I’ve had a very busy week; attended a few good lectures, heard lots of interesting things, had many engaging conversations and learned something too. Part of it was that I participated in a tremendously eye-opening workshop on lobbying the EU. Partly theoretical, but also very practical workshop, was led by a Belgian lecturer from the Ghent University Rik Otten who has himself spent some time in the EU political circles in Brussels, so he spoke from his own experience too.

Although I am sure that what I have heard in this short eight-hour workshop only barely scratched the surface on lobbying the EU, it was enlightening to hear about one aspect of the EU policy shaping. We heard all about how to prepare for lobbying campaigns, how and where to begin, the do’s and do not’s, the ethics, corruption, infamous cases–pretty much everything about lobbying in a tiny nutshell. It’s a complex thing, but it all boils down to relationship management and chess-like techniques.

As it often is, many of the things are rather obvious, but nevertheless you one might not think of them immediately. For instance, before you can even begin lobbying you have to know what for and who you need to talk to. Sounds a lot easier than it is. So, how do you approach the right person? Networking. Go places where you will meet them, in other words purposefully bump into them and start the small-talk. Never mention your intentions the first time you meet. Talk about something completely else. Exchange business cards. Try to bump into them the second time. Talk more, you mention the topic you’re lobbying for (or against), but don’t present it as an issue or a problem. Not just yet; build the relationship first. Maybe after your third or fourth encounter you could give them a phone call and say something along the lines of: “Remember that thing we were talking about, well I’ve got some really interesting information about this I’ll send your way.” Then go play golf or tennis to discuss it. Not only that this sounds like, but it practically is dating.

In Brussels alone there are 15,000 lobbyists. Although being a lobbyist is nothing to be ashamed of, of those 15,000 trying to influence EU policy making, only 5,000 are registered as lobbyists. And I bet that most of them are registered just because registration allows them the access to the European Parliament, which is needed at least at some point. And 15,000 lobbyists does sound a bit scary if you try to imagine the clash of interests, I like the perspective EU officials are taking on this: one lobbyist means corruption, thousand provide a solution.

Power is useless if not used tactfully. If you personally know, for instance, the commissioner covering the area which you are trying to influence, it is an absolute no-no to contact them directly. High-ranking officials have power, but they practically never do the tedious research work or write documents and arguments themselves. They have assistants for that, and these assistants, who just like everyone else, don’t like to hear from their boss what they have to write, how and when. So, if they hear your instructions from their boss, the chances are great they will bite back, won’t write up, delay, or even skew something. In other words, you’re screwed. It is the assistants you need to approach first and influence the commissioner through them. Befriend the small cogs in a huge apparatus, pursue them to be in favor of your cause, they will in turn change the system for you.

This, in fact, skilled lobbyists knew already very early on. I particularly liked the example of Philips. In the 1980’s hundreds of people who were on the payroll of the Dutch electronics giant, worked in the offices of high-ranking EU politicians. Philips seeded people who were shaping the EU policies in favor of their business. I’m sure there were many companies or interest group doing the same thing. Generosity eventually went so far that the number and origin of high-ranking officials’ little helpers needed to be restricted and monitored closely. Although these days it is not uncommon that assistants quit their well paid job and start working as lobbyists taking all their immediate knowledge and contacts to the new working place and utilizing it in a different setting within a different agenda.

And then there are the differences between lobbying in Brussels and Washington. In many ways what is legitimate lobbying in the US is corruption in the EU. How so? Common wining and dining is accepted in the US, but is considered corruption in the EU; politicians are often voted into the office with the support of a lobby group there, while such thing luckily doesn’t happen around the EU. It seems like reason wins in Europe and money talks in the US.

Jack Abramoff is a case in point; the amount and variety of stuff Abramoff did so far in his lobbying career is quite impressive, even for a criminal record, I suppose. He obviously took things to the far when lobbying for the Indian gambling interests, thus his trial in January 2006 has inspired regulative actions both in the US with the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006 and in the EU with Green Paper on European Transparency Initiative. A powerful gentleman, no doubt about that.

Anyway, the workshop was an extremely brief encounter with the world of lobbying, but nevertheless very insightful. Too often we easily forget that the world is run by the others. Thus even a peek into the inner workings of political behemoths is always a welcome enlightening. Knowledge is power.

Mladen

You probably remember that a few weeks ago I wrote about all the benefits students are entitled to in Finland. The monetary part, which is at the same time in my opinion also the part with the most profound impact on student’s life, was established some 30 years ago. However, students have been receiving the same monthly allowance for the last 14 years now. Yes, the state has been rude enough not to take into account the inflation or changes in living costs for all those years.

But students want more, they always want more. Well, who doesn’t. For several months already Finnish students have been quite eloquent regarding their demands. Being Finnish, they have kept it quite simple and to the point: “We want more money.” No babbling. There’s been lots of attention dedicated to the topic in both student newspapers issued by universities across the country as well as in the mainstream media. The response was sometimes mixed among the plebeians, but never among the students who know exactly what they are after. Not to mention that 127.000 people have signed the petition in favor of the rise (here’s the pdf listing everyone who signed it).

The government has been quite silent and didn’t take any concrete actions. Students have had it enough and took the matter to the streets. They want a 15% increase on their 260€ per month. But the minister of the finance did the calculations and figured out that this would cost the state more than 70 million Euros a year more. I understand both sides and as I’ve already written about it a few weeks ago, I think that the idea of student state support is an excellent one. Nevertheless, I think that students are pushing their luck a bit too far on this matter.

I’m not saying that they should go shopping around for a different model as this would result in benecide–killing of the benefits altogether. But some of them don’t really get it how good they have it, even though it’s just 260€+ Euros each month. I’ve spoken to a few of my Finnish friends who were not even aware that I am not receiving any such monthly benefits from any country. And outside of Nordic countries, as far as I know, no other country has anything like that. Although Finnish students are arguing that they get the least money of all the Nordic countries.

Of course, it’s wonderful if practically 80% of your rent is paid for by the state, plus you get the pocket money for free. And you get free education and many other benefits. You should be rather happy. Really, come on, it’s an incentive, a stimulation, a support and not free life kind of support. But then again even though the inflation in Finland has been extremely low and annually it never exceeded 3,4% in the last 14 years (it was only 0,9% in 2005 and 0,2% in 2004), it did eat away the total value.

I’ll have to dig a bit, but it would be interesting to find out how this model even got started in the first place: what were the political and what were the real reasons for it, how did those benefits evolve, and so on. I’ll make a follow up on the topic when I find out more about it.

Mladen

Being a student in Finland is an awfully nice thing. There are indeed so many benefits students are entitled to that naturally many want to extend their student years as much as they possibly can. Thus it’s not that uncommon to be a student in Finland even for the unthinkable 15 years or more … and being proud of it. Let’s take a look at what makes it so appealing.

You guessed it, this is all about money. OK, the profession of a student is even in Finland not really a profitable business. However the state gives out a lot of money to and for their students. Not only in form benefits like well organized and almost free health care, but also as hard cash straight into your bank account. So, being a student in Finland is a double benefit: Finland is said to have one of the best educational systems in Europe (and maybe even in the world) which is free for everyone, plus some get even paid to get that education. What more could you want? A lot more.

But there is a catch you should know about before you start packing your stuff, get the plane ticket and move to the land of milk and honey. The most lucrative benefits are reserved for Finnish citizens and residents, and neither of the two statuses are easily achievable for foreigners. Although I have met a few students here who have come from the US and have made it quite clear that by coming to Finland they will not only get a great life experience, but will also save tons of money they would otherwise spend on tuition. The education in Finland is free for everyone, period.

So how good do you have it if you happen to be entitled to all the benefits. Here comes the first surprise for the many. You are catered to already as a high schooler. Yes, the kids get a monthly allowance from the state already when they begin attending the high school. This simple (or not so simple) action shifts a whole range of parameters and immensely benefits the society as a whole. The money high schoolers receive is for many a sum enough to help them move away from their parents’ fridges and get a life. Which needless to say has many great advantages for young people as they do become more independent at much earlier age than, for instance, in countries like Slovenia where kids quite often move away from their parents well into their twenties.

And this does not turn Finnish kids into leeching slackers living on the behalf of the state. Quite the contrary: the money they receive is just a well placed incentive that prompts them to get that part-time job and learn how to earn enough money to make it on their own with the help of the state’s allowances. Think seed money rather than free ride mentality.

Once they leave the high school and enter into the higher education things change a bit, but they only get better. When attending the higher education, students first receive money for the 55 months–if they decide to take a leap year, they stop receiving benefits during that time, but can then pick up on everything as they left it once they decide to continue persuading their degrees again. Same goes for continuing education. If you get a BA and then decide to work towards the MA, you receive another 20 months of government support.

But getting a sum of money every month without any strings attached (as long as you study and pass courses) is not all. Students also get covered as much as 80% of their rent up to 252€ a month. Back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that if renting a 250€ flat, a student receives 200€ for the flat on top of 260€ monthly allowance, which sums up to 460€ each month. Not bad.

That’s the hard cash part. But the benefits don’t end here for Finns and residents while they just begin for us foreigners. Every holder of the Finnish student card gets 50% discounts for all train and bus fares around the country. For instance, the regular price for the return train ticked from Jyväskylä to Helsinki costs 90€, while students pay only 45€ (the total distance of the trip is 724 km). All students are also entitled to subsidized meals in designated restaurants and cafeterias around the country where meals cost from 1€ to 2,35€. And technically speaking you can have as many as you want in a single day as there are no food quotas.

Then there’s the practically free health care as you only have to pay if you need to see a specialist, and even then it’s cheap. Also dental work costs, but then again prices are really low. Dentist charges around 6€ per filling, which is basically free in comparison to the regular dental prices which can be even ten times as much. So, it is not that uncommon for the students who are about to enter the working world to pay a visit to their dentist in exchange for peanuts, for the very last time.

As you can imagine student benefits do not end here. Students are entitled to discounted prices for all museums and exhibitions, cultural events like theater plays, classical music concerts, opera, then again unfortunately it is not usual that there would be student discounts for events like rock concerts, but as a student you do get substantial discounts for various newspaper and magazines subsscriptions, for instance, a 50% discount when subscribing to the superb daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.

Mladen

True, I haven’t written anything in almost a month … and as all of you can imagine a lot has happened around here in all that time. I finally got to travel around Finland a bit, visited a couple of friends, met a whole bunch of new and interesting people, been to a brainstorming retreat as a part of my studies programme, had a few exams at school and experienced a plethora of other things. Which of course means that I have also been taking pictures, and a lot of them too, so do make sure you check out the gallery to get a visual glimpse of what I’ve been up to lately. OK, where should I start? Since I have not been updating the blog as things happened I will try not to think and write in chronological order but rather as things come to my mind. I hope that that won’t spell confusion for you.

I’ve probably already written at least a bit about how the university school system works here. Well, there are two periods per term and this change of periods occurred within the last month or so which means that there was a so called self-study week during which there were not supposed to be any lectures but just exams - or no school work at all for some which is the reason they end up calling this a vacation week. But this was not the case for me as I had both some lectures and a couple of exams during that week and could not really leave Jyväskylä for more than a few days. Anyways, to cut the crap, I passed both exams (Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Methodology and Digital Arts and Culture classes) … and yeah, it was interesting to see how examinations work around here. I especially preferred the open-endedness of examination as there are no multiple choice tests which was too often the case in my previous encounters with schooling. ’nuff said about that.

The more exciting part is definitely traveling, reuniting with old friends and meeting new people. It’s been fun and I have done a lot of it recently. OK, first a friend of mine invited me to her hometown of Kuopio where I’ve spent a day with her and her parents. Kuopio is a town located about 160 km northeast of Jyväskylä in the Savo region of Finland. The town is of about the same size of Jyväskylä so there’s really nothing too exciting there, but still, I have enjoyed the city as it has quite a few interesting galleries and museums. My friend’s mom had a week off at the time of my visit so she took her time to show me around town where we visited the Korttelimuseo - literally translated as ‘a block museum.’ It’s a block where they have gathered the most interesting buildings from the history of Kuopio, which almost inherently includes the history of town life in Finland as well.

But Kuopio was neither main nor the only attraction that week as I’ve spent the weekend in Helsinki. I was invited to spend a couple of days there with a professor that has been lecturing at our university about the Nordic archeology and prehistory (I wrote about him a bit already in the post about the trip to Saarijärvi in October if anyone can still remember that). As Brian is an extremely interesting and knowledgeable person I definitely grabbed the opportunity to tour the Helsinki with him. And yes, that was something as he knows a lot about the history of Nordic and Scandinavian societies, especially about Finns and Swedes, relations between the two nations and about many other local cultural peculiarities. As he is an archeologist, you can only imagine, that we have spend quite some time in the prehistory section of the Kansallismuseo (The National Museum of Finland). Yes, the artifacts are all there, and everything is neatly tagged and marked, but hey, how often do you actually get a chance to tour a an exhibition with someone who has actually researched these artifacts for several decades. Besides the Kansallismuseo I’ve also visited the Designmuseo and really enjoyed the exhibitions there as well. Of course, all the exhibitions had to do at least something with Finnish design: Nokia, Fiskars, Metso and contemporary Finnish designers. Overall impression: fantastic.

And as always, I do love to just walk the streets of any city and I have done a lot of that too just getting to know how Helsinki lives and breathes. It’s probably because of all the Art Noveau architecture that Helsinki actually reminds me quite a bit of Ljubljana, well, sort of, but it is quite a bit bigger and more definitely more metropolitan. During that first stay in Helsinki I also paid a surprise visit to my two friends who live in there and whom I have met in Jordan this past summer. OK, one of them actually knew that I will be coming to town, but the other one didn’t, so he almost crapped his pants when he saw me sitting in the bar with Olli. Imagine that. Yeah, we had a couple of beers together and as usual my evening ended up in the gutter … just kidding, I found my way to hotel pretty easily since it was 0400am and the air was rather fresh.

Then less than a week later I again took off to Helsinki. Yes, as you could tell already, I enjoy this city. Well, come on, it has more than one street, and besides that I have not been in a real city for two months. This time I’ve left Jyväskylä with one of the first trains in the morning and was in Helsinki already before 1100am (it’s a three and a half hour train ride). Finnish trains are really enjoyable, especially if you get to sit on the first floor from where you can really enjoy the landscape. Well, I did sort of, but since I had to turn in a paper on Tuesday for the Cultural Theory class, that also meant that I had to organize my time for writing the paper on the train - and yes, I have managed to finish it while traveling between Jyväskylä and Helsinki.

This second visit to Helsinki was rather different from the first one. In many ways, of course. This time I was actually visiting my friends Olli and Hannu (and stayed at Olli’s place, which I really enjoyed a lot) and spending time with them. So on Friday I visited a couple of exhibitions (Ensi Valtaamme Museot in Kiasma and Japan Pop in Tennispalatsi) and the rest of the night I guess we were drinking, if I can remember correctly. And yes, these two Finns (OK, it was not just the two of them) actually managed to get me drunk. The only thing I was really happy about was that when I woke up in an unfamiliar place in an unknown bed, I woke up alone. What a relief, one might think. Yes that evening was loads of fun for all of us. Which doesn’t mean that we did not have fun the next day as well. I am not really sure if I should admire these people or not, since the first thing they do in the morning after they have been drinking all night is, guess what, begin drinking the moment they get up and continue in this fashion until the next day. I was not able to handle that, but had fun nevertheless. But the weather was fantastic that Saturday and we visited Soumenlinna and had a few hours of fun there. Suomenlinna is located just outside Helsinki in the Helsinki archipelago and is one of the largest fortresses in the world and was built by the Swedes to show of their dominance in the Baltic region.

As I was in Helsinki at the time when the Helsinki book fair was going on I naturally visited the fair. I have to say that I was amazed and surprised at the same time that about 97% of all books exhibited there were in Finnish and that almost all (except for a few Swedish stands) all stands were occupied by Finnish publishers and book retailers. Finns really do read a lot, and I mean a lot. Just imagine this: there are a little over 5 million Finns and I have never seen so many specialized topics magazines in any other country, in local language of course. If you speak the language you can enjoy the numerous science, design, lifestyle, sauna, hobbies, literary, politics, computer, music and magazines on many other topics. And it is likewise for books: one gets an impression that if something was written, it was probably translated into Finnish as well. And that is one more motivating factor for me wanting to learn the language.

As I have already mentioned, the beginning of November the second period begun at school, which mostly means that I have some new courses. And this time I have actually decided to take a couple of courses in Finnish as well. To say the least, these really are amusing: I can sit in a lecture room, pay attention to what the lecturer has to say, read the slides and most of the time I type gazillions of words into my dictionary. It’s hard as hell, but I don’t think any of you can actually imagine how much fun am I having in those classes (aside from the fact that I can just chuckle when everyone is wholeheartedly laughing at some joke … and I of course chuckle at the fact that most of the time I have no clue why they are laughing). And it is such classes that tickle my brain. Got carried away there and almost forgot to mention what these classes are about; they are the Introduction to Software Engineering (yep, rather basic, but let’s not make it too hard, shall we) and Man and Machine or HCI. I’ll definitely take more of these in next term as well and hopefully will be able to keep my sense of humor and understand at least a tad bit more.

All the other classes I’m taking are in English. Nordic Mythologies: now this one is really fun and I was really looking forward to it (and yes, it’s exactly what the name of the class says it is). Then I am taking the Aesthetics of Everyday. A rather theoretical course, but I enjoy it immensely nevertheless. We’re mostly discussing the works of Barthes, Benjamin, Crary, Maffesoli, Vattimo and Virilio. Then just this week I will be attending a Nordic Net Art conference also known as Live Herring. This period I’m also taking Scandinavian Film, Internet Research and Suomi Yksi classes. So, again my schedule is rather busy.

But the best of all so far this period was the Digital Culture brainstorming two day retreat at the Konnevesi biological research station some 60 km east of Jyväskylä. This research facility is part of the Jyväskylän Yliopisto. And it was pretty cool as we didn’t really have to worry about much more than brainstorming itself: they cooked the food for us, the sauna was there and the company was enjoyable. Hm, I just hope that they will be organizing more of these kinds of retreats. Oops, almost forgot to mention what we were brainstorming on: about the topics of our MA theses. I guess it was more or less useful, but I already know what I want to research and write about and thus didn’t really expect that I’ll hear some revolutionary ideas about my topic.

I guess I could go on and on about what I am up to since there’s so much exciting stuff going on here. Here’s what I’ll do (but I definitely cannot promise that), I’ll try to write more often and thus include more details as they occur. Which means that you have to come back for more as there’ll be more interesting stuff to read about soon.

Mladen

Yet another exciting week went by. Last weekend (the 17. and 18. September) I went on another biking trip in Jyväskylä vicinity. This time I went to the hundred years old forest where supposedly the tallest tree in Finland grows. Never mind the tallest tree as every single piece of information for visitors is in Finnish there. Again, this biking trip wasn’t interesting so much for the destination as it was for the trip itself. And as long as the weather is nice, I’ll be doing these biking trips around Jyväskylä. So yesterday I went to Säynätsalo, Lehtisaari, Muuratsalo and Muurame. (You can do a bit of virtual map exploring yourself over at the Jyväskylän Karttapalvelu.) All three are small towns on islands. And although I’ve been here for a month now and have been actively exploring my still very new environment, I am still fascinated by all the lakes, forests and nature in general. It is amazing how pristine it is. And yes, make sure you check the Suomessa image gallery for some new images from previous and this weekend trips.

As school is supposedly one of the reasons why I am here, I have been attending various lectures during the week. And so far everything has been really relaxed and my schedule really isn’t too packed. It might come as a surprise, but so far the most demanding lectures that I’ve been attending have been the Suomi yksi classes. I have six hours of quite intensive Finnish classes a week which are fun, but the teacher passes on so much information that it is hard to chew and digest it all before the next class. But at least I still have the feeling that I have learnt something new every time I leave that class. My program’s classes so far have been OK, but really nothing special, which means that I am yet to hear something I have not heard or read before.

This past week I have also met a student who was an exchange student in Slovenia. Unfortunately she attended the infamous Faculty of Organisational Sciences or the Kranj Sorbonne as it is known where I used to live. Of course, it did not take her long to figure out that she is visiting the shittiest educational institution on this planet. And imagine this, when she went back to Slovenia to visit her friends a year or so later, the new dean somehow found out about her visit and wanted to meet her so that he could apologize for all the crap she’s been through at that institution. Being smart as she is, she refused to meet him. Anyhow, as there were more interesting things to discuss, we quickly discovered our mutual interest: human-computer interaction and cognitive sciences. She promised she’ll introduce me to the faculty staff in those fields, as I am interested in taking some of their courses. I’m really looking forward to meeting those people.

However, my week was not only about academe. I’ve already mentioned in my last post that I’ve been going to the pool, but now I think that I have actually rediscovered water. This past week I’ve been to the swimming pool twice and have had a blast each time. Yes, I am still learning how to swim, but the progress has been noticeable and I have actually began enjoying it. Yep, I got my swimming goggles and cap, and as simple as those two items are, they make a huge difference in the water. So far I have been working with my swimming instructor on my front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke techniques. If everything goes according to plan, they’ll fill the pool with water for me next week … oops, no, if everything goes according to plan, we’ll begin working on butterfly next week. I’m really looking forward to that.

Now I can also say that I am reaching the point where I left my running at the end of May. Which means that I have not been running regularly for almost three months and am now picking it up again. During my first runs here I could really feel that I have lost my edge, but just two weeks later, I can say with confidence that I’m picking it up where I left it. It’s an incredible feeling. During my runs I see so many active people rollerblading with poles, doing nordic walking or running, cycling, walking or just plain running. Finns really are active and outdoor people and it’s hard not to be once you learn to appreciate what the environment has to offer. So, living an active life here is nothing special, which also means that I just don’t get the stares for running as was the case all too often in Slovenia. The only time people stare a bit is when I go for my regular after-run legs soaks in the nearby lake … well, they’ll get used to that.

Another interesting thing about running is that I have actually already managed to fire up my flatmates and even my swimming instructor about running. I already took them out on their first test runs with me and will be preparing running plans for them soon, which means they will get proper introduction to the sport. As you can imagine I am definitely very excited about that.

As I do spend a lot of time on the roads (as a pedestrian, on my bike and running) there are a few things I have noticed about their driving that truly surprised me. As socially sensitive and civilized as Finns are, their driving is nothing like it (disclaimer: I’ve not yet done any driving here, so I can only relate to the way they behave behind the wheel as a pedestrian). OK, drivers are not as wild and arrogant as they are in Slovenia where you literally have to grow eyes on your back to be safe. But still, for instance, when you want to cross the street, drivers do not stop for you; you as a pedestrian have to patiently wait for the traffic to clear before you can proceed. So it is good that they have developed a quite good system of bike and foot paths.

Of course, I don’t have a TV here, but I’m not really a TV person after all. However, there’s one show I do enjoy very much and really look forward to it every Tuesday. It’s the NerdTV. You don’t have to be a nerd from head to toe to enjoy the show, but there has too be at least a latent geek or nerd in you somewhere to have fun watching it. Maybe you should try it out and let me know if you had fun or not; it could definitely be used as a geek-o-meter. Anyways, I’ve been baking chocolate-chip cookies for those NerdTV screenings for me and my flatmates - well, so far they have enjoyed only cookies and have yet to learn to appreciate NerdTV.

In spite of not spending much time in bed (yes, sleeping at this point can still be regarded as a waste of time, as there are many things to do and try), I did manage to experience my first dream in Finnish. True, the dream was nothing like my dreams in other languages are when I can actively engage in conversation in several languages, but still, I was trying to explain something in Finnish and using probably all the words I know at doing so. I was a bit confused when I woke up, but I finally figured, hey, I must be in Finland.

Pitää hauskaa,

Mladen