Mere three weeks

It was all I needed. Three more weeks. But no, surely it would've been asking for too much. Thanks a bunch, whatever deities decide over cars and how they work.

Mine didn't today and I'm majorly pissed off about it. The darling old Skoda of mine should've worked for three more weeks and then I would've been done with the dance lessons in Parainen and Lieto. I'm going to have to try again tomorrow, but if it doesn't cooperate, I'm forced to begin my biking season to get to Uittamo to fetch the Peugeot from grandpa. Today was a mix of getting my brother to drop me off at grandma's & grandpa's, getting their car & driving it back and forth to Parainen (I ended up being late from class because all of this) and eventually walking home later in the evening. I don't mind walking, but all in all I would've preferred a car that works...

It just felt like it wasn't my day today. Sometimes I do wonder why on some days I feel so out of tune with the world, even though the day would've been quite ok for the most part. Like today was. I got to go shopping for the materials for the Eximia course (well, two thirds anyway, now I have to wait another two weeks for the bookstore to get the last book for me, aagh), bought the last Harry Potter novel (finally!) for myself (got a good discount) and even found a decent movie soundtrack cd for only 2 euros. (A bargain, that one!)

Why is it that some days just don't match your life? Come to think of it, it could actually be a sign of the Matrix actually existing... The days that don't feel like they are "yours" would actually be a mistake in the programming and were meant for someone else. Wouldn't that be annoying?

Nah, the theory isn't very good. I suppose I like the old saying of getting up on the wrong foot better. Except that I get out of bed on the same foot every morning, since my bed is in the corner and it's just natural to roll out the same way every day. What made this morning different from any other? I still have a problem.

I hope some of my problems will be solved tomorrow. I so hope I'll finally get the word that the first Spin of the year is ready for print, that I actually get some serious studying done (for a political science exam and the Eximia course) and that I can drive my own car to Lieto in the evening. I don't think it'd be too arrogant of me to wish for all of this. Right? Right.

First week of spring

What a wonderful week it has been. On Wednesday I actually smelled the spring in the air for the first time. I love the smell of spring. Earthy, sunny, full of life. The sun has been shining almost all week and the temperatures have been above zero (Celsius, that is) almost every day, quickly melting away the snow. It's just wonderful to watch and listen how spring is really coming.

There are birds singing, too. Suddenly there are so many voices out there, after a silent winter. Last evening I actually heard a bird that is quite typically a summer night singer. (I'm not very good at recognising birds, but I know this one - except for its name in English, heh.) It made me feel really happy. I was almost as thrilled when I heard a seagull earlier this week. As I live in a city by the sea, the returning seagulls are a sure sign (and sound) of summer coming.

I'm sure the winter has a few more tricks up its sleeve, but I don't mind. I know it's time for spring to win the competition. I love the springtime. It's always such a nice surprise after a long and dark winter. I don't think I'll ever get tired of the wonder of the days growing longer. It happens every year and every year it has to be marveled at: "Isn't it wonderfully light out there although it's already 6 p.m.?" Ahh, I'm a spring person.

There are, however, a few cons to balance all the pros of spring. The gravel on the streets, for example. It's no longer needed, because there isn't any ice, but not all the maintenance companies are very swift in sweeping it away. The maintenance company of our apartment buildings being one of them. Our neighboring houses have already cleaned up their parts of the pavement and parking lots, but it's still rittlerattle around my building. *sigh*

One other thing comes to mind when I sit here by the computer. My windows. Not the kind that I have in the computer, but the kind I can see through. Or I would, if I washed them... The bright spring sun just highlights all the dust and dirt that the windows have on them. I think I'll have to wait till the weather warms up yet a bit, before I start washing them, though. Until then I'm going to have to watch everything through a sheet of dust.

A definite pro of the spring is that I can't wait to get my bike out. Walking is fine, but I greatly prefer biking, if it's possible. During the winter it isn't, because I'm such a wuss. I simply don't dare to bike when the roads are icy, because I'm afraid of falling down. So spring means that eventually all the roads will be safe (or at least not icy anymore) and I'll be able to get to places quicker. "But you have a car", some might say. Sure, the old faithful has survived yet another winter (knock on wood), but I don't usually drive it to places I can go to by bike. Cheaper, more ecological and well, cheaper. :) But now that I mentioned the car, I have to keep in mind to wash it this weekend when I go to Nousiainen. The dirt on that poor vehicle, huh.

Well. It's just such a nice weather outside (+8 degrees and the brightest blue sky, whee!) that I won't waste a minute longer sitting inside. I'm going out for a long walk. I'll listen to the birds, smell the air, probably soak my shoes in the melting snow, but in any case I'll draw in every single ray of light. Maybe I'll even try to walk my face toward the sun all the time. I think I must've been a plant in a previous life... :)

Happy Easter, everyone.

An experiment with pictures

A presentable trio, this one. Tytti, yours truly and Kirsi all in festive mood last fall. I'm posting this picture just because I'm learning how to use the picture posting program... :)

Problems with makeup

"Makeup of makeup artists", yeah right. Any makeup artist using this product is seriously endangering the customers face. This particular kind of makeup almost ruined a perfectly fun evening for me. It most certainly did ruin my Sunday, so in a while an international makeup manufacturer is going to get some very stern customer feedback.

Mom had given me this lipgloss and the "finishing touch" -stuff, because it hadn't suited her. Since I've never had any problems wearing any makeup, I was willing to try it. I put some on for Saturday evening when I left for the "Fab 11" -party I was invited to (which, btw, was a great party - thanks to everyone involved!). Soon I noticed a burning sensation in my lips and had to wash the gloss off. Unfortunately it didn't help much, and my lips were very irritated by the time I got home. Well, I thought, it can't get much worse than this.

I was wrong. So very wrong. First of all, I woke up at 5 a.m. with an even worse burning sensation. I had to get some ice from the freezer to cool my mouth with before I was able to sleep again. When I finally got up later that morning, a horrid looking "Courtney Love with bad lip implants" creature was staring at me from the mirror. What the...? I looked awful, my lips all swollen and very irritated, almost blistering.

So I spent my morning and the better part of the afternoon sitting in front of the tv holding ice to my mouth to reduce the swelling. When it was time to leave to Uusikaupunki for dance rehearsals, I was looking less awful, but still noticeably odd. As I am today. What the heck do they have in that finishing touch -stuff? My reaction feels like I would've been using some kind of acid as lipgloss... Geez.

I'm so happy I had the test lecture thing last week, I would've hated to look like this when trying to convince people I'd be the best possible choice for the job.

Which, by the way, I managed to do! I got the job! Hooray! I'm going to be the teacher of the history prep course in May! They called me this morning with the good news. I'm so happy about it I could almost forget the face problem, unless my lips weren't still burning. I have to contact my professor and ask him, if this job would qualify for a few study credits for my advanced studies. I'm sure it will. It should, anyway. And then I'm going to have to begin to read through the required books myself... Yay!

Whee! What a good start for the week, despite the makeup problem. :)

More things to do and less time to do it?

Oy, my schedules... As you've probably noticed from the lack of updates around here, I've been way too busy lately. How is it that everything always piles up? Especially everything I need to do. I so need a vacation. :)

Anyhow, despite the nagging feeling that I haven't been able to accomplish anything lately, I have actually been a busy little bee. I passed the exam I took last Friday (with flying colors, too!) and now there's one less exam to take before graduation. Yay! Only two more on the various topics of political sciences, one on the corporate economics (blergh, hate it) and then there are a few loose ends to tie up at the history department. Shouldn't be a problem, though. Especially, if I get the job at Eximia, I could probably get some study credits from that too.

About the job at Eximia, then. I went and gave the sample lecture on Tuesday and I think it went well enough. The lady who was there to "judge me", was very nice and after my lecture we talked for about 40 minutes extra. She told me about the details of the job, and I couldn't but wonder if that was a good sign or not. But since I have no idea of the level of competition I'm facing, I simply don't know if I'll get the job or not. They said they'd inform me next week. I hope I get it. It'd be great. It'd be very challenging to teach people who are seriously motivated to learn history.

I'm not saying that kind of students are totally non-existent in normal classrooms (well, where would the historians come from if not from regular classes?), but instead there are always some kids who couldn't care less and are just sitting in the classroom because they have to. I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be people like that on this course. At the price they're paying, I'd be surprised to see one of them nod off during class... Oh, but in that case the fault would be mine, oops. Well, I'll just have to prepare absolutely amazing lessons, if I get the job. ;)

On to a totally unrelated matter. I have a new(er) computer now! Yippee! And a new big(er) and non-broken screen, too! Whee! And can you believe it, I was able to install quite a lot of programs and such all by myself. Aren't I the cleverest? :) I'm sure I haven't done anything remarkable here, but since I am an honest simpleton when it comes to computers, I have to boast a bit. There are only a few problems left to solve. Like my other email account. I can't access it yet, I suppose it has to do with the different servers for incoming and outgoing emails. Or some other detail in the account settings I've failed to locate so far. Will have to work on it.

As is the case with the old email address book of mine. It was copied from my old computer to the new one, but I can't for the life of me import it into the new program. Darn. Oh, and what really bums me out is that I completely forgot to mention to Mikko, who put this new machine together, that I hadn't had time to make a copy of my old bookmarks folder... So now I'm in the middle of a very slow process of trying to find all the important webpages again. That, to be honest, sucks so bad.

Luckily there are some good distractions available, so I don't have to keep fretting about problems like that all the time. I completely forget them when I watch the episodes of the final season of Angel. I think I have four more episodes left and then there are no more, ever. *snif* Why do all the really good series come to an end so soon? Only five seasons? I would've liked to watch at least five more. Especially with Spike on the show, too. Yummy.

I can't hype about everything that happens yet, because the season is being shown on tv too, and I don't want to spoil it for those, who are watching it an episode per week... But I do have to say I one of my favorite moments was when a character called Ratio Hornblower was introduced! ;)

Hmm. I'm sure there was (once again) a million other things I was going to babble about, but I'm letting you off the hook now. Or soon, at least. :) I still have all the stuff I couldn't sell last Saturday (our second flea market trip with Satu, not as much income as the previous time & place) lying around the apartment. I need to do something about it. Preferably sooner than later.

Or maybe I should write the "learning diary" for yesterday's Shakespeare -lecture. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this course that began yesterday. It's about hearing Shakespeare, using Hamlet as an example. The lecturer (Bruce Johnson) comes from Australia, and it was so much fun listening to him. Not to mention interesting. Yesterday we discussed the transition from the culture of listening to a culture of seeing, from the spiritual perspective of the medieval world to the more dynamic and physical views of the reneissance. It was all very interesting. Compared to the Finnish dialects course, which is frustrating me more and more every week. Gaah. I won't get into that now, though. In fact, I'm going to not get into anything anymore. This'll be enough for now. :)

That was fast

My goodness. I don't think I've ever written a job application and received an invitation to present myself quicker than today. I had decided I'd apply for a history prep course teacher's position, because the job description fit me better than well.

The company asked for an informal application via email, which I finally sent them today, about 10 a.m.. The deadline, according to the job ad, is on the 13th (which is Sunday), so I didn't expect to hear anything from them until on Monday, at the earliest.

You can imagine my surprise when I answered my phone this afternoon (around 5 p.m.) and it was a cheery sounding woman calling about my application. She asked me a few questions (like the topic of my thesis and so on) and told me I was invited to give a sample lecture next Tuesday. Whoa! That, my friends, was some quick action! Seven hours from sending the application to a sort of a job interview and an invitation to give a sample lesson. Seven hours! Yay!

So, come next Tuesday, I'll be lecturing for about half an hour about any aspect of 19th century history (the catch being that there's only one person listening). Wow. That should be a piece of cake. I was given advice that the lecture should show my expertise on the matter (no prob, in a week I can become an expert on anything, heh), give proof of my presentation skills (should be no problem either) and on top of it all it should be motivating. Aren't I always? :) I already chose a topic, which I can easily connect with the actual university entrance exam (I had to study the same subject for my exam way back when...) and which will sound interesting. I hope. :)

All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about this - I hope there are no better qualified candidates around... The lady on the phone said that they only invite a few of the best candidates to give a sample lecture, so I'm already one step ahead. Whee! The job's not going to involve more than 30 hours of teaching though, so we're not talking about fortunes here, but hey, I'm not complaining. I'll take anything I get and if the job fits my specific field of education, I'm going to be even more glad about it. So, keep your fingers crossed for me on Tuesday!

The truth in dreams

I've got some serious problems, it seems. With my bed and my pillow. I desperately need to get a new mattress, because my back hurts in the morning. (Shush there, Sarin and Tytti! I know what you're thinking. I'm getting old, too...) I've never had problems like that before, probably partly due to all the dancing which keeps my back in some sort of shape. I hope.

However, I don't consider my back the biggest problem. Why? Because I haven't had any bad dreams about broken backs yet. But I had this really weird and disturbing dream about my neck the other night...

I had slept in a somehow crooked position a few nights ago and thanks to that and my poor excuse for a pillow, I had a really nasty crick in my neck on Sunday. Ouch. So what does my subconscious tell me the next night? Get a new pillow! This was how it was told to me in my dream.

In this dream I was at a party or something with a bunch of friends and when I left the livingroom to check my makeup or something in front of a mirror, I noticed this huge lump in my neck. And I mean huge. Like a loaf of bread large (and actually shaped like a loaf of bread too, like sticking out of the back of my neck - blergh). In my neck! Quite naturally I freaked out and yelled to all my friends "Why didn't you say anything about this to me??", which of course makes them freak out and call an ambulance. So the ambulance arrives and in come the nice paramedics. Two young guys who call me Mrs (oh, how I hate them for it!) and make me lie down on the wossitsnamebedthingie, which I absolutely hate (even more than the Mrs part). I tell them over and over again that I can walk, because the problem is in my neck, not my feet. They just keep patronizing over me like good little paramedics and I'm freaking out more and more by the minute. I think the dream ended when the doctor tells me there's nothing to be worried about and to be sure, the lump begins to grow smaller. Jeez...

Serious note to self: buy new pillow. Soon! Or maybe buy fewer bread loafs? I can't be sure, really...

However, after I get the new pillow (or no more bread loafs), I'd better try to watch less of Pimp My Ride... And yes, this truth was also revealed to me in dreams. I think I ought to worry, when I start to dream about being personal friends with Xzibit and having him visit some summer cottage somewhere (which I obviously don't have), where I'm hosting a huge party for loads and loads of people...

Weird, but fun. Well, the lump wasn't fun when I was dreaming about it, but I did wake up feeling quite amused despite the crick in my neck - which had also taken a turn for the better.

Folks, listen to your dreams. They'll teach you something one of these days. Or not. :)

Fleamarket frenzy

Voluntarily waking up at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning? I must've been seriously out of my mind when agreeing to that! Up at five, setting up a fleamarket table about an hour later...

Yes, Satu and I went to sell some of our old stuff (clothes, books, cheap-o jewellery etc.) at a local fleamarket yesterday. Satu is about to move to a smaller apartment, so she wants to get rid of all the useless trinkets and I just want to clean up my closets. And make a few euros while at it.

In preparation for Sunday I had been working as a de facto laundromat for a week. First I had rummaged through all my closets and piled loads and loads of old clothes in the middle of the livingroom floor. It's nicer to sell clean clothes, I thought, and so on Tuesday my task was to wash all of them. I honestly think I washed about 16 loads of laundry that day. From 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. And it wasn't much before midnight when I went to get the last dry clothes from the drying room. I never thought laundry could make me so dull-brained. I had to pop by the TSFS board meeting in the evening and I felt really grumpy and agitated all the time. Umph.

If only the washing of the laundry was all that was needed. But no. I couldn't very well go and sell clothes that are all crumpled. So I took upon me the task of ironing the stuff. Ohmigod. I'm such a slow person when it comes to ironing that it took me several hours to get everything ironed. I stayed up a few nights (well past midnight) ironing away... In my defence it has to be said that I watched tv at the same time, so didn't really notice the time. All I noticed was my aching back... (It's really not that nice to notice, to be honest.)

So did it pay off, all that work? Sort of, but not really, if you think of how much clothes I sold, or didn't sell, to be more exact. Most of my clothes stayed with me (it seems that the only pieces of clothing the people wanted to buy yesterday were black slacks, good thing that I had several pairs to sell), but luckily I got rid of my old tv (way cheaper than what I actually wanted to sell it for) and an old, big & ugly lamp.

The fleamarket seemed also to be the right place to sell old vhs-tapes. I had several movies I wanted to sell (I want to replace them with the dvd-versions), but lately it has become quite obvious that old vhs-movies aren't that easy to sell anymore. This was proven to be a misconception among the fleamarket people. The only movie I had to take back home when we finished the day, was a movie called 28 Days. But I think that's just my destiny. When I bought the movie, I bought it only because it had Viggo Mortensen in it and now it became quite clear he wants to stay with me. :) Which won't prevent me from trying to sell him again next time. So sorry, dearie.

Yes, the next time. Although it was the first time of going to the fleamarket to sell something for the both of us, we already planned on going again this week. We'll try a different place and this time it'll be on Saturday. Last night I immediately had to rummage my closets again, this time a bit more carefully, because it's darned addictive, the whole process. I won't be doing as much laundry this time (thank any deity for that), because all of the clothes I didn't sell yesterday are still going to be fine. Instead I'm going to try to rummage through my old kiddie stuff (some of my toys and such) in Nousiainen, maybe there'd be something I could sell.

All of this for a few lousy euros? Well, yes. I managed to sell stuff for about 100 euros yesterday. It's a fortune to me at the moment, so I'm more than happy to go through a bit of trouble for it. Although I don't expect to do as well next time, since I no longer have a tv to sell. (Or perhaps dad would have some gadgets I could try to turn into money...)

Ok, I think I'll wrap up for now. I have an exam on Friday (wohoo, I haven't had one of those in a while) and this week I'm going to have to seriously study for it. Less work on the thesis, more studying of the basics of the political systems and international politics. Wahey. My week's going to be all NGO's and such. Wish me luck. :)

And the Oscar goes to...

Ah, it was that time of year again. Time for the Academy Awards galore. Glamour, glamour, glamour. And a whole lot of bling bling to top it all.

I learned my lesson last year, when I only had a 3-hour tape for the gala. I actually missed the end, mainly the final thank you's of the RotK-crew. Gaah. It's not like that was the reason why I taped the whole show, oh no... Well, this year I was prepared with a 4-hour tape and it was probably the first time in years they were done with the giving away of little golden men ahead of schedule! Typical.

So I spent most of today in front of the tv, since I also visited Tytti and watched a few films with her in the afternoon. I just had to watch the whole show as soon as possible. (In other words, no thesis writing today - I'll make up for it tomorrow, though!) I'm funny that way, but not nearly funny enough to stay up from midnight till 7 a.m. to watch the live feed. Oh no, I need my sleep, hence the help of the VCR.

This year's awards were just a wee bit odd to watch since I haven't seen any of the most important nominated movies yet. Every time I think about renting Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I'm too late and there's no copy left in my neighboring movie rental place. Closer and Sideways only just opened in Finland, so I haven't had time to check those out yet. The Aviator has been showing for quite some time already, but I haven't found the time to go and see that, either. I don't know if I'm that interested in the Million Dollar Baby anyway (although I'm sure it's a marvellous movie, judging by its success last night) and Ray, well, I'd like to see that one day. The music'll surely be outstanding and Jamie Foxx seems to have gotten his Oscar for a truly exceptional performance. Finding Neverland I've got to see, but it will remain to be seen when the time for that will be. What else? Oh, I did see Shrek 2 and Kinsey, as I've mentioned before. And few others, that were nominated in some of the "smaller" categories.

As I don't have much to say about the movies (I'll be sure to return to those as soon as I see them) this time around, I'll just have to say a few other things I noted.

First of all. Could someone please tell me what was it all about with Beyoncé? Her French was horrific (please, take some tutorials or stick to English, ok?) and frankly, I would've loved to listen to someone else sing at least two of the tree songs she performed. Like the artists that performed them originally? How's that for a radical thought?

Secondly, I think there were some jaw-droppingly-gorgeous ladies (and at least one man, fortunately not wearing a gown) in equally stunning gowns & jewellery. They didn't show any major fashion fumbles (I've got to check some other place, like a mag or a website for those), but in my list there were a few sparkling diamonds based on what I saw. Literally and metaphorically speaking. Halle Berry. Reneé Zellweger. Natalie Portman. Above mentioned Beyoncé's jewellery during the song from The Phantom of the Opera. Scarlett Johansen's jewellery in her hairdo. Orlando Bloom.

Natalie Portman looked like a Greek nymph. She was simply elegant. Halle Berry's dress was very sleek and very sensual, IMO. And for Ms Jones - what an entrance! Reneé Z. glided through the stage in her red gown to present an award like she was royalty. The kilos she's lost after Bridget Jones 2! I only wish I could do the same. (I suppose I'll have to start saving up for a personal trainer too, among other things.)

Sigh. You know which job I'd really like to have? The job of one of the ladies who bring the statuettes to the stage and then escort the winners backstage. They get to wear nice dresses and hang with the stars on stage. Wouldn't that be fun? I'm sure it would. But how do I apply? I'm sure I'd be tall enough for the part, but I'm not so sure about the other requirements, though. There are bound to be other requirements. Oh well. A girl can dream, right?

Actually, the girl really needs to dream, literally. I'm about ready to start sleepwalking now. Or sleepblogging, to be more exact. In order to prevent this, I... *yawn* See my point? Better go. Ta ta.

Let's talk about sex

I saw a very thought provoking movie tonight. It was the movie Kinsey, starring Liam Neeson and Laura Linney. As you may (or may not) know, the movie is a biographical drama about the life of Alfred C. Kinsey, who did extensive and ground breaking research on human sexuality by interviewing thousands of people about their sexual experiences. And he did this during the 1940's and 1950's, a time when sexuality was a taboo in so many ways.

I couldn't help but think how brave this man had to be to face the prejudices of the time. Sure, he was a scientist and as scientists are known to break conventional ways of thinking, it shouldn't come as a surprise that he carried out what he'd planned to do. But still, in the 40's? It's one thing to think outside of, say, the box of physics or chemistry, but human sexuality? A whole different playground (no pun intended) back then. There were, according to the movie, for instance, people who thought oral sex would somehow result in problems when trying to have children (this is a belief I had never heard of) and of course those who thought masturbation is the way to get cancer and/or whatnot. The conservative (religious) moral values were probably making people feel really guilty for feelings of sexual pleasure. If that isn't a challenge for a research like Kinsey's, then I don't know what is.

What a different world it was. Or was it? It isn't that hard to guess who's been outraged by the portrait of a sex researcher. Yup, you got it. Conservative Christians. American conservative Christians. You surprised yet? In an article published in the Washington Post it's reported that the conservative groups are basically blaming Kinsey for everything from high divorce rates to AIDS and child abuse. Hello? Anyone with a brain out there?

I guess there are still quite a lot of people who think that sex is something dirty, sinful and unnatural. Once again I've found a group of people that I just can't understand. Of course this has quite a lot to do with the conservative religious views that are the ones I really don't get. I do think sex is a private matter (look who's talking and in what forum, ahem...) and that's fine. I just think it's one of the most natural things in life and I feel really sorry for those who feel that it's something they have to be ashamed for, or afraid of, for example. As long as it's a question of the likes and dislikes of consenting adults, I see no reason to make a big deal out of it. It's life. Has always been and will (hopefully) always be, from the beginning of time. No religion can deny that.

I could probably go on and on about the subject and many others that were dealt with in the movie, but I think that might get me so worked up that I'd stay up half the night and besides, who'd want to read that anyway... Instead I'll just say that I think the movie was well worth seeing. The acting was good, Laura Linney was even nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mrs. Kinsey, and I've always liked Liam Neeson. What also was good about the film, was that the director didn't dwell too much on the sex itself, which in my opinion is the obvious danger in stories like this, but built the story mostly in more subtle ways. He was really telling a story of a scientist, not of sex. And most important of all, the movie made me think. I always appreciate that.

I'd better go now, tomorrow's going to be a long day. We're going to Tampere (Tomi, Maarit, Leila and I) to a meeting of the Finnish sf-societies. It's going to be fun to see some of the familiar fandom faces again. Maybe even some new faces that we could encourage to join TSFS and read Spin. It'll btw be the first time the wider Finnish fandom meets me as the editor of Spin. Yikes. Not that I'm any different from a few months ago, but they may have some tough questions for me. Like questions about my visions of the future of Spin. I plan to get four Spins out this year? Would that be good enough an answer? Let's hope so. :)

Ten Things I've Done Others Might Not Have

As my day was pretty boring (did some editorial work, went to the Finnish dialects lecture and read some Erasmus of Rotterdam's The Praise of Folly and other texts for my thesis), I'll bore you out, too, with yet another meme. I got the idea from vierran45 who had taken the idea from someone else - well, you know how these things work.

I think it'd be cool to find out what other people may have done that I haven't and that's why I'll list here the ten things in my life I think not everyone has done. Most of them are such that I'm sure there are a lot of people who've done the same, but my life hasn't exactly been a treasure chest of completely unique experiences and adventures...

1. I've had lunch with Neil Gaiman.
Actually, it was Neil who ate and I was interviewing him at the same time (he'd agreed to this, so it's not like I interrupted his meal or anything). He was such a nice person to talk to and it was very gracious of him to answer my questions during his lunchbreak. I'm such a huge fan of his that this'll probably be an experience I'll remember forever. And I have the tapes of the interview as proof that this really happened!

2. I've had a Sandman original drawn for me by Bryan Talbot.
Well, this sort of relates to the previous one, doesn't it? Bryan Talbot was visiting in Turku in 2000 and I was there to interview him. And a long story made short, I asked him if he could draw me a picture of Sandman and he did. It's signed "for Johanna" and it hangs on my bedroom wall. My precious...

3. I've slept in the lobby of the local movie theatre.
This I can't claim is something others haven't done, since I had quite a few fellow sleepers there with me. We were waiting in line for the premier tickets of the Return of the King. We got there in the afternoon and stayed over night, since the tickets were sold in the morning. There were hundreds of people waiting and the lobby was a general area of group sleepiness during the night. What was funny about it though, was that at some point of the night (around 4 a.m. or so, if I remember right?) I and my friends ended up giving some advise to the manager of the theatre about the whole morning line up procedure... I just can't keep my hands off of anything I can organize..

4. I've been a high school football team mascot during a homecoming game.
I can't even remember how the thing actually came to be, but somehow (this was when I was an exchange student in the States) I ended up hopping about the football field in an eagle-suit... The head of that bird (it was called Jasper the Eagle, btw) was a huge thing and the body was a bright blue fake fur sort of material. So I was hot as heck inside and in addition actually got a minor claustrophobic attack while entertaining the crowd. The kids would come and bang on the head of the eagle, which felt totally uncomfortable inside - not to mention the fact that there was no way I could see where they were coming from. I didn't last till the half time show, I had to get out of the suit quickly after mingling with the audience. Phew. Ever since I've had a few doubts of ever wearing for example a motorcycle helmet... Go figure.

5. I've dined with a prince, a duke and a marquis in an old mansion.
Sounds really fancy, doesn't it? Maybe I ought not to explain anything about this and let you all believe I'm really popular among the royalty and live a life that's right out of a romance novel... :) Nah, this is the story. A few years back I was a conference assistant in a conference that dealt with the history of the knightly orders, such as the Order of Malta, the Templars, the Teutonic Knights and so on. Naturally there were quite a few knights attending and as it is, there still are some nobiliary requirements to some of these orders. For example for the Order of Malta. (Except that the lay members don't necessarily have to be noble (there are separate rules for this), and that's why the marquis of the above mentioned group once suggested that if I ever wanted to become a Dame of the Order, all I had to do was to become a Catholic and he'd speak on my behalf...Yeah.) However, the formal conference dinner took place in a very beautiful mansion and there were about 30 or so people there. It just happened that I was there too, with all the noble people I mentioned. Not as glamorous as I would like to think.

6. I've had a Finnish Olympic Team swimmer buy me drinks.
He just happens to be one of my brother's best friends and I've known him for more than 10 years now. When he graduated from high school (he actually didn't swim in the Olympic Team back then) I was partying along with him, a bunch of other top notch swimmers of the time (my brother included) and he bought me a few drinks during the evening. Had a darned good time, too.

7. I've had a full lecture hall cheer at what I was saying.
I was the chairperson of the Finncon X - Eurocon 2003 convention and I got to say the opening and closing words of the official con program. The closing ceremony was almost completely improvised on my part, but it went great and as I thanked everyone involved, the crowd went wild. It was quite a feeling to stand in front of hundreds of people and listen to them cheer and applaude. I could've burst out of pride at that moment. :)

8. As a kid I fed my toy Volvo toiletpaper and tucked the same toy car in for the night in a baby doll's bed.
Yup, I wasn't one of those little girls who played with dolls. I had plastic cars. And horses, which were fed oats I had picked up from a nearby field. At least that was a bit closer to the target than the toiletpaper.

9. I've whitewater rafted in the States (Snake River).
And so much fun it was! I'd love to do it again some day.

10. I've spent a Halloween in a funeral home, sleeping right next to the coffins.
One more curious thing that happened during my year in the States. There was a Halloween party for us exchange students and what would be a more appropriate place for such a party than a funeral home? We got to sleep in a room which was right next to the "show room" where they held the coffins. We were appropriately spooked by all of it, of course. But it was, by far, the best Halloween party I've ever attended. Which is sort of sad, really. :)

So there. Now it's your turn! :)

What to do when you have the munchies?

One thing you could do, is to invite about 20 people over for an evening of not counting calories. My friends Mari and Mikko did just that this past Saturday. They'd invited a bunch of people over to enjoy a raclette dinner, which eventually meant that there were 17 of us around three raclette grills. Yummy. But sort of greasy. My clothes smelled like I'd been working at a local hamburger place for a full day, ewgh. But a perfectly good way to cure munchies for a while.

A really short while, that is. I was all for chocolate and candy on Sunday evening after practice... I managed to fight off the urge to run to the neighboring movie rental place and buy 5 euros worth of candy. And I didn't buy any chocolate from the store today, either. Good for me. :)

Yesterday we went to Uusikaupunki with Satu to learn a choreography for the upcoming recital. The show's in April and we've both been really not-so-motivated about it for quite some while already. Luckily things began to look a bit better as Heli taught us a beautiful and simple "medieval-oriental-fantasy" choreography to a wonderful song called Radharc which is performed by a band named Dead Can Dance. (Gaah, I just realized the pun that one could read into the name of the band and us dancing to their music... We're most definitely not dead, though.) It's going to be the dance with which we, the three leading ladies, present ourselves to the Queen of the Fairies and to the audience, naturally.

I fell in love with the music as soon as heard the first beats. I can't wait to get the whole album, which I ordered because I knew Heli was going to use that music. I'm hoping the package'll arrive on Wednesday. I'll be listening to the cd on repeat and dancing every time I hear the music for the choreography. I can always count on wonderful medieval and Celtic style music to cheer me up. I'm glad Heli introduced the band to me, and it's good that the music is still available, although most of it has been recorded in the late 80's and early 90's.

So it goes, life. Ups and downs. But I probably shouldn't say I'm feeling pretty good at the moment, because as the recent events have proved, Mr Murphy sure likes to mess with my life. I'm sure I'll get a letter from the Board of Student Allowances (or whatever they might be called in English) tomorrow stating that I'm not eligible for any kinds of arrangements with the sum I'm supposed to pay, because, say, I'm too old or too dumb or not poor enough or something. That'd be just my luck.

But at least I'm not living within a pillar of Eternal Darkness like poor Jonathan Strange in Susanna Clarke's excellent novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I just finished reading it today. I loved it. It's the kind of almost minimalistic fantasy I like a lot. The events aren't happening in a blink of an eye, the characters get to grow along the story and the atmosphere is somehow very peculiarly muted. Right down to the color scheme of it all. It was murky, mysterious, fascinating, intriguing and completely enjoyable. I warmly recommend it to anyone, who likes legends, early 19th century settings and magic. But since not all of you have yet read the book (go read it, now!), I'll stop ranting about it so I won't accidentally slip out any spoilers.

A quick movie comment addition here at the end. The movie Swordfish is on tv tonight and I just began to watch it a few minutes ago. There was this character who was supposed to be a Finnish hacker Axel Torvalds. (Yes, they really did make the criminal character almost a namesake of Linus Torvalds, who is a Finn but not a crook.) They claimed he had a Finnish passport and even showed it on screen. With a friggin' eagle? Well excuse me for having a Finnish passport that hasn't even seen an eagle. The Finnish coat-of-arms has a lion on it, not an eagle. And then they claimed the character refused to speak nothing but Finnish while the Finnish consulate would provide a translator. The men were speaking German, for cryin' out loud! Americans, get your European countries and languages right, will you? I'll come and speak the lines in Finnish, if it's necessary to teach actors Finnish. Makes me mad, that kind of ignorance.

Why am I not surprised?

Just as I thought things are pretty well in my life, life decides to whack me in the face. Not with a feathery soft pillow either, but more like a sack of rocks...

AAARGGGHH! &#¤*rkl&%*##

Everything is my own fault, there's no arguing that, but I still feel like crap. I just almost broke into tears while speaking to an employee of the Social Insurance Institution... What fun.

It seems that I had too much income in 2003 and now I have to pay back some of my student allowance from way back in November 2003. There's nobody but myself to blame for not noticing it earlier but once again, it really doesn't make it any easier. On the contrary. On top of the fact that I really don't have that kind of money to pay them back with and being unbelievably angry at myself for being such a brainless idiot, I'm furious at the world for letting me be mildly happy for about 4 hours and once again pushing me back into a pothole. Gee, thanks.

Oh, and the fun doesn't stop here. I also may end up having to pay back some of my housing supplement, because my income from last year seems to have been about 160 euros more per month (average) than I had calculated. Which in fact means that I was broke for most of the year but for the month I worked in Nousiainen. I hope that they'll see that from all the papers I have to send them.

Did I mention I have no clue about a job for the summer yet? So my situation is basically no income, just debts. Fun, fun.

So much for a happy weekend. I'm going to spend most of it brooding in a dark corner somewhere. There is a get-together of friends tomorrow, maybe it'll cheer me up a bit...

Maybe I'll go and buy a lottery ticket. I think some kind of karmic law should make me win tomorrow, if I buy a ticket now.

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.) ;)