week 11 - Impressed&Frustrated

Our week started on Tuesday with our admirable guest Aida Hubanic who’s originally from Sarajevo but became in Finland with her family when she was 10. According to her tellings and history you could think her much older but she is only 31. I don’t know where to start with..Aida has done so much and some of her stories really touched me. She have experienced war in her home country and lost many of her friends and relatives. She had to learn a new language and adapt herself into totally different culture. And she really nailed it!!!

At first I have to say that Aida got me interested in game-industry by telling her experiences in one game-event which was held in Laurea last fall and where she took part in. It was a competition for everyone interested and the main point was that they would get to the groups and invent a new game somehow related to health. Mobile games has never been my thing, but after Aida's presentation I'm hoping to someday have a chance to participate some similar event and let my knowledge and experiences grow. Being open-minded seems to be the thing at the moment. And what comes to Aida's success in the competition, her team won of course...two times! ;)

Aida also spoke about an important issue: well-being, especially in working life. She founded a company this year to help people to find some tools to improve their wellness, mental and physical. Aida was an interesting combine of genuine softness and perseverance and because of her rough history she new what things in life are worth valuation. I really respect her and her achievements.

On friday we went to this event called NextLevel which I was telling you in one of my previous posts. It was all about well-being and sports, so the theme was really my cup of tea.

I have to admit that it was a huge disappointment for me. I’m not sure if I’m right or not but I got the impression that the event wasn’t that well organized and it seems to be much more modest than I was expected. Firstly I have to say, that if you want to get as much visitors as you can in to your event, why you don’t put any ads even in front of your enter. How any random one could ever find there when even the invited ones have some difficulties to find the place?

Right before we get to the event our coach Ilkka sent us some kind of to-do-list given by the event organizer. According to that list we were all going to have some tasks to do on the spot, like cleaning, selling coffee etc. But because it happened to be the April fool’s day we all thought it was a joke. But believe it or not, it wasn’t. I totally got the impression that all that Mika Järvinen wanted from this co-operation was some free workers. The case would have been totally different if that would have been something that we have made a deal about. This whole thing left a bit bad taste but I hope Mika and the other organizers will learn from this. I really believe that they have very good grounds and possibilities to turn that event more successful and interesting. It’s not about what you do, it’s about how you do!!!!

After we left the event we got the avionboard (the electronic board) from Tuomas so we could start shooting the video for our project for Avionboard. But when we finally found the good place for filming the board stopped working and we couldn’t fix it. So we had to skip our plans ‘till Monday assuming they will give us a new functional board before that.

Even though there appeared some difficulties during the week, I’m able to name some positive things as well. I have started to do this counting with my son that for each negative things you name from the day you have to find one positive thing to at least neutralize your past day. Finding or naming even one positive thing more is always better ;) Despite of all misfortune we had some great laughs with our team and got our bellies full by visiting the burger king.

So this week didn’t go exactly as planned and for the first time I felt some frustration during the course. So after 11 weeks that’s pretty damn well!!! And it’s good to remember that after clouds there will eventually always be sun :)