I went to visit my sister in... some other part of Finland (kind of like a bit more to the east and a bit more to the north, whatever part that makes it... centre? I don't know, the really pretty part that has pine trees that are just better looking than our pine trees). And we visited Retretti (retretti.fi) which is an art gallery in a cave. :O A proper hugenormous underground rock tunnel thing with water and all those necessary cave-things. They also have above-ground parts, and also - wait for it - a stage/cinema in a cave! :O I have a friend who studies geology and is also a properly trained classical singer. She should get to sing in the cave-stage.

The coolest exhibit was a scupture installation: you go to the edge between a tunnel and a bigger cave (there is a railing at the end before you fall in to the cave), and on the way there you see the name of the piece, Rigor Mortis. There is something hanging above the railing, and I realised they are torches (flashlights for non-UK people). So you grab one and turn it on, and you shine a powerful beam of light on these skeletons of angels at the bottom of the cave, some partially sinking in water. It was really beautiful. And the torch added such a brilliant element of engagement to the work that it gave you chills. I didn't realise there was water in the cave until I heard that drop-in-a-cave sound and wondered about howcome the skeleton I shine the light to is reflected in the ground below it if you hit it from a certain angle. <3

Another piece of work in another exhibition there caught us (me and my sister for ages). It was a whole lot of really wide-screen format photographs, b&w, each had a group of kids framed by two light, little blurry halves of faces. And first I noticed "hey, the kids in the group aren't actually photohraphed together, they are layered, you can see through some of them." Then we started to look if the halves of faces had pairs, but they didn't seem to (though we did imagine at first that we did find). Then we started to find the halves of faces in the groups. Then we noticed that the kids in the groups were all kind of... similar. Like the artist had grouped "long haired metal kids" and "punk kids" and "pretty blonde girls" and "chubby girls" etc... Then we started to look even more carefully, and realised that some of the figures in each group were the same person, that maybe there was two or three individuals in a group of eight people. And then we finally got it: all the people in one image was the same person, at different ages. Like a school picture you take every year. And the half faces were the faces of their youngest and oldest portrait. It was so fascinating to look at, studying the different or same things they'd worn to the shoot (they must have been a year apart each), how their style developed, how their facial features developed etc... Really good, I enjoyed that a lot.

Being here also makes me miss Sweden.
Vi körde upp vid en sjökust, och det påminnde mig om höga kusten i Norrland, och jag saknar Norrland så himla mycket, så mycket att det gör ont. Ibland känns det så att saker kan sägas bara på ett visst språk. Så även då jag älskar det engelska språket mer än nåt annat... just nu räcker det inte. *suck*

So hey, I had a phone interview for a job to teach English to kids, and it was really positive and I really hope they'll hire me. It sounds pretty scray (in a cool way), I'd basically be the only person in my town doing it (so very independent work), I'd visit different schools at different times during the week and do language-learning activities. Which is cool, because I loved teaching Swedish so ridiculously much, and I love playing with language... And I need to get better at getting along with kids. I don't get along badly with kids, I just don't find them different than adults. Which is sometimes a good thing (not treating them like kids) but it can be unfair if expecting them to be anything but kids. It's a strange balance in there.

I am too rambly and verbose to micro-blogging, but don't have enough to say nor the energy to do background research for real blogging. So you are stuck with snippet blogging:

I don't understand why everyone feels so upset over the invite feature. Why is it awful when someone says "I think this is cool, maybe you will think this is cool too"? Sure, it can be (and has been) abused, but (here's me telling you what you should think:) you should think that those cases of abuse and the people who abuse it are awful, not that the entire feature is awful. As far as I've noticed now, you can't be invited to the same wiki by the same person more than once (or if this is not true then it should be - but I recall trying to invite someone to a wiki and it said "they're already invited" - and I don't think it was by me). I like the invite feature and I like to be invited to things (that don't show people's buttholes, naturally, I am a prude after all), it makes me feel like someone thought of me (and don't come telling me that I get invites just because people invite the junk forum, I want to live in ignorance on this matter :P) This applies to Facebook too, and all recommendations everywhere, whether they come from friends or from automated advertising machines that try to make me more like "a person like me." Because I can make decisions (whether to like something or not) when given the option - but I can't do that when all the cool stuff is drowning in noise. And there is a lot of noise on the internet. Curating the internet, separating the gems from the noise is now one of the most important (and interesting) things that people need to do. So do your part: invite people to your wiki. Or to my wiki. If people don't know what others are doing, then things will feel very quiet indeed. And as we've learnt from Facebook and other such things, nowadays the fastest way for content to spread is by word of mouth, not by adverts. The strength is in the friends of your friends.

This little thingie was inspired by what happened with this video by Getyo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY I saw a link to it by The Cool Hunter in Facebook, and shared it. And then someone I am friends with on Facebook (but don't really talk even when we see each other in reality, about twice a year maybe - and I would never have even imagined that he'd like that kind of thing) wrote on my wall and thanked me for sharing because he really liked it. And now you'll notice if you clicked the link that this song features Kimbra. And then because YouTube suggests videos you might want to watch next, I watched Kimbra's 'Settle Down', loved her aesthetics, then watched 'Cameo Lover' and fell in love with her music. And the awesome thing is that I feel a very strong connection to all of these songs. With the Gotye song: I did that. My ex-boyfriend could sing that song to me and every single bit of it would be true. And now I am Somebody that he used to know. :/ 'Settle Down' is an eery song to me, because I would say all those things (except maybe naming a kid Nebraska... except that it does fit my demands ) - but there is something very sinister and almost warning about the song, so it makes me uneasy (in a good way). And 'Cameo Lover' is again about me, I was that in that relationship, that man in the back suit, in my bubble with all my trouble and not opening up - and it was a freaking cancer to the relationship (along with sex, ruined the whole thing). Now how the heck can pop music make you go through your skeletons so thoroughly is beyond me. Punk never did that.

I want to go on a little more what I like about Kimbra. :P My current thing is quirkiness and whim of all sort, and she's got quirks, in the way she sings, in the lyrics. The dancing in the videos is really weird (not as weird as They Might Be Giants, but they're not weird, they're just... their own thing :P), and oh my goodness I love it that it's not like dry humping. And that she's actually dressed! :O I love it!

It's interesting, I'm back to wanting to learn new music. I've got some recommendations from friends and Facebook, and I'm looking out for stuff (at one point I was quite fiercely "no no don't want any").

Hi, me again.

I just discovered Kimbra. http://www.youtube.com/user/kimbramusic She is cool. I want the CD. I may be very attracted to the fact that it's her debut CD, 'cause it'd be cool to like her from the start - wow, I'm selfish ._.; I do like her songs too. And her aesthetics (both in her personal style as well as the videos), my goodness she looks cool.

The missionaries just discovered that there is a bus card one can get to go between Kouvola and Hamina (they are in different zones). I could afford it now, and then when I leave Salpakirja and get a drop in monies, I would have it and be able to go to Kouvola anyway (all the more useful since while unemployed I'll be able to go help the missionaries way more than now! :D) I tried to buy it but I think my card has some lame-o limit on it? Which it shouldn't, since a limit should be on how much you can take out, not how big purchases you can make... *needs to investigate*

My sense of threes demands that there be a third "someone discovered" paragraph here. So if you have recently discovered something, tell me and I'll put it here :P

Have you noticed that extreme actions cause extreme reactions?

-The extreme right is on the rise in Europe (at least the parts of Europe that I am involved with - I have many thoughts about Europe these days, but that's for later), and then their opponents are getting also louder (and somehow loudness and dumbness seem to correlate...) So Finland elects a whole lot of Basic Finns (PerSu) to parliament, and then you start to see silly comments in papers that are anti-PerSu that those moderate, nice lefties would never have said before. o.O
-The Norway murderer is some crazy right winger too, but because of his actions, I get to read how on Facebook my nice leftie friends say things like "rawr, death penalty!" or "Norway's sissy punishments for such crimes are an outrage" etc (not direct quotes but the gist of many a comment).

This all baffles me, since I thought I had grown more conservative. I thought I would be the one among all my art school friends calling for all sorts of stricter measures. So this means I have no idea which way I have grown. Where do I stand politically?

-The civil unrest in London also makes those people that I know and thought were sort of calm and deep thinkers say the silliest things, simply condemning everything that's happened and everyone involved in it. Although interestingly also there is something of a putting down going on here, they aren't overreacting (like in the other stuff), but sort of undermining: silly chavs, kids these days, they're all just criminals and no-goods... What if these people are trying to say something in the only language they know how to use, what if there is something behind here that you haven't noticed before? If there isn't, if it really is just so that the stupid white trash scum don't have anything else to do than burn down houses because they live off of a dole that is clearly far too big, then good! Arrest them all. Punish them. Put them all down to their place. But hoe gosh what will hapepn if you do that and they actually do have some bigger reason to fight for? Have you not watched the movies where this very simple plot is always played out?
(Also, this David Cameron quote where he said "rawr I haven't been too slow to react to these riots!" -They didn't say you were too slow to react to the riots, but all the stuff before that, the stuff we all totally ignored which could have been used to stop the riots :/ )

Continuing on the chav thing. When I first came to England, I didn't know about chavs. Then I started to pick it up, heard about them etc... But, one of the very first things about chavs that I ever read was this critical piece of writing in a paper, can't remember which one. And it criticised us about laughing at chavs, about putting them down and hatin' them. They are the peasants of our age. And remember that Jane Austen character that makes fun of the poor folks? Didn't you just hate him/her? (I don't know if such a character exists, but surely we can all imagine it does.) It just drives you up the wall, the rich, silly person making fun of someone else's lesser status. Right? Or maybe not since we all do it. Another chav-related thing that made an impact on me was a visiting lecturer (the fashion guy from Red or Dead, Wayne something?) who in his slideshow had a picture of chavs, and asked what is in the picture. The audience replied (I among the others): chavs. He said "you see chavs. I see the future." It went awfully quiet in the lecture theatre.

So while I can't claim to be the great defender of the chavkind - I have no chav-friends, I haven't ever really talked to any properly - I do realise that they are people too. We tend to forget that under the silly name calling...

Hmm, I veered a little from my opening topic. But that's me.

Strangely un-silly diary of me.... *goes back to work*

Guys. I watched a smith make a nail out of hot metal, then bought it while it was still warm. This was win.
Plus he used a vesivasara (water trip hammer. This thing <URL:http://www.laveteraaniopet.com/porv%20(9).jpg> the axe-like thing whose head is almost at the centre in the picture) and that was incredibly win too.

So now I have a huge iron nail longer than the palm of my hand :) The kind you build castles with. Or really big steam engines, or railroads.

Tomorrow I teach the children and the missionaries are coming here after church for dinner :) And one of them is getting transferred on Monday.

:) is now an accepted form of punctuation that can take the place of a full stop *nod*

I have cookies from yesterday :9

There was a really cute guy in the shop yesterday and today, selling some books (which we didn't want to buy) and some military award thingies (which we did buy). I'd forgotten how nice mutual flirting of no consequence feels like. It just cheers up your day and puts a smile on your face :) Also turns out that he works in a shop that I used to bike past all the time. I might have to start biking that way again... :P (Going the other way avoids the big hills - but also avoids the beautiful city centre, and apparently the cute guy's cool shop).

Noumenon = Truthiness ?



In other news,I just put icing sugar from hell into my arm pit and am now plagued by a (mind/sensation/thought-process)-numbing pain.
Funny that. I didn't have an abscess or boil all the 18 months I was a missionary. I had one right before I left (and had had them like four a year or something, a lot), and I have one now. -_-

I'm going to be AFK for the rest of tonight (just like I was all Saturday (sister's wedding) and Sunday (day of rest)) and just do creative things on the lappytop.

On Sunday I declined pizza because it was the right thing to do, and got pizza from another source when I got home. Lesson learnt: God will always provide a way for pizza.

Also, today was really cold. I woke up on the balcony (where I sleep) and I was freezing! <3 Com come autumn, come. (Speaking of autumn, a week ago it was autumn in pokemon white, an today when I opened it it was winter, and it's always hailing in battle and hail hurts everybody >:C What the heck, I thought this was timed according to the real life seasons. I don't care what country you're in, winter does not begin on first of August.)

So yeah. Gonna go bye now.

I have a lot of excess love today. <3
I love you all so very much. I'm serious. Yes, even you. Yes, even that person you are thinking of incredulously.
(No, I'm not drunk or under any kind of influence -_- :P)

That is all. Good night.

Sometimes when people ask me what I would wish for if I got a wish, I wish that all guns and weapons in the world would turn into flowers, all ammunition and explosive things into seeds and fruit, all gun and weapon factories and army facilities into gardens and farms, and all gun-carrying people into farmers and gardeners. Like, all at once *poof* no more guns or means to make guns. So like, the army were having practices and all of a sudden *poof* they are holding rakes and scythes and watering cans and standing in the middle of a potato field or an orchard. And someone's like holding up a store or something, and all of a sudden *poof* it's a flower he is pointing at the person behind the counter, and someone just saw a hand grenade fly at him and he manages to think "hocrap" and *poof* he's hit in the head by an apple.

Also, I do not want to hear what the murderer in Norway has to say. I don't want him to be allowed to tell the world any whys or buts or becauses. I don't want to hear anything that he shot and bombed many people oh because he wanted to save the puppies. Just no. The sentence (grammatically speaking) ends there: he shot and bombed many people. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve a trial - he does. But he doesn't deserve the publicity. He should not be allowed to do anything more to those people or their memories or their families by saying things on top of having done things ('cause y'know, sometimes words hurt as bad or make things worse). So that would be another wish: no more publicity to that man. Put the heroes in the spotlight.

But I would also like to see people stop talking about him like he is some monster. He's not. He is a human being. Humans are capable of doing things like that. So all the "ohmygoodness, how could this happen, why would this happen, it's unthinkable" - I don't see the point of it. I don't see the point of monstrosifying (that is a word) him, or asking why. Pretending like he is something else, something unknown, gives him a shine or a power or an edge. The last thing was to see is silly people sending him letters in jail because they are strangely turned on (not necessarily in a sexual way) by his mysterious aura of ununderstandableness (this one certainly is a word). So I don't want his reasons to be out in the open for people to see and understand, but I also don't want people to be un-understanding him either. :/

These are just some of the things I was thinking of on my bikeride to work today. Others were "hey maybe I should do an MBA" and "it's so cool to live in a military town and see soldiers (I just can't make myself write privates) every day all over town and I wish I could do some kind of photography project with that" and then imagined going round taking photos of the old fortresses and asking the soldiers if I could take pictures of them, then I imagined that I would talk to them in English and they would be all awkward and speak that Finnish-politician-English and I would titter in my mind thinking "haha, you don't know that I am actually Finnish!"

Oh, I would also wish for to always have the exact right amount of money in my pocket no matter what I was buying (I hate fiddling for change). And I can't remember what my third standard wish was.

Pokemon White review

I can't make good art on demand (note to self: don't do commissions, unless very inspired to do so). My uncle has a big round birthday and my mum asked me to make him a picture for a present. Well I made one but I'm not satisfied with it. The really sad part is that... it's fine, and I know it'll be fine for my mum and for my uncle - but I know it's not fine, that I can do better and that I made a second-rate picture for someone else. :/ I almost didn't want to sign it but I did in the end because I knew my mum would make me sign it, so if I put it in the frame without signing it, she would make me take it out and sign it, so it was easier to just sign it before putting it in the frame. This all makes me feel like a terrible snob. :/

Continuing on my snobby streak, I'm going to end the Elfwood Selections (I hear you go "ha!" because it needs no end announcement since it's been dead and gone for such a long time already). The thing is, I love doing those selections, I love finding things to share and writing the blibs - I just don't like Elfwood anymore. So that one is going to go down and make room for a different kind of wikipage, which is exactly like the Elfwood Selections except about real art. Though I can't think of a name. So I think I'll just call it Selections. It'll probably feature mostly things related to my art practice, so at the moment that would be either Mormon Artists or renaissance artists :P And of course personal favourites like Duchamp and Picabia and gosh who was the photographer with the old industrial glass plate scans coloured in Photoshop... *gets excited* See? I'm a total art snob :( I don't get excited about ET-stuff anymore *is not worthy to be in the Bad Artists' Society*

The things in ET I do get excited about are wikis and forums, though, so I'm not quite as good as gone :P I got a lot of junk forum clicking done today because I was scanning book covers at work, and every time the scanner was doing its thing, I'd read junk forum, and then do the cropping and resizing and saving, do another scan and a bit more junk forum etc etc... It actually made me work really fast at the scanner, because I wanted the scanner to be constantly busy with the scanning. Cool stuff :)

Lastly: aaaaarghfmg! It's so friggin' hot in here! Showering makes no difference anymore! Help! I have distinctly chosen to not live in a warm country because I can't handle the heat! I honestly enjoy autumn weather and having things a little chilly (I wouldn't mind winter so bad if it wasn't for all the retarded snow) Make the heat go away, please, somebody... ;_; I'll... pay you... a little... Please?

Duuuudes.

The kids (aka young people my age) in Örebro are the coolest. They made a trailer for a horror film and if there's enough interest, they'll make the whole film :D It's really nicely done, looks really cool. And the crazy thing for me if of course that I know all the people... Like the african guy, I taught that man the gospel and was there when he got baptised! I'm so incredibly excited about this, it's silly.

Basically, in the beginning the guy tells a story from Örebro in the 1900s of a farmer boy who was treated like an animal by his parents, who then after years of abuse got enough and murdered his parents, then chopped them to pieces and fed the pieces to the swine. And his ghost haunts the tracts still, and you might be next.
And then history repeats itself when a 19-year-old boy in Örebro finally gets enough of bullies...

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYq_4LTVap4&hd=1

http://www.facebook.com/Iumentumtrailer

I might translate subs for the trailer (it's pretty easy to add captioning to YouTube yes?)

*edit* Here be the subs.
The part about sleeping outside with the pigs I'm not exactly sure about, but I think that's what it says.


In a water-filled quarry outside of Örebro.

"Have you heard the story about the Animal Boy? In the year 1927, right in this area, lived a boy who year after year was abused by his father. The boy had to (sleep out with?) the swine, which during the years had become his equals."

"His human qualities disappeared more and more until one day he had had enough."

"One dark night he followed his parents to an isolated, dark root cellar. There he murdered and chopped them to pieces and fed the pieces to the swine."

"No one knows what happened with the Animal Boy, but they say that his soul still wanders around the forests here, looking for new victims."

"And who knows, maybe you... will be the next victim."

Guys, I wanted to tell you about yesterday, and how I learnt something about human development, but I want (badlier) to go carry my new bookcase upstairs. Funny that: I stack books to shelves for a living, but it's still exciting to get to stack your own books in your own new shelves :3 Not that I'll get any stacking done today. I'll go upstairs, carry the shelf with me, move the chest of drawers that is occupying the spot I want my bookcase in, put my bookcase there, arrange all the stuff that fell from the top of the chest of drawers, one of them being the Nintendo DS, which I will open and play Pokemon White on, then I will look up and go "oh dear it is time for bed", give a last furtive glance at my books piled all over my desk, and think to myself "well, it's not too bad that I can't get to using my desk soon because of all of the books on top of it, since it's actually all the art-related papers on the floor in front of the desk that are the real reason I'm not using the desk right now." Then I will think of the drawing project that I haven't touched in ages (even though it's in a really exciting stage right now) and I will go out to the balcony which is where I sleep now. It is a little too cold at night to sleep there and I think I'm not helping my strangely long-lingering cold by sleeping there, but it reminds me of the year I spent living in my house on Terry Road, where it was so cold that I only ever went home to sleep, and spent even the waking hours under the huge thick duvet and I wore a woolly jumper (aka sweater for Americans) for pajamas. And when the sister missionaries came by one hot summer day they said "oh wow, you have air conditioning" and I said "no I don't." I miss that house. It was falling apart, had slugs and mice - but it was mine. For that one summer when there were no roommates, it was mine. *sigh*

That was a long brain-fart with nothing to stop it. Suffice to say that I feel very loving all the time right now, and I love you all very much <3 (no, I'm not drunk :P)

Guys, wasting time on ET just totally did me a favour!
My intention was just to nip to the internets (after not being on all night since both my sisters came to visit and we did stuff instead of ET) to do my dole-money business, and the office web service was down, and I was annoyed because I was a little late already to submit my stuff (it's so weird how they work, they say "you may submit the infor no earlier than <date> o.O Instead of no later than. But the sooner you submit the sooner you get paid of course). So I was peeved, thinking I'd have to try ot remember to do it tomorrow. Clicked links on ET and then thought I'd check over after half an hour, and it was back online and I was able to do it! :D Whoo!

And then the delay also meant that I managed to catch a new friend on Facebook who just returned from his mission in Sweden, so we were able to catch up with both of us online (I'm never online at the same time as the Americans!)

I'm learning to really like kids. They are a lot of fun :)

Please just rain already... ._. *misses England so much*

I need to teach primary in church tomorrow (that's my calling, aka church volunteery job thingie :P) I have no idea what the lesson is on. I was there last time when they had classes (two weeks ago), why can I not recall what the lesson was about then? >.< This is going to be a disaster. I think I'll just make something up to teach the individuals in the class, rather than going by the book >_> That's what we did as missionaries: have no plan? Fear not, just pull it out of your hat! It will go fine because you study and prepare every day anyway and there's plenty of help. Sides, primary is a disaster every week :P It's so stressful - but fun too, Much like missionary work, actually. Except with really little people who will climb on your lap and bite your hair and kick each other in the shins and not sit down - and then whisper after class when once again sitting on top of you "you're my teacher. I love you teacher" and completely melt your heart away <3 <3 Though I am glad no one in Sweden did that. That would have been really awkward. Although one time this guy we were teaching grabbed and squeezed my legs. But he was trying to force me to continue to play floorball after I told him I was already toast. 

It seems that I have digressed once again. What I meant to say was "aaargh what the heck am I going to dooooo?!?!?" :P

No no, not really. I'm feeling great today because I was at the temple all day today and it's just such a wonderful spiritual battery charge that I'm pretty ready to take on Goliath here :) *shines with the sninyness!*

Apparently it was wednesday that was Eino Leino day. So happy Day of Summer and Poetry everyone! <3

I'm emotionally very tired today. It's just been a rollercoaster today. I got an email that made me very happy but also very nervous, I'm planning adventures for the weekend, but I've also been kind of disappointed with myself recently - but also working hard at work (which feels good)... So basically I've been going from woot to meh in 2.3 seconds. For example: "yay, missionaries asked me to come with them to a teach tomorrow!" *look at buses to get to Kouvola* Hmm, doable, sort of... *tell 'rents that will be going to Kouvola and see if dad wouldn't mind giving a ride* *dad starts talking about driving school in a really sarcastic tone of voice, and mom asks who would pay for said driving school and the conversation peters out without a clear answer* *yay killed*

It's actually interesting how both my parents have a natural talent for making me... not want to involve them in my life. They just say the smallest things that burst all my bubbles. Like last week, it was really hot and I biked home from work. And I had been thinking that maybe there is a better route home that's quicker, so I checked it out and got lost (it was pretty hilarious actually, I was on these really scary forest paths and went up and down really steep hills for about 20 mins before I gave up and went back the usual way). And when I got home, before I get the chance to say "haha, I'm so dumb, I got lost trying to find a different way home" my mum asks "did you know you were going to be late coming home?" in that nasty tone of voice that only my mum knows how to do. So I go to diffuse-the-situation -mode (without even knowing what the situation is) and ask how late am I exactly? And she says "there's a clock there, you can see it can't you?" -_- So I explain that I don't know what time I usually get home, and she says at about quarter past. It is half past. You tell me I am fifteen minutes "late"? Wtf? Fifteen minutes of grace time is always in everything. Sides, Standard Mormon Time is fifteen minutes late. Late for what you might ask. Dinner apparently (I don't actually like the whole "get home from work, immediately sit at the dinner table" -thing that goes on in my house, but I'll deal since I don't care enough to start complaining and it's not my house). So apparently it is my fault if the rice is dry. -_- Just... wtf... Why does it need to be expressed in that way? So instead of sharing my crazy biking adventure with my parents, I just made something up about biking slower when it's hot.

I must say, I had an amazing time at my brother's house, being all alone with dogs and deciding everything myself.

I actually did have something a bit more interesting to blag about, but I'm all out of steam. It probably wasn't that interesting anyway. Basically, these pro gay adoption -people are saying they want equal rights for all people, and that's why they want gay couples to be able to adopt. Now it doesn't matter where I stand on this issue (firmly on the fence), but here, let me fix something for you guys. That is a dumb argument. It is not "a right" to raise children. It's a privilege, to be allowed to take care of another human being, one that is really sensitive and tender and not capable of taking care of itself. What you are entitled to do or be has absolutely nothing to do with raising children. In this matter the only thing that matters is what is best for the child. That's the field you have to stand on and argue on with this question. So if you can, you can make the point that a gay couple can make a perfectly loving and caring and nurturing parenting unit to a child that is much better than a straight couple where the father drinks and beats his kids and the mother is emotionally abusive. Or whatever. But I'm just a little bit fed up of this concept of "it's my right to..." It gets dropped around so much that the actual real rights lose value.

Okay so I guess I had enough steam for that.

Happy Fourth of July. Yes I care since people I care about care about it. I'd do something to celebrate but... y'know :P I am lazy and have other stuff to do. I might go sing some USA-patriotic songs later. But yeah, USA is cool in my book. *waves tiny flag*

This week has other days to celebrate too. Thursday is Eino Leino day. Eino Leino was a very famous Finnish poet, he was a big round man with a big black hat with big floppy edges. He was called Finland's greatest boheme. I am not that round and have a black hat with not that big floppy edges, so I shall claim the title of Finland's smallest boheme. Eino Leino day is also known as The Day of Poetry and Summer (Runon ja Suven päivä).

And on Friday some more missionaries from Sweden come/go home, including some very dear friends of mine (and a couple old companions too, leaving me with only one ex-companion out in Sweden). Which means I'll get to talk to them on Facebook and stuff. :) And hopefully they'll upload a lot of pictures and I'll get to pine over those :P

And then on the weekend South Sudan is going to become an independent country. That's right people, there will be a new country in the world. I think this is really exciting o.O

And in less noble and timely news: someone please for the love of all things beautiful and Victorian get me a pair of these beauties!
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=victorian&hl=en&client=firefox-a&amp;hs=X8m&rlz=1R1GGLL_fi___FI425&prmd=ivnsb&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1024&bih=609&um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;tbm=shop&amp;cid=18356394184914462221&amp;sa=X&ei=Ge0RTrb9JNDCswafz5SLDw&ved=0CH0Q8wIwAg


Also:
So that's why I love pepperoni o.O
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1991

I'm staying by myself at my brother's house. He and his family went for a weekend holiday and I help with the dogs and recently-sown patch of grass. He lives in the same town that I go to church in, so I got to go out and help the missionaries and treat them to ice-cream afterwards, and then just bike to church tomorrow. I've been pretty relaxed, doing work on the computer, just cooked a little for myself (eggy bread! :9) The best part is that my brother has a fan! :D It is so hot in here, the fan brings the level down to something more humane. I don't know how the canine's are taking this. The german shepherd runs around the yard like crazy, and the rottweiler is twice as needy and affectionate than my dog (which is half-rottweiler, so I guess that makes sense, it's a race trait and this one doesn't have it diluted down like my mutt does. Guys, I just really love dogs, y'know.

And then another thing of win was mail yesterday: I got mail from my mission president <3 They are going home, their mission is over. :S A mission president and his wife are like a missionary's mum and dad, and they serve for three years. And now they are done, another couple has moved in the house they lived in in Sweden, they are back in Washington, and the letter and CD full of pictures they sent me made me so Sweden-homesick that I want to cry. :(

Lets face it, I'm not properly out of the mission yet. I will quite frequently get stuck in a thought along the lines of "this time last year I was in..." or start reminiscing about something awesome that happened in Sweden, or about some awesome person, and just ache with the longing to have that back. But every day less and less of it exists. The Andersons are now gone, as are most of my missionary friends. Soon all of them will be gone. The real Swedish people will of course still be there, but... *sigh*

This condition is called 'post mission blues' or not being quite returned from the mission just yet. Physically you leave but it either comes away with you or you leave a part of you there. We joke about that quite a bit in the church, when a returned missionary isn't quite all the way returned just yet. Y'know, sort of "wow, he never left his mission" etc...

*pines for her mission like a sappy old tree* (this would be even better a sentence if I had served in Norway and could say I pined for the fjords... I wonder what would be a good Sweden-specific word to replace fjords to make this more funny...)

It is six pm. I have three hours before time to retire, my computer wants to restart, and I've pressed all them links that need to be pressed. I think I shall go upstairs and do arty things. Yes.

I shall leave you all with my best wishes and this picture:

Oh, dudes! I almost forgot! 27th of June! In 1844, that is... *quick math moment* err... a lot many years ago, happened something that is rather important for me, and other people of my faith. So y'know I'm a mormon, and you may or may not know that this all (being the restoration of the gospel and church of Christ) started with a person called Joseph Smith Jr. You can find out the main points of the story (now in technicolor in the link provided below) if you are interested, but the only point I'll mention right now is that today, June 27th is when he was killed because of his beliefs by a murdering mob of citizens of that country that even at that early time was so very keen on religious freedom (I sort of spoilt the ending of the movie there... Sorry).

Anyhoo, I really do like this film. There are actually two versions of it, this is the newer one that will make a bit more sense if you're not familiar with the story.

http://radio.lds.org/Joseph?lang=eng

Just something I wanted to share. I realise that I'm pretty rubbish about telling people that are actually close to me about what I believe in and why (and I'm a returned missionary! For shame!), which can make some of the stuff I do or say somewhat strange. I do actually like to talk about it, though I may be/have been curt with my responses to questions in the past.