I have done everything! *fist in air as a sign of triumph*
I have emailed and Facebooked everyone that needed to be contacted, I've banked and done other official business, I'm prepared to teach English to kids tomorrow for the very first time (this is going to be so much fun btw, it's not teaching, it's playing games for an hour), I've done ET stuffs (though there is always more to do), I've knitted, I've started to listen to the recentest episode of This American Life, I've groomed my dog, I've had a shower. All this after having done a newspaper round, and before dinner.

Carry on.

So the paper job gets increasingly more annoying and difficult, which is a good way to go about it I guess. 'Cause on Friday I was scary to be alone, on Saturday I was stupid and thought I could leave some of the papers in the drop-off box and pick them up as I go past it to the other area, but I left too many and had to come back and then go back and it was a hassle. Also the papers were late coming. And then Sunday verily did suck because you have to deliver this annoying little thin slip of a thing to every door, not just the subscribers. Ah well, I survived in the end. Interestingly, last week the weather was gorgeous every night, so I guess this week it's going to rain and suck, just so I won't get to thinking that this is a glorious career choice after all. :P

Two interesting things worth mentioning about the weekend. On Saturday after I finished my round, I called America. And America picked up and passed the phone around so that I got to talk to a whole ton of my friends <3 Y'see, they had a missionary reunion in Utah on Friday night (so that's Saturday morning for me) and we all got to talk on the phone. They all really appreciated it and I really loved it too. So that was epic and I was on cloud nine for a long time after that. (I wrote a really long cool note about it in Facebook if you want excessive details for any reason).

Sunday made me seethe, though. I was on my way to work, and there was a bunch of guys coming home from a bar - including my religiously insensitive boss-person. And they were all shouting and heckling me as I biked past, the boss-person being the loudest and most obnoxious of the lot. Despite the fact that he wasn't at work and he was drunk at the time, I still think that is incredibly inappropriate. And I mean, more inappropriate than if it had been total strangers. It was one of the most threatening moments in a long while. Usually I just don't care about stuff like that, but that one really brushed me the wrong way.

So then later I was explaining to mum and dad about my shifts and days off, and I said "yeah it ends on the 17th." And they were all "whut, why?" so I just stated that the contract ends, there's all this change in the districts and stuff blahblah" and dad said "ah, but maybe you can extend it" and I said "probably but I'm not going to." They were all o.o and I explained "I don't like the guy who does our shifts, and you have to work with him if you work there, so I don't want to work there." And we talked about him, and I think my dad knows (of) him, and he said "is he the guy who's in Perussuomalaiset (Basic Finns, that extreme right wing political party that is getting all sorts of attention over here). So today I spied him on Facebook and yes indeed he is that one. I don't know if that means anything, if that explains it at all, or if this just enforces my slightly negative view of the PerSu-group. I'm sad if it does, because I thought I'm above that kind of thing.

If I meet one obnoxious Bulgarian, will I assume that all Bulgarians are obnoxious? Of course not. But is judging people based on their thoughts and actions (like a politican group) better than judging them based on something they have no control over, like birth place or race? I think so. But then extending that judgment to the entire group would only work if you knew that the person's obnoxiousness was caused by the thoughts and actions that are promoted by the group. So in short, is my boss obnoxious because he is PerSu, or is he just obnoxious? Should I judge the PerSu because he is obnoxious, or should I just judge him? The thing here is of course that the PerSu are so very talented at being obnoxious all across the field. Their elected representatives say racists things in interviews and in blogposts, their leader has the gift of the gab and uses it shamelessly to blather populist bollocks instead of trying to do anything (these guys pretty much almost won the elections - why are they in opposition? Oh yes, because they don't actually want to do anything, they just want to sit in the sidelines and heckle á la Luke 7:32... Then again, if they had formed the government on a PerSu basis, I would have left the country. I'll take the Tories over the PerSu any day).

Wow, political rant time, over.

Anyhoo, so I came home on Sunday morning cursing the name of that guy. And then it was General Conference and president Uchtdorf talked about exactly this kind of thing in his talk¹ and called me to repentance about it. Bah. Fine. I'll be nice. But I am still not renewing the contract. -_-

¹ http://lds.org/general-conference/watch/2011/10?lang=eng&vid=1194756909001&cid=12

I have to sort of unload again. This is where I come to unload. Sorry about all the load. tl;dr.

I've had stressful dreams about cycling with the post bike, and I'm also randomly stressing/freaking out over having to do the round alone for the first time on Friday. I had to do the round today with all the papers in my bike (yesterday we shared) but the teacher-person was still with me. But the bike is really darn scary when it's all loaded up, it's really heavy and it shakes like a blender all the time (unless you tighten your arms out really straight to stabilise it). But Friday it's all me. This will take a long time, I tell you. And I'm so scared of getting lost or falling over with that heavy bike, and it's all cold and dark yet you still get really sweaty...

Anyhoo. I got the schedule for this thing, I have all next week biking, the week after all off - except weekends. During this contract of shortness (only three weeks) I have to do every weekend. Everyone hates weekends. There's more papers and you have to stop at every post box, not just the ones who have subscribed to a newspaper. So everyone hates Sundays. I mentioned to the boss-person about wanting to keep Sundays holy, but he said that's a problem. The thing is, I told him "I'm religious and to me Sunday is the Sabbath and therefore holy." And he was just like... not at all even trying to meet me halfway or anything, he didn't even sound in any way sympathetic or anything *fails at explaining but I hope you get what I mean* This is very much the problematic thing in Finland...

<tangent> There is no religious tolerance because people don't understand other religions at all. His reaction would have been the same if I'd said "I'm jewish and therefore can't do shifts on Saturdays." He himself is not religious (I don't know but I'm guessing) and the society at large around him is not religious, and RE in school was really boring and not relevant, and therefore he has no friggin' clue what "holy day" even means in practice. Even though the concept exists in basically every religion in some form or another. He can't relate and therefore can't grasp that it might be important to the person he is talking to. I really think this is what RE should be about, teaching people about all religions, perhaps starting with the ev.lut state church, but also touching on others, and not in a sense of "this is what you are supposed to believe" and also not as "look at how ridiculous this religion business is (yes, RE teachers in Finland teach it like that, I've heard a lot of people mention that). RE should promote tolerance, saying "hey, so there's all these muslims in the country now, so you all should know what that actually means so that you won't get scared of them and go all racist on them." </tangent>

Well anyway. The boss-person said "well, we want regulars to be people who can work any day." That was not in any way a response to my situation or question. But meh, the entire situation was really bizarre, it was him and the other director guy in the office, and I clearly interrupted them asking silly questions (like, they weren't even trying to hide the fact that they thought my questions were stupid) about the pay and the way things work (I've been abroad you stupid mofo's, I don't know how the system works, no matter how much you'll snigger about it, I will ask when I don't know), and then brought up the religion thing which threw them off even more. And there was like heavy metal playing on the computer. Plus, this is like 5:30 in the morning, so everyone is a little zonked out as it is.

So long story short, I'm not going to renew this contract. I don't want to work on Sundays. I'll do the ones I signed under and learn from this experience of choosing a job (so far I've been very much "can't be picky, I just want to work"). So my stint as a paper person is three weeks long :P

In more positive news, one group of that English class stuff has actually happened and will start next wednesday, and there's still a bunch more schools and nurseries to contact. So maybe it will work out. I'll also talk to the headmaster of this one of being a sub for English, Swedish or Art. There is also some kind of part time Swedish teaching going down in Kouvola, so if we could mesh the schedules of that and the English class stuff, I could teach both English and Swedish, one for kids and the other for adults, and both outside the school system.


So work life aside... I have nothing. All my energy is going to juggling this stupid mess.

I don't know how much it does/will show here, but this week is tough. It's the last week in the bookstore overlapping with the first week of practicing the newspaper thing. Apparently also the English class thing is catching on, I actually have a class to teach but that goodness I was able to move the start of that to next week (instead of, y'know, tomorrow X_x) The paper thing is the worst effector, having to get used to a new sleeping rhythm (going surprisingly well) and the whole biking around in the dark -thing, with all the paperwork and stuff to boot. So basically I don't get to do anything for myself this week. If I am caught online, it is right after paper round when I try to struggle to stay awake before heading to the bookstore, or from the bookstore when I am taking a break.

I missed out on Institute already on Monday, hopefully get to go to Kouvola on thursday...

It is also General Conference¹ this weekend. So stoked. I'm going to be watching most of it online when I manage to, but I will go to Kouvola for one session on Sunday to watch it together with Maisa. This could be the beginning of an awesome Conference tradition of being with friends and food while listening to inspiring talks :)


¹For those of you who don't speak mormon, General Conference is a big Church-wide meeting held twice a year in Salt Lake City and it is broadcast all over the world with satellite and internet and radio and what-not. It is organised in a bunch of two-hour sessions. In them all the prophets and apostles speak (give talks) which in of itself is really awesome, but the talks tend to be really really awesome too. http://generalconference.lds.org/

But, it's 6:30pm. Time to go to bed X_x

What do you do at work when you have some kind of an epic project going on (like massive shelf-rearrange and vacuuming to boot) and then you get done and you say "well done me" and feel all good about yourself, and then realise there is just 20 minutes left of work time? This is Friday afternoon. 20 minutes is a bit too long to keep a break (esp. since you've already kept your breaks >_>) but it's not long enough to start doing something else, esp. since it would involve first thinking up what that something to do would be.

Apparently what I do is go on ET, click some forums and write a diary, and hey presto, it's time to go home. >_> This does not make me proud. The opposite in fact, it makes me sad that I'm wasting my employer's time (not that I get paid real money to do this... But still, this is kind of my job). It deserves to rain on me as I bike home today. I think it will, actually. ._.

Well, anyway. Monday is my first middle-of-the-night newspaper day, where someone shows me how it's done for a couple nights. Meep.

Apparently everyone thinks that delivering newspapers will suck. Maybe it will. But I'll do it anyway.

It seems that when applying for jobs and such, I constantly only see the positive sides of everything. "Yay, get to be with kids" or "yay, get to take the bus for two hours every day" or "yay, independent work" etc... In the newspaper thing the positives I see are the small amount of hours you work at a time (admittedly, they are the wee hours of the day) and since it is a part-time job I won't have shifts all the time. And this is good for me because my need for money is not dire (I live at home and only have to pay loan installment). I also like this idea of a different day rhythm. I don't want to sleep after work, I want to go to bed really early (like, 6pm) and stay awake all morning after work. This would mean all those super-productive hours of the morning are at my own disposal and maybe - OMG - I can do arts! :O Also, evenings are quiet in the house. The dog is a late morning barker, so I would start hating him if I tried to sleep at that time. Also, perhaps I find other part-time job at teaching. I'm constantly applying to stuff. I do dread the physical aspect of the work a little (biking in all weather with newspapers) but hey, the mission was physically really tough too, and I lived through it. Maybe I'll turn back to steel. :3 The only real sad about this whole thing is that I won't be able to help the missionaries with the English class and I won't be able to go to Institute unless they change it back to Sunday afternoons. Then again, I didn't go last time and I'm not going today (basically, everything I promised my Mission President I'd do after getting home I haven't done and won't... >_> ) And maybe I'll be able to help the missionaries during the day.

But yeah, not exactly turning nocturnal (since you won't see me here in the middle of the night) but something's going down for sure. Hmm, early morning Skype calls to the States? :3 I think so.

To be honest, the main reason for this job is my messed up employment situation: I'm quitting the bookstore early (because I thought I got a job with the English stuffs) and if you quit without a reason (aka job, which the English class didn't turn out to be), you get trouble and they cut you off the dole for a bit. So this saves my skin in that sense, because now I do have a job and thus I am quitting the bookstore. And since it's a part-time job, I still get some kind of a part-time dole. But even if my finances take a dip, I don't mind, since I don't really need 700 a month, I need 100 for the loan and then all the rest is bonus. And the thing is, however much you are earning, you seem to spend it all anyway. So if I earn less, I will spend less.

Back to work.

This is long and pointless and personal. The light, fun, pointless comments on the top.

Marabou has made a new Limited Edition chocolate. This must be sent to someone. But who?

I just taught my spellchecker the words herp and derp :P



I'm off work today because the doctor thought my boil was way worse than I did. I went to get it lanced and that hurt like crapola, but is doesn't hurt much anymore. The doctor said "next time don't wait so long to come here." I thought "next time I just won't come" because it hurt that bad. But like I said, much better now. But the thing is, I didn't wait that long. Like, there was something kind of uncomfortable under my skin for a while, but if I'd gone at that point they would have been all "seriously, what are you doing here? Go home and come back if it gets worse. We are really busy saving lives y'know," or something like that. It is notoriously difficult to get seen here. "Kinda think I might get a boil maybe" will not get you the same kind of attention as "I have a boil the size of a golf ball" does. 'Sides, I came when it got bad. Kind of. As soon as I managed to come after it got bad. I think playing Sardines in the bus with my English little brothers on Sunday didn't help, nor did sleeping on the airport (oh yeah: I visited England last weekend, and missed my flight back because of a bad accident on the motor way. Lesson learnt: take the train). So on Monday I got to Finland and it was big and bad. On Tuesday it bugged me at work, so when I got home I figured out what "boil" is called in Finnish (because again, the hospital people will only be annoyed with you if you go there and say "I have... some kind of a problem, and it's up to you to guess what it is") and on Wednesday morning I tried to call the hospital but my phone said "your operator says herp-derp" and the call never happened. So on Wednesday after work I dropped by to ask someone how does one get a time/get seen if one's phone has a fail, and they just said "wait here, we'll fix it now." So they did, they cut it open and I bled like a pig. Limped home crying (more out of shock than pain, because they did give me drugs) and it's on it's way getting much better. And now I had to go there today too, and tomorrow, and maybe over the weekend (except I may or may not be in town this weekend...?) and on Monday. FFS. This is not this serious. Is it? In England when I had a boil they gave me antibiotics and told me go buy magnesium sulphate and let me go my merry way. Okay, maybe this is bigger and worse, but... is it really necessary to be seen every day for five days and have some kind of rubber tube put inside the hole? X_x (They said they want it to close up from the bottom before it closes from the top...) And it only hurts, really, when the medical people are poking it. Just... leave me alone, tell me where to get some dressing thingies so I can keep it from bleeding all over my clothes, and I'll be fine, really o.O

(Wall of text, oops. I just couldn't find a place to put a paragraph break. Here's another wall of text: )

I must admit, I am not happy about not going to work. -_- But I realise the bigger picture at work here. I'm all stressed out, way behind on my life with things kind of slipping between my fingers. So this is time out. A couple of days of "sort yourself out." Much obliged. Because the England trip left me a bit confused. Am I supposed to be making crucial life-decisions here or what? And based on what? If it's up to me, I'll just move back to England. So is it up to me? Or is there something I am overlooking? What exactly am I supposed to be doing here right now? What's the plan? I usually go along with "hey, I'll do what God tells me" which is good, that's the attitude that gets me into cool places like Sweden. But there is also it's counterpart (what I've always claimed is the most important thing ever, and - I realised this weekend - I can't believe I haven't actually been really living it), which is individual action and making choices. Agency. I'm all about how everyone has to choose for themselves - but I've been plodding along going "oh I don't know what I want lahdedah-land." Mormons are really in many ways a "both" kind of church, and the trick/struggle is finding the balance. You're not supposed to be told what to do all the time (by God or by anything), but you also should do stuff according to God's will. So I think this is the time when He's going "I won't tell you what to do, you decide and if it's wrong, then I'll tell you so you won't waste too much time doing the wrong thing." This, I hear, is actually a really common experience in mormon circles. A little miniature leap-of-faith, where you get confirmation of "yes, this is right" only after the fact. Buh.

Well, I think I'll do some more job-apps and make some phone calls to schools. I don't think this English classes thingie is going to start up here. It's just a bit small and... close-minded in here. o.O But I am starting to appreciate the concept of "part-time job". Because it means you get some monies (and that is all I really need here anyway) and experience, but also time at home to do... stuff! And I've been stressing myself out silly from the lack of time and getting stuff done. I've just kind of hard-wired/brainwashed by Finland to think that you workworkworkwork until you drop. And if you have free time, drink or watch TV. I honestly hadn't quite twigged that a part-time job is just that: time. And I do appreciate time about as much as I appreciate agency.

Life is. iippo is.

Found in Facebook:

The hobbit you just called fat? He's skipping 2nd breakfast. The dwarf woman you called ugly? She spends hours braiding her beard so you can differentiate her from a dwarf man. The Uruk-Hai you just killed? He's been abused by Saruman. See that Gollum creature with the gangly limbs & large eyes? For 500 years the Ring poisoned his mind. That Elf you just made fun of for crying? He just lost his wizard friend to a Balrog. Put this as your status if you're against bullying in Middle-Earth.

(This is funny enough to share here with you un-Junkish people.)
Awesome stuff just happened in the junk-forum. I pressed R when I should have pressed N. I was in the posting [711711] and read [711712] as a reply to it, la:

[Avaz]: Regardless, I think if we ever did meet, I'd give you a hug. :)

[Viking]: That's why I have Boots of Dodging and Armor of Deflection =D

Hokae, dear people, I'd like some visual people opinions here on these logos that I've made for the bookshop that I'm in placement at.



They are both for two different sides of the same company (so a certain visual unity is important)
Antikvariaatti Salpakirja is the second-hand buying-and-selling side of the place, Onnelan Tarjouskirjakauppa is the new to-be help-name for the side that buys new books from a few years back (like leftovers from the publishers), so they are not second hand, but really cheap, just a few years old.

The names translate basically to "Onnela's Bargain bookstore" (the word 'onnela' is basically the word "onni = happiness/luck" made into a placename) and Antiquariat Salpakirja ("Salpalinja" is the line of defence that runs up and down the Finnish-Russian border ("lock-line" or something like that, literally) and "kirja = book".

The triangles were a prominent part of their old logo, and it felt it really important to keep them in the design.

I think that's enough background info. Thoughts on how to make them better? Thoughts on what do you see in them? How do they work? How do you like them? Tell me anything you are thinking of. Yes this means you. All of yous.

Two years ago on this date I entered the MTC in Preston, England, to start my service as a missionary. And it was exactly six months ago that that service ended and I was released from that calling. A lot changed (and continues to change) in me in this time after that day two years ago. Mostly for the better, I would say, for sure.

In the mission lore the six month mark is celebrated by burning a tie; the year mark by burning a shirt; the 18-month mark by burning a pair of trousers and the 2-year mark by burning a suit. I must admit that I never did that or was with a companion who did that, nor can I recall ever hearing of anyone who actually did that, only in rumour.

But this idea got me thinking, what would be the item to burn now in my post-mission six month mark? Could I burn some important things that tie me to the real world¹ and bog me down, like bank statements or letters from the dole office? I must admit, this sounds like a bad idea, because, y'know, I probably need that stuff.
^{1 Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn't want to live there.}

Or should I perhaps begin to burn some of my old missionary clothes (which I actually still wear, because I'm in denial, clinging to the past and refusing to accept that I am no longer a missionary :P) to facilitate my transforming into a normal person again? I also reject this idea, because I like who I've become as a result of my mission, and I actually like the way I dress nowadays¹ so I'm not quite willing to do that.
^{1 I may be at times over-dressed but I make up for it by being always over-educated.}

What is the symbolism behind the missionary burning anyway? Perhaps it is to remind us that the time you spend as a missionary is fleeting and short, and it will run away from you without you even noticing. So maybe this post-mission burning could be either about the sweet memories from your mission time that you get to keep with you forever, or about the fact that there is a long time of life ahead of you, but it is just as fleeting as the mission time, so you should be careful to not waste a moment of it.

In fact, I am beginning to lean towards the opposite of that destructive habit and think that something should be created to celebrate the six month mark. I have the art project going, I'm making a wikipage about the mish, and I do have plans for a new drawing-thing that I might enter into the church art contest in October; the room is also a constant project. Oh! I know what I want to do now! :D I will document the progress of everything that's been going on since I came home, and I will do another such document at my year mark and so on. Yes, this will be good, because the post-mission blues easily makes you feel like you are not getting anything done and are useless and so on... A post-mission life inventory might help with that.

I'll put it on a wiki, it's too long for here: post-mission-six-month-mark

Two more things. First, this link:
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664907/animated-gifs-capture-stanley-kubricks-most-immortal-scenes

Second, tomorrow is the 4th of September. *insert emoticon that expresses this emotion of dread and gravity that isn't wholly a negative emotion nor is it an overwhelming one, or even very significant one most of the time, but which nonetheless is there at irregular intervals*

I'll leave now for an enjoyable evening of... nothing in particular :) I might watch a movie.

I have a bed now :) (before it was just a mattress on the floor - which I myself had decided to sleep on many years ago when I took off the legs of my bed, but now it was time to go back to the elevated sleeping area). And during this bed changing operation I also found an old rug made out of green yarn (like dis: ) so it looks like grass on the floor <3 Also swapped my desk chair for the wicker chair, put a different chair in front of the keyboard and cleared that space up (so maybe I'll play the piano some point again). We also moved a sofa on the balcony, and overall there was cleaning and redecorating going on, and I feel slightly more... at home at home. One very important thing left to do is take down the paper that covers the entire main wall in my room, on which I have painted and never finished, and trash the whole thing. My mum is against this, but she doesn't understand that some creative failures have to be allowed to be destroyed. If I were to think that every endeavour you take will be kept forever, I would never start a new project at the fear of "what if it fails..." No. Bad things must be destroyed.

During this clean up thing, I was picking up all the books from next to my bed. And I was listing in my head what all I am currently reading, and I decided to share and save this reading list for posterity. So here are all the things that I am currently in the process of reading:
-the Bible in Swedish. In January me and my missionary companion decided to both follow the "read the Bible in a year" -reading plan at the back of the book, so I've been doing that. It's actually really cool because they make you read the OT chronologically, not in the order of the books, well, as close as possible. So my Jews haven't been carried off to Babylon as captives yet.
-The Penguin Classics edition of the Book of Mormon. I was just sent this from America and it is the coolest thing evar, it's laid out as a novel rather than in verses and such. Cool.
-The Book of Mormon in French (with a Finnish copy open next to it), where I underline all the verbs and circle the pronouns, and overall read to pick up some vocabulary. The grammar is all over the place for me so I'll let that be for now.
-The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, for when I feel like I can manage a heavy academic text.
-Tuesdays with Morrie, for when I feel like I just want something light
-A stack of magazines where each issue is dedicated for one of the master painters of art history. Currently in Albert Edelfelt. Highlighting and note-taking relevant to my current project.
-On the computer back issues of the Dialogue -journal, Segullah -journal, Mormon Artist -ezine, nipping here and there at the Bloggernacle, and the recentest PDF download was the Book of Morma, where someone has gone through the entire BoM and switched the genders (so God = Goddess, Lord = Lady he = she etc... even down to feminising the names, so Nephi = Nephie).
-Plus ET stuff, like the literature contest, the RP contest, and catching up in junk forum (which is not going so hot tbh :P)

Hey, I love reading. And I love my new grass rug <3

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/394360/august-10-2011/yaweh-or-no-way----mormons---god-s-poll-numbers

This made me giggle. But it also made me go "hmm, interesting point" and have a thought or two (good combination, and exactly the kind of thing comedy should do as a societal whistler-blower). It also reminded me of a study they've done recently in Finland (I saw a very short piece in the paper about it, so not sure how detailed my knowledge of this is), about people's perceptions of religions: The vast majority said "you need to respect all religions and philosophical belief systems" etc... aka get along with everyone. And a very similar number of majority also had a negative concept of muslims, JWs, mormons etc... Basically, anyone whose religions shows in any way. So uhh, seems that what they mean is that "everyone is allowed to believe what they want as long as it doesn't show in public" - which sounds kind of same was saying "I'm cool with gays, as long as they don't, y'know, kiss in public 'cos that's nasty"... Nawtameen? :/ Maybe the key here is starting respecting all (not just the ones that don't bother you on the street) belief systems yourselves first?

*in pain* *feeble* ._. Halp...
My stomach is killing me, and I took some paracetamol and now I'm nauseous. I wonder if the tabs were old or something (what do med that are past their exp.date do to you?) This is easily the worst possible day at work ever: feel ill, upheaval and change in the business, some important man-being is coming to check up on places and there are books that need to be carried and shelved and floors to be vacuumed. All I need is to make some kind of a stupid mistake now to make it Worts Day Ever^TM... I kind of wish I could just barf and get the nasty feeling to go away, but it would be too embarrassing to vomit in the bathroom (and even more so to vomit in any other room) of my job. >.< Day, go quickly, I beg you. But when the day is done here, I'm supposed to (and I want to) go to Kouvola in the evening. I wonder if I should just not go... I'll decide that closer to the time. Maybe I'll feel better soon (that's what cramps usually do, you get on with stuff and the pain goes away).

Y'know, last saturday I watched "Social Network" and "Avatar" and I wanted to do diary about them - even a review about the first one - but I can't right now because my life is hurlumhej and exciting and I want to talk about that first.

So I got a job. A real one (the bookstore gig is a placement that just gives me higher dole, but I've still been on the receiving end of tax money and that sucks when you are me - I care where my money comes from). But. It's a bit weird. It's this company that does these extra-curricular English language activities for kinds 3-12 years of age. And they're not currently operating in my town(s) so I'd be the one to start that over here. So some kind of a kind-of entrepreneurial thing? So there's a scary. I also don't know how their pay and the hours are arranged - which is fine for my situation, I'm in limbo as it is, so a little more experimental insecurity never hurt no one. As long as I can make my loan installments I'm happy. But there's a bit of a scary. Also, the bookstore is going through some limboing of their own right now so it's going to suck to go there tomorrow and say "so uhh, this is me giving notice. Soz." But they knew that this is what happens when they get trainees, they keep looking for work. But so yeah: scary tomorrow. Maybe I should call him tonight... :/

I've also found all sorts of exciting stuff for my academic writing about the project I'm doing (yes, I am doing a reflective report on an art project I'm working on, this is how badly art school messed me up :P But it's keeping me in academia, plus I might be able to publish my research thingie in something, or chop it into a shorter essay to publish that can then in turn link back to the whole thingie). So I am currently aching to get back to reading journals :P But I'll take care of my ET responsibilities first, I guess...

Story time:
Something funny happened last Sunday when I was coming home from Savonlinna by train. I got as far as Kouvola and then had to wait over two hours for my bus. So I sat there on the grass next to a gorgeous old steam locomotive (which I photographed from every angle and will put to reference pictures if they turn out any good - not sure if that was an appropriate sabbath activity, but hey, I was uplifted by it and it's kind of service to do stuff for ET, so I'll count it) and about 40 minutes before my bus home was going to come this car parked in front of me. And it was the spaces that are for buses only, so it caught my eye and I was watching the life unravel around it. And the doors opened and the driver left, another guy came from the passenger seat and opened the back door (it was one of those space cars, with lots of seats in the back, not quite a van but something like that) and children and a dog poured out and started running around like children and dogs do. Then the guy who had opened the door was talking to someone in the car, and he was quite clearly drunk. And he said rather loudly "I'll go talk to this girl!" So he came over and we talked, I was polite and nice as always and... yeah. He said that they had had some kind of a road tripping adventure with his nephews, andthat he had become a father last night and was going to go to the hospital in Kotka to go see the mother and child. So I somehow ended up blurting out that I had waited for a bus for hours and was going to Hamina, and he said that as soon as their other driver comes they are headed that way, and insisted that I come along and get a ride with them to the place where I would need to change bus anyway. And since I couldn't think of a good argument to say "no, I'd rather pay for the bus to get to the same place that you are offering to take me for free and sooner than the bus will" I ended up accepting and had a very awkward ride with a car full of men of different ages. It was quite a strange ride. But I did get a lot of thinking/writing done on the train. So losing the think-space of the bus ride wasn't too terrible. I take that bus at least every week, so it's okay.

Little space/time left for Avatar and Social Network: Avatar I liked more than I thought I would, but I dislike this portrayal of the "noble savage" and oh how much better and nobler they are than we are, ah to be like them! I'm all for civilisation where we don't make our youth go through some tests of adulthood that might actually kill the kid. It seems that all savage cultures had that, and I'm glad we're done with them. **ending spoiler under the black-out** And the whole body-transferring-magic -thing - how the heck have they invented that? Do they have alot of artificial-body-possessing aliens around there? It would have made much more sense that their strange healing place would just have healed the person's normal body - in both cases of the woman researcher and the main guy. I would have loved the ending where his regular human body gets fixed and he gets to move in with the aliens without having to pretend to be anything else. And hey, he could have kept the pod-thingie and then used his avatar-body to go fly and run around the forest some times. This ending would have communicated a sort of "hey, we accept you even though we are different" instead of saying "savage rools!" But Social Network (aka the Facebook movie) was win. Really good. And the scary thing was that I met a guy in Sweden who is exactly the same kind of personality like Zuckenberg (is portrayed as) in the film. So I was watching it thinking "it's not Mikael, it's not him but oh my heck it's exactly like him! X_x" So maybe that made me connect with the figure a lot more (because I am/was kind of scared of Mikael, of how intelligent and fast he was, both in thought and expression, but also in awe, mingled with deep love of wanting things to turn out right for him - but still having an ever so slight doubt as to "I don't know if I can trust this person all the way"). So the film was very subtle, not a lot of things happening but alot of things said. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Good diary. It made me have thoughts (and now I force them upon you, buahaha! That is, if you keep reading >_>)

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*