I just. I don't know. I can't think of anything to say. I'm sorry.
So, uh.. I've recently gotten into a few new TV series. I know you don't care about TV as much as I do, but I don't know. You might like them? And I really can't think of anything else to talk about.
The first one is Almost Human. Featuring Karl Urban, who you might or might not know as Leonard McCoy from the Star Trek aos. The reboot movies. I don't know if you've seen them. And Micheal Ealy, who I didn't recognize, but who is adorable and talented all the same. Apparently he's been on quite a ew Good Wife episodes (character's name is Derrick Bond) so mum might know him? Anyway.
It's set in 2058(?) where the evolving technology is making a lot of things easier for criminals, and to combat the climbing crime rate the police are all paired up with androids. The main character is John Kennex (Karl Urban), who was injured in an thingie with explosions and was in a coma for two years and then five years after the heist he goes back to the force. He's a bit of a loose case, having some anger management issues, ptsd and having lost his leg in the explosion (it's cool, he has a prosthetic leg now) and he doesn't really like the androids because they left his partner to die, because it was unlikely he would survive and they had other things to do. So after throwing one of the MXes (the standard police model) under a truck he gets assigned an older model, whose name is Dorian (Michael Ealy). They were part of a project called "the synthetic soul", meaning that they tried to program into the droids some kind of human empathy/feelings/idk, but being so close to humans made them unpredictable and some apparently went crazy and the were decommissioned. And now John and Dorian solve crimes in whatever city they are in. I'm not sure. Somewhere in the US.
Now, I love androids. All the androids. For me it is a great show, but I don't know if you like androids, so I can't really say if you'd like it. But it's just started, there's only 10 episodes so far (it airs on Mondays, btw), so if you like interesting crime shows and/or androids/futuristic stuff I would check that out.
The other show is called Men at Work. It's a pretty new show as well, it's on it's third season atm. It's a sitcom (20min episodes) and it has like 10 episodes/season, so it's pretty fast to catch up with. It tells about this group of four guys, who work at a magazine and do stupid shit together. It's pretty funny, I think. There's your typical nice guy, a pretty boy, a nerdy dude and this black dude who I think is the best of them. They're kinda archetype characters, but they do have their own little quirks. So yeah, if you want something funny and short, watch that.
Also, if you're looking for comedy, check out Russell Howard. He's this British bloke and he is hilarious. He has a few stand up shows (can be found on youtube), plus a show called Russell Howard's Good News, in which he takes news from that week and finds funny things in them (can also be found on youtube). It starts from way back 2005 or something (2013 being series 8), so I don't know if you wanna start with the newer ones or the older ones. I started from the beginning but then again I have an obsession. It's pretty popular, so I'm guessing there will be a series 9 sometime this year, but I don't know when it'll start. He's a bit... obscene sometimes and some of his humor is very Britain-centric, but if that doesn't bother you I really recommend him.
Umm, what else... I don't know. Sorry, my life is super boring.
Pie out.
P.S.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Capoeira
So.
As I said some time in December when you made Cinnamon say capoeira is choreographed fighting, I will talk more about capoeira.
Before I begin, I want to say, once again, that capoeira is not a dance. It is a martial art. To give you one difference between it and other, more known martial arts, it is that in capoeira you move all the time. Might be one more thing why people think it's a dance. There isn't a basic position from where you start, there is a basic movement, ginga, that you repeat when you're not doing something else. In capoeira, if you stop for a moment, you will get a foot into your stomach. Or head.
Also, it is not, like you suggested, choreographed. If it was, I wouldn't get my ass kicked twice a week. Of course when we train, we to different kinds pre-determined of sequences of kicks and dodges, but that's training. You have to learn the movements before actually using them.
To the point. I'm doing this now because we had a batizado on Sunday. A batizado is an event where people get their first ropes (=belts, but someone has decided to call them corda in Portuguese, and that translates to rope, so I guess that's what I have to use...) or the ones who already have one and deserve the next one, get the next one. I got the first one lat time, so now I changed from the first to the second.
Now, capoeira is not a unified sport, there are different styles, and different rope-systems, and some don't use them at all. Our group uses the system ABPC (Associação Brasileira dos Professores de Capoeira) uses, because we're a part of it. Or at least our mestre is. I'm not entirely sure how all that works on that level. I just know that apparently our group is kick-ass even in Brazil, and that our mestre is famous back there, because he left Brazil and came to Finland to teach capoeira, and his students are known in Brazil too simply for being his students. I still haven't actually found out how he ended up in Finland of all places, but I'm happy he did.
Anyway, our system has 10 belts.
1.Light green
2.Light yellow
3.Light blue
4.Dark green. The step between the third and fourth one is a big one; from here on you are training to be a professor.
5.Dark yellow
6.Dark blue
7.-9. are white with some color tips, but I haven't yet learned what colors. People with these ones are officially professors.
10. All white. This one comes with the title mestre. It takes decades to get this far. Our mestre just got his last November. He's thirty or thirty-one, and he's been training capoeira ever since he was a kid and is a big reason to there being capoeira in Finland. It's one of the reasons I find it weird that in other martial arts you can have the highest belt before you're twenty. There is no way that could ever happen in capoeira. In capoeira, you can always do better.
Now to what exactly capoeira is.
This...
...and this...
...is what capoeira is.
Yes, our batizado was at a mall.
The thing why people think is a dance might mostly be because we have music. Music and Brazilian culture are actually a big part of capoeira, and you have to get familiar with those too, if you want to really learn it. It's like you can't really get the third belt unless you've been to Brazil (and I assume train there with locals) and you can't get the fourth one unless you speak Brazilian Portuguese. Not fluently at that point yet, I suppose, but you can't become a teacher if you don't speak the language.
Anyway, I was going to talk about the music for a bit.
So, the main instrument we have in capoeira is a berimbau. You can see one in the last two pictures. It's the long stick. I don't know if you can see it properly, but it has a metal string between the ends of it. Google it if you can't. People surprisingly often mistake it for a bow. Although you do take the round thing near the low end off when you're not using it, so I guess if you don't know there is an instrument like that or anything about archery....
You play that by basically hitting the string with a stick. You also have a rock that you can either touch or not to the string it gives a different sound. I haven't actually ever played one myself, which is a little embarrassing, since a couple of people in our group has one, and I already do have the second belt. But the point is you can beat different rhythms with it. We also use tambourines and occasionally drums. And we sing and clap. The singing is one person singing something and the rest answering something, that might be repeating the first one, or then not.
The songs are, obviously, in Portuguese. Some of the chorus bits are simple enough, but a lot of it is impossible to repeat without actually knowing how the lyrics go. Which is one reason why you should learn the language.
What else....
I don't really know what more to say without repeating what I said earlier here. Or without actually showing how the kicks go, which is quite difficult in text. What do you want to know about it? Ask me. I want to tell you more about capoeira.
But, for now, that's all.
Except: No, we don't hear anything about Justin Bieber here in Finland. Why would we?
~matu
As I said some time in December when you made Cinnamon say capoeira is choreographed fighting, I will talk more about capoeira.
Before I begin, I want to say, once again, that capoeira is not a dance. It is a martial art. To give you one difference between it and other, more known martial arts, it is that in capoeira you move all the time. Might be one more thing why people think it's a dance. There isn't a basic position from where you start, there is a basic movement, ginga, that you repeat when you're not doing something else. In capoeira, if you stop for a moment, you will get a foot into your stomach. Or head.
Also, it is not, like you suggested, choreographed. If it was, I wouldn't get my ass kicked twice a week. Of course when we train, we to different kinds pre-determined of sequences of kicks and dodges, but that's training. You have to learn the movements before actually using them.
To the point. I'm doing this now because we had a batizado on Sunday. A batizado is an event where people get their first ropes (=belts, but someone has decided to call them corda in Portuguese, and that translates to rope, so I guess that's what I have to use...) or the ones who already have one and deserve the next one, get the next one. I got the first one lat time, so now I changed from the first to the second.
Now, capoeira is not a unified sport, there are different styles, and different rope-systems, and some don't use them at all. Our group uses the system ABPC (Associação Brasileira dos Professores de Capoeira) uses, because we're a part of it. Or at least our mestre is. I'm not entirely sure how all that works on that level. I just know that apparently our group is kick-ass even in Brazil, and that our mestre is famous back there, because he left Brazil and came to Finland to teach capoeira, and his students are known in Brazil too simply for being his students. I still haven't actually found out how he ended up in Finland of all places, but I'm happy he did.
Anyway, our system has 10 belts.
1.Light green
2.Light yellow
3.Light blue
4.Dark green. The step between the third and fourth one is a big one; from here on you are training to be a professor.
5.Dark yellow
6.Dark blue
7.-9. are white with some color tips, but I haven't yet learned what colors. People with these ones are officially professors.
10. All white. This one comes with the title mestre. It takes decades to get this far. Our mestre just got his last November. He's thirty or thirty-one, and he's been training capoeira ever since he was a kid and is a big reason to there being capoeira in Finland. It's one of the reasons I find it weird that in other martial arts you can have the highest belt before you're twenty. There is no way that could ever happen in capoeira. In capoeira, you can always do better.
Now to what exactly capoeira is.
This...
...and this...
...and this...
...is what capoeira is.
Yes, our batizado was at a mall.
I was actually a little surprised there were so many good pictures. It seems to me that taking a picture of a person (unless they're really good, in which case just the way the person is in the picture suggests you really know what you're doing) in the middle of a movement is like taking a picture in the middle of eating. It almost exclusively looks stupid. That was the way it always happened. Before.
But I've started to like having pictures up here. The thing why people think is a dance might mostly be because we have music. Music and Brazilian culture are actually a big part of capoeira, and you have to get familiar with those too, if you want to really learn it. It's like you can't really get the third belt unless you've been to Brazil (and I assume train there with locals) and you can't get the fourth one unless you speak Brazilian Portuguese. Not fluently at that point yet, I suppose, but you can't become a teacher if you don't speak the language.
Anyway, I was going to talk about the music for a bit.
So, the main instrument we have in capoeira is a berimbau. You can see one in the last two pictures. It's the long stick. I don't know if you can see it properly, but it has a metal string between the ends of it. Google it if you can't. People surprisingly often mistake it for a bow. Although you do take the round thing near the low end off when you're not using it, so I guess if you don't know there is an instrument like that or anything about archery....
You play that by basically hitting the string with a stick. You also have a rock that you can either touch or not to the string it gives a different sound. I haven't actually ever played one myself, which is a little embarrassing, since a couple of people in our group has one, and I already do have the second belt. But the point is you can beat different rhythms with it. We also use tambourines and occasionally drums. And we sing and clap. The singing is one person singing something and the rest answering something, that might be repeating the first one, or then not.
The songs are, obviously, in Portuguese. Some of the chorus bits are simple enough, but a lot of it is impossible to repeat without actually knowing how the lyrics go. Which is one reason why you should learn the language.
What else....
I don't really know what more to say without repeating what I said earlier here. Or without actually showing how the kicks go, which is quite difficult in text. What do you want to know about it? Ask me. I want to tell you more about capoeira.
But, for now, that's all.
Except: No, we don't hear anything about Justin Bieber here in Finland. Why would we?
~matu
Friday, January 24, 2014
Justin Bieber and fandom life
Good morning, it is finally winter. Proper winter, there is snow and the temperature is somewhere around -15°C. Everyone else is freezing and I'm just here like "ahh, nice and cool for a change."
But that is not what I came here to talk about. Oh no, I'm here to talk about... Justin Bieber. *dundunduuuuuu* No, no, this'll be funny, I swear.
So, I don't know how much you guys get news about Bieber back home, but basically he is a dick. Big time. He's disrespectful towards his employees, employers and fans and acting generally like a spoiled little rich kind which he is. He even drove one fan to commit suicide by calling her "a beached whale". Like woah dude. Stop. And as if this wasn't enough (and this is the point our story truly begins) he just keeps getting stupider by the day.
First he egged his neighbour's house (causing $20,000 in damage) and the police raided his house to find proof against him. Instead they found drugs! Yeah, that happened. Bieber's buddy and some rapper dude took the fall or him. Now, this is what followed:
Kudos to Jared for calling Justin out. Unsurprisingly, beliebers didn't take too kindly to their baby god being insulted and lashed out. Jared was unfazed and the Supernatural fandom amused. And because everyone hates Justin Bieber, soon this wasn't just between beliebers and spn fandom, but basically beliebers vs everyone. All the fandoms. Then this happened:
Haha, what?
Really?
Oh come on. What could they possibly do? They're just- Well I'll tell you what they did!
Oops. So, uh... I guess that didn't go quite as planned. Seriously though, the beliebers actually thought they could take on the scariest and most devoted fanbase this side of legal? Wow. The fandom was quite pleased with itself. And if this wasn't enough, Bieber got himself arrested for DUI (that's "driving under the influence" in case someone didn't know) and is probably gonna get deported. Poor Canada.... But hey, they released the mugshots!
Oh man, he looks so pathetic in the profile picture. But yeah. So that's what's been happening here this week. But this was all just a convenient way to talk about what is really important for me: fandoms.
Now, if someone doesn't know what a fandom is, it's the term used to describe the fanbase of a certain show/movie/book/game/celeb/whatever, derived from the words "fan" and "kingdom". The technology era and the internet in specific have made fandoms much more visible and known to the general public. I mean, there's always been fandoms, not going by that name obviously, but groups of people who are drawn together because of their love for something. Actually, I believe most people belong to at least one fandom, even if they don't really know it. For example, if you enjoy talking about the newest episode of your favorite show with your friends and speculate what comes next, you're a part of a fandom. If you write about your extended essay about a book series you enjoy, you are a part of a fandom. If you consume fanmade material, such as fanart or fanfiction, you are a part of a fandom. Some fans are more devoted than others, some fans are just casual fans, some fans enjoy the thing much more than they let on. But we are all fans. That admiration of things that we enjoy is what connects us all together, what makes us friends. And I think that is lovely. And that is why I love fandom life.
Pie out.
But that is not what I came here to talk about. Oh no, I'm here to talk about... Justin Bieber. *dundunduuuuuu* No, no, this'll be funny, I swear.
So, I don't know how much you guys get news about Bieber back home, but basically he is a dick. Big time. He's disrespectful towards his employees, employers and fans and acting generally like a spoiled little rich kind which he is. He even drove one fan to commit suicide by calling her "a beached whale". Like woah dude. Stop. And as if this wasn't enough (and this is the point our story truly begins) he just keeps getting stupider by the day.
First he egged his neighbour's house (causing $20,000 in damage) and the police raided his house to find proof against him. Instead they found drugs! Yeah, that happened. Bieber's buddy and some rapper dude took the fall or him. Now, this is what followed:
Kudos to Jared for calling Justin out. Unsurprisingly, beliebers didn't take too kindly to their baby god being insulted and lashed out. Jared was unfazed and the Supernatural fandom amused. And because everyone hates Justin Bieber, soon this wasn't just between beliebers and spn fandom, but basically beliebers vs everyone. All the fandoms. Then this happened:
Haha, what?
Really?
Oh come on. What could they possibly do? They're just- Well I'll tell you what they did!
Oops. So, uh... I guess that didn't go quite as planned. Seriously though, the beliebers actually thought they could take on the scariest and most devoted fanbase this side of legal? Wow. The fandom was quite pleased with itself. And if this wasn't enough, Bieber got himself arrested for DUI (that's "driving under the influence" in case someone didn't know) and is probably gonna get deported. Poor Canada.... But hey, they released the mugshots!
Oh man, he looks so pathetic in the profile picture. But yeah. So that's what's been happening here this week. But this was all just a convenient way to talk about what is really important for me: fandoms.
Now, if someone doesn't know what a fandom is, it's the term used to describe the fanbase of a certain show/movie/book/game/celeb/whatever, derived from the words "fan" and "kingdom". The technology era and the internet in specific have made fandoms much more visible and known to the general public. I mean, there's always been fandoms, not going by that name obviously, but groups of people who are drawn together because of their love for something. Actually, I believe most people belong to at least one fandom, even if they don't really know it. For example, if you enjoy talking about the newest episode of your favorite show with your friends and speculate what comes next, you're a part of a fandom. If you write about your extended essay about a book series you enjoy, you are a part of a fandom. If you consume fanmade material, such as fanart or fanfiction, you are a part of a fandom. Some fans are more devoted than others, some fans are just casual fans, some fans enjoy the thing much more than they let on. But we are all fans. That admiration of things that we enjoy is what connects us all together, what makes us friends. And I think that is lovely. And that is why I love fandom life.
Pie out.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Cold and people and kiwi boxes
I have three small things I want to talk about today.
1. Cold
So, as you probably know better than I do, this winter has been cold in northern US, while it has been raining in places like Finland and Alaska. Yes, it actually rained from mid-December until about a week and a half ago.
And then the cold hit. I mean, it's still not cold cold, the temperature during the days is between -10 and -20 degrees C, so it could be worse. However, the last time it was this cold I was in Australia, where it was not cold, so I went a little over 11 months without being somewhere where there is this cold. So now I'm freezing.
The outside isn't actually too bad. -14 C is a surprisingly nice temperature once you get used to it and have enough clothes on. The worse bit is the inside cold and the fact that everything feels like you've rubbed a balloon against it. And of those two, the inside cold is worse. My apartment is very cold in the winter (well, probably still better than American homes) which does it that you don't really want to get up in the morning. Or have a shower. Or do anything else that would require contact with air with less than two layers of clothes on. Which is a little weird, because if the temperature outside was the same as it is now inside, you would only need one thin layer of clothes on outside.
2. Population of the world
These thoughts are nothing new or mind-blowing, but I just started to think about it when I read Patrick Rothfuss' blog post about why he wants to do so much charity. Basically the point is that if he has four cakes and someone else has none, it's nice to give some cake to the other person too. Yes, he actually uses a cake metaphor.
Anyway, that got me thinking, that (and this is a horrible thing to say) if we save all the people that are right now starving to death in Africa, the population of the Earth will explode. Well, it already has, but it will get worse. So, really, isn't it really better for the world if we don't help the people there, because more people really seems to be bad for everything else living on this planet. And to the people living here, too. Then, of course, I told myself that when there are less people dying there are less people born (unless you can't change the culture of having ten kids at the same rate as those ten kids keep living) since you don't have to make extra kids to ensure some of them living to be adults. And when there are less people born, there is more food for the ones who did. So really, if people in third-world countries just stopped having so many kids, maybe they'd have enough food and meds for those who exist.
Yes, I know it doesn't work like that. And it's a horrible thing to say. But it kinda is true. And I'm getting off topic.
The point is, that, I thought to myself, because things are getting better and no less babies are born, the population increases faster in those countries than the ones where people are already used to not having to have ten kids in order for a few of them to make it to adulthood, so the developing countries are the biggest reason to the population growth in the world. And once I had that thought, I wanted to check whether or how much it was true.
According to this page, we have 7 207 874 950 people in the world (at the time I was writing this. wow, that is a lot of people really fast...).
And then I googled some more, and found this map on Wikipedia:
I guess that's all for today.
1. Cold
So, as you probably know better than I do, this winter has been cold in northern US, while it has been raining in places like Finland and Alaska. Yes, it actually rained from mid-December until about a week and a half ago.
And then the cold hit. I mean, it's still not cold cold, the temperature during the days is between -10 and -20 degrees C, so it could be worse. However, the last time it was this cold I was in Australia, where it was not cold, so I went a little over 11 months without being somewhere where there is this cold. So now I'm freezing.
The outside isn't actually too bad. -14 C is a surprisingly nice temperature once you get used to it and have enough clothes on. The worse bit is the inside cold and the fact that everything feels like you've rubbed a balloon against it. And of those two, the inside cold is worse. My apartment is very cold in the winter (well, probably still better than American homes) which does it that you don't really want to get up in the morning. Or have a shower. Or do anything else that would require contact with air with less than two layers of clothes on. Which is a little weird, because if the temperature outside was the same as it is now inside, you would only need one thin layer of clothes on outside.
The point is, the cold finally came up here to Finland too. It's also dark, but that's ok. I used to really hate dark when I was a kid, but I actually learned to quite like it a few years back, and have started to like it more since. It was a sign of growing up, when the
dark made no more difference to you than the day. In a way.
2. Population of the world
These thoughts are nothing new or mind-blowing, but I just started to think about it when I read Patrick Rothfuss' blog post about why he wants to do so much charity. Basically the point is that if he has four cakes and someone else has none, it's nice to give some cake to the other person too. Yes, he actually uses a cake metaphor.
Anyway, that got me thinking, that (and this is a horrible thing to say) if we save all the people that are right now starving to death in Africa, the population of the Earth will explode. Well, it already has, but it will get worse. So, really, isn't it really better for the world if we don't help the people there, because more people really seems to be bad for everything else living on this planet. And to the people living here, too. Then, of course, I told myself that when there are less people dying there are less people born (unless you can't change the culture of having ten kids at the same rate as those ten kids keep living) since you don't have to make extra kids to ensure some of them living to be adults. And when there are less people born, there is more food for the ones who did. So really, if people in third-world countries just stopped having so many kids, maybe they'd have enough food and meds for those who exist.
Yes, I know it doesn't work like that. And it's a horrible thing to say. But it kinda is true. And I'm getting off topic.
The point is, that, I thought to myself, because things are getting better and no less babies are born, the population increases faster in those countries than the ones where people are already used to not having to have ten kids in order for a few of them to make it to adulthood, so the developing countries are the biggest reason to the population growth in the world. And once I had that thought, I wanted to check whether or how much it was true.
According to this page, we have 7 207 874 950 people in the world (at the time I was writing this. wow, that is a lot of people really fast...).
And then I googled some more, and found this map on Wikipedia:
I assume the numbers are percent per year.
How great would it be, if the whole world was purple? Pretty great.
But the thing I started off to find out was how much more the population in developing countries grows more than the population in first-world countries. I also found some other, more accurate statistics (that are of course based on estimates) of population growth rate per country. Here.
3. Kiwi box
This is actually a very tiny thing, I'm just still confused about it. Yesterday I got some stuff that I had left to our parents' place over Christmas, cause I couldn't get everything home then. Among them, a small box designed for carrying kiwis around that our little sister (who has never read our blog) gave me for Christmas.
Yes. A box for carrying kiwis.
It's a thing.
See?
I still don't understand why that is a thing. The red arc is for cutting the kiwi. You just put the it on the other side and push the lit closed. And the other red thing is a spoon.
This got to be the weirdest thing ever.
~matu
PS. Oh my god, did you see last night's How I Met Your Mother?
Friday, January 17, 2014
Future and stuff
Good morning. I am sick. I have a terrible cough, occasional sneezing fits, a bit of a headache and an inability to concentrate on things for more than five minutes. So that's a problem. Obviously I'm not in charge of the kids right now. Hopefully this'll get better soon.
But now, I was supposed to talk about the future.
I think I want to study maths. No really. I always said that I like maths, but I really don't want to make it my profession, but now, well..... Teacher has always been on the list pretty high, and a math teacher could be a viable plan. Because math is fun. And learning is sometimes less fun but it can be made fun. So there's that. Also, having written an E (or which I am very embarrassed...) on my matriculation examination, I can get straight in and don't have to spend time and money to come to Finland for a week or sth to take entrance exams.
And even if I study math for a while and realize that I don't want to be a math teacher anymore, math is a very useful thing to know in many fields. So that's good. Other possible professions I could realistically see myself in include architect, confectioner and a stay-at-home-mom. That's kinda sad, but I really do want to have kids one day, and I want to also be able to spend time with them. But anyway. Things I have 0% chance of becoming but have sometimes dreamed of being include actor, writer, artist, director, super famous internet person and pokémon master.
Other than that, I don't really know. I guess it'll be school for a few more years and then trying to get job. As I said, I do want to have kids, but I really don't want to think about that right now. Maybe in ten years. After I've sorted out my life I can start thinking about taking the responsibility for someone else. But some day. Probably.
But yeah. Math teacher. I've also noticed that all my math teachers (aside from Irmeli, but she was a homeroom teacher, not a math teacher per se) have been men. So I'm gonna break that chain. We need more women in the world of maths. Not saying that there already aren't but we need more. I think it is still a male dominated area. I think. Anyway.
Uh, I think that's it from me for now. Can't think of anything else I meant to say. See you on Tuesday!
Pie out.
But now, I was supposed to talk about the future.
I think I want to study maths. No really. I always said that I like maths, but I really don't want to make it my profession, but now, well..... Teacher has always been on the list pretty high, and a math teacher could be a viable plan. Because math is fun. And learning is sometimes less fun but it can be made fun. So there's that. Also, having written an E (or which I am very embarrassed...) on my matriculation examination, I can get straight in and don't have to spend time and money to come to Finland for a week or sth to take entrance exams.
And even if I study math for a while and realize that I don't want to be a math teacher anymore, math is a very useful thing to know in many fields. So that's good. Other possible professions I could realistically see myself in include architect, confectioner and a stay-at-home-mom. That's kinda sad, but I really do want to have kids one day, and I want to also be able to spend time with them. But anyway. Things I have 0% chance of becoming but have sometimes dreamed of being include actor, writer, artist, director, super famous internet person and pokémon master.
Other than that, I don't really know. I guess it'll be school for a few more years and then trying to get job. As I said, I do want to have kids, but I really don't want to think about that right now. Maybe in ten years. After I've sorted out my life I can start thinking about taking the responsibility for someone else. But some day. Probably.
But yeah. Math teacher. I've also noticed that all my math teachers (aside from Irmeli, but she was a homeroom teacher, not a math teacher per se) have been men. So I'm gonna break that chain. We need more women in the world of maths. Not saying that there already aren't but we need more. I think it is still a male dominated area. I think. Anyway.
Uh, I think that's it from me for now. Can't think of anything else I meant to say. See you on Tuesday!
Pie out.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
More airport adventures
I am having one of those days today, when I really want to write but have absolutely nothing to say.
Well, nothing enough for a post anyway. During the last week I've read The Emperor's Blades (it's good. really good.) and a couple of books for school so that I'll get one of the few exams I'd need to go take out of the way. When my eyes have gotten too tired of reading I've watched an episode or two of How I Met Your Mother, which doesn't really help with the tired eyes, cause then it's a screen I'm looking at instead of text.
My capoeira trainings began again, and I had a flute/piano lesson, and I'm totally psyched about my classes for the spring (interpersonal communication and communication in groups and argumentation and logic) and protu.
The point was, I haven't really had a week that would've given me anything to write about, so I'll just post the going-to-Australia-airport-mess that I mentioned last week. I thought you'd rather read that than a summary of my exam material.
It's really long, so I won't hold it against you if you don't read it all. Just want to show you that more can go wrong with airtravel than having to stay with your friend for another night.
So, it was the beginning of last February. It started off fine, I took bus to the city and train to Helsinki and another bus to the airport.
Then I went for check-in. The girl at the counter informed me that there was something wrong with the computers, and she couldn't get me the boarding passes all the way to Sidney, but just the first bit to Frankfurt and told me to go get the Frankfurt-Singapore and Singapore-Sidney boarding passes at Frankfurt from the transit desk. So I thought ok, it's only an hour and a half change at Frankfurt, it's gonna be tough, but I'm gonna make it.
A half an hour before we were supposed to land in Frankfurt, however, the captain informed us that there is a snow storm there, and the snow on the runways has to be cleared up before we can land. It might be that we can't land, that we'll run out of fuel and have to go and land somewhere else and just come back when we don't have to hang in the air and wait for it to be possible to land. Either way, it would be a while.
So great. I had a connecting flight, I couldn't miss it.
Well, some time after that the captain announced that we can in fact land, and we got to Frankfurt a half an hour late. So I had only an hour to find the transit desk, get my boarding passes, and find the gate. And on long flights, as I would come to learn, the boarding begins an hour before the plane leaves. So I ran to the transit desk (where a flight attendant nicely gave me instructions to before landing) and said, panicking,
"I'm flying to Sidney and my flight was late because of the snow storm and I don't have the boarding passes and my flight to Singapore leaves in an hour!"
And the man at the desk first told be to calm down and breathe, and once I did, he said,
"You'll get the boarding pass at the gate. Now, you're young, you can run. The gate is all the way that way and up the stairs and then a long corridor and then right and there it is. Run!"
So I ran.
And I got to the gate. A woman at the gate came to me (there were a lot of people just standing around) and I said, "I don't have a boarding pass!"
And she said, "Yes, ok, but you're here now, it's gonna be fine. You're here now."
And she took my name and put it on a list and told me to stand in a line with all the other people who hadn't gotten their boarding passes for that flight. So I stood in the line and waited.
When there were still a few people in front of me and many people behind me, the people at the gate informed us that the gate will close now, the plane has to leave so it won't be too much late. So the twenty of us in the line were like, "Ehh, what, hey, we're right here, we're supposed to be on that flight, come on."
But they didn't let us in, and so the plane left. There was a Finnish couple there going to Adelaide, and a young guy who was going to Sidney for exchange that kinda had to be there on time because his school term was beginning in two days, and a couple of Polish guys I ran into a little later that night too, who I think were going to Australia too. They just happened to be standing nearby, and we were wondering together about now what.
The twenty-or-so people still in the line were told to go to the Lufthansa counter (which was technically closed, it was a little past ten in the evening by then), where we would get new tickets for our flights. So we went. Someone ahead of me in the line got his ticket fast, so I got to the counter pretty quickly. I said I was going to Sidney, and the woman at the counter checked for the fastest flights, but I said they weren't very good, because I had a separate connecting flight to Cairns from Sidney a few hours after I was supposed to get there, it just wasn't on this ticket, because it was a whole other booking and only one way. So the woman searched, and searched, and searched. And finally she found me flights that were exactly 24 hours later, only going through Bangkok. So I said ok, and she said I could use the phone on the counter if I had stuff to call.
So first I tried to call and change my Sidney-Cairns ticket, but failed, because it was dad who had actually gotten me the tickets, so I called dad (at this point it was past midnight in Finland) and said,
"Yeah, hi, it's me, I'm stuck in Frankfurt because of a stupid snow storm and I need you to change my Sidney-Cairns ticker to 24 hours later." And he said he would. Then I called the hostel I was supposed to be arriving the next day that I was coming in a day late, and the shuttle bus that I had reserved the same thing. The woman at the counter then said she couldn't yet get me the physical tickets, because the place was officially closed, but sent me to a hotel and gave me some food coupons for the airport and told me to come in the morning to get the tickets.
So I went, and got some food at the hotel (where I ran to the Polish guys again, they had accidentally come to a different hotel they were supposed to) and went to sleep.
The next morning I got up, back to the airport, and to the ticket counter, where they said, "No, no, you already have a ticket, you need to go to check in," So I did. At the check-in they had some problems with getting me the ticket - apparently I didn't really have it yet - and would've wanted so send me to the ticket counter, but I said they sent me from there to here, so after a long waiting I finally got the tickets.
And then I spent the whole day (it wasn't even noon yet, and my flight was leaving at ten in the evening) at Frankfurt airport, staring at the screens and reading a book.
But on the way there, there weren't any more problems. I finally got to the hostel in Cairns after quite exactly 70 hours of travelling.
Six weeks later I got to Sidney airport, ready to go back home. I went to check-in, where I gave my passport to the woman and said I was going to Finland. She did something on her computer for a minute, and then asked,
"How long are you staying in London?"
"Umm... I'm not going to London."
"Yes, yes, but how long are you going to be there, a couple of hours?"
"Umm... I'm not going to London at all."
"That is the name with which the ticket is book with, right?" she said, pointing at my name on the passport.
"Yes," I dug out my papers (that were in Finnish) and showed her I was supposed to be flying Sidney-Singapore-Frankfurt.
"I can't find your tickets," she said after a moment, "Except one from Frankfurt to Helsinki. I need to go check this with my manager," and she left and went to talk with people at the end of the row of desks, and didn't come back for a half an hour.
"We're trying to get you on back on the flights," she said when she came back, "That's why it's taking so long."
"Ok," I said, "I think my tickets being cancelled might have something to do with the fact that I missed some flights when I was coming here and had to get new flights from Frankfurt, maybe Lufthansa cancelled all my tickets when booking me new ones, not just the ones coming here."
I soon got my tickets after that. Well, all the way to Frankfurt, because the last flight was fine. There I would have to go to the transit desk and get the boarding pass. I thanked the woman and left.
Well, nothing enough for a post anyway. During the last week I've read The Emperor's Blades (it's good. really good.) and a couple of books for school so that I'll get one of the few exams I'd need to go take out of the way. When my eyes have gotten too tired of reading I've watched an episode or two of How I Met Your Mother, which doesn't really help with the tired eyes, cause then it's a screen I'm looking at instead of text.
My capoeira trainings began again, and I had a flute/piano lesson, and I'm totally psyched about my classes for the spring (interpersonal communication and communication in groups and argumentation and logic) and protu.
The point was, I haven't really had a week that would've given me anything to write about, so I'll just post the going-to-Australia-airport-mess that I mentioned last week. I thought you'd rather read that than a summary of my exam material.
It's really long, so I won't hold it against you if you don't read it all. Just want to show you that more can go wrong with airtravel than having to stay with your friend for another night.
So, it was the beginning of last February. It started off fine, I took bus to the city and train to Helsinki and another bus to the airport.
Then I went for check-in. The girl at the counter informed me that there was something wrong with the computers, and she couldn't get me the boarding passes all the way to Sidney, but just the first bit to Frankfurt and told me to go get the Frankfurt-Singapore and Singapore-Sidney boarding passes at Frankfurt from the transit desk. So I thought ok, it's only an hour and a half change at Frankfurt, it's gonna be tough, but I'm gonna make it.
A half an hour before we were supposed to land in Frankfurt, however, the captain informed us that there is a snow storm there, and the snow on the runways has to be cleared up before we can land. It might be that we can't land, that we'll run out of fuel and have to go and land somewhere else and just come back when we don't have to hang in the air and wait for it to be possible to land. Either way, it would be a while.
So great. I had a connecting flight, I couldn't miss it.
Well, some time after that the captain announced that we can in fact land, and we got to Frankfurt a half an hour late. So I had only an hour to find the transit desk, get my boarding passes, and find the gate. And on long flights, as I would come to learn, the boarding begins an hour before the plane leaves. So I ran to the transit desk (where a flight attendant nicely gave me instructions to before landing) and said, panicking,
"I'm flying to Sidney and my flight was late because of the snow storm and I don't have the boarding passes and my flight to Singapore leaves in an hour!"
And the man at the desk first told be to calm down and breathe, and once I did, he said,
"You'll get the boarding pass at the gate. Now, you're young, you can run. The gate is all the way that way and up the stairs and then a long corridor and then right and there it is. Run!"
So I ran.
And I got to the gate. A woman at the gate came to me (there were a lot of people just standing around) and I said, "I don't have a boarding pass!"
And she said, "Yes, ok, but you're here now, it's gonna be fine. You're here now."
And she took my name and put it on a list and told me to stand in a line with all the other people who hadn't gotten their boarding passes for that flight. So I stood in the line and waited.
When there were still a few people in front of me and many people behind me, the people at the gate informed us that the gate will close now, the plane has to leave so it won't be too much late. So the twenty of us in the line were like, "Ehh, what, hey, we're right here, we're supposed to be on that flight, come on."
But they didn't let us in, and so the plane left. There was a Finnish couple there going to Adelaide, and a young guy who was going to Sidney for exchange that kinda had to be there on time because his school term was beginning in two days, and a couple of Polish guys I ran into a little later that night too, who I think were going to Australia too. They just happened to be standing nearby, and we were wondering together about now what.
The twenty-or-so people still in the line were told to go to the Lufthansa counter (which was technically closed, it was a little past ten in the evening by then), where we would get new tickets for our flights. So we went. Someone ahead of me in the line got his ticket fast, so I got to the counter pretty quickly. I said I was going to Sidney, and the woman at the counter checked for the fastest flights, but I said they weren't very good, because I had a separate connecting flight to Cairns from Sidney a few hours after I was supposed to get there, it just wasn't on this ticket, because it was a whole other booking and only one way. So the woman searched, and searched, and searched. And finally she found me flights that were exactly 24 hours later, only going through Bangkok. So I said ok, and she said I could use the phone on the counter if I had stuff to call.
So first I tried to call and change my Sidney-Cairns ticket, but failed, because it was dad who had actually gotten me the tickets, so I called dad (at this point it was past midnight in Finland) and said,
"Yeah, hi, it's me, I'm stuck in Frankfurt because of a stupid snow storm and I need you to change my Sidney-Cairns ticker to 24 hours later." And he said he would. Then I called the hostel I was supposed to be arriving the next day that I was coming in a day late, and the shuttle bus that I had reserved the same thing. The woman at the counter then said she couldn't yet get me the physical tickets, because the place was officially closed, but sent me to a hotel and gave me some food coupons for the airport and told me to come in the morning to get the tickets.
So I went, and got some food at the hotel (where I ran to the Polish guys again, they had accidentally come to a different hotel they were supposed to) and went to sleep.
The next morning I got up, back to the airport, and to the ticket counter, where they said, "No, no, you already have a ticket, you need to go to check in," So I did. At the check-in they had some problems with getting me the ticket - apparently I didn't really have it yet - and would've wanted so send me to the ticket counter, but I said they sent me from there to here, so after a long waiting I finally got the tickets.
And then I spent the whole day (it wasn't even noon yet, and my flight was leaving at ten in the evening) at Frankfurt airport, staring at the screens and reading a book.
But on the way there, there weren't any more problems. I finally got to the hostel in Cairns after quite exactly 70 hours of travelling.
Six weeks later I got to Sidney airport, ready to go back home. I went to check-in, where I gave my passport to the woman and said I was going to Finland. She did something on her computer for a minute, and then asked,
"How long are you staying in London?"
"Umm... I'm not going to London."
"Yes, yes, but how long are you going to be there, a couple of hours?"
"Umm... I'm not going to London at all."
"That is the name with which the ticket is book with, right?" she said, pointing at my name on the passport.
"Yes," I dug out my papers (that were in Finnish) and showed her I was supposed to be flying Sidney-Singapore-Frankfurt.
"I can't find your tickets," she said after a moment, "Except one from Frankfurt to Helsinki. I need to go check this with my manager," and she left and went to talk with people at the end of the row of desks, and didn't come back for a half an hour.
"We're trying to get you on back on the flights," she said when she came back, "That's why it's taking so long."
"Ok," I said, "I think my tickets being cancelled might have something to do with the fact that I missed some flights when I was coming here and had to get new flights from Frankfurt, maybe Lufthansa cancelled all my tickets when booking me new ones, not just the ones coming here."
I soon got my tickets after that. Well, all the way to Frankfurt, because the last flight was fine. There I would have to go to the transit desk and get the boarding pass. I thanked the woman and left.
I arrived in Singapore at around 11 ant night, and started checking my next gate from the departures board. I soon found a flight to Frankfurt, but I figured I should check the flight number from the ticket, to see it matches. It didn't. And the boarding time was 12:55 PM. Now, as a person from a country using the 24-hour system I wasn't quite sure if that meant in the morning or in the afternoon, but either way it sounded weird, because the plane was supposed to leave in a couple of hours, at one in the morning, not start boarding then.
So I went to the transit desk and asked about it.
"Your plane starts to board at 12:55 the next afternoon," the woman at the counter said, and I said, "What? No, my plane is supposed to leave in two hours. I'm supposed to be on the flight that leaves in two hours, I have a connecting flight from Frankfurt tomorrow afternoon, I can't be just gotten on the plane here at that time."
And so I explained what had happened in Sydney, and that they must have put me on the wrong flight. So the woman began doing something on her computer, asked help from the man on the next desk, and I had to explain it all to him too. I just stood there and kept telling myself not to panic, it would be fine. But finally I got the ticket to the plane I was actually supposed to be on.
I was super tired at that point, but
luckily, there was a stall nearby where
you could rent scooters from guys with green wings.
Ok, no there wasn't. And the gate wasn't too far either. I had just the right amount of time to find the gate and go to the toilet and brush my teeth (which I did on almost all the airports).
Again, a little while before we got to Frankfurt, the captain had something to tell me. "Lufthansa is on strike today. If you have a connecting flight, please go and see, if your flight is cancelled. If it is, go find another flight for yourself."
Awesome.
So, I got off the plane and saw that my flight was cancelled. The airport was full of people not knowing what to do, because they way way majority of flights from and to Frankfurt are Lufthansa flights, and there was only a few people working. So I went out there, into the lobby, where there was a huge line that was moving nowhere.
From somewhere in my head I got a brilliant idea. I went to one of the self-check-in machines, which weren't crowded at all, for some reason. The machine said,
"Your flight has been cancelled. We suggest this flight for you."
It was a flight four hours later than the one that was cancelled. So I said, oh, yes, if I get home still today, I'll take it. So I got the boarding pass. It didn't have a seat on it, which was weird, so I went to the actual check-in counter (the line in the lobby was actually just standing there, it was a line in front of the lining area to check-in. I wasn't sure what was happening there, but I was checking in and the rest of the people clearly weren't, so I just walked past all of them) and said.
"Hi, I got this new ticket cause my flight was cancelled, but it doesn't have a seat on it, why is that?"
And the woman at the counter said "Because the flight is overbooked. You're eleventh on the waiting list, see, right here. But don't worry, you'll get on the flight now you have a ticket."
So I thanked her and went to spend another six hours staring at the screens of Frankfurt airport, saying "Great to have you here!"
At some point the gate area just got flooded with people, and I started to realize that in fact not everyone wanting on the plane will get on the plane. So I was going to go ask, if I would and when I'll know, but there was a huge line and a single young woman behind the counter trying simultaneously to do the job of everyone who didn't show up for work that day, and she was trying to shout to people to just sit down, they didn't know anything yet, and that she just tried to do her job when no one else would. So I felt sorry for her, and went to sit.
The boarding started, and they first called in the people who actually had seats on the plane. When all of them had gone in, they started to, one by one, call people off the list in order to fill the still empty seats. I knew I was eleventh, so I counted the names and hoped so hard that the plane wouldn't fill up before I got in. I couldn't stand staring at the "Great to have you here!"-signs for a moment longer. It wasn't great to be there. One name. Two. Another two.
And then, finally, they called out my name. I don't know how to express the relief. I was actually getting home that day. And so I did, just a few hours later than I was supposed to.
But there are two things I decided on this trip.
1. I will never fly Lufthansa or go to Frankfurt again, if there is any way of avoiding it.
2. What I said last week. Don't panic is the best advice you can ever give anyone.
Ok, I'll come up with something cool write about again next week.
Bye.
~matu
Ok, I'll come up with something cool write about again next week.
Bye.
~matu
Friday, January 10, 2014
Weather, TV, art and videos
Hello!
I have no idea what I'm going to write about today, so you get some trains of thought. And yes, I could write about the differences between Finland and USA, but I'm kinda saving that for a rainy day. Also, I haven't really been out so........ I know that the traffic sucks here. People just don't drive as nicely as they do back home.
So, the conclusion to last week's story of the broken heating device. Yeah, it was properly broken. We had to get a fixer guy come and there was a part they needed to order and we didn't get heat back until.... Wednesday I think. It's been cold. Even now it's not super warm, but at least it's more that 4°C, haha.
Speaking of cold, the snow situation is kinda crazy. I mean, it was super warm on Tuesday (like 10°C) and over half of the lovely snow piles melted. Then it froze again and the ground was super slippery and there were these sad little half melted piles of snow around. But today it snowed again, so at least the ground is now completely covered.
As I told you, we went to see Frozen with Anna in Colorado. It was good. Like, for a Disney movie, it was super good. Have you seen it? If you haven't, go see it. It had amazing songs and lovely characters and a surprising-ish plot twist. And unlike most Disney movies it wasn't about the prince getting the princess, it was about the sisters finding each other and growing as people. It was really quite lovely. And the trolls were cute. If a bit pushy. Also the Swedish guy, oh man.
Jumping from movies to TV, I AM NOT PREPARED FOR "HIS LAST VOW" (the Sherlock series 3 finale/epicness/cliffhanger of a lifetime)!! Like oh my GOD. Mary Morstan is perfect and lovely and gets along with Sherlock so well and is an exceptional female character and will probably die or back stab someone voluntarily or not and I don't think I can handle it. UGH. Yeah. So, you know. Watch Sherlock. The previous episode was so great. I am so excited right now! Also Supernatural is coming back next Tuesday, but if I start talking about that this post will become a mess of incoherent sobbing/flailing/muttering/etc, so instead I'll just leave this here and move on.
You wanted pictures of Cinnamon? I've got one for you.
I know, it's awesome. Very proud of it. It's drawn with a mouse, btw, because my tablet pen is broken. While I have actually drawn more (a few concept sketches of how the characters look, a centaur and faun anatomy study and a pose of Cinnamon shooting an arrow) they are all in my sketch pad and I do not have a scanner! So I can't really show them to you. Sorry. Also, I know you want pictures, but dude. Have you any idea how long it takes? Like, I have to design the characters and places and scenes and then draw them which is also a time consuming thing, because sketching and inking and coloring and blah. And if we want the pictures to be digital, I need a new tablet (or at least a pen) before that's happening. So let's just think about an actual physical book a bit later, yeah?
The story itself could use some editing, so you can do that? Fix errors, and inconsistencies and stuff like that. But yeah. I will maybe possibly one day post more pictures. About this or something else.
What else? Oh yeah!
The reason I said I wanted to start a vlog is because I want to talk. Like actually talk out loud. And possibly influence people. I have been watching a lot of youtube videos lately and I kinda want to give someone the same experience that I have gotten from watching other vloggers. And it's not like we're gonna do this blog forever, you know? When I get back to Finland, it doesn't really make sense to continue it, does it? But I don't know. Maybe I'll start one when I start University. That'll be fun. 'Cause I have the time and everything, haha.
Hey, future! That's what I meant to talk about. Damn. I'll talk about my future plans next week. Now I think I'll go. Eat a pear. Then watch the kids. Bye~
Pie out.
P.S. I told you I've been watching a lot of youtube lately, and I found a few channels you might like. The DNews and Numberphile. DNews have a lot of interesting scientific news stories, which are short enough to watch even if you have just a little time. They also explain everything pretty clearly, at least in my opinion. Numberphile has longer videos and they focus solely on math and numbers and all that. For example, did you know that 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+ ... +∞ = -1/12? Yeah. So check them out, maybe?
I have no idea what I'm going to write about today, so you get some trains of thought. And yes, I could write about the differences between Finland and USA, but I'm kinda saving that for a rainy day. Also, I haven't really been out so........ I know that the traffic sucks here. People just don't drive as nicely as they do back home.
So, the conclusion to last week's story of the broken heating device. Yeah, it was properly broken. We had to get a fixer guy come and there was a part they needed to order and we didn't get heat back until.... Wednesday I think. It's been cold. Even now it's not super warm, but at least it's more that 4°C, haha.
Speaking of cold, the snow situation is kinda crazy. I mean, it was super warm on Tuesday (like 10°C) and over half of the lovely snow piles melted. Then it froze again and the ground was super slippery and there were these sad little half melted piles of snow around. But today it snowed again, so at least the ground is now completely covered.
As I told you, we went to see Frozen with Anna in Colorado. It was good. Like, for a Disney movie, it was super good. Have you seen it? If you haven't, go see it. It had amazing songs and lovely characters and a surprising-ish plot twist. And unlike most Disney movies it wasn't about the prince getting the princess, it was about the sisters finding each other and growing as people. It was really quite lovely. And the trolls were cute. If a bit pushy. Also the Swedish guy, oh man.
Jumping from movies to TV, I AM NOT PREPARED FOR "HIS LAST VOW" (the Sherlock series 3 finale/epicness/cliffhanger of a lifetime)!! Like oh my GOD. Mary Morstan is perfect and lovely and gets along with Sherlock so well and is an exceptional female character and will probably die or back stab someone voluntarily or not and I don't think I can handle it. UGH. Yeah. So, you know. Watch Sherlock. The previous episode was so great. I am so excited right now! Also Supernatural is coming back next Tuesday, but if I start talking about that this post will become a mess of incoherent sobbing/flailing/muttering/etc, so instead I'll just leave this here and move on.
You wanted pictures of Cinnamon? I've got one for you.
The story itself could use some editing, so you can do that? Fix errors, and inconsistencies and stuff like that. But yeah. I will maybe possibly one day post more pictures. About this or something else.
What else? Oh yeah!
The reason I said I wanted to start a vlog is because I want to talk. Like actually talk out loud. And possibly influence people. I have been watching a lot of youtube videos lately and I kinda want to give someone the same experience that I have gotten from watching other vloggers. And it's not like we're gonna do this blog forever, you know? When I get back to Finland, it doesn't really make sense to continue it, does it? But I don't know. Maybe I'll start one when I start University. That'll be fun. 'Cause I have the time and everything, haha.
Hey, future! That's what I meant to talk about. Damn. I'll talk about my future plans next week. Now I think I'll go. Eat a pear. Then watch the kids. Bye~
Pie out.
P.S. I told you I've been watching a lot of youtube lately, and I found a few channels you might like. The DNews and Numberphile. DNews have a lot of interesting scientific news stories, which are short enough to watch even if you have just a little time. They also explain everything pretty clearly, at least in my opinion. Numberphile has longer videos and they focus solely on math and numbers and all that. For example, did you know that 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+ ... +∞ = -1/12? Yeah. So check them out, maybe?
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Books!
Good morning sunshine!
Inspired by your airport problems -story, I was going to write a post about my airport problems going to Australia and back. Or, well, technically I did (it's in the draft posts, we'll see if I'll ever actually post it), but then came up with something else I wanted to talk about.
Books!
So I realized the other night, that during the last year I have read more books that probably the previous few years put together.
So I wanted to list all the books I've read. This has actually a little to do with the Australia trip too, because the only reason I've read so many books lately is that when I was there I went to a bookshop cause I had nothing else to do at the moment, and stumbled upon a book by an author I had happened to spot at the library here and read a trilogy by the autumn before, and after that I really fell into reading books again. So I will begin my list of books from when I went to Australia.
Näkymättömät kaupungit (Le città invisibili), Italo Calvino
A book I only really read because the architecture exams had some pre-excercises having to do with the book. But it was pretty good. Basically it's just descriptions of different kinds of imaginary cities. Quite cool cities. Cities I'm not sure you can really call all cities.
The Black Prism
The Blinding Knife, Brent Weeks
Then I went to the bookshop. Brent Weeks is a brilliant author. I read earlier his Night Angel trilogy, and now found the first two books of the Lightbringer in Australia. They are so good, he's among my at the moment favourite authors. I'm still waiting for the other two books of the series, and actually The Broken Eye is coming out in August. I am so excited! I think The Blinding Knife actually won the 2013 Legend Award for best fantasy novel.
The Magician's Apprentice, Trudi Canavan
I have meant to read more of Trudi Canavan after that, but it seems to me that her books are impossible to find (in Finland). The only book I can find in either the library or a bookshop is Rogue, the second book of a trilogy that is a sequel to another trilogy to which The Magician's Apprentice is a stand-alone prequel. So basically I guess I should get the trilogy in the middle next. I actually saw a panel or two that Trudi Canavan was on at WFC.
If I am Missing or Dead, Janine Latus
Not fantasy for a change. I swapped this book to The Magician's Apprentice when I was in Katoomba just to have something new to read. It's not a bad book, but the other books are better.
A Song of Ice and Fire (the five books published), George RR Martin
The last book I read in Australia was A Game of Thrones, recommended to me by a girl from New Zealand, who I met in Katoomba. I also bought my copy of A Clash of Kings there and started on that on my way back, and spent the rest of the spring and half of the summer reading the rest of the series. Another one of my at the moment favourite authors. And there are still two more books to come out. And not sign of a release date yet for The Winds of Winter. Maybe in 2015, I've heard a rumour. And being such a delightful author, Martin decided to end A Dance with Dragons not on one cliffhanger, but five (at least, depends on how you count). Five. Thanks a lot.
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Again an author I got a glimpse of at WFC. After A Song of Ice and Fire I had a small break, because reading anything lighter (=anything) seemed weird, when all I wanted was the next book. But American Gods is good. Neil Gaiman is good. I actually borrowed this book from you.
The Fractal Prince, Hannu Rajaniemi
A scifi book, and a book by a Finnish author (who lives in UK, but still). His books are good, a little hard to follow, because of tons of words having to do with electric devices, of which most don't actually exist. I didn't realize it was a sequel to The Quantum Thief before I started reading and noticed the characters were the same. Another author who was (according to the attenders list) at WFC, though I didn't see him. Or didn't know it was him if I did.
The Alchemist of Souls, Anne Lyle
I book I got from WFC and began to read it there. The first part of a trilogy. I think you would actually like it. It tells about an alternative history where magic and another humanoid species exist on the earth. The time is Elizabethian (why is that not a word) London (Shakespear is in fact mentioned) and the other humanoid species that is capable of using magic has come over from the Americas to trade with the European humans. I can't really way much more without spoilers. I started to wonder a few days ago when the next book of the trilogy would be coming out. It turned out it already had. And the third one too. So now I'm waiting for them to come in the mail.
The Ocean At the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
Inspired by your airport problems -story, I was going to write a post about my airport problems going to Australia and back. Or, well, technically I did (it's in the draft posts, we'll see if I'll ever actually post it), but then came up with something else I wanted to talk about.
Books!
So I realized the other night, that during the last year I have read more books that probably the previous few years put together.
So I wanted to list all the books I've read. This has actually a little to do with the Australia trip too, because the only reason I've read so many books lately is that when I was there I went to a bookshop cause I had nothing else to do at the moment, and stumbled upon a book by an author I had happened to spot at the library here and read a trilogy by the autumn before, and after that I really fell into reading books again. So I will begin my list of books from when I went to Australia.
Näkymättömät kaupungit (Le città invisibili), Italo Calvino
A book I only really read because the architecture exams had some pre-excercises having to do with the book. But it was pretty good. Basically it's just descriptions of different kinds of imaginary cities. Quite cool cities. Cities I'm not sure you can really call all cities.
The Black Prism
The Blinding Knife, Brent Weeks
Then I went to the bookshop. Brent Weeks is a brilliant author. I read earlier his Night Angel trilogy, and now found the first two books of the Lightbringer in Australia. They are so good, he's among my at the moment favourite authors. I'm still waiting for the other two books of the series, and actually The Broken Eye is coming out in August. I am so excited! I think The Blinding Knife actually won the 2013 Legend Award for best fantasy novel.
The Magician's Apprentice, Trudi Canavan
I have meant to read more of Trudi Canavan after that, but it seems to me that her books are impossible to find (in Finland). The only book I can find in either the library or a bookshop is Rogue, the second book of a trilogy that is a sequel to another trilogy to which The Magician's Apprentice is a stand-alone prequel. So basically I guess I should get the trilogy in the middle next. I actually saw a panel or two that Trudi Canavan was on at WFC.
If I am Missing or Dead, Janine Latus
Not fantasy for a change. I swapped this book to The Magician's Apprentice when I was in Katoomba just to have something new to read. It's not a bad book, but the other books are better.
A Song of Ice and Fire (the five books published), George RR Martin
The last book I read in Australia was A Game of Thrones, recommended to me by a girl from New Zealand, who I met in Katoomba. I also bought my copy of A Clash of Kings there and started on that on my way back, and spent the rest of the spring and half of the summer reading the rest of the series. Another one of my at the moment favourite authors. And there are still two more books to come out. And not sign of a release date yet for The Winds of Winter. Maybe in 2015, I've heard a rumour. And being such a delightful author, Martin decided to end A Dance with Dragons not on one cliffhanger, but five (at least, depends on how you count). Five. Thanks a lot.
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Again an author I got a glimpse of at WFC. After A Song of Ice and Fire I had a small break, because reading anything lighter (=anything) seemed weird, when all I wanted was the next book. But American Gods is good. Neil Gaiman is good. I actually borrowed this book from you.
The Fractal Prince, Hannu Rajaniemi
A scifi book, and a book by a Finnish author (who lives in UK, but still). His books are good, a little hard to follow, because of tons of words having to do with electric devices, of which most don't actually exist. I didn't realize it was a sequel to The Quantum Thief before I started reading and noticed the characters were the same. Another author who was (according to the attenders list) at WFC, though I didn't see him. Or didn't know it was him if I did.
The Alchemist of Souls, Anne Lyle
I book I got from WFC and began to read it there. The first part of a trilogy. I think you would actually like it. It tells about an alternative history where magic and another humanoid species exist on the earth. The time is Elizabethian (why is that not a word) London (Shakespear is in fact mentioned) and the other humanoid species that is capable of using magic has come over from the Americas to trade with the European humans. I can't really way much more without spoilers. I started to wonder a few days ago when the next book of the trilogy would be coming out. It turned out it already had. And the third one too. So now I'm waiting for them to come in the mail.
The Ocean At the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman's books are beautiful. You should read it. I don't know what more to say. I think one of the greatest lines in the book is this: "Inside, they [grown-ups] look just like they always
have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there
aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world."
The Queen of The Tearling, Erika Johansen
Another book I got from WFC. A book that hasn't come out yet. It's release date is 8th of July this year. It's good. You should read it once it comes out. They're actually planning of making it into a movie already, and who ever it was who bought the film rights has gotten Emma Watson to play I assume the main character. Which is funny, because more than once in the book it's said she is plain and a bit chubby, and I'm pretty sure Emma Watson is either. Another series for which I am left to wait for the next book. Also, I'm still wondering, how is Tearling pronounced (since you would know)? It's the name of the kingdom. But if it's tear as in when you cry or tear as in when you rip something, I still don't know.
The Emperor's Blades, Brian Staveley
I actually just started this book a the other night, and now am fighting with myself between reading it and studying for a couple of exams I should get out of the way. It's another book that hasn't come out yet that I got an early copy or at WFC, though it's release date is closer: Jan 14th, aka next Tuesday. The annoying thing about an early copy is that instead of a map of the world, it has two pages on which only reads "Map spread". And I hate that, because there is nothing better than maps in fantasy books. Now when I'm reading all I can think is "I want to see where they are in the world!" Oh, I should start collecting fantasy world map posters! That would be so cool.
Oh.
That is a lot of books. 16. I have (soon) read 16 books in one year. That's like.. three weeks per book, and I haven't read all the time because I've had a lot of other stuff to do too, like you know, study. And most of them aren't thin books. The average length of the books in A Song of Ice And Fire is ~1000 pages. And I've had to read a few books for school that aren't listed here, because this is only the fiction I've read.
Well, that's... I just wish I had the time to keep up this pace with books. I want to read this many books.
Oh, books are great.
About the question you asked about the idea of a vlog.
Why don't you write all that stuff here? I am actually surprised that you haven't yet done a "Difference between USA and Finland" or something -post. I would've done that ages ago if i were you.
And weren't you just some time ago complaining about how you want to write cool and informative posts? And now you want to start a vlog to have all the stuff in your head said? Just write it all here!
Also, you'd have to get a pretty good video camera for a proper vlog, and they cost. Though I admit that random hits on youtube are more likely than random hits on a random blog (except from Malaysia. Someone please explain the 100 hits there?) , so if you want to reach a lot of people with the stuff you want to say, then that might work better.
And. Planning and filming and editing videos takes way more time than just writing.
But, I mean, other than that, sure.
Just put the stuff up here!
Also, pictures for Cinnamon! We're still waiting. And combining that and today's topic, again, do you think we should print it into a book just for ourselves, with the pictures? Once we have the pictures. Pictures!
And. Planning and filming and editing videos takes way more time than just writing.
But, I mean, other than that, sure.
Just put the stuff up here!
Also, pictures for Cinnamon! We're still waiting. And combining that and today's topic, again, do you think we should print it into a book just for ourselves, with the pictures? Once we have the pictures. Pictures!
~matu
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Airport Adventures and New Year's Resolutions
So, as you might have known, I spent new year's in Colorado, with my lovely, lovely friend Anna. I was there for six days and did more during that time than I had done in the other three and a half months I've been here. Which might say something about how active I am on my free time, but that's not what I meant to talk about. Now, I was supposed to come back yesterday prevening, but there was a snow storm and they closed down Boston's airport. So my flight got cancelled. And the airline didn't have available flights before Monday evening (which was too late, because I have work on Monday) and so I had to book another flight from another airline for the next day (today). And it was like a hundred bucks more expensive. And that sucks, but no can do.
So I had to stay one more day in Colorado, which was the only plus side in this whole fiasco. We went to see Catching Fire, which left us with so many feels it rivaled those of Sherlock's return (nugde nudge wink wink, came out on the 1st and the second episode comes on Sunday). We also went to see Frozen, which was a really good Disney movie, but that's not important right now. My flight today was much earlier than it had been on Thursday, and we had to leave the house at eight. I had a change in Atlanta, but for some reason the check-in machine would print out only my Denver-Atlanta boarding pass, which kinda freaked me out. Luckily I got the other one at the gate.
The boarding to the first plane took ages. I mean, we were half an hour late before they had gotten everyone in. I had an hour and a half layover at Atlanta, so it didn't matter that much, but it kinda freaked me out any way. The second flight was much better. I had the middle seat and ended up sitting between two really cute guys. And what did I do? I played pokemon. Like a boss. I mean, they were really pretty, but they were both probably some five years older than me, so whatever.
After the flights were over I still had to get home from the airport. There was a girl in the subway who had a Doctor Who scarf (or what really, really looked like one) and she was probably a bit freaked out by my excessive staring. But yeah. Subways! Hadn't done that before! I also had to switch to a bus in the end. And I had to wait half an hour before it arrived. But the bus driver was really cool. I wasn't exactly sure what stop I had to get off on, and neither was he, but he kept asking if the places looked familiar and that really helped. We finally did get to the right place, and he actually let me off before the actual stop, because the walk was shorter. He was super nice. Then I walked a few minutes home in about 20 cm of snow. That was fun.
But the fun didn't end there, oh no. I got home after twelve hours of traveling, turned the heater up, went to get pasta from the freezer in the garage and almost locked myself out! Then proceeded to cook the pasta while noticing that it hadn't really gotten any warmer. I texted Maria for help, and found out that the downstairs heater is apparently broken. So that's great. And now I'm sitting in front of the table, writing this with numb fingers, while eating a bowl of really disappointing spinach ravioli. Seriously, this is terrible. Ugh.
Also, I just checked, the temperature is 4ºC. YEAH. and it's not getting very much warmer with the broken heater. At least we have a fire place....
I have twenty minutes left of the day. (You'll excuse me if I am late with this, I have literally been traveling the whole day.) Yay.
As for New Year's... It doesn't really feel like 2014. I mean, it didn't really feel like Christmas either, but apparently that was a week back. So I guess it is 2014. Time to start hoarding the toilet paper.
I made on resolution this year. And it is to Contribute. I want to make something. To share in with the people who like the same things as me. To feel like I truly am a part of a group, and not just someone who hangs along. So I will try to do more things, and to share them with you. That is my resolution.
I also really want to start a vlog, but I'm not sure people would be interested in it. I mean, I have a lot of things I want to talk about. The experience of USA as an outsider, all kinds of political, philosophical and ethical views, math, nerdy stuff, fandoms, you know. All kinds of things I really want to talk about, but for some reason just don't. I could call it "In the Life of Pie". Or something. I dunno. Thoughts?
Pie out.
P.S. Haha, finished in time!
So I had to stay one more day in Colorado, which was the only plus side in this whole fiasco. We went to see Catching Fire, which left us with so many feels it rivaled those of Sherlock's return (nugde nudge wink wink, came out on the 1st and the second episode comes on Sunday). We also went to see Frozen, which was a really good Disney movie, but that's not important right now. My flight today was much earlier than it had been on Thursday, and we had to leave the house at eight. I had a change in Atlanta, but for some reason the check-in machine would print out only my Denver-Atlanta boarding pass, which kinda freaked me out. Luckily I got the other one at the gate.
The boarding to the first plane took ages. I mean, we were half an hour late before they had gotten everyone in. I had an hour and a half layover at Atlanta, so it didn't matter that much, but it kinda freaked me out any way. The second flight was much better. I had the middle seat and ended up sitting between two really cute guys. And what did I do? I played pokemon. Like a boss. I mean, they were really pretty, but they were both probably some five years older than me, so whatever.
After the flights were over I still had to get home from the airport. There was a girl in the subway who had a Doctor Who scarf (or what really, really looked like one) and she was probably a bit freaked out by my excessive staring. But yeah. Subways! Hadn't done that before! I also had to switch to a bus in the end. And I had to wait half an hour before it arrived. But the bus driver was really cool. I wasn't exactly sure what stop I had to get off on, and neither was he, but he kept asking if the places looked familiar and that really helped. We finally did get to the right place, and he actually let me off before the actual stop, because the walk was shorter. He was super nice. Then I walked a few minutes home in about 20 cm of snow. That was fun.
But the fun didn't end there, oh no. I got home after twelve hours of traveling, turned the heater up, went to get pasta from the freezer in the garage and almost locked myself out! Then proceeded to cook the pasta while noticing that it hadn't really gotten any warmer. I texted Maria for help, and found out that the downstairs heater is apparently broken. So that's great. And now I'm sitting in front of the table, writing this with numb fingers, while eating a bowl of really disappointing spinach ravioli. Seriously, this is terrible. Ugh.
Also, I just checked, the temperature is 4ºC. YEAH. and it's not getting very much warmer with the broken heater. At least we have a fire place....
I have twenty minutes left of the day. (You'll excuse me if I am late with this, I have literally been traveling the whole day.) Yay.
As for New Year's... It doesn't really feel like 2014. I mean, it didn't really feel like Christmas either, but apparently that was a week back. So I guess it is 2014. Time to start hoarding the toilet paper.
I made on resolution this year. And it is to Contribute. I want to make something. To share in with the people who like the same things as me. To feel like I truly am a part of a group, and not just someone who hangs along. So I will try to do more things, and to share them with you. That is my resolution.
I also really want to start a vlog, but I'm not sure people would be interested in it. I mean, I have a lot of things I want to talk about. The experience of USA as an outsider, all kinds of political, philosophical and ethical views, math, nerdy stuff, fandoms, you know. All kinds of things I really want to talk about, but for some reason just don't. I could call it "In the Life of Pie". Or something. I dunno. Thoughts?
Pie out.
P.S. Haha, finished in time!
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