first of all, i do believe in the UN.  but criticisms against it are usually not unjustified, and in the few months i'v been working within the UN system, i can definitely see the many things that are wrong with it.

 

following are excerpts from a news item that recently popped up on the intranet:

 

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With radiating waves, a skull and crossbones and a running person, a new ionizing radiation warning symbol is being introduced to supplement the traditional international symbol for radiation, the three cornered trefoil.

 

The new symbol is being launched today by the IAEA and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to help reduce needless deaths and serious injuries from accidental exposure to large radioactive sources. It will serve as a supplementary warning to the trefoil, which has no intuitive meaning and little recognition beyond those educated in its significance.

 

...

 

The new symbol is aimed at alerting anyone, anywhere to the potential dangers of being close to a large source of ionizing radiation, the result of a five-year project conducted in 11 countries around the world.

 

...

 

"The new ionizing radiation warning symbol (ISO 21482) is the latest successful result of long-standing cooperation between the IAEA and ISO. We encourage the symbol´s rapid adoption by the international community," said ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden.

 

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(bold was my addition for emphasis)

 

ok, that the trefoil has no intuitive meaning and needed to be changed, fair enuf.  but the pat-self-on-back fanfare that they're trying to solicit with this fugly thing that cost who-knows-how-much-money to create, that's a little much.

 

glad to see that they're urging 'rapid adoption'; too bad they couldn't have been a bit more rapid in the design.  but at least it kept a bunch of overbloated overpaid 'consultants' employed for a good 5 years.  can't help but wonder, tho, how many 'needless deaths' occurred during that time.

 

 

here's a riddle.  how does me being a poor student, plus european reticence in using credit cards, result in "here, have lunch on us"?

 

back in north america, land of easy credit, it's hard to imagine living without a credit card.  it's gotten to a point where a lot of times you don't even sign.  i had a key fob with RFID that i used to just bleep at the gas pump, fill up my car and be on my merry way.  at so many places, you just swipe and go.  every week, i would get a letter with 'you have been pre-approved for $xxxx credit super-duper card with an amazingly low introductory rate of x.9%'.

 

during the first days of classes at university, the credit card company reps ritualistically invade campuses, signing up freshmen.  hell, you can even pay tuition with your credit card!  with that first credit card, i racked up 'firsthome' points, so now i have about $6000 worth of credit towards my first mortgage at BMO.  will BMO still be around or will it have been bought up by another bank by the time i actually get around to buying a home in canada, if that ever happens?  and the fact that ING has come along since then and offer much better rates than the traditional banks.. maybe i won't get to reap the loyalty benefits from those years of consumption during university afterall.  anyways, now, my 2 cards from canada are on a rebate system - every $100 i buy, i get up to $1 back.  not bad.  as close to money in the pocket as loyalty systems go.  (the 'only' other card i have, not counting dept store cards, is a platinum MC that i'd used only to rent cars, for their supplemental insurance, and as a backup.  in limiting it to 3 i had shown great restraint.)

 

so, having opened a bank acct in switz, i naturally applied for a credit card.  at first i couldnt' simply because i hadn't received my residence permit yet.  fair enuf.  during that time tho, i started to notice that here in europe, ppl rarely use credit cards!  a classmate, wanting to order a book from amazon.de, asked if i had a credit card.  'uh, yeah, of course!'  'oh good, can you order a book for me?  i don't have a credit card.'  'sure, no prob.'  i wanted to add, 'no credit cards?!  is it against ur religion?'  and for a short time last spring i was extremely cash-strapped, and needed to use my credit card as much as possible.  forget about getting a quick bite at McD's with ur visa.  for about a week, 'eating out' consisted of buying sandwiches and bottled drinks from the big grocery stores and eating on the go (saved a lot of money and time actually).

 

apparently, up until recently all credit cards came with a fee.  and since imo, the banking system here (europe in general, but swtiz in particular) so archaically inflexible (because the banks are all-powerful and have a vested interest in keeping the status quo), change happens very slowly, so the whole flood-the-market-with-credit-cards concept hasn't caught on (which helps explain why online shopping, and innovation in online payment, is so much more prevalent in north america - stuff i'v been reading at work.. but i digress.)

 

for about a year now i'v had my swiss visa (no fees cuz i'm a student) on which i collect some sort of points that i probably won't ever get to use (at a 0.3% rate!  wtf?!  cash-back rebates at 0.3% of your purchases, ok.  but to collect loyalty points, should be at least 3%!  fucking scrooges.. i hate UBS.)  then last summer, migros, the biggest food (and more) retailer started issuing credit cards.  and since i collect their M-Cumulus points and get their newsletters and coupons etc, they sent me an application form.  u collect M-Cumuls points with the card(which convert to groceries, so definitely usable!)  i submitted it, indicating my meager part-time english-teacher income, and waited.  i didn't expect to get approved, knowing what i know about the europeans' stinginess in card issuance.

 

months passed and i'd forgotten about it.  then all of a sudden, they sent a letter to the effect of 'sorry it took us so long to get back to you, the response has been overwhelming... your profile does not qualify you for a credit card at this time.  to thank you for your interest, we're sending you 30CHF in migros gift certificates.'  SWEET!!  even if it was 'aww, you poor poor thing, u make so little, here, have some food on us' pity/consolation prize, i don't care!  it's free money!  i'v already spent it, and i bought (as i often do) mostly things that were on sale, so it was enuf to cover 3 lunches... so the saying is wrong, there are free lunches to be had afterall.

 

so now i'm not complaining about the europeans' lack of trust for the almighty plastic anymore (which i used to do, a lot, to my german colleagues at work.. 'why don't u just pay with a credit card?!?!  i just don't understand!!')  i'm happy, in fact, that they, bless their hearts, tried to do the mass-consumer credit thing but still applied the old standards of credit-worthiness.  cuz in canada, i woulda walked away with another credit card.  but in this case, the great clash of consumer culture and the swiss incompetence in preparing for anything new (oooh, them fighting words, but oh how i can write about that topic!) netted me 30bux worth of food.

 

funnily enuf, just today i was watching news from canada, and apparently CIBC and BMO (the 2 banks that my 2 credit cards are issued from) re-issued thousands of new card to their customers because of a possible security breach.  here's the story.  am i worried?  noooo.  (well, maybe a little bit re: identity theft, but conveniently i have a 2 year out-of-country alibi.)  i checked my balances not too long ago, nothing was amiss.  and my feeling is, if they took steps to do something, they're on the ball, and also they hav, in a way, admitted fault, so if anything screwy turns up on my statements, they can't say no.

 

i, the consumer, of the omnipotent north american variety, am protected.  or so the Can-USA consumption-centric consumer-is-king culture would have me believe.  and you know what?  i'm quite content believing that.  so <shhh!> go away, don't burst my bubble, and leave me to consume.

 

 

just one quick additional update to say that i did not fail the course afterall.  i failed the exam apparently, but the prof gave me (and about half the class) a barely-passing grade.

 

still quite upset, but the proverbial shit did not hit the fan, so there will be no proverbial hell to pay.  after my infernal affairs marathon day, feeling very buddhist.  so i'm letting the anger go.  *deep breath* 阿彌陀佛. :)

 

i'd d/l'ed infernal affairs (無間道) 1 to 3 a LOOOONG time ago, but only now did i find time to finish them.  and i decided to watch all 3, back-to-back.  and thus went my sunday. lol

 

['infernal affairs' is the movie from which the oscar-nominated 'the departed' is based.]

 

for disclosure purposes, i admit that i do have a soft spot for certain hk films.  but, i am equally likely to be critical, and harshly critical, of a bad hk film, if nothing more than a 'omg i'm so embarassed that this is representing hong kong' kinda cringe reflex.  while i find most hollywood romantic comedies bearable, sometimes even enjoyable, most hk rom-com's make me physically ill.  and the much-lauded shaolin soccer?  hated it.

 

so it's not with a completely biased subjectivity when i say the IA trilogy may well be one of the best trilogies out there.  i liked them basically in their order: 1 the best, 2 was not far behind, and 3 the least.  in fact the third one was a bit too contrived and confusing at times, with the whole mental/inasnity thing a bit off, but if you don't fuss over the details and just ride out the movie til the end to get an explanation (and casually forget the loose ends), then even the third one was very good.

 

maybe it's cuz i watched them all at once that i really got to appreciate the whole thing.  saw the first one for the story, the second for the prequel to develop the characters and explain some things while revolving around an in-itself intriguing plot, and the third to wrap things up and bring closure to the two protagonist, and spinning out one more story from that.

 

highly recommended.  ppl of geneva, i'v burned a copy.  feel free to ask

 

now, to hunt for 'the departed' to download, if it's not playing in the cinemas anymore.. :)

 

i'll keep this short, cuz it really just suffices to say that i loved madrid!

 

maybe because i was expecting something more like barcelona, or even milan or rome, in terms of being a bit dirty, dark, run-down, disorganized.. but it wasn't like that at all.  it's a fairly new city, and all the late 19th century, turn-of-the-century and art-deco style grand buildings were a surprise to me.  the general colour was white or off-white, and the subway was clean and well-lit, sidewalks were clean and wide, and the old neighbourhoods (at least the ones i went to) did not feel neglected.  i mean, it's not paradise, i did see lots of homeless ppl and a couple of underpasses the stank of urine, but overall, it was muy linda!

 

and the nitelife.. omg!  i'd never seen so much traffic and ppl out at 4.30am!!

 

in terms of actual 'siteseeing', there's not much in madrid i guess, compared to other capitals.  there are the big 3 museums, of which i went to 2.  as i'v said many times before, not a big museum guy, but apparently those are 'musts' for madrid so i obliged.  even brought along my 'art for dummies' book to help me appreciate what i was seeing (hey, don't laugh!  that book is actually quite informative, and it's helping me loads in trying to be more pretentious. lol)

 

will definitely go back.  already planning to go with friends end of june.  maybe i might even do a long overland trip thru the south of spain (see updated trave list on left).  that'd be super cool if i can pull that off.  all depends on if i'll have enuf free time to do that on top of everything else.

 

dammit, i need to pause time.  anyone seen my remote?

 

ok, just finished my final exam for econometrics, and for the first time in my life i'm facing the very real and probable possibility that i've failed a course.  very angry and upset.  but not at myself.  i do take responsibility for not having done more to prepare, but i'm not apologetic.  but i'm not gonna launch into an irate rant here, and certainly not before the shit for sure hits the fan when the grades are released.

 

so now, in the office, i'm naturally drawn to the 'work' world and thinking about the future.  since classes don't resume til march and i'm stuck in geneva cuz of work, one of my (many) projects for february is to think long and hard about what kinda work i want to do come year-end, and start taking steps to look for such a job in this to-be-determined domain.

 

surfing around some career pages and took an online personality/career test.  i'v done many before (true colors: green-orange, myers-briggs: everything from INTP to ESTJ, with T being the only constant) but i wanted to see if anything's changed, maybe learn a bit more about myself?  besides, it's always nice reading things that just goes to confirm what you already believe.

 

so this time i did one that turned out to be a 'holland codes' test, aimed at career typecasting.  turns out i'm an 'investigative enterprising'.  check out this diagram:

 

 

notice how they're on the opposite sides??  that explains a lot about my indecisiveness.  apparently i want and can do things that are polar opposites of each other!  for example, investigative types are asocial and scientific while enterprising types are gregarious and lack scientific ability.

 

hmm..

 

i suppose that's my 'jack-of-all-trades-ness', that i'm all over the place in terms of interests, and have picked up skills and experiences in those areas along the way.  but i'v noticed, in tests taken in the past, that what i answer in 'work' situations tend to be completely different from those for 'play' situations.  and since i am the type to keep work and play separate, it could just be a reflection of that.. well ok, so 'play' often seeps into my work, but i mean that the actual job, the tasks themselves, those are ideally not 'fun'.  by that i mean that work that i find rewarding and enjoyable, are not the type of things that i would want to do outside of the office.

 

so anyhow, will stop babbling.  headnig to madrid tmrw for some well-deserved r&r for the wkend.  then nex tweek i'll start thinking about my life and work on a game plan to start the job-hunt.  wish me luck!   but even better would be some 'a-ha!' ideas that would help me.  and better still, u give me (or give me a contact which will lead me to get) a job that is perfect-for-me-but-i-don't-know-it-yet. :)