The axolotl

Once again I am faced with the problem of how to start a blog post. Maybe I'll write a post about how difficult it is, sometime.

Anyway.

Today, thanks to Google Drive, I ran into this weird animal called the axolotl. Yes, that's actually a name of a species. I'd like to talk about them for a while, simply because they have a weird name and are kinda weird looking, and weird animals are awesome.

Here, I drew a picture of an axolotl for you:

(Time well spent not studying.)



If you want a better one, you gotta google it. You should.









Axolotls are a type of salamander, that are critically endangered and live in lakes in Mexico. That's why they're also called Mexican salamanders. Or Mexican walking fish.
Axolotls are about 20-30 cm long, and they look a lot like salamander larvae (=something like a tadpole, since salamanders are amphibians). Unlike other salamanders, they just never go through metamorphosis (which means they exhibit neoteny. Yeah, a completely new word for me too.) so they never grow into full salamanders in the same sense as other salamanders, but stay in a form that has gills (that are the weird tentacly things at the side of it's head) and no eyelids and half-legs (since they're not actually proper legs, but it's something...) and lives in water full-time.
Also, about my picture, the axolotls aren't usually pink, but brown or black. The pink ones are mutated, and there can also be albinos that I guess are even lighter.

The name of the species, axolotl, which I still find really weird, comes from I think the Nahuatl (a language native to the Mexico area) word for "water monster". I don't know about you, but I don't think it looks much like a monster.

The axolotl are carnivorous animals. They eat worms and little fish and stuff. But they don't really have teeth, so they eat by just sucking in what ever they're eating at the moment.

Also, you can have axolotls as pets.

I don't know what else. This information is brought to you by wikipedia (and, well, me), go see that if you want to know something else.

Axolotls are weird, and weird animals are cool.
Weird things in the nature are cool. Which is why I want to study biology.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have two more exams to take before Thursday evening, and I'm pretty sure reading about axolotls won't help with that.
Speaking of which (=Thursday evening), I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't write next week. Because, you know, not much point. But you should write on Friday, simply so that I won't write two in a row. And if you wrote it in the middle of the night like you did that one time, I could actually read it before leaving for the train. Not saying you should. Just stating a fact.
I'll see you on... Friday? Saturday? How long are the flights? We'd have 16 and a half hours after the plain leaves and it's still Friday there, so I'm guessing Friday. But I have no idea how long time we're gonna be stuck in... Reykjavik? Yeah, I'm well on board with this. I'm counting on mom knowing so I can just follow her. At least I know what time the first plain leaves. But we'd have to stop for a reeeaaaally long time somewhere if we wouldn't be there already on Friday evening.
So.... Yeah.

Bye.

~matu

The beginning of an adventure

I... don't know.

I've been watching Doctor Who. Three seasons in five days, and I actually slept 8-9 hours each night. So that's a pretty good accomplishment I think. Bloody brilliant show btw, at least the first seasons. I've heard a lot of bad about the 11th Doctor seasons, which is a shame, because it is a great show with a great history and Steven Moffat is a sexist assbutt who doesn't deserve any part of it, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

What am I here to talk about? I don't know.

I think I'll write you a story.

~x~

Far to the West, where the Northern Mountains meet the Inkling Forest, a small village rests in a river valley, half a day's trip from the Great Sea. It is a simple place, this village, with simple people with simple needs, and even if there occasionally is a traveler or two, they are always just passing through on their way to the City by the Sea, Tenmér, and don't pose much of a change. The village holds no great natural resources, no political value and has an inconvenient location, being basically inaccessible unless traveling along the river Renn, making it practically the safest place on earth quite simply because no one gives two shits about it.

That is my village, that is my home. That is Lendá.

I too am a pretty simple person. The name in Pin, 17, and I am the youngest of five. Dad's a hunter, mum's a seamstress, and I can do a bit of both. Being the youngest, I don't have much pressure to follow in my parents' footsteps like my oldest brother and sister do, so I am pretty free to do what I want. Problem is, I don't quite know what I want. Mum sometimes pressures me to get married and settle down, but I don't wanna do that. Not yet, there's still too much to see in the world. So many adventures to go out and find.

But who would've thought that the adventures would come looking for me?

~x~

I don't know. It's a fantasy story. There will be dragons. And dragon riding. And something else, I haven't really gotten that far. Ideas are much appreciated?

Pie out.

The lovely springtime in Finland

Good morning.

About a month ago, I wrote a post about how it's cold. Now I'm going to write a post about how it's not. Simply because I'm pretty sure you don't know what the weather is like in Finland.

So, a while back (around New Year's, maybe?) my facebook main page was filled with how it's cold in northern US. Very, very cold. Meanwhile people in Finland and Alaska were like "Cold? Guys, it's raining out there."
We had a colder period in the end of October. I mentioned it, it had been a little colder for a week, and we had snow on the ground. The following day it started raining. And it rained. And rained. And rained. Until January. That was when the temperatures dropped again, down all the way to almost cold around -15 degrees Celsius. During the day time, that is. I had been cold for a couple of weeks when I complained about cold a month ago. That cold period lasted for like three weeks. Then the temperatures rose again, and now we're back to raining.
I heard a rumour (as in haven't seen it being said anywhere myself) that they're predicting that was all the cold for this winter.
So now it's apparently spring here. The lovely time when the days grow longer warmer, and the sun melts the snow, and birds start to sing and nature comes to life.
Or, you know, not.
It is raining. All the time. Or if not raining, then at least cloudy. The temperature stays at about zero, a degree or two above. In the nights I guess a little below. And it's February. And, as you know, in February in Finland, the days aren't exactly long yet. So the daylight hours are short, and the little light we get during that time is blocked behind what seems like and endless, thick blanket of clouds. There isn't even much snow left to reflect around what little does get down here. I don't remember anymore how long it's been since I've seen the sun the last time. The air is moist all the time, which makes everything feel cold and wet. And just cold (though not too much) is better than cold and wet.
That's that it's been like at least in southern Finland. It might be colder in Lapland.

Though I guess if it has to be this kind of weather some time, I guess it's good it's now. At the moment I'm spending my time studying, because I have set myself a goal: Get everything you can right now out of the way by the end of the month. Which means that during the next nine days I will read through over four hundred pages (just about 400 left!) on how politicians use media, and the freedom of speech, and notes worth almost 50 hours of lectures, and take four exams. And do a group work on communication in groups, but that's a small thing and won't take too many hours. Anyway, this means it doesn't matter too much what the weather is right now. So that's gonna be fun. And not at all impossible, since on five of those nine days I have literally nothing else to do. Well, I have capoeira training on two of those five, but that's at eight in the evening and if I've spent the whole day studying, I don't think I'll want to keep going after that anyway.
Also, all this means that when February turns to March, I'll only have a little left to do for school this spring. A five page essay, a dozen lectures of logic, some more group communication, and a class about argumentation that I don't really know much about yet. Which means I will have time to study for some other exams, so maybe this year they'll take me in to study something other than mathematics.

Today I was planning on writing about why sitting is bad for you, but then the weather started to depress me, and I figured you might be curious about what kind of winter we've had here, since it hasn't been exactly a typical one. Maybe I'll do the sitting thing next week. Or maybe I'll write about why the freedom of speech is important, since I'll spend the weekend studying that.

~matu

PS. Just because.

Such dating, very love

Yes, I know, I said I'd talk about the Russian Olympics, but nothing super interesting has happened (aside these commercials from the Canadians and Norwegians, and also the whole world being really passive-aggressive about the gay thing) and it is Valentine's day, so instead I'm gonna tell you about the time I had a boyfriend for ten weeks and basically no one knew.

So, this story starts in high school, just like aaaalll great stories do. New school, new class, new people. Thank god for Anna, because otherwise I would not have survived. There was this one boy in our class, who would've been "the Jock" (he actually did play American football, and thanks to that I now know the theory of how that game goes), except that he was a huge nerd. Although I guess he was a cool kind of nerd, but anyway. So me and Anna always hung out with him and this other dude, who was a bit of a douche, but this story isn't about him so who cares, because nerds like nerds and we had a lot of common ground. Now, I liked him, I really did, but maybe not quite in the way he liked me. I had no idea in the beginning, I had never even considered the possibility that a guy might actually want to date.

We hung out together at the CoffeeHouse a few times when I had like 20min to kill before my bus came (he always had a lot of time after school, because he didn't have time to go home before his practice) and I actually remember thinking "wow, this must really look like a date to everyone else", but I didn't think too much about it, because again, I had not considered that he liked me that way. I had entertained the idea of what it would be like to date him, but then again I do that to everyone so I hardly think it's relevant. Anyway.

That changed in February 2011 (hey, it's almost our would-be 3rd anniversary), in Chibicon. I didn't really hang out with him there, because I have my own friends, but at the very end he kinda pulled me aside and asked The Big Question "pitäiskö alkaa oleen?" which I still think is a ridiculous way to ask someone to go out with you because it literally means "should we start being" and I'm just here like "I don't know about you, but I've been being my entire life". But I digress. So he asked me out. I was surprised and baffled and confused and all those words, because really? We talked a bit and I decided that I could probably go out with him, because I did like him and I'd never tried dating a boy before. And then we did nothing for like two weeks or something.

Seriously, nothing changed. Then we went out on that date, we went to see a movie Gulliver's Travels and for me it was rather awkward. Also the movie sucked. Well, I didn't like it at least. Whenever I remembered that it was a date I felt awkward again. And after the movie ended he walked me to my bus and I went home and man, it was just awkward all over. Though it's possible that was just me. We had another "date" in April or something (it was already spring-ish). He picked me up with his motorcycle, which was really cool, and we went to his place in Siilinjärvi after driving around for a bit and then played Super Smash Bros Brawl for ages (his little brother joined in as well, so it wasn't really all the romantic, haha) and then had coffee or something (except I didn't drink coffee because I don't like it, but anyway), watched the first few episodes of this anime called Angel Beats I think, and then he drove me back home on his motorcycle which was still really cool.

And then we didn't do anything. Idk, man, it wasn't really dating. I knew I had to tell him that we weren't really working as a couple, and on May Day I decided that I'd tell him the next school day. I really didn't want to do it, because social interaction, awkward, feeling, ugh. You know. Well, as luck would have it, I didn't have to because just as I was about to tell him he said to me that we need to talk. Apparently I wasn't the only one who realized things weren't working, and during May Day he had apparently talked with his ex (who I apparently kinda reminded him of, funny that) and he wanted to get back together with her or something, I don't know, I was so relived at that point I didn't pay attention really. He was sure I'd be mad, because breaking up with someone to get back together with one's ex is a pretty douche move, but I was just "nah, brah, it wasn't working with us anyway" and we went back to being friends. I still consider him my friend, even if I haven't really seen him after junior year of high school, what with me switching schools and him being in Japan as an exchange student for a year, but whatever. I actually borrowed his voice for my radio play, when I had a radio-works-media-course last year. He was pretty chill with it. I also briefly met his girlfriend. I don't know if she was the same one, but she seemed nice. Though it was kinda weird to see them together, but it was probably just me again.

And that was the story of how I had a secret boyfriend.

Pie out.

P.S. Funny thing about your internet, because I'm not gonna have an internet next week, because we're going to Canada. So I might not be able to make a post on Friday. Permission to postpone it until Sunday? (Ok, so I might be able to access the internet a few times during the week, but I cannot promise anything.)

Without the Internet

So.

Yesterday I was in Helsinki, in a meeting where we making first plans about a new type of protu camp for next summer. We already have camps that specialise in getting teenagers think about life's big things via arts, music, theatre and sports. Not that we wouldn't have all those on regular camps, but there is a shift in emphasis towards certain methods on those camps. Next summer we are getting a new type of camp, never tried before: writing. In general there is very little writing happening on protu camps, except for the letters every night, and the notes everyone writes for everyone full of nice things about them in the end of the camp. So we (I) decided, that we want a camp where all the book nerds can come and try to figure out their life in writing.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, I'll tell you what.
I left my laptop charger in Helsinki.
This means that I cannot use a computer at home before I get it back.
This means, that I have to live more or less without the internet for a week, since I'm going to Helsinki again on friday, though then I'll spend the weekend teaching kids fresh from their own camp how to go and make a great camp for new kids. Yes, I'm still talking about protu. So the next time I will have access to the internet or the rest of the laptop at home will be next Sunday.
And that sucks. For two reasons.

1. People are used to being continuously connected. This is the first thing I noticed. I am used to always having my laptop on when I'm home, and on my laptop I have open a dozen tabs on the internet, the main ones being facebook and three different e-mails. Which means that I am used to being connected to other people all the time. Even if I sit alone at home and study, I have all the time the possibility to get up, walk to the laptop across the room, and start chatting another person. I rarely do that, but I had the possibility, and the possibility is what makes a person feel connected. Now that that possibility is taken away, I feel detatched from the world and alone. Because in a world filled with computers and smartphones, as long as you have access to the internet, you're never truly alone.
I am not one of those people who spend huge amounts of time on the internet, even though I have it always right there, ready. I just have it open, and do seomthing else. This week, I had a plan to study so that I could get a few exams out of the way before March. So I was surprised of how much just not having the possibility to easily comminucate with people (true, I still have a phone, but in a world with the internet, I've noticed people don't really contact you via phone, including texts, unless they actually have something to say) affects a person's life.
Being disconnected feels bad.

2. Simple practicality. I don't have access to e-mail. I need acces to e-mail, because I have e-mails to send and answer about the new camp I was just talking about earlier, and the weekend coming up. Not being able to communicate with the rest of the seven-person team teaching the kids how to make a good camp is very, very impractical. Trying to plan a weekend without having access to e-mail is, well, pretty much impossible, since e-mail is the primary way of communicating. We also use Skype and google Drive, which also, surprisingly, require the access to internet.
Also there is the point, that I am a university student. I have material on my laptop that I should study for an exam that doesn't exist as a book and is too long to actually print out. Also I have a group project to work on for this class about communiation in groups, and we are supposed to communicate and agree on a time and place to meet to get started, yes, you guessed it, on the internet. So, as a university student, I actually need a a computer and the access to internet. Not having the access to internet at home makes my life more difficult on a practical level.

So yes, not having a laptop with batterylife at home makes life a little more lonely and difficult.
And before you ask, I am at the university right now, in one of the numerous computerclasses found all over the campus. So yeah, when I come all the way here, I get to use a computer. But still, it's difficult, and I have to plan my time usage a lot more accurately. For example, ir is Monay noon right now, when I'm writing this, because tomorrow I don't have tie to stay at the university and write a whole blog post. I was going to write this (well, about somehthing else) tomorrow evening, at home, but it turns out I can't.

So, it's going to be an interesting week.

~matu

PS. I'm giving up on the thing. I've been hiding a quote from a book (fiction), some book, to all the previois posts. Some of them are a little too obvious, and now I'm starting to run out of quotes (not to mention I have a list of them on my laptop, that I don't have an access to), or rather options. I still have great quotes left, but for some reason I'd need the quote to have something to with what I'm writing.
But we can make a game out of it! Can you find all the quotes in all my posts? I'm pretty sure you can't, since you haven't read all the books. Though some of them don't really fit very well into the rest of the text, so they might be easy to spot anyway.

Yeah, you're probably not going to go to try to find them..

10 more fun facts

Top o' the mornin' to ya, eh! Sorry.

So, I thought I could talk about the Winter Olympics that start today, but I thought I'd leave that update to next week when something has actually happened by the time I get over to writing. But I will make a prediction: things will go sooooo wrong. I am waiting here with very mixed feelings of dread and anticipation. They are not prepared. At all. Oh dear.

But yeah, I'll talk more about that next week. Now for more fun facts.

1. Almonds are a part of the same genus as plums, cherries, peaches and the sort, the prunus family, and actually even to the same subgenus as peaches, the amygdalus.

2. There is a word that literally means the feeling you get when you're walking down the street or sth, and you realize that all the people who walk past you are all PEOPLE WHO HAVE THEIR OWN LIVES AND OWN PROBLEMS AND DREAMS AND LOVED ONES. That word is sonder (n.)

3. A bunch of bananas is called a hand. Logically, one banana is therefore called a finger.

4. If you flip a shark so that it's belly up in the water, it goes into a trance like state. Orcas sometimes do this just for kicks, being the bastards they are.

5. There is a total of 185 Supernatural episodes currently aired. With the average episode length at 41-42 minutes, it adds up to a total of 7768 minutes, or 128 hours, or 5 days and 8 hours. Personally, having watched the entire show twice and several episodes multiple more times, I have probably spent some 12 days watching the show.

6. The fake name Mulan uses in the Disney movie, Fa (read as "Hua" in Chinese) Ping, means "flower vase". It is also slang for "effeminate or gay man".

7. If you bury a body 2-3 meters under the body of a dead dog, the body sniffing hounds will dig up the dog and the police will think it's a false positive.

8. There is an octopus called Indonesian Mimic Octopus, and man that thing is a ninja. It can mimic a crab, lionfish, sea snake, flatfish, and jellyfish and uses it's skills to evade predators and hunt. Have a picture.



That is all the same animal. Yeah. This guy is crazy awesome.


Just look at that. Wow. What a ninja.

9. Peter Jackson makes a cameo in both the The Fellowship of the Ring and Desolation of Smaug. He plays a man eating a carrot in Bree.

10. Mantis shrimps can solve Rubik's cubes, because they see color differently from us.

Welp, this was a weird list. I hope you liked it. I'm gonna go now. Bye.

Pie out.

10 fun facts

Today I don't really have anything big to talk about, but there are a lot of little things. So I thought I'd tell you some fun facts that have nothing to do with each other. Just because, you know, fun facts are fun.

1. Humming birds can fly backwards. They also flap their wings up to 80 times per second and their hearts can beat 1260 times a minute (normal human heart rate is 60-100 beats per minute).

2. In HIMYM, when Barney got hit by a bus in the end of season 3, the bus was driving the wrong way on a one-way street. Just in case you haven't noticed. I could give you more HIMYM fun facts, but maybe I'll save that for later.

3. Dumpster diving is legal in Finland. However, breaking (or finding some other way) into a fenced or locked area to get to the dumpster is illegal.

4. Apparently the oldest found fossil of an animal with fur is (was in 2006) 164 million years old. As in there were mammals at the same time as dinosaurs. For some reason I always thought mammals came after all the dinosaurs died off. Though according to wiki answers the first big mammals appeared 65 million years ago. Don't know what big means, though.
I so much want to study evolution.

5. 200 million years ago there was only one continent, Pangaea. You probably already knew this, though. But here's a map for you of how the continents were formed:

I took it from here.

6. I'm going to Barcelona in May!

7. The guy who played Dibala (the African dictator in House s6e4) is also the voice of Darth Vader. I googled this after he was on the last episode of The Big Bang Theory.

8. If you have a pizza, and the radius is z, and thickness is a, it's volume is Pi*z*z*a.

9. Blue eyes developed earlier in human evolution than light skin.

10. The Earth spins around itself about 465 meters per second and around the Sun about 30 km per second. Just think about it.

This week I'm not putting in the thing I have had in all the other posts that no one cares about. I would've also given you the fun fact of there being a jelly fish species that doesn't die of old age, but you already know that.

I don't know what else. I'll write something more interesting next week.

~matu