The Insider October 2020

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INSIDER

THE INSIDER / 1

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Special thanks to Morten Hansen, Luiss Martins RozentÄ ls, Hleb Birylau, Ksenija Sunepe, The Class of 2023

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CONTENTS 5

ASSOCIATES OF THE MONTH

6

SUPERMARKETS: A LIDL MORE BIT SUPPLY

7

EMBRACING HARD

8

ÇA IRA

14

A RETAKER’S GUIDE TO SSE RIGA

18

SUMMER OF LOVE

20

SOROS GUIDE

22

Y1 STATISTICS

24

KAREN MOVEMENT

26

STUCK IN A BOX

27

SSER BINGO

28

..

THE INSIDER / 3

Dear readers, This year has been filled with loud opinions and notable changes. Surely, we all have our own opinion on these matters and everything else that’s happening in the world. As we should. People around can have their beliefs, as can you – even if they don’t match.

If you’re looking for something to lighten your mood, we’ve got you covered! Find out all of the wrong reasons why Y1’s applied to SSE Riga, the dumbest things they’ve recently googled, and many other different facts about them. In turn, we’ve made a guide in finding the best seats in Soros, when the time comes.

Additionally, we’ve listed some useful suggestions regarding SSE Riga from an expert’s point of view. Not included yet important advice, however, is to have a regular rant. Simply, let out all of the stress and confusion, as there’s enough of it nowadays.

This issue is rich with views on different matters. Firstly, read Morten’s thoughts on the supermarket Lidl joining us.

Now Rimi, Maxima, and others will be less lonely. Supposedly, Lidl isn’t choosing the path of least resistance. On more serious matters, take your time and read about the situation in Bela- Enjoy these and many more arrus from the perspective of Hleb ticles in this issue of the InsidBirylau. er! Memes and gossips are also waiting for you to see them, of course :) With love, the Insider

Designers

Editors 4 / THE INSIDER

Una Na rni cka Da rja Sediha Elī z a Ozola A ma nda Zva i gzn e Petro Semeni khin L a ura Ka mergra u ze Veroni ka Moroz ova Ma da ra B u ša Ioa na Va ta ma n- Ma rgi nean u Ks eni ja Sunepe

The Insider Team

Editor-in-Chief

Associates of the month Elza Sedmale

BUS COM Contributed a lot to the interview process; tracked minutes

Rihards Bajārs

BUS COM Participated in the interview process, unbreakable when it comes to sales pitches; as well as took on foodraising task for an event

Elvis Ancāns

BUS COM Conducted and helped with the interviews and selecting associates

SPORTS COM Communicated with many gyms, in result he helped to arrange the gym as a weekly practice and we got a good deal. An active participant in interviews and in brainstorming process

Daniels Tvoronovičs

Lada Samarska

Kristine Polija

Cătălina Popescu

Kitija Rulle-Titava

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Organised the cold calls to Alumni, keeps up with CM stats and helped during associate selection process

INFO COM Comes with great ideas and is a suuuper active associate, took on to organize an event and did it very quickly and without reminding. :)

EDU COM Great job planning the Scavenger Hunt and helping at the event! Always very helpful and positive! :))

MARKETING COM Designed the most beautiful Facebook event covers, and was a very objective judge during the interviews

THE INSIDER / 5

Supermarkets: A Lidl bit more supply…

The Insider usually gives me three options to choose from for writing this column. I was happy to see that none of the options dealt with Corona. I am sick and tired of Corona and will not mention Corona with one word in this column! Ehhh… OK, let’s move to the topic.

For those of you not from Riga or Latvia it may not be such a hot topic but the entry of the German supermarket giant, Lidl, has been and remains big news here. The supermarket market (!) in Riga is essentially a duopoly – RIMI and Maxima – with, for them, a few small, pesky operators such as Elvi and Sky. So, from micro we would refer to this as the market form oligopoly where firms take the actions of their competitors into account when deciding which prices to set or how much to produce and sell. How do we see the oligopoly elements? RIMI and Maxima are definitely not happy about the entry of Lidl – they may say that “they welcome the addition of Lidl since it will strengthen competition and lead themselves to become more efficient and customer-oriented themselves” or something like that but that is total BS, of course. They don’t like Lidl since, other things equal, it will lead to lower prices 6 / THE INSIDER

and lower output – we could illustrate this via a Reaction Curve in three dimensions (Y1: Wait a couple of months and you will see what I mean).

The supermarket market also has elements of monopolistic competition, i.e. product differentiation is essential. Here, the German version of Lidl is known as the Ryanair of supermarkets: A discount version based on low costs and low prices.

How they will position themselves in Latvia we shall see e.g. in terms of their pricing of Corona (sorry, couldn’t help it…) beer. Sold at a discount or at a premium? Kinked demand curve theory in practice.

All in all, an interesting microeconomic experiment is about to take off. My only objection is the same as with the National Library: Why is it located on the other side of the river???

Outrageous….

by Morten Hansen

Embracing

HARD

It is commonplace to seek the path of least resistance. At a first glance, a question arises why not? Why not just go with the flow? Why not specialise in something you are already good at and learn with the initial momentum provided by your inherit talents? Why not take the decent job offer laying right down your feet? Why fight to be the best if you can be pretty good with some old-fashioned opportunism?

Frankly, I had adhered to this ideology for the great majority of my life. I have always wanted to achieve much, yet I believed that at the core of this success was utilisation of favourable situations. Wait for an opportunity and then capitalise on it, the thinking went. Not going to lie, this strategy worked quite well. Did it fulfil me though? Nope. Nein. Non. Enter lockdown. Now there is plenty of time to think on my own. Why am I not happy?

There is this idea that all humans possess “a will to power”. We feel good when powerful and vice-versa. This is a bit of an oversimplification though. Nevertheless, power is defined as one’s ability to influence outside events (or one’s own life in this case) or my personal favourite - to make one’s ideas a reality. (Note: I am not talking about political or societal power) See, seeking the path of least resistance is inherently tied to outside events. Your actions and their outcomes are dependent

on exogenous variables. So, no matter your current situation, achievements, etc., you are simply a slave to the outside world. Believe yourself to be a master opportunist? Nope, you are merely the cleverest of pawns. Remember the definition of power. How can you manifest your will if your actions/goals are tied to hand outs of the outside world or your own caprices?

Real power is achieving your goals when the world stands in fierce opposition. Real strength is acting no matter how tired you are. This is embracing hard. It is not pleasant, but it brings you power and thus fulfilment.

This is also the reason I despise the notion of “do what you love”. Where the hell did we get the idea that life is supposed to be easy and work pleasurable? A better notion would be that of “reach for what you love”. Embrace the hard, eat dirt and shovel crap. This makes you immune from external variables and enables you to change your situation with sheer force and will. Eventually you will achieve what you set your sights to and then celebrate like its 2000. The end goal is what must be pleasurable.

Yet there is a greater payoff... becoming a Master of one’s own destiny. Undisturbed by hurdles and misfortunes, going where one desires to - the greatest of pleasures.

Once a Master, never a pawn again.

Embrace hard.

THE THEINSIDER INSIDER//77

-Hleb Birylau

While you might think that the stuff we do every day is important and meaningful, and that by being an aspiring entrepreneur you will change the world to the better seamlessly, this is actually not the case.

For the last one and a half months, one very simple and clear truth has been made evident to us here in Belarus, elegantly summarized by one fictional president from a certain series: “You may have all the money, Raymond, but I have all the men with guns”.

Don’t make the worst mistake in your life, please.

Don’t ever, ever believe the people with guns. Don’t ever, ever start thinking that the government is your friend. Don’t ever forget that once there is real threat, all masks are off and the armed thugs stop hiding behind the facade of laws and constitutions, instead violently protecting their right to beat, torture and rape you.

Politics is not about ideas or ideologies or whatever.

The words of politicians about history and other amusing business sure do matter - right up to the point when they no longer have any meaning at all. The official narrative doesn’t even pretend to be coherent they don’t need it. They have guns, and we don’t. They have people ready to violently arrest pregnant women and punch 60-years old pensioners in the face, we don’t.

They don’t give a single fuck about anything you might think is important for the country. The economy, global affairs, independence - these are all but vague words used to play you for your money.

The only economy they need is the one able to pay the military and make sure that the square-faced men with arrested development will not, God forbid, decide that shooting an unarmed man point-blank in the chest is not the most valiant of all deeds.

Politics is not about ideas. Politics is about advancing the interests of your group. They won this game, sitting atop the revolting social pyramid, protected by their guns and riot shields and IFVs, they advanced their interests right through our assholes, just like police batons in Akrestina. There is no going around this simple fact, and if you at any time of your life decide that you can sacrifice at least a single bit of your freedom for any kind of benefit you might imagine, you are doomed, and you will lose, subjected to the will of a collective farm boss with zero redeeming qualities.

Ante bellum I have not been overly politically active. I understood that we live in an authoritarian police state, absolutely repulsive in all respects, but at the same time I understood that there had been some sort of a social contract in place. The workers from state factories did have little chance of surviving in market conditions, the pensioners believed that the money they were getting was enough, the smart youth was more or less satisfied with the opportunities in the expanding ITsector. It might very well be the case that before the spring of 2020 Lukashenko was getting some 50% on the previous elections, although not without fraud.

At least partially, this was the case because all organized opposition was either killed, or imprisoned, or forced to leave the country. But regardless of that, the levels of political activity in the society were not high, except for sparse moments of tension - when some of the most disastrous policies were implemented, like a tax on the unemployed.

Then, spontaneous protests were occurring, and sometimes they even led to the authorities withdrawal. But this wasn’t about any serious or political issues - just economic policies, one in a couple of years.

This spring, two opponents from the elites have entered the electoral race - Valeri Tsepkalo, the creator of the only modern place in Belarus - the High-Tech park, a tax harbour for It business, and Viktor Babaryko - a former CEO of a bank, who was sponsoring cultural development previously and had as active political stance as was possible in the Belarus of the past. Unprecedented in recent history, this, as well as the activity of the famous local youtuber Sergei Tikhanouski, mobilized the people, awakened to the absolute moral and monetary bankruptcy of the state by the covid crisis. It wasn’t just mishandled here, of course, it just plain wasn’t handled at all. The people were left to deal with the problem by themselves. Well, they did, but they also understood that the government, hiding behind promises of security and stability for so many years, could not actually provide either.

Veronika, Svetlana, Maria © Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters

Ça ira

Writing the whole article in one sitting is just impossible - too many emotions and too many things to say. I can’t but add here a recap of the events - so that you understand the magnitude of the situation better. But I can’t recap everything. In fact, what I have written here is maybe 30% percent of everything I would so desperately want to talk about. But I hope that our community will be able to do justice to all the events that have to be talked about together later.

When neither of three prominent candidates - Tsepkalo, Babaryko and Tikhanouski were allowed to run, two still in jail, one left the country - the opposition consolidated behind Svetlana Tikhanouskaya.

The rallies, led by Veronika Tsepkalo (the wife of the candidate), Maria Kolesnikova (head of Babaryko’s campaign) and Svetlana Tikhanouskaya gathered thousands in all of the cities she went to. For the first time in many years, the protests were going beyond Minks, beyond rare gatherings, violently suppressed by the police. Even in the distant regions and smaller towns, Tikhanouskaya was still gaining tons of support.

For the first time in many many years, high quality political action was happening in Belarus. The Honest People initiative was trying to bring as many independent observers to the election sites as possible, as well as launching professional political ads on the Internet. The leaders were talking to just the people who needed to be talked to the teachers who would be pressured to commit election fraud on the voting date, the elderly who could still believe their TVs, the law enforcers ordered to suppress discontent. While it might seem that these efforts were to no avail, this is not the case at all - hundreds left the police, hundreds counted the ballots properly (which never happened in previous elections) despite the threat of losing the job.

Without the highly effective work done in the beginning, there would be no protests and no hope today.

The ideas of the opposition headquarters were solid, but most importantly - devoid of nationalistic or anti-russian or any other sentiment that could alienate people. Even more strikingly unusual was the fact that the women were real people - sloppy in public speaking, honest about their mistakes and nervousness, not used to being in the spotlight. They were talking openly about things that we all have experienced, but that were rarely discussed publicly. This sounds cliche, but I cannot stress enough how different it is compared to what had been happening in the country before. The modern, daring and in-terms-of-ideas-sexy Belarus, long suppressed, was reemerging.

Day before the elections, it felt like nothing will be the same tomorrow. No matter how, in any way imaginable, something will have to change, because the tensions were high, and the turning of tides was self-evident.

Back then, before the elections, we were watching and guessing - is there some grand plan of the opposition headquarters? Do the girls know something that we do not? Are they conduits for some other power’s influence?

The scariest thing - and, at the same time, the most precious thing in the world - is that they turned out not to be. As the current events show, this year’s campaigns and movements are honest and genuine. These are real people, not professionals by trade, but real heroes in practice behind the Belarusian revolution, and considering all the cynicism that I nurture within myself, if I claim so, you may safely believe it.

Svetlana - the real president-elect of the country was forced to leave, as on the day of the elections she was threatened in the office of the elections committee chief. Allegedly, she was shown how they fired a gun centimeters above her husband’s head.

Veronika also left the country. She had to evacuate her children beyond the Belarusian borders, and decided to be with them after the elections.

This was the summer of very tender hope. We were afraid that it would be squished like all the good things that has ever happened to the country, yet it felt so different and so proper that you could not but indulge in the hope that things will be different this time.

60 thousand came to the last demonstration before the events of 9th-11th of August. Scared of an even bigger turnout, the authorities prohibited another one, scheduled three days before the election.

They said that there was a celebration of the railroad military in place at the same time. There was a splendid concert for those unlucky pressured into attending it, but the DJs on the event decided against complacently collaborating with this ridiculous show. Instead of some music demanded by the unimaginative organizers, they played the famous Tsoy’s “Changes!” song, thus becoming one of the symbols of our revolution.

© Tut.By/AP Masha is currently arrested. Allegedly, she fucking teared her passport to pieces on the Ukrainian border so that she weren’t forced to leave the country.

They paid dearly for this. Detained and beaten, eventually they had to leave the country. Belarusians gathered at least $30k to support them, but they decided to contribute most of the money to other people who suffered after brutal crackdowns on the 9th-11th of August.

Their image on the wall of one of Minsks houses has become nothing short of a battlefield. Painted over at least a thousand times, it was renewed again and again by the dwellers of the neighbourhood.

The place has received the unofficial “Square of changes” name, and people gather there regularly to talk, eat, and really do whatever they want, as part of the overall neighbourhoods reunions movement.

THE INSIDER / 9

9th-11th of August When we were about to go to the election site located in the school where I spent 11 years of my life, I insisted that we all wear white ribbons - the symbol of our support of Svetlana and fair elections in general. And the five-minute walk to the school was enough to break something in our understanding of reality - we were by far not alone with white ribbons on our hands. I have no clue as to how to explain that to people who have never been in this situation - but this fact did bring tears to the eyes, however self-evident, however expected. When you have never before experienced solidarity, seeing it for the first time is nothing short of a revelation.

My friend is calling me and we are thinking about going there, but we are really, really afraid. Reports from our own town are anything but clear. Small groups of protesters are here and there, followed by the police and, apparently, the military. Something exploded a couple of times somewhere near enough - flashbangs? Most probably.

We voted, and photoed the ballots, and went home. At around 5pm, the Internet ceased to work.

At around 7pm, by the time the election sites were closing, the Belarus as we know it ceased to exist.

There are people under our balcony - a couple of dozens, perhaps.

Suddenly, they start to run away. At first, it is not clear why - but then a military car and a blue van with no numbers and blackened mirrors enters the parking lot. The fuckheads coming out of the van are checking our house’s doors for hiding protesters. Then they get in and drive away.

Sparse reports from Minsk, even sparser - from other cities. I asked my mother before 7pm - should we go out? Or should we just forever abandon our right to be in opposition to the government?

She asked me if I was ready to spend the next two weeks in the company of hobos in the jail, I thought about that - it was a very hard decision, but, honest to God, I am actually afraid of being beaten, having zero experience in fistfights. It turned out that the destiny of those detained on the first day was much worse than what my parents were envisioning - and they knew how it usually goes, both being criminal lawyers. But this day, the law enforcers did not just decide to treat their countrymen like criminals, they decided to treat them worse.

--Flashbangs and rubber bullets in Minsk, hellscape in Brest. Pinsk and Lida’ police are suspected to have been overtaken by the protesters? No one could understand anything at the moment.

Military tracks right in front of the window. A lot of police vans also. People are running - they are chased by men in black. Photos and videos from Minsk’s literal war happening on the streets.

First Molotov cocktails? Live ammunition fired in Brest?

The understanding that the war was anything but lost started to transpire later in the evening, when - only now I already had reestablished the connection to the outside world with the help of Psiphone - the events of the previous night have repeated themselves.

In Minsk, they were shooting at people who booed them from their houses with rubber bullets.

My parents, after work - they are coming as if from the warzone themselves. The trials are running for the whole day, most of them with no lawyers, only the judge and the detained, right in the detention centre - reportedly because the convoys said that if the vans with detained will be surrounded while going to the courthouse, they will not shoot at people. But there is a hell of a lot of work for them to do - trying to find some people, helping others, demanding access to the detained. They are shocked beyond belief, and we understand - there is no more police in our country, there is no more law, there is no more state - only thugs with guns, posing as representatives of the “republic”, torturing people guilty of having dignity.

© Tatyana Zenkovich/EPAEFE/Shutterstock

On the night of elections there were two sources of information in my house - Tut.by - one of the largest news websites in Belarus turned fervorously political in the last couple of months, while being neutral before, and the SMS-messages and calls from those friends thoughtful enough to have download Psiphone - an application about to explode in popularity in the country.

When we finally went to sleep… Waking up to the nightmare of yesterday was really, really hard. I probably haven’t felt that disillusioned for my entire life. Probably, this is what it feels to lose a war.

The detained were beaten, abused physically and verbally, humiliated, raped with police batons. At least 5 protesters were murdered, later at least one woman lost the unborn child because she was beaten by the policeman. Many people were detained who had nothing to do with protests, including a 59 years old woman. Some lost their limbs because of the flashbangs which were thrown right into the crowd. The Akrestina detention centre - this name feels like a name of a concentration camp for the Belarusians now. The volunteers were sitting there, behind the closed gates, listening to the screams of those who have been detained, for several days.

Interbellum On the fourth day, the ultraviolence suddenly stops. No one understands why. But when people are on the streets in the evening - they are not anymore shot at. Not welcomed either, surely, but the law enforcements are nowhere to be seen. We briefly visit the demonstration on Thursday - and there is a mayor of the city coming and trying to say something to the protestors. On Friday it repeats, and we are there - the crowd is just neat some of the “civil servants”. For some reason, there are virtually no policemen around. I still have no idea why they decided that they didn’t need further escalation. Maybe they just ran out of money?

The people are coming together. The neighborhoods are gathering on evenings to sing songs, make acquaintances and make plans. The Red-White-Red flags are everywhere, as well as other signs of resistance, like writings “We won’t forget”, “OMON’s IQ is 3%” (3% is a meme of this campaign since spring, because the online pools were placing Lukashekno’s support around this number) and so on.

Have these sorts of protests happened before? Certainly not after the year 2000. The mayors of our cities are not elected, and, to be honest, they can’t actually do much. But here he is, and he has to listen to what people think about the authorities now. And people - these are not just the youth or the middle class. Pennsioneers, workers, people whom you would least expect to come there, because they have always been thought of as the core supporters of the regime. Turns out, the only core supporters of the regime in the end are the people with guns, shooting at workers and pensioners.

In the Telegram chats - the most important channel of communication these days - people are calling for statewide stikes. And they actually start to transpire. The working movement is awakening. In one of the days of the one-and-a-half week of relative absence of violence, I go in the tail of a large column of workers of our largest state industrial enterprise in the city. This is right and proper, this is our nation united after all by the violence against the innocent, by the stolen elections.

In the videos, during some gatherings where some state-loyal heads of factories tried to persuade the labourers against strikes, one thing was always happening. Someone, tired of the bullshit, shouts “All who voted for Tikhanouskaya, stand up” - and everyone in the hallway, all the several hundreds of men do stand up to show that they indeed voted for this woman, and that there is just absolutely no way for the love of God the official result of 80% votes to Lukashenko is even close to the truth.

The strikes are suppressed later. A lot of people are fired, the organizers are thrown in jail or forced out of the country. We don’t know the extent to which the widely discussed and suggested “Italian Strike” - where the workers do just exactly what they are required to do not to be fired, and sabotage the industry as much as they can from within - takes place, but it is likely to be significant. At any rate, the economy of this country stands firmly in the grave, and no matter how many people are thrown into jail, there is no reviving. Whatever happens, the money is drying up.

On one of the days, Lukashenko visits one of the most important factories in Minsk. The workers allowed to see him, although preselected to be “reliable”, still shoute “go away”. And, sometimes, “fuck you”. Was this a bit of a cold shower for the balding collective farm boss, accustomed to compliance and fear? Did he at least then understand that people don’t actually love him, or has he always understood that?

I don’t know, but hell do I envy those who were able to say all those things to his face. The only people I envy more in this situation are the judges on the final inevitable trial.

Евгений Отцецкий And, of course, on Sundays of that week - and on Sundays of each subsequent week, there were protests in Minsk - of the scale never witnessed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Up to 250,000, more than 10% of the city on the streets - for Moscow, this would be around 2 million.

They started to be accompanied by a Women’s march on Saturday. With no centralized control, coordinated in the best case by Telegram channels, or just onsite, they show again and again how nothing is yet over. The violence now is not the violence of the first days, but we can’t know when this will change for the worse.

After the most recent development - the secretive inauguration of the self-proclaimed president - the events turned violent once again.

The pressure on the opposition is constant - the lawyers, the actors, the sportsmen who oppose the regime and fired, threatened, thrown into jail.

But the decentralized volunteer networks and mutual aid organizations are on the other side of this battle. The people of Belarus are, surprisingly, I think, even to themselves, not afraid to face these challenges enough to surrender. There has never been so much unity on the streets of Belarusian cities. There has never been so much trust to any fellow citizen (provided they are not from the police). And the hopes that something can eventually be right in this little country have never been so high.

I am immensely grateful to Fate that I don’t have to be ashamed of my parents. As criminal lawyers, to be in active opposition to the government all they have to do these days is do their job properly. Staying besides my mother while she is shouting at a police officer in civil clothes gives me the kind of satisfaction one could hardly explain to a person who has never been in this sort of situation, even if she is ultimately going to lose her job because of that.

Others are not as lucky. Many of my friends’ parents work in the police or other law enforcement agencies.

Any day now, they are going to be deanonymized and face the choice of either publicly admitting their support for the murderous, criminal regime, or losing their job and risking terms in prison for what the state attorneys would call “treason”.

And the worst thing is that I don’t really understand what to think of them. Some part of me sincerely believes that if you are ready to stay with the government machine, in any shape or form, after what was happening in the country on August 9-11 and in the subsequent weeks, you don’t deserve any kind of forgiveness or understanding. I actually have zero problem now understanding how people were comfortable with serving under Nazis even knowing about the Holocaust. They just needed to stay for a couple more months to get a guaranteed pension.

Fuck all of them, to be honest. Fuck all the teachers who pretend to care about your morals and cite some people from novels as examples of virtue, while having no problems with counting the ballots in the way that will help them save their job. Fuck all of the “civil servants”, sitting their asses off doing nothing and getting paid for being obedient. Well, here comes the long awaited repayment of your moral debt to the people down the “food chain”. Try being obedient now - pathetic cogs in the ugly machine, having to participate in the mock demonstrations, having lost any respect from family and friends. Your support of the cause means nothing without action, and you have never been brave enough to act.

Some foreign commentators claim that we are weak because we are not violent. I, personally, am weak, and there is no way I’m going to deny that. I didn’t go out on the streets on the day of the elections - because I knew that I would be beaten and thrown into jail for a couple of weeks. Nothing to be proud of, I know. Am I even better than those whom I despise so much in the previous paragraph? Well, at the very least, I have not been living off the regime that is in the habit of killing and torturing its opponents. And while I am not on the forefront of the rebellion, I am, at the very least, not in the backend of the state. But to all those saying that we should go and start engaging with armed men in active combat, I suggest trying it yourself first.

© AP

Some thoughts

Our predecessors had to die for each and every little step on the path of advancements of human rights that has ever happened in the history of mankind. What we take for granted is built on the blood and suffering of others. Are these just words to you? Well, come to Belarus, and see how it happens in real time. These were just words to me as well, until I try to imagine what it meant to strike for the first time, or participate in the first European revolutions - after seeing workers detained and beaten for trying to organise a strike, their leaders having to flee the country. This is not about some vague shit or geopolitics or whatever one might imagine. This is about being subjects of our own lives, not at the mercy of pigs in their cheap suits coming straight from the 80s, enjoying the comfort of sucking the blood of millions for personal gain.

And, finally, fuck the stereotype about Belarusians as humble people happy to endure and sufferings they face. Have you ever actually faced an armed man that intends to harm you?

There is no better way to understand how little all the foreign politics actually matter than to see your nation virtually abandoned by the world. At least, I was prepared for this by the situation with Hong Kong. Don’t get distracted by Washington and Brussels. Fuck the russian internet users, fuck the american idiots trying to make everything about Trump, fuck the leeching neighbours so fast to exploit the opportunities yet so slow to provide actual support. As is the case with politics in home, there is only one person who stands for your interests after all - you.

For the last couple of years I was struggling with the concept of morality and ethics, I really couldn’t find many reasons to follow the rules that I understood were fundamental but not absolute. Now, however, I do understand: the morality, the ethics, the values of Enlightenment are our weapons against the people with guns. If at least one of them thinks about their actions before following orders, it is already a miraculous victory for those who have to sacrifice themselves in the political struggle, going empty-handed against the dogs who decided to continue the practice of living off others’ lunch money into their adulthood and make it their only specialisation.

There is no political gain that is worth sacrificing the rule of law. There is no political gain that is worth sacrificing the freedom of expression. There is no political gain that is worth sacrificing the freedom to protest.

These three people - Viktar Hanchar, Yury Zacharanka, Anatol Krasouski - were brutally murdered by the regime in the 90s. Hanchar was a former head of the central election committee that opposed Lukashenko in the referendum of 1996 that nullified the separation of powers. Zacharanka - a former police chief, who was stubborn enough to refuse to execute orders of Lukashenko and expose his corruption. Krasouski was a businessman and Hanchar’s friend. They were kidnapped on the streets of Minsk, brought to the remote locations in local forests, shot and buried in secrecy by the thugs of the regime. No one has ever answered for this crime, just as no one has yet answered for the killing of Alexander Taraikovsky, Alexander Vikhor, and Gennady Shutov. But they will answer, one way or another. And while I understand that there is no cosmic justice in the world - after all, how many people have died all over the world brutally suppressed by the powerful people dying in their own beds? - I also understand that the inhumans who committed all those crimes will answer for them. One way or another, but I don’t believe that the nation will ever forgive when it smashes the shackles bounding it for the last 26 years.

These 26 years were not years of prosperity or of the people happily enjoying Lukashenko’s ice hockey palace building. These were years of brutal opposition suppression, financially bankrolled by Russia, lazily and half-heartedly “opposed” by the EU, happy to play the geopolitical games on the bones of brave Belarusians that tried to oppose the military junta.

And these years are coming to an end not because of us suddenly waking up to the horrors of the regime, or because the “soft power” of the EU finally did its job.

The moustache man just ran out of money because of covid, and his balding friend from the Eastern countrysized oil corporation doesn’t have much to spare to protect his ass. Well, at least here, in the distant corner of the Earth, justice will inevitably come to those deserving it so much.

We are returning home after one of the demonstrations. There is a small Red-White-Red flag in the hands of my friend. Virtually every passing driver signals and shows the V signs - we show it in return.

40 thousands on the streets of Hrodna. More than one tenth of the population. We were together and we are together, every reasonable person I know, and we, while opposed by opportunists’ money that bought them guns and obedient idiots, will succeed in the end.

If I pull from here, and you pull from there, the stake will founder.

The walls will tumble. Жыве Беларусь.

THE INSIDER / 13

A Retaker’s Guide to

Hey there, dear Year 1 student! Our Chief Editor probably mentioned it in the preface, but we are very glad to welcome you to SSER and hope you like the very first Insider issue that you’re reading as a student (assuming you’ve read these before). To make it a bit more useful, I was tasked to give you guys a look at my personal experience in SSE and hand you some useful dos and don’ts (but mostly don’ts).

As you probably guessed from the title, I did not make it to the second year of my studies. I did so many things wrong it is probably impossible to list them all, and the result was nothing unexpected with that in mind. However, one of the few good things that I came out of this with is some unique experiences and perspectives on what you shouldn’t do while studying in this magical place, which I’m going to share with you in this article.

Numero uno: the motto is “Study hard, party harder”, and that first part is there for a reason.

One of the biggest mistakes most retakers (including me) seem to make is taking the emphasis off the first part and placing all of it on the second. It’s obviously important to let loose every now and again, but it’s also important to know when to say “no” to a party or event and prioritise studies. The whole “a social life, good sleep and good grades – choose two” trichotomy falls apart once you plan your time and set your priorities straight. I would recommend sticking to parties held on SSER premises, since these are normally the most enjoyable anyways, and consider the rest as you see fit.

Numero dos: for the love of God almighty, start your reports early. It seems that every upperclassman is supposed to say this to his juniors at least once, even if he/she never actually does that themselves. That does not, however, take away from the importance of the statement. The reports in micro and macro are big, and you will have other deadlines to submit both before and after. You can obviously just chug two and a half litres of Monster and 14 / THE INSIDER

pump out 30 pages in a 24-hour race against the clock, it’s your choice. But starting early gives you more time to read and re-read your papers (something that helps raise the quality level tremendously) and you can find some better sources, which will ensure you a grade that’s anything more than a pass. Side benefits of starting early also include a longer lifespan, lower likelihood of random heart failure from the amount of energy drinks/coffee consumed and a noticeably better experience when partying after the deadline.

And, finally, numero tres: study with others.

This is the one point I can’t stress enough: unless you’re sure you’re better off on your own (which is perfectly fine, so long as it’s genuine), you should look to start a study group with your friends. All the people I watched succeed while partying reasonably hard did so with the help of study groups. These can be held on SSE Riga grounds, as in any of the available numbered rooms (check with the reception to reserve one), the library group study room, or even the cafeteria, if you so choose. Alternatively, cafes and such make for a great place, some even offering unlimited coffee passes for students.

The end goal is to help each other understand the subject while having a laugh instead of watching the lecture recording for a fifth time, and if you can get people on board you’re basically set for a smooth year.

I did skip some points, like attending all the lectures and seminars, no matter how boring they or tired you may be, because these seemed very evident. In the end, what matters most is your motivation: everyone who got into SSER did so by demonstrating their intellectual prowess and proving they can handle the curricular. The only real difference between those who hung on and those who failed is the amount of motivation they had. So, make you sure you don’t lose hope even when ME, macro and MAF come around, ask for help, do your best and good luck!

SSE Riga

by Petro Semenikhin

THEINSIDER INSIDER/ /1515 THE

16 / THE INSIDER

THE INSIDER / 17

The Summer of Love

or What It’s Like to Accidentally Slip Back into Anime Fandoms

When the word Anime comes up into a conversation, it’s often met with silence, because, frankly, what do you even reply to that? I’ve never brought the topic up myself, there’s rarely a need to. Sure, ‘back in the old days’ watching Pokémon or Digimon did not make anyone an otaku or an anime expert, but some take it more seriously than just a part of their childhood or just a part of growing up.

I just happened to be one of them.

As a kid I was the person who always had something to say about anime, because, well, there weren’t many things I hadn’t seen. Even to this day, having the opportunity to frequently visit Asia, I’ve had numerous possibilities to get anime merch, notebooks, and plaster my walls with posters of my favourite characters. I was the person constantly watching something, reading manga or fanfiction. But in the few years prior to this it got quite… silent. I don’t watch movies that often, I mostly read books, and my life carries on. Especially when the first year of SSER began- even though I’ve never been a try-hard, and I’ve never had a need to pull any all-nighters, I still didn’t really find it in me to take time and actually get back to any of it.

Well, that was until the quarantine started.

A moderate level of voluntary extroversion might have lessened my interest in anime on the daily, however, the quarantine just pushed me back into realizing that, if I don’t volunteer to do anything in specific, the idea of catching up with anime and manga just increases exponentially. I might have been out of the loop for only the past two or three years or so, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the crash-course of what was about to happen to my summer.

18 / THE INSIDER

For starters, Anime itself is either a handdrawn or a computer animation originating in Japan. In many cases, before an anime comes a Manga, which is a hand-drawn Japanese comic following a plotline. From that point on we enter the realm of doujinshi (fan-drawn manga of Anime characters) and fanfiction (fan-written stories of Anime characters). And, well, this is where I accidentally ended up. Considering the fact that in the past I have notoriously known myself to watch ‘RAWs’ (Anime without subtitles) despite not understanding what is going on, there was a good starting point- finally watching the subbed versions of the Anime I should have waited for to be translated.

And from that point on there was no way back.

If you’ve never watched Anime, I don’t think it would be easy to get into it, because there are many peculiarities that need to be taken into account. Like the strange exaggerations of emotions, the obscenely long fighting scenes or the way plot is built. But, if you’re accustomed to it and just return to the fandoms, it kind of feels like returning back to another world. Staying at an ‘Anime-watcher’ level is still quite mainstream, considering that we live in a diverse society. Manga, however, already ups the ‘weird’ scale- something about reading manga doesn’t sit so well with the general society, and I think that’s due to a lack of understanding what is going on. I did first start with clearing the list of Anime I needed to watch, but from that point on the slope is steep. One thing leads to another and I’m back on my bullshit.

The first thing to be noted is that, whatever it is that manga used to be, it’s better now. Not only have most art styles evolved, people don’t look like walking sticks with square faces, and their hand size is actually proportional (there is a reason for why this sometimes doesn’t hold true. See the term Yaoi Hands if you like to live dangerously). Even doujinshi and fanfiction, unless you’re looking at Anime that came out in 2002, is very reasonable. There’s still the good old tropes of enemies-to-lovers, or AUs (alternate universes) in which the characters are either together in high school or work at a coffee shop. And that was the good part- returning to the fandom, seeing the fanart, reading borderline bad fanfiction until the late night just to wake up and continue reading 7000-word stories that end as quickly as they begin. It was like I’m back in 2014, living in my own mental world where only fictional characters.

Only now I was also reading fanfiction while on a break during my internship. It was like there was no difficulty easing-in at all. It turns out that for the most part Anime fandoms have grown with time- it seems that it was the years 2008-2014 that were problematic for everyone, not just the fandoms. If we just recall the Harlem shake, the moustache-everything (mugs, pyjamas, shirts, rings etc.), galaxy theme everywhere, :3 and swag… I think it was the time that was wrong, and not Anime itself. Even new watchers, artists and writers have somehow matured into not-having to use poor writing tools to get their own story straightened out.

However, there was something that was a little unexpected. And not because I’d never seen it before, but because it’s never been that frequent. Fandoms evolve with time, and, even if a manga or an anime is finished, it doesn’t mean the fandom is done. It keeps itself alive through fanart, doujinshi and fanfiction. So naturally you start seeing people create more stories with things that used to be either considered obscene or hadn’t existed in this form. Now, this is no place to talk about the things and the horrors I’ve seen, but there’s some kinks I never realized people felt were missing in fiction. I never got past reading many of the summaries, but the general idea is that someone had believed the fandom is collectively missing representation for some strange fetish.

And now we see it come to life.

If you’ve ever been into the Anime scene, read manga or even briefly touched upon fanfiction- it has gotten better in the recent years. The community itself is less marginalised, and now it’s kind of in the mainstream. But, if you dwell deep enough, you’ll find that people who like Anime, if you see a whole lot of them together, is not a good sign. Things have become better and the quality of the content is higher, but you’ll see that ‘creativity’ has very little boundaries.

by Amanda Zvaigzne

THE THE INSIDER INSIDER / 19 / 19

SOROS

AUDITORIUM:

A Comprehensive Guide of Where to Sit

The seats in the Soros auditorium may hold the alumni names, but they also hold a dear place in our hearts. Unfortunately, not everyone has had a chance to experience the auditorium completely filled with students while the blackboard is filling up with graphs and formulas that only vaguely make sense. Therefore, in order to prepare for your first time stepping in Soros or just to reminisce about the squeaking tables, here’s a little overview of some of the seats in the auditorium. We’ll see what they say about you and maybe this will help you to pick your own spot in the future.

1.

2.

This seat is an ultimate wild card. Hard to think why one would choose to sit here, but my guess would be that you’re either super confident and want to stand out in the sea of students sitting in regular spots in Soros, or the auditorium is truly full (which we don’t really see these days). Or you don’t really have a reason why and are just as random of a person as the spot is.

The seat here and the ones around it have a special kid of energy about them. Is it the practicality in the fact that they provide a good view of the blackboard and an easy way out of the auditorium? Perhaps, perhaps. I’m not saying that these are (subjectively) the best spots in Soros, it’s just that they have *something* about them. But remember, people do have their unofficial-official seats in Soros, so choose them carefully!

20 / THE INSIDER

3.

The lovely spots of “I’m running late and don’t really care that people are already sitting in the seats before yours and that the lecture has already started”. There usually is a person that enters the auditorium after the first minutes of the lecture and instead of taking a spot at the very edge, go to their usual seat in the middle of the row. They enjoy the attention when the whole class is watching their each move and waiting for them to unpack their notes.

4.

Ahh, yes, the middle of the front row. Be ready to raise your hand and speak up during lectures. Here not only you can’t escape the eye gaze of the lecturer, but also the sponges that may fly during some lectures (although if you manage to fall asleep in while sitting in the first row – props to you). The people sitting here should have the best notes, so make sure to be good friends with them.

by Ksenija Sunepe

5.seats are taken, and you get left with the very

Sometimes it might be that all of the other middle ones, which is good enough then. But if you choose to sit here willingly, it says a lot about your character. The spot is forever reserved for the Roast Committee, so, naturally, it has a special energy to it. As there is no table there (usually), your notes will either look like they’ve been made by a seasoned doctor or they will be non-existent.

6.you have noticed that there’s someone hiding

If there had been no number next to it, would in the last row? Exactly. Do not sit here if you haven’t had your eight hours of sleep last night, or you will end up catching up with them during a lecture. It doesn’t matter what is the subject at hand, your eyes and brain automatically know that you’ve sat down in the last row and take their natural state of being closed. Some people try and keep awake by sneaking an electronic device, but I would not suggest that unless you want to spend the rest of the lecture outside of Soros. The lecturers will notice, they always do.

7.great vision. Really, no shade to Soros, but how

The spot for the brave ones or the ones with can you see anything from these seats? Yes, whatever is written on the left side of the blackboard will be perfectly copied to your notes, but the right side will remain a mystery. You will constantly have to nudge the people sitting next to you asking: oi, what’s that word there?

Admittedly, I have never sat there for more than a few minutes, after which I realised that I do not have the patience nor the willingness to not see half of the blackboard that is required from sitting there.

8.may lead to not having any seats free on the Running in at the last second of the lecture

right side of the auditorium. If this happens to you, you may experience a “walk of shame” that’s a little different from the usual way we understand the phrase. Having to run behind the blackboard and emerge on the other side is something each SSE student does at least once.

You try to do it as quietly as possible, but everyone’s following you with their eyes and waiting for you to plop down in the first row while you’re still catching your breath.

THE INSIDER / 21

Y1s in statistics Horoscope sign

Eye color Grey 19%

Others Scorpio 8% 9% Libra Saggitarius 9% 13%

Other Brown 7% 14%

Virgo 10%

Capricorn 8%

Blue 33%

Cancer 14%

Green 27%

Leo 11%

Scorpio 9% Taurus 9%

Do you put cereal before milk?

’s ! g Y1 thin cently best d re Dum ogle e go hav

• How old am I • Tequila history No, I like to In how many years do you • Obama’s parents live • Do dogs have abs expect to graduate SSER? dangerously • Alligator testicles 15% • How to spell elbow • Cat tongue, cat feet At least 4, it is • How fast are moths what it is Yes, and that • How to spell ‘pickles’ 11% will never • Spanish guy laughing I will do my best change • Manifestation methods to graduate in • Can I microwave an egg 85% 3, fingers • How to boil water faster crossed • How many lines in a gram 89% • Hacks to be great at foosball • How to cook unburnt omelet Was SSE Riga • Does ketamine cure depression your first choice?

Are you single or taken?

• What is 12:30 am in normal time • Top names over the last 100 years In a Nop • Morten Hansen’s mother’s birthday complicated • Does portable oven-microwave exist 18% relationship…

• Kitten keeps trying to drink my coffee (with studies) • Is it really necessary to sleep at night?

19% Yesss • Godzilla is minister of tourism in Japan Single and • What to do with ham that has gone bad ready to mingle 82% 50% • Are chickens considered animals or birds Taken <3 • Is Warren Buffett’s wife really from Latvia 31% • Why is the sperm whale called sperm whale • Should I put a comma after ‘hello’ on an email • How many hours after taking antibiotics can I start drinking • Putting milk before cereal is what symptom of what mental illness • How male ballet dancers are called? Maybe we should call them ballerons, since a female is called ballerina

Why did you apply to SSE Riga?

To play table football Wanted to find a rich boyfriend

Wrong answers only!

To learn how to speak Swedish. Still waiting...

Because I lost a game of cards and this was my punishment To test out if SSE Riga really is the quickest way to a mental breakdown :) To get the SSE Riga jumper!

Googled ‘school’ and it showed up Because everyone in my family is sick of our hamster being the most educated family member To have my name written on a chair in Soros

Have you already managed to pull an allnighter this year?

Yes and I'm proud No, but I of it won't 29% escape it 71%

Do you have any tattoos?

No 7%

Yes 93%

Have you already thought about dropping out?

No, I love it here 49%

Yes, but only jokingly 40% It might have crossed my mind… yes 11%

To be able to say so on my Tinder profile To sip some tea with Morten To be called ‘my dear accountants’ Because of the Insider magazine <3 To become a professional tax evader Financial Times subscription To get office365 for free Free Jager shots Because of Nicolas

• I have 27 fingers • Former professional ballet dancer • I like to rap freestyle when drunk • I don’t eat yellow candy • I learned how to drive a tractor when I was 6 • I have hairy toes ;) • I’ve been a cheerleader for 3 years • I’m terrified of dolls

Random facts about you!

• I eat my cheesburgers without onions and pickles • I have watched more than 100 Korean TV series, and have probably spent more time doing that than studying • The way I differentiate between sides (left/right) is by looking at the birthmark on mny left palm • My right foot is bigger than the left one • I’m confidently dumb • Shrek might be my favorite movie series of all time, because of the memes • I have a folder with almost 2000 memes on my phone • I learned Mandarin, but don’t understand anything • My last whey protein lasted longer than my previous relationship • I go through a kg of coffee beans in less than 2 weeks • I can cry anywhere and anytime, and I think that’s a whole talent • I started this year in 2 universities, and already dropped out from the second one • In my previous life, I was a stone from which the SSE Riga building is built • As a kid, i found eating sand as a challenge to conquer • My thumb bends 90 degrees • I have a broken collar bone, so I can’t raise my left arm above my head • I know inglish even better than my mother tongue • I know how to make origami unicorns

Baths or showers?

Baths 20% Showers 80%

Have you written any gossips for the Insider?

Yes, I'm a true SSE Rigan ;)

Sadly no 88%

THE INSIDER / 23

OK, Kare or what’s good and bad with the “I’d like to speak to your manager” attitude

No need to explain what is meant by Karen. We all are present on social media, read the news and know that some American women (yes, Karen has a gender and a nationality) have been acting very odd in the past years.

Karen has lived a long life doing Karen things.

She is a woman in her fourties, wears jeans that cover only half of her calves, drives a SUV, is divorced and has custody of her children taken from her ex-husband. She usually is an anti-vaxx community member, and wants everyone to know about it, even if she wasn’t asked. She posts inspirational quotes on Instagram, expresses her opinion on Twitter, and posts disrespectful comments on Facebook about other (especially younger) people.

Karen refuses to wear a mask because she’s an American and it is her right to do whatever she wants. She will unleash her dog in the leash-only area, she will write a complaint to the police when you park in “her spot” at the department store parking lot, and she will record you if you do something she doesn’t approve of.

If you think about it, it’s almost unbelievable that Karens have survived through the pandemic. Fitness centers were closed, beauty salons were closed, there was limited opportunity to go to the store, and the neighbor kids Karens didn’t like stopped running around in the neighborhood. There must have been a lot of “Karen juice” accumulated in those terrible, terrible months, and the only thing that Karens could do was make new Facebook groups and rant about how they hate everything.

If you ask me, Karen is a very beautiful concept that makes us laugh and question those

24 / THE INSIDER

women’s intelligence level at the same time.

It is a perfect dose of human absurdity that often times appears in the news and magazines. Especially, let’s be real, 2020 has been hell of a year already, bad stuff happens almost every single day, and Karens are the constants we can count on to take our minds off the overwhelming problems the word has been going through. Karens scream at you, call you names (usually for no serious reason), ask to speak to your supervisor and demand what they call “justice” for them.

I like to think of Karen as a result of several internet trends coming together to create one that rules ‘em all. First, there has been this trend goin on where you give some name to the person you’re ranting about on Twitter :

Then there’s this iconic bop haircut that Kate Gosselin had in 2010, later described as “I would like to speak to your manager” haircut:

en

Then movies and TV shows started using different names like Linda, Becky, and Karen, to show that the person with that name is a douchebag or does completely stupid things.

One of the most popular examples is Mean Girls, when Karen, the stupid girl of the three, asked Cady: “So if you’re from Africa, why are you white?”, and Gretchen said: “Oh my God, Karen, you can’t just ask people why they’re white.” That’s where the association with Karen as a pejorative character began.

The best of all, the phrase “OK, boomer” was transformed into “OK, Karen”, and even though the meanings are different, there are some similarities. For example, people are immediately offended when hearing any of these two expressed towards them.

Obviously, Karen movement is more of an American thing, where it is normal when random things are happening. Karens in the U.S. are more open to conflicts, whereas here, in Europe, it’s not like that. You can rarely hear anyone complain in the store or in the restaurant about people being forced to wait longer than usual or served food that tasted disgustingly. Instead, we usually leave our reviews on Tripadvisor or write it in the book of complaints. People are more awkward here, they’re not ready to speak up. That is why I think sometimes a little bit of Karen is needed in everyone’s life. She will bring drama in your life, will make you excited to see a woman fight, she will fight for her rights and the rights of her children, and she will not leave without demanding to speak to the manager. Speaking in modern terms, this is some perfect Tik Tok content.

Here’s what is most important: Karens usually complain about things that make no sense to complain about, or they do not obey the rules themselves, thus annoying other people.

While the latter is a really stupid thing to do, standing up for stuff is not that bad. Karens have taught us that you can stand up for your opinion even if it is absolutely wrong. Though, this is not how you should look at it, here is how you should: you can (and probably should) speak up when you see things that are unfair, that are wrong and that harm the society. We have learned in the past months that speaking up really helps being heard by higher instanc-

by Veronika Morozova es, and maybe that way you could bring a little bit of justice into this world. There is no need to complain about getting a coffee that is “too hot”, but there absolutely is a need to defend oppressed minorities in your community, you know what I mean? Being a Karen for those kinds of topics is the right attitude.

So, maybe being a Karen can be not that bad after all? I’m not talking about all the racial discrimination stuff here, that’s a whole different story. But some things are worth standing up for, and if you know some, you should do it.

Here are some basic “Karen moves” that you can spot every day: • Sits on the seat further from the window in the public transport and avoids eye contact when asked to move or let someone in the free seat • Becomes angry when asked to keep a 2m distance • Refuses to wear a mask in the places it is mandatory • Rushes in the principal’s office when her offspring gets an unsatisfactory grade • Moves other people’s carts to get something she needs off the shelf • Always finds hair in her food and complains about it • Tips poorly • Records everything • Starts Facebook groups on literally every issue

THE THEINSIDER INSIDER/ 25 / 25

Stuck in a box

Author’s note: This was supposed to be a rant about the canceled events, but became a rant about me for being a “box-person” - not thinking outside of it.

The importance of creative thinking has been taught to us since we were little kindergartners doing crafts, singing, dancing, and playing with toys. Adults tell us that these creative skills are a crucial part of developing our brains, but then we are put on a conveyor belt called public education, where originality is often considered a mistake and everybody is expected to gain the same knowledge.

Our high school economics teacher, who inspired me to apply to SSE Riga, was someone who made studying exciting, we asked more and talked more in her lessons, and sometimes, when we were lacking ambitions or enthusiasm, she called us “box-people”. When we asked her what she meant by that she replied by drawing a person in a box and said: “Now most of you are comfortable in this box, but my goal is to show you how much you can achieve outside of it”.

Those of us who seek something more spend our whole lives trying to escape these 4 cardboard walls that symbolize isolation and make us similar to others, so we try to stand out in the crowd and create solutions to everyday problems.

Isolation is a word that has come up many times in the past few months: is this pandemic just another box we are supposed to think outside of? In this (almost 6 months) safety cage at home, we had more time to be creative, but so many opportunities were taken away from us as almost all events to share these ideas, collaborate, gather, and enjoy arts were canceled.

As the Event Committee chairperson, the news of social distancing hit me hard and I felt like my position had become useless. I was thinking of ways to bring back the same events, in the same format, when I should have been asking myself “How could we introduce new concepts and different events, while still keeping everyone engaged?”. But at that point no one knew how long this situation would go on, therefore, we relied on delays.

26 / THE INSIDER Outside of the box thinking requires the action to

take place now, which during the pandemic is hard, as the outside of the literal box we are in – our own homes- is closed to us. So our task becomes harder: to think outside the box but act inside of it.

What can we do?

Not rush back into a face-to-face lifestyle, but rather generate new concepts - alternatives or hybrid models, use social media as a platform of communication. Not blame the restrictions and those who are making us comply with them, but rather appreciate every initiative taken to bring back the freedom we took for granted. And because of the technology era, the box we are stuck in is big enough for creativity to still blossom.

by Madara Buša

SSE RIGA

BINGO I have sent in a gossip for The Insider

I missed the sign ‘’1 person max’’ and stepped in the elevator together with someone else

I have pulled an all-nighter already

I have accidentally turned on my mic during an online session without an immediate notice

I have made a selfie at school’s entry mirror

I have gone to Narvesen more than once a day

I have fallen asleep during a lecture

I have met Anders Paalzow face to face

I have ordered some food while studying at the premises

I have finished an exam early because I wanted to pee

My balance sheet balanced in the exam

The guard has thrown me out for studying too late

by Laura Kamergrauze

I have mastered cooking skills while watching online lectures

I have posted a story with the hashtag #mysserigalife

I have missed at least one math’s seminar to study for the FA exam

I have watched TV series or a movie during a lecture

THE INSIDER / 27

28 / THE INSIDER

THE INSIDER / 29

They say that...

They say that...

A.D.M. loves Hektors so much, he almost lost the ability to walk

I hope that the team that drank 250 shots in one bar survives the next day <3

The government overthrower (D. D.) loves to play with girls’ feelings

DJ Sāra the best, blast that elevator music!

Evita (Y1) swore to never drink absinthe again.

"Pls read the readings for the course in advance" - I want to say that I missed this great SSE Riga vibe but I actually didn't...

At first i was bummed not to go on the pub tour.

Then I saw the pics and you know what- miss me with that

School starts in a week and I already feel far behind schedule

A group of students (Y1 and Y2) had an amazing 50% discount McDonald’s meal

I'm the person who looks at birth charts and reads tarot. And you bet I've been looking up coursemate's charts this summer. Now seeing these people at school makes me feel like I already know them

Y1 has more handsome and good-looking guys than Y2 & Y3 together.

My summer romance really said no this summer Guess who: "Full stop. *flips hair*" Perks of having professor who teaches from Australia: todAAAAY I just love it when Dominik pronounces words incorrectly. But "veal of ignorance" had me laughing on the ground.

Y1 should stop making out with girls while being in a relationship Y1 guys have no conscience when making out with SSE girls and not telling them that they have a gf somewhere !

30 / THE INSIDER

Our Y1 legend Ahmand sang “Dancing Queen” at karaoke Smbdy tried to climb up the “Pulvertornis” ( Po w d e r To w e r ) 8 days in Y2 and I already pulled my first all-nighter, still didn't manage to do everything ))) "Lera (Y1) has successfully raised market caps of some Y3s from 18mln to 20mln.

Changed my socioeconomic beliefs during the summer. Scratch modern liberalism, turns out I’m a capitalist conservative.

Pushkin left his stella near Riga Channel banks to state that Lera (Y1) is a genij cistoj krasoti."

Y1 dude drank some girls drink in PubTour, turns out the drink was roofied Am I the only one who doesn’t have entrepreneurial spirit in this school? Everyone seems to be so active and excited about working during summer and networking all the time and doing startups and learning Coursera and making a nice Linkedin page while I’m just an indifferent potato who doesn’t care about future career RA(Y3) has once again beaten a Y1 at a booty contest.

The FE re-exam fail rate was 90% this year. Good luck.

The Y2 girl in the red blazer was the highlight of the mini party we had on the Friday everyone met.

I liked how Mihajela was trying to bond with us and showed us how to partyyy when we went to Lucavsala. Y1s definitely remember you.

My life got so much better over the past months - I actually interacted with people more than usual lol A lot of girls will be into playing sports, especially Tennis (if you know what I mean;)) K.O. (Y3) thinks that his misfortunes can be attributed to someone hexing him.

Raimonds (Y1) made out with 5 (6?) girls.

T. L. sneaked into school last sunday and got past security unnoticed “There was a rule that smbdy had to go from one bar to another w/o a shirt, but one guy saw no limits and went almost nakedonly in underpants.

I miss seeing everyone at school, it's like having not seen your family in a long time (but, like, only the cool cousins that you like to hang out with).

Y3 guys should hang around school more, we miss looking at them E.V. + A.M. ????? You go guys!? Do you go? Are you dating?

“Patricija (Y1) drank an energy drink right before FA exam and after an hour couldn’t take it anymore and run to the bathroom - leaving exam failed. At least her pants are fine. :)”

I heard that some people managed to actually balance their balance sheet in FA exam and I don’t know how to feel about it

because of the never-ending stress, I almost start crying for no reason at all two-three times a day. thanks, SSE

If you wanted to have some background music in the morning, come to the lobby. There are free moans!!!

What do you want to do at 3am on Sundays night?

Lets go to cemetery!

Can we PLEASE talk about how S. T. (Y2) played himself in ig comments? A legend.

E.A. Y2 had such a great time in the interviews that he no longer knows the difference between GDP and GPA

Again, A. (Y2) disappoints me. We’ve spoken a few times, but at this point I’m bored and dissapointed.

Bad. I was looking forward to meeting him face to face, but at this point.. leave, son Is it strange that I actually like my coursemates better now that I haven’t seen them since March??

Can T.L. and E.M. just make it official already?

You guys are so cute together!!

SSER edgy chicks are hot One guy from y1 thought that Pūce is a book store (it’s okay, he knows by now..)

K.T. and M.S. had a sloppy make out sesh after the scavenger hunt.

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