Goals

Five years ago I started to write a blog in Latvian. Today it surpassed 9000 views in total.

Five months ago I started to write a blog in English. Today it surpassed 2000 views in total.

Seven months ago I casually fell for a girl as soon as I met her. Then she mentioned that she lives in the city where I was moving to. Then she mentioned her marriage and two kids and how she's near 30 and is a professor at the Academy of Arts of Tallinn or something.

Seven minutes ago I sent a motivation letter to apply for a position that I have zero knowledge or experience in, and I really hope that my amassed writing skills will work this time, because I need a job and I need money and I need new experience and I need to get off my ass and do shit.

Here's me being super slim in a forest two years ago.

Who needs who

I don't know how to keep up with all the music that's worth listening to, since I just get so obsessed with some bands that there's nothing else on the daily playlist. It's been Dark Dark Dark for the past weeks, with a slight detour with Matt & Kim when I wanted something simple and catchy. And Nick Cave's new album is much better than expected and that's probably the next addiction, but I'm still not over DDD for now.

I love how the editing class is actually my pace and I might actually have the balls to edit an assignment. Despite the fact that everyone, including the lecturer, had problems with crashing, saving and importing media on the timeline, the Mac environment starts to feel somewhat comfortable as well.

In other news, I'm currently writing a motivation letter to apply to a position called "export sales manager to Latvian market". This is how desperate I am, trying to get the first job that looks for a student who speaks Latvian, despite the zero education in business or marketing. I will not provide a link to the site as they might trace the pageviews back to this and just might assume that I'm not motivated enough.

No, but seriously, I'd love to work for a change.

Terrible statistics

Early January I made the mistake of listing all the cigarettes I've bought. Today I calculated that since 2013 has started, I smoke a cigarette every 4 hours on average. That does not sound right and hopefully it's due to an error, but I'm too scared to do it all again.

In 2009, I had a brief adventure with a girl who drew the eagle of Winston cigarettes' logo on my arm with a pen, and I thought it was cool.

Tonight, I drew my own eagle, and let me just point out that it took way more time than it should have, and it's 5 in the morning again, what the fuck.

On politics, journalists and students

Journalism is in a crisis.

Jesus, that would be a terrible introduction, if I actually published this outside of a personal blog.

I'll be honest and point out, that I have no idea how was it 10 years ago, last century or whatever. Right now, however, it saddens to see what is published. The content, form and hidden dishonesty of the author make the news reading/watching unbearable at times. Somehow, radio news have never done that, and maybe it's because I only listen to two different news programs on the radio.

There was a case in the Latvian magazine "Sestdiena" where they published results to a poll, whether Latvian citizens trust euro as a currency or not.

Possible answers:
*Yes (as in, I trust in euro)
*Rather yes
*No
*Rather no
*No opinion

The problem was not with the results (most people with opinion did not trust euro at the time of poll), it was with the presentation. The journalist did not publish all the results, which could have been done with a pie chart easily. He/She (the name could not be found, so I couldn't sue the asshole) counted "No" and "Rather no" answers together, to get the majority, and then finished off with "Only 13% trust euro". In fact, it was never mentioned in the short article, what the possible answers were. So, if I had not seen the original poll in the origin website, I would have assumed, that 13% said yes, 60% said no, and a whooping 27% didn't care, which would not be surprising, but it is also untrue. That was a clear manipulation of data, and I assume, that at least 90% of people, who read the article, had not seen the actual results. So, fuck you, whoever did this, that was the same level as Some people say technique.

The publisher, who's responsible for the magazine also publishes the most popular newspaper in Latvia, "Diena". In November, as I came home, I glanced at the "above the fold" sections of some "Diena" issues, and almost got a stroke from the dishonesty of a statement. "Obama wins by a small margin."

How about fuck you, 332 to 206 is not a small margin, that is way over 60% of electoral votes, which, obviously, is not stated anywhere near the front page. Nobody, except the losers, care for the popular vote, because that is not how USA elections work.

Alright, there were the cases of dishonesty.

The source. Today, as part of TV Journalism class, we had screenings of some student-made news stories. Some of them had interviews with politicians. One specific piece had an interview with a prime minister and some deputies and some experts as well, as far as I remember. It was on the proposal to decrease salaries for the government, I think. Sounds great for student journalism?

I don't think the group that produced that had ever seen the news. They included opinions from people on the street, that didn't have an opinion. Yes, that's great, show me more nothing. It appeared as if some interviewees were included just because they sounded clever. A Russian lady, whose response was also included, said this: "They need to pay average people better, I don't care for the government." Alright, so no opinion about the original question, but included just to mess with us.

But the worst was saved for last. One of the "journalists" that concluded the story said this: "But what really concerns me is that only 23 out of 101 seats in the parliament are held by women."

I don't give a shit about what you're concerned about, especially not in this manner of presentation. Women have half the votes of the country, women have rights to compete for the seats, and, yes, while there is some sexual discrimination, you are not helping by doing a mediocre story and then blurting out "I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE TO COMMENT ON WHAT OTHERS SAY SO HERE'S ANOTHER ISSUE"

And I also don't give a shit that it's a story done by students. They had gained access to parliament and government, and they ruined it. If they wanted to do it on politics, I suppose they think they're interested and capable of doing it.

I can't promise perfect results, there were worse jobs, but this set me off.

And then there's this guy, who also plans to become a journalist, and if he doesn't fail his exams, I'll lose my trust in Latvian University for good.

Yesterday

The constant reevaluation of my choices and other people I'm connected with makes the whole Tallinn experience feel like some eye-opening journey and a transition into a worse person rather than the expected careless student life.

I have people that can only be categorized as "ex-friends", just because the friendship ceased to function with September. Not the expected ones.

By the way, I've had two visitors, except for family. That's great, for a foreign country, but not that great if considering the fucking actual distance and price (you probably spend more even for a shitty party). At least 10 people promised to come, at least 5 started to make plans, getting my hopes up, just to cancel just because of a lack of initiative. And this is the part which I really hate. Was that small talk and was I not seriously supposed to care, or am I losing some value?

I realize the problems with long distance relationships, on whatever levels, but this is getting ridiculous. Also, I can't seem to figure out a way to fit in the small circle of people I know here, so the problems are pressing.

On the pleasant side, we had a great rehearsal, and we'll have more. And I'm playing with another coverband in Saaremaa in early March. And probably getting a cajon. And probably going to Scotland.

[Part 2] This is what I wanted to study

Here's the Part 1!

Back to revenue: more clicks mean more views means more money that can be charged from the advertisers. News companies will try to draw you to their content - I suppose this is common knowledge. The difference is with state funded television or radio broadcasts (I have not seen a state funded newspaper in my short experience), but these are minorities in the media world.

So, since the competition is fierce, not all companies can have the best journalists to investigate all current events timely and present the facts in a non-biased manner that's actually understandable for the common viewer/reader/listener. Audience tends to want the best and the fastest. Therefore, companies can decide to move towards yellow press methods:

Flashy Names CHEATING On Each other!!! 

RANDOM FUCKED UP SHIT IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY!

A completely misguiding title to make the issue more interesting, yet misinterpreted by most readers!

And a person, who lives in a country where the popular mass media consists of portals having an "Ask an astrologist" section, will, apparently, go to these sites! If it wasn't for the society who is stupid enough to read the articles, this and this would not exist.

Therefore, someone who bitched about shitty articles (both from the same portal) twice in a couple of weeks, is a hypocrite and does not deserve anything better.

And then you get a situation where a whole class of journalism students in a university have not heard of an international headline story. I was in high school when I read this story and, honestly, was shocked. A rough translation:

...We get everything from the internet, the modern consumers of information explain to me. But in that case, how did they all miss the situation in France, where a Muslim killed three soldiers, then a rabbi, two children and another person in a Jewish school, then barricaded in his house and was shot himself after 30 hours as he opened fire against the police and tried to flee?

My vast knowledge of current news at that point consisted of diena.lv mobile version, BBC World Service broadcast and occasional visits to ir.lv. Three sources, and I knew disturbingly much about said case.

I've been repeating myself for a while now, so let me conclude with this metaphor.

If you only keep listening to European Hit Radio, you have no right to conclude that music is awful or all the same.
If you keep eating in fast food chains, you have no right to conclude food tastes horrible and makes you fat.
If you keep going to shitty mass media sites, you deserve nothing better.

[Part 1] This is what I wanted to study

Situation 1

Lecturer: "Many journalists fail to achieve these goals in their stories."
Student from back: "Yeah, that's why I'm not interested in news!"

Situation 2

A guy shares bullshit news stories from yellow press and concludes: "Not reading the news is still a good choice."

***

With all my respect towards your personal choices, completely dissing the news is foolish. Radio and TV are available to everyone basically for free, and when you're using the internet, you have enormous amounts of free information. Most media outlets sustain themselves through advertising and you do not have to open your wallet to receive information. Therefore, the only limit of information intake is how much time do you want to dedicate.

If you are unable to do a basic filtering of what to read, watch or listen to, it is your fault and you will not be able to get the free AND quality content. Without news, you wouldn't know, who are the people that run your lives (politics on all levels), you wouldn't know about cultural development, you wouldn't know what happens outside your comfort circle, which is, at maximum, 50 people. Open up bbc.co.uk or ir.lv, or any other decent news webpage, and imagine that you would not know anything about the topics covered there. Fucking anyone could act on their wildest imaginations, nobody would be aware of that and society could not develop, since there would be zero connections. "But I get news when people share them on Facebook or 9gag," fuck you, those are either reposted news articles or wild and shallow interpretations of them. Is this so hard to understand?

"For my friends, who distribute 9gag links: I can't forbid you to eat shit, that is your right, but for this reason it is so much harder to love you." (Source)

And with this mediocre self-shot from my previous residence I will stop raging.

Click here for Part 2!

one two fuck four

I don't want to go to sleep because there are all the things to do, for example, self-portraits. However, I shouldn't probably approach the 36 hour mark.

So here are two nightly pictures.

So here's what I struggle with

One thing that frustrates me is that non-specialists often discount my opinion because it does not agree with their preconceived notions, popular beliefs, or their individual observations.  To be clear, I don't expect anyone to believe what I tell them based solely on my authority - if I don't have evidence to back it up, you shouldn't agree with me.  And its perfectly possible for someone to have a good understanding of a subject and still disagree with me. But, often people don't acknowledge that authoritative evidence which contradicts their understanding of a subject could exist.  (Basically, I'm just jealous of physicists, because people are less likely to argue with them about physics than they are to argue with me about what I study. Although, I'm sure they get enough from people who believe quantum theory means homeopathy is true that I don't feel that bad.)

From Peter Leykam on quora.com

Achievements, for sure

Today I had a serious go at Premiere, since for the last week my collection of stop motion material has grown a lot. 3rd minute in, I overload the program and angrily close it. Zero progress.

Today I had a serious go at FL Studio, since I have to work out proper synths for the band. They all sound like shit, so I close everything without saving. Zero progress.

Today I tried to watch some films, but all are boring and Doctor Who is still incredible. Zero progress for the films, love towards Doctor increased.

Here's my July or August or whatever. Working with a tripod alone is so much better than whatever the assignments for school - no pressure from others, enough time to do the long setup and experiment around, equipment flaws are less visible. Homeworks with hi-key and composition might have been useful or whatever, but made me dislike photography for a while.

I don't believe in hangovers

"This wine will make your head hurt a lot."
A lot is an understatement. When I woke up at 8AM, I wanted to close the curtains and to open the window, because the light accelerated the headache and there was no air. But I was in way too much pain to actually get up, so I dreamed of opening the window and closing the fucking curtains about five or six times and then realized that, nope, just a dream.

My priorities have to be overlooked, and I don't think my body is able to cope with all the drinking and smoking and irregular sleeping.

Here's me being shocked at my own actions.

writers block

One of the major changes in my behavior was when I started to put my cigarettes in the coat's outer pocket rather than the inside one. 

As I was thinking about that statement, it sounded very cool, but there's no further comment, there's no explanation and there isn't a proper blog post. Will come back to this later.