Back from Messinia!

That's down in south-western Peloponnese for all you non-Greeks. My mother's side comes from a small village over there and my uncle has a house near Messini, so I visit there like once a year or once every two years.

It's nothing really exciting though. Sure it's better than being stuck in Athens, but other than that you just have access to beaches and good sea waters, relatively cheap food/coffee and all that and lots of sun during spring/summer. Personally I don't mind that all. On a typical day I'll have coffee/lunch at the house sit at the computer for a while, then grab the bus to Kalamata, walk around (maybe grab coffee or some snack) head to the beach, read a book, swim, sunbathe, walk back to the terminal, grab the last bus, eat dinner at home. From there it's either go out for a drink with cousin Takis or watch some tv / sit at the computer and sleep late. Rinse and repeat.

Days can go by pretty fast like that. So after around 15 days of rest and relaxation, lots of walking, lots of swimming (kickass cardio btw), a finished book and some nice tan I'm back in Athens. Which means I have to transition from vacation mindset into back-to-real-world mindset and pick up a couple of things where I left them off. Most importantly job-hunting and working on my final project so I can graduate (eventually).

There are of course some side-goals / interests like preparing for the 10km race in Athens Classic Marathon, starting A Song of Fire and Ice series and catching up on the books before season 3 on HBO, study some German, try my luck dating etc. Most of all these open up a small or large sub-tree of things to do, so I have to tackle a little every day lest I be overwhelmed and fail to do at least half of that before the end of the year.

Financial education, personal finance, banking products and all that stuff

I was sorting out banking statements the other day and realized I had papers from 3 different banks (customer of 4 actually but that's just a zero balance account not tied to any debit card so no statements). One of them is for an old account used for paycheck deposits that I haven't bothered to terminate since it needs to be done at the exact branch close to where I used to work. Another is for the one credit card I own and the debt that comes with it (sigh) and the third is my main account with its debit card and i-banking activated and all that. No loan, no mortgage, no time deposits or something. Still I find that 3-4 banks is too much.

Then you hear on the internet or TV about people tied with several banks owing money to quite a few with numerous credit card and sometimes loans. On one end that can be explained by the overall economic situation here in Greece for the last few years. On the other end though I think it's for the most part bad financial education/behaviour. The last 10-15 years there has been a banking services boom where everyone wanted to have his/her credit card, people would get loans to pay for stuff that you could otherwise plan ahead and save instead (vacation, redecoration etc) or even worse just to go shopping. For a time the consumer would get bombarded with ads for new credit cards and small loans to be paid in like 5 years (60 monthly payments for amounts like 3000 euro or so) Everyone would pick the longer payment plans - spend today, payback tomorrow. There are a lot of cases of people that started out with one or two credit cards and a small loan, cards to the limit, paying minimum payments (like 2.5-3% of balance) interests rolling in and well you know the rest... said people either get buried in debt or go deeper by using more credit card or getting new loans.

A lot of people get easily carried away when it comes to financial responsibilities simply because they're not good with basic arithmetic. For example they can't weigh if getting a loan of X amount paid over Y months at Z interest rate is a good plan. Or when managing a credit card debt, minimum payments may seem like a be-done-with-it solution but most people don't realise that minimum payments favour the bank and not customer who usually pays about 50% interest and 50% capital with each payment. Very often it also comes down to discipline and how well you are determined to stick to big payment to get rid of debt fast, or careful consumption in the first place so you don't build up debt itself.

Leaving income and spending aside - which by the way I see a lot of people have it very wrong - I think a lot of us have a poor understanding of financial and banking matters, hence the title of this post. We don't get taught much of that stuff at school and later on we don't take the time to learn about them until we find out the hard way. Personally I find banking is not as evil as people put it out to be (well ok some of those interest rates are downright theft) but rather people aren't well educated on what to do with banking products and how to manage their finances. 

First of all you need to have some income of course. You can't manage finance if you're a grad student living off your parents at 25 and never made a buck. Then you need some financial discipline/planning. Sure everybody wants to buy this, do that, go there but you obviously have to prioritise and figure out what you can do without (for now anyway). When you got those two you can put banking products to use so you can reach goals, make everyday expenses easier and keep your finances in check.

So do your reading and learn about stuff like time deposits, savings accounts with minimum monthly deposits, credit card with benefits, investing and all that comes with it (bonds, stocks, real estate, mutual funds etc) loan consolidation, i-banking and many more. You don't have to use all of them but it's good to know what they are how they work and then when the time comes you can decide if you want to go that way or not.

Young adults, parents, education and work

I'm 28 turning 29 this summer and I realised it's been a full 10 years since I reached adulthood. I contemplated on that for a while and thought to myself what I have done all these years, what obstacles I found in my way, what obstacles I created myself and what other young adults do during this time.
The facts by themselves put me on a slow start. I still have a loose end (my final project) to wrap up before I get my first degree in computer science. If/when I go on a graduate course (MSc, 2 years worth of studies) it will be right after the summer I turn 30. Suppose I want to follow that with doctorate studies... I'll be like 35 at best when I'm awarded the degree. I don't really mind that to be honest. Looking back at all those years I don't see how I could have made that journey shorter by more than 2 or 3 years. Sure I could have done some stuff differently, I could have pushed myself harder on some semesters, but that would save me 2-3 years at best. It also would have made me a slightly different person. So all I can do now is carry on just bring out the best of me in the studying years to come.

Let's take it from the start though - Higher education I mean. What options do young adults have? And is it all up to them or are some stuff out of their control? Unfortunately it's the latter. When it comes to education - just like in so many other matters - money talks. Money can buy you the time to study (time you would otherwise spend working to cover living or personal expenses) it can buy you private schools to get the best head start, it can buy you tutoring during high school final exams to get the best scores for entering on top public universities and it can buy you tuition on the rest - and usually better than public -  universities.
Of course personal ability, commitment and the attitude towards studying plays a very significant role. Tricky thing though is if you have the financial stuff sorted out it makes things that much easier. You find it easier to commit to studies if you know you don't need scholarships or just plain cash to get to the next level (MSc, PhD etc) and personal ability to some extent can be cultivated and trained just by getting the best possible in every step of your educational life. Leave the dough out of the equation and you have yourself a much more difficult journey but of course not impossible. Lots of people manage to get a good education for themselves starting from scratch - a result that comes from a mixture of intellect, hard work and some good old luck (don't ask me proportions though).

Enter the parents.

Educationally a lot will depend on one's parents' financial ability. There are parents that can and will pay the whole package for their child's education - private school/high school, university tuition for at least undergraduate and a graduate degree, living expenses for those 6-7 years as well as some other side expenses (foreign language lessons, tutoring for exams etc) There are of course others in our hard times that can barely afford to sustain their children. In between those cases there are many intermediate cases. Some parents may not be in the financial position to provide the full package, but they will pay for it even if it means going in debt for some time or working two jobs just so their children can have it better that they did - even if in the long run that means spoiling them. Some others - and that's the majority of families here in Greece from my knowledge - may not have the luxury of sending their children in private schools / high schools, but they will definitely pay up when it comes to tutoring during  final high school classes and they will pay up for living expenses when their child leaves home to study in a Greek public university. Most of those expenses however are covered as they come with little planning or budgeting in advance on the parents side, resulting in many families going in debt just to pay for education.

Children come into play as well when they reach 15-16 or so. From personal experience they differentiate when it comes to two choices. The first one - and that one is most of the time financially biased rather than personal lack of confidence - is whether someone wants to pursue higher education or instead go straight to work and maybe along the way take up some classes in workshops or maybe some tech school. Most of them just don't want to burden their parents, and thinking they can't cut it in higher education they choose to give back as soon as possible - both to their parents and to themselves.
Those that choose to pursue higher education have to make another choice: to work as a student or not. Be it part-time, full-time, summer job, whatever. Of course that's something you review every year or so  as you go through studies. Lots of young adults will see that part-time or summer jobs is the right way to go since it doesn't really interfere with studies and it removes a burden from your family - and even if there is no burden it's nice to make your own money and spend it for stuff your family shouldn't ever have to support you like a new video game or tickets to a football match.

Personally I think that the most critical period is the 4 or so years during undergrad studies. Before that public school isn't so bad and parents can help their children go through those years either by helping them with homework at early ages, showing them about hard work, responsibility, motivation, goals in life and all that to get them on the right tracks. After undergrad studies some options open up for the student - pursuing further education by scholarship, or attending a part-time master's degree while working. Options that make him slowly rely more on him/herself and less or not at all on parents.
Even then 4-5 years of full support can vary from a few hundred euros to upwards of a thousand euros a month depending on whether the student had to pay tuition and/or live in the parents' house or not. In the second case it is possible for prepared parents to setup a savings account the moment the child is born for the sole purpose of funding those years. 100 or even 50 euro a month deposits can gather a nice five figure amount after 15-20 years of saving and use that to support a university student with further supplement as needed from the parent or the student by part-time work or something.

Learning Itch

It's a thing.

Really it is... I'm sure a lot of people get it and I'm having it for some time now. It's been what? almost two years since I was in a classroom or lab and in the process of learning something. Still it's not like I haven't learned a thing or two in the meantime but it mostly has been learning through experience (6 months bank internship and 8 months military service).

I want something more focused and a little more time-consuming to immerse myself. So far I'm between either a foreign language or some kind of computer technology. However I'm more biased towards the former since I'll have to learn to use some stuff for my computer science thesis (yeah it's not done yet).

So unless I have some other inspiration soon, I will probably try to make up my mind on which of the following I want to focus:

1. French - I already have some basic knowledge here (did some courses as a teenager) including grammar etc, I can read quite well but I definitely need more oral/listening skill.
2. German - I've been interested to learn for the last couple of years but never got around to it. Germany is one of my top choices for postgraduate studies (MSc) - actually it's more the result of elimination process rather than selection but that is food for another post. Even if I don't go for a MSc there I could definitely see myself passing from a German speaking country for a couple of years (PhD, post-doc, science or engineering related job)
3. Some other European language - This is were it gets hazy... English, German and French are probably the three top choices when it comes to studying or working in the EU. Beyond those any language from Spanish or Italian (the next in terms of number of speakers in Europe) over to Swedish or Danish probably carries the same weight as far as I'm concerned. Culturally I'd lean towards Spanish/Italian. Even if I don't ever work or study there I'd really like to be able to travel and know the language, or even read the literature or watch theater/opera etc. Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands on the other hand appeal a lot to me a study/work destination so knowing the language would be an added bonus but then again it's hard to pick. So bottom line is, anything goes!

Books - Goodreads

It's that time again that I've finished a great book - Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, wrapping up a fantastic trilogy (must read for engineers and many other types I suppose) - and I'm trying to get to start on reading one of my to-reads that await on shelves and floors around the room.

Thing is, I either keep getting distracted and can't get a good start or they don't appeal to me that much so far. That made me log on my facebook weRead app to browse my list of to-reads (but don't have a copy yet) and maybe go buy one, only to find that the app is for some reason inaccessible. So after some searching I found Goodreads and now I have transferred most of my "e-shelf" there (btw the book listing is way better than weRead)

Back to book picks now... I'll probably stick to what I have at home for now (I still have a handful of to-reads) and what I have already started reading a little. Which leaves me with the following:

• The Hunt for Voldorius - Space Marines Battles novel #3 I think 
• Nightbringer - Ultramarines series novel #1
• The portrait of Dorian Gray - matches the two above doesn't it?
• Ancient Greek History - There's various titles here but I'll probably pass on that since I also have some university work to do during spring.

Blog restart

I've had this blog in a sort of placeholder mode for some time. It's been mostly inactive for the last year and a half, and before that it was mostly in Greek. But since I have international friends and acquaintances (internet gaming duh) and they are bound to get more if/when I move out to study abroad, I might as well keep this thing going in English.

I'll probably use this as an e-Diary and eventually I'll look back in the things I've written here a few years from now and lol at myself. That is if there is no World Revolution or World War III and there's nukes and EMPs wiping out electronic records and we get knocked back to the Stone Age (note to self: start some good old-fashioned notebook kind of thing to write down thoughts and ideas)

That's about it. I think.