Thanksgiving

Good evening, I'm Alucard. (Obscure reference is obscure. Moving on.)

Hello from the past, it is Wednesday evening as I write this. We are leaving for Canada tomorrow morning, so I have to do this now.

So tomorrow/yesterday is/was Thanksgiving (for those of you more unfamiliar with said holiday, it is basically a harvest festival, and you can learn more here) and I thought it'd be appropriate to make this week's theme the things I feel thankful for. So here we go.

• We'll star with a classic: I am very thankful for my family and my friends, who are also my family, because family don't end with blood, boy. You are all wonderful and supportive and the reason I am who I am. So thank you.
• I am thankful for this opportunity that I have been given. To travel to the other side of the globe is truly a remarkable thing and I am sure it will not be a decision I come to regret (unless I get murdered in some back alley in downtown Boston, haha).
• I am thankful for technology, which pushes to make our lives easier and help us keep connected with the people we care about, no matter how far.
• I am thankful for the internet. Because while it can be full of all sorts of crazy, scary things, it is also a way to spread awareness of important things, meet other people who share your passions, to contribute to your community and be creative. And sometimes what you really need in life is a funny cat gif. 
• I am thankful for autocorrect because I you have no idea how much I misspell stuff. Also, the autocorrect says it is not written autocorrect, but wikipedia does, so screw that.
• I am thankful for all this chocolate grandma sent me for my birthday. Thank you, I really needed it. I have almost eaten all of it already, oops.
• I am thankful for all that I have been given, and try to use it to make myself a better person and decrease world suck.
• And I am truly thankful for the world, which is so weird and wonderful and full of mystery and awesome stuff. I am glad I can be a part of it.

That's all I can think of right now. So thank you, everyone. You are all appreciated.

In other news, I received a package this Monday containing my winter coat (of which I am really thankful, because it will be cold up in Canada) and Christmas calendars for me and the kids. It was a lovely gesture, thank you mom, and it gave me an idea.

CHALLENGE: Christmas post calendar.

So this is a thing I actually did a few years back with my lovely friend who probably doesn't read this blog even though I told her to, although that time it was just me writing. So basically, we make a post everyday, and by that I mean there will be a new post here everyday with every other from you and every other from me, and the other gets to decide the topic for the next day. When I did this, they needed to be Christmas themed fanfics, but seeing as you're not really into that, I suppose it can be anything (a normal post, a short story, a poem, an essay, a song, idk). The topics can be anything as well, and some of the topics I had included Cotton Candy, A Wise King, Send Me an Angel (you know, the song by Scorpions), Letters, Lost Socks, Mark 7:37 (They were astonished beyond measure, saying, 'He has done all things well. He makes even the deaf hear and the mute speak!', in case you wanted to know), Sleep Deprivation and Meanwhile in Hell's Most Romantic Restaurant. It was totally fun and I wanna do it again. So consider yourself challenged! December begins on Sunday and your topic is First Snow. You get to go first, because you would not have time to give me a topic and also I still have no internet on Sunday. The posts don't have to be long, if you don't have time. I guess I'll see on Sunday if you accepted the challenge. Ciao.

Pie out.

Oh, and just a heads up, next week will be the midseason finale of Supernatural and I will need to talk about it or I might explode. BUT, I promise you, I will write a post about something else also, and make that a thing in the end so you can skip it. Be cool, bro, I'll try to keep it short.

Language and communication

So, umm....

I'm kind of continuing my thoughts from where I left off last week, because I've been studying communication theory for next week's exam, so my head is full of it. Also, because it really is interesting.

When studying communication, there are seven traditions, which are basically different points of views or ways to see communication. I will concentrate on two of them here, the semiotic tradition and the socio-cultural tradition.
The semiotic tradition basically sees communication as meanings transferred with signs. For example words are just symbols that we say or write in order to tell someone something. The words themselves don't mean anything, but we give them meaning. This of course means that the person receiving the message has to know the meaning of these symbols in order to understand the content of the message.
The socio-cultural tradition sees communication as building culture and society and the world, which is pretty close to where I ended up last week. From a person's perception of reality to cultures everything is constructed by communication between people, from the language and the words people speak and have spoken since they are little.

So basically how the world works is when people are little, they learn a bunch of signs. They absorb the meanings of them and they remember them. They begin to use them in order to let other people know what they want, or fear, or are going to do. Our societies are filled with these signs, some obvious, like words or a wedding ring, some less obvious, of which I can't think of an example right now because they are less obvious, but I am sure there are tons of them.
These signs, or rather they're meanings, are what constructs the social reality. People act depending on the signs they get from other people, and depending on how they interpret these signs.

Hmm... I'm getting to this all wrong.

Because that's not the clever bit. This is the clever bit, I remember now that this is the clever bit.

The clever bit is, imagine a life without any signs culturally (or universally) agreed upon, meaning a life without language and communication. There is no culture. There can't be any culture, because if you have no language, you don't have words for anything, meaning you don't have names for anything even in your head. You can't ever think of anything except strictly concrete things. You can think about a fish, but when you think about it, you have to think about the actual fish, because you don't have a word for it. Without words for things you can't have complex thoughts, and without complex thoughts you can't have culture. Or the human kind for that matter. (Though I'm sure that humans aren't the only animals with some level of culture, but the same applies. No thoughts, no culture.)
Also, the communication and signs are what create the way we think, because we think in language. The way of thinking is limited with language and the culture it creates. It is extremely difficult to imagine something that is completely different to anything you have ever known, because your brain is wired to think in a language, and if it is something completely inexpressible by the language you think in, you can't get a grasp of it. All the signs we have created to be able to communicate is what creates the way we see the world, from the very, very fundamental things to... well, everything.

I am getting my brain into knots again. I have all these thoughts very clear in my head, but I don't seem to be able to get them out. Do you understand what I mean with all this, why I say signs are the thing that create thinking and culture and everything we know and can understand?
I'm not saying, that we can't imagine things no one has ever thought of before. I'm just saying we can't imagine anything, because we are restricted by the way we think.

I guess the most important think here is, that signs construct communication and language construct culture constructs the way we think and see the world.
Language changes the culture.
Culture changes the language.
Culture and language change the way we think.
The way we think change our culture and language.
Without signs and they're meanings, none of the things above exist.

It's all very fascinating, if you just understand what I mean.

Because my exam is next week Wednesday, you will very likely get another post not too far from these topics next week, because, well, I need to have my head full of all this. And because it is interesting.
After that I will do something else.

This turned out to be a very poorly constructed post.
Also, it has the word construct in it way too many times.

~matu

What is my life

Hello again. I understand that you are getting fed up with all the Supernatural talk, but the reason I talk about it is because it is a really important thing to me (especially now that the new season has started). I am the guy who is into all these weird geeky things and talks about them all the time. And as a matter of fact I have been toning it down. You have no idea how much I could talk about it.

So, my life is routine. Always has been. Before it was school and now it's taking care of kids, and in the evening just not doing anything. And sometimes I wonder just what am I doing with my life. What do I want to be, what I try to be. And I have no idea. I know what I like to do, but what do I want to do with all these things I like doing? When I think about my future I see all these flashes, all these possible futures ahead and I like them. I like the one where I am a baker and have my own cafe, I like the one where I'm an art teacher at a high school, probably, and I like the one where I'm a stay-at-home mom (though maybe not as much as some others), who plays video games with her kids after school. But somehow it doesn't feel like they are my futures. Like, this isn't my life. This is someone else's. Maybe I should start studying creative writing and actually write seriously for a change. I could write dozens of novels just by using myself as a main character and giving her all these lives I dream about, but can't quite claim as my own....

Would that be a series someone would read? Like, if you came across five or so books which all feature the same protagonist, but who always has a different job, boyfriend, girlfriend, kids, overall situation in life, would you read it? They would be parallel universes, somehow tied together in the space-time continuum. Some would even be set in fantasy worlds, where magic and mystery is the norm. She would be a cook, a teacher, a phone salesman, a detective, an adventurer, a soccer mom, a mage, a scientist, a radio host, an actress, anything and everything.

Would you read that?

Pie out.

Oh, ps, next Friday I will be in Canada without an internet connection, so I will write a post before we leave and you can publish it on the right day, k?

Oh and pps, I just finished listening to this podcast/radio show called Welcome to Night Vale, which I think you might enjoy. It's funny and original and all kinds of messed up. It's also on-going and updates twice a month, on the 1st and 30th. So check that out?

Languages are weird. And fascinating.

Good day.
Which sounds absolutely ridiculous.

This is a post I've been wanting to write ever since the idea of this blog, but until now there hasn't seemed to be a good time.
Basically it will just be a list of weird or otherwise interesting things about languages (mostly Finnish and English and the translation between them) that cross my mind every now and then.

The funny thing about my use of English is, that it's partly British and partly American. This is because I've learned to speak English in the US, but they teach mostly British in school here, which you obviously know. So I guess it's not actually funny, but I just pay attention to it when I'm writing. I for example spell color, and center, and spelling them colour and centre just look really weird to me, but then on the other hand I prefer elevator over lift. No, wait, that's American too, right?
But there are those words that you spell with an s in British and a z in American (right? I'm getting a feeling I'm wrong about this...), and I usually spell them with an s, and then all the programs complain to me about misspelling.
Then there are those words like autumn and fall, that I just never know what to use. And don't even get me started on pants. I never quite know if I should say pants or trousers or something else, because I would use pants, but then again it does mean a different thing in British.
I also use "really" way too much. Way too much.

Ok, I'm writing lousy text right now, because at the same time I'm nervous about whether my internet will disappear any moment. I came home from school some time past six just to find my internet wasn't working. I fought with it for a half an hour (which is useless, since the problem is in the connection coming into the building) until it started to work, and worked just long enough for me to check facebook and e-mail, and then stopped again. And right now it finally started to work it seems to have breaks in the connection, so it's possible it's gonna just stop working any second.

One thing I don't understand about English is why you spell English with a capital letter. The language, and the nationality. I do have to admit it still doesn't beat German. I mean what is up with spelling all nouns with a capital letter?

Now I'm on the topic of spelling, I've heard that Finnish is one of the most difficult languages to learn for a foreigner. Well, that is probably true. After all, we do have words like epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäänköhän (which I once tried to translate, and failed). But there is one advantage in Finnish. The pronunciation is easy. Well, easy is maybe the wrong word. Our r is surprisingly difficult to many, and our vowels might cause problems. But once you learn how to pronounce, you will never have any doubt how to pronounce a word you see, or spell a word you hear. There is only one way to do it. One letter (except in a few very trivial cases like ng, for which I still think there should be a separate letter) is one phone, and always the same one.
At least that we have easy.

Enough about that.

A thing that was pointed out to me this fall was that there is no word for jaksaa in English. Seriously, try translating En jaksa. It's either "Not in the mood", or "I'm too tired", or "I'm too lazy", or even "It's too heavy ", or something similar, depending on the situation. Except that they are not all that similar. And yet we have one little word for it in Finnish.
Although Finnish is missing exist and ignore, which I think are brilliant words.

Oh, then some Swedish.
Why do Swedes have their own word for sauna? Everyone else calls it a sauna. Which I think is cool.

I remember a friend of mine was once reading Eureka Street (which, by the way, is an amazing book) in Finnish. It's originally a book from Northern Ireland so I asked why not read it in English, in the original language. The answer was, that even though it was possible to read in English, Finnish is still the native language. In the end you do get a little more out of it if you read it in your native language than in just a language in which you're more or less fluent.
That made me think, and even though I still mostly read in English (there's also the point that it's quite difficult to find good fantasy in Finnish), I now write in Finnish, which is probably a mistake, since like I've said earlier, Finnish people don't really read or write fantasy. But after all it is my native language. My Finnish is very likely more complex and has more depth to it than my English. So even though a lot of things sound better in English, I'm quite sure my language is better when writing in Finnish than when writing in English.
Except the Moomins. I guess they count as fantasy. I don't know what else they would be.
Of course, when translating there is always the problem with how to really make the new mean the same as the old. With a single word comes so much of the culture and the background I've heard a claim no words have exact translations in any other language. There is something different, a tiny hint of something you can't quite grasp, in the meanings of a cat and kissa. Practically they mean the same thing, but when you take a word into another culture maybe it does mean something slightly different. The only way to understand the true, full meaning of a word in a language is to have spoken the language for one's whole life, to have lived in the culture where it is spoken.
Words are the source of misunderstandings. Or so it seems after all this. Though I'm sure they are not the only source of misunderstandings.

Now I'm just confused with everything I've written. Wow...
There's just so much to languages. There's just so much to how they work, how they can be translated. So much to what words actually means.
I feel like I've just understood something new, just can't get a hold on of what it is.
Languages really are fascinating.

This somehow feels like a topic I'd like to have an actual conversation about. Let's see if I can get more than one comment (=the high score right now on any post) out of our maybe four regular-ish readers. Which of at least two actually have (or at least will have) some expertise and hopefully some insight on languages.
Let me know if this makes any sense, or if any of you had any thoughts, or if you hate everything I just wrote.

I have one more thing for you today. I think I am saying out loud what we're all (or at least most of us are) thinking.
Dude, enough with the Supernatural.
I always thought the internet is full of fanpages you can go to to spill the insides of your head about that stuff. Though I'm not that much of an internet person. Might be I'm wrong.

~matu

It's Friday again, time for some meta

Hi. I guess it's Friday. I have no idea what's happening to all my time. It just... whooooosh... vanishes somewhere. Also, during the week I have all kinds of great ideas on what to talk about but then when I open up the new post page, nada. It's starting to get annoying.
I'm hungry, I should probably eat something. Oh well, I have ice tea. Also pepsi MAX, whoo!

Speaking of pepsi, when I told my friends that Gabriel is probably coming back in season nine, the reaction was pretty much "ugh, they just bring him back 'cause the fans like him, why can't they keep dead people dead?" Which is kinda, I mean, sure the fans love him, but so does the production team and the writers and basically everyone because Richard Speigh Jr. is a great guy. And Supernatural has a bit of a track record on not keeping dead guys dead. You know, that's kinda the unofficial point of the story. "Getting killed, being resurrected, the family business." But my point was, that whatever the reason for bringing Gabe back to our lives, I actually find it plausible that he is, in fact, still alive.

So let's talk about Gabriel. (And pardon my French, haha...)

In the Beginning, God creates stuff, I guess, and after the failed Project Leviathan, comes angels. First the Archangels, Mike, Lucy, Gabe, Raffy (who are the four archangels of the SPNverse) and soon after the other angels. During this time Lucifer takes a liking to Gabriel and they be like best bros, while Michael manages Heaven and Raphael does who the fuck cares. Angels are happy in Heaven, like a fairly normal family at this point, and God turns to Earth and starts to create stuff there. Now, I like to think that instead of creating things and putting the ready products on Earth, God made a sort of manual to how to get the products using millions and millions of years worth evolution. (What Cas says in Reading is Fundamental, 7.21, "You know, we weren't sure at first which monkeys were gonna make it. No offense, but I was backing the Neanderthals [...] But in the end, it was you – the homo sapiens sapiens. You guys ate the apple, invented pants.", would back that up.) So I'm guessing God made a plan and set it in motion and then turned to the angels and said "Yo, make sure these things don't do nothing stupid, k? These are to be my master piece, but they are stupid little shits and you need to guide them. So make sure you treat them with love, yeah?" Now, this is the point when Lucy goes, "But Daaaa-ad, I don't wanna love stupid monkeys, I wanted a unicorn!" and gets thrown into Hell. (This conversation is legit. That's totally how it happened.)

Ok, so this is somewhere during the time all apes were pretty much the same one. Which would mean some 22 million years ago. (Of course it's possible that Lucy didn't rebel until humans actually "ate the apple", which would be like 50,000 years ago, but what Cas said would suggest that they knew beforehand that one of the great apes would become the "one to inherit the land", so I'm guessing either Lucy did it way back then, or his favorite apes didn't win and he's just a really sore loser.) But what has this got to do with Gabriel? I'm getting to that.

In Hammer of the Gods, 5.19, Lucifer says "Don't forget, you learned all your tricks from me, little brother", which strongly suggests they were very close in Heaven, before the whole falling and stuff. Lucifer is admitted, by almost everyone, to being really strong and creative, so it's no wonder he learned and created all kinds of magic. And Gabriel, being the little brother, wanted to learn everything. And he does have a knack for being a trickster, he is very creative and has a twisted kind of humour, which he takes out on the one's he thinks deserve it, ie dicks, so Lucifer teaches him trickster-magic and all is well. But then the new baby comes home and Lucy doesn't like it. Cue temper tantrum and a super long time out (in Hell).

Now, Gabriel doesn't really like confrontation, that much is clear. His coping mechanism is to either make a joke out of everything or escape, and when all else fails he fakes his death and digs himself deeper into "witness protection". We've seen him do this before, you know, on two separate occasions. And he did try to stay out of it, only pushing Sam and Dean a little in the "right" direction because they happened on his path (in Changing Channels, 5.08) because he just wants it to be over. He wants the fighting to stop. He is like a little boy cowering in the corner, covering his ears when big brothers fight. And he knows he can't do anything about it, so first he tries to force Sam and Dean to accept their part and make the fighting escalate to of one of them dying, but in the end is forced to think about the situation and what it would really mean. Now, before and during 5.19, he mentally grows up (if only just a bit) and actually manages to face Lucifer, telling him to grow up as well and get over it. He is facing his biggest fear, and confronting the brother he loved most (and judging by the face Lucy makes when he stabs Gabe, he really did love him back). He is standing up from the corner he's been hiding from the very beginning when he skipped town after the fighting begun.

Ok, but how does that make it plausible that he could be alive? I've just told you a bunch of stuff that has been basically said in the show itself. I'm getting to it, really.

After Lucifer get's his ass sent to Hell, there is bound to be some form of uprising in Heaven. So not only did Gabriel's big brothers fight, but now the whole family is in chaos and he freaks and skips town, as mentioned above. So basically, he's been down on Earth for approx. 22 million (or 50,000) years before his supposed death. That's a pretty long time, even for an angel. And during that time Lucifer sits in Hell, Gabriel practices using his skills. He goes undercover, into a "witness protection", as a trickster and keeps doing what he knows best. But he's not just any trickster, oh no, he is a god, he is The Trickster, he is motherfucking Loki. One does not simply be a pagan god of mischief and fire for 800 years and not learn a few new tricks. Not to mention all the millennia he spent before he became Loki. Basically what I'm trying to say is that when Lucifer says "Don't forget, you learned all your tricks from me, little brother" in 5.19, it is utter bullshit. Yes, he's learned all your tricks from you, Lucy, but you've been gone for quite a while, he's probably hanged around other people in the mean time. Learned something new along the way. Because if he hasn't, boy, that would be a let down.

But Lucifer wouldn't get that, would he? He is very self centered. Also very prideful. He easily dismisses the pagan gods as "worse than demons", which is a real low coming from him, but he doesn't get that even if they are often fighting and selling each other out, they are still pretty damn powerful, and probably think very differently. They will come up with all kinds of nifty little things Lucifer would never even think about. And Gabriel has spent a lot of time with them. He thinks like them. The Gabriel that faced Lucifer wasn't the younger brother that Lucifer left behind before his fall. And even if he says "I know where your heart truly lies", he doesn't. It's not the same heart.

tl;dr: Gabriel was a pagan god, for someone's sakes! He's got a few new aces up his sleeves. I have no problem believing that his death was another trick.

Well, that escalated quickly. I really wasn't supposed to talk about that for so long. But whatever, I've been dying to talk to someone about Gabe.

While I'm on the subject, I really liked this weeks episode. It was funny, it was dramatic, it was hear clenching. Nora was a nice female character. It was a nice change, given the track record of women in Supernatural, haha. Also, I think she thought Cas was gay? That would explain some of the odd behaviour. I mean, how else is the whole "Are you free tomorrow night?" scene supposed to be interpreted than being asked out? But if she thought he was gay, ie in no way interested in her romantically, that would explain it a bit, right? I dunno, she was a bit weird. But in a lovely human way. It was also nice to get some Dean/Cas time as well as Sam and Kevin interaction. I think they would be good friends, in an odd way. Like, Sam would be Kevin's mentor or tutor or sth. Hm, that would make a great detail to a highschool!AU. Also Crowley what are you even doing?? Things are happening aaaaaaa help!

Next weeks episode looks damn scary. Woohoo, we haven't had a proper horror episode since... season 3, basically.

Sorry, this post is all Supernatural. I'll write about something else next week.

Pie out.

Ontology is stupid

I am having a bad day.

That means you will get a short and uninteresting post today.

So I am taking this philosophy course at the university about ontology. Because you very likely do not know, what ontology is, let me explain.

Ontology is about existing. It doesn't take the religious kind of "Why am I here? What's my purpose in life?" -perspective to it, but rather the "What do I mean by who am I?" -perspective. It views existing from the angle of how do things exist and what existing actually means and what all things could hypothetically exist in any imaginable universe (I think the answer is any, I mean, I can imagine a world with anything in it, but I'm pretty sure I haven't quite grasped the meaning of alternate worlds when dealing with ontology).

Now, don't be fooled by the fact that this sounds interesting.

What we exactly hear of on the lectures is things like the problem of the universals (I am sorry if I do not know the correct terms for all there in English). The problem of universals basically asks the question, that if we live in a world of particulars, meaning everything is a different thing than every other thing, like a glass is another glass than the one next to it on the table, then how can they share a quality, such as transparency.

I have to admit I have not yet quite learned to see the problem with this, not even on any absurd level of the mind.

The point with it is, if all things are different that every other thing, then how can the same transparency be in both of the glasses. Because if we live in a world of particulates, then how can the same transparency be in both.

At this point I have to point out, that apparently in philosophy all things are seen as objects. Glass in an object. Transparency is an object. Red is an object. Water is an object. You are an object.

So, the question is, if everything is particular, then how can the same object that is transparency be in all the objects that are glasses, if they're not the same glass. It shouldn't be able to do that if it was a particular object. Or how can the same wood color be in all the tables in the lecture room, if the tables are different tables. Or how can we say that an electron is a different electron than some other electron if it's exactly the same.
Personally, I disagree with treating object that are things the same way as objects that are qualities. I mean, why would anyone even have had the thought in the first place, that transparency and a glass are fundamentally as things similar enough things to be treated in the same way in philosophical arguments.

We also discuss about whether it would be metaphysically possible that there is an alternate world in which Paavo Lipponen is the king of Finland, or our professor is Pekka Himanen (I still haven't figured out who that is. I just know it's someone everyone knows, and I feel really stupid not knowing.)

Basically what I do on those lectures is sit there and think "Why, whyy are we thinking about this? What possible use could any of this ever have in anything other than further ontology? Also, what are all these problems our professor keeps presenting us? I do not see any kind of practical or mental possible problem in any of them."
I did finally get a grasp on why there would possibly be a problem in all glasses being transparent, if this is a world of particulars, but I still do not see the point of thinking about it, because the way I see it is that all that it does is make everything so much more difficult than it actually is in reality.
So if there's someone out there who somehow stumbles upon our blog and had an answer to this, please let me know.

Hmm... This didn't turn out to be as short as I thought it would be.
Oh, well...

~matu

PS. As it turns out,  I will not be writing anything during November. I have one 5-page speech studies analysis, one 7-page lecture journal, three exams about lectures and another three exams with the material as only books to do in the next three-four weeks. And that's just school.
I'll probably have more time in December, once I get all this other stuff out of the way. Or then not. We'll see.

Pie's Punishment Post 2/2

Top of tha mornin' to ya! Well, okay. It's not morning there and it's almost really morning here anymore either. But what ever.

Sometimes I feel very unreal. I mean, I just (two months ago, whoa what happened) moved to the other side of the planet into a very different country and somehow I don't feel different really. When I take care of the kids, well, I take care of the kids. It feels kinda the same as if I was in school. It was something that had to be done and then it ended at some point and I go home. Except that I don't really go home, 'cause I already am home. But I don't really know if I actually call this place home... I mean, it is not home in the same sense as my "real" home in Finland is, but it is a home in the kinda sense as a friends house is a home. It's not really the same thing, because when you're at a friend's place, you know at some point you will have to leave and go home. It's temporary, sort of. So what I think my brain doesn't really realize is that this home I have here isn't really temporary. (I mean  it is, but it will be temporary for the next 10 months, so it would maybe be better if I didn't consider it temporary......)

But that's not actually what I meant to talk about when I said I feel unreal. Well, it's a part of it, but feeling like I'm just gonna wake up in a few days and take the bus home isn't why i feel unreal, even if it connects to it. So what I was going to say was this.

My days are very similar: wake up, drive kids to school and watch Kaija for the morning (or on Monday and Wednesday, sleep in), pick up kids from school around noon, lunch, bath, give them milk and then it's nap time. Hope that they sleep for a good two hours. Sometimes Leila refuses to sleep and instead she reads or draws or plays with this silly Barbie-computer she has. Once a week we bake something. Kids wake up at four, plusminus 20 minutes, get a snack and we go outside, possibly to the park if the girls have been good and I spend the rest of the day glancing at my clock every two minutes wondering when the parents get home. When they get home it's dinner and I am officially off the clock, but my brain doesn't really realize it and I feel like I can't really leave the room yet and so I usually wound up hanging in the living room, half watching the kids, until seven when bedtime preparations start. Kaija goes to bed first and Leila after an hour, round eight. And I still feel kinda obligated to stay in the main floor (my room is in the basement) so I just hang awkwardly, doodling something or, if my computer is upstairs, tumblring or what not, until I feel like I have to get away and hastily excuse myself after awkwardly making sure there's nothing I should do/know about the next day.

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about either....

ANYWAY. I get downstairs. It's me time. I've been working for twelve hours (though working working for 10) and I just can't anymore. So I watch TV. Because some routines should be preserved, and watching TV from eight to ten (and sometimes twelve, oops) is one of them. And that is really what I meant, because when I watch TV, I am super invested. Anyone who has watched anything with me knows this. I comment all the frikking time. (Even when I watch it alone, seriously I comment on the things under my breath like muttering them to myself.. Anyone who sees me watching TV by myself must think I'm crazy, haha...) And because I am this invested in the world, characters and story of the things I watch, I sometimes lose the sense of reality. And after I've stopped watching it takes a while until I realize who, what and where I am. And then I know I should be in bed, because I have eight hours until I need to be driving the kids to school. And in those moments I swear I am unreal. I don't even know.

Do you ever get a feeling like that?

On a different note, tumblr is awesome, check out what I found there. Huh? HUH? How awesome is that?? I totally want a shirt like that. And I am totally getting a shirt like that! But I can't really decide... I was thinking Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Grimms' Fairytales, The Origin of Species, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Bible (haha also The Torah would be cool), I mean, there's so many great books! The shirts are like 35$, so I should narrow that down a bit, to at least two.... Then I could get the totes (haha what a word, I mean a bag), 'cause they are cheaper. Would you want one? I could totally order one for you as well, and send it to you with the Christmas presents I hopefully remember to buy. Wouldn't it be awesome? Ooh, I could get the Origin of Species and the Bible, haha that would be great.

But yeah, that's all from me now. Tata!

Pie out.

P.S. I totally forgot it's Fathers' Day! I'm sorry! I remembered it yesterday.... But happy Fathers' Day dad! I miss you! <3

Randoming in the randomness

Yo. I have nothing to say. So yeah.

I am so jealous you got to go to that con. There was in fact a Star Trek convention in Boston last weekend, but the admission fee was like a hundred bucks and I really didn't want to go alone... So I stayed home and... I don't even remember what I did. But on Sunday, oh man. We had our monthly au pair cluster meeting and November's activity was laser, wait for it, tag. Laser tag. It was legendary. I mean, not only am I a super competitive person to begin with, when you put on that vest, pick up that gun and run into that maze, let me tell you, the adrenaline rush is awesome. And you're not actually gonna die, so you don't panic but it's similar enough to make you go "It's them or me. Shoot everyone." 10/10 would do again. Will do again.

Also, someone's code name was Barney. That was fun.

I've been drawing a lot of concept art sketches for my Red Hunting Hood story. Wolf faces are hard to draw... But yeah, the characters are pretty much designed. But because I suck, I haven't actually written any more of it... Haha. I would like to know whether or not you are going to write anything.

What else...

I don't really have much to say about this week's Supernatural (and all the readers let out a sigh of relief). It was damn funny, but the animal voices were a bit.... you know. Cartoony. Everybody agrees, even Jared Padalecki! Also the monster-of-the-week was a bit odd, because the bad Texas Ranger impression he was in the beginning didn't really mach the Hannibal-type culinary chef he was in the end. But other than that it was great fun. Next week Cas comes back, so........ Expect some heavy commentary. There will be feels.

I have also been watching Merlin. I'm not sure if I mentioned that already. It gets intense towards the end... I just started the final season and oh my goooooddddd, it will be... I don't even know the word to describe such magnificent drama and epicness. *whispers* Mordreeeed~ Let me believe in your forgiveness just for a whileeee~

But yeah, everyone will get backstabbed. They always do. And I also just realized that Arthur really has no idea how much Merlin does for him. I mean, he literally does not know. I always kinda thought that sure Arthur plays the macho man hero type and won't really show it, but of course he appreciates all the times Merlin has saved everyone, but in fact he doesn't even know. And he still appreciates Merlin incredibly much. Arthur knows of a fraction of the things Merlin does for him and he still values and trusts Merlin more than anyone. Well, aside Gwen perhaps, but even they had a falling out! It's just... wow.

I really feel like I should have an actual message in these posts, but instead I just blabber on about things nobody really wants to hear, probably. Like TV. And pokemon. So tell me, what would you like to read me write about? So that maybe I could have organized informing posts like Matu. Comments plz?

Pie out.

World Fantasy Con 2013

So,

Like you undoubtedly do (not) remember, I was in Brighton last weekend for the World Fantasy Convention of 2013.

I don't even know what to say, because all my thoughts are a huge mess in my head.

I'll just go through it day by day.

Day 0 - Fever
So, it all started great. I woke up at home the day I had to leave for England feeling pretty crappy. So I called dad, saying: "Hi, what does fever feel like? I'm so rarely sick I don't remember, but I think I might be sick now... My throat also hurts a lot. And my head a little. And I'm super tired. And I need to go to England in four hours."
I just ended up taking a painkiller and then I felt all better. Well, it didn't help with the throat, but it did help with the headache and the feeling feverish.
Either way, I was ok until I got to the plain that afternoon. That's when all the tired and sick feeling came back, far worse this time. But I did somehow manage, took another painkiller, and made it first to the correct train from Gatwick to Brighton and then to the hostel, even though it was dark and rainy and I was in a city I had never seen, except on GoogleMaps. But yeah, a good start.

Day 1 - Panic
So, as you may know, I'm a horrible people person. And there I was (with the power of another pain killer I took in the morning), going to a huge convention where there are all the best fantasy and scifi authors of our time (except George RR Martin...) and I'm alone and don't know anyone or anything of what's going on. All the people that I had to talk to were really nice, though, and they gave me free books. I mean, seriously, when you went to the registration desk, the gave you your name badge, the programme schedule, a huge convention book that I'm still not quite sure what it has in it (my sentence structure is awesome...) and handed me a bag and told me to fill it with books that I could take from a table full of books. So, yeah.
They had in the convention a newbie-corner, where all the ones who know nothing and no one can go to find someone. So I went there and ended up with a couple of British girls who I went to see a couple of panels the first day. About writing historical fantasy and about it when people just see a place and think "this is a place I need to write a story about" kind of landscape building. You will come to see almost all the programs I went to were panels.

Day 2 - Terry Pratchett, Patrick Rothfuss and creating characters.
So, the most important things of the day, were first of all a panel about creating memorable characters. It turns out that when you start to create a character, one of the most important things is to ask yourself: what does this character want? How does he think? What does he sound like? Or she. What drives him forwards? I think I had a point to this, but I don't remember what it was. I guess I just found that interesting.
Also, that day Terry Pratchett came by the convention. He wasn't actually taking part to it, just came there for an interview. Which is cool, cause I'm pretty sure it was for many people the last (and only) opportunity to see him.
Half way through the interview I had to go, because Patrick Rothfuss was doing a reading in another room. As his first words to us all, he asked that we did know, right, that Terry Pratchett was in the other room, and said that we really should all go listen to him instead, he would definitely not be offended. Because, you know, it is Terry Pratchett after all.
No one left.
So, just in case you don't know yet, Patrick Rothfuss is the guy who has written The Name of the Wind that I have tried to make you read, it's the first book of The Kingkiller Chronicles. The second book is out too, but we're still waiting for the third, that I think should be hopefully coming out if not in the end of next year then some time during 2015. His books are amazing. Go read them.
I also got him to sign my copy of The Name of the Wind (which wasn't difficult, since there was a mass signing that evening...). One of the highlights (The highlight) of my weekend was when he was writing my name in the book and said I have a really great name. (Yes, mom, you have given me a name Pat Rothfuss thinks is a great one.) That's how much I like his books.

Day 3 - Worlds and the fae
First thing in the morning I went to see this panel about creating worlds. It was even better than the character thing, and afterwards I just wanted to come back home and start really making my world better, with maps of the whole thing, what the place is like outside Sicinda and how, well, everything. I want to create a world.
Oh, this day was also a little more about Rothfuss. If you get to geek out about Supernatural, I get to have this. He was on the world panel, for an obvious reason if you've read the books, and he hung out for a little while after it, so a bunch of people stayed behind and chatted with him about his books, and I actually asked him if he knew Auri (there is a character called Auri in the books) is actually a Finnish name. He did. (Fun fact: There are only about 300 Auris in Finland. Or well, born since 1900. I guess not all of them are still alive.)
Ok, this whole crazy fangirl thing is super weird for me. But his books are amazing.
Moving on to something else.
On that day I also went to see a couple of panels about the fae. If you don't know what the fae is, it's too bad. It's more or less exactly what it sounds like but I can't really explain it. If I say "faeries and stuff", you get a too vague of an idea of what it actually means.
Either way, the end result is, that now I want to put faeries into my world. I actually have a function for them too. They fit there perfectly. The fae are actually a really interesting group. I want fore fae in my story. But I can't not in that one.
By the end of the day I was just pissed, because I really want to create this amazing and complex world, but I have no use for it right now. I can use it for Nocturne, but it seems a waste to create a whole world for a one-off book that's located in one tiny village.
Oh, and I also spotted Neil Gaiman. He's older than I thought, based on a photo on the inside cover of American Gods. How old is that book again...?

Day 4 - Pen names
It was the last day of the convention, so there were only a couple of panels left. One of the panels was about using a pen name(s) when writing. It just got me thinking about the fact that I would love to one day be a good enough an author, that I could write those kinds of books, that people really love. I want to be a good enough author, that people make this kind of stuff because of my books. (Not on the topic, but this is what happens if you play that when Martin is there...) The point is I want to write that good books. A dream very far away and very, very likely I will never achieve it, but still.
The problem with that is, that if my books are that good, my books will be popular (which is ok), which means I will be famous. And I very much do not want to be famous. Even if I wrote with a pen name, which I definitely would do, the author of the books would have a face. Which means I couldn't completely hide.
I want people to love my books, but not know anything about me. And that's kind of a problem. Well, it's not yet a problem, and it won't be for at least a very long time. But I'm already thinking about it. That's how much I want to write that good books.

Day +1
This is a day when I just woke up really early and travelled back home. But there was this funny thing at the airport I want to tell about. This woman went around doing a survey about how people liked the Gatwick airport and came to me asking questions like: "How clean do you think the airport is? Are the toilets easy to find? Are there enough signs at the airport? Was it easy to find a seat? Was it easy to find your way around? Was it easy to find a departures-screen when you needed it?", and I was like: "..... It's an airport. I mean, what am I supposed to say? Airports are the number one place in the world for finding signs and screens and toilets and seats. They are build for sitting, and following signs where screens tell you to, and then sitting again. All airports are more or less the same. It's an airport."
Even though all airports are more or less the same, I still can't agree with Douglas Adams: "It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport.' Airports are ugly."
But I don't think they are. They're just airports. And I like them. I guess I haven't yet travelled enough to learn to not to.

For quite a long time it's been looking like I need more bookshelves, because my books won't fit in one. Now it finally happened. The books I brought back from Brighton were too much for my bookshelf, and I had to divide my books into two shelves. One for fantasy and scifi, and one for the rest.
The one for fantasy and scifi has four times more space than the one for the rest.

~matu

Post-Halloween shenanigans

Hi. It's nap time again, so here I am. Oh, and in case you didn't know, I wrote my first punishment post on Wednesday, see it here. Half of it is me squeeing over last SPN episode. But it was that good.

Sometimes I feel like I live waiting for the next Tuesday/Friday... I mean, When it's Monday I'm all "tomorrow is Tuesday the best day I can read a new post and Supernatural and Agents of SHIELD aaaaaa" and then on Tuesday it's pretty much the same except I'm "YES Today is the best day". On Wednesday I'm in a bit of a SPN aftershock and kinda just.... Haa. On Thrusday I can't wait for it to be Friday 'cause weekend and I get to write a new post and then it's weekend and I can just not do anything. And then it starts all over again. I mean, I do pay attention to what happens around me, but this job is so much of a routine, that I don't really have to think about it. But yeah. My life right now is pretty much from-Tuesday-to-Friday-to-Tuesday-again.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yay. I'll be expecting that chocolate in the mail.

Yesterday was Halloween. I now have in front of me a pile of skittles and chocolate that is not as good as Fazer's. Also some other candy in the cupboard, but skittles and chocolate are the ones I am eating atm.

Speaking of, my costume was totally awesome. The hood was a bit... off, or something, it kept pulling back and trying to strangle me, and the hood wasn't as big as I wanted, but otherwise it was perfect. I'd show pictures, but I don't pose. And I noticed that if you want something to look 1000 times better, sew some lace on it. Instant style. I am definitely wearing that costume again somewhere. In a con maybe? I might be able so use the skirt in a cosplay, hm..... But yeah.

Pokémon is still awesome. I will never get to the 2nd gym, because I have to explore every single place before I move on. I also have a party of 10, which I must train mercilessly and that takes a while.... But it's awesome. My request for friendcodes still stands, mine can be found in the previous post (link at the beginning of post).

But yeah, I guess that's all for now. Write stuff!

Pie out.

The Little Red Hunting Hood
Once upon a time there lived a girl, who was liked by everybody. Her grandmother liked her best of all and had a red riding hood made especially for her. The girl liked the hood so much that she would always be seen wearing it, and so the people began to call her Little Red Riding Hood...
But this is a story you know, isn't it? The girl is tricked by the wolf, who eats the girl and her grandma, but they are saved by a huntsman and all is well. But what if I were to tell you that there is more to the story? You see, it was not quite so simple, for the story of the girl and the wolf only begun with the hunter...

(So this is my story premise, what do you think? There'll be all kinds of drama with werewolves and villagers and family businesses. It'll be cool, I think.)