under "house arrest" .. so to speak.

some european traditions still strike me strangely. despite a general agnostic sentiment here in finland, the nation still celebrates the christian holidays as official ones.

so today, being good friday and three days before easter, is one of those holidays. next monday is also off, too. as a result ..

the university buildings are locked,
i forgot the numerical entry code for mine,
most shops and cafes are closed,
and so i'm "stuck" working at home.

at this point one wonders if i should just stop working for once [1] and just enjoy the (forced) time off.

thinking about it, it feels like ages since i've just .. not gotten up in the morning, immediately thought about the research problem or task at hand [2], and barring other immediate promises and responsibilities, dwelt on it for the rest of the day.

who knows? maybe a change of scene will do me some good. there's still most of the day left, here in helsinki. it's been ages since i've been to the cinema, for one thing. it's not hard to take a ferry to estonia and see the old town there ..

mathematics tends to be an obsessive kind of habit;
the key, i suppose, is the right distraction ..



[1] it could be just the colleagues that i know, but there's a common folklore among us that academics work all the time. (compare this with the general populace, who think that university faculty are lazy and only work "8 months of the year" ..!)

related to this point, i don't think that i work all the time; for instance, after returning from the office, i would never work at home in the evenings .. well, until recently anyway. i get the impression, though, that other people think i work all the time. two fellow postdocs pointedly asked me about my plans for the weekend, for instance ..

[2] on a related note: somehow over the years, i became a morning person. figure that out!