Excellent morning!

We have lots and lots and lots of snow!!!
And it's snowing and snowing and snowing!
Ju-hu-huuuuuu!

will it happen ever?

I would very much like to know when will come that day when I finally will go to sleep at normal time, meaning that I will be able to wake up at normal time next morning, meaning that I will have normal morning with no rush and with normal breakfast, and meaning that I will arrive to work at normal time. It has no chance to happen today.

Did your teeth sleep well

Couple of days ago there was a tiny article written by Tristan Priimägi in Äripäev, which among other things touched also topic how realistic or rather un-realistic are advertisements, discussing mainly TV-ads.
I had some though to it and came up with conclusion that actually for me it's not that important if it is realistic in case there is something very funny or visually attractive in an advertisement, where by ‘visually attractive’ I do not mean almost naked, muscled, a-bit-too-much-suntanned male who usually is either shaving or doing smth with his breath after using chewing gum. In simple words, if there is a good catch or joke then advertising can be un-realistic to me.
Most problematic ads are those for simple everyday things, like detergents or toothpaste. For me the latest winner for largest stupidity is dentist chair evolving among tents in camping place in the middle of the night deep in the forest. Sounds realistic :)) And dentist asking golden question “Did your teeth sleep well?” for those evolving from tents (strangely enough, it only women). In realistic case, the dentist would risk with loosing some of his teeth by asking such question in camping in the middle of the night :)))
However, the world is saved and there are also some cool ads. I like this one, although some understanding of Estonian makes it funnier. Sound is absolute must!

Twisted logic

I cannot help but public institutions and their ways of doing things are a mystery to me. Almost every time I have to deal with them, I keep wandering if they are living in separate dimension because I never get into their way of thinking.
Here comes particular example of today, which I feel like sharing with you.
So today I got more deeply acquainted with social health insurance system in Estonia. As I mentioned some time ago, I was ill for a while so I do not get salary for this period, but instead a compensation from health insurance institution. The compensation should come from my social tax paid here. Before I read in the law that this should be 80% of my daily salary, and I decided that it’s a bit of loss, but still ok. But today, after receiving mysterious and small number on my account, I started to dig into it. It turned out that calculation of average daily salary is very-very-very peculiar, and it also takes a while and reading of five times to understand it from that text, what is called law.
But finally I arrived to a correct result which is that they take a salary earned only in Estonia in previous calendar year, and divide it by 365 days, meaning that now they take salary from year 2003! I was lucky that I had some employment in 2003, meaning I worked till June before I left to other place in Latvia. So they took a salary for half year (January-June) and divided it sill by 365 days! If I had worked only for one month, they would still divide it by 365 days, and this would be called my average daily salary for 2004. It looks very logical, right?
It doesn’t to me.
I already mentioned that I was lucky to have some employment in Estonia in 2003, but actually I was bloody lucky :)) Because otherwise my average salary would have been regarded as minimum daily salary less income tax, which makes EUR 4.4 per day. Welcome to Estonia! :)
Feels like this law is written not by person, who has minimal math skills, but by social worker who never gets salary raise, never changes work place, not talking about changing country, so it just doesn’t pop up into mind while writing the law.

I already warned you that my blogging inspiration is back, so I have one more thing to tell to you. Actually more to Estonians and Latvians, but others may read it anyway :)), and there is smth for other in the end of post. So, besides my blogging inspiration I have got also linguistic inspiration, which, I have to admit, is influenced by my recent 7-day-stay-at-home and more frequent news watching. What they are talking about most of all nowadays? Terrorists, of course.
I decided, that words terorist in Est and terorists in Lat are totally stupid because it’s actually possible and very easy to give some meaning to them. I remember my confusion in early politinformation lessons (yes, I had them!) in first school years.
It’s clear that it actually comes from English, and there it comes from a word terror which means hirm in Est and šausmas in Lat. And terrorist is somebody who makes others to feel terror. So I propose that in Est it should be hirmuja and in Lat šausmotājs. Isn’t it clear right a way, what sort of person is that?!
So, dear Latvian linguists, please, leave eiro in piece and work with this :))
And here is smth for non-Latvians and non-Estonians: you have opportunity to offer version in your language :))

For those who live in Tallinn, I really hope that you stepped out of your home (or whatever place you might step out from in the mornings) today around 8 o'clock in the morning. Because this was one of the most beautiful mornings I have ever seen here. Those blazing sunrise skies! And after half an hour it was total snowing, and all in white. If you slept, it's your own fault....
And the snow stayed for the whole day. It's not very thick, but still snow!!!!

Back on Track

A bit of time has passed since my being in Riga, and I also was glad to see Mikelis and Anduce (although I did not succeed to bargain out Andu-dienu-hike, too bad). But I'll mention one thing about Riga later.
After returning from there I had a feeling that this time I should see some doctor, and I have this feeling only if I think it's really really necessary. Well, the doctor also though that it was necessary, and I got restriction to show up to work for at least a week. To show up anywhere at all, actually. I was a good girl and really stayed at home, except I violated it only once, but I swear that I put on hat for the first time this autumn-winter season, so I was a very good girl indeed. And actually I didn't bother to do anything at all, even no e-mails and no blogs. Must be I was really ill. All I had was long Skype conversations, bit of food, and movies, movies, movies, some seen for the first time, some good old ones: Amelie, Vallatud kurvid, Lolita, Sunshine, Viimne reliikvia, Tulivesi, From Dusk till Dawn, Day After Tomorrow (total crap), Vertigo, etc. Now no more movies for some while because I have got pretty good movie-watching-advance.
But today I was allowed out, and my blogging inspiration returned as well, beware!
The thing about Riga, what I promised to mention, was that it was worth going there even with getting bronchitis due to this!

Illiterate in Estonian mythology

It's not that I want to make advertising for the new mobile service operator in Estonia branded zorro. But I have a question, not about the operator, but about their logo.
I am not very educated in Estonian mythology although after reading my first Estonian fiction I have some idea what is kratt, vanapagan and nõid. The book did not mention zorro. Probably I'm at wrong age to get it, taking into account all the pictures of soft and very soft toys all around their website. And maybe I have just the stereotype settled too deep into my brain that zorro is smth like this or at least like cat from Shrek 2. Whatever it is, I do not get it.
So can anybody explain to me how this very-much-alike-to-cow creature is related to name zorro?

I have come to a conclusion that running nose/iesnas/nohu is like earthquake:
-it can never be predicted when it arrives, but it does from time to time;
-it can not be stopped in any way and one should just sit and wait until it decides to stop;
-there can be also second and third wave of that thing.
Just like for earthquakes, magnitude of running nose can be measured so that others can understand how severe it is. Measurement scale should be number of paper napkin packages used per day. 1-3 is often felt, without significant damage; 4-5 felt widely, damage near epicentre, i.e. nose; 6-8 seriously running nose, major damage, can be deadly; 9 – very rear enormously running nose, major damage over large area. Starting from 6 can be also measured in other scale: rolls of toilet paper.
I have currently scale 2.47.

Only in case of running nose there is no sense to crawl under a table unless, of course, your colleagues and friends are tired of your loud nose blowing (because it’s impossible to do it silently, and it’s too tiresome to go to bathroom every time) and sneezing and start to throw different subjects to your direction.