Tag Archives: memoirs

the race is with oneself…

Finally, I can talk with facts. After almost a dozen of rejections, today I start to move.   A peer reviewed article “Involvement of non-technical individuals in the design of successful digital games” is finally published. I am moving! Slowly but moving 🙂

I am aware that still I am on my race, because the goal hasn’t been met yet. But I am learning to jump  🙂

Thank you to each one of the persons who are supporting me to improve. Without each one of you I will be lost.

Now to focus, because THE BIG obstacle is next!

obstacle race

CC image, source here

sprint of 20 days (aprox)

It is hard to explain my actual situation to anyone, it just is.

August 2010  a milestone month for myself.  My aim is to deliver a complete draft of my thesis to  Erkki before he leaves to Mozambique. I am behind schedule, challenges are popping, light is also showing up,  and the time is flying fast….

challenges, speed and light

challenges, speed and light

source of photo here (CC)

breaking a “rejection-spell”

The first thing to do, is to stop saying to our heart and mind: it is the busiest day of my life.

Because  busier days will always come, as a lot of work is needed to be done to make things happen. Work and humbleness are required for learning from the people who had walked the path earlier, and it is willing to share some of their time and experience with us to improve.

Here a small story showing how time can get busier and busier:

On July 14, 2010 @ 6 am – I got locked myself outside of my Finnish house, with no keys. In a warmer summer day I start early my days, however I was lucky enough to have my phone with me, then I could ask for help.

On July 14, 2010 @ 6 pm – I got locked myself outside of my office in Science Park, with no keys, no phone, nothing. Worse case scenario than at the morning of the same day. However thanks to Alexander Kolesnikov I was saved and finally got in.

Those were not signs of in-love process, but my mind is really elsewhere trying to finalize my PhD and doing its best.

On July 28 2010, while being at the Pielinen Museum, I got the email of a paper accepted with “significant revisions”.  I am still shocked. We worked with that paper per months with Erkki, and I think I had been working with it directly more than a year. Hope it makes it through the whole process…

On July 29, 2010. I got the information of other document I worked with Jan in June, which is also “accepted conditionally”.

Honestly, I do not believe it is possible to break the rejection spell, especially after a dozen of rejections in a row. I feel like being locked out: those things can’t happen to me.

The reason of the entrance in this blog is: I do not believe it, however clear evidence exists that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, as you can imagine it is busier as I had planned on Tuesday, but happily I received the work to be done if the spell is broken.

light

Image source here with CC.

from Adele

Great creativity from a BIG southern heart!!! Adele, at her farewell gathering last Thursday, read the FINNISH blessing to us, composed by her and based on the idea of the Irish blessing. All of us enjoy it a lot, reason why I want to plasm it in here, for easy retrieval 😉

Thank you very much Adele for all!

IRISH BLESSING

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

FINNISH BLESSING:

May the road your travel on not have slippery ice
and if it does may you have your winter tires on.
May the snow not fall on the path to your front door.
May your sauna warm quickly
and no moose-fly infest your hair.
May your berries be sweet and the summers long,
May the sun often shine,
and you always have something warm when you need it.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.