details of expressive personality are the attraction of finnish people. (gotta run now to avoid a drunkard following me..)

Cultural documentary about industrial design- watching at a local pub after work, together w colleagues

Well, i’m glad that i was not aware of the marble-infested nokia product before i joined.

In nokia building in salo..