the Spectator vs. the New Yorker review

Firsts and lasts and other numerical facts

I am in the terrible process of Elftown catch-up. My first day properly back home (yesterday) was spent glued to the computer. It was a mix of talking to old friends for the first time after a long time, and connecting with new friends on the interwebs for the first time. I would say that the amount of love in my life has doubled since my adventures in the Sweden Stockholm Mission. My language-abilities have increased (now is the right way to say it by half, or by a third, if I knew two languages and now I know three? Half sounds righter) by a half.

I did not cry in my last interview with president Anderson (my mission president, aka my dad on a mission), and I did not cry in my first interview back with president Penfold (my stake president). But I did cry in my first and last interview with bishop Mills. You have no idea how badly I'd like to live in Coventry again. But. Now is not the time. Later may be the time, we'll see what life looks like. An interesting illustration: I cried on the plane back from Sweden to England (leaving a mission is hard! Being a missionary is a labour of love, and then leaving the place you've loved and served with such dedication for such a long time is really heart-hurty), but then as we flew over England and I looked down (nice clear afternoon) onto this land, I kind of stopped crying and went "oh yeah. I love this place." And I think this love-thing is partially why I have to live in Finland for now. No more loving to learn in England or in Sweden, need to learn to love Finland now. And if/when I do, it might be time to move on, and learn to love- where next? Well, I've decided to learn French, Russian and Persian. Though Iran might have to wait for a while longer before I move there... <_< (My plan is to be the first older-retired-couple-missionaries to Iran - in about 40 years. Is that an optimistic timeframe to get that country to sort itself out enough to let proselyting Christians in? Maybe. But then again senior couples don't always proselyte, so that might work. But still: official mormon church presence in Iran in 2050? That'd be sick :3) Maybe we'll start with France. :P (Then again it's not the only French-speaking country in the world...) Anyway. The plan is to at least double the amount of languages I speak right now.

Immediate future plans (in order of appearance):
-Travel to Stockholm on the boat to visit the temple there when my last ward in Örebro will be visiting at the same time (including the new guys! :D)
-Back to Finland, visit church in Helsinki, and hopefully meet the missionary who baptised me.
-Two weeks of... life. Stuff. Thing. Re-learning routines: wake up and study in the mornings like a missionary. Start projects on ET and beyond.
-Fly to England for General Conference in end of March. Stay as long as people's hospitability allows.
-Return to Finland. Unpack mission bags. Start cleaning and organising my room and my life.
-Find a job, or sign up on the dole. More art and projects and stuff.
-Return to England for General Conference in October.


PS. I skipped a lot of yous's diaries (exceptions being ally (25), Viking (501) and Punk (46), which I will read soon (maybe), and Silvie, who sent me her diaries while I was gone and therefore I didn't have that much catching up to do) and only read the recentest ones, because there was a ton. If you got married or something while I was away, please accept my happy congratulations. If someone died, please accept my heartfelt condolences. If there was a lot of ET-drama, please accept my ignoring it completely :)

So my hotmail died while I was away (and messenger went with it). So if you actually would like to talk to me on messenger, feel free to re-add me so I get you back :3

Here it comes... look ready...
The Last Diary Entry! Tah-dah!

I've had several 'lasts' this past few days, I had my Last Sunday and did my Last Sunday Talk which went fine, and had my Last Choir Practice, and then I had my Last Sunday Dinner with my 'surrogate' family. On Monday I had my Last FHE, which was sort of a farewell do with kids my age from church. Which was funny because many of them had been up to Manchester for a convention that weekend and they were so tired that they were flopping off their chairs and laughing their asses off because everything is funny when you are tired. On Tuesday I had a farewell-for-now with my friends from uni, so there were many Lasts there... But that is actually a story:

I had planned my Last Week pretty carefully: Friday I have to report at the Missionary Training Centre, so my surrogate family drops me there on Thursday, so I need to be set apart on Wednesday evening, so effectively Tuesday is my Last Night as a normal person, and I wanted to party with my uni friends. Which I did. But during the planning, I told everyone that it was on the 2nd X_x Which is Wednesday. So I met my teachers at uni and confirmed that they were coming round M's (=where the party was) later, and they went 'oh it's today? Well, yeah, we'll come later.' And I went ahead with two of the new students. I texted M ahead, and she called me back sauying 'isn't it tomorrow, you told us it's tomorrow!' And I explained that I won't exist tomorrow, I go into the oblivion known as being a Full Time Missionary. So she said 'it's ok, we can have it today' and she started readying everything while I panickedly called everyone telling them 'it's not tomorrow it's today, can you please come? I suck so much!' And we got there and M's boyf had his mates over and they were all put to work to go get food and start making stuff, while I profusely apologised to M and we both kept contacting everyone about it... And when people arrived I kept apologising profusely... And you know what? Everyone came. O_o I was so amazed and touched. But also amused because this means that my friends don't have lives :P And it was just the brilliantest evening. Most of us stayed til half past midnight (though I had been discreetly almost falling alsleep for an hour and a half) at which point we all kinda went 'damn, it's past midnight, let's call it a night' and everyone agreed and there was much hugs and confusions and awesome, and my teacher D. took me home. Whenever I meet D. there's always these moments odd remembrance and/or deeper realisations that we are really similar people. We think alike and just... get what the other one is on about. But also, when I don't talk to him for a while, I slowly forget that he likes me. It's this wierd social problem I have that when I absolutely adore someone, I slowly slip into assuming they don't like me (unless the likage is enforced regularly). So it always comes as a surprise when they do. So it was great to just talk to D. as a friend all the way to my house and then we sat in the car outside my house for ages talking. Much win.

So, rest of today is all packing/moving/house-cleaning stuff, then the setting apart tonight, after which my 'family' takes my luggage in their car and I go spend the night round the bishop's house, and then tomorrow morning my 'family' comes to get me from there and off I go.

I'd want to end my Last Diary with something win, but I have nothing win in mind right now, so instead, here is a bunny with a pancake on its head:



See you soon. Write letters to me, please. :)

What the hell? o_O

So, I was listening to This American Life, as usual, episode about Big Breaks. And this married couple comedians are telling about how back in the 60s they had their Big Break - they got a gig on the Ed Sullivan Show. How awesome. So they tell about the dress rehearsal, how they didn't quite get how a dress rehearsal works on TV (they didn't do their act properly), and about an hour before the show Ed Sullivan tells them to change their act to fit the audience - which is going to consist of 15-year-old girls tonight. So they are all "dub-tee-ef" and go to their dressing room and try to work their new act out, and this weird young lad in frizzled hair and huge glasses comes up and hangs out and talks to them, and they're getting kinda annoyed, and when he finally leaves they get back on their act and try to sort it out... and they are called on the stage, it's all about the start. And they are telling this story on the radio with an interviewer. And then they play the clip from the show they did... Ed Sullivan's voice saying those words that are now so incredibly historic, the words I've heard millions of times: "ladies and gentlemen - the Beatles" and there is the explosion of screaming and the song starts...

And I started crying o.O

Y'see, I've had my share of Beatlemania. I don't mean I just liked the Beatles a lot - I mean the real mania that the Beatles inspire in females for some mysterious reason. But I had it around 2002, I wasn't yet born when they were big in the 60s. But I've had it. There was a summer when I watched all these tapes my mom had about the Beatles, documentaries and the films etc... And I had that urge to scream and put my hands over my face and cry. The real physical and utterly literal fandom that the Beatles caused in the 60s. People screamed so loudly in their gigs that nobody could hear the music - not even the band. Ringo couldn't see anybody else's faces from behind the drums and therefore he had no idea what song they were playing on their gigs. People threw so much jelly beans on the stage that it actually hurt the band to be bombarded like that. And there is no rational explanation for the behaviour. But I know exactly what those crazy fans felt like. And the feeling came back all of a sudden it came right back when minding my own business, working away and idly listening to the radio. It really felt like being throw in the head with a brick, a brick that was thrown in the past. By me. O_o

I'm a little bit disturbed by what just happened.

*goes to find Beatles playlists on YouTube*

Well, I guess here comes more podcast inspired nonsense. :P
Or not. Most of it was spent on the recentest edit on The Dark Knight Observations. Also I listen to so much stuff that I forget a lot of it now. But that's okay, because I'll remember it when I need to (today I listened to themes like the famous kidnapping of Bobby someone which turns out that Bobby is in fact still missing and the boy the found as Bobby was this other kid, so they basically stole someone else's child to replace theirs that went missing; few shorter tales about there being the one and only person out there for you, which is not realistic, it's more like there are a hundred thousand people out there for you - and I'm actually planning on figuring out what the amount is for me personally; more talk about healthcare reform, and I finally understood the big difference with American healthcare is that they don't have KELA/NHS type of thing that pays for some stuff, that the people have to pay for all of their own illness, and now I'm a little afraid of America; and some more scripture-listening took place too).

I am making lists. The list of things I need to do before moving out (clean bedroom; wash laundry - and since my washer is broken that means going to the laundromat; write to Claire - because I forgot to tell her my mission address in my last letter; defrost fridge and freezer - not looking forward to that, and in preparation to it I have been trying to eat the stuff from my freezer; throw away remaining foodstuffs and lots of other remainings; arrange for George to come pick up the Mac - but only after I've finished the LED thing; pack everything. The time allocated for this will be broken and mutilated by various farewells and other social activities, so I'm a little intimidated by my list...), the list of things I need to take with me from the kitchen (pan and lid, frying pan, wooden spoon, spatula, cheese slicer, knives, fork, knife, spoon, teaspoon, mug, glass, plate, small plate, bowl, can opener, sieve). I'm leaving a lot of things, but I want one of everything that I need when I come back, so that I don't come back to a kitchen that possibly has nothing in it. Then I also have a visual list of thee drawings I wanted to make (well, I was asked to make something to decorate the mothers' lounge in church, so I planned to do these drawings of animal+child, and I've done some line drawings, and now my plan is to photocopy them a couple times and let the children colour them and use the coloured drawings for the lounge, but I want to finish off a couple more). I also have a list of people whose addresses I need to write down before I leave. It's mostly RL people, whom I'll hopefully all see in the various aforementioned farewells.

Tomorrow I'm going to a wedding. Third wedding this summer, and personally the least important one, since I don't know the couple very well. But the bride's father asked me to help out with the photography and that's why I'm going. He's going to do most of it himself, but since he has to be in some of the photos, he asked me to help since I know at least a little about pointing a camera (srsl people: someone who has a camera of which the lens can be detached ≠ a really uber professional photographer). I realised today that I have nothing to wear since I got rid of or left in Finland all my non-missionary clothes. Ah well. And on Sunday I will have to talk for about 30 minutes, since it's traditional in the ward that when you leave for or come back from your mission, you have to give a talk. I haven't given it much thought, I've listed a few things I want to say. So maybe I'll just wing it from there or something.

Leaving is one big hassle. -_-
Oh, that reminds me of something. A friend of mine was over yesterday, and we talked a lot and lot, and he mentioned something about wanting to travel, and that I obviously want to travel, because I'm here and I'm going again. But actually... I've noticed that I don't actually o.O When I was younger I desperately wanted to travel. Now I'm not inherently interested in travel itself. The world has become local to me. In that if I need to go somewhere or I have a reason to want to go somewhere, I am willing to travel there. But I don't actually want to travel to some far away place just to see the place. I'm sort of settling with the idea that all places are the same in a way. Here's how I reckon that: for several years in my teens I was aching to leave Finland, I wanted to go to California, or France, or pretty much anywhere. Then I did. I left. I moved abroad. I came to Coventry, to find that loads of people are aching to leave. And when I go home, disillusioned about the glamour of 'living abroad' I meet people, friends of friends, who when told the short version of my life (I live in England and study art), they think I've got it made, they say that they wish they'd moved abroad etc... But to me England has become a reality now. It's not some distant objective anymore, it's a real place. I love it, yes, but if it had been California, I would now love California. Had I stayed in Finland, I would probably had experiences that would have made me love that place. And I will go to Sweden and I will love Sweden. The place does not happiness make. It's things you do, people you meet.

Now okay, maybe you can't meet people or do things that make you happy in every place (in all honesty, if I had stayed in Finland, I probably wouldn't be a mormon now). I didn't thrive in Finland and still don't partly because of the closeness of the family. But there isn't one particular place that is just better than any other place and anyone who comes there will automatically be happier there. Although I am willing to admit that there probably are places that are automatically worse than other places, simply because of political etc situations. Like, Afghanistan doesn't sound like a nice place at the moment. But there is no guarantee that if you left Afghanistan and came to England, that you would be automatically much happier.

Going back a bit, it may sound odd that someone who flies so frequently and had lots of international friends doesn't like travelling. But I see it like... you can live all your life in New York and never visit the Statue of Liberty. Except that I feel like that about the whole world. If you give me a good reason to go to the Statue of Liberty (I need to meet up with someone there maybe) then I'll go. But just for the sake that it's there and I haven't seen it before...? Well, it's not one of the most interesting things I haven't seen before. Again, to clarify, I'm not against seeing sights - if they are interesting. A statue is kind of interesting, since it's art and stuff and I have an interest in art. But I wouldn't travel to New York just to see art - unless it was something I had a really keen interest in. Like Marcel Duchamp coming back from the dead. I'm going to give up on the New York example now, and be more local. I have visited the city of Bristol a lot. You could look up stuff about Bristol on the internet, or if you are English you might know some interesting things about Bristol - and without ever having been there you'd know more about Bristol as a place than I do. Because I never visit Bristol in Bristol, I visit Silvie in Bristol. So many people ask me if I've seen the Clifton suspension bridge, and so many times I say no, and explain that the only places in Bristol I've seen are the bus station, art gallery, some parts of the campus, and Silvie's house. The only parts about Bristol that matter to me are the parts that matter to Silvie. And I would apply this travel-planning on a global scale: I would visit Argentina because of Pubky, I would visit Indianapolis because of Viking, I would visit Belgium because of ally, I would visit Brazil because of Tibo. Etc. In my book travelling to Bristol and travelling to Sao Paulo are the same. If Silvie moves out of Bristol, I won't go there again, if Tibo moves back to England, I will never visit Brazil.

And this is the paragraph where I turn my coat and prove myself wrong :D
Because there are places that I would want to visit for no practical reason. But there is still a reason.
I want to visit Utah for the obvious reason that that is the mormon state. But I wouldn't really do it for the whole sight-seeing "ooh lookit, something historical!" -reason. But the reason is still somewhat voyeuristic since I don't personally know anyone really close there. It'd just be nice to see a place where the majority of the people share my faith. And even more far-fetchedly, I do want to go to Maine or Alaska or upstate New York or one of those other northern-ly states. I don't know why exactly, It's part Twin Peaks, part Gilmore Girls fascination I think. But I don't think I'd want to just visit there as a tourist, I'd want to move there. So I do still have some of those silly romantic notions of Someplace Far Away I'd be happier... But I won't go, I don't think, unless something drives me away. But it's far more likely that I will discover more and more reasons to love Coventry and England until I'm so rooted that I couldn't leave even if I wanted to.

Enough yammering.

The only way this would have more win is that if they'd spelt his name correctly (it has a 'u' in it guys, not a 'w')



Anyway, very little interesting things to say... Yesterday I discovered this absolutely delightful Italian restaurant in Coventry, on Far Gosford Street of all places. I had several good conversations (or one really long good conversation?) with a friend as a farewell-for-now (though he is convinced that I won't see him again... o.O) and I'm really close to finishing my stuppid LED project. I'm really fed up with it by now and just want it to diediedie. Or finish. Or whatever.

I've been working so intensely, and listening to so much stuff (news, podcasts, radio-programmes...) that I won't share any of the thoughts that those things have prompted, because there's just too much of it and my brain is frying pretty much. So I'm easing up on the economics podcasts and This American Life a little, and mixing it up with some music and also a lot of listenables that one finds on the church website (pretty much everything is read out loud - for the benefit of the blind and illiterate I imagine - everything from the scriptures to the actual missionary handbook... So am putting that stuff to use in order to pretend that I'm at least somewhat prepared...) But most of the thoughts that that stuff inspires I don't care to share here, because I can't imagine anybody else really caring about either (especially when a lot of it is me going "squee" over a guy who lived in the 1830s...) :P

I should just stop talking to people and just express myself by linking to pages of Dinosaur Comic. Because T-Rex and co. say everything I'd ever want to say.

Like the last panel in this one:
http://www.qwantz.com/comics/comic2-1332.png
He puts very eloquently what I think but fail to ever express. He does this all the time.

* * *

As the mission-thing draws nearer, I'm starting to worry that I'm going to be a really rubbish missionary. Like... I am so anti-social and don't like people much. Or, well no, that's not exactly true, I like people somewhat, when they talk to me. But I don't want to talk to them very much. So that is something of a problem there. And another problem could be the sort of... weirdness. Now I don't actually know how much of it I put on and how much is out of my control. Am I quirky because I like being quirky, and could I be normal if I really tried to (or if I got shouted at by my mission president a lot)? Or am I just quirky and there is nothing I can do about it, like an illness? I don't know.

Meh. In reality all this nonsense boils down to "I don't know what I am doing, and that makes me very nervous." Despite the fact that I have known a lot of missionaries, both ones that are going on their missions, are on their missions and have returned from their missions, and I have read and heard and witnessed a lot of details about what goes on on a mission... But yesterday I was reading the information I have on what to do and what to bring etc... and it just makes me nervous (gym periods? I'm going to have gym periods in the MTC? What the hell, is it high school or something?! I'm very proud to be able to say that I haven't done anything that could even mildly be referred to as a 'gym period' in over five years - and I like it like that! I don't even have any sort of clothing that is appropriate for any sort of arranged exercise. *frets*)

*goes back to reading DinoComic*

So I mentioned theMoth.org couple posts back. And I just finished listening to this one and it's the best one I've listened so far.
Nathan Englander - Man on the Moon
http://e1.simplecdn.net/upload1.themoth.prx.org/wp-content/uploads/moth-podcast-71-nathan-englander.mp3

Aww frig!
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1321

Dinosaur Comic has the ability to make you go 'frig'.


In other news, I bought a compact digital camera for my mission (can't take SLR on a mission). And two things:
1. The camera is pink. o.O Wy did I buy a pink camera?
2. My pet is in Finland. We all know that the rule is that the first photo you should take with any new camera must be of a pet. Wat do I do nao? :C

I have discovered TheMoth.org (via This American Life, which you everybody really should listen to sometime). And it is making me appreciate story-telling and anecdotes etc... this sort of urban oral tradition. Like, the other day I was on the train and I was desperately trying to remember a story my teacher G. had told me some time ago. It was the sort of similar type of story as the "Australians searching for 'Loogaburooga'" -story that someone else told me that I have told everyone (I tell it whenever the difficulty of pronouncing English names comes up, the gist of the story being that two Australian tourists are trying to find their way to 'Loogaburooga' - which in reality is Loughborough. which is locally pronounced something akin to 'Lofboro', and nowhere near 'Loogaburooga'). And it was driving me batty that I could not remember this story. It involved him on a Tube or trainstation trying to get to a place that apparently the Londoner-pronunciation of is something like Barstow, but is spelt with an e in there somewhere. And I remember that the situation when he told me this story was when we were on a bus going on some kind of class trip to some art place - possibly to Compton Verney (which is where the MAs were yesterday) on the annual tear-fest. See, my teachers are so awesome that they make the students cry. I'm serious, stay with me here. Art is a very emotionally charged subject to study. I think that if you can't cry over your work, if you can't get frustrated and angry over it - you're doing it wrong. And if the teachers aren't making you cry and frustrated and angry, then they aren't teaching you art at all. Because art needs to be attacked while it's being made for it to get better. So D. and G. are these monsters of a teachers and they will make you cry. And I was made to cry several times on my MA. But apparently there is every year this beg trp to Compton Verney (which is like a stately home/country house turned art gallery). And they have these mad Capability Brown landscaped grounds, which are stunning. And the plan is to take the students to this amazing setting away from the university and to really lash into them. This is the point of no return, brutally honest feedback trip. Anyway, so we were going there, and you have to drive through a lot of Warwickshire to get there, and I pointed to a sign and asked G. how something was pronounced. And the conversation sort of went from there.

This was all sort of prompted by the radio, but also by something else. Just a few hours ago these two women came to my house to look at the rooms, because my landlady will be needing to rent the house soon, so people want to see if they want to rent. Anyway, that's fine, I let them in and showed them around the place and we talked, and what's weirder is that I talked. o.O Like... really. I was entertaining and stuff. This doesn't happen to me very often, and it mostly seems to happen around strangers. The first time when it happened to me and I was made conscious of it was about this time last year when our show was about to open or had opened or something, and the external examiners were in town and D. And G. and some other lecturers and a bunch of us students were taking them out. And we first took them to Browns (which is the art pub in Cov), then later to this Lebanese restaurant that we all knew from the past to be really nice (what we didn't know that it used to be a nice restaurant because it used to have a nice chef, who had since been fired or something and had moved just a few doors down and opened another restaurant, which would now be the nice one I guess). So we got to this place, it's September, but they have this heated bedouin tent at the back. So we go there. And on the way we have lost some people - who had to nip into their offices or to the cashpoint or something. And it's me and G. of the media arts lot, then the externals, and possibly some other lecturers. And G. is incredibly tired - he is always tired, it seems that you can't sleep if you teach the MA properly like G. and D. do, but G. is never tired. Anyway, so I sort of entertain these external examiners in this Lebanese restaurant and we order food and it takes forever to get there, and apparently someone had gone to buy wine from across the street so they show up a little later and some other people also show up and they also order and this food takes forever to come, and when it does come, none of us knew what we had ordered, and the waiters didn't know. So we're kind of guessing "who had something that had chicken" - well most people did - and it's just this dinner nightmare you'd think, and on top of that we're in this silly bedouin tend, sitting on cushions with a tiny silly little table and... just madness. And when the evening is done, G. talks to me and thanks me for handling that. And I was like "whut?" And he said he's never seen me like that, all lively and entertaining and fun. And I'm all "hoeshed, I was, wasn't I? How did that happen? I need to sit down and not talk for a few weeks now..." And he tells the story to loads of people of how iippo was the hostess with the mostess. And occasionally that still happens, and whenever it does (when I notice), I still get all... awkward about it. Like start to think "uh-oh, shut up, someone else please take over, this isn't me, I don't want to be seen like this..." o.O

Changing subject. Today I bought this "100 Classic Book Collection" for my Nintendo DS. I was in Asda (of all places) having just done my shopping (which was literally some fruit, Poptarts and margarine - I eat like crap) and the games and DVds shelf is by the door so on the way out I just thought I'd look at the DS shelf, because hey crazy, I have a DS! :D I've never had any kind of equipment that would play any game that could be bought from a shop. So I was looking and getting pretty impressed with all the stuff that is out there for DS, and considering some Pokemon things, some other things... And I notice this book thing. And I think "hey there's a neat idea, I'm glad they did that." And some time previous I had actually thought that it would be great if I could buy scriptures for DS (I know they exist for all sorts of palmtops as downloadable content etc) because every time I go to church or anything related, I need to take a lot of books, and if I could not take the four 'standard works' well, that would be great. So I leave the shop, thinking that I might come back for that book-thing. Then I think that I might actually have the money on me to get it now. Then I think 'nah, I'll come back after giving it some thought' because I don't buy things spur-of-the-moment (or when i do, it usually sucks). But then I kind of tell myself the winning argument: "you could get a hundred classic books for under £20 with none of the storage/moving hassle associated with traditional books - you are second-guessing this why?" So I go and get it. I haven't actually tried it yet, since I have to finish the LED-project, and I'm fearing I don't have enough time.

I had a really awesome dream and now my life sucks just a little because it's not real.

In my dream my teachers D. and G. had this most amazing derelict industrial revolution-esque warehouse building, which was all just... open messy space for artists they knew and/or had taught in the past. And the whole place was just teeming with people making stuff. My dream started when somebody (I forget who) led me to the place. We climbed up this old cast-iron fire escape, and there in the first room were D. and G. kneeling on the floor working on something. (Now I haven't seen them in a while, so I thought in my dream "whee, I get to talk to D. and G. again!") But instead of stopping and talking to them I just went past and looked around the place (I think I was playing cool, like "I'm not really so madly obsessed with you two that I'll just make you stop what you are doing the minute I see you, so I'll just stroll around first and then come back to you"). And there was just loads of artwork being done, mostly video and projection and such, new media stuff. Like there was one girl who had these streams of ribbons laid out on the floor and she kind of wanted to film them rolling up, and next to her on the floor was a guy who was flirting with her and suggesting that she wrap them around these wooden blocks to make them roll like she wants to, and she tried to point out that square blocks do not roll, but somehow it didn't occur to them that rounded blocks would roll, and I remember making a mental note about going to buy some rounded wood and bringing it to her later. (Now I feel guilty that this was a dream - the poor girl will never finish her video :/) And it was just such a marvelous place.

I've had dreams like this before, where a building is all old and falling apart (and therefore exciting and awesome in my book) and art happens in it (one dream I had I was in the university art building and the top floor was banned from students because it was too dangerous there, but it was still the best floor so of course we went there but then couldn't figure out how to get back and there was a giant hole you had to jump across to get away etc...)


I think I'm not going to see the Time-traveler's Wife today, even though I really want to see it (and not just because Kermode talked about it - I saw someone on Conan talking about it, and I just love time-travel things). But I just can't bear the thought of going to that cinema today. Why can't the Electric have it on? -_- Meh, maybe I'll go later. The other reason for not going is because I feel like I'm seriously lagging behind on the LED-tapestry thing. I'm working like crazy on it, and it's really slow going.

I'm all freewheelin' and stuff :O

So went to the cinema today too, to see The Proposal (don't judge my movie goings Mark Kermode! You don't know everything!)
And here is yet again the explanation why I don't like the Odeon. It's the same reason as before, just repeated: forced seating. They don't sell you an admission ticket, they sell you a seat. So you have to know where you want to sit before you go to the room. Now I'm anti-social, I want to sit as far away from the other people as possible. How exactly will I know where I want to sit before I see the room? Never mind that, thought I had come up with a solution: I will start siting by a wall! Nobody ever sits by the wall, so it's unlikely that someone will sit right in front or back of you - or worse, right next to you - if you go sit by the wall. You see just fine from every seat in the room, and as added bonus, you can lean. Perfect one would think.

So how could this possibly go wrong?

Let me skip ahead. My watching experience of The Proposal was slightly damaged by the fact that I was sold the seat smack middle of the very last row and had three giggling teens sat right in front of me. You see, it seems that "middle row, by the wall" was interpreted by the guy who sold me the ticket as "middle, row by the wall" or something like that. But even though words may have failed like so, I still clearly motioned to the side, as in "I want the wall next to me, I want to sit by the wall." But perhaps the concept was too strange and novel to his poor young mind to comprehend, that his mind locked in a logic loop and to break free from it, he tried to find the closest thing to it that made sense to him. Alas, what made sense to him, was not what I wanted.
The Odeon does not favour the deviant it seems.

In addition to myself and the aforementioned ladies, there were about four other people in the room. This is why I hate this seat-selling bollocks, because if we all didn't have a little paper that dictated where we were to sit, we would never have sat like that. Because it was awkward and ridiculous, they felt uncomfortable having me loom right behind them, and I wanted to kick their precious little heads in.

I will give the Odeon one last chance tomorrow, when I go see The Time Traveler's Wife. I will try my darnest to be absolutely crystal clear that I want the wall to be either on my left side or my right side, that I want to be the last seat on the row, and I want that row not be all the way at the back, but somewhere in the middle. I do not want to sit in the middle of a row, but at the end of a row that is at the middle. And if that watchery will still be ruined by sitting uncomfortably close to the other members of the audience, I will take my business elsewhere.

* * *

Something else just occurred to me. I just heard that they are testing some 18-year-old girl who won something in Berlin sports game of some sort, to see if she is a female. Because apparently it's one of those things that you might be all female outwards and all such, but still actually have male genes. So it all of a sudden occurred to me: what if I am genetically male? Or indeed any other female person I know? :O

:O Greyhound comes to England! :D

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=a3h4dsc3GlQ8

If only I had a reason to go to Portsmouth :P
I might actually do it just for the trip. Greyhound is legend.

I just can't shut up today.

An article
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/ap/53299422.html
A counter-article
http://www.getreligion.org/?p=16494

If you can't be bothered to read both, read the second one, because it explains the gist of the first one too. (They're both kind of biased pieces of writing, so obviously I'll recommend you to read the one that isn't biased against me :P)

Anyway, I'd just like to add to that:
Quoting from the first article: "Mormonism teaches that homosexual sex is considered a sin, but gays are welcome in church and can maintain church callings and membership if they remain celibate."
Just to sort of provide context: the Church teaches that all sexual relations outside marriage is a sin (because the power to create life is sacred and family is sacred etc...) so actually all unmarried members are expected to remain celibate. Also, God made marriage between a man and a woman, therefore marriage is also sacred (i.e a big deal) so that's why a lot of the members feel so strongly about it. </doctrine>

This kind of continues from the law-morality thing from the earlier post. I must admit that I don't have a particular stance on the issue at all, again due to the morals-law thing (my morals shouldn't affect a law that has nothing to do with me). The Church encourages people to be active in politics, but since I am incapable of having an opinion in all things, I will only be active in things that I actually know what my agenda or opinion is (like copyright). With this issue I can see the argument on both sides, and I can understand that the issue is really important on both sides. If I had to pick a side, I'd probably side with the gay side, because of my idea that law must protect, and right now gay couples aren't getting the same kind of protection by a legal joining-together that marriage is that straight couples are getting. The only reason I don't sympathise more with the gay side of the whole Prop 8 thing is the backlash. We have here a democratic process, people vote on an issue and the majority wins - and then the losing minority attacks some of the people who voted the other way. And only the members of a certain religion of that majority too, nonetheless.


Oh yeah, I went to see The Moon today in the Electric Cinema, partly because Mark Kermode said it's good. Win. Can't say anything else about that, it's one of them films that you can't say anything about without ruining it :)

On the drive to the airport on Monday my sister asked me "do we go through Lahti (the old road) or through Helsinki (motorway)?" And I voted for Lahti, because I had just watched Cars and was feeling very nostalgic and Route-66 and all that. And some 60km from Tampere (I was going to Tampere Airport) we saw a hitchhiker. Well, my sister saw him, and shouted "hitchhiker! Shall we pick him up?" And I said yes! So we stopped and asked where he was going, and he was going to Tampere city center (the airport isn't exactly in Tampere at all) so we agreed to take him in the general direction. It was kind of awesome. He was this gothy guy with long hair and piercing and all dressed in black. It was rather win. I've never been in a hitchhiking situation before :3 It was kind of cool, we chatted some, pretty odd things. Like we talked about goblins and trolls and how all these mythical creatures translate between Finnish and English, and we came to the conclusion that in case of fantasy like LotR or Harry Potter, the word "troll" is translated incorrectly to Finnish. In Finnish mythology a troll is this sort of big, human-esque (clothes, language, riches) thing that is always outsmarted by a guy named Matti. The LotR type troll (humongous, stupid, throws rocks at people) should be translated as hiisi (hiidenkivi and hiidenkirnu are both rock-related thingies), and seeing how there are different environment trolls (mountain troll etc...) in Finnish there is the water troll, vesihiisi (that sizzles in the lift :P)
We also tried to figure out how an English-speaking person (such as myself and himself, he was half-American) would pronounce mörri-möykky (which is a kind of a children's song troll character), and we failed.

* * *

The following might not make sense, I just need to get this out of my head so I can get back to work...
<ramble>
Today I've been listening to This American Life radio programme about this arms dealer thing, and it is very thought-provoking (that's what TAL is supposed to be). They're basically saying that it was right to arrest this supposed arms dealer because he was willing to commit a crime, sell arms to a terrorist. And there was this big justice guy saying "bad people want to commit crimes, bad people have to be punished, these are simple truths" (I kid not, those are his exact words). But the programme is asking, is it a crime to want to commit a crime, even if you aren't able to do it? Now fair enough, this guy actually did attempt to buy missiles - he attempted for something like 22 months and failed. But this idea that bad people want to do bad things... is fascinating and annoying at the same time. I'm sure every country jails people all the time who didn't want to do bad things. Lot of these bad things happen by accident or through negligence or through a host of other things. And meanwhile loads of people are not being jailed even though they go around wanting to do bad things but manage to suppress those urges and not do bad things.

It's also this idea of morals (the big justice guy said that too, that this guy is so amoral that he would sell a missile to a man he thought to be a terrorist, good riddance to him then). Now it's very obvious that we all don't have the same morals. Whose business is it to say that someone's morals are right and someone's are wrong? I don't think that that is what law is there for. I don't think that law is supposed to tell us what is right and wrong. I don't think it's right to drink alcohol, but it is legal to do so; someone else would think that it's not wrong to use drugs even though it is illegal to do so. I reckon law's purpose is two-fold: freedom to, and freedom (or protection) from. Just because most people's morals and some parts about law coincide (most people think it's immoral to kill, law protects us from being killed) does not mean that law equals morals. Now morality is relative, so there is no point in saying "that man is immoral" - not even if the majority of people agree that he is. But is it illegal to have morals that go greatly against the morality of the majority, or even against the law itself? Is it illegal to think that paedophilia is ok? Is it illegal to say that paedophilia is ok? Surely having an opinion and expressing an opinion can't be illegal. And you can't legally do anything about that until the person acts on the opinion.

Which is where this case had a problem, because the security agencies in the country were given a mandate to prevent terrorism, not catch them after the attack. So essentially what they did was simulate a crime to see if their perp would commit a crime. But the defence argument was that if they hadn't arranged this simulation, the guy would never have faced this moral dilemma of whether to do it or not, and therefore he never would have. In some ways I agree with the prosecution: he did think he was committing a crime and he did so. You think "how hard can it be to think 'err, wait, this is illegal, I shouldn't do this' even if the opportunity arises to commit a crime?" But is there an opportunist criminal inside all of us? In uni we were constantly told to not leave expensive stuff visible in your flat or in the studio, because people are like that: even if they wouldn't steal from you personally or break into your house to steal your stuff, they are prone to just taking something that is lying around. Art students nick things, that just is so. But the problem again in the arms deal case was that the government sent a guy to ask him if he would sell him missiles, then they gave him (a fake) missile to sell, and then arrested him for that. If you go around looking for people who would - if the opportunity arose - nick things, you would have to arrest the entire art school (including the lecturers).

</ramble>

We had a little bit of a thunder in the distance, very little, very distant, but the dog picked up on it anyway and went batty. At nap-time (my mom looks after kids at our house, so while the kids are here, the dog is upstairs or outside with me (or not with me when I'm not in the country)). So he was having a freak-out, so I tried to have patience and let him have it in an under-control kind-of way. When he freaks out he needs to pace back and forth, so I was giving him all the space upstairs to pace, left all the doors open and just sat at the entrance of the stairs preventing him from going downstairs. But he really wanted to go downstairs and kept trying to sneak past me and I kept pushing him back. So this went on for a while til we had a close call, he almost managed to sneak past so I had to claw at him to get him back (he wasn't wearing a collar so there was nothing but hair for me to grip - and this thing is very hairy so... yeah). So he got upset at that and snapped at me a number of time - and I don't mean that he called me rude names, it was a proper bite. He didn't get me, but I heard his jaw snap shut with great force, so I got really upset at that and snapped back at him (with the, you know, name calling and stuff) and we came to blows sort of, I punched him etc... very physical. So I stuffed his head in the collar and dragged him to my room away from the stairs, locked the door and thought 'fine, you can't play nice, then I'll just... lessen your pace-space'. But then he kept clawing at the door (again, noisy - naptime) so I blew a fuse (not literally, it's a figure of speech... so far, but my becoming-mechanic plans are going great by the way :D) and trapped us in the balcony (which is adjacent to my room). So that's as limited pace-space as possible, but also very easy to contain a freak-out. So he freaked out for a bit longer while I was getting bored on the sofa (there was no more thunder noise by the way. It rumbled twice or thrice during the initial freak out and then went, but the freak-out didn't went). Eventually he relaxed-ish to lie down in the corner and pant heavily, so I was hoping he'd freak himself to sleep. So I went back to my room to watch DVDs again, but when I opened the door he continued to freak out. So I thought 'fine, I'll watch and you can freak out in and out of the balcony and my room'. But that didn't work because he went back to clawing the door. So I locked him on the balcony again. Then at some later point I opened the door again because I felt sorry for the stupid thing, and let him in the room again, and he went to claw the door again so I booted him back out to the balcony. Third time when I was about to do this, my mom came upstairs to let us know that the last kid had left and that the dog was allowed downstairs again.

Result: nothing got broken even though he did knock a couple things over, nobody got hurt (except maybe Ressu, but he's a big boy so he can just deal with it) and there is a chance of him learning that clawing at doors gets you booted to the balcony.

I also need a t-shirt that reads 'babette ate oatmeal'.

* * *

It's Friday now, right? So only Saturday and Sunday to go (and we're going out of town for my sister's do) and then Monday daytime and in the evening, away we go, wheee! Back to England, the mountains green, the pleasant pastures, the clouded hills, the satanic mills! <3

Watching too much Gilmore Girls can only be good for you. Or me. It's an interesting combo, Gilmore Girls and Marx Brothers. One makes you chatty and snack a lot, the other makes you... well, I don't know what. But they both make a person laugh, but more importantly, they both also cause that nice inner giddy feeling of 'this is so much win that even though I'm not laughing, I'm enjoying it even more than mere laughing would express - in fact I'm enjoying it so much that I forget to laugh'¹ -- well, except the Jess-Dean-Rory thing in GG, that is not making me giddy, that's just annoying. But I'll let myself forget that when I focus on the banter. Ah, the banter. If I was called Groucho or Lorelai, I could say something really funny about the concept of banter. But I won't, since I've always been more of a Harpo. So I'll just eat your pen and drink your ink and chase after that blonde instead *honk honk*



^{1 (Sorry Silvie, but it had to be done) I hate it when this happens in company though. When other people laugh and I forget to - it's not because I didn't get the joke, it's not because I don't think it's funny, it's because I'm enjoying it so much. Well, sometimes it is just because the thing wasn't funny, like in the case of that politics farce with Tony Soprano as a general: a grown Scot jumping on screen and swearing solid for the first five minutes of the film is not funny, not even if you are twelve (and there's no way that film was a 12A)}

Gaia summer camp event helps me remember why I don't go to the forums in Gaia. How do you keep a conversation in there? Pointless. Ah well, hopefully the event itself will start soon and will have some actual something to do, which to hype over.

Ah well, at least it has this:


Well I've watched two Harrison Ford movies in a very brief period of time, and can hardly keep my pants on. I'm also having a Marx Bros. marathon, which is win. I'm even watching all the vintage shorts on the DVDs, there were a couple really awesome Robert Benchley shorts (those of you who have read Harpo Speaks! will vaguely know who that is) in there and everything. I haven't sussed yet to watch the shorts first (like they used to in cinemas back then), but maybe I'll remember, I'll still have loads to go. Today's Marxist feature was Go West, and tonight Big Country (the movie with the officially best music) is on, so it's a western day today, yay!

I'm also sucking at pokemon today, I've tried the third gym-fight twice already, and have now given up, will level my Kadabra to something ridiculous like lv35 and psybeam the hell out of that whatever the hell fighting-weasel-thing she has. But a nice surprise was when I was training, an odd creature Hippopotas showed up in the ruin maniac's cave. That was funny.

I'm also revisiting (read: forcing my sister to watch) the Guild, and... yeah. Lotta time on my hands. I think I'll go for walkies soon, I want to shower after the walk but before CSI Miami is on at 9. There is so much CSI on TV that it's weird (and yes, I count NCIS to be CSI too, it's the same damn show, just with a gay navy appeal, right?) But I love it all. Though Miami is the best :P I love the cheese :3

I'm sorry, I'm probably high on something.

Since the last diary was so rubbish, here is something win:

Talking about 12 Monkeys and HP6. I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, so it should be safe.

Last night I watched 12 Monkeys. I'd seen it before (at least I had a vague recollection... I remembered a kidnapping and the associated Stockholm syndrome), but it was good. I did not know that it was a Terry Gilliam film, and I did not know that it was based on La Jetee. Which was kind of meh since I've seen La Jetee twice, so when the dream sequence was starting - and you know it's supposed to be that awesome build up and a great revelation at the end? - I knew from the first frame what was going on. But nevertheless, it has much win, I was really immersed in the film, and the story is brilliant. And hey, I love time-travel stuff. All the complications. It's awesome when it's well done. That's why HP3 is my favourite. And speaking of, I went to see the new Harry Potter film, Half-Blood Prince. And I had heard so many bad things about it but... I can't remember the book. At all. I've read 6 and 7 once (as compared to the other books which I've read at least 8 times), so I just couldn't remember what was in the book, what wasn't, what was left out etc... So none of that bothered me at all. The film moved just fine for me, and let's face it, the HP films are fantasy-coming-to-reality for the fans. I know the plot, I know what I felt like when I was reading the books- with the films all I want is to see Hogwarts, see wizards, see magic. And those have always been the disappointments for me in the films, when they've done it badly. But in the cinema watching the new one, I was immersed in the world of magic, exactly what I want to do with these films. So it worked for me.

Also oddly enough, the scene with the 'unfortunate event' (to borrow Kermode's expression) - I actually got something out of it I hadn't before. If you recall my ramblings after book 6 came out in Finnish and how unimpressed I was with this event... in the movie the scene is better. o.O I realise they've changed it, and I can understand how it can be really frustrating. But I think it worked. Harry isn't under a spell and invisible, he is obeying his orders. Which suggests that he has matured a lot and respects his teacher and friend. Or he is scared stiff (I would be), OR he is curious about what is being said (he has a history of being an eavesdropper). And because he does that (stays hidden), a number of things is allowed to happen. Another thing is Draco. I finally got what happened there: both teachers were protecting Draco. Think back what Slughorn says about the soul, how it can be torn apart. A teacher would not want that to happen to a student's soul. But the crazy bitch (she annoys me so much) would have wanted that to happen to Draco. But his soul was saved. And I love the little bits and references we have of his family. And that's what they are, a family. It's easy be annoyed how slimy and horrible Draco is, but his parents love him, and he loves them. Ok, his dad isn't necessarily the best ever example for him, but no one is. Ah well. Fear not, I'm not going to start writing Harry-Draco slash anytime soon. :P

__________________________________________________

To help those who couldn't care less about my ramblings, you can skip to this bit that [Skydancer] made:

1. Optimist or Pessimist, is the glass nearly empty or half full of a nice wine or mead?
Glass is half full, but nothing alcoholic in it, thanks.  

2. Grass or concrete, do you prefer the natural world or the urban one?
I think I'mma hafta go with concrete. In terms of living the city is where I've kind of made my life and feel independent; in terms of aesthetics... well, it's the machine aesthetic for me.

3. Fashion madness or skin cult? Do you spend money like crazy on the latest fashions and clothes or are you more comfortable in your own skin and clothes are just something you wear when you need to?
I do care about the clothing I wear, although my fashion sense, I suspect, is kind of lame :P But yes, my appearance is important, and therefore I will pay attention to what I wear. As for the skin-thing... no. I'm not comfortable just hanging out nude.

4. Fantasy or common reality? Are you more immersed in your own, or others fantasy worlds to the point that they colour your life choices and actions, or are you caught up in the shared illusion of the "real world" with all its mania of jobs, family, wars and the media?
I think I'm pretty hopeless with the real world. I do live in my own world, I wouldn't call it fantasy as such... It's a perception of the real, I think I see it better than it is, and I don't notice a lot of things about reality. It's kind of a selective experience of the world.

5. Spiritual, Religious, Agnostic, Alternative, None of the above.
Religious, I suppose.

6. Creative madness or fan girl/boy? That is to say, artist/performer or fan/follower?
I think it does tend to lean more to the artist-side now. I used to be more fangirly but I've sort of lost the time and effort.

7. Spicy or homestyle? You like your life and foods hot and spicy or prefer the comfort of homemade meals and sincere cuddles.
Homestyle.

8. Hopeless romantic or pragmatic partner?
I think the romatic was killed somewhere along the way, I'd say it's all pragmatic now. But who's to say that won't change in the next relationship.

9. Animal companions or beer and sports casts?
Animals. The highlight of every holiday I have at home in Finland is being able to sit down with my dog and tend his fur. No better way to bond.

10. A hike in the forest or a night out at the club?
Forest. Clubs are too dark, too noisy, too stinky, too alcoholy and druggy for my liking.

11. Polygamy, Monogamy, Open, Exclusive, Shared, Alternative, Traditional?
...must... resist... stereotypage... :P Traditional Exclusive Monogamy plz.

12. Silk Sheets or Comfy Quilts?
Quilts. o.O Silk sheets are really ick.

13. Wood and Candles or Metals and Glass?
:3 Metal and glass and soot and machines and concrete and and...

14. The touch of sun through the clouds or the drama of the storm?
Err... windy.

15. Sweets or Sours?
I honestly can't say.

16. A chance to meet a friend you know from online or a chance to meet a celebrity?
Which celebrity...? :P

17. Lord of the Rings or the Last Unicorn, The Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal?
Haven't seen Last Unicorn, haven't seen Dark Crystal.

18. Muppets or Anime?
Muppets

19. Paint, Ink, Pencils or Photoshop, tablet and Painter?
Photoshop. Flash, animation, internet art. Yas.

20. In front of the Lens or behind the Camera?
I'm cool with both actually. What I dislike is being behind the camera and then told what to do. I'll take the photos, or ou'll take the photos. Unless of course it's been agreed that you direct me, in which case that is fine too :P

21. You have one thing you may do that will be the pinnacle of your life. It is?
Sealed in the temple as a family for time and all eternity.