Will work for food

I made a deal with dad yesterday. I had basically felt like a spineless, lazy worm (well, worms are spineless by definition, aren't they?) for a long time and I was pondering what to do about it.

I have managed to get up in the mornings reasonably early this week after I came up with the plan to have another alarm go off ten minutes after the first one. The trick being that the second alarm is my cell phone, which I place as far away from the bed as possible. That way I actually have to get up to shut the beeping menace... And when I get up, I won't go back to bed again. Funny, how easily I can trick myself. :)

The deal then? Well. Last night I was sitting in my livingroom, watching a tv-show about (fictional) unsolved murders. My thoughts were wandering during the commercial breaks and of course I ended up thinking about the discussion I had with dad last Sunday. It was a DISCUSSION with somewhat loud capital letters here and there, concerning my thesis and more particularly it not advancing a whole lot lately. I felt like dad really hit a sore spot with the speech. I had felt miserable about not being able to do anything for quite some while (despite all my promises and better sense) and when dad pointed it out once more, I felt pretty awful and depressed. What could I do to motivate myself?

That was when I thought of it. I have to make a deal with dad. I have to come up with an artificial deadline I have to keep. So I sent a message to dad to suggest that I'd deliver a first draft of the background chapter a week from this Sunday. Then I'd like him to read it through and give me feedback on it. I immediately got a message back saying "It's a deal. A bag of groceries and some feedback for every piece of text delivered." I could've cried (and I think I even did cry a bit - I'm such a soddin' cry-baby at times...) I was so glad of his extra support. I've always known my parents support me in everything I do, but I guess I was just a bit emotional about the extra "carrot" part of the deal. So now I'm literally working for food. :) I'll keep you all informed how I'm doing... I wrote about half a page today, whee! Not much, but it's a real re-start.

Today I told my dance students in Lieto that this is the last spring I'll be teaching them. They looked appropriately disappointed and were asking in miserable voices "But who's going to teach us then?". I steeled my heart and said I would try to find someone to teach them after me, but at least I would recommend good teachers in Turku. So, after seven more weeks (next week is the winter vacation) I'll be done with that. Can't wait, even though for example today's classes went great and I really think the students were learning - which isn't always the case, unfortunately.

It's so nice to see the ladies dance one of my own choreographies, though. I'm not a very experienced choreographer and I think I tend to make the dances a bit too demanding at times. But this time I feel like I've gotten closer to the actual level of the students' skills (yay!).

It doesn't seize to amaze me that someone actually learns something from my babbles, as I'm sure I'm not the most well-articulated dance teacher there is. It's really funny how left and right can be such difficult terms (I usually end up waving my arm and shouting "that direction! one-two-three-four...") and how counting to the inevitable four or maybe even six or eight can sometimes be a mission honestly impossible. "Left, no right, two-three-what-the-?-where-am-I-going-which-foot-next-what's-the-count-oh-dear-lord" is not an uncommon sort of a line for me. I really feel for the students. And yet they seem to learn, step by step, drop-kick by drop-kick. Isn't that something? :)

Still, I'm going to quit teaching. I need the time for myself and my other projects. Which there are plenty of, no doubt.

Oh, if you're in the Turku area and can get a hold of Turun Sanomat on Monday, look for the tiny article I'm in. I, Tytti and two other fellow sf-fans were interviewed for an article about (get this) the office space we rent from the Turku University Students Association. "So how does this office represent your activities?" Well, lessee. There are huge loads of sf-literature (SF Society's library), quite a bunch of anime movies (the video library of the Turku Anime Society) and whatnot. I suppose we read and watch movies? :) No, honestly, the chap interviewing us was nice enough. I've met a whole lot of journalistic morons and this one wasn't one of them, phew. I just can't help being a wee bit worried when I'm interviewed for anything - how garbled will the message be this time? Especially when we don't get to proof-read the text beforehand. We'll see on Monday. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I wish each and every one of my friends a very happy Valentine's Day! Without you my life would be dull and boring and not worth much. Thank you for all the joys, sorrows, secrets, giggles, roaring laughters, tears, adventures, thoughts, ideas, moments and whatnot that you've shared with me. Couldn't survive without you. :)

I won't post a lovey-dovey picture here. Instead you can imagine it. This'll be sort of a comic strip, actually. First scene: A picture with, say, a dozen or so cute penguins (wearing funny woolly hats) sliding down an iceberg on one of those huge rubbery raft thingies and having a lot of fun, whooping and cheering and laughing. Second scene: At least three penguins have fallen off the raft (because it's packed full of penguins) and they're laughing their little penguin bums off in the snow when they watch the rest of the gang swooshing down the slide. Third scene: All the penguins in the raft go topsy-turvy-upside-down, some in the water and some in the snow, some are still in the air flipflopping around There are little woolly hats everywhere, even an occasional scarf too. Fourth and final scene: The penguins are all tugging the raft back up the side of the iceberg, still having loads of fun. Caption: Everything is more fun with friends!

There. That's your Valentine's card from me this year. Anyone who wants to draw it, feel free. I'd like to see the result. :)

Hmm. That was a welcome break for my brain today. I've sat here by the computer more than 8 hours analyzing the dialect of Masku. My brain just hurts now. I have the presentation tomorrow and then I can just sit and relax for the rest of the course, phew. If I never have to think about disappearing vowels again, I won't much regret it. Yes, the vowels do disappear around these areas in Finland. Mysterious little critters, them vowels, you see?

Yup, I think I've about had it now with this sitting in front of the screen -business for one day. Time to go watch some tv... *grin*

Doable guys meme

I got this meme from vierran45 and I just had to post it here, too. What else is there to do for a single girl on a Friday afternoon than think about doable yummy men? ;)

The rules are simple: Pick five people who you would conceivably do right now. No invented people, no dead people, no 'were attractive in their prime but not now' people. If they're on your list and you meet them tomorrow, you can do whatever dirty deeds you want with them and whoever you're with isn't allowed to get mad.

Of course, if you're not with anyone at the time, then limiting yourself to five people is just silly.
Who would you put on your list? Post your list with pictures, because we could all do with more of The Hot in our lives.

Those were the rules and here's my list. (I'm, once again, having a few problems with the pictures, so please excuse me for having some only as links.)

1. Ioan Gruffudd



A gorgeous Welsh actor whose Lancelot makes my knees weak.

2. Orlando Bloom

Oy, to be that ring...

3. Viggo Mortensen



The scruffier the better, especially as Aragorn.

4. David Boreanaz



Dark and delicious...

5. Karl Urban

A very cute kiwi!

Gosh, that was somewhat difficult. The first three, no problems, but the two remaining... who to pick, where to find nice pictures... Although the rules said I could've listed more yummies as I'm single, I think these five will do just fine for now. (Btw, do you see a pattern to my taste? I seem to have picked only dark men with strong facial features. Must be what I like, heh.)

Well, go on ladies, feel free to comment and share the meme! ;)

Ringtone madness

I got a new phone yesterday. Actually, it's not exactly new, but used. Dad had bought a new one for himself and asked if I'd like to have his old one. It's a bit smaller and better than my old one (not that I was in any way unhappy with my old phone), so I thought I'd give it a try. But...

How many grey hairs can one grow in one evening? A lot, if you ask me. I'm the kind of person who really doesn't bother playing around with my phone. I couldn't survive without it, but I don't have to have the latest model with all the latest gadgets and extra stuff nor do I have to have the latest hits as my ringtones. I've been happy with my ringtone for about 4 years now and I think I've only ever had two logos.

I grow attached to things. :) I was feeling quite upset when I realized I wouldn't be able to move the old ringtone from my old phone to the new one. This was quite obviously the case also with my old logo dragon. Aagh, says I. How am I supposed to recognise it's my phone ringing if I don't have my special ringtone? Boohoo.

So I start surfing. I search and search. Site after site. I can't find a decent dragon logo or the Hobbit theme ringtone I've had for years. There are now at least twenty more grey hairs in my head.

I find a ringtone that I could consider if I can't find the one I really, really want. I click on the "play" button hoping I would be able to listen to a sample of the tone. My computer says "pof" and won't do a thing and I have to perform some quick pc-cpr. There are now fifteen more grey hairs in my head.

I find an ornamental logo I could get used to. I decide to order it. Click-click-clickety-click on my phone, and there goes an SMS to the provider of the service. But nothing. After about half an hour I get a message informing me that there is a "tempporary poblem" (tiläpäinen häirö) in the service. Gaah! At least a dozen more grey hairs. And probably almost 2 euros worth of payments due to this company even though they couldn't provide me with the service they promised. I curse the system and count three more grey hairs in my head.

Did you, btw, realize that the Nokia standard incoming sms-message beep (the long one) is actually morse code for S-M-S (bep-bep-bep-beeep-beeep-bep-bep-bep)? I didn't before last night. I feel dumb and feel a grey hair growing.

I decide to shut down the computer and go watch tv. With dad's old golf logo still on the screen of the phone and with a standard ringtone ready to inform me of any attempts to disturb me in the middle of the night... I refuse to count the grey hairs when I stand in front of the mirror brushing my teeth. I'm well on my way to really become Gandalf...

A night well slept has miraculously destroyed some of the grey hairs and I feel less like an ancient minor deity from a fantasy world and more like myself again. A new try, it is, then.

YAY! The second site I browse has a nice wyvern-logo I decide to embellish my phone with. Everything works just fine when I order it. More grey hairs disappear.

WHEE! The same site has the ringtone I've been looking for! I immediately order that too. Where was this site last night, I wonder? I finally feel like I can adopt this new phone and welcome anyone to call me. At least I'll recognise the ringtone. :) And I'm finally left with the three grey hairs I had to begin with, so all is well again.

I won't make any promises about not accidentally hanging up on you if you call, though. I may still push the wrong button if I'm not careful...

On a different note, I just heard from the news that there is supposed to be a protest by snowmen (built by a group of environmentalists of some sort, I forgot the name already) today in some of the bigger cities of Finland. The snowmen are protesting against the changes in the climate. I think the protest will be a somewhat quiet one here in Turku, as we have no more snow on the ground, because the temperature has been above zero for almost a week now... Poor snowmen. A funny winter, this one.

Cuisine cruisin'

What a relaxing weekend I had. Didn't think about anything stressful or worrying, instead had a very good dinner (or two, to be exact) and got to dance the Saturday night away. Fun, fun.

What makes a cruise to Stockholm so relaxing? The fact that we aren't teenagers anymore! Back in the days of high school the cruises were nothing more than a drunken feast to quite a lot of kids. You had to start drinking as soon as the ship was on the move (or even before), and the more drunk you were, the merrier the cruise. Or something. I never really understood the excessive drinking part of it, but I had a few friends who grasped the general idea well enough.

It's true that there isn't a lot to do on a Viking Line ship, since there are only two shops (the boutique and the tax free) and two corridors you can walk back and forth if you don't want to sit in the bar and listen to a) lousy karaoke singers, b) mediocre guitar-playing troubadours or c) an even more mediocre "house band". Not what we wanted at all. We tried to sit by the windows near a bar only to be driven away by a disgusting drunkard who (so Satu told me, I couldn't see because I wasn't facing that direction) almost fell on top of me and basically threw Satu away from her bench muttering something like "give way" in Swedish. "Aaarrg you taalkin' Finniishh?" he garbled and we fled.

We ended up taking care of our shopping quite early on in the day and what fun that turned out to be. Satu found something to buy from the boutique, I didn't. Then we went to the tax free, where we encountered a young fellow who was working as a cruise host. We were minding our own business, pondering about a special offer on a quite good wine label from Chile. Both Satu and I had had the pleasure of tasting that particular wine before and were discussing whether we'd like to buy that wine or something new and different when this young whelp came around. He crabbed one of the bottles and began tossing it about in his hands. Ok, a nice trick with a full wine bottle, but not that impressive, if I'm honest. What did make an impact was the sales pitch he had. "This is a wine that is youth friendly (nuorisoystävällinen was the term he used in Finnish). You can drink it even if you don't know much about wines or aren't a very experienced wine drinker."

Excuse me? I must've frowned a bit, because I couldn't for the life of me decide whether he'd thought that we were some middle aged ladies who he'd been told to flatter in order to increase sales or a couple of girlies in their early twenties who probably haven't tasted that many wines at all and would find a "youth friendly" wine somehow attractive. Either way, we were a bit baffled. We laughed and said to the boy (he must've been younger than either of us) that we had both tasted the particular wine and weren't exactly completely ignorant about wines. He just went on: "Not all of us can know much about wines. Chile is a particularly fine wine country because blah blah blah." We smiled at him, nodded a few times and thanked him politely for his insight. Then we left the offered wines undisturbed. I ended up buying a bottle of white wine from New Zealand (I've been meaning to try a kiwi wine for a long time now but my local Alko doesn't have any in its selection) and a red wine from Chile. A wine I hadn't tasted before and that was a bit more expensive than the one the young man had recommended. When we had bought the mandatory candies and some beer (oh no, you're not supposed to drink the beer you buy from the tax free while aboard the ship, but who cares?) we retired to our cabin. The incident with the cruise host proved to be of much entertainment for quite some time. :)

One of the best parts of taking a day cruise (the boat left Turku at 8.45 a.m.) was definitely the long nap we took in the afternoon. When we were teenagers it would've been a waste of precious time drinking or just hanging around in the bar, but now - what a relief to kick off your shoes and just rest for a while.

Later in the evening we had dinner reservations at the a la carte -restaurant and were planning on a full length dinner with aperitifs and everything. And it was perfect. Food was delicious, wine was good and dessert was yummy. We sat and enjoyed ourselves for more than 2 hours at the restaurant. Oh, the delights of adult life. I cannot be persuaded to go to the food buffet anymore, when at about the same price I can enjoy a much better dinner in calm and pleasant surroundings.

After dinner we were a bit giddy. Not from too much drinking, mind you. We were just feeling so good, I suppose. We were resting in the cabin, singing children's songs (Satu has a phenomenal memory when it comes to old children's songs) and talking about silly things and making lame jokes. (Hönteimmästä päästä oli minun pohdintani siitä, olisiko pyöräilevä yksisilmäinen jättiläinen nimeltään syklooppi... Ehhehe. Tässä vaiheessa se teini-ikä tuli aika liki...)

The rest of the evening (we did manage to get out and about after a good while of silliness) we spent in the night club dancing. There was a guy (by the looks of him he was Swedish - not a bit drunk at about midnight ...) who danced remarkably well. It was fun to watch him. I think we made some kind of an impression on him, too, because he and one of his friends came to talk to us at one point of the evening. Luckily none of that icky pick-up talk, but a query of where we were from. It was a short discussion, but I was glad I was able to comment on his moves, I think he deserved some praise for being such a piece of eye candy. His friend had asked Satu whether we'd like to go out on the deck with them to dance, but if that was meant to be a pick-up, he wasn't thinking very clearly. It was friggin' freezing outside, not to mention the wind conditions, which made the ship roll back and forth. Need I mention we kindly refused the invite? For the rest of the evening the guys kept on dancing as did we, but not on the deck and not together either. Actually Satu and I did leave reasonably "early" to go to bed.

A fun cruise, all in all. I got to experience, once again, what it could feel like to be seen in the company of a celebrity. Both Satu and I turn some heads when we go about (I have to give myself that much credit), but to be honest, Satu turns heads a lot more than I do. It's actually quite funny to follow men and how they gawk at her. Some check to see if she's wearing high heels (she's a tall girl, a few centimetres taller than I am) and some can't help but comment on her to their mates as she walks by. She's somewhat used to it, the pretty thing she is, but of course it can be a bit tedious when every single drunkard in the place imagines they can win her over by pawing her on the dance floor or something. The guys do find out pretty soon that she takes none of that. Nor would I, even though I'm single. There's a difference between being single and being pathetically desperate. We did see one Finnish blondie falling for a darker Swedish guy. She was wasted and he was happily making the most of it, groping and, well, practically eating the girl alive on the dance floor. One more good reason to stay almost sober in bar surroundings - the icy attitude towards icky loosers works better when one's wits are sharp... :)

On Sunday, after I got home, I slept a few more hours, watched Farscape (darn it for making me cry once again...) and drove to mom&dad's for dinner (yummy reindeer) and some quality family time. A perfectly relaxed end to a fun weekend. I feel like I got extra energy out of this little break in the routines and now I'm off to do a bunch of tasks I listed on my "to do" -list for the day. I hope I'll be able to get everything done. :)

She's adorable

Finally, a picture problem solved. I hope. (A million thanks, Tero!)

This has nothing to do with anything, but it's something I want to post for fun. Meet a cutie I adopted quite some time ago. She's adopted from Miss Cam's OFUM which is a hilarious series of Lord of the Rings fanfic I totally enjoyed reading some time ago. Thanks for Miss Cam for the adoptive rights. This little darling (as her siblings as well) was born when someone somewhere misspelled a LotR-name. As you can probably guess (if you know your Tolkien), the name misspelled was naturally Yavanna, which I sometimes use as a nick. Oh yes, I like to think I'm some sort of a deity... Me, what ego? :)

That's what I'm here for

Lately I've been trying to help a dear friend of mine who's going through some tough times. I've tried to explain my views, listen to hers, suggest possible solutions and options to no end. I don't mind, for the most part, because that's what I do - I try to help. But the bad thing about it is that I sometimes get too involved and can't help worrying about things that I shouldn't.

This time, however, I've noticed that I still remember some of my life's lessons from my times in high school. I had a friend who had very serious issues to deal with back then. A very low self esteem, to begin with. She ended up sounding suicidal on the phone a few times and I was borderline hysterical trying desperately to help and to get her to understand that she was (and still is) a wonderful person. That was when my mom intervened and told me I couldn't carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. Let alone the problems of my friend, who was in fact in need of professional help. That was the point in my life, when I finally realised that I don't have the resources or the education to solve every problem my friends may have. I do want to help (that's just natural to me), but I won't let myself sink too deep into anyone else's problems. I have plenty of my own. :)

But to all my friends out there, I'm always glad to help in any way I can and I'll listen to you more than willingly - that's what I'm here for. At least if I get to whine about my problems in return, every now and then. That's how friendships work.

What else? Humm. I've had this unbelievable two weeks of such total slacking that I'm beginning to feel ashamed of myself. I've been able to get some little things done, like emailing some people about their articles for the first ever Spin-fanzine I'm editing and filing away some teaching materials, but nothing of real importance or use to such goals in life as maybe graduating some day... Not until yesterday, that is. I managed to begin reading a book I've had for about a year now and I'm determined to finish it up by next Tuesday, so I could maybe return it to the library... I can't believe how difficult a time I'm having trying to get something done.

Tomorrow I actually may end up spending a few hours in the archives of the Finnish department, because I have a seminar lecture to plan. It's nothing big, it's just a 45-minute practice lesson for the course on Finnish dialects I'm taking, but I'm thinking it'd be better to get that out of my way as soon as possible. That's why I booked the first possible slot for my "guest lecture". Then, for the rest of the spring, I can just watch others stress about their lessons and concentrate on my thesis instead. I think my position is somewhat advantageous to most of the students taking that course, though. I'm at ease in front of a class (whether they be 7th graders, 12th graders or adults) and I can run my plans through mom, who can check them for factual mistakes. :) So I'm not in the least worried about that piece of seminar work. What a relief.

What worries me is the thesis. I just checked and I have five more weeks to go before I should turn in the sample chapter. I haven't even begun yet! Not properly, that is. I can't believe I can't get myself motivated enough to just sit down and do it. I've got the motivation to work, to move to the UK for some post-graduate studies (Note to self: post-graduate means one has to graduate first!) or to do whatever, but gaah. I think I'm lacking in thesis-writing-vitamins at the moment. :) Oh well, I'll try to find a dose for tomorrow.

Have to mention this. Only one more day to go and we'll be cruising the day (and night) away with Satu! Whee! She even promised me a drink if I guessed right the character she was in the LotR character test. Poor Satu, she didn't realise how good I am at figuring out those tests. And how well I know her. She turned out to be Samwise, just as I thought and now I'm entertaining myself with the thought of something really yummy from the bar on Saturday evening. :)

I'm so glad today's dance classes are over, phew. I'm so counting weeks to April 13th when I finally am done with the teaching part of my hobby. At least for now. But until then it feels like it's Wednesday or Thursday all the time and I have nothing else to do than try to come up with something to teach. Blah.

I was going to post a picture of sorts here at the end, but I'm having a bit of a problem with the whole picture thing. It seems the program Hello (which you're supposed to use to post pictures in your blog) is only IE-compatible. I'm not using my aaaancient version of IE (and not updating it either), but happily surfing away with Firefox and therefore I can't post any goddam pictures! And no, I don't have a website I could get the pictures online in the first place, so now I'm stuck and waiting for help from Tero. So this is why you'll need to sit and wait for the picture. I'm not going to tell what it'll be, though. Oo, really mysterious and stuff... Haha. (I'll bet you'll be disappointed in the end.) ;)

Testing time!

Lately I've been answering dozens and dozens of questions about my personality for different personality tests on the net. I thought I'd put some of that stuff here, so you can all decide whether I'm like those results or not... :)

Here's a LotR character test, which is one of the better ones I've come across. Result:

You scored as Gandalf. This wise, old mage is loyal and brave. He is known for his counsel and advice to his friends and allies during tough times. "All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you." Gandalf 81% Samwise 63% Aragorn 50% Arwen 44% Eowyn 38% Pippin 31% Frodo 31% Faramir 19% Gollum 6% Which LOTR character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

(Wow, I can't even begin to tell how impressed I am of myself for actually getting that image on this page!)

Then I took a science fiction character test. And the result...

A venerated sage with vast power and knowledge, you gently guide forces around you while serving as a champion of the light.

Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not - for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life greets it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you, everywhere.

Hmm, a pattern do I see here?

Well, I was bound to get a different kind of result (not an old wise geezer, that is) when I took the Jung Typology Test, but then again, I turned out to be type ENFJ, which is described as either an educative mentor or teacher. So an old wise geezer it is, then. Here and here are some of the more thorough explanations of what I supposedly am. And here is a short explanation on the meaning of the single characteristics, if the idea of the test is not familiar to you.

I do recognise myself from all of these, but sometimes I can't help but feeling I'm not that wise at all and that all my counselling is just about as garbled as Yoda's mutterings in general. But I try, and that probably is why I get these kinds of results. I guess there's some truth to them, after all. At least the Typology thingie.

So there I am. The bare necessities of me. (Nah, there's more to the package for sure, but the tests are fun way to spend extra time I don't actually have...)

And to the top of it all, go and get yourselves an elf name and a hobbit name. As an elf I'd be known as Nessa Ancalimë (very pretty, I think) and were I to be a wee hobbit lass, I'd be Ruby Knotwise of Michel Delving. Very appropriate, since my favorite gemstone is the ruby. :)

Moving pictures

Well, well. I seem to keep myself very busy somehow and feel like I've neglected the Pool. Time to do something about it.

On Tuesday the nominations for the Oscars were announced. Surprisingly the Phantom of the Opera -spectacle didn't get a nomination for best costume design. Instead, it got nominated in categories like best cinematography and some other smaller categories. What surprised me was the nomination of Troy for the costume Oscar. I did love the blue pieces of fabric the guys were wearing, but were they worth an Oscar? Well, I suppose they may have been. We'll see in February.

I haven't seen any of the "big" movies yet. Scorcese's The Aviator premiers today in Turku, if I don't remember wrong. I think I'd like to see it. I don't know if I'm that interested in Million Dollar Baby, but Closer I'd definitely like to see, even though it's not on the Best picture list. And most definitely I'd like to see Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland. Sideways seems like a good piece of entertainment, too. Lots of movies to wait for. Nice.

Oh, oh, oh! While surfing the Oscar nominations, I bumped into a very interesting piece of information. Stellan Skarsgård has been cast as William "Bootstrap" Turner for Pirates of the Caribbean 2! Interesting choice, I'd say. Empire has the story. I can't wait for that particular movie, if it was to premier tomorrow it wouldn't be too soon. I so hope they get as funny a script for this sequel as the original had. Ought to be loads and loads of brilliant fun and gorgeous men... (krhm)

At this point I need to change the topic, otherwise I'm going to begin ranting and raving (as Kaisa once so kindly put it) about certain actors and their excellent qualities... For instance, I'm positively sure that the character of Will Turner Junior (*swoon*) needs a long lost big brother who'd be perfectly cast if a certain Welsh swashbuckler (*SWOON*) would get the role. Hmm, who is it again that is writing the script for this and how do I contact them? :)

Actually, I think I'm going to wrap this up for now, because I need to go and "take my car for a walk". Temperatures have been freezing this week, which has meant a lot of familiar problems for me. Getting in the car is an adventure in itself and to melt the poor thing down at least a bit, I need to drive it to a parking hall of one of the supermarkets. And then lazily shop around for at least 30 minutes... :)

I'll be around. :)

Slippery when white

Yikes. Snow came, was ploughed flat and became a clear sheet of slippery winter fun. Which was demonstrated to me most efficiently yesterday, when my car showed me a completely new trick. It took me for a very interesting round-trip.

I was driving home from school, that is to say home as in mom&dad's, and it was plain obvious that the road was as slick as it can get. I drove very carefully to an intersection, saw that further away on my left was a taxi (a van) coming towards the same intersection, but it was so far away that I decided to take my right turn before it had crossed it. I was most definitely not driving fast at all, I think I was driving on second gear (means at the most about 40km/h with my car) but thought I'd make it just fine. The trick was, however, that I was turning uphill and needed enough steady speed to clear the little hill. I already once got stuck in the middle of it earlier in the winter, so I was determined to crawl it up slow and secure.

Sounds easy enough, right? Just a wee bit of speed, take a turn and just a wee bit more speed to clear the hill. Right. Add to the equation a car with the motor in the back (yep, my car) and the result is a nice 180 degree turn. There was nothing I could do. In a few seconds I just noticed I was heading the wrong way on the wrong side of the road and the before mentioned taxi right in front of me. Interesting. Luckily both I and the taxi driver had been driving slowly, so I was able to stop my car from spinning even more and the taxi driver was able to pass me safely. I hadn't even had time to get scared or anything, so I just drove over to the other side of the intersection, did a u-turn and on the second try I managed to get back on my way to see mom.

A complaint then. Where the hell was the sand from that intersection? Whoever had ploughed the snow away must've realised that by doing that the remains of the snow would be packed flat and become nothing but effectively a clear sheet of ice. Not all of us have four-wheel-drive cars... Luckily I do know my car pretty well by now and can operate it in winter conditions also, but this was the first time ever I couldn't do a thing. Aren't I lucky this happened in Nousiainen around noon, when there's hardly any traffic even though it was the biggest intersection in the center of the town.

Ok, so I'm just fine and so is the car and everyone else. Enough of that. I'm just waiting for spring now... :)

Satu invited me to her place for a few glasses of wine yesterday. We sat and talked almost 4 hours, which was very nice. Satu had a lot of stories to tell from her trip to Goa. How I wish I could afford to travel somewhere. My dream is to go to New Zealand for a few weeks, or maybe a month. Means that I'll have to save up at least 5000 euros, since the flights alone cost about 3000 euros... One has to have dreams, even if it'll take some time to make them come true. In the meanwhile I booked a cruise to Stockholm and back for me and Satu. Not quite the exotic destination I'm dreaming about, especially since we'll stay in the boat when it's in Stockholm... :) But we'll have a nice dinner and a few drinks, spend some time in the night club and so on - that's a nice way to spend a weekend, too.

Next week marks the beginning of serious hard work on my thesis. I plan to write the whole background chapter as soon as possible, preferably within about a week and a half. Keep your fingers crossed! I'll try to stay motivated and concentrated in return. But now I'll go and read some fantastic fantasy in the form of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. It's been a delightful novel so far and I have great expectations of the whole.

Ta ta.

Who would've known?

I was feeling very nostalgic today at work. Not because I'm working at my old high school - I've gotten over that already for the most part. This time the feeling was at least tripled, because of what I had to teach.

I have two groups of seniors who are taking the same course. It's a prep course for the final examinations (or matriculation examination, as the fancy term goes) in Finnish. It means that the kids write two-three essays during the course and in addition they practice punctuation, different styles of writing, and analyze different kinds of sources etc. A whole lot of work and lot's of stuff to go through.

Today, with the first group, we read a short story and three essays written about it. One of the essays just happens to be written by a guy who I went to that exact same school to, all those years ago. He was one of my best friends in high school (not to mention I had a huge crush on him for about 4 years...) and I was feeling really odd (in a very positive way, though) discussing the essay with the students. Mom said she's usually mentioned that the essay was written by a former student from this school, so I felt like I could mention it too. (The essay, along with the others, is published in a course workbook and sold nationwide, so it's not that obvious that one of the texts would be written in Nousiainen.) I did even mention that the writer is an old classmate of mine. That's as far as I could go on that road...

But to ask the students what they thought about the text and discuss the writer's choices while I couldn't help but think about the personality of my friend and the good times we had in school... One of the most curious situations I've ever been in. And tomorrow it's the same thing with the other group.

If someone had told me back in 1993, when I sat in that exact same classroom listening to our Finnish teacher talk about Boccaccio's classical short stories and about how to analyze short prose, that I'd be on the other side of the same teacher's desk one day, teaching a bunch of kids how to write witty and insightful essays about literature, I would've thought it ridicilous. If that someone would've told me I'd be teaching the stuff using an essay written by him as an example of an excellent essay, I would've died laughing on the floor. Not because I would've had any doubts of his ability to write genious essays, but because I would've thought the image of the overall situation hilarious.

I suppose the Earth has turned many enough times for this to happen. I had to write a short email to this friend of mine and tell him about this. I haven't heard from him in a year or so, but I hope he'll share my amusement. The world is a funny place.

A sphere of light in the sky

An odd display of light presented itself today. It was round and so bright that it hurt to look at it. There was something familiar about it though... oh wait, I think we used to have something called the sun visit the sky every once and a while sometime last spring. Could it really have been it? I wonder... And the color of the sky, I think it was called blue? Very beautiful. Made the day seem a lot longer. I think I could get used to it.

Not much else going on here. Or actually there is a lot going on, mostly work related and time consuming. Ergo not so frequent updates in my blog. (Sorry, Robert!) I'm getting back to all my old routines of driving back and forth to Parainen and Lieto once a week, planning Finnish lessons for the students in Nousiainen and so on.

Mom's sick leave is going to continue at least for a week and I'm going to be responsible for some extra arrangements at the school. There'll be an examination in communications' skills for the students on the 25th and as the second person evaluating the participants I'm going to have to see to it that all the preparations are made. It's actually quite nice to have something extra to do, gives me a sense of purpose. I'm not saying that the teaching itself would be somehow not rewarding, but this is something extra. As a substitute teacher I usually feel like a forlorn dustball in the corner. Nobody really pays any attention to it, unless it rolls into plain view. Then there's a certain curiosity, which is quickly forgotten when people realise it's just a dustball. That's me in any other school. But now I actually get to feel like a real teacher with special responsibilities! ;) That's fun.

You know how there's always a first time for everything? I had one of those first times this week. (I'll have none of that, you dirty minds, you!) I had never been stopped by the police on the road before. I've been driving for almost ten years and I've never had to blow into an alcometer. There was a police patrol stopping everyone to check for dui's when I drove home from Parainen on Wednesday. Whee, what fun. :) Needless to say, I was cleared and driving away from the scene within about ten seconds. Most definitely not dui. (I know, I have no life and this was downright pathetic, but hey, my life, my sad stories...)

Oh well, I'm going to go and act more like the sad spinster that I am - I'm going to watch Return of the King with the actors' commentary on. Ought to be fun. I'll have a cup of de-caf tea on the side. I think I'll try to stay awake for about a half of the movie. I'll spare the rest for a lonely Saturday night... We live in exciting times. At least I do. Sometimes. I think. Bye now. :)

Turning down money and other peculiarities of my recent life

I'm probably at the moment living the most frustrating period of my life. I've got no regular income, but I still can't work as much as I'm asked to, since I really, really have to finish my studies and graduate, dammit! Which then means I have to turn down quite nice offers of work and at the same time quite nice pay checks. *sigh*

In the last two days I've had to say no to two job offers for a month's substitute teaching in two different schools. Partly because I'm not sure how long I'm needed in Nousiainen (whether mom will get to work next Monday or not, that's the unanswered question at the moment) and partly because the rest of this month has to involve some serious research, writing and studying. Oh well. It's only money...

This past weekend was an interesting one. I was invited to a birthday party in Uusikaupunki and sure I went, even though I didn't get to borrow dad's nice car. It was, after all a dear friend who was turning thirty-somet... oops, 25, I mean. I didn't know anyone at the party but Heli, since naturally most of her friends are from Uusikaupunki and I'm not. During the evening, however, I found out that the world around here is very small. One of the girls there was a classmate of my brother's ex-girlfriend and knew therefore things about my brother she didn't tell me. (Need to know basis, I suppose, and I didn't need to know...) One girl there knows my exact namesake, who probably gets quite a bit of my emails, when my friends try to guess my email address at the University. Besides knowing the other Johanna, this girl also knew my friend Kaisa. Then there was a guy, who had lived in the same apartment building as I, some five years ago. This is also why he knew a person who is a friend of my mom & dad's. Very funny, this closer-than-six-degrees-of-separation-thingy. Small circles and so on.

The party turned out to be one of those that continues well into the night. I hadn't prepared for a night out, so I was a bit surprised to hear we'd be heading into the questionable night life (question being: is there any?) of Uusikaupunki. Apparently there are about three bars and the one we went to is the dancing bar / night club at the local hotel. When I saw it'd cost 8 euros to get in, I was quite taken aback. It doesn't cost that much even in the better night clubs in Turku and I was a bit reluctant to admit that a night in this particular club would ever be worth that much. Well, before I had time to recover from my shock, Heli had already paid me in. (Thanks, sweetie!) So in we went, I a heap of scepticism, the rest of the group quite happy and excited. I went and got me a drink of icewater (it was for free, heh) and settled down for a night of feeling superior (very typical native Turku trait) and, unfortunately, very old. (They weren't very strict with the age limit, it seemed. Some of the kids couldn't have been more than 16 years of age...)

However, the night turned out to be a lot of fun, I have to admit. I hadn't been out and about dancing in ages, and a relatively roomy dance floor was like a magnet to me. Besides, as it turned out, the scenery was very nice. Very nice indeed. :) You see, Uusikaupunki is a town with a fairly good basketball team, as I've understood it. They even have some American players reinforcing the team. Some of these guys were having a night out, as well. *swoon* A very tall, handsome and dark young man caught my eye immediately. :) I remained "ever watchful", because there were some pathetic little blondies surrounding him and his friend, who was equally tall and American, but not as handsome... But gosh, what a piece of eye candy that other guy was. *grin*

The downside of the partying (we weren't back at Heli's before 5 a.m.) was the fact that I'm still tired! Probably mostly because I slept very poorly for the few hours I managed to even try to sleep. Which was because some of Heli's friends came suddenly to visit in the wee hours when I was all ready to go to bed. Since Heli and the guys that came in stayed up, listening to music and discussing loudly (the guys were loud, because they weren't exactly sober) the sofa that was supposed to be my bed for the night was obviously very taken. Heli was kind enough to let me sleep in her bed, but all that noice in a strange place resulted in a very tired person. So I'm still catching up...

It's been nice to return to Nousiainen to teach for a week (or possibly two). The seniors know me already and I don't have to waste any time building up my credibility. I worked that in already in October and November. And with the younger students, they're taking a course I taught in the fall already to another group, so I don't have to spend all my time planning lessons. Very nice. Tomorrow I have the easiest day of the week. I go in for exactly 45 minutes in the afternoon! It'll take me a longer time to drive back and forth to Nousiainen than teach that class...

Tomorrow the dance classes in Parainen (and on Thursday in Lieto) begin again after a glorious month's break. I have zero motivation. I haven't done anything towards planning new choreographies or anything else, for that matter. I just wish it'd be April soon and I'd be free... Hopefully the ladies will cheer me up with their energy, since I for sure have none left to spare.

Which brings to mind, I'm hungry. I need to go and eat something. Something healthy and light, that is. :)

Walk Like A Penguin

How I hate this wet winter weather, however easier the handling of my car is when it's not freezing. A few days ago we had a delightful layer of sleet on the ground. It fell from the sky in horizontal lines, curiously enough. Then it sort of froze over and after that it rained a bit and then some. Result: me walking like a penguin around town. It's so darned slippery that I just have to wobble ahead in order not to fall and break my skull. Oh, and as a result of all the penguining around my muscles are sore. Although some of that may be the result of the visit I payed to the gym the other day. :)

Ok, enough of the weather. Time to talk about nice ways to spend time not walking like a penguin in the rain. That's right, movies. All-around nice way to spend time sitting down, also when it's not raining.

I went to see Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera last night. I hate to admit it but I hadn't seen any version of it before and my expectations were kind of high. I'd seen some marvellous pictures of the movie production and the trailer was just plain amazing in all it's glitter and glam.

The glitter and glam didn't fail me, oh no. If this movie doesn't get at least a nomination for the best costume design Oscar, I'm going to be very disappointed. I was once again convinced that long cloaks and capes should be worn nowadays, too. I was so born in the wrong century!

And the jewellery! Ohmigod. The ever-so-famous Swarowsky Crystals were a big part of the costuming and staging. First of all, the huge crystal chandelier hanging from the Opera House's ceiling. According to the Making of -book it weighed so much that they had to make an extra reinforced roof to the studio to hold the thing. No wonder. But gosh, the piece looked absolutely gorgeous. Just the kind of Grand Glamour one would expect from a turn-of-the-previous-century Opera House. *sigh*

The leading lady's (Christine, played by Emmy Rossum) first grand gown is, as far as I can tell, a remake of the Empress Sissi's magnificent white gown in that famous painting of her. All the way to the jewelled flowers in Christine's hair. I could do nothing but gawk. Me want that pretty dress too!

All in all, however, I think I had my expectations a bit too high for this one. Not that I didn't like the movie, but it didn't move me like I thought it would. Of the characters I think the supreme diva La Carlotta (played by Minnie Driver) was the one I enjoyed the most. Minnie Driver made her a perfectly over the top character, which was exactly what the diva was supposed to be. Fun and outrageous. (And oh dear me what a voice!)

Christine was, naturally, a beautiful and delicate little creature, the Phantom was a dark, strong and agile man and the viscount was handsome and noble. Sounds like a cast of perfection (especially considering the fact that they did all sing their own parts), but something was lacking. Maybe it was the conflict in the facial expressions and the singing. I'm sure the actors were at least pretending to be singing when the scenes were filmed, but the final sounds were no doubt recorded later. So the result is a singing Christine who doesn't look like an opera singer singing from the top of her lungs. Which is a pity, because somehow this small detail does affect the whole picture. When there's practically no dialogue in the movie but the singing, the emotions and the power behind such beautiful performances would've deserved to be shown more clearly.

Nevertheless, the movie is well worth seeing and listening. (Oh, the shivers in my spine when the Phantom's theme was played...)

Last night was also the night of the monthly sf-fandom meeting ("mafia") and I decided to drop by the Pub Bremer on my way home to see if there still was someone I knew. Well, sure enough there was quite a crowd of local sf-people still loitering around and chitchatting about all things mundane, fantastic and in between. I ended up sitting at the pub for about three more hours and came home at midnight. A nice way to end the holiday season.

Bling bling!

That's what you need to have any respect at all. Bling bling. This is what I've learned from my new favorite tv-show. A show I got addicted to in less than two episodes. A show that I wouldn't hesitate to participate in, not for a second. I'd be pleading to be included in this reality show.

MTV has this utterly cool program called Pimp My Ride. Absolutely pure bling bling all the way through. There's this rapper, Xzibit, hosting it and the point of the whole thing is to take people's unbelievably crappy cars and fix them up real good. A new paintjob, new tires, butt-kicking audio and other equipment, new interiors and as much of outrageous detailing the guys can hook you up with within two days of work.

Do you see why I'm all for a show like this? Shouldn't be that difficult to decipher...

Last night the last episode of PMR during MTV's "Pimp and Diva Weekend" showed a really glittering transformation. This girl had an old Ford Mustang, which was in a sorry state indeed. She ended up with a raspberry-colored car with a golden (yes, that's right) top on it (the car was a convertible), a gear stick studded with little fake diamonds and, get this, a bubble blowing thingie as a second exhaust pipe! Oh, and the finishing touches made to the paint job were painted with golden glittery paint applied through lace, which means she now has golden lace patterns on her car. In addition she got a photo booth in her car (meaning a digicamera and a printer in the passengers side), absolutely amazing dvd-cd-mp3-player with the appropriate woofers and such... The things these guys put into the cars are just unbelievable. One guy got an aquarium built in the back seat of his car. With two living goldfish in it. (Poor little fish though, I'm sure they didn't last for long in that tiny tank sealed into the backseat of a teenage guys car...)

I'm not saying I'd want an aquarium in my car, because I don't. How do you think the tank (or the fish) would take the freezing temperatures in the winter? Snap, crackle and pop, most likely. And I'm not even going to try to guess what I'd do with a Playstation2 in the backseat. I'd much rather play at home where it's nice and warm, which it's not in my car, about 9 months a year... So most of the fixing up done in the program is definitely for Californian surroundings only, not to be applied anywhere north of a certain latitude. That latitude being at least half a globe south from Turku...

Me and my friends did come up with a few interesting add-ons that could be built into my car, though. We decided the car should be properly named Skoda Scorchio after all-around flame throwers would've been added. They have, in the real show, built such things into some cars and roasted marshmallows then in the flames. I would mostly need the flames in the front though and not in the back. It'd be handy to melt away all the ice and the snow in the wintertime. Most handy. Unfortunately flame throwers are illegal as car accessories in Finland. What are the legislators thinking??

Most of all I'd love my car to have a new paintjob. For real. At the moment it's a beautiful matt burgundy. I do love the color otherwise, but the word matt is the key. My car only shines when it's raining. Last summer I actually noticed that the paint is coming off, when I washed the thing. The sponge I used was pretty in pink after I was done washing the poor vehicle.

New seats too, please. These are literally crumbling away, thanks to the sun shining through the windows in the summer and the fabric losing the battle of durability. And they squeek like excited little (or medium sized) animals. And the audio systems, please, I'd love to have a cd-player installed!

After all this would've been done, I'd have a few pictures taken of everything (preferably also me looking devastatingly cool in my pearly cameleon-colored car) and when that was done, I'd sell the darling immediately. With a darned good price tag on it, too. And then I'd go to the car dealer and buy myself a newer car with less bling bling in it. Boring, but less likely to be stolen from the parkinglot.

So please, please MTV, pimp my ride!

Topics of the day

There was a short article in the local newspaper today about teaching creationism vs. evolutionary theory in the public schools in the United States. After George W. won the elections there has been, once again, a wave of upset conservatist Christians complaining that evolution shouldn't be taught in schools, since obviously the Grand Canyon was created in the great flood (the one with Noah and all sorts of animals in twos) and not by the waters of the Colorado river. The laws separating church and school are evil, no doubt.

Honestly, I can't believe what a backward way of thinking that is. We live in a world where science has been able to provide us with serious proofs for their theories (which, in my opinion, still could leave room for a deity of some sort to meddle in all of it, if you'd like to think so) and where the birth process of religious texts is better understood. It's so unbelievably difficult for me to understand how such texts could possibly be taken for the literal truth in today's world. Sure, if that's the way your brain works, that's fine, but mine just can't comprehend. And to feed that literal interpretation of the creation to high school kids, that's just ridiculous. Already religion is way too often the reason for wars and restlessness around the world. We don't need more conservatist Christians running the States in the future, thankyouverymuch. Or any kind of religious fanatics (or conservatists) running any other state either, for that matter.

Talking of religion and science, by the way, it was exactly the theme of Dan Brown's novel Angels and Demons. I think that the book was very entertaining and yet provided quite interesting questions for pondering. Fun thing about the book was that in the beginning of the story a scientist (both a priest and a physicist) discovers a way to provide scientific proof that the Big Bang was "ignited" by God and gets killed because of it. Murdered, because he had a theory that could've put together science and religion without a glitch. (Well, I suppose there was that tiny glitch after all...) I wonder what would happen if a theory of that sort would eventually pop up in the real world.

Dan Brown then brings to my mind another interesting theme that has been "in" lately. The Templars, the Freemasons and the fascinating conspiracy theories. I'm beginning to thing I should've chosen the Templars as the topic of my thesis instead of the more boring Order of Malta, or the Hospitallers, as they are also known. No rumours of vast treasures and world rule there. How dull. Yet, I can't help thinking that which of the Orders born almost simultaneously is still working all around the world? Yep, the one I'm doing my research on. And you know, they received quite a bit of Templar wealth when the other order was destroyed... Ah, I got a bit sidetracked there. I was going to mention that I saw the movie National Treasure last night.

An entertaining flick, at times quite flawed though. Like for example in the beginning, where the story of the treasure is told. It was supposedly found by the knights of the first crusades (ergo, that'll mean the 11th and 12th centuries for the most part) who then decided to call themselves the Knights Templar. Quite ok so far, because for the story to be interesting, there really has to be a treasure of some sort. But then the story goes on and it claims something like "Over the next century the knights took the treasure away from Europe to America." This is where I had to arch a brow. The Templars found America? In the 13th century? Sailing over the sea in the kinds of ships that weren't used until 2-300 years later? Interesting. At least they had the sense of labelling the movie "action comedy"...

As I've said before, I'm all for the freedom of the artist (in this case the director and script-writer) to bend the truth, but basic math wouldn't be too much to ask for, would it? But oh well, maybe they just had to get the treasure over the Atlantic before the Order was destroyed, which was before America was found - unless of course you count the vikings in - and that's why the wording of the story was a bit awry. Maybe that's it. Or better yet, maybe I just misheard the wording... In any case, I think National Treasure was a fun way to spend an evening. Switch your brain into off-position and if nothing else, go see Sean Bean as a baddie. He's so much better looking than Nicolas Cage... ;) And since I liked the story in the Da Vinci Code better, I hope they make a fun movie out of that one, too. This one seemed like it had been put together in a hurry just to beat the Code to the box office. We'll see.

Tomorrow it's back to the routines of normal life. There's the thesis to be written and quite some people to contact in order to advance that project, there's a magazine to edit, there are a few choreographies to do, there's weight to be lost, people to meet and places to go... Sounds like 2005 is going to be busy as heck, but then again, I can't very well just sit on my bum all the time. I'd be bored out of my mind. That's the problem with being me, in a nutshell. (Not me in the nutshell, but the problem...) Jeesh. About time to, metaphorically speaking, shut up. :)

A Better New Year to All

Happy New Year, folks. May it turn out to be better than the one before, if possible. I certainly wish for a few turns for the better, although my last year was fairly good and fun most of the time.

What will I remember from last year? Let's see. I'll most definitely remember the Fantasy Feast we organized this summer, for a multitude of reasons. Interesting people, lots of archery (a darned big bruise to prove it, too) and canoeing in the middle of the night, gazing at the shooting stars and the moon. Just to mention a few of the highlights.

I'll remember this as the year my old high school best friend, Kirsi, had her firstborn daughter, Amanda. Kirsi used to complain she'd never find herself a man and that she'd die a lonely spinster. Well, that just shows how you never know. All the best to Kirsi, Matti and little Amanda.

Same goes naturally to all of the babies of 2004 and their parents in my circle of friends. Quite a bunch of you already. (I'm really becoming an oddity...)

I'll remember 2004 as hopefully the last year when I had to work on a pitifully low pay in the summer. I'll settle for merely low pay this year... Although it was an experience not likely to happen again, to work at the history departments archives - never have I been so happy the summer was quite rainy! Mummified in the cellar level of the building, leafing through letters and photos of which some were over a hundred years old, I didn't get to see much of the sun during the summer months.

What else was there? Jeesh, what did I do for a year? Studied, worked, had marvellous times with my friends, wrote my first ever fanfics (don't ask!) and still didn't learn to say no to all who want me in some kind of "important post" in some society or group. This was the way my days passed last year, quite calmly in the old usual ways. Which is good.

For this year I wish a bit more action. I hope to finish my thesis and graduate (awful lot of work to do to achieve that, but I'll have to try). That's the first one. Secondly I'd really like to meet some guy, who isn't a selfish lout, a boring geek or in any other way wrong for me. But if it doesn't happen, I'll settle for my darlings Ioan, Orli and Viggo. ;) (Of whom my friends wrote nice things on my car windows last night when we went out to see the fireworks - thanks a bunch, now I may actually have to wash the car to get rid of the evidence!) Which means there are a few interesting movies coming this way...

There. I do think I need to go and clean up the rest of the mess from last nights party. My plans of inviting just a few friends over ballooned into a bit bigger crowd of ten guests plus me. Plenty of food (this time a moderate amount of everything), a few drinks and lots of fun discussions. Not the wildest party you could imagine, but I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks, guys, for coming. But I do need to say something to you all...

TISKAAMAAN!!!

Anyone?

Relatively speaking

I symphatize with everyone who has in-laws to visit during the holiday season. I only have relatives by blood to visit and that's plenty. We actually drove over 500 kilometres yesterday with my brother to visit our uncle and his family in Lahti and our aunt and her family in Loppi. That means we sat in the car for about 6 hours and in between we ate a lot. And then some. It's not polite to turn down food when you're visiting - who came up with that rule anyway?

We did have a few interesting discussions during the drive, like pondering about an imaginary scuba diver diving at the exact center of an underwater earthquake. Couldn't really decide what would happen. As it were, one of my brother's good friends was in Thailand when the huge tsunami hit South East Asia yesterday. He'd been on a scuba diving course with his girlfriend for a week already and they were getting ready for an expedition out to some island scuba resort. They'd been driving towards the beach in the morning when they saw all the people running and police shouting something. They turned around and started driving the heck away from the beach. They survived, barely.

Such a horrible disaster. Can you even imagine a 10-meter wall of water coming straight at you at about 500 km/h? That's like being hit by a solid brick wall, for goodness' sake. Slim chances, if any. Awesome powers, our lady Earth has.

She also has the power over freezing temperatures, which proved to be quite an obstacle for me today. I had planned on hopping into my car and driving to Tytti's place to watch the rest of the Hornblower-series. I thought it'd be good for the car, too, since it's been idle for a few days already. Needs to be driven every once and a while, that igloo of mine. Well planned is not nearly accomplished, unfortunately. I couldn't get in. The doors were frozen. I got the other door unlocked, but it was so tightly frozen (metal on metal, I suppose) that even the kind man who stopped and tried to help wasn't able to budge the door.

I so love it when men think I don't have a clue and they do. This guy was one of those. Very kind to try and help, but I've got several winters' worth of experience with the darling vehicle. The problem with the doors isn't solved by heating up the key. It's just not. Take my word for it. The whole darned locking mechanism is frozen solid, so the matches aren't going to help that much... This time it was clear to me that the constant rain and humidity this past few weeks has caused the poor car to dampen all over. Then, add a bit of freeze and I have a completely secured vehicle standing in the parking space. Not going to go anywhere before it warms up again. Can't blame me for trying, though. It'd be nice to be able to get in the car you own, wouldn't you agree?

On the other hand, the car may just have heard what I promised to myself yesterday. I decided I'll have to lose some weight this spring. I thought I'd begin after New Year's but I suppose my car decided I should begin right away. "You walk, girl!" And so I did, in the wonderful pristine weather. A good start for my diet, except for the delicious yummy things Tytti had to offer. At least the walks evened it out a bit. I gained a kazillion calories and used up about 800. Whee...

Mom's at home. She was released yesterday and she was very happy to be home. I can well imagine that. Unfortunately the medication she's on is so strong that she'd been feeling quite ill today. She even sounded a bit weaker over the phone than she did yesterday when I last saw her. But I'm hoping the side effects won't be so bad that she'd have to go back to the hospital. It's so dreary there. So hopefully she'll be feeling better tomorrow.

At least I'm not hungry

Once again, I've done it. I've eaten way too much on Christmas. That's the way it goes every year. But I suppose one doesn't need to count calories this time of the year. I'll go to pace next week and work out extra hard. :)

Christmas Eve was nice. Dad, Lauri and I went to listen to the declaration of Christmas peace, which is an old tradition in Turku. I think I've missed the happening only about 5 times in my life. Once when I was sick as a kid, once when I was in the States and a few times because I had to work in the bookstore. It's the moment Christmas begins for me.

This year our other family traditions were a bit altered, as you may guess. We went to visit mom in the hospital after the declaration and took her one of her presents. She got a brand new cell phone from dad. Leaving her bedside was a bit sad. Here we were, about to go home and have the feast of the year and mom was getting a sip of soup later in the evening... We thought of her warmly during the evening - as Lauri and I drove home, we played Mutter by Rammstein in the car stereos. Seemed appropriate.

Food was delicious. Casseroles, home made cheese, turkey and what have you. I'm not a fan of fish, so I didn't touch that part of the dinner at all, but everyone seemed totally happy with everything they put in their mouths. I don't think anyone left the table feeling hungry - I sure didn't!

I think I had been a nice girl this year, because Santa brought me a delightful number of presents. I think I'm going to have no problems whatsoever spending the gift certificate at Stockmann and I enjoyed all the other gifts too. And Lauri seemed to like the stuff I got him, although it was all sort of boring, being mostly useful things for the kitchen...

All in all, a nice and peaceful Christmas. I'm so happy mom is doing better already (I've realised only after she was operated, that things were quite serious there for a while - I refuse to even think what could've happened...) and hope she'll be able to come home tomorrow. Lauri and I are going to go and visit grandma and our uncle in Lahti tomorrow, if the weather permits. As it'll mean about 400 kilometres of driving back and forth, it wouldn't be nice to drive in a snowstorm. We'll see.

So that's my Christmas so far, on towards New Year's Eve then. I still don't know what to do then. I may end up inviting someone over. I don't know. Have to think about this. :)

No such luck

Well. Mom has been operated, everything went well, but they're keeping her in the hospital for a couple of days. At least that's what dad said when he called. We'll go and see her in the hospital today, but otherwise we're all pretty busy preparing for tomorrow anyhow. Dad hasn't even had time to get a Christmastree for us yet. So it'll be a Christmas, if a bit different this time.

I probably won't have time to blog from now on for a few days, so at this point I want to wish each and every one of you who read this a peaceful holiday season. Don't eat too much... :)

Stormy night, dark thoughts

This year's worst storm has hit Finland. It's pouring rain and the wind is terrible. I wouldn't want to be at sea or anywhere outside on a night like this. Feels miserable even indoors. May have something to do with today's other events too.

Not a good day today. Started out fine, but dad called in a bit after noon and told me he had taken mom to the hospital. The abdominal pains she'd been having weren't just a common stomach flu. It seems she has appendicitis which has most likely already burst (if that's the correct term, I wouldn't have a clue) and they're going to operate her tonight. So much for a normal Christmas for me. We don't know yet when she'll get home, since she obviously has a serious infection going on. I so wish they'll pump her up with antibiotics or something so the infection will heal and she'll be able to come home for Christmas Eve.

Pretty please?

Dust, papers and dusty papers

Atchoo! *dust settling down after vigorous cleaning*

I've been busy today and it's finally beginning to feel and look like Christmas in my apartment. Today's job was to clean up my study. A tiny room filled with papers, notes, books, binders and dust. I haven't seen the top of my table for quite some time until today.

The process is as this. I clean the living room, move all extra stuff into the bedroom and the study. Then I tidy up the bedroom and while I'm at it, I move all the extra stuff into the study... You see where this leads? Yes, a chaos in my study. I haven't got enough shelf space in here, so most of the stuff ends up in huge wobbly piles on the table. The kinds of piles that could surprise you with an avalanche, if you're not careful.

As you can probably guess I'm, unfortunately, one of those people who throw nothing away. However, I steeled my heart today and carried out almost four big plastic bags full of stuff. Four! Two bags of paper to be recycled and two bags of miscellanous bits and pieces I will never miss.

Before the ending was this happy, the above mentioned process of cleaning had to be gone through in miniature.

In order to clean up the table, I had to clean up quite a few binders. Sort out which papers were still needed and which were not. Turns out, most were not... After cleaning up the binders, I could stuff the binders with new papers. I'm sure I'll be cleaning some of those papers away next year, but hey, at least I have a clean table for the time being. I'll worry about the whereabouts of each parchment later. Cleaning up the table means that my almost foolproof system of archiving has momentarily gone into a state of deep shock, you see. Things are suddenly where they should be - the official documents from the different board meetings of different societies are actually filed away into the proper binders. Ooo, misleading...

Now I only have to do minor touch ups here and there plus vacuum the whole apartment. Then I'm ready to head towards Nousiainen to spend most of my holidays there... Seems dumb, but I have to admit that Christmas is just the kind of excuse I need to get everything done. And besides, mom and dad are going to stop by my place for glögi on Christmas Eve, after the "declaration of Christmas peace". We'll sit at my place while the traffic settles down. (Those of you who've seen the traffic around these corners about 20 minutes past noon on Christmas Eve know what I'm talking about.) So it's nice to have a clean home.

Clean home that smells of gingerbread cookies! Whee! I just got the last bunch out of the oven, yummy! I haven't made any cookies or pastries or anything for myself before. Most of the years I've lived away from home I've been working like crazy during these last two, three weeks before Christmas. This is the season of selling books. Now that I don't work at the bookstore anymore, it suddenly gives me a lot more time to prepare for Christmas. I don't think I'll ever again (before retirement) have a December like this. Some studying (and thesis writing, for sure) but otherwise nothing else. I've had time to hop into a bus, ex tempore, and go shop with Tytti or drive to mom & dad's to spend the day there. I love it. I just love it. :) If I were a millionaire, this is the way I'd always spend December.

Feeling good, Christmassy and happy. I hope the snow doesn't melt before Sunday...

Not your typical idol

"You're our idol, Johanna! May we get your autograph?" This is what my dance class students said to me (grinning widely) after the show was over last night. They had seen me perform in two dances, a khaleegy group dance and an estrade trio with my friends Heli and Satu. I told them I'd give them the autographs in January, if they still wanted them then...

The dances went surprisingly well. The stage was about the size of a stamp and a bit tilted towards the audience (always a small yikes-factor there). Made it very interesting to dance a group dance of six people. Especially wearing khaleegy dresses, which require a bit of room to handle. They really are gorgeous pieces of clothing, but the sequins and such are a hazard. If you don't leave enough room between two dancers wearing these dresses, the dresses get mingled up and then there's nothing else to do but rip them apart while sequins and beads fly about (and naturally the dance goes on and the smiles never fade)... Phew, luckily I didn't get stuck with anyone.

I love that dress, too bad there's really not that many occasions for me to use it. Of course we'll be performing that same choreography in a few shows in the spring, but after that... Khaleegy dances aren't that common in dance group repertoires. I think I'll have to suggest to Heli that we'd warm up an old khaleegy choreography we had five-six years ago.

The second dance I was in was the estrade choreography made by Sirke Seppänen - the one I learned on that weekend course in October. We'd been able to rehearse it together (the three of us, Satu, Heli and myself) only once, so I wasn't feeling that comfortable at all with that. Not only was there the choreography I thought I wasn't quite up to, but also my dress was causing me misery. I don't have a decent dress for estrade. I only have one dress, and I've been using it for a while already. I'm so not happy with it. It'd need some remodelling and some more decorations (more sequines and beads and such, that is) and it still would only be an ok dress, not a gorgeous one. So I was having some serious thoughts of self-loathing before getting on stage. I can't dance, I have an ugly dress, and so on.

The best part of the whole thing was, however miserable I felt about the dance and the dress before, that we did manage to get through the dance well enough and we got very good feedback afterwards. I don't care how objective the opinions were (or were not), but at least two people said our performance was one of the absolute best ones. Whee. That, if anything, is a boost for my lately very low self esteem. And maybe the dress problem will be solved in a while, since I'm having a dress made for me and we (Heli, Satu and I) did plan on having dresses made for us soon for occasions like this, when we perform as a trio. It's so important to feel comfortable in your dress when you perform. I'd like to be able to not worry about dress questions and concentrate on learning the choreographies... One of these days, I'm sure...

Oh well. I suppose I'll post this now. The weather outside is not very nice (pouring rain, strong gusts of wind), but I had thought I'd do the rest of my Christmas shopping today, which would mean I'll have to defy the weather at least for a while - as long as it takes me to get to the bus stop and the bus to come...

Hoping for a white Christmas

They said in the radio just a while ago that there's about a 50% chance of a white Christmas in the whole country. If someone would've asked my opinion, I'd probably have said that the odds of that happening would be slim to none. It's pouring rain at the moment, has been for quite some time too. I would've put my money on wet Christmas instead of white. But if they say so, I'm looking forward to next week. It's supposed to be snowing then. I'll keep my fingers crossed (and my money safely on my account).

Despite the miserable weather, I've been in a pretty good mood lately. Lots of fun stuff going on (lots of Horatio Hornblower, Lord of the Rings, friends, glögi...) and there's still more to come. My infernally bad luck hasn't even been bothering me as much, knock on wood, though.

Yesterday I went to the seminar to hear the verdict on the introduction to my thesis. There wasn't a big attendance, but the discussion was nice. My works in general don't tend to raise that many questions, can't really figure out why, but oh well. In the seminar it's most likely in part due to the fact that the other people really can't be expected to know much about the subject. Which was aptly demonstrated to me by a few elementary questions about a few terms I had used. I need to provide a few explanations quite early on in my text. Otherwise the poor reader falls off the train before I even get it going properly. Don't want that, now do I?

What was really great about finally getting something done about the accursed thesis in the first place was that after the seminar gave me good feedback, I felt like I could get the project going now. I think I'm even slightly excited about the thing now. :) I still have to present a full chapter to the seminar, and I set myself a deadline for that. I'll have to turn it in in March. Before that I'll write the background chapter (I should get that done quite soon now) and hope that my primary materials will arrive from England, Malta and where ever before that. Hopefully the whole thing would be finished sometime in the late spring. Or at least one can hope. :)

Have you ever had the feeling that some odd event from your past is most likely going to come back and haunt you at some very awkward moment? Yep, me too. Ben had kindly done me a favor and copied an old c-tape to a cd. It was a tape of me, my brother and our eldest cousin Anniina (and our parents) singing Christmas songs. The tape was originally made some 20 years ago and we gave it to grandma & grandpa as a gift. They found the tape last Christmas and you can guess what we listened to on Christmas eve... Well, mom and dad then had the marvellous idea of getting the precious material preserved into a bit more reliable form, so I asked Ben if he could help and he promised. (Thank you!)

I took the cd to mom&dad yesterday and as we listened to it, mom got one of her...ermm... great ideas. We should re-record the thing now. Well, in one word - nowayinheck! I'm not singing Rudolp the Red-Nosed Reindeer anywhere near a recording device of any kind. I'm happy singing alone in the car, but that's about it. :) But the feeling of the haunting past? If I need to elaborate further, you haven't been using your imagination and I'd rather keep it that way. ;) So Ben, please destroy the file...

I'm learning nautical terms bit by bit. Oh yes, I'm referring to you-should-know-by-now-who and his adventures. I borrowed a few interesting books from dad yesterday and had a few good laughs with dad trying to understand the different terms. Luckily dad has some experience on boats and ships, thanks to the sea rescue service he's been volunteering in. So when I was desperately trying to understand which is way leeward and which windward, dad had a few good pointers. Mom must've thought us crazy, when we were waving our hands this way and that in the livingroom trying to demonstrate the direction of the wind and of the sails in relation to the wind. One of those lovely father-daughter moments there.

Oops, gotta go wash the dishes. Satu's coming to rehearse the choreographies for tomorrow's dance recital and I have a mess in the kitchen. That won't do, not at all.

Namarië!

It's really quite sad. There's not going to be a Lord of the Rings premiere this year, no waiting in line for the tickets, no traces of the unique anticipation of completely new LotR footage - except for a lovely 50 minutes that I purchased (along, of course, the rest of the Extended Edition movie, plus a Minas Tirith statue and an extra dvd of the LotR Symphony) yesterday, without having to stand in line for it over night. Almost seemed too easy, mind you...

The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King Special Extended Edition dvd came out yesterday and quite obviously I went and got it immediately. This year, thanks to the paycheck from Nousiainen, I had the money to buy the collector's dvd gift set, which included the abovementioned extra stuff. Whee! Once again, I found happiness in material things, I admit it...

The magic of the movie is still there, most definitely. I cried, I laughed - just as I have done before with every single part of this movie trilogy. I don't know if I'm going to sound like a know-nothing-accept-all-without-criticism -kinda gal for saying the following about the Return of the King SEE, but do I look like I care? Well, if you'd see me, you'd see that I don't look like I care. So I can say this without any worries. I loved it. So sue me.

One of my favorite additions was the drinking game between Gimli and Legolas. ;) For quite some time I've wanted to see on big screen (well, small television, krhm) how the elves cope with the drink. Quite well, it seems. I remember once reading a fanfic that had a drinking game between Aragorn and Legolas and I thought it was hilarious. This scene, however, wasn't exactly a rotfl kind of scene, but very amusing nevertheless. Such dignity and poise on behalf of the elf. Simply endearing. As if he'd need to do anything but appear on screen to be endearing, but you know, even more so in this case. *grin*

There were some very touching additions, like the scene where Éomer finds his sister fallen on the battlefield. The cry of pain is truly genuine. Some of the additions, on the other hand, were there to explain a few gaps in the theatrical release. Like the one where Gandalf has his staff when he begins his ride towards the Citadel to save Faramir but has somehow lost it on the way, since he arrives without it. Well, duh. He had to fight with the Witch King on his way up and that's how the staff gets lost. Or blown into smithereens, if I'm to be more accurate. Even though this particular scene does explain one mysterious prop question, there are quite a few left unanswered for. For example the elven cloaks. Sam and Frodo misplace theirs somewhere in Mordor and clearly don't have them when they sit on the lonely rock right next to the massive lava flow. Do they get new ones from Galadriel later, when they've recovered, since all the hobbits have theirs in Grey Havens again? Oh well, I don't think I'll do any more of this nit-picking, it's best done with friends and with a glass of cider to the side - not alone by the computer.

Seeing this movie for the umphteenth time was still a fresh experience. I don't think I'll ever get bored of the Lord of the Rings. The spellbinding story and it's themes, friendship, leadership, love, good and evil are going to pull me towards my bookshelf time after time. Whether I'll grab the dvd boxes or the book doesn't really matter. It's all going to be there, all the excitement, heroics, gallantry, drama and sense of true wonder I look for in a good piece of the fantastic. So, finally, it's time to say farewell to Peter Jackson and his cast and crew - thanks for the wonderful movie experiences. I'm eagerly waiting for the Hobbit, now. (Here ends the part of this post where I have no criticism whatsoever, I hope.)

On the topic of my bookshelf, then. It got an addition of 3,6 metres yesterday! Whee! Now there's actually a bit of room for new books, which hasn't been the case in years. If there's anything I love, it's organizing my bookshelf. I couldn't even watch RotK yesterday, because I had to rethink the order of the books. (Well, I did have dance rehearsals too.) Plain alphabet would be too easy, you see. There has to be a separate shelf for favorite books, which then are alphabetically in order within that group. Then there is the section of professional literature (non-fiction, mainly history and such), alphabetically organized, the section of epic literature and myths, non-sf-literature, sf-literature and so on...

There's only one thing now that slows down the process of rearranging the whole bookshelf. I haven't yet had the time (or the patience) to sit down and list all the books in my "library database", which really is only a list of the books I have, but it's a nifty little piece of freeware I downloaded a while ago. I've listed a little under 300 books so far and I think I have at least as many to go through yet. I'd so love to have a fancy barcode reading device to ease the job, but then again, it'd remind me too much of the time I worked at the bookstore. It's not nearly as much fun to arrange the shelves in the store, because there are all those annoying customers who come and mess everything up about nine seconds after you've left the shelf in perfect order. It doesn't pay anything nearly enough to be a career for me. I'll be happy fussing about my own shelves, thankyouverymuch.

All in all, I've been about as happy as can be for the last couple of days. I got the introductory section of my thesis (the first draft of it) done late on Thursday and turned it in yesterday. It's going to be discussed in much detail on Tuesday in seminar, which may turn my mood for the worse, but hey, that's not before Tuesday. And since I know I've got some major gaps in the introduction, I'll be prepared for a public hanging. I'm such a good sport, aren't I?

A tired good sport. Nighty night.

My life (or Bridget's?)

There. It's official. I've been labelled a nearly impossible case. Or that's how I think it has to be understood. Why? Well, let me tell you.

I got an sms-message from mom today. It said my aunt (her younger sister & my godmother, that is) had found me a perfect man. This of course made me ask a few short questions. Tall? Dark? Handsome? Intelligent? Available? ...heterosexual?? Which then lead to a phonecall from mom. She told me she'd called her sister to talk about arrangements for Christmas and my darling aunt had announced she had found a perfect son-in-law for my mother. A handsome, tall and dark guy, my age, successfull at his job (a salesperson for a medical company of some sort) and on top of all this, also gentlemanlike. (Oy, I think I like the sound of him!) Before I had time to ask, mom said that her sister had told this guy about me and he'd said I sound very nice, but unfortunately he lives quite far away from Turku. So... Whattheheck did she tell him about me??? Oh dear, I don't think I actually want to know. I think it's enough to know that my relatives are already trying to arrange a marriage for me, so that makes me officially a nearly impossible case, if any...

You know, this'd be perfect, if I'd meet this person one day and he'd be wearing a funny piece of knitwear... A woolly jumper with a snowman on it? Oh wait, that's Bridget's life, not mine...

As I promised, a few words about the new Bridget Jones -movie. I liked it. I loved Mr. Darcy, of course, but I did enjoy watching the whole movie, too. A harmless piece of entertainment with jokes that made me laugh, embarrassing moments that made me blush for Bridget's sake and a darned good soundtrack. I'm not so sure I related to this movie as strongly as I did to the first one (see above for the possible explanations), but I suppose this was meant to be the consolation for us singles only in our late-twenties: don't worry quite yet, you've still got a few more good years before it's waaayyy too late. :) So Satu, if you haven't seen it yet, gogogo already! And if you want to know more before you go (not the official reviews, that is), visit Tytti's blog. She got the word on this one.

A short Hornblower comment has to be made at this point. The discs (that I complained about in the post that is still missing) work just fine in my parents' dvd player, so I managed to watch two more episodes yesterday while visiting... *swoon* Did I ever mention Ioan Gruffudd is gorgeous? Now I only have three more episodes to watch, boohoo. I also finished reading the second novel today and my gosh, it's been enjoyable.

There, now I've already missed the beginning of C.S.I. so this is it. I must go. :)

Oh, woe! - Where art thou?

Why do my posts keep disappearing mysteriously every once and a while? I get confused emails from my friends asking what has happened to my blog, where are such and such posts and so on. Not fair, I say. I've had my share of unbelievably bad luck lately, why can't this world treat me a bit better for a change? Pretty please?

I suppose I'll have to wait and see, if that lost post will reappear in a while and if not, the support of blogger.com is going to get one agitated email. I could, at the same time, ask about my profile and why doesn't it update at all? It still claims I've only made 12 postings and somehow I think there are a few more by now... But until later, I'm just going to have to let this matter go, I've got to go do some real work. Blah, blah, blah. The day's not looking too great right now.

Happy 87th!

Happy birthday, Finland!

Independence day. I could say how proud I am to be Finnish and how I am, along with all of the younger generations of Finns, ever thankful to those great men and women who fought and served in the wars and kept Finland an independent nation. Men like my grandpa, who survived the war that ended 60 years ago. And I will say it. Or to be more exact, I did say it. It's all a cliché, but I don't care. I love being Finnish and there's just no place like home. :)

A bit of patriotism there to finish off the day. I've watched the presidential independence day reception on tv (some very elegant gowns tonight and obviously some not so), had coffee and cake at my grandparent's and that's about it. Just the way things in my family are supposed to be on December the 6th. Calm and quiet, that is. :)

Tomorrow sees me (hopefully) finishing a few more pages of the introduction to my thesis, so I'd better keep this short and sweet tonight. Like so. Happy 87th, Finland, and let's hope there'll be hundreds and hundreds more!

Hands wear ship!

Take a turn round the cleat, you fool! You are close-hauled on the port tack. The wind veers four points and takes you flat aback. You're dismasted. Heave to! Main tops'l braces. Helm-a-lee.

This is what I've been enjoying the last few days. Maritime jargon. I don't understand half of it, but I doubt if I would even if it were in Finnish. I'm reading Horatio Hornblower's adventures in C.S. Forester's novel Mr. Midshipman Hornblower and I'm having a blast. The stories do tend to lose a bit, when the reader (me, that is) doesn't have a clue every now and then, but Forester has a talent in telling adventurous stories. I think I'll have to buy a companion to the books so I'll understand what the characters are doing when the command "Hands wear ship!" is given by Captain Pellew or some lower ranking officer of the crew.

Besides the skill of telling good stories, Forester has truly described a completely & utterly amiable character in Hornblower. Young Horatio is such a sympathetic and honourable person that it's a joy to read about his trials. He's described as completely tone-deaf , a bit clumsy and very shy at times. Not to mention the fact that he stutters a bit, when he's nervous. Isn't that just cute for a character that you would expect to be tough and bold. He is all that, too, but the weaknesses he has make him just a bit more convincing a character.

By the way, the boxed set of all the eight Hornblower movies I ordered from play.com arrived yesterday. Huzzah! (I even had the good fortune that the shipment wasn't caught in customs...) There's a visual companion for the books, if anywhere. Not that I'll be able to recognise the names of the different parts of the ships when I see them, either, but at least I'm going to be able to see them. So what if a piece of wooden knick-knack is called something-rather, at least I'll know what it looks like. After watching the movies a dozen times I may even learn to name the knick-knacks without help. What I've already learned (from the book, though) that on a ship, there is a place called poop. Honestly. I did not know that. Learning is fun. :)

The scripts (so far for three movies) are delightfully well adapted from the books, almost line by line sometimes. Some additions have been made, for sure. For example you can't very well have a young and gorgeous officer completely without a romantic interest, now can you? So there's a French girl in the movie version of The Frogs and the Lobsters and she doesn't exist in the book, but well, who cares. She dies anyway... :) But the point I was going to make was that it's nice to watch the movies and try to learn the jargon from there. There are no subtitles in these movies, so it takes a while to get a hold of the English that's been used. I was proud of myself last night, though, when eventually I did manage to understand even the French lines uttered by Mr. Hornblower. My compliments to Ioan for such nice and clear pronunciation!

What else... Oh, today was the last dance class in Lieto for almost a month and a half! Hooray! Now I only have twelve more weeks to go from January on, before I can finally forget about planning dance classes for at least a few years. I'll have to try to find some motivation for the classes during this Christmas break, otherwise it'll be a loooong spring. Maybe the dance recital we're going to have on the 16th will do the trick. I'll be dancing in two dances in the show, a traditional khaleegy dance and an balady number with a veil. No solos, though. Lucky me. I can now mess up a whole group's whereabouts on the stage by doing something like, say, forgetting the choreography... :)

I'm going Christmas shopping with Satu tomorrow, yay! I haven't got any ideas what I could buy for people. For my brother, to be exact. He didn't even give me any hints when I asked about it a few days ago. He says he doesn't need anything. Yeah, right. I'll have to see if something inspires me tomorrow. If nothing else gets done, at least we'll have had a wonderful day at the mall. Lunch, coffee breaks and so on. Whee!

It's going to be a busy and fun weekend. (Note to self: don't forget the thesis!) Tomorrow, shopping and dance practice, on Saturday it's time for the Turku Science Fiction Society's pre-Christmas party (with lots of good food, I'm told) and on Sunday I'm going to go to see the new Bridget Jones movie with the girls. I'm so looking forward to having lots and lots of fun with my friends. This is exactly what preparing for Christmas should be like. Spending time with your friends and relaxing. Well, I suppose I'll relax this weekend, stress the next three weeks and finally on Christmas Eve, I'm going to be as happy as ever. And not stressed out, at all. :) I'm so looking forward to a very nice and traditional family Christmas, too.

A lot to look forward to, isn't there? Oh, almost forgot. I'm so excited about the upcoming LotR - RotK extended edition, too! I'm going to get the collector's edition with a Minas Tirith miniature! Expensive as heck, but I don't care. One more Christmas present for me, from me. :) Those are the best. :)

Ok, I'm nearing a delirious state now with all of these upcoming excitements, so I'd better go and relax. Watch a Hornblower movie...