Mars Ultor

Chuckychu.

2010-03-17T09:53:00.037+02:00

Alrighty! I finished my Pikachu, whom I affectionately call Chuckychu since he's, well, a bit off his rocker. Once you take in all his magnificent craziness he'll haunt you forever in your dreams.

The pattern is from here. I'm quite proud of myself for interpreting the instructions, in French no less. Now I'm familiar with the most common crochet terminology in French! That definitely widens my horizons when I search for new patterns.

Without further ado, here's Chuckychu in all his glory:

His feet aren't quite as the pattern said - they look like flippers. Technically I should have cut him fingers and toes from felt, but I was too lazy to go buy the stuff. I will, however, make an effort to find safety eyes for him, but the felt ones are good enough for now. They're certainly better than the crochet ones I made at first:

(Give us a hug! And I'll stab you in the back!)

The mouth was a little difficult to make as well. It should be a little smaller, now he's not as optimally cute as he should be. I think I'll make him a sister/brother and try to outdo myself.

Moreover, his tail isn't exactly kosher according to the pattern:

The pattern instructed using felt, but I didn't have it at first so I crocheted it. Improvisation can be a beautiful thing, but not in my hands apparently. The tail is the right size, but too sloppy - thick felt would have been much better. At least I added brown felt for the brown part and the stripes on the back.

One thing I'd also like to modify is his muzzle - because he has none. I'm sure I could modify the pattern somehow. Crocheting amigurumi really isn't that hard once you figure out the basic techniques. I'm confident now in my ability to start designing my own Pokemon amigurumi once I get down to it.

My baby.

2010-02-04T10:07:00.036+02:00

(This post is dedicated to everyone who is STILL waiting for their ME2 CE a full week after it was released outside Europe, SetAsEssential among many sad others!)

So I got my Mass Effect 2 Collectors' Edition from Tilt Game Store on Tuesday. After waiting in line in vain for almost 2 months, I had to cancel my preorder from Verkkokauppa.com (I'm NOT advertising them by giving a link). Instead, I accidentally found out that Tilt Game store had them in stock, so I just marched right in and got my baby, finally!

The salesman informed me that I should import my saves and characters from Mass Effect because the story is different in the sequel, depending on my decisions in the first game. Like, duh? I would have had to live under a rock for months if I did NOT know that by now. But I totally appreciate the good service, unlike the non-service that you'll get from Verkkokauppa. I am so boycotting that store from now on!

But let's get down to business shall we. Check out my baby! Isn't she beautiful? (Of course it's a girl!)

The standard edition looks quite different. I prefer the CE cover: it's more visceral and tragic, just like the story in the sequel. Besides, I've never been fond of the canon face of Commander Shepard, based on the male model Mark Meer.

This beautiful box had these two inside: an aesthetically pleasing and very cool package holding the Art Book and Mass Effect Redemption Comic part 1 inside on the left, and the game itself in a steel box on the right.

Here is the back cover of the steel box, sporting a terrifying-looking new alien species in the Mass Effect universe, called a Collector.

Steel. My preciousssss. Opening the steel box I found three disks - two for the game and one for a bonus dvd containing making of-documentaries!

(Oops, guess I forgot to rotate this one.)

Opening the other package, I found the Cerberus network card held it together:

Isn't the card beautiful? I love orange. The code on the back of this card allows me to download additional content for the game which could not be fitted on two dvds. After securing this sweet piece of artistry to safety, I finally uncovered the art book and the comic.

Since the art book for the first game was of regular size, I expected a similar one for the second. I was truly surprised by how tiny it was, as well as the comic! They are cute in a way, but I have to say I would definitely buy a bigger and more comprehensive art book if only they made one. Along the lines of Raising the Bar, made for Half Life 2. I haven't yet looked inside these two babies because I have been warned that they contain some spoilers regarding the game.

Long shory stort, the game is superpurty and I'm now going to continue playing.

Papu post.

2010-01-12T14:19:00.005+02:00

I know I know, Papu isn't my dog, but look how cute she was when I visited Amoena!

She didn't much appreciate the beanie Amoena made for her.

(Wow, I edited the code to change the color of the text back to black.)

I heart plants.

2009-11-13T13:55:00.017+02:00

Since I happen to live in an apartment with zero ventilation, I have to open the window several times a day, even when it's cold outside. I don't mind the cold, but my plants do. So they don't survive or they simply suffer.

Which is why I adore my aquarium plants. I need plants to take care of, to give some green lushness to my winter days. I love seeing plants grow and prosper.

Back when I still had my Rainbow cichlids, I couldn't grow any plants in the tank because those terrorists would eat them within a week. That's the main reason I got rid of them and got some new cute fishes (check them out in this post).

I had an algae problem initially, but ever since the aquarium shopkeeper told me I probably change the water too much and too often and don't fertilize enough, and then acted in the opposite manner to salvage the situation, my plants have been positively thriving.

Look!

It's full of plants! The fish can barely swim around! Such a happy sight.

These plants, whatever they are, like to grow out of the tank towards the lamp:

Ever since I bought these lamps six years ago, I've been wanting to get plants that grow out of the tank. With regular aquarium lamps, that's impossible. But it was only now that I accidentally managed to choose a plant that to my surprise likes to grow up up and away!

Those small spots are Lemna minor, or common duckweed. Aquarists usually hate them because they multiply really fast and look kind of untidy. It's hard to avoid getting them along with other plants that you buy and it's hard to get rid of them as well. As for myself, I didn't mind at all getting these plants for free. I like how they complement the overall lush verdancy (I hope that's a real word), plus they were helpful in overthrowing those nasty algae. Fast-growing plants are essential in harvesting extra nutrients from the water, so they won't be utilized by algae instead. They did their job and now I keep only a small smattering of duckweed to give some variety to the mix of plants.

I also have these Pistia stratiotes growing on the surface. I like how they create some shadowy areas for the fish to feel safe in, and they just look pretty. Their leaves are covered with white hair, which helps keep them from getting submerged.

They are still fairly small - they can grow even five times this large over time with good lighting and fertilization! I hope they will. I like seeing plants grow BIG.

Elina in the wonderland of knit and crochet.

2009-11-05T15:55:00.006+02:00

I've been thinking about knitting and crocheting a lot lately. It's more fascinating the more you learn about it! For instance, all these terms in English - single, double, bobble crochet, garter, stockinette and rib stitch - sound so cool and complicated. I still mix them up, I keep forgetting which is which, but I like them all. Why do some people not like purling? Unless your knitting style is very tight and the yarn is very fuzzy or just a biatch, I don't see how it's any less fun than knitting.

I've been pondering which I like more, knitting or crocheting. Knitting is definitely harder: I always drop stitches and don't know how to pick them up right, I increase stiches or decrease them unintentionally, or something else always happens. If all goes well, though, it's worth all the fiddling.

With crocheting it's hard to drop stitches, but it may be fiddly if you tend to crochet too tight. Especially with bulky yarn it truly demands attention to the work. If the yarn and the hook are just right, however, it's such a pleasure to crochet away while watching tv or even reading.

There are so many methods, too, to both knitting and crocheting. Different ways of casting on your loops, making a slip knot, crocheting from under different loops of a stitch...! I still don't know which side of a crochet work is supposed to be the right side and which the "purl" side. It makes me wonder who had so much time in their hands that they invented all that.

I also realized recently why there are so many different sizes of needles and hooks. Before I knew anything about knitting or crocheting, I was completely confused with all that variety. But now my collection of hooks and needles is starting to look moderately impressive! Thick needles and hooks have their appeal because I've grown fond of bulky yarn. Circular needles are one thing I haven't tried yet, in fact I'm not sure which kind of project would require them.

I remember back when Amoena got interested in crocheting and later knitting, I couldn't really understand the whole world of the craft. I could understand that she liked the colours of the yarns and making something by hand, but I had no idea how rewarding it would be to make something with your own hands. It's so cool to start thinking of a project, then finding a good pattern and realizing it. There's something very creative about it, because once you understand why things are done a certain way, you can deviate from the patterns according to your own taste and your needle/hook and yarn stash.

Once I noticed that I can really knit and crochet, at least decently, I've been flooded with ideas about what I want to do. I wonder if I'll ever run out of ideas for projects. At times I get an overload of crocheting/knitting, so I take a break, but I always go back to it after a couple of days at most. Even when I have to frog a project, I'm not discouraged to go on. I just unravel my work as necessary and get right back to it. I'm resilient like that with many other things as well because I don't like admitting defeat. I'm completely hooked to my new hobby!

Newness.

2009-11-02T13:31:00.019+02:00

Mum visited last week and we went winter coat/jacket shopping. Behold the results.

A jacket with nice fringes on the collar, and a minibelt to tie it. I'm going to add more buttons as soon as I figure out how to use my sewing machine. I want to be able to wrap it tighter around my body when it gets colder so the wind can't get in.

And a bright red winter coat with black buttons and a high collar that you could button up. Those two buttons on the collar sleeve were originally on the other side, so they would be visible when you button up the collar. There were two versions of the coat in the shop (H&M): one with the buttons on the inside, one with the buttons on the outside - depending on if you like to button up the collar, or leave it down and wear a scarf instead. The point is to keep the black buttons visible. I had to get the wrong version for my taste though and sew the buttons on the other side. The colour is truly lovely!

I love having two very different coats/jackets. The shorter will be good for warmer winter days; the red and long coat will be warm in colder days. I also got a Sexy Librarian skirt to go with the shorter jacket. It's too warm if the temperature is anything above 0 celsius, so it's a true winter skirt!

(No, that's not my cellphone in the corner..)

Now that it's colder, I've also started using the boots I bought in Liverpool in the summer, when I attended the Corpus Linguistics conference there. They have 5cm heels and they're really comfortable!

Mum had also bought me a tri-layered sports underwear set to keep me warm in the winter when I go jogging.

It's not the sexiest outfit to wear, but it's warm and dry. It's actually very difficult to dress right for jogging in the winter if you don't have this kind of functional sports wear with special qualities.

Finally, I bought myself two skeins of the new Teetee Pallas yarn because the colours were so pretty. I thought I would make a Baktus scarf from them, but I'm not sure yet. I wasn't actually supposed to buy any yarn, but since I met Heidi that day and we both love knitting and yarn, we ended up going through all yarn shops in Tampere! That's a bad, bad combination if you're trying not to buy yarn..

I started a new crochet project last night (as if I need more of them), a vertical stripe scarf, and I'm going to use the Red Heart Lisa yarns I bought in the summer, plus some oddball skeins of Novita 7 Veljestä and Gjestal Superwash Sport. Here are the colours:

(The red skein is just about to fall off the picture, that's why it's blurry..)

I'm going to make fairly thin stripes. I started by crocheting a long chain of chain stitches, then I started working back with single crochet. I left long loops at both ends to make a fringe. I'm excited about this because I was able to figure out how to make the scarf all by myself! It may sound very simple to someone who's been crocheting and knitting for a long time, but for a newbie like me it's very cool. Besides, I used to think of myself as completely hopeless with handcrafts, so this is definitely exciting.

I've noticed that my personality applies to my knitting and crocheting style as well. As usual, I like to start several projects before I've even finished the last ones! I am strongly determined to finish them all, I just don't know when...

My current projects are the following:

1) My first mittens, the second one of which should be unraveled and started all over again with a bigger needle! You can guess why it's still unfinished..

2) The hexagon blanket for mum. I'm in the process of making double crochets around the rim with white yarn. Then I have to cut the darning ends on the other side a little shorter and tuck them inside so it won't unravel. Boring, but I'm making progress slowly.

3) A regular scarf which I figured would look good with my new jacket, because my old scarves don't have suitable colours. But I managed to eff it up already! It's simple knit-purl-knit-purl, but it went awry still! I was angry and I didn't unravel the wrong parts, so it's less than pretty now. I'll finish it anyway and use it myself, it's not like I'm going to stare at it when I'm outdoors.

4) Pikachu, whose head I started to crochet and while I was at it, I realized there are three different ways of crocheting!! I have to start from scratch again, but I didn't get very far.

I'd also like to knit socks for my best cousin from the light blue Isoveli skein that I have. I hate the colour myself, but my cousin likes it a lot. I'm not sure if I can do it in time for Christmas, though. For my second best cousin, I'd like to knit mittens from my extra two skeins of fuchsia/purple Gjestal Superwash Sport yarn, because I think she might like that colour. Originally I bought that yarn for the hexagon blanket, but the colour didn't fit with the others.

I'm also thinking of making third scarf from Novita Kaarna, because it's so soft and bulky. It's also expensive and I have enough projects already, so I think I'll leave it till later.

On a final note, please note that I added links to my Ravelry projects on both my blogs with a little help from Amoena and JR. Looks so nice!

What's happening in Elina's world.

2009-08-19T15:55:00.034+03:00

Chapter 1

I visited Amoena last week, as she already announced in her blog. I wanted to finally meet her new boyfriend J.R. (not so new anymore) and her new puppy, Papu (aww!).

Amoena and J.R. were really cute and funny together, and I totally fell in love with Papu. She was a little wary and shy at first and barked at any movement that I made. But by the evening, she let me touch her already and accepted me as her new friend. The next day we were on super-cuddly terms. I love dogs that like cuddling.

She was so beautiful, I didn't quite expect that. Miniature pinschers are now at the top of my potential candidate list for a dog breed, if I'm ever going to get a dog. Papu was very energetic and athletic and nimble. If she got excited, she just bounced around the apartment on sofas and chairs. She can also jump very high. Isn't that cool?

I can still see her soulful eyes and ears in my mind. But I'll have to be careful when choosing my own, as Amoena demonstrated to me that not all miniature pinschers are as pretty as Papu.

Chapter 2

Yesterday I finally met Deniselle. I've known of her for about six months now, through her blogs and Twitter. It's a fun story how I "found" her.

Once upon a time during my Christmas break, I was searching for Gaius Baltar fanfiction stories on Google. Gaius is a character from the scifi tv series Battlestar Galactica (probably the best of any tv you'll ever see). It was difficult to find any good ones, but I stumbled upon Deniselle's blog post where she gave her critique on some stories. Her writing style was so intelligent and analytical that I was hooked. Moreover, it was fuel for my James Callis-mania which had waned a little at that point.

I had a little crush on Deniselle the blogger. I like her sense of self-irony and crazy humour. She also writes very long posts, but it doesn't matter because there is nothing redundant. I may not be able to read whole books, but I like reading thoughtful blogs.

So we had a fun afternoon, ate at McDonald's and had coffee and tea at Coffee House, then visited some bookstores just so we didn't have to walk outside in the rain. She physically assaulted me and harassed me sexually, but I survived. We started planning our own religion centring on Jamus, the holy duality of James Callis and his spiritual incarnation in us (or something like that). We'll build an altar for him and share his love through hugs.

I'm kidding, of course. In reality, we talked about business meetings, world politics and economy, human rights and the finesses of translating.

So it was good that we finally met. I'm much more bold now about meeting new people.

Chapter 3

I also have some new hobbies. I bought a quality badminton racket from sale on Budgetsport and I've played twice already, according to the real rules! I found my badminton buddy online, which is a little random, but if it works, to heck with it. The same guy also carried my new sofa 1,5 stories on his own to my apartment! I can see he's muscular, but that was a Supermanly feat to perform.

I've also been seeing Frenchie's Finnish girlfriend, whom I briefly met last summer. She was very nice and funny and I think she likes my company too. She will move to Hämeenlinna soon, but she will probably still visit Tampere occasionally. The Frenchie isn't very excited though that we like to gossip about his peculiarities when we meet up, but it's his fault - shouldn't have introduced us if he's so afraid for his privacy. Guys are too paranoid about their privacy in any case. It's healthy if you're a politician or a celebrity or a king or whatever, but nobody cares about a nobody.

There's also this girl from Tampere, about 2km from my place, who added me on her MSN upon seeing my penpal advertisement. Turns out she's also from Hollola and we went to the same high schools at the same time! I hope to meet her too at some point. She likes to knit, which brings me to my next bit of news from Elina's world.

Chapter 4

I didn't just sit around and chat at Amoena's. She taught me how to knit and purl again! I knew how to do that a long time ago, but I never got beyond knitting scarves, which I never even finished. I feel more determined now to finish whatever I start. Besides, now there's Youtube and Google, unlike in the times of yore when I started out on knitting the first time. I also plan to learn crocheting, which according to Amoena is easier than knitting. We'll see.

I finished my very first mitten in two days, barely stopping to say "mhmhm" when Amoena told me she would take Papu for a walk again. And here's the result!

The photo is a little blurry but the mitten looks nice live, trust me. I like the colour, it ranges from pink to fuchsia. I knitted it very tight with bulky yarn so it was a bit hard, but I made it through. I always tend to knit too tight. My right ring finger still has a small spot with no sense of touch, since it was completely numb during the weekend. Knitting is dangerous, kids! Especially to people with Raynaud's syndrome.

Epilogue

I still haven't written all those papers I should in order to graduate. There's always tomorrow, and then there's next week. What's the hurry anyway? I like lounging and being lazy and enjoying life and people. I don't feel so good about neglecting my painting hobby, so I plan to enroll to a painting course at Työväenopisto in Tampere (a workers' institute).

It costs 44e, which isn't too bad. I want to get some feedback from a real teacher and learn the proper basic techniques. I will probably refuse to use local colours, but that doesn't mean I can't plan my colour usage more carefully to attain some special effects. I'll never achieve that on my own, due to my incredible impatience and short attention span.

I'll also take some language courses at the Uni, since this is my last chance to learn languages for free. No one will know if I graduate in the middle, because I don't plan to take the tests anyway. I don't need the credits or grades, I just want to educate myself. Languages don't really take that much effort from me.

I'll take up spoken French, advanced basics in German, and Italian reading comprehension. I also thought about English speech practise because I'd like to more fluent. I'm confident and satisfied with my writing skills in English, but my speech skills could use some extra practise.

Well, I think I've spelled out the essence of my life of lately. I still plan to discuss my experience with Windows 7, no worries. I'll probably be back to my blogging routine when the summer ends, since I'll want a diversion from the ever-increasingly depressing weather.

W00t.

2009-08-08T22:15:00.004+03:00

I went shopping for aquarium plants.

The shop clerk said that my algae problem stems from too big and frequent water changes! There's too little nitrate and phosphate in the water! Huh. You live and you learn.

So I'll make one change a week and start fertilizing my plants more. I don't have to feed the fish so sparingly anymore, since there's a lack of nutrients for the plants, and the fish are still tiny and need fuel for their growth.

Nice. Certainly easier for the skin on my arms.

I didn't do anything useful today, as regards my studies. But there's always tomorrow!

And now I'll go play some more Mass Effect. Some asshole slavers and drug dealers need to be killed so the galaxy will be a safer place!

Toilet paper. At least we have it in stores, unlike Cubans.

2009-08-08T10:26:00.006+03:00

My plans for today:

Go buy toilet paper.

Blog something. I feel bad that I see certain people visit everyday to see nothing new.

Start doing something useful, like planning essays I should have been writing for ages now.

Play Mass Effect because it's fun and relaxing (as if I need more of relaxing).

Start making 50% water changes every day for my tank to finally get rid of the blue-green alga invasion.

I might post again today. Let's see if I'll make a record.

Dum de dum.

2009-07-19T09:25:00.011+03:00

Hum. It's been a while since I posted.

So far I'm liking this summer. Sun, warmth, some rain and cold. Everything in proportion. Lots of kisses and cuddles. He's got such a pretty head. I like it when he tucks it in my neck or armpit.

Kayyy. I'm still not particularly dreadful about travelling and presenting next week. If I truly start thinking about it, imagining what it's going to be like, planning what I'm going to say, how I'm going to introduce my topic - I still don't feel panicky! Weird.

Last summer I started fearing the upcoming presentation weeks in advance. I couldn't sleep properly for the last two weeks. It's so different now. I feel like I'm going to have a goofy smile on my face when I finally get there. Like, have fun almost.

My presentation is so much better this time around. I used colour for emphasis, and bold and italics and underlining and indentation. I put some fancy arrows on my tables and I even created a clumsy diagram. I'm so good.

I don't think I've mentioned it before, so this is where I'm going tomorrow:

http://www.liv.ac.uk/english/CL2009/

There's going to be a plenary lecture on Shakespeare, but I'm more interested in those about the lexis-grammar interface and the relationship between corpora and computing. It's going to be so good, a whole conference strictly in my field!

Of course, corpus linguistics is not a field of research, technically speaking. It's just a useful denominator, an umbrella term. There's no common methodology or theoretical framework. It simply indicates the source of research data. Perhaps a shared quantitative outlook.

Writing my presentation got me interested in research, again. There's simply nothing like it. I love the intellectual challenge and I just love linguistics. It's so beautiful.

Who knows, maybe I will write a dissertation after all one day. To definitively ruin my chances of employment outside the university. But first I'm going to stick to my latest plan of trying to find some real job somewhere else. If that doesn't work out well enough, I might go post-grad. Plan B if you will.

My parents, a certain teacher and a certain person with a pretty head would be thrilled about it. Everyone seems to be excited about the idea of an intelligent woman who would write the weirdest dissertation ever. Maybe I am just a little bit intelligent then? I enjoy being weird and crazy and goofy more, but intelligent isn't so bad.

Wheee.

2009-06-24T14:47:00.006+03:00

I don't know what to blog about, but I feel like I should.

I feel a little silly and quite happy. I've been thinking about a certain person a lot, even to the point that I couldn't sleep for days because I kept giggling and smiling and tossing around in my bed all night.

Yep. I'm crazy. I admit it.

I get to meet him tomorrow. Yay.

In the meantime, I should write. And then write some more. The deadline for my Liverpool presentation is next Thursday, so that's only one week. Then there's the lit essay that I can't even start writing because I haven't finished the readings yet. I should also write two papers about North America for a nice old gentleman who called me his "aging student".

I also haven't finished the paper on cross-cultural psychology in business and management. Lastly, I have to write my BA thesis. I wrote my MA thesis almost three years ago, and now I have to make an abbreviated version of it.

My life is a little weird sometimes. I'm weird, too, as a teacher of mine keeps telling me. Though we agreed that we're no longer a teacher and student but male-friend and female-friend.

I'm going to post later about my supercool new mouse and my experience with the brand new Windows 7. Stay tuned.

The new me.

2009-06-03T15:48:00.007+03:00

This week I've been cleaning and tidying a lot. Can you believe that? I washed my balcony floor for the first time since I've been living here! And that's been six years!! I haven't finished washing the tarp, it's so dirty I'm going to save some dirt for the rest of the week.

But since the floor is clean, I laid a plastic red and white carpet on it and set a chair to sit on. Now I feel like my apartment is a little bigger. I like walking to the balcony to sit for a minute and jumping up and fetching something from "indoors". When it was +28 celsius on Sunday, it was cooler outside, even though the door was open all day and night. Sweet.

I also washed the windows today. The outmost one was completely stuck, so I had to use a knife and a hammer to get it open. Only took me half an hour... but how nice to see everything in colour again! I'm sure no one will mind that the window frame crumbled a little and the paint got chipped off at places. This place is falling apart anyway.

And since I pushed over the cleanser bottle on my mouse mat, I finally washed it too. And since I had to look for my window key in my closet, I rearranged the closet while I was at it.

Cleaning is kinda fun and therapeutic once you get down to it. Once I get started on something, it starts snowballing from there. I like having a (relatively) clean and orderly apartment.

I've spent an insane amount of lotions this week on my hands and arms. Thankfully my mum gets plenty of those for free as perks of the job.

Avril Lavigne in a bikini.

2009-05-27T20:03:00.015+03:00

I've been having an emotional hungover after last week.

I never imagined I could be so happy around people. It's like I'm a completely different person now. My social phobia is almost gone.

I realized how great my life could be if only I had more friends. Friends I could meet everyday, even if just to say hello and chat a little nonsense. That could keep me happy.

But no. I'm back to seeing and talking to no one at all every single day, unless I go to buy groceries or something else, so I get to say hi to the salespeople. Not very gratifying. Now that I know just how much I've missed out on, I can't stand being alone anymore.

I'm trying not to freak out about having no lectures or classes. I only have a couple of papers to write. I have no work.

I really, really, really have to find some work soon or I'll go crazy. Not just any work, but work where I can meet people and chat with them. I'd love to do something similar to what I did at EAA, helping and guiding people. So I could keep my spirit up until the day when I might have a friend or two to help me keep sane.

Because I know it can't happen very quickly. It takes time to find a friend with whom you can spend a lot of time. I met some nice people at EAA, but they all already have a wide circle of friends. Of course they don't mind new ones, but they probably won't start spending a lot of time with me on a regular basis. They think I have my good old friends as well, so they don't know just how desperate I am.

I do have a couple of friends of course, and they're all great. But no one lives in Tampere. Except Deniselle, if I'm allowed to call her a friend yet. An online buddy? I've been gathering courage to ask her to meet up some day. She seems like such a fun person.

Until then, all I can do is try to keep busy. One surefire way of making me smile is some Avril-therapy, watching old videos of her and watching her brand new bikini pics:

I'm not a lesbian or anything, but Avril's so freaking hawt!!

My French friend just can't accept that I like watching women in a non-lesbian way. Why is it such a big deal that I can appreciate female beauty but don't want to romance women? Must be a guy thing. In fact, I read about research where they found that women enjoy watching both men and women naked more often than men. See! It's biology, people. Women are naturally more bisexual than men!

I'm a rawk star now.

2009-05-23T10:52:00.000+03:00

So back in March, Amoena tagged me with the Rock Star meme.

This is what it requires you to do:

1) Go to Wikipedia and hit the random link on the left sidebar, under the navigation heading. The first article you get is the name of your band.

2) Go to the website The Quotations Page. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your album.

3) Go to Flicker's Randomizer feature. The third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover.

4)Use Photoshop or another photo editing software to create your album cover.

5) Post your album cover on your blog, along with this text. Be sure to nominate at least 5 friends (by leaving comments on their blogs with a link to your post), and tag me, Amoena, by leaving a comment so that I can see what you've created.

Ergo.

My band is called Jon Harley - or maybe it's just the singer. Jon could refer to a female, right? I like the title of the cd, only ten of them. It sounds so artistic. I also like the photo on the cover, the colours in particular. Too bad I can't do wonders with Windows Paint.

I'm a little confused with the last instruction. "Tag me, Amoena, by leaving a comment..." Is that like the last tagger talking to Amoena, or Amoena herself giving instructions to those who she tagged? My brain doesn't work properly in the morning you see.

Anyhoo. I only tag Deniselle. I can't think of anyone else who'd be willing to participate in a meme like this.

When great minds engage in discourse.

2009-05-19T15:09:00.005+03:00

Me and Kai have the most intellectual MSN Messenger conversations sometimes.

High says:
aa eli joo.

Kaitsuh says:
joo eli aa.

Kaitsuh says:
kpp eli bb.
lrr eli cc.

Kaitsuh says:
*lqq

High says:
totta.

(I'm High and Kaitsuh is Kai.)

I should wear pale blue more often.

2009-05-12T19:53:00.010+03:00

I'd never voluntarily wear this colour. Cyan, yes, but pale blue? It's so blahh.

I'm relieved that you can't see my hairloss. I'm determined not to cry even once even though big amounts fall every day. Everything in my life is too ok right now to cry over some lost hair. I'll start crying if this goes on for much longer because it'll start to show again. I hate, hate, HATE being able to see my scalp.

Yes, I have a complex about my hair and my intermittent hairloss periods.

This is the shirt for assistants at the EAA conference in Tampere this week. It's a European association of accountants but visitors come from all over the world. It's bigger than I expected: over 1,100 participants! It's so grand, compared to the conferences I've attended before. Everything's so nicely organized! Not to put down the organizers of the other conferences or anything...

EAA has been in Finland once before, in Turku, and it'll probably be another 10 years before it comes to Finland again. People in Helsinki were so bummed that Tampere nailed it this time. I think this town totally deserves it, the Tampere Hall is more than adequate to fit in all those people and has the appropriate grand design. There are two university buildings right in the vicinity and it's easy to navigate around. It couldn't be better really.

Most importantly, the lunches are amazing! They're worth 8,70€ so that's basically our pay, in addition to coffee breaks. It's like a gourmet restaurant buffet. Yesterday I had sesame seed salmon with some sauce, today steak fillet with onion gravy and creamy potatoes. The salad table has 6 different salads, mushroom salad, all kinds of flavoured olive and sunflower seed oils, piths, many different dried fruits and seeds and nuts! Oh and fresh, warm bread!!

Mmm, food. Makes me happy. No wonder my tummy bump is making a comeback.

We also got a conference bag with an umbrella. My old one was broken so that made me happy too.

I had fun overall. There were three other English students, two of whom I met years back in the beginning but never made friends with. Back then, and up until very very recently, I was always too paranoid and depressed to be able to make friends with anyone at all, so I haven't seen them in a long time. They still seemed just as nice, though. I wonder if they'd think twice about hanging around with me more often now?

I used to think that I've burned bridges behind me because I didn't befriend many people when I had the opportunity. But who knows, now I think - or want to believe - that people are more accepting and open than that. I'm ready to make the effort now because I can.

Yesterday I felt a little sad thinking about it. I could have been friends with them for the past six years. How much I could have done together with them, had so much fun. I'd know something about them. But I have to stop myself from thinking like that. I was really surprised when I noticed that now it's possible for me to deliberately change my thinking patterns. I can force all those bad thoughts away! I really think there's still hope for me to have the life I always wanted.

After today I realized that I definitely need to find a job. I think once I have one, I won't have as much time to think negatively and I can focus on developing other areas of my life.

There. End of power speech.

Shoez, baby!

2009-05-08T17:42:00.014+03:00

So my mum took me back to Tampere on Monday. The first thing we went to Sara Hildén, but after that we hit the shops. Oh and first we ate STRAWBERRIES!!!! They were surprisingly sweet, and not even that expensive!

In particular we looked at shoes, because it's much easier for me to find good shoes when mum is onboard. I also bought these shorts - they kinda remind of the Joker. I've been wearing them every day with burgundi tights and a rose colour jacket. I didn't intend to colour-coordinate, the clothes just happen to match.
Could the image be any bigger? I got it from the H&M website, the number 1 choice of clothes shopping for all non-ethical, colour-loving people. Since I love my Adidas summer shoes made by cute little Chinese children who got no money from it, why couldn't I love whatever comes out from H&M sweatshops around the world?

Anyway, mum also brought some ridiculous looking clothes in the dressing room for me to try on, so she could have a laugh. You wouldn't believe she turned sixty.

The shoes I bought are completely ethically made. (In fact I simply don't know if they are or aren't.) These only cost 10€ at Halonen:

I'm going to use them in the summer when it's hot and I just want to quickly slip some shoes on. The colour is like electric blue, with a slight tinge of something I can't pinpoint.

These are my Mary Poppins shoes.

The picture sucks, but I love them. Really cute. The heel may look impressive, but they're actually very comfortable, even with my injured foot - I don't have to limp! I just need to be careful what I'm going to wear with them. I might go crazy with colours in my clothes sometimes, but I don't want to look like a clown. Not REALLY, just secretly.

Sometimes I think so many people are just colour-challenged. What's wrong with wearing bright red and green together? Yellow and purple? Orange and blue? Why couldn't you wear a hundred different colours at the same time? There are so few colours that don't go together, in my humble opinion.

Hire me, please!

2009-04-28T12:06:00.007+03:00

I've been writing my CV and filling job applications the whole morning. Boy that takes time!

Anyway. Some applications have the option of uploading a picture. It's not necessary, but I thought it would help in leaving a good impression. After all, it's easier to remember people by appearance.

So what do you think? I kind of look like a douchebag. Or maybe I'm just not used to seeing pictures of myself. I look a little tired, but then again I did wake up several times last night. But at least I'm half-smiling! I also see that my eye brows aren't identical. It's like I'm giving that raise-other-eyebrow look.

Notice my business shirt. I love black button-up shirts. The problem is, I could barely button it up because of my boobs! I knew I've gained a little weight over the winter, not to mention that my pecs are bigger too from training (of course). But it was still a little annoying. I have the wrong body type for these kind of shirts.

Aquatic megapost.

2009-04-26T14:42:00.019+03:00

A week ago I finally got rid of my Rainbow cichlids (Herotilapia multispinosa) and Ancistrus sp. "lemon" (Common bristlenose, yellow variant). I had had enough with my ugly tank without any plants. Those damn rainbows ate them all in less than a year! Be warned. (I didn't flush them down the toilet if that's what you're worried about; I took them to my nearest aquarium store.)

So I needed something else to replace those terrorists. I had only some red phantom tetras, three black phantom tetras (though similarly named, they actually belong to different genera), and serpae tetra. They fulfill the function of swimming around the middle and top parts of the tank.

I needed some algae eater(s), bottom dwellers to eat food that has sunk to the bottom, and some cichlids that have real character. This is what I got:

Algae-eaters: 4 x Otocinclus vittatus (Dwarf suckermouth) ...

The dwarf suckermouths are cute. I have a weakness for catfishes in general. They seem to be fairly hardworking algae-eaters, but also very good at camouflaging themselves, even in my half-empty tank!

Bottomdwellers: 5 x Corydoras sterbai (Sterba's corydoras) ...

AND 5 x Corydoras aeneus (Bronze corydoras)!

In particular, I like the Sterba's corydoras. They're so purty and cute. I like Corydoras in general, the way they swim around the tank and constantly fumble around the bottom to find something to eat. And those eyes just make me melt.

Last but not least, the cichlids: 4 x Cleithracara maronii (Keyhole cichlid) ...

Keyhole cichlids are my old favourite. They have lots of character, even though they're shy. They're not terribly colourful, but I prefer less colourful fishes in general. I got four tiny ones, so I had trouble taking decent photos of them. In fact, all my new fishes are so tiny that I'll probably show them later when they've grown a little.

AND 2 x Laetacara dorsigera (Redbreast acara)! The redbreast acaras are a new experience to me. They are small and peaceful and quite colourful. I look forward to observing their behaviour and learning more about them in the future.

...Jealous, are you?!

N.B. Fishes refers to different fish species, whereas fish in plural refers to several specimens of the same fish species. In singular it refers to a single specimen, and as a mass/uncountable noun it refers to food.

Mission accomplished!

2009-04-23T14:23:00.005+03:00

Ladies and gents, I am pleased to announce that the feed for Sleeping Artist works again!!!!

Thanks go to my dear brother and tech assistant Kai! Kisses and hugs!

So if you were a subscriber, you need to subscribe again, preferably through the Subscribe button on the right-hand side. If that doesn't work, the feed is http://www.sleepingartist.info/feed.

Sorry about that. I still don't have a clue what a feed is and what the hell was the deal with it. I'm not that computer-savvy.

Healthy yellow teeth.

2009-04-22T11:36:00.007+03:00

This is an edifying story about my teeth. If that sounds too boring to you, proceed at your own risk.

I had a dentist's appointment on Monday to have my wisdom teeth removed. I got an invitation 2 ½ years ago, but I never went because they sent it to a wrong email address. Now that I finally got the invitation to my real address, my wisdom teeth had fully erupted without any gum flaps! So the dentist told me that it wouldn't make any sense to get them removed anymore.

She said it's very rare for a woman to have such perfectly erupted wisdom teeth in perfect line with the other teeth. But this got me wondering. If they would have removed them a couple years back, but waiting it out, they actually became perfect teeth... why don't they always wait and see if they can become good teeth or not? I never had any problems with them, even when they were still partly under the gum. Only some minor uncomfort, which is natural, but never infections or anything.

Initially I wasn't going to go to the dentist because I hadn't had any problems with them. But then I read an article in Lääkärilehti (an official magazine for doctors that my parents subscribe to). It said that wisdom teeth will always be an infection risk, no matter what, so they have to be removed. But this dentist said that there is no risk since I have very little dental caries and no gum flaps.

So the lesson is, don't trust everything they say in Lääkärilehti. Obviously everything they said was right, except they didn't consider cases where the wisdom teeth erupt perfectly. Maybe it's so uncommon that they didn't bother mentioning that?

Anyway, I'm truly fascinated by the doctor magazines my parents get. It's so cool to have both parents as doctors, because I can always ask about the strangest things that come to my mind. Like, what was that disease that can cause your eyeballs to bulge out?

Answer: Toxic goiter, i.e. a goiter with hyperthyroidism. It's when your thyroid overproduces hormones and you have to shut it down completely with medication. After that, you have to take hormone meds for the rest of your life to compensate.

Medicine is so cool. I wouldn't want to be a doctor, but it's absolutely fascinating to learn about all kinds of icky things that can happen to a human body.

Change.

2009-04-10T09:57:00.018+03:00

I don't normally like changes in my life, but lately I've grown more accepting of it. I think the meds have given me a more relaxed attitude overall.

Just the other day, I had a discussion with a woman from my German class after we'd had our oral exam. We talked for almost an hour! I didn't flee with some petty excuse; instead, I stayed and had a very normal, relaxed conversation. That's completely against my character. I'm so not good at meeting and getting to know new people. So I congratulated myself on that. She even asked for my email, so maybe we'll meet again in the future. She seemed really nice, so I hope so.

It's weird to notice how people are much more open to me and interested now that I'm happier myself. I take contact with people without even thinking about it, and it pays off. Amazing. Only a couple weeks ago, I was still afraid people would turn me down if I tried to talk to them. Now it doesn't even occur to me that someone might not like me or be interested in me.

Well, I still have a long way to go as far as social skills, but it's a huge deal that I don't take it so seriously anymore. I have hope again. It's been so long that I dared to hope for a better life. I've been almost non-stop miserable for the past two years, and I felt like I was finally done with it. I'm glad to know it was partly just about the lack of serotonin between my brain cells.

As for other changes: I finally took Deniselle's diabolical advice and started downloading Galactica season 4 episodes. I bought season 3 dvd last autumn, because it's been two years at least since season 2 aired in Finland. I don't think they're ever going to show any more episodes.

I started rewatching season 3 because I want to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. Galactica is so complex that it's easy to forget all kinds of little twists related to side characters. Besides, with my internet connection it's going to take at least two more weeks to download the whole season.

I don't feel bad about downloading, because I know I will buy season 4 on dvd when it comes out to sale in Finland in 2015. I know I'm still an accomplice in the crime by downloading, but at least I don't share it any more than I have to. And of course, the shameless downloaders will hate me for it. Anyway, I think it's good to have a chance to try out something for free to see if you really like it. If I actually like a cd, film or a game, I always buy it afterwards. So I'm not all evil, I tell myself.

And the changes keep coming. Yesterday I bought X-tra pizza with ham, because the weekend is coming. I always celebrate my Fridays with X-tra ham pizza. It costs 2,79€ and the package contains two 180g small pizzas. They're exactly the right size: your craving for delicious pizza is fulfilled, but you won't feel stuffed. You will even have room for some fruit for dessert. But guess what? My package had only ONE pizza!!!!!! Some idiot had forgotten to put two in there!!! >:( So now my one tiny pizza is expensive as hell! And who would believe me if I went back to the store and told them about this, since I already opened the package?!

But here's what really bothers me. Only a couple weeks back, Pirkka milk (a brand of K-market) cost 85 cents per litre. They have this tag on the shelf saying "the right price!", attached to all the cheapest common products. Well, one day the milk suddenly cost 89 cents, and it still says "the right price!". I suppose, no matter how high it goes, the price is always right if it's Pirkka.

Don't get me wrong, Pirkka milk is still the cheapest. If you buy Valio milk in K-market, it costs a whopping 1,05€ per litre! In S-market, it only costs 95 cents, and they don't sell Pirkka milk at all. But it's staggering to think that two different brands used to have a 20 cents' difference in prices. I drink a lot of milk, so it really can make a difference.

So make note, K-market: I'll be watching you! Don't think people won't notice!

Muskulösa flickor.

2009-04-06T13:09:00.006+03:00

I visited my parents with my big brother for a change. My mum had a good excuse to bake pies again.

It was really nice because my mum was so happy, and even my dad behaved himself! Mum has been on part-time retirement for a while now, and she has been so much more relaxed and happy ever since. I'm happy for her.

As for my dad, I usually have a hard time getting along with him. There's something about him that rubs me the wrong way. But I suppose he's more relaxed and happy now too since he's been exercising so much lately. He still has trouble losing weight, but in my book, exercise is all that really matters because it makes you happy. We even did some crossword puzzles together and we didn't snipe at each other once! A miracle!

I was also pleased that my big brother noticed how my muscles have grown a little. Then me and mum compared whose bicep is bigger.

Our family sounds kind of weird now. But we're all like this, we have an appreciation for muscles. We don't strive to be skinny, we want to be strong and bulky. I truly enjoy discussing human physiology with my big brother, who used to be very serious about body building and who also studies medicine.

He still thinks weight training is the best form of exercise. He doesn't understand what I mean when I say how I couldn't give up jogging or aerobics, or any cardio activities for that matter. Different forms of exercise give different kinds of pleasure. I feel different after jogging as compared to after aerobics, or weight training. Always good, but always different.

I'm pleased that the streets are dry again, and I intend to start jogging more now that I'm feeling healthy again. The problem is, I noticed how my new winter running shoes have much, much better padding than my 2-year-old summer running shoes. I know that you're supposed to buy new running shoes at least every other year if you run a lot, but... they cost so much! I just bought new shoes on Christmas, and I should buy new ones again?!

I hate using money on expensive things. I can handle spending 20€ a week on food, and 195€ on the latest electricity bill (no kidding!!), but when it comes to something that technically isn't absolutely necessary, I hate it.

Earrings are a girl's best friend.

2009-03-28T09:29:00.006+02:00

I wanted to show Amoena my new earrings. My mum gave them to me when she visited last week. She always tells me that my ears are the smallest in the world, so I shouldn't use heavy earrings that could stretch my tiny lobes.

Whatever. Mums are like that.

This is the best shot I could get with my camera phone. Well, it's really a phone with a built-in camera, not the other way around.

I just woke up so I look like crap. No one should see my face this up close. At least I spared you from half of my face, though you can probably guess what the other half looks like.

In other news, I finally transferred all the photos from my cellphone to my laptop (thanks to my new Deltaco Hi-Speed 7-port usb hub!), so expect more photo-ridden posts in the future.

Oh and if you also read Sleeping Artist, please note that the feed no longer works. I have absolutely no idea why that is. I've tried a lot of things and I've asked around, but so far no luck. I just don't have the energy right now to look into it so I apologize for the inconvenience.

My life as a lungfish.

2009-03-16T14:39:00.007+02:00

That meeting with the career counselor was definitely worth it. We talked for nearly three (3! yes, 3!) hours, and she was a really nice and fun person.

I shamelessly hurled millions of questions at her and felt like I got very useful answers. She told me that the employers can be just as confused and ignorant about the recruiting process as the job applicants. Somehow I didn't see that coming at all.

For instance, she said that many employers write these daunting requirement lists because it's easier to imagine the ideal candidate instead of a realistic one. Usually the people they end up hiring don't fulfill many of their requirements. Lesson: salt, salt, and then a little more salt when eyeing up those lists!

She also told me that my work experience at the uni looks impressive, even if it's been a part-time job. It shows (in her words) that I can commit to a project, and long term too since I've had several projects over a couple of years.

Moreover, she said some people can be impressed by the fact that I've worked for uni. Myself I tend to think that it's not difficult at all to get some small project like that since I'm a student there, so I don't think of it as very impressive. The biggest ones I got because I practically forced my help on one teacher when he complained about not having time for his project.

Well, I suppose those projects don't really fit my idea of applying for a job, since I never had to do that. They didn't help me at all in learning those skills outside the university.

Even so, my main worry was that my cv gives off the impression that I've been extremely lazy and that I'm unwilling to work. Of course I can be lazy, usually when I don't like what I'm doing. If I do, on the other hand, I'm a workaholic. Maybe that's my saving grace.

I felt such relief after talking to her. The high lasted for about two days, and then the good old paranoia and anxiety kicked in again. But no matter how I feel, I refuse to forget all those tips and information I got. The job market no longer seems quite as intimidating as it used to.

Meet the maker? Nah.

2009-03-10T12:19:00.008+02:00

For the first time in my life, I've written a CV. I've never needed one before because I've only written open job applications. But now I needed to create one because I'm meeting a career counselor tomorrow.

Kind of funny if you ask me. Well. My CV looks surprisingly purty after all. It looks nice that I've been working for the English department for three years now, even though it's only been perhaps a couple hundred work hours at best. The time span is deceptive. I like that.

It sounds impressive too, "coordinating, updating, classifying and compiling corpora". My two conference presentations give a nice touch too. And then there's the translation job for Auringon lapset. No one can tell how much or how little work that was.

That's what I hate about applying for jobs. I feel extremely dishonest. The key in getting a job is basically to productize yourself and your skills. You need to give a good sales speech. What can you offer to your prospective employer?

The problem is, nothing I've done or anything I know or can do is useful. It's absolutely ridiculous that anyone allowed me to give presentations at linguistics conferences. I mean, come on, I can't even handle the basics of English grammar! What is a participle? I don't know. What's a mood? An aspect? What's the point of case grammar? I don't know. It all still confuses me, after years of studies. I've hardly ever been sane enough to actually care about my studies, most of the time I've been drudging through so I can get my study grants. My formal qualifications are full of air.

My language skills are not particularly impressive. I know the basics in many languages, but only English I'm happy with. Even so, I'd like to be a much more fluent English speaker.

And then there are those elusive skills that every employer seems to want, no matter what the job. Even a cleaner should be active, social, positive, superhuman, motivated, blah blah blah.

I'm not a social person. That cancels out about 90% of job openings. I'm not motivated. I can't help it. I can't really say I want to live for very long. So it's kind of hard to be motivated about working, especially in the beginning when you have to learn how to do it at first. I just don't have that extra energy to try to do my best. Sometimes I do, but that's about 5% of the time.

No one should employ me. I'm more trouble than I'm worth. I hate lying, but that's what I have to do if I want to get any kind of job. It's disgusting.

Limb of the matter.

2009-02-27T21:56:00.005+02:00

There's something strangely blissful about living in a limbo.

I consider sentences of one sort or another. None seem of any consequence.

I look outside. Snowflakes twirling down from the sky. Should matter. But doesn't.

A happy smile. Laughter. Should matter. I laugh and then stop. It won't lead anywhere.

Manual labour. Corporeal punishment. Satisfying. Matters as long as it steals time from me.

They ask questions. I have no answers. I search my mind but I find nothing. Echoes ricochet all around and come back to square one. I'm sorry I'm like this. Is it not enough that I'm smiling and laughing?

I have nothing to contribute but I like the emptiness. I'm content. Satisfied. Nothing can move me one way or the other.

Bless this blissful state.

Peacey.

2009-02-03T14:49:00.014+02:00

I feel like I'm in peace right now. I feel content that I finally took control of things. I hate feeling out of control. I'm not an extreme control freak, but I definitely have some symptoms of it. I love routines. They're my lifeline. If everything is under control and I can do the things I've planned everyday, life is good.

I didn't realize how inexpensive depression meds actually are. Only 3,30€ for a month! It's nothing compared to other regular medication, like painkillers or contraception. Perhaps subsidized by the government? I know it's a ridiculous amount of people who are on depression meds these days.

I always thought, and still do, that there must be something wrong about that fact. Can it truly be the case that such a huge proportion of people need to be treated for depression? Is it a new epidemic, or has it always existed, only doctors didn't have a name for it, let alone treatment?

It would make sense if it was somehow caused by the living conditions, the way the society works here. Probably also the environment, considering that this country with long and dark winters rates very high in suicide. Personally though, I'm more inclined to believe in the former - there's something wrong with our way of living.

Maybe we're simply too well off. Too much time to think, as we don't have to spend all our time and energy on simply surviving. If you fear starving over the winter, you're hardly going to think about some of your smaller worries. Then there are the ridiculously inhuman expectations in today's working life and life in general.

Everyone should be 100% effective for 8 hours a day five days a week, should have more than 2 kids to keep Finns from becoming extinct, mothers and grandmothers and men in general should all stay fit and healthy for all their lives to diminish the costs on the society as far as health care, and young people should apply to exactly the right kind of education for them so the society doesn't waste money on education for nothing.

Oh and people should also be willing and able to move around the country and to other countries whenever their employers decide that it's more cost effective to do business elsewhere. And of course, everyone should cut down on eating, heating, CO2 emissions, lighting, air conditioning, watching tv, increase garbare recycling, use public transport, forget holidays abroad.... am I forgetting something? Probably. It can't be this simple, can it?

It's really difficult even for professionals to decide whether the increasing number of diagnoses is due to the advance of medicine, i.e. we know more now what causes what and how it can be treated, so it will of course be treated. Or, we may be diagnosing as disease some symptoms that are a fundamental, inevitable part of the human condition and life in general. It's the so called medicalisation phenomenon, and everyone thinks they know the best what's going on.

However, with increasingly more information circulated in the media, in a simplified form, people are of course more educated on a basic level and know that they can demand treatment and get better. The problem is, they think they are fully aware of everything related to it, while of course they aren't. There's a reason why doctors undergo a long and difficult education and training, and consequently someone who hasn't can't really claim to know or understand the intricacies of diseases.

Of course you get depressed if you lose someone. Or you suffer a serious injury, or a miscarriage. Anything with a big impact on your life, any major disappointment, will affect anyone. It's a whole another matter when you're depressed for years without any apparent reason.

Well, all I can say is I don't envy doctors in the least.

Meet New Shoes!

2008-12-29T22:20:00.016+02:00

If there ever was the perfect time to make a big purchase, it's the after-Christmas sales, especially for a wealthy woman like me. Buying anything on sale makes me happy, especially when it's something I really need. (You could go on forever arguing whether we really need much of anything.)

I figured that if I had proper shoes for winter running, I would no longer have any excuse not to go jogging all year round. Yesterday it was -5 celsius, nothing per se, but too cold for running in summer shoes which have a hole in them.

Besides, the padding has crumbled ages ago, and my feet are very unforgiving when it comes to cushioning the impact. Hence, I got me dese pretty uns:

Icebug Pytho L BUGrip

Carbon rubber soles - and carbide spikes which retract on hard ground and protrude on soft ground! Thermoplastic urethane for keeping the cold out and keeping dry! Nylon mesh lining for transferring sweat away from feet! Heel pad and forefoot inserts for cushioning and responsive toe-off! Midfoot supports for stability! Nylon shanks to provide torsional rigidity! Beautiful and reflective of light to give visibility during dark hours!

Like, !!!!!11111111

A Running Shoe's Anatomy.

2008-12-26T23:11:00.018+02:00

A good running shoe should:

* have both heel and toe padding
* be one size too big to accommodate additional socks
* have laces that don't come undone
* have good ventilation in the summer, good insulation in the winter
* have a good grip in the winter
* not get wet in rain or slush.

I've got only two pairs of running shoes, one at least three years old. If you run a lot over the year, it's recommended to buy a new pair every year because the padding loses its effect. I haven't, because I'm such a scrooge. Maybe next spring.

They're both for summer use. I've been running a lot here in Hollola during my Christmas holiday, because it's the only kind of sports that can give me my endorphin fix.

I don't usually run in the winter, since I don't have proper shoes. Summer shoes get wet if there's no snow and it's raining, or worse, slush on the ground. Without snow there's often ice too, and summer shoes are simply too slippery. They're slightly slippery on snow too, but I don't mind it too much. I'm thankful for the snow and it looks pretty too.

I hadn't had a jog in weeks before I came here. Once I got running again I had a huge epiphany about what a wonderful thing it is. It's as close to heaven as you can get. I tend to forget that fact in the winter when I'm too busy with aerobics and circuit training.

Aerobics and especially circuit training are good, but nothing compares to running. If I had to define my happiest moment, it would be running along a country road, watching the fields slowly pass me by in the sunshine, listening to music or the steady rhythm of my feet hitting the ground repeatedly.

It's a perfect time to allow yourself to think. Let your mind wander off wherever it wants to go. Besides, I read that exercise increases blood flow in the brain and improves your ability to think clearly and effectively.

So really, I should get me a pair of winter running shoes. Shoes where my toes didn't freeze up or get wet, shoes which have a good grip. Last winter I gave it some serious thought, but I decided against it. They're so damn expensive and I wasn't sure if I would use them often enough to pay themselves back.

But this time, I got a sizeable sum in tax refund, and for the moment I'm wealthier than usual. All that money, it's just begging to be used! Keep the economy running, eh!

Hölkäsen pöläys.

2008-11-06T12:17:00.001+02:00

Who is this guy called Hölkänen? And what exactly is "pöläys"?

I'd like to know.

Tired and tagged.

2008-10-22T13:37:00.022+03:00

I'm incredibly tired right now. Incredibly, because I slept quite well. The first thing in the morning, however, I went to the Linna library reading room and read for two hours. It was so dark in there that I could barely stay awake.

Besides, the early hours of the day are the least effective for me. No matter how much this society is built on the assumption that all people just love to wake up early and can work effectively starting from 8 am, it's never going to be a reality in my case. Some people are simply more evening/night creatures, and they never catch the early worm. (Or whatever the hell that saying is.)

I don't remember anything from what I read, except I noticed some Canadianisms in the text. Always good to have ideas for possible new research projects.

So I got tagged by Amoena. I'll make an attempt at doing what I'm supposed to. I'll admit right away that I don't know any other bloggers well enough to tag them. I mean, I do read some blogs. But if I suddenly gave a comment that I tagged them, they'd probably be scared out of their wits. I'm a stalking kind of reader.

Anyhow. The rules, which I copied from Amoena:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

And the facts.

(1) I plan to write a science fiction novel one day. I'm already on page three.

(2) The only thing I miss about last summer are the frequent Messenger sessions with Amoena.

(3) There is a guy in my German class who(m) I'd like to ask out, but haven't worked up the courage yet. (Because let's face it, Finnish men almost never take the initiative. And Italian and French men far too often.)

(4) I'd like to become a mum before I turn 30. To hell with career, I want babies! (Actually I think I could have both.)

(5) I like to spend quality time with my little brother by watching horror movies. We don't care about bad ratings, as long as it's R-rated. If there are zombies, we're going to watch it.

(6) The same brother once gave me edible underpanties for a Christmas present. How sweet of him.

(7) I suck at math, but I was the only one in my class who scored full points in the algebra test. I like the simple beauty of equations.

So there. Over and out.

A Finite jest.

2008-10-20T11:07:00.026+03:00

I read about the author David Foster Wallace in the paper. I'm glad somebody ordered his big hit, Infinite Jest, at the main library in Tampere. I have got to read that book when it's available.

I like the thought of a 1000-and-plus-pages book (with footnotes too!). Something alluring about them. If you like what you're reading, it's a wonderful feeling to know that it's going to last for a long while yet.

Wallace is dead now. He suffered from depression for 20 years until he finally killed himself at 46. So the columnist wonders why he did it, since he had a family, success with his career, a wonderful life history.

To my mind, the right question is why he didn't do it any sooner. Can you imagine 20 years of severe depression? How on earth did he do it? It doesn't matter how many wonderful things you have in your life if you're depressed. They don't help that much, sadly.

Sometimes I wonder how it's possible that I'm still hanging on here, and I'm barely 25. I can't imagine living like I have so far for 20 more years, so I don't imagine it. I just don't plan my life that far ahead, but I keep my hopes up. One thing at a time.

I got tagged by Amoena. I'll get down to that soon. I don't really understand what it means though. Is it like those letters that used to circulate among strangers, where you wrote something about yourself and sent it forward?

You know, back when people still wrote letters. In case you don't know, they're these pieces of paper with writing on them. Writing that was written with a pen. Handwritten. Can you imagine?

I'm a little worried about my letter writing hobby. I've exchanged letters with my dear cousin for 16 years now, and we've always written at least once or twice a year. Now that she lives in the same town, I wonder if she'll want to keep it up. Well, maybe we'll continue as soon as we live in different towns again.

Almost left my values at the desk.

2008-10-17T11:18:00.023+03:00

I'm a little offended now because I didn't get that ticket in the mail that informs/reminds me that I'm entitled to vote in the local elections. Hello, I've voted before - what are they trying to tell me?

Anyways. I found a candidate after all, and since the university library, Linna (my mind always goes to "prison", instead of the writer Linna), had an advance voting booth, I figured why not.

I'd decided on the person already, but this morning I got an ad from another candidate. He had a special ad for people living in my area, and there he mentioned that he's against a certain project that nobody in the neighbourhood wants.

For a moment, I was tempted. Something concrete like that would be so easy to have as your basis in voting. But I couldn't leave my values at the desk (as some Parisian hotel allegedly asked their customers to do). I can see through his populist tactics.

He probably had a special ad for every region in this town (Tampere is a town, not a city, no matter how much they try to fool us), and had something to be against or promote there, and fish in votes.

Looking more closely at the ad, with lots of text and nice pictures, I didn't get that feeling that I could trust that person. I want the ad to somehow radiate honesty, humbleness and non-populism. Sometimes a dash of populism is refreshing, but only acceptable if the voter is made aware of it.

It's extremely annoying how some people underestimate my ability to see through the visual and verbal rhetoric of their ads. So I tend to go for people who have an endearingly clumsy, simple and bland ad, which nevertheless says everything I need to know. I found the candidate first, and only then did I notice that he's also from the right party too. Perfect.

The last time I voted, it was where I grew up. All the candidates were middle-aged and didn't really resonate anything in me. I voted for a person whose ideals I can't stand nowadays.

Voting is such an ambiguous issue for me. It's so hard to know whether you're truly having an effect on the things you want or not. Most candidates you don't even know until they start advertising, so you tend to know only what the ads tell you, or what they're telling you while they're campaigning. I'd think that they're not quite in their normal behaviour in that position.

Not voting makes me feel bad, because it's not like I'm protesting or anything. It would be out of laziness and ignorance and not-giving-a-shitness. But if I vote, I always feel like I could have known just a little bit more, that I didn't make as informed a decision as I'd like to.

I read about a study that people who are interested in politics and follow up on those issues on a daily basis and know a lot about what's going on, actually think (and probably know as well) that they have a lot of impact by voting. They know the mechanisms on all governmental levels, so they know which people can change which things and where, so they target their votes accordingly in different elections.

But if you're like me who doesn't really know that much, it feels like I'm shooting in the dark. It seems so likely that I might be causing more harm to issues close to my heart by voting than not voting, because I might be voting for the wrong person, simply because I didn't look that much into it.

So it's really more about being able to say that yes, I did vote. My conscience is clear now. But actually I think, hope, that the person I voted can't be too wide off the mark.

Stalking is only human.

2008-10-15T12:02:00.011+03:00

I can't believe how much traffic my now-defunct blog is getting. The two that are actually alive, not so much. Not that I really care how many visitors I get. I'm losing my interest somewhat in blogging.

At least it's mostly irrelevant traffic on the old blog. In the sense that Google, or some other search engine, has directed people there, even though it's not what they were looking for. Like someone was searching for Van Gogh or Gallen Kallela, and they end up at my blog. I feel sorry for those people.

Then again, I can't believe how search engine-challenged so many people are. I rarely ever have to click on a link to know if it's relevant or not. I can usually tell after a second or two if the search results as a whole are relevant.

I've noticed some people can waste as much as 20 seconds on looking at their results, before they notice that their search words may not have been correctly spelled, or simply unsuitable for their purposes. It's incredible.

Yes, I stalk my visitors a teensy, tiny bit. I think it's normal.

Like I enjoy watching every move that Avril Lavigne makes. I wonder if it's making me regress a little every time I watch videos or pictures of her. I just can't see anything wrong in being infatuated with a female singer for, hmm, six years now?

I only wish she'd grow up a little more and start dressing like people her age. She's only a year younger than me. Wearing clothes from her own brand, aimed at 12-15 year olds by the looks of them, is simply not cool with me. But I also love the fact that she's so eccentric.

Yesterday the flu that has been trying to get me for over a week, finally got me. I was so nauseous and tired that I didn't do anything else but sleep, eat and watch all the Avril stuff I have on my laptop. So sinfully stupid and silly and oh so fun.

I was too tired to cook, but I had these tea crumpets in the freezer. I had put cottage cheese in them, following a tip from Amoena. I was surprised to find that they were really tasty. Especially with some leftover cheese melted on top.

Oh, Canada!

2008-10-10T11:49:00.016+03:00

I'm interested in Canada and Canadians. It's a little difficult to explain why exactly. I can't remember when I got first interested in them, or why.

I can tell you that I like their dry sense of self-irony. I like their nature. I like their literature. I like their music. But Canadians themselves find it difficult to define themselves. Usually it's by defining what they are not - at least not Americans. So maybe it isn't so surprising that I can't put my finger on why they fascinate me.

I can truly appreciate the fact that their government and everything about their country is so well documented. They have all these wonderful sources online, available free for anyone to use! There are archival materials on, pretty much anything you might be interested in.

The annoying thing is, they're usually in pdf files, as you might expect. A colleague of mine (I don't want to describe people I know in too much detail so I'll use such a grand term) complained in his dissertation that there is a worrying tendency of uploading texts online in pdf files, rather than transcribing them at all.

It's something only a corpus linguist would complain about, but I completely sympathize now. For anyone else but a corpus linguist, pdfs are usually good enough. But they're simply not viable for including in language corpora!

I got hold of this splendid corpus of present-day Canadian English. But since I'm going to have a diachronic dimension in my dissertation, it would make sense to have historical Canadian English as well. Sadly, there is only one such historical corpus in existence so far, and even that isn't available to anyone else but its creators.

Since the aforementioned colleague collected a corpus of hiw own for his dissertation project, and since I helped categorize and update it, I'm not too shy about the idea of compiling a corpus of my own.

But finding old Canadian English online in a reliable format is such a hopeless task. If you find something that has been transcribed, there's always the concern about whether it has been modernized or not. If a text is only available as a pdf file, it's pretty much of no use, unless I transcribe it myself.

I'm not really afraid of doing a lot work for my project. I wouldn't mind transcribing texts in principle. The problem is that I know that it would probably postpone the gathering of my actual research data too far in the future.

If I were to do so much work, I would have to take into account so many issues related to corpus compilation. There are numerous different views on how one should compile a corpus.

Some are willing to overlook any bias in the selection of the texts, in their length and text type, register, time of publication, anything that might affect the language of a text in relation to any other texts.

Others believe that especially a diachronic corpus should be carefully constructed so that the researcher doesn't have to worry about distortions in their data sets. Personally I think that such corpora may lull the researcher too much into believing that whatever the corpus throws up, it must be the final truth.

On the other hand, it isn't entirely straightforward to take into account everything by yourself, especially if you want to create quantitative illustrations of your data. It's particularly annoying when you're using many different corpora that were compiled according to completely different parameters, yet you'd like to compare them.

So I suppose there isn't much I can do except try my luck with getting my hands on that already existing historical corpus. Always worth a try.

It's global warming, what is wrong with people?!

2008-10-08T12:27:00.006+03:00

Another of those posts where I complain about the excessive heating, the rule here in Finland. You know, the global warming is upon us, so WE NEED TO HEAT MORE! Waste even MORE energy! We have the third biggest ecological footprint in the world - so let's make it even BIGGER! There's a thought right?!

I got a note from the landlord, like everyone else in the building, advising me to LOWER my room temperature to 20-22 degrees celsius, and 18-20 in the bedroom. Sounds reasonable right?

NO. The room temperature in my one-room-plus-kitchen-plus-bathroom apartment is never AS HIGH as 18 degrees! So there's NO WAY IN HELL I'm going to DECREASE my living comfort by RAISING the frigging room temperature!!!!!

I have a little fever now so these things really make my blood boil even easier.

I think I'll start boycotting Koskikeskus in Tampere. Last week I went in for only 10 MINUTES and I had to take off my jacket and sweater immediately because I was about to faint, literally! And after I got what I needed, I went to stand outside for a couple of minutes in nothing but a tank top, because I was still too hot from spending as long as 10 minutes inside Koskikeskus!

Wtf is wrong with people here, seriously?! Who the hell decided that too hot is somehow supposed to be comfortable and necessary?! Do Finnish people not know that there are such things as CLOTHES, that you can, like, PUT ON if you're too cold?! And just put on two sweaters if you need to, what's wrong with that?!

I'm starting to think that living in Britain wouldn't be such a bad thing after all. They may not have all things sorted out as regards comfortable living, but at least they are not trying to fry themselves!

"Suggest argue, because only in a dispute born truth."

2008-10-06T10:53:00.004+03:00

Doesn't that almost make sense?

It's the wisest thing a spammer has "said" in my comments section. If only their comments were always this "smart", I wouldn't mind deleting them as much.

We quest for a grail of illusive perfection

2008-10-01T13:02:00.019+03:00

I no longer regret joining the Linguist List. Recently a rather fiery discussion erupted concerning a review of the book Chomsky's Minimalism.

The main bone of contention was about whether semantics can come after syntax, i.e. whether the human mind creates syntactical structures first and infers the semantics from them only when reading or hearing them.

Personally I believe syntax and semantics are intertwined from the start, but I'm not really one to comment on the issue with any deep insight.

Be that as it may, it's always exciting to see linguists go ballistic. Most of the time, what linguists write in research papers and books is fairly dry.

It's not because the authors can't write in an interesting way. It's simply that it's practically impossible to use colourful language in linguistics without becoming too obscure. Not to mention that in all likeness you'd end up being frowned upon for not taking things seriously enough.

As in this case, the discussion got heated because someone not too informed in the field was stating their opinions a tad too strongly, not disrespectfully but somewhere along the way.

So of course people get insulted and they retort. Whoever started it will as a result get insulted back, because their pride is at stake. It isn't easy for anyone to admit that they're in the wrong and then apologise.

I sympathise and hope that I'll never be in that position. It's not likely, since I rarely feel the need to persuade other people to see things my way, let alone to inform them voluntarily about my opinions.

This incident reminded me of when I was doing background reading on my thesis. I found a couple of articles back from the 1970s where two authors exchanged extremely caustic language in a couple of issues of a linguistics journal. I recall someone referring to this exchange as some kind of "wars", I wish I could remember the exact term.

It was like reading an exciting story, biting your lip as you read on to see what the other person will have to say next about some particularly hurtful choice of term on the other's part. I shouldn't have fun at the expense of somebody else's hurt feelings, but I did.

It was such a rare, precious discussion because it had gotten so personal. Again, I hope no one will ever start throwing dirt on anything I might publish one day. Of course you shouldn't take it personally when the criticism is matter-of-fact and doesn't attack your person, but usually that's impossible.

I know that even very experienced linguists take criticism personally, even though rationally they know they shouldn't when it hasn't been intended as personal in any way. Especially if someone is questioning your competence in your own field, how could you not take insult. Just human nature I suppose.

It's a fine line to tread in general, making a text interesting and accessible while trying to remain scientific, accurate and credible enough. I think it can be done, however. One of my ambitions with my dissertation (the topic of which I haven't even chosen yet) is to make the text much less dry than in my thesis.

I truly believe that blogging has helped me improve my English. It gives an effortless opportunity and a reason to write more than I normally would.

What's more, my blogs are the only place I get to use less formal English. I think I'm on my way to finding that golden middle road to travel when writing matter-of-fact, yet lively language.

Falstaff's nose and the babble of green fields

2008-09-29T11:03:00.009+03:00

Othello by Mikko Viherjuuri was not quite what I expected. It reminded me of why I don't go see plays much.

I don't get the overacting, especially when it isn't done all the way through. At times I was reminded of my favourite soapie, Days of Our Lives. If I want to see overacting, I'll watch that show. And they do it better yet!

The director explains in the programme that he had to translate the play into plain, unlyrical Finnish, because the play is notoriously "mythical" (tarunomainen) and wouldn't make much sense for most people. I don't understand his choice of term there, though I understand what he's saying.

But still, he left some key parts in the play "mythical", so as not to dampen their dramatic effect. I'm not sure what I think about those scenes. They went as over the top as Days of Our Lives, which I love to no end, so I suppose in principle I liked those parts. I guess my problem with it is simply the inconsistency.

The director also claims that de-mythifying the play has made Othello's character more believable. Not in my opinion. I couldn't understand how gullible he was. He was probably pathologically jealous and possessive is all I can think of.

I suspect it also made it harder to understand the characters because the director removed most of the monologues. That's how Shakespeare I suppose showed to the viewer how the characters' logic and thinking worked. Leave them out and you have far less to work from.

What's great though is that it made me realize how soap operas are actually keeping alive 400 years old dramatic traditions! So why are they looked down upon so much? Why won't so many people admit to watching them?

If you really think about it, it's not like they don't have depth of meaning to them. Just think about how everything happens in circles in soapies. The basic pattern is that people hook up, they fall out, they hook up again, sometimes with the same people and sometimes not.

Sometimes they die, and sometimes they come back alive. And again and again. It all reminds me of Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot. In the play, two characters wait in the same nondescript place everyday for someone called Godot, but he never arrives.

They try to entertain themselves, but their days are pretty much the same. The play really has no ending or beginning because we start from the middle of their waiting, and stop before Godot has arrived. They'll stay in their circular existence for Godot knows how long.

Just like Vladimir and Estragon are doomed to do the same thing over and over, soapie characters are doomed to their lives of neverending drama and love triangles, quadrangles, whatever. I think Shakespeare would have approved, so why don't you.

Random newsflash

2008-09-28T13:39:00.003+03:00

I did it. I figured out how to move around the blog title and description.

Not only that, but I managed to move the post footer away from the post's body! I can put my mind to rest now.

How noble in reason, infinite in faculties; Or, what a good Shakespeare heretic makes*

2008-09-20T14:22:00.003+03:00

No worries ‒ the earlier post today was just a hoax. This is what I've been planning to post for a while now. The upside about having to wait a week to post anything is that I'll have something in my secret reserves for the whole coming year, if things go as planned. They never do, which is exactly why plans are needed, as a partial remedy.

Even though I may not be reaching my target readership with these kind of posts, I'm going to keep up with this silly Shakespeare-related babble. I find everything about this literary icon endlessly amusing, ever since I learned about the authorship question. Oh, it's almost too juicy sometimes.

Of course, many will be bored to death with this. I realize that my posts look rather long, but why is it that text is somehow less accessible in large amounts on a computer screen, on a website (sorry, blog)? I might shrink the font size in the future, to make my rantings look nice and concise.

But it's my blog, my power, my kingdom and my horse that I'll kiddy up any way I wish to go. In the name of myself, this blog and the holy ghost of Shakespeare, whoever s/he was. Amen.

So the other day it occurred to me to search for videos related to the Shakespeare Authorship question (wholly deserving of the capital letters right) on Youtube. Nothing too original came up, except for this fine piece of someone playing Edward de Vere.

There's also the taping of the mock trial in Washington. The audience will apparently laugh at anything. Some people just listen and wait for anything to laugh at, so as not to give an impression of having no sense of humour. Silly if you ask me.

Then I ran into John Hudson's theory of Emilia Lanier as Shakespeare. Or rather, his "discovery". Finally a candidate I'd love to believe in. What if Shakespeare was a woman? Wouldn't that be so cool?

Seriously speaking, I still know too little of the issue to vouch for any certain candidate. I'm still not sure I have to. The agnostic camp may not be a whole lot of fun, but at least I know I don't have any ulterior motives behind every statement I might make.

("Edward de Vere" from aforementioned Youtube video)

Earlier this week I read a book pertaining to methods in historical study. There were many points that struck a chord in me, thinking back to writing research papers of any kind. There was something about being able to relate to the people in the past, in order to draw the right conclusions about anything they did, to do justice to them when writing about them.

When I was writing on the authorship question, this aspect puzzled me. Who exactly should I try to relate to? Shakespeare, whoever s/he was, and his/her contemporaries, or the authorship question enthusiasts? If the latter, it looks like I failed miserably. It put me off how so many of these researchers were trumpeting their respective candidate without seeming to have much of self-criticism. Once they had made up their mind about their choice of candidate, they turned on the defensive and overly assertive gear.

Now that I think about it, the strong rhetoric is probably partly due to the publicity that the question has received. In addition to multitudes of books by professionals and amateurs (here meaning simply someone without a scholarly background), there are also websites galore that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, any time. In public, you obviously have to make your statement without hesitation if you want to get it through to people. They'll have none of this hedging that is so natural and even imperative in the scientific way of writing.

Another interesting point in the book was something about certainty with your research results. It reminded me of what was said in a book on the history of childhood. Something along the lines that childhood historians often wake up in cold sweat in the dark of the night when realizing how thin a line separates their work from fiction.

(What came up with "hysteria + rhetoric" on Google Image search)

I wonder if there isn't something of this kind of hysteria present in the rhetoric of the authorship scholars and researchers. If you're going to spend years on studying an author's work, you don't want to be held in an eternal state of suspense as to who it is you're studying, even if it doesn't always matter in literary analysis.

It could also be the case that these brits and americans simply write differently from what I'm used to reading. It's strange, though, since I rarely read anything in any other language than English. You'd think I was used to it by now. It must be related to the genre of writing, i.e. books aimed at a popular audience, as well as internet websites.

So don't be fooled by Hudson's less than convincing case on that video. Calling the Stratford Shakespeare "Shaksper" would make anyone sound a little cuckoo. His website is more impressive (takes a while to load, be warned).

Besides, "there are just too many coincidences here"! Wow, I was instantly won over by that particular statement! She was a known feminist, a Jew, used De Pisan as a source as did Shakespeare and ‒ gasp ‒ was mistress to Henry Carey, who was the patron of the acting company Lord Chamberlain's Men, which performed Shakespeare's plays among others. It boggles the mind!

As sugar at the bottom, she even included the names of important people in her life in the plays, in the form of clever puns. To show to the posterity that it was her who wrote them. It can't get any more obvious than that.

It's the cumulative argument all over again. A large number of coincidences sharing one common denominator must by laws of nature entail truthfulness of the original premise! It's like horoscopes: the parameters are so loosely defined that they'll fit any person to a tempting degree.

(Was Emilia Lanier Shakespeare - the most brilliant hermafroditic literary genius in the world?)

Emilia Lanier was not a complete stranger to me. Earlier, she's been identified as the "Dark Lady" of the sonnets. For instance, Michael Wood (2003, In Search of Shakespeare) reckoned that Shakespeare might have had an affair with this woman when living in London, away from his wife and children in Stratford.

Maybe she's the one who gave Shakespeare syphilis (again proposed by mr. Wood), so as a result the 40-something Shakespeare described himself as old and decrepit in the sonnets. Wouldn't that explain everything so neatly? In your face, Oxfordian heretics!

Hudson connects Lanier with Shakespeare because of her background in music, among other things. Her family performed in court. And what d'you know: Shakespeare's plays are "the most musical" in England! Witness "nearly 2000 musical references" and "300 different musical terms" - clearly proof that Shakespeare the author must have been a professional musician, or connected to such people.

Obviously I don't dare to argue on this with Hudson, who holds a certificate in a Shakespeare Institute, who reviews for a Shakespeare journal, and who is writing a thesis on a Shakespeare play. He must know the plays far better than I ever could.

Yet I can't help wondering, how come is it that I keep bumping into these fabulous figures and almost incredible assessments of the nature and vocabulary of Shakespeare's plays. It all makes the (wo)man sound completely inhuman in his boundless abilities and knowledge of everything there is to know in the world.

Taking a wild guess, if I had a look at the list of the references and terms, I would probably find perhaps 50 quotes of the word "music", or some musical instrument. Surely, if you refer to music and musical instruments a lot, it means you must be musically talented. Right?

Music, lute, piano, violin, string, chord, note, minor, major, melody. What if I added a string of musical terms at the end of each of my posts? Or better, sprinkled them here and there to spice up my language? If some day some future historian for some reason created a corpus of my posts and started searching for musical terms, they could conclude that I was a very musical person. There could simply be no other explanation.

*Ever wonder why 19th century novels nearly always seem to have subtitles starting with "or, [yada yada yada]"? I have. Did the authors have trouble making up their minds about the title, or were they just trying to be as informative as possible?

(The first picture shamelessly ripped from the Youtube video; the second picture from John Hudson's website.)

Marred

2008-09-19T14:32:00.001+03:00

I strained my transverse abdominal muscle. I think. It's not the rectus abdominis, but it could also be either of the obliques. It hurts to inhale. I didn't think it would be possible to strain your abs, since they so rarely even become sore, no matter how much you try to punish them. It's the most difficult muscle group to work out, because they get used to exercising so easily.

And all because I was so disappointed with the aerobics class yesterday. It was supposed to be the only one during the week that actually can improve my fitness, but the instructor was ill again and her replacement was less than adequate. Most aerobics instructors seem to think that female university students are in a rotten shape, so the classes don't give much of a challenge.

So I go home after spending 1,5 hours on doing practically nothing worthwhile and I have to do a full workout at home myself. Resulting in said trauma on my poor abdomen. I didn't have time to go jogging anymore, which pisses me off immensely. I'm really deprived exercise-wise, and it tends to lead to sky high aggression levels.

If the coming winter is the same as the last time, I'll be able to continue jogging after new year's, so that's kind of positive, even though I love the snow and I missed it last winter.

If there's snow, I could of course go skiing, but going skiing in the nearest Kauppi woods would only make me angry. Skiing Finns are simply unbearably annoying, and since Kauppi is their natural habitat, it would be inevitable to meet many of them. So no.

I'm considering starting swimming this year. If only it didn't cost so damn much.

A Myth that I have to believe in

2008-09-06T14:35:00.001+03:00

(If you think this post looks a bit on the long side, you're hallusinating.)

It's that time of year again. Grab a pencil and paper and try to make sense of the syllabi, trying desperately to cram everything into the timetable. Frankly, I'm kind of fed up with it all. It's not that the courses aren't interesting, I've just had it up to here with this student life, going to lectures and everything else just as meaningless. What I really want is a) get a job or b) start my research for real. I can't do all three at the same time. I can be efficient and energetic and hardworking, but only when I'm doing something tangible, like writing.

To make it more annoying, the most interesting courses always overlap. I really wanted to take the art history course on "Love and evil", but at least I can take the one on 19th century Finnish art. There's also going to be a Shakespeare recital by the Arts department, sonnet 116. It's an offspring from a collaboration, "Art and Disease", between the departments of Arts and Medicine, strangely enough.

I ended up reading more about the programme. They have themes like artists and their illnesses, art as therapy, doctors as artists. They mention that Kalle Achté has claimed in the Kanava magazine that depression and hypomania can increase creativity.

It's certainly a cliché that artists are mentally and sometimes also physically tormented, and channel their illbeing into wonderful art. Yet intuitively thinking, there must be at least a grain of truth to it. If you've ever painted or drawn or done anything else creative, you'll know how you need to be completely focused.

The process is immersive, all your thoughts are directed at thinking of what you're going to do and how. There is no outside world during that time, though of course it can remind you of itself in a less than perfect environment. So creating art is naturally very relaxing in the sense that you're forced to forget all your worries. Which can be therapeutic, I guess. What the doctor ordered, not so often.

Personally, I'm not sure if an anguished or depressed state of mind is necessarily useful. Being depressed basically shuts down your brain and you become this zombie that is unable to react to or do anything. If you're angry or angsty, on the other hand, it can spell doom for your brush if you channel that energy into aggressive strokes.

Being excited and happy, however, seems to enable the best results. So hypomania, why not? Just pray you'll have it if you're a professional artist, hmm?

As much as I hate all these romanticized myths about any profession, be it artist, scientist, doctor, I'm slowly beginning to appreciate the conventional, stereotypical views on art and artists. I haven't quite found my golden middle road between dismissing art theory as hopelessly relativistic, self-interested and autoerotic rubbish on the one hand, and devouring and absorbing it completely as something most divine and sublime on the other.

I seem to be treading the muddy soil somewhere along the way across the noman's land, twists and turns aplenty. I make occasional jabs at intertextual, psychological and other kinds of nonsensical interpretations, but always make sure to keep my bearings by glancing back at the beacon of purely visual aesthetical pleasure.

My personality tends towards extremes, but I truly believe in moderation. Yet I wonder if art isn't a playground to allow for excess, to revel in it. By the looks of it, you'd think so today. But was it always like that? Did cave paintings try to create discussion in the society, to break familiar lines of thinking? Or how about still lives, aren't they just about the most controversial thing you've ever seen?

Much of art is still created for the purpose of hanging it up on your living room wall. Few people buy art that is disturbing or unsettling. Artists need to eat too, and since the more conventional art forms and styles sell better, they're here to stay.

I often think back to a visit to Juhani Honkanen's atelier years ago. I didn't care much for his scenery paintings. Your run-of-the-mill, garden-variety landscapes of Finnish woods, thunder clouds on the sky, dark pines and firs towering over the viewer, the random heather bush on the side. To quote the Joker: why so serious? I don't understand why much of the nature scenery has to be so sombre and gloomy, what with all the impending storms on the sky.

I prefer his abstract and surreal paintings, even though I can't usually stand surreal art (which in my opinion is quasi-creative expression at its most contrived, repressed, stifled and boring). He's quite decent at portraits as well, especially the more adventurous ones. But guess what? At the exhibition, he'd only sold many of the sceneries, but none of the abstract or surreal ones.

I don't blame people for not wanting to see pictures of naked people swimming through a starry sky when they're eating their morning cereal. I wouldn't. Only I couldn't understand why the abstract art didn't sell. Few people today are so visually challenged as to not be able to appreciate abstract art at some basic, purely aesthetical level.

Whatever the reason, by way of summary: art and its message lose sight of each other as soon as a work of art is sold to a private person. The message withers away, and in comes comfort and normalcy. So does art have to create imbalance, to unsettle? Does conventional, aesthetically purely instrumental art gnaw away at the foundations of "serious" art, simply by being commercially more viable?

I hope not. Art with a message is usually more fun.

Auld lang syne, Mr. von Schlegel's turn of phrase!

2008-08-30T14:36:00.005+03:00

I know it's been only three days since my last post, but I'll soon revert back to my one-post-per-week policy anyway. Take this as a warning that in the future it may not be worth the trouble checking back here more than twice a week, at the most. Unless you want to explore the archives and discover the less than glorious past of this blog. Actually you should, if you only like the paintings. There's much less of these boring ramblings of mine over last winter.

Down to business it is. As I mentioned in my previous post, in Munich I bought an old German translation of Shakespeare's King Henry IV Part 1 AND 2 (I noticed later that both were included). I was annoyed to find no mention of when the book was printed.

I could guess that it must be old, at least -ish, judging by the yellowish paper and the ribbon bookmark (those ribbons you only find in Bibles these days), let alone the very-old-and-Gothic-looking font of the German text. Strangely, the English text is in a more modern font.

The translator, August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845), a poet himself, is still considered one of the best German translators of Shakespeare, according to Wikipedia. Someone else apparently thinks that Schlegel's translation is remarkably different from the original, for example as regards the verse style. Shakespeare often wrote in blank verse, which in his case means he wrote with an unrhymed iambic pentametre. This writer says that Schlegel transformed the blank verse into "the iambic pentametre with either male or female cadence", i.e. 10 or 11 syllables on each line.

Now I'm not very well-versed in these technicalities of poetic composition, but is the iambic pentametre with male or female cadence really so strikingly different from the regular one, which has ten syllables on a line? Anyone care to explain this to me? But be that as it may, I can appreciate the various problems Schlegel must have had, considering how different English and German are when it comes to word order and syllabic structure.

(August Wilhelm von Schlegel)

As for my problem of dating the volume. Schlegel's Shakespeare translations span the years 1797-1810. König Heinrich der Vierte was published in 1800. Obviously there have been reprints, through the 19th century until around the time of WWII. The later reprints, however, all seem to be collections including several plays. But I'm not sure whether that means that they were still printed as individual volumes or as a single book.

Next I tried to find information on the publisher, Der Tempel Verlag. It was founded in 1909, so my book can't be more than almost a hundred years old – not much, eh? Apart from these tiny parsels of information, google really isn't almighty when it comes to finding bibliographical information. I don't mean just old books, but even more recent ones are surprisingly non-existent in the virtual world of search engines. Yet things, or even people, aren't supposed to be important if you can't google them. Fiddlesticks,* I say!

My final resort was the university library's online search engine(s). It's a real drag to go through all sorts of collections on god knows how many different portals, because for each search it takes so long to process. The end result still zilch. I'm slightly disheartened now with my less than resourceful detective skills.

Something good came out of all this though: I stumbled upon a website which has pictures and transcriptions of American diaries from late 19th to early 20th century: www.writtenbyhand.com. Perhaps not eligible for including in a corpus, but interesting nevertheless.

(Picture from Written by Hand Manuscript Americana)

Speaking of corpora, it occurred to me that there might be a possibility of compiling an Edward de Verean corpus for the purposes of comparing his language with Shakespeare's. I definitely need to look into it, since it would make for such an exhilarating research project. I know some websites with transcriptions of his personal letters, draft interrogatories (whatever those are) and memoranda, so all I need to do is find out if they're up for grabs or not.

I do know of one linguistic comparison between these authors, aided by a computer, using statistical methods: Was Oxford Shakespeare? A Computer-aided Analysis. Needless to say, these guys with all their knowledge of statistics still err somewhat in other methodological issues. They assume too much, take so much for granted, and any complexities that don't quite fit are pummeled flat. All in a day's work for anti- or pro-Shakespeareans alike!

*Another Shakespearean term, from no other than 1 Henry IV! Says Falstaff, "Heigh, heigh, the Deuill rides vpon a Fiddlesticke: what's the matter?" Of course, not quite in the same sense as in present-day use.

Hawt and bothered, with every fibre of my being

2008-08-27T11:08:00.001+03:00

I'm finally experiencing my definition of a true summer: +30 and sunshine all day long! I wish I'd known earlier that all I had to do was come to Germany. I wouldn't mind at all having a summer house here. Perhaps if I married someone rich. A rich German to be more precise.

I'd love to stay the whole week, to see what the workshops are like, but unfortunately I didn't expect to enjoy myself this much here. I like this a lot better than my usual visits to foreign countries, which almost always are package holidays.

It's nice to combine business and pleasure, or rather, educating the mind as well as your soul. What I don't like about package holidays is that the schedules for excursions are so rigid and you have to wake up very early. Here I am actually fully awake and appreciative of everything because I'm not sleep deprived.

It was a complete surprise to me to see so many BIG names on the programme. I had no idea ICEHL was one of the very few and precious conferences on English historical linguistics, or even historical linguistics in general! Someone said to me that it was very ballsy of me to come here and give my very first presentation in such a prominent conference, without having even started on my dissertation yet. It's funny because I didn't think of it like that at all. I was just trying my luck without knowing anything about this event beforehand. I'm glad I did.

What's also funny is that this nice man came to talk to me the first day, probably because I looked a little lost, and we had a nice chat. His name sounded familiar. Yesterday he gave a plenary talk, and it turns out he's the chief etymologist of the Oxford English Dictionary! The lecture was useful in the sense that suddenly I realized, seeing this actual person discussing his work, how there are real people behind dictionaries. In the end it's their personal opinions and analyses that are often taken at face value.

I bought King Henry the IV Part 1 in English with a German translation. Only 5€ (it's ancient), and I thought I could start learning German by reading one of my favourites. Just for the laugh, really.

Crushed by a cartwheel

2008-08-18T11:10:00.000+03:00

I'm getting nervous about the presentation. One week away. I finished writing the powerpoint slides at around 1 am last night. Now I need to write notes or something to flesh it out.

I know that many presenters read straight from a paper in front of them. It won't make for a memorable presentation, but suffices to get your point across. People won't shoot you down for doing that. I wish I could do it like that, it would be so much easier, though perhaps a little dull for the listeners.

The problem is, I find it very hard to read when I'm giving a presentation. I may see the words on the paper, but what my eyes register are some weird scriblings on a white surface. Their meaning never reaches their destination.

There's really no other option for me but to know my subject so well that I can improvise, and hope that I remember to say everything important and in a logical order. What a great way to go about it, seeing that there are millions of other things causing me to be nervous in that situation.

According to my calculations, I've given about five presentations in my whole life. None were longer than 10 minutes. Now I have to go on for 30 minutes! I wake up around 5 am every morning in cold sweat because I've been imagining in my sleep how horrible it could be. Not only am I dreading being in front of an audience (with luck though, most will leave when it's my turn), but I'm very insecure about my topic.

Whatever happened to my self-confidence in my research? Only a year ago, I was so sure I knew what I was talking about. Now I question every single statement I write down. What if there's some elementary error in my thinking? What if there's an asshole in the audience to point that out?

I still don't trust people to be civil about it. I still expect them to mock me in every possible way they can think of. I'd probably crumble even if someone simply asked me to speak louder or more clearly, though perfectly understandable requests as such and nothing to fret about.

I hate it how in such situations I seem to regress back to a 15-year-old with a crushed self-esteem. I simply can't help myself, it's a gut reaction and I wonder if it'll ever completely go away. In my opinion, it's long due for me to move on from that. I wish I knew how.

All things equal though, I do look forward to seeing Münich, learning more about historical linguistics, and with any luck getting feedback for my topic.

When I come back, a cousin of mine will pay me a visit because she still hasn't found an apartment in Tampere. Will be nice, I see her so rarely. She's starting studies again, even though she just graduated as MA in the spring. She sure does enjoy the student life.

All this means that I probably won't update in about a week or so.

No expression

2008-08-15T13:19:00.003+03:00

They roll off my tongue so easily. I don't mind. I don't care. All the same to me. Fine and dandy by me. Whatever you say.

It's true. See this face? There is a reason why there is no kind of expression whatsoever. All things equal, I really, truly don't care. I could give it all up just like that. I believe it's all temporary. Not because of the obvious, but because the obvious will arrive sooner than you think.

Or it won't. Surprises around every corner. You never know, I just might be fit after all. What do I think of that? Let me think. I don't know.

The flames of doubt again. Do I or don't I? Should I stick around or not? Is it worth it? Should it be worth it? Can it be worth it? It is all too much to handle. So no expression. Leave me alone, I'm just building a ruin.

Ruins are what I'm feeding off. Somebody else's blood and sweat. I won't make my own. I doubt I will, but I hope I will. I'll have to see about it. I still have hope, apparently. Another sign of no true logic.

Warning: ranting ahead

2008-08-14T11:11:00.000+03:00

I got a job. A small one.

I won't get paid for it. That's just how stupid I am.

Well, no. As the Joker would say, it's not about the money. Not only will I get valuable experience in translating, but also something to add to my CV. My CV's a big fat joke; it's mostly just a slew of assignments for the department. I don't think of them as "real" jobs, because they're so closely related to my studies and research.

I've done a little bit of proofreading and checking some data for my professor. It helps to improve my own English when I correct somebody else's. I get useful references to interesting works, and sometimes even gain some theoretical insights. What's also comforting is to notice that his English isn't infallible, either. Maybe I can cut some slack for myself.

Once I got paid for gathering texts that I found and wanted to use for my thesis, something I would have done anyway. It led to me landing another corpus-related job where I categorized a corpus of historical texts according to genres. I'm not sure I was terribly successful, after all how could you possibly have texts from say the 16th century under the same genre as texts from early 20th century! For the most part, there's obviously not much overlap in that respect.

In any case, naturally it was helpful in thinking about methodology in corpus linguistics, because categorizing and the makeup of corpora are at the heart of it, in my humble opinion. Being forced to take into account so many issues in corpus creation, it often made me wonder about how little it's talked about in courses and seminars.

Based on that kind of job experience, however, I wouldn't hire me. Thankfully some people are easy to fool.

As for the job, it's creating English subtitles for a Finnish documentary. I'm lousy at translating from English to Finnish, but the other way around I'm actually quite comfortable with. I know that even professional translators shy away from translating into a foreign language, for good reasons, but I'm not too worried about it. I've received some pretty good feedback for my English translations. Should be fun anyway.

What's terrifying about translating though is the fact that it's so public. Translators are fair game for anyone to bash. They're flamed for the slightest slip or error. Of course it can be fatal sometimes, but often it doesn't really affect your understanding of what's happening.

Take for instance the new Batman film, Dark Knight. I only spotted one translation error. Fair turned to fear (in Finnish), but it didn't really matter for that scene. Only if you're a die hard fan of the Batmanverse and want to know exactly what's being said, how each and every word might tell something more about a particular character.

People don't often realize just how many things you have to take into account in audiovisual translation. The space and time available for each line place major restrictions on translational possibilities. Often you don't get a transcript but have only your hearing to rely on.

Sometimes you don't even have a whole day to work on it, let alone several. What's even worse, since anyone can call themselves a translator, those who've actually gone through an academic training and rarely make errors may nonetheless get the "credit" for poorly done work by amateurs.

I don't think I've ever seen any translator get praise for a good job on a tv show or film. Prose translators, on the other hand, are occasionally lucky enough to get acknowledgement or praise for their good work. So they should, because we need translators and translations. Nobody can learn every language, and even those foreign languages that you know well (or think you do) you'll never know as well as your mother tongue.

You may come close and you may not need translations most of the time, but I'm not convinced it can ever be the same experience as it would be in your mother tongue.

Thus spake Elina, eternally annoyed by overblown criticism of translators and their undervalued but necessary work. (Thus spake Zarathustra is a good book by the way.)

The thing about chaos - fear?

2008-08-12T13:21:00.002+03:00

I know this is not enough. Everything is unfinished. Nothing has come out of anything, yet. What's even worse, I don't even clean the seeds from the floor. I spill soup on the floor and I leave it be. I shouldn't, right? Because it makes me something you're scared of. One of the worst things that could happen to your dear sweet pea. So I may not be tired. I have to keep up the charade.

Doing it for you is enough sometimes, don't worry. But sometimes it isn't. You are so dependent on me that it scares the shit out of me. I don't like the way our roles got switched. I hate to see you vulnerable. I hate to see you so human.

Like your own mother. The tears that burst out when you realized she was really going to leave you. Even though I never heard a good thing about her, you needed her there. Whatever she was like, better she was there than not at all. The same way you want me here, there and everywhere. Be, no matter what. Keep on being. To be or not to be is not the question, ever. Don't even go there.

I know I should let you go first. The only decent thing to do. But I find it so hard to wait that long. How can it be so easy for you? How can you still be going so strong when I still haven't, once? When you've seen ten times worse of life than I have so far?

Or is that the reason? It's been too easy for me? I don't have enough respect for my being here? It's a distinct possibility. To give more shame.

Sometimes I wonder about all this drama.

2008-08-11T13:18:00.005+03:00

Only sometimes? All the world's a stage you know. I'm one of the players who will probably get pushed off the edge.

Where does that settled state of mind come from? Can I buy one? At my corner grocery shop? It's open everyday until 11 pm. I'd like to have some peace of mind, please. Oh and can I have some confidence, too? Would you have something to back up that confidence, like skills and brain perhaps? Ten euros fifty thank you. Here, have some water to wash that down.

I wonder about the survival of the fittest. How would you define fit? I read that intelligence is a big part of it. I thought I had it, some of it, but it's not doing me any favours. It plays tricks on me. It heightens everything.

All thoughts, feelings, become long spindly thorns I try not to touch. They prick me anyway. I bleed and I bleed but I won't bleed out. Endless reserves of agony. Thank you sweet Lord for my ability to think. Shame is what is keeping me here. Killing me softly.

Analytical, yes. Logical, no. Logic can become a vicious circle. You lose sight of your starting point, and before soon the end justifies the beginning. I don't know how to cut it off.

Obviously I'm one of the least fit. Too bad mum and dad. Don't they say that everything good leaps over a generation?

Streched across my shame

2008-08-10T13:13:00.003+03:00

Some people feel no shame. Lucky bastards.

Think about it. They are content. Happy, even. Confident. They've found peace. They do what they do, and they'll keep doing it, never questioning.

No doubts means no shame. What a blissful state it must be. The unattainable.

Time heals all. Right? Right? I wish. So much. In the meantime, what am I supposed to do? Burn? I don't believe in purgatory after death, but there is definitely one in this life.

It's licking the flesh off my bones. The gentle flames. Such humble thoughts, so much praised, but demeaning and cruel. They expose and undermine everything I've built on. They lay me bare in front of everyone, yet nobody appears to notice. How do I fend them off? They keep coming, stinging. I'm tired of fighting them.

So tired. Am I allowed to be tired yet? May I? Mother please? I didn't turn out the way you wanted, but could I please let go anyway? I promise I'll... I don't know what I could promise you. I have nothing to offer.

I want to see the starlight again

2008-08-09T12:00:00.003+03:00

I am possessed by the thought. Typical of me. I don't care what it is, as long as I can obsess over it.

I look out the window. Trees. Birches, to be exact. Their long, skeletal branches loll to and fro slowly in the night. Between their black spidery fingers I can see a light. My neighbour is... I don't know what it is he is doing. His hand reaches forward.

He turns off the light and I am in the dark again. Traitor.

I turn away. My apartment is unsightly as ever. I should get cleaning, but with the birch seeds storming in all day long, I don't see the point.

It's the point that's missing. The infamous point that is on everybody's lips when they talk about meaning. The point, the king of meaning. Or the emperor, even? Empress.

I decide that the seeds dotting my floor more and more are actually welcome. A living presence, in a way. Organic. But is organic the same as living?

I let trees sow their seed on my floor, yet I let my cactus slowly wither away from lack of moisture and new dirt. I turn away from car windows because I can't see the people behind them. Empty cars I like. Empty houses and empty buildings. Empty yards are nice.

Anything abandoned and cold. Dark, I like too. Darkness is like a warm blanket protecting me from all eyes. The ones I can't see throught the windshields.

Come a person and I jump. I hurry away. At home I look out the window to see another one.

If only I could see the starlight from here.

Don't you go all postmodern on me

2008-08-09T11:15:00.003+03:00

I've always wanted to say that to someone. Because it would be such an annoying thing to say.

Let's up the postmodern in this blog a little.

Since many people associate postmodernism with randomness, here's a random quote for ya.

To regard the imagination as metaphysics is to think of it as part of life, and to think of it as part of life is to realize the extent of artifice. We live in the mind.

Wallace Stevens

Actually it isn't random in the sense that I believe in this and that's the reason I chose it.

Mr. Stevens was a modernist. How many people in the end have moved on from modernism? How many even know about postmodernism on a global level? Can you even employ the postmodern as an era? Are eras ever truly global?

Maybe the irony of postmodernity is that we're living in postpostmodernity now. Nobody outside the academia noticed.

I've been really exhausted lately. I can't get no sleep. I've tried running longer and faster and more often to help me sleep at night, but all it does is kill my leg muscles.

I blame my lack of sleep for my recent penchant for reading whatever seems to confuse the hell out of me.

Being groggy after a bad night's sleep blurs the distinction between reality and thoughts even more than usual. Somehow though, it helps me focus better on reading.

I rediscovered some interesting books I'd forgotten I owned. One of my old favourites is Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.

It's a somewhat ancient book as is its author, but my 2004 reprint volume by Continuum is simply beautiful:

I've found a couple of interesting points there that just might be useful in nailing down the aesthetics of urban exploration. Even though Adorno apparently tries to defend modernism. He didn't know of anything better.

This book is surprisingly readable, unlike some of his other works. Like the one on englightenment reverting to myth. The gist of the idea is easy enough to fathom out, but boy can he write ridiculously long sentences.

I know his writing style is supposedly part of his overarching argument, but I can't help but wonder if he couldn't have written with the same effect a little more lucidly.

Aesthetic theory is another matter. It's mostly transcriptions of his speech, written down by his wife. It's a posthumous work, so his chaoslike writing style is in a way still present in the disorderly disposition of the chapters.

Beyond that however, it's almost a pleasure to read. The font is so beautiful too. And don't you just love to say "Adorno"? I think it's a really cool name.

Things you should know

2008-08-07T11:18:00.000+03:00

I've run into all kinds of interesting tidbits of information when reading that book on 19th century Finnish families.

The author quoted some source that defined the ideal qualities in a wife. Among other things, a wife should have "good, big nipples".

I wonder what it is that makes nipples "good". And as if the size of them mattered in breastfeeding, or in other kinds of activities for that matter. Well, maybe it does. I'm not an expert on nipples and their various functions.

But what's truly puzzling about that quote is, how on earth did men know about the goodness and the size of women's nipples before marrying them?

I mean, did men ask women to flash them? Did women wear see-through clothing? Wet t-shirts, perhaps?

Hmmmmmmm.

Wake up and smell the...fruit?

2008-08-06T11:19:00.000+03:00

I had a dream last night.

I came up with the perfect name for a baby girl: Bananina!

Ah, the creative potential of dreams.

Enough of it already

2008-08-01T11:20:00.001+03:00

I've been thinking about something a certain nice Serbian girl asked me at the Helsinki conference.

She asked what linguistics mailing lists I'm on.

Erm, listS?!

I'm only subscribing Linguist List so far and I already feel bogged down by all the mail that I get.

It's mostly redundant. I find myself clicking delete delete delete oh that sounds interesting delete delete deletism to my heart's content* and then even more deletage!

It's annoying too, all these calls for papers to conferences I probably won't be able to visit. I need to figure out my financing before I start running all around the world. I need to dig too much out of my own pocket for the upcoming trip, even with my professor's kind assistance with getting a grant. Thankfully I know how to live hand to mouth.

Besides, the travelling aspect makes me uneasy. I hate it. Please someone develop a teleport right now!

In any case, I think I could aim for ICAME 29 next year. I found about it too late to send a paper this year. Of course they'll accept my draft next time, it's a given. Based on my hefty experience with conferences, they'll take anything they can get. (Hint: sarcasm in the air.)

By the way, ICAME 28 in 2007 took place in Stratford-upon-Avon! That would've been wonderful. The home town of the lowly actor who dared (or durst, since we're talking about ancient people here) to claim the works of the mighty Shakespeare as his own. Some nerve, huh!

Anyhow. I started looking for more interesting mailing lists. There's one about corpora that should be useful. Lately I've been thinking a lot about all these methodological issues related to them and it's very unnerving.

There seems to be no rhyme nor reason** to any of it among more experienced linguists, so I'm not too worried about it. You can always make up some ad hoc arguments for your choice of corpora if it comes to that. If your ethics so allow. But I don't mean to sound disillusioned or anything.

One list focuses on medieval texts. I'd like to find one specified in historical linguistics, but not that historical. Early modern English is as far as I'm willing to go.

* Originally used in Henry VI and The Merchant of Venice.

** As you like it.

My bookshelf to me a kingdom is

2008-07-30T11:27:00.002+03:00

Since I have a crappy camera in my cell phone, I thought I could take pictures of all of the books that I own, to be used as decoration when I discuss each of them in turn. Bar any embarrassing ones, but there are very few of those anyway.

So let this be an introduction into a series of posts where I bring to the public eye the contents of my bookshelf (and the floor next to my desk, where I keep my favourite ones). Because what could be more interesting than seeing tiny pictures of books in bad quality and reading about my take on them? Absolutely nothing, you guessed right.

But before I get down to business, I must bring to every reader's attention an interesting point that I found out about only recently.

The title for this post was derived from the poem My mind to me a kindgom is, published in 1588, traditionally attributed to Sir Edward Dyer (1543(?)-1607). I always try to come up with titles that have some pretentious, quasi-artistic literary allusions in them.

Dyer was a contemporary of Shakespeare's, a courtier poet whom inter alia George Puttenham praised in his Arte of English Poesie (1589), an account of notable English writers at the time. Which by the way I absolutely had to have on my laptop at home in its original spelling, so I can read it over and over so my heart with pleasure fills.

Wordsworth is quite alright you know. And I like linking every other word to a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is a good source for trivia that you don't want to memorize, especially if it doesn't matter whether the information is in the end accurate or not.

Now here comes the funny part. More recently (in 1975 in The Review of English Studies Vol. 26, to be accurate), the poem has been attributed by Stephen W. May to the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere (1550-1604).

(Young Edward de Vere)

Before that, Alden Brooks had proposed in his 1943 book Will Shakspere and the Dyer's hand that the above-mentioned sir Edward Dyer was the true William Shakespeare. In other words, Brooks claimed that Dyer wrote the works of Shakespeare, not the man who went by that name at the time.

You may wonder what's so funny about that, because surely it makes sense that authorship questions often arise with several hundred years old texts? Well, in this case the question is of considerably more interest than in general.

I wrote a paper on the Shakespeare authorship question, and one of my sources was a dissertation by one Dr. Roger Stritmatter. He is a proponent of the Oxfordian theory which claims that it was Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who wrote the works that are generally attributed to a man called William Shakespeare.

Dr. Stritmatter had included in his appendices the aforementioned poem, with the intention of demonstrating how similar Edward de Vere's and Shakespeare's writing styles were.

(On the cover of the dissertation is a photo of Edward de Vere's Geneva bible!)

At the time of writing the paper, I didn't realize that the poem wasn't even originally attributed to de Vere!

I was aware that the traditional author of the poem, Sir Dyer, was an alternative Shakespeare candidate himself. But I never realized just how eager the so-called Oxfordians were in appropriating all the works in English literature to Edward de Vere.

Even without knowing about this, there were several problems with the analysis of the poem, and I simply dismissed it as one more of Dr. Stritmatter's farfetched, uninterrelated and badly argued points. In all fairness, though, he was relying on Stephen May's analysis.

As if there weren't enough reasons to doubt anything that Shakespeare authorship heretics write, I was confronted by yet another. The more I learn about the issue, the more ridiculous it becomes in my eyes.

I wish it didn't have to be like that, as in the beginning I was very sympathetic to their cause. But the fact that I like to call it a cause is itself telling. It aggravates me how political the issue is and has always been. Many people probably see no evil in mixing scientific research and politics, but personally I find it disturbing. I'm too much of an idealist, and politics really isn't for idealistic people.

So what I'm trying to say is, stay tuned for more discussion on the Shakespeare authorship question. I've got files and folders full of goodies related to the issue, just waiting to be ridiculed.

(My "souvenir" from Edinburgh. It has served me well.)

I'm not going to make fun of anything on purpose even when it's begging for it, since I'm fighting teeth and nails against becoming partial to any particular candidate.

I don't think I mind it either way, whether it was the earl de Vere or Shakespeare from Stratford, or anybody else for that matter, who wrote those famous plays and sonnets. No reason to mix 'n' match the author and the works, right?

I'm learning, me of all people

2008-07-30T11:21:00.000+03:00

I never expected a test book to be so interesting as one dissertation on 19th century Finnish family life.

When I read history books, I'm constantly surprised by how different things were even in the recent past. I suppose that shows how little I know about history. Even hearing from my mum about her childhood simply blows my mind.

Her aunt ruined her teeth because she thought that a lump of sugar will heal a toothache! I'm so glad that most people these days are much more health conscious. Even though not that many are willing to live accordingly.

Anyways. So far I've learned, among many other things, that until late 19th century marriages were arranged (EDIT: only among upper class families I should add) so that the husband was at least 10 years older than the wife. If the age difference was any smaller, it was actually frowned upon.

By the end of the century, general attitudes were already changing more towards the present-day atmosphere. Now it's the complete opposite, for most people.

But it's interesting how different opinions people have on this. My mum for instance almost had a heart attack when she heard that my cousin married a man 10 years her senior.

To be fair, it was partly due to the fact that the guy had become bald very young, and in the photo that my mum saw he was on crutches, having had broken his leg recently. But still, it definitely has made me wonder if my mum would ever approve a similar situation in my case.

But it's not all bad. I discussed this with an old friend of mine and she thought 10 years is perfectly acceptable - because it's worked for her parents so well! So it seems that everything is relative.

Another friend prefers younger men, as does her sister. I can see the temptation. Being in the position to corrupt an innocent young man. But seriously speaking, all these differing opinions just go on to show how there can be no consensus on age differences today.

The bottom line seems to be that whatever floats your boat, you should go for it. In this age of relativism, I guess it makes sense.

Generally, I don't really care about it that much myself. If it works, why worry about age. I've noticed that if I'm interested in someone, I just don't care. The only reason why I'd be worried is if I became a widow for 20 years.

But honestly I don't believe that a huge age gap can work that often. And could the older person really be interested in someone much younger?

It amuses me how calculating I am sometimes. I just want to be in for the long haul.

A Million dead poets would gladly attest - or would they?

2008-07-21T11:22:00.001+03:00

In my view, the Shakespeare Authorship question is a tangled web that would probably take a lifetime to unravel in its entirety.

I was rather disheartened when I tried to find accounts of the matter which actually would have tried to remain objective. I'm still on a hunt for an author who's genuinely trying to find the truth, rather than trying to defend his or her respective candidate as the true Shakespeare.

But maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Maybe you're not supposed to be objective. Maybe the only reason why anyone would be interested in the matter is that they actually care about who the author is.

Be that as it may, personally I still believe that you don't have to have a "favourite" candidate in order to be interested in the question. All this "bitter trench warfare", as it's been called, is entertaining and amusing in its own right.

I admit that my notion of "entertaining and amusing" may differ from the more generic meaning of those words. For instance, I couldn't resist a chuckle when I read the description of the Oxfordian Richard Whalen's 1994 book, Shakespeare - Who was he?. (There's an imaginative title for a book if I ever saw one.)

Let me quote whoever wrote the description:

Most intriguing are the many direct parallels between Oxford's life and Shakespeare's works, especially in Hamlet, the most autobiographical of the plays.

To elucidate the terminology for everyone: Oxfordians believe that Edward de Vere (1550-1604), the 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote Shakespeare. Their candidate is usually called Oxford, though the man himself preferred to sign his letters as Oxenford. At least we know he had a sense of humour, or it's just another manifestation of the flexibility of Elizabethan spelling. Which is also one issue I must touch upon in the future.

So Hamlet, "the most autobiographical" of Shakespeare's plays. The "direct" parallels between the play and the earl's life are used as an argument on his behalf, because – here comes the gist of it – the play is the most autobiographical of them all.

Of course, whether a work is autobiographical or not can only be determined if you know who the author is. Please, please correct me if I'm wrong on this one! If I'm not, I've just found another ridiculous circular argument from the Oxfordian camp. (Not that the "orthodox" Shakespearians haven't excelled in that area for their part.)

To drive home the point of this post: even with a quick 5-minute search on the authorship question, you're bound to run into irrational, silly or just plain stupid arguments.

In countering the inevitably ensuing frustration from all that, my weapon is to make light of it. But even my sense of humour has its limits.

I was going to present a rough draft of all the issues that I'm going to cover in my forthcoming series on the authorship question. Turns out that instead, I was once again amused slash annoyed by an Oxfordian statement, and consequently thrown off course. This is going to be an interesting journey, I can tell.

[Insert witty title]

2008-07-18T11:24:00.002+03:00

(WARNING: If you don't feel like reading a lengthy post about the author's boring life, this isn't for you.)

The yayness factor has re-entered my life again.

Let's conduct a detailed analysis of what that means exactly.

Since I like FPS (First Person Shooter) games, I chose bullet points as a method for structuring my post. (For the record: I'm a pacifist, but I like to shoot and kill pixely effigies of various kinds of animate beings.)

Yayness is a notoriously challenging concept to break down into distinct ingredients, hence the need for great care and caution when formulating the statements. In plain terms, this entails vigorous soulsearching.

I finished relinking the pictures. My blog looks pretty again. Sort of.

The sun started to shine yesterday. I can't get enough of it. The winter will be long and dark enough.

I came up with a new topic for research.

My feet aren't sore anymore. I can go back to jogging almost everyday.

It's only 4 weeks to my conference presentation and I finally got round to writing a draft.

I have several writing projects, which is infinitely better than just sitting down and reading books and panicking about not being able to focus for five minutes.

Each of these points merits elaboration. Well, not the first one. Nor the second. Let's take point number three first under the microscope.

(a) I try very hard not to get too excited about my new idea for research, because I don't have much extra time at the moment (except for blogging, there's always time for blogging!).

Long story short, I'm not entirely happy with expanding the topic of my thesis into a dissertation. One reason is that it doesn't seem important enough as a (set of) research question(s). Another is that I feel as though it lacks challenge.

It was definitely a challenge when I first started working on it. The literature was full of studies on it, yet no one had anything particularly enlightening to say about it. By the time I finished my thesis, after tremendous amounts of working hours, I felt like there wasn't much more to say.

After 120 pages, claiming that you've only scratched the surface seems overkill. I plan to write an article or two on some particular issues related to it, because my results deserve to be published. But overall as a topic, it looks like a dead end.

As for my new idea, once I'd thought about it, I started wondering why I didn't think of it before. It's a topic I stumbled upon two years ago when doing background reading for my thesis. I never quite realized what a great topic it would make.

Now that I've been pondering on it, the possibilities and the breadth of what I could do is simply mindboggling. Finally a topic grandiose enough (to grammar geeks at least), and challenging enough for driving me up the wall. I don't see a point in researching something unless it's a challenge; something that seems impossible to make sense of at first sight.

The rest of the ingredients of my newly found state of yayness don't need that much explaining.

(b) I could really use new trainers.

(c) I've been avoiding the thought that I have to give a full 30-minute presentation in ICEHL in Münich in about a month. I go through these periods when I'm extremely antisocial and I hate the thought of any kind of social interaction. But the key in getting excited again about the presentation was to remind myself why my topic is so interesting, to me at least. If I focus on how interesting my message is, I don't even mind the fact that I'm in front of an audience.

I looked at the time table, and noticed that there are not only many many Finns, but also two more people from my university: my professor, and another senior colleague. I've never met him. We come from the same university, and I finally get to meet him - in Germany.

(d) Last but not least, I'm happy to have found some time finally for writing. For quite some time now I've preferred writing to reading.

I feel like I've partially lost my ability to focus on reading. It's not as bad as it was in the past, but it's still difficult for me. It's strange. I can literally stare at one sentence for 30 minutes, then move onto the next one. It's not convenient when you're trying to read several books for a test. I can manage, though - it just takes me months to read two or three books, that's all.

But writing I find very easy to focus on. Being able to arrange your thoughts in the process is a definite plus. More and more, I'm falling in love with writing for a blog. Even though I barely have any regular readers, it's therapeutic and exciting and useful for developing my writing skills.

In the name of preserving the sanity of my dear reader(s), I promise I'll keep it short(er) in the future. What's more, one of these days I shall post a new painting as well

What is and what never should be

2008-07-16T11:26:00.000+03:00

This has been a strange summer. Too much rain, too little sunshine. Too much paranoia, too little sanity. Too much to do, too little accomplished as of yet.

I've been strangely emotional lately. This morning I cried when watching my usual Days of Our Lives show, while sipping my morning coffee.

My excuse for watching a soap opera is that they're very funny and entertaining, and I genuinely believe that they tell you something about the culture. Take Salatut Elämät, for instance. There's a grain of truth to whatever's happening. Big issues - drugs, death, abuse, alcoholism, school bullying, gambling addiction! So it's a little exaggerated - what would you expect from a tv show?

My excuse for crying over a fictional character is that I'm not in my right mind until I've had my two cups of coffee in the morning.

On Days of our lives, they had the funeral of a young boy who got killed off in a hit-and-run. You often see children killed in soapies, because they don't have much of a role. It still sucks. He was so cute!

The driver was incidentally the boy's newly found stepsister. Being a police officer, the poor father had given her a temporary license to drive, even though she'd just been in a car accident! Gotta love the irony in that, sick as it may be.

The American Catholic funeral is different from the generic Finnish funeral, but it was still touching. The actors and actresses are really good. Many of them have been acting on Days for most of their lives! I wonder how weird that must be, playing the same character for 30 years.

Wandering off: It looks like it won't take that long after all, to relink my pictures. One third to go.

I noticed that the quality of the bigger versions is not terribly good. I blame Photobucket. Apparently I had a setting on which resizes the pictures that I uploaded, so they're not as big as the originals. To add to the misery, I don't have the originals available in Tampere, and it took forever to upload them!

Nonetheless, I added the phrase "click to enlarge" underneath all the thumbnails, so from now on everyone will know it's possible to do so. Just don't expect anything fancy.

Still spindrifting

2008-06-16T11:29:00.001+03:00

As my faithful reader Amoena already knows, I visited her last week. (Or the week before that, I'm getting confused because of so many things happening in my life lately.)

It was the first time ever since I've known her. I've only known her for, what, five years?! It was about time I saw her humble abode. It was really nice of her to let me stay at hers during my conference trip.

I don't know how she felt about it, seeing that I had to hog her bed due to reasons of practicality, while she had to sleep on the couch.

On top of that, her work mate thought she was a lesbian because I was staying overnight and, you know, I'm a female. The situation calls for a lol, even though I try to avoid that expression elsewhere but in online chats. The thought still cracks me up. I didn't do wonders for her reputation.

Personally, I thought it was a surprisingly nice visit. Even though we've only met "in real life" a couple of times, it felt comfortable and not at all awkward.

We didn't do anything special. I came back from the conference so late in the evening that we didn't really have time for much. On Monday, we watched Desperate Housewives with a friend of hers, then Californication, followed by some Bible channel show. I've got to find out if I have that channel here - it was hilarious.

Amoena has often commented on how cosy my apartment looks and feels. I could say the same of hers. It had so much space, soothingly white walls, and there wasn't as much stuff lying around as in mine. She also had some interesting decorative items, and an impressive bookshelf. I usually keep my own books on the floor out of convenience.

She had so many classics as well as some praised contemporary writers there. I admire so much her ability to not be a genre reader. You'd be hard pressed to label her taste in books. Eclectic, perhaps?

She had stowed in her closet a big box full of some old books that she was willing to give away. I came back home with several kilograms' worth of books. They're all written in Finnish, so it's going to be fun to read books in Finnish for a change. Here are for instance two poetry collections of Viljo Kajava and Toivo Laakso that she gave me:

It's a strange experience to read something in your mother tongue as though it was a foreign language. I'm a little concerned about this. I think I should try to find an opportunity to write more in Finnish, and more often. Chatting on the internet doesn't count.

There is this article I've been trying to write in Finnish for weeks now. All I can come up with are English sentences. It's not that my English is better than my Finnish by any accounts, but for some reason I find it easier to sort my thoughts in English.

It probably also has something to do with your mother tongue feeling more personal, and consequently you pay more attention to your choice of words.

Besides, there are just too many choices because your vocabulary isn't as limited as with a foreign language. But since Finnish teachers think that you have to master your mother tongue before you can master any other languages, I suppose I must do my utmost to practise it more.

Oh and may I point out to Amoena that I finally took heed of her advice: I shrank the banner. See, I'm not completely stubborn. I guess my honeymoon period with that picture is over, since it no longer pained me to distort its proportions.

Afterthoughts

2008-06-12T11:30:00.001+03:00

I'm still trying to gather my thoughts regarding a recent linguistics conference visit to Helsinki. It was my first time in a conference, and I didn't really have any idea what it would be like.

Thankfully, I didn't give a "real" presentation just yet, but only a poster presentation. Even so, I had to quickly introduce the topic of my poster in two minutes, and by the end of those longest minutes in my life so far, I could barely get the words out of my mouth.

But it wasn't critical, as I could explain everything without stress afterwards during the poster session to anyone who was interested. Quite a few of the people there were, probably because they couldn't hear anything from my stuttery introduction. But I don't really care. I'll just practise more for an actual presentation in August in München.

Maybe I should take lessons in producing speech properly, as one Scottish woman thought I absolutely should in order to survive in this world. Or not.

The conference was held in an old auditorium where they used to cut bodies open to show medical students what people look like inside. Fascinating. I've always wondered how doctors can understand anything of what they see inside a human's body. To my eyes, the viscera are just a bunch of some red stuff all jumbled up together.

The makeup of the auditorium wasn't too ergonomic, though. If you sat in the front row, your neck would be really stiff because of having to look so high up on the projection screen. And if all the listeners where sitting in the highermost rows, the speaker would get their neck stiff from having to look upwards so much.

I was quite nervous the first day, and drinking a glass of wine into an empty stomach in the evening didn't help my mood much. But by the third day, I was already trying to chat up other people. I congratulated myself on that.

The first day was very computational, and I couldn't really make sense of anything because of my non-existent background in statistics. However, I think I understand better now why many linguists these days have endorsed number crunching.

I suppose I was preinclined to think it's all rubbish to play around with numbers too much, in a way distancing yourself from actual manifestations of language use. I had let myself be influenced by other, more experienced people who didn't see much use in statistics. One more reason why you should look up to your elders and betters, but always take their advice and opinions with a grain of salt.

It really isn't about distancing yourself from language. I think it's just about linguists wanting to gain more credibility for their field of research, a problem I suppose any subject in humanities must face. In a twisted way I'm even looking forward to learning more about statistics. This from a girl who wanted to escape mathematics forever by studying language.

(Don’t laugh. It’s hard to come up with pictures that are actually related to the topic. I'm doing my best to make this post more reader-friendly.)

The second day was more about syntax, which is a field I'm sort of working in myself. Alas, I was still tired from sleeping only 5 hours on two previous nights, so I can't recall much from those presentations. To my relief and joy, the conference organizers emailed today to announce that they're going to put up the presentation slides online for everybody's viewing pleasure. Plus a plethora of somewhat amusing photos.

On the third day, there were some presentations about cross-linguistic typology. It's immensely intriguing from a theoretical point of view, and kudos to all who are courageous enough to try and create some rhyme or reason into such an endeavour.

It all made my own research project seem so small and insignificant. At the moment, I'm fervently trying to develop the topic so that it would seem more worthwhile. One of the linguists at the conference even plain laughed out loud at my poster and then walked away. So officially of course I'm proud of and confident in the importance of my topic, just in case I ever run into more people of his kind.

It didn't really help though to hear from my French friend what his doctoral thesis will be about. I often think he's a jackass (and he doesn't mind me saying so), being French and all that, but he's also a bit of a genius. It boggles my mind how different it is to study history in France. Let alone English. Yes, they do study English over there.

(Picture 1: www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/tapahtumat/qitl)

Banquo by your bedside

2008-06-10T11:32:00.001+03:00

Macbeth is probably my favourite by Shakespeare. I also quite like the volume that I own of the play, with the sketchy portrait in bright colours. The font size is big and there are lots of footnotes, so it has a good, hefty feel, even though it's the shortest play he wrote, if I remember correctly.

When I applied to study English philology in university years back, I was young and stupid. I thought it would be just about linguistics. Little did I know that half of the studies are actually about literature. Heaven forbid that I should have taken a look at the syllabi on the university website.

A smarter person would have been able to guess so much from the entrance exam books. For Tampere, you had to read George Yule's Study of Language (which, fair enough, is about linguistics) and Montgomery et al's Ways of Reading (which is about basic theoretical issues in literary studies).

Yule's book was very well written, it makes learning about language very easy and even funny. It's a good introduction to the field of linguistics if you have absolutely no prior knowledge of it.

Montgomery and co's book wasn't that bad either, but it was completely misleading as to what literary studies are actually about at university level. (I couldn't even find a decent picture of it, evidence of just how unpopular it must be in general.)

For Turku, you had to read H.G. Widdowson's Linguistics, which was highly theoretical and challenging for a beginner, which fact I very much relished. There's nothing like the orgasmic feeling of expanding your mental horizons by reading something you can't quite understand, at least not immediately.

The University of Jyväskylä had The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and the aforementioned Ways of Reading as the required readings. I liked the novel, and it was actually a must-read later on in Tampere. Most importantly, when writing an essay about the book in the entrance exam I got to use one of my favourite words in English, soliloquy.

I love the sound of the word: you start with a weak syllable, which is then followed by a quick sequence of closed syllables, and at the end you glide away with a long [e]. The word didn't have much purpose in the essay, but that didn't diminish my feeling of triumph.

You might guess now why I chose to apply to these particular universities. I didn't even consider Helsinki, because I would have had to read a set of four completely different books. The strategy paid off, as I got accepted in all three universities.

So I've nothing against literature per se. I was a huge book buff when I was young, though what I read wasn't necessarily anything classic or prestigious. I enjoyed the act of reading, being completely immersed in another world and in somebody else's thoughts and feelings. It was escapism at its finest.

I liked a specific kind of fantasy. I liked for instance Sagan om Isfolket by Margit Sandemo, which is a 47-volume series telling the story of a family of witches from the 17th to the 20th century.

I'm not so fond of the kind with the elves, hobbits, wizards, dragons and whatnot. Somehow I could never buy into those Middle Earth-style worlds where people were stuck in the middle ages. I mean, why is it that they nearly always place fantasy stories in a medieval world?

The castles and swords and horses and armours and the clothes may look all fancy, but I find it hard to relate to characters who have to live in such a world. Because let's face it, who would seriously want to live like that? I'm reasonably happy in today's Finland where I don't need to know how to use a sword in order to protect myself against the dragons and those nasty little buggers called hobbits.

A fantasy freak might respond to this by saying that it's only fiction, don't take it so seriously. But that's exactly what you should and have to do when studying literature in university. It was a shocker to me to be honest.

While it doesn't necessarily take away from the reading experience to analyse the text closely, I do think it makes the experience dramatically different when compared to a child's way of reading.

As a kid, I used to devour several books a day during holidays, and at least one book a week throughout the year. I didn't stop to think about the symbolic meanings of anything in the books, or what the texts really mean aside from the story and the characters on the surface.

It took me a long time to get over my prejudices against literary analysis. The teachers had a role to play in my antipathy, as they seemed to think literature was the be-all and the end-all in the whole wide world (notice the not-so-clever Macbeth quote).

In my mind, literary criticism was equated with elitist assholism. When I didn't do so well with my first literature essay, the teacher flashed me a holier-than-thou smile and asked whether I was going to drop out of uni.

So just because I didn't have a clue after only one course, she thought there was no point in going on. As though literature was the only thing that mattered. My grades weren't that good in linguistics, either, but I knew I would learn eventually because I actually liked it.

So where does our gentle Shakespeare figure in this story of doom and gloom? Well, he made me fall in love with reading again. I totally didn't expect the plays to have such an impact on me. I'd seen some televised versions, but I never saw anything special in them.

I suppose I was really taken by the story of the tragic figure of Macbeth. Seeing a film of the play where he was a very fine young man didn't hurt, either. (I'm a sucker for men with a short beard, and a cute ringmail hood.)

But truth be told, I have always had a predilection for tragic characters. Call them baddies if you will.

I always find baddies the most interesting characters. In a way, they're the most human of all humans. In real life, everyone likes goody-goodies, to be sure. But stories about thoroughly good and benevolent people make really bad ones. I don't think you can fully relate to someone who is supposedly a perfect human being.

I know some people who don't seem to realize this. They don't see fault in themselves. I've seen them behave in less than moral ways many times, yet they fail to question themselves even afterwards.

How can you grow as a person if you don't see what you're doing wrong? If you never question your own motives and never acknowledge your imperfections, how can you truly accept anyone else's?

(Click to enlarge)

If anything, I think people who don't realize their own occasional immoral or otherwise unbecoming behaviour are actually more dangerous than those who do. Once you notice that you're not as kind and tolerant as you thought you were, you can consciously start trying to become more so.

But if you always see things only your way, your ways and opinions being ultimately superior to those of others, well... what can I say, I feel sorry for those people. With their delusional self image, they're probably intolerant of different views and opinions, different choices in life.

And isn't Macbeth's story about someone who is very human in his lowly desires, ambitions and " evil" thoughts, who can yet understand the evil quality of his thoughts and actions?

Of course we judge people by their behaviour rather than by their thoughts, so one shouldn't tolerate Macbeth's actions. But when someone says they don't feel a thing for a tragic figure like Macbeth, I'm astonished.

(Pictures 3,4,6,7,8,9,10: http://www.routledge.com; http://www.oup.com; http://images.amazon.com; http://upload.wikimedia.org; http://www.mallorywrites.com; http://www.bardolatry.com; http://lh6.ggpht.com)

Capricious

2008-06-07T11:33:00.001+03:00

All the negativity of my previous post on Italy aside, I liked Capri a lot. It was really beautiful there, and CLEAN. I loved the bougainvillea that were growing on almost every wall.

(Click to enlarge)

I liked the villa of Axel Munthe (1857-1949) in particular, Villa San Michele, which is actually located in the town of Anacapri, higher up the island. The towns of Capri and Anacapri harbour some sort of enmity towards each other for some reason.

Munthe was a Swedish writer and a doctor. He designed his villa himself, and wanted it to be the embodiment of his visions that he had over the years.

When they started working on the site of the house, they discovered old Roman remains of columns and statues, and plaques with writing on them.

The locals thought it was all a bunch of rubbish, but Munthe used them to decorate his villa. He was farsighted, as now everyone can of course appreciate their aesthetic, let alone historical value.

He claimed to have found many of the sculptures through the visions he had.

He'd one day been sitting down by the sea, and got an overwhelming feeling that someone was watching him. He told his employees to go search the sea in a particular spot, and what d'you know, they found the head of Medusa.

Another time he wanted to find a sphinx to add to his furniture. He sailed to a random island, told his people to wait for 24 hours and if he hadn't come back by then they should leave. He did come back in time, with him a small statue of a sphinx.

He placed it on a terrace of a kind, and there it was laying on a balustrade and facing the rising sun. Nobody can see its face, unless they're willing to plummet to their death.

(Click to enlarge)

They're nice stories, but I strongly suspect that our Mr. Axel was a bit of a cuckoo.

I realize I haven't been posting any new paintings in a while. Anyone who discovers this site now must wonder how come it's supposed to be about painting and art. Yet I think all these photos look really good against this new layout, so I hope others can enjoy them from an aesthetic point of view like I do.

I got a little carried away with my recent encroachments on my other hobbies, and I haven't even posted about all of my new ideas yet. I think it's positive that I don't always have to blather about my paintings. Sometimes they really aren't that interesting, even to me.

(Pictures 4 and 5: http://www.capri.com)

Fry, baby, fry!

2008-06-06T11:35:00.000+03:00

When I came home from my week-long vacation in Italy, extended by a linguists' conference trip to Helsinki during which I stayed at Amoena's place, I had a really nice surprise waiting for me.

My adorable little rainbows which I introduced in the previous post came 'running' to get food, having been more or less starving for the last two weeks. The tank was in a need of a water change, as well. My brother had fed the fish once and cleaned up the tank, but rainbow cichlids have an endless appetite.

However, one of my four babies was nowhere to be seen. Eventually I found her in one of the back corners, showing off strong colours and reluctant to come to eat. My first thought was, she must be guarding spawn. My rainbows have spawned a couple of times already, but the catfish always ate them.

Despite eyeing the corner from every angle, I couldn't find the spawn. Then I noticed something wiggling right in the front of the side glass. FRY!!!!!!! My babies had got babies of their own!!

Here's the angry mother trying to will me to take my face off the glass and her babies.

The fry is actually in plain sight here, hugging the base of the plant on the righthand side right at the front. But there is very little light in this part of my apartment, and my camera is not very good either. But believe me, it's right there.

I have no idea how they managed to protect their spawn this time. Perhaps they found extra courage to fight the catfish because I wasn't around and bothering them all the time?

Whatever the truth, I bought some eggs yesterday so I have something to feed to the fry once they start swimming. As long as they hug the ground/roots of a plant/whatever, they are still using their yolk sac as nutrition. When they start swimming, they will need something superfinely ground food.

Poor woman's option for baby fish food are boiled egg yolks, which as you know can be smashed into very fine powder. I also have 10 -years-old dried baby fish food from an aquarium shop, but I don't have it here in Tampere, and in all likeness it no longer contains any vitamins or nutrients. My artemia-breeding apparatus is also at my parents, gathering dust.

Now all I can do is buy a very thin plastic tube with which I can siphon the yolk right where the fry is gathered. Egg yolk is fortunately rich in protein, fat, vitamins and other important nutrients.

Here's the new daddy on the left at the bottom of the tank, just about to lock jaws with the other male rainbow. The one on the top is the other female.

The other male has gotten jealous of the pair that has successfully breeded. That's why he's challenging the new dad by literally mouthing him. It's very entertaining. It's difficult to get pictures of them fighting, however, because as soon as I take out my cameraphone, they see my movement and stop and come begging for food.

A cichlidian, me? Most ardently

2008-06-05T11:36:00.000+03:00

It hit me only a while back. My mobile/cell phone has a built-in camera! A camera. The kind with which you can take pictures! (The other kind would be Italian for "room", una camera.)

So I kind of went all wild.

Here's my pride and joy. My 200-litre tropical tank. Notice my elegant lighting system which allows plants to grow out of the tank. Theoretically, that is - those that are seemingly coming out are actually vines of golden pothos that I put in so they'll grow roots.

The lamps are HID lamps, with many times more light than the regular fluorescent lamp tubes that aquarium shops usually forcefully sell to aquarists. They also last many times longer, and don't lose their luminosity like fluorescent tubes do.

HID lamps are also much more expensive, but in the long run they're cheaper than fluorescent tubes. You have to change your tubes preferably every year if you are a plant enthusiast, and want your plants to flourish, because by that time they will have lost half of their lighting power. HID lamps, on the other hand, don't lose virtually any luminosity until they completely go out at once. And that takes 10 years on average!

Both lamp types are problem waste, so there's no way you can be environmentally friendly anyway. HID lamps generate more heat than fluorescent ones, but that's not really an issue in Finland since the summer time is quite short anyway.

I had trouble snapping photos of my babies, i.e. my four Herotilapia multispinosa, or "Rainbow cichlids". They're incredibly shy.

I realized that they actually can see outside their tank. I can sit there, watching them from 10 cm's distance, and they're not bothered. But as soon as I draw out my phone camera, no matter how slowly, they freak out! And vanish in the bushes.

But in this one they are looking towards the surface, thinking they'll be getting food any second. I was luring them with their favourite delicacy, frozen red mosquito larvae.

I know what you're thinking - who could resist long, slimy and nutritious little worms?

They probably look gross to anyone who isn't an aquarist. I am personally desentisized to their feel and appearance. I feed them by finger, because that way it's easier to control the portion size. They're not alive anymore, you can buy them frozen from aquarium shops.

Live bugs are much more fun to feed to your fish(es). They wiggle, so I can't just scoop them from a mug with my finger, but they're definitely worth it if you can find them in a pond or a ditch. The fish will get this ravenous, crazy gleam in their eyes and they keep bumping into each other because they're so excited about food that can swim away.

They just love hunting after their food. Frozen bloodworms are the second best thing, since my cichlids often aim for the same worm and end up getting stuck by their mouths. They're a lot of fun to watch. Not exactly the brightest crayons in the box.

(Picture 4: www.cals.ncsu.edu)

Spindrifting

2008-06-01T11:37:00.000+03:00

So I'm back from Italy.

The weather was torturous - it was nearly +40 celsius on Wednesday! It was unusual for this time of year, but it was the Sirocco wind from Africa that caused the hell's cauldron.

The hotel me and my mum stayed at was a four star hotel, had air conditioning, but they wouldn't turn it on! They only keep it on from 15th of June onwards! Make sense?

Didn't think so, but it fits the general Italian way of handling things. If you can do things clumsily, unhandily, annoyingly, non-punctually, in any way but well, you can trust an Italian to accomplish such a feat. To put it harshly and a little stereotypically, yet with a certain weight of truth to it.

I'm not a complete Italy hater. I've been there three times now. I've taken a course in Italian. It's a beautiful country, and there are some nice people there, but they're trapped in a vicious cycle where nobody really cares about their future, or if they do, can't really do much to improve it. One of every four Italians is poor, and the tiny elite owns about 40% of the land and wealth.

Every single building in Sorrento and Napoli, the cities I visited this time, was somehow broken, ugly or grumbling down. The traffic is a complete chaos. Anywhere you go, be it a restaurant or a shop, you can almost never pay with a credit or bank card. You always have to carry around a bagful of coins, so you can pay the exact price of something, and give tips in restaurants.

I understand the tips are necessary for most of the people who earn very little as actual wages. Their wages haven't gone up while all prices have since the coming of the euro. It's sad. To make it even worse, Italy has a very low birth rate: it's about 1,1 children per person.

That one child cannot move too far away from their parents, because they will need someone to look after them when they're old. The good thing about crappy jobs that aren't really necessary, like taking luggage from the front yard of the hotel to the guests' rooms, is that it helps keep people employed.

And what about the mafia? It's hard for a Finn to understand what it must be like to live under constant fear of something that you can't fight. I don't see how they can ever get rid of it. It's terrifying when you really think about it.

Edit: I got a comment from Amoena (personal communication) that she always thought mafia is a thing from movies, and old ones at that. So did I, until I visited Tropea two years ago. Tropea is a tiny town in southern Italy, very poor, but it has attracted some tourist activity over the last 10 years, thanks to Germans who discovered this beautiful little place.

While I was staying there, one small grocery store was burned one night. It happens that every now and then, shops and private facilities mysteriously catch fire during night time. Just because the owners did not or could not pay protection money to the mafia. It's horrible. Because the poor citizens cannot afford to tell the police due to concerns about retaliation against their property or even their life, the problem is very hard to solve.

The latest "European happiness survey" conducted by Cambridge university tells us that Italy rates very low in happiness among European countries. The Danes are the happiest, and the Finns are the second happiest of all! Italy came in at the 15th place.

The researchers attributed the high ranking of Finns and Danes to the well structured governmental and societal structures of their countries. Being able to trust the law and the government, as well as your fellow citizens, was also an important factor. It is a no brainer why Italians would feel so unhappy. However, even though they may rank low in such a survey, it doesn't stop them from being nice and friendly. At least when their tips are at stake.