Back when during my university years I got to know the facilities manager of our school. Everyone knew him, really, and he knew everybody, especially the students active in the student association. Need to book a room for an evening event? Talk to Azad. Access pass not working? Talk to Azad. Want to borrow a trolley to move a large pile of paper? Talk to Azad.

I was told that he had started out as a lowly janitor and worked his way up. He had energy, people skills, and a can-do attitude, and he took his job seriously.

Some cleaners, on the other hand, will never become anything much better than cleaners. At work I see our cleaning staff shuffle around slowly with bored faces. When they empty a rubbish bin, they take away the bag by dragging it behind them, even though the bag weighs next to nothing. They never move fast and never show any real engagement in their work.

A lady comes by to clean our home once every two weeks. She’s been doing it since we first moved to this apartment four years ago. Whenever she has cleaned, the first thing we do when we get home is redo the bin bag in the kitchen. When she changes it, she puts the new bag over the handle of the inner bin, so you cannot lift it out by the handle. In the four years she’s been coming here, she has either not noticed that the bin has a handle which can be used for lifting, or not cared.

I just don’t understand that sort of mindset. How can you care so little for what you do?

Temperature is relative. Degrees stretch with seasons, don’t they? The thermometer claims it is 17 degrees outside (well, not at this hour, but it did say so earlier today). Somehow today’s 17 degrees felt a lot chillier than they did two months ago.

Estonia on the other hand has had the season’s first snow.

There are things and situations where I like to have variety. Food, certainly, is one of them. Clothes is another: I couldn’t wear a similar outfit (say, light shirt and dark skirt) every day of the week. Books, vacations, likewise.

But then there are things where I prefer no variety at all. I buy the same toothpaste (same brand, same flavour) every time, and the same brand of underwear. Same body wash and face cream. I have tried alternatives occasionally but always realised after a short while that they just weren’t as good. The face creams feel either greasy or watery, while the body washes generally fail the smell test – they tend to have a chemical, synthetic smell (and one actually made my skin sting).

With these items it’s mostly a matter of creature comforts. The smell and feel of things is important. And I don’t really want excitement or novelty late at night when I am tired. I do not want to be surprised by an unfamiliar taste of toothpaste at 7 in the morning. I want homey, comfortable familiarity.

With others it’s simply a question of knowing what you get. This is mostly the case for everyday tools, things I use often enough to notice (and care about) the difference between good and bad quality. I always buy the same brand of ballpoint pen, and the same dishwashing sponges, and the same nappies for Ingrid. The difference between a good pen and a bad pen, or between a good sponge and a bad one, is very noticeable if you use one every day. (At least to me it is.) After I’ve finally found a good one, further experimentation is much more likely to yield bad results than good ones. The upside is very limited. So I stick to what I know is good.

I kept buying deodorant in Sweden all these years, and sometimes asked my mum to bring me some when she travelled back and forth, because my favourite brand wasn’t available in England. Most annoyingly it has now disappeared from the shelves in Sweden as well, and I will have to spend months finding a good replacement.

Off to Sweden for the rest of the week.

Ingrid happened to do something with my keyboard and all the messages disappeared from my inbox. Normally an Undo should have restored everything, but this time it did not… so if you had sent me an email and are waiting for a response, you will have to resend your message. Sorry.

I found a Times article about GCSE science exams, specifically about some committee’s demands that the exam should be made easier.

The Times kindly provides a sample science exam (pdf). Now I do have rather low expectations of the UK educational system, but even so, I was not expecting the exam questions to be that basic. Half of them would be suitable for 10-year-olds.

All the questions are multiple choice questions, so you don’t need to do more than guess at what sounds most plausible.
Every formula you might need to know is provided for you, including (I’m not joking) “speed = distance / time” so you don’t even need to know any of the basic relationships.
Only 5 out of the 40 questions required some sort of calculation. The most complicated calculation required is a single step of multiplication.

Sample question:

2. We can take photographs of the moon because
A it is a small star
B it reflects light
C it is electromagnetic
D it produces its own light

A disgrace, I say. What is the world coming to, when 14-year-olds who have actually studied science – not disadvantaged unschooled 14-year-olds – have trouble answering questions of this kind?

I’ve put up a few holiday photos in the gallery, some of Ingrid and some of the two of us together.

We’re back home today.

Two things I learned from this vacation:

• I watch too much TV and spend too much time on the Internet. Cutting both radically over 10 days felt good. I can think of better ways to spend my time. I don’t understand how people who actually own a TV get anything done at all.
• Vacationing / travelling with a baby is not exactly a carefree activity, but it can be relaxing if you realise and accept one ground rule: thou shall focus on being a parent and taking care of the baby, and thou shall have no other ambitions. This way both are happy and relaxed, and even though you have no ambitions you will still get a little done here and there.

I’m on vacation in Estonia for 10 days so posting will be light for a while. The apartment in Tartu is not quite childproof so I have to keep more than one eye on Ingrid, and there’s no Internet in the summer house in the country. I’ll catch up when we’re back instead.

You can now see photos by the official photographer of the London Sling Show that we attended last weekend.