Felle's Blog

Not only am I getting overwhelmed with spam, but the user-written comments are disappointing as well – in fact, the spam-to-user comment ratio is 2227 to 1. I mean, sure, there are more interesting blogs than this one, but are my entries really that boring? For what it’s worth, though, Redirect_Left deserves a shout out for being the only one to have replied (yet)!

By the way, school work and life catching up after the holidays may cause my activity to decrease slightly for the time being, but I promise to still post whenever I get the reason and opportunity to do so.

The effects of the cancelled woodwork class and its follow-up aren’t the only events that have occured during the past week, in fact, it has been fairly dramatic in several ways. Extreme weather earlier this week caused the public transportation system to fail, affecting a majority of Stockholm commuters.

Like I wrote on Saturday last week, weather conditions and problems with public transport that they caused lead to me being unable to get into the city and enjoy an evening out. With problems following and worsening on Sunday, temperatures decreasing another degree or two, a snow storm and even worse problems with public transport, I couldn’t get to badminton practice either.

Late Sunday evening, SL (Storstockholms Lokaltrafik, the company responsible for public transportation in Stockholm) announced that all above-ground metro lines would be cancelled the following day – the trains would be limited to the city centre on the line I take. Replacement buses would run sporadically, and SL encouraged people to stay home during the Monday.

When Monday came, it was not merciful – the temperature had decreased to nearly -25°C and public transport was chaos. As I got down to the station, there were literally hundreds of people just waiting for a bus – and as unbelievable as it may seem, a bus arrived shortly after I did – taking us directly to the last metro stop on the south side. As I got there, the metro was completely jammed of people, and I chose to walk over the bridge into the city centre. It was cold, but I made it to school only about 5 minutes late. On the way home, I was relatively lucky as well, although it did take quite some time.

Tuesday, although not as cold, was a day of continued chaos. I wasn’t as lucky that morning, a bus arrived within 10 minutes after I had started waiting – but it didn’t go directly to the last metro stop. It finally reached the south side turnpoint for the green metro line – after 1 hour and 10 minutes (to give you some perspective, that’s 6 stops and usually takes 10 minutes; the Monday bus took about 20-25 minutes). I took the metro one stop to school, arriving there 50 minutes late. As described in the woodwork class entry, the rest of the day wasn’t too good either. The way home was slow as well.

On Wednesday, the trains started operating as they usually do on the green line (however with fewer trains), and even though a supposed fire [swedish] caused delays on Thursday, it’s been doing good since. And today, Friday, Stockholm has seen temperatures above zero degrees for the first time in 2010. Maybe spring is on its way, at last?

Oh and, starting today, I have holidays (through the next week). On the schedule: well-needed sleep, visit to the optician and… partying. Terrific.

Yesterday I blogged about a series of school-related events that had occured over the past two weeks. I didn’t fully go in-depth on the movie and more specifically how it was found, though, instead I’ll do so today since I have some new information on the subject.

The movie was in fact shared with one of the teachers – an anonymous mail was sent to this quite awesome teacher who definitely has a sense of humor and a generally valid opinion on things. The e-mail was sent Friday evening last week, and it was this Tuesday afternoon that the principal came to talk to me – in other words, they must have found the movie most likely during that morning.

Since then I’ve been thinking how they could have found it – the most reasonable conclusion I came to was that the teacher who received the e-mail had turned his back on us and forwarded the movie to the principal. I was hoping that wasn’t the case – it would actually surprise me if it were since that wouldn’t be much like him at all.

So, we had class with him today, and he’s the type of teacher who tells random stories – and so he started class today. He briefly mentioned how he had been informed of a movie, which he watched and considered far too funny to hold onto. Even though the e-mail stated that he was expected not to spread the movie, he said he shared it with a selective number of colleagues whom he considered to have a sense of humor.

He said that in some way the more non-humoristic teachers found out about the existance of the movie in question, and that they researched the subject on YouTube, eventually discovering the movie. That’s how it was passed onto the principal, and he sounded a bit disappointed in himself for underestimating the possibility of the movie’s existance to be revealed upon sharing it, and for letting the trust he was given down.

Even though he indirectly caused the movie discovery, I know now that he’s most likely not going to share any future movies or such with anyone (or at least do it with more caution). We have a man on the inside. Brilliant.

This entry is going to be a pretty long one – one may describe it as a wall of text – therefore, I encourage you to read at your own risk.. or something.

On Tuesday last week, our woodwork teacher was sick, and as it appeared, class would be cancelled. However, we were later informed that a substitute teacher was available and that we were to watch a movie on the topic of cabinetry. Last year, as the teacher was sick, we were forced to watch a movie on the topic of knife making, and I can honestly say it is the worst piece of shit I have ever watched (I don’t believe it’s worthy the term ‘movie’, even.. just take my word for it).

So, we skipped the class in pure fear of an equally painful movie as the knife-making one, spending the free time at a nearby internet café playing MW2 (…so totally worth it). There were 2 students present during the class (out of 10-15 in the woodwork group). The news of our class (which tends to be a relatively exemplary one in comparison to others) skipping quickly spread among teachers, and while most of them were seeing the humor in it, our beloved form-master (as well as Maths and Social Studies teacher) took it quite seriously.

On Thursday the same week, I released a video clip on the subject, more particularly a parody of the infamous bunker-scene from the movie Der Untergang, with our form-master portraited as Hitler (see where this is going?).

Yesterday (Tuesday), parents of all students skipping the woodwork class were informed of the class-skipping via e-mail by our form-master, as well as requested to phone him after having discussed the consequences of this at home.

As well, on Tuesday, I was requested by the principal to come have a little ‘talk’ during class. It turned out the movie had spread to them, and even though she admitted having laughed at it, she also stated it was clearly offensive in certain ways. I talked to our form-master, and even though he was the one being made fun of, he admitted considering the movie fun as well. There were some things, again, that were offensive and I was therefore forced to remove the movie from the internet.

After the “obvious” need to contact my parents today, and letting them rage at me for making such a silly movie (even though, after watching it, they reluctantly admitted it was quite funny), I still got off without any charges pressed against me (which, according to the principal, is something that could have happened).

My humble opinion is that, in general, people make too much of a fuzz when something could be considered offensive. I mean, I’m glad that they wouldn’t go as far as to press charges, but won’t we all have a little more fun if we just screw being politically correct sometimes, and just enjoy things for the humor and fun of it?

In all, I have learned a lesson – the next time I make this kind of movie, I’m not going to include any names, and I’m not going to make it spread as much. Regardless, this won’t stop me from making another one at any given time. Oh no.

Update (Thu Feb 25): Follow-up

Over the last few years, there has been less and less snow (even up here in Sweden), and last year there was no snow at New Years (nor Christmas). This year, however, has been bit of a combo-breaker – it started snowing early in December, and that gave us Stockholmers some hope of a white Christmas – which we, indeed, got. It’s been snowing, snowing and.. snowing – and it just doesn’t stop. For instance, it’s been snowing more or less constantly since Thursday night. I mean, come on, it’s almost March!?

In general, I’m okay with snow, it’s supposed to be snowy around Christmas, but this has gotten too far. The snow has some serious effects on public transport, causing me to be late or even unable to get where I need to go. Just yesterday the trains were running late due to the weather conditions and a train broke down four stations from where I live, making only one track useable and therefore causing major delays (I was lucky to actually get home as fast as I did).

And tonight, while I was supposed to get into the city with some friends, we were eventually forced to cancel (weather conditions are even worse than yesterday, it’s cold as hell, and the public transport is.. not working). Needless to say, I’m tired of snow.. and cold weather for that matter, can’t we have summer soon?

This is what it looks like right now from my window:

This is how it looked like in December:

Cozy? Yes. Fun? No.

Quickly venting my thoughts here – there’s no real need for anyone to read this (unless you’re truly interested in which school I will attend):

School A – IB programme (English):
Seemingly awesome school, new and pretty small. Great interior, computers for all students, free coffee, general company-like environment. IB programme lets me pick the subjects I want to study, making it a bit of a mix between Natural and Social studies. Do I need the English?

School B – Natural Sciences programme (Swedish):
Well-known school, also known internationally for its international section (Natural Sciences is also available in English). Stable, reliable education – many absolute top students. Good choices of additional courses to take.

School C – Natural Sciences programme (Swedish):
Another well-known school (although not internationally), lots of aestethic programmes, nicer mix of people. (?) Located closer to where I live. Many languages to choose from.

School A is awesome, but do I need it – and do I need the English? I don’t know if I prefer that kind of company-like own responsibility or the two other schools which present a more reliable, wide education. Argh.

We all have our bad days – in some cases you wonder why you even bothered to get up in the morning. I’m well aware that there’s a very large amount of people around the world who have worse conditions on a daily basis than what I have with all my bad days added up, but if I’m not allowed to whine a little – then what’s this blog here for?

So, to sum the now-infamous Thursday of February 11, 2010 up, I got up in the morning at about 7.15am (as per usual). I got in the shower, had breakfast and all the typical things, and eventually took the train to school. The day started off with a straight 3-hour session of national exams (the type that gives you long-lasting nightmares), and I know that I could’ve done better. After eating the boring lunch at school, I had three more classes which I had homework due to in all three cases.

After school, I went to the mall for some quick, albeit tiring, shopping I needed done. Then I went home to drop my things off, after which I had to go back to school – this time for a ‘talk night’ when us students can discuss our grades with the teachers. On my way to the train, I noticed I’d forgotten my keys, so I ran back home and fetched them and then walked to the train station. Once there, I realized I’d dropped my calendar (one of the few things I cannot manage without), along with a somewhat worthless pen. Would I have gone back looking for it, I would’ve been late, so I took the train hoping it’d still be there when I got back.

After talking to the teachers and coming back home to have dinner, I got out in the cold weather to look for my calendar. Even after looking for 30 minutes (or slightly longer), I couldn’t find it, however I did (kind of ironically) find the somewhat worthless pen. Coming home, I couldn’t actually feel my toes nor fingers due to the low temperature (even though I had been wearing gloves and.. shoes). As if that wasn’t enough, I also managed to acquire a bit of a cold, which means that I went around the rest of the evening sneezing and sniffing.

For what it’s worth, though, today (Friday) has been a pretty good day.

The ability to pick which school you want to attend is obviously a great asset, however it also leads to stress (I need to have my application in by Monday) and worry in many cases – I am personally having a hard time making a decision.

Either I pick the IB programme (and study in english) at this seemingly awesome (although pretty small) school with more of a company-like study environment, and what appears to be nice students and teachers, macbooks for all students, free coffee (YAY!), and so on. Or I go for the Natural Sciences programme at one of the few classic schools of 1000+ students, most of them with good reputation and tuition in general.

Decision-making is hard – obviously the first school seems coolest, but do I really need to study in english, and do I really need the all-so-special things, isn’t an ‘ordinary’ education good enough? Sometimes I just wish other people made these decisions for me.

I’m well aware that being happy because your brother’s Playstation 3 broke down is very mean and shows a lack of sympathy – but I can’t help it. The sound of him hammering a plastic guitar in order to score notes on a completely worthless game (commonly known as ‘Guitar Hero’) has filled my eardrums frequently over the past year or so. Today, it appears that the extreme annoyance will be over – probably just temporarily, but still, it’s so enjoyably quiet without the constant plastic beating.

For the record, McDonalds is both cheaper and better than Burger King.

As we speak (or frankly, as I write), Apple is launching their new iPad in San Francisco. Engadget has got the whole thing covered, and judging by the pictures and information there, the iPad is… useless. Sure, it has some decent – even impressive – features, such as iWorks and iBooks, but for the most part, it appears as plain silly.

Here’s what it looks like (referring to the iPad, not Steve Jobs):

Intended to be a crossing between the iPhone and the Macbook, the iPad should obviously feature good portability. However, as it appears, it doesn’t – who wants to walk around with a giant iPhone looking like a complete idiot? You would have to carry a bag to keep it in, or alternatively hold the iPad (and its 0.6kg) at all times. One of the few good things about it is the pricing, which starts at $499. But that’s about where the cool things end; it does not feature any phone functionality, no multitasking (running several programs simultaneously), and lacks that final ‘reason’ to be purchased.

Bottom line: the iPad will surely sell at some rate, however the buyers will probably be Apple fanboys and not people actually needing the iPad for anything useful.