lumi tuli, lumi tuli :D

yay, ma ei teadnudki kunagi, kui väga mulle tegelt lumi meeldib kuni praeguse hetkeni. Talv on ilma lumeta ikka nii igav.

Aga täna hakkas meil lund sadama :D
Tegelt ükskord varem sadas ka öösel natuke. Aga praegu on kohe ilus helbene lumi.
Ega ta siinkandis muidugi maha ei jää, aga vähemalt on ilus aknast välja vaadata.

Nii et te kõik kes te seal lumehangedega võitlema peate, nautige ilusat talvelund!

vaccine against cancer ????

Getting smarter every day!
My roommate Katrina suggested an article in Time magazine to me today, which said that Merck has come out with a vaccine against cervical cancer, the second most widespread cancer for women. A vaccine for cancer ???? Definitely sounds too weird to be true. But then again, I'm no medical person here, right.

So I go and do some research and see what Wikipedia says.
Cervical cancer is a malignancy of the cervix. Worldwide, it is the second most common cancer of women. It may present with vaginal bleeding but symptoms may be absent until the cancer is in advanced stages, which has made cervical cancer the focus of intense screening efforts utilizing the Pap smear. Most scientific studies point to human papillomavirus (HPV) infection as a necessary pre-requisite for development of cervical cancer. Treatment is with surgery (including cryosurgery) in early stages and chemotherapy and radiotherapy in advanced stages of the disease. A effective vaccine for the two most common strains of HPV has recently been licenced.

So aparently there can be a vaccine against a cancer since this cancer is caused by a virus. And quite a big developmental leap there - from surgery/chemotherapy to vaccine!
Well, I guess the world is getting better again for all the poor women like me doomed with their family history of cervical cancer and other related problems.

To all you men that read this post, sry for forcing you to get deep into the female stuff! But just remember how many women out there have it, so I'm afraid you cannot escape hearing about it at some point anyways.

other cultures

You learn a lot while living in another culture, even one that's relatively close to yours. And one of the most striking things I've recently learned, is how little I actually know about other cultures.

Estonias, me included, go out proclaiming loud that we know so much more about what is going on in the rest of the world than people in some other countries, especially in the US, do. Well, I have to admit, I know quite a bunch about Europe, about the US and other western countries .... but I actually know very little about Asia, Africa, Australia and Southern America. They are just sooooooooo far from our little tiny country, and our limited capacities just do not seem to reach that far. Of course we have our own experts and so on, but on the general basis, these regions do not seem to be much of our interest.

And this is sad. Because this is the point where I have to admit how narrow my world really is. Its as though because we are small in terms of country size we have just adopted the western world and then maybe Russia to work as our horizon of knowledge, and we are just as ignorant about what the life is really like in other cultures as the average American can be about the rest of the world.

On the bright side, though, this only means that there's tons of more interesting worlds to discover :)

inimesed, palun ostke endale korralikud kõrvaklapid ...

eriti kui teil on plaanis seada ennast sisse ruumis, mille ukse peale on pandud suur silt kirjaga "QUIET STUDY ROOM". Pole midagi rõvedamat, kui üritada keskenduda mingisse üliteoreetilisse teksti samal ajal kui kõrval piniseb kogu aeg mingi muusika just sellise valjususe astmega, et kui hästi muusikat teaks, siis võiks vist isegi ära aimata, mis lauludega tegu. Ja ma olen täiesti näinud inimesi, kellel on viisakad kõrvaklapid, mis ei lase seda pininat läbi - alles eile istusin ühe tütarlapse kõrval, kellel olid sellised.

Üldiselt olen täheldanud suhteliselt tugevat positiivset korrelatsiooni bitchimise vajaduse ja tressi taseme vahel. Ja kuna täna oleks hädasti vaja välja mõelda teema ühe suure kodutöö jaoks ja mitte ei ole häid sähvatusi pähe tulnud, siis hakkavadki igasugu asjad häirima. Näiteks oli meil üle-eelmisel nädalavahetusel mingi tuletõrjealarm koridoris segi läinud. Päris kole on 5 päeva järjest 24h kuulata sellist äratuskella sarnast pininat.

networking + studying = networking study?

So many of my friends that have studied or are studying in US complain how most of the universities are in the middle of nowhere and so, since there is absolutely nothing else to do, everyone's stuck studying. And this is how all the good grades and results come :)

Studying in Washington DC is definitely different in this respect. Here its all about networking. So you rapidly get into this and then at one point you discover that for the better part of time you have to sit behind your computer writing all kinds networking emails or going to some meetings and seminars and presentations. This even becomes part of your schoolwork, since its taken as granted here that once you have so many opportunities around you better use them.

So here's another one of those days. Started out in the morning by compiling a list of all the emailing I have to do and that has been piling up over the week. And the list is long - about 20 items with all the other small things. And then there's more people to meet and things to do .... So where's the time for reading and writing :) The only way to go is to make yourself work more and try to economise on time.

People here are being really efficient on time-management. Never seen so many people reading all the time and all at once like I see every day on the metro. And its pretty useful. That's the only way I get through my weekly Economist readings.

By noon I'm done with about 4 items - so 16 more to go. This means either a long night again or more work for tomorrow.

taas imeilus sügisilm

ühe põhjamaa inimese jaoks on ikka 15-20 kraadised sügisilmad megakogemus. Hullult meeldib lehtedes sahistada ja sibavaid oravaid vaadata.

Aga üldiselt kulgeb jälle tavalise koolitegevuse tähe all. Järgmise semestri ained tahavad registreerimist. Ja siis peab minema kuulama mingit nanotehnoloogiaeksperti, kes räägib väikesest rohelisest energiast vmt. Aga vähemalt antakse neil avalikel loengutel päris hästi süüa :)

Washington DCs olevat mingid ajakirjanikud hiljuti katse teinud, et nad 6 kuud järjest ei osta midagi süüa ja käivad söömas ainult igasugu avalikel loengutel, seminaridel ja igasugustel networking üritustel. Tuli välja, et Washington DCs toimub neid üritusi pidevalt nii palju, et tüübid muutusid isegi pirtsakateks ja hakkasid toidu sortimenti valima :D

the evil of procrastination and the beauty of nature

I guess if we could all get over procrastination we would all just be too good to be true :)
But since this does not look as a viable option, I ended up with major procrastination and some work done for today. Just the usual.

But the real catch of the day was a little walk to the grocery store. It just made me think how the fall in DC area is just as beautiful as I was told it would be. 24C, all around green like summer in Estonia and walking around in T-shirt on November 5th seems too good to be true. But there I was, and the sun was so nice. So I couldn't help but come back to my theory that people up north work more simply because they do not have all this pleasant weather that makes you want to just sit down in some park and chill out. So they just work their asses off to get big bucks and fly somewhere warm. But its never the same, now is it.

This, of course, does not mean that I don not like the nature back home. Nothing compares to a truely crispy white Christmas, which I will most probably not see around here. So home is still home.

And the other thing I so much love here are all these squirrels. I know that the red ones back home look so much better, but then again, as Raiko said, you also almost never see them. The ones here are the grey ones. Not as pretty, but just as vigorous and cute with all this energy to run around :) And then there's a black one in our yard, and I've never heard of those, but apparently they exist, at least one.

väike näpuharjutus

Just kõige intensiivsem õppeperiood on kõige produktiivsem kõige muu kui koolitöö suhtes :)

Ja kuna ma nii kehva emailija olen, siis ehk ilmuvad siia lehele ka minu üldiselt harvad kommenteerid toimuva kohta.

Esialgu lihtsalt soojad tervitused ja kallid kõigile, keda juba tükil ajal näinud pole!