I have a Google Alert for “Kalle Alm” (I’m vain that way) and I get some surprises occasionally. Like this one:

http://pipl.com/directory/people/Kalle/Alm

The accuracy of those keywords are scary all by themselves. But I think this is an awesome thing for the world to have, because it does efficiently remove that illusion we seem to have about privacy online. We post a detail about ourselves here and another one there and then somehow link the two together, and then we go on like the dutiful spiders of self-leakage that we are and eventually, there’s a network of information about ourselves, and it took us no effort to produce it. Nor do we even realize its existence. But with the above services (Pipl is not the first “people search” I’ve seen, and definitely not the last either) the illusion will be dispelled.

Last Monday, I sent my application to the school in Japan (Nihongo Center, 日本語センター), and yesterday I emailed them asking if they’d received my application. They had, and they told me the next step in the process is the visa processing fee (~$150 US or so) and the application for (December) and issuance of (March) my visa. That leaves me very little time for buying my plane ticket though, cause I leave April 4th!!

So I asked them about when I would know for sure if I was accepted, and got the reply that I am practically accepted already. “They were sure.” So here’s to hoping they’re right, because I’ll be buying plane tickets and such based on this assumption.

But yes, good news is that the school I’ve applied for has stated that I’ll be accepted for sure, which is a good sign, if you ask me. Very little stands in the way now. I’m a happy little clam.

There’s a promotional video about Sweden, of all things on this planet, on YouTube. It must have been released very recently because I saw it in the newspaper on my way to the hospital this morning.

It’s cute, I like it. I’ve never seen anything promotional about Sweden before so it was definitely interesting. URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxGpFAZuDhU

I’d love to write a lengthy update about my surgery, especially as I’m sure others out there are considering, or about to, perform the same surgery and have a lot of questions (it’s a fairly common operation apparently). But I’m still not caught up on school-stuff, and I have a good bit of catching up to do before I’m comfortable sitting down and taking it easy.

But I’m doing okay. I still can’t chew like normal people, and eating takes a bit longer than normal, but the stitches are out of my mouth now at least, and the little rubber ring thingies will be gone soon too, I hope. I’ve moved back to my own place since about a week ago, and that felt really good too. As for whether the surgery actually “fixed me”, that remains to be seen. Some of the pain I felt before has returned, but I’m hopeful that this is more due to my teeth being “un-fixed” as yet. It’s not nearly as bad as it was, though it’s impossible to say how it’ll feel a year from now, or ten.