Okay. Last week I had three things in my mind I could write about. Today I seem to have none. Because all I've been doing for the last week is have a vacation. There isn't really any work to do, like I explained last week, so I've just been... I have no idea what I've been doing. I've sweat a lot, since the temperature has been somewhere between 25 and 30-something degrees. Okay. So I'll do parts.
1. Cartwheels. With one hand. I decided a few years ago I'd practise that over the summer. I didn't. Now, after three years of training capoeira, I've almost mastered it with one hand. The normal one I've been able to do since I was a kid, so that I didn't have to learn. But yeah. I can almost do a good cartwheel with one hand. To both sides. With both hands. I'm weirdly proud.
2. Explorer belt. I was already talking about this when you were here. So, next summer. A month in Italy. Of which ten days hiking in pairs. I've been trying to find someone to go with. One said no time, and other said no money, and third said "Oh, that sounds awesome! I'll just do some calculating and I'll get back to you once I know if I have enough money."
So we'll see how that goes. I'd like to have someone to go with so I wouldn't be paired up with a random person, because I suck at people.
I also realised that especially if I work a little over the winter, I might be able to pay that trip myself, without dipping into the money mom's saving for me now. That feels kinda great.
Also, if someone out there has a great idea for an application (because only 40 people get to go, so people who want need to apply) for that, please let me know. I've seen one application that got the guys who had done it in, and that was in the form of a calendar. So it can be anything.
3. I want to keep writing. As in after you come back. Because I like writing a blog. Even though you said it's pretty pointless once you're back. But who cares. Just thought I'd mention.
4. This shirt is adorable. Nothing more to it. Just wanted to show it to you. I'd also want to play Portal 2, but I'm pretty sure I can't, cause Ubuntu.
5. I don't remember if Firefly was on your list of things I should watch, but a friend of mine told me to watch it and gave me the DVD. Haven't gotten to it yet, though.
6. I'm getting my flute back tomorrow!
It broke in the beginning of May, and then it took me weeks to get it to the repair place, and then it stayed there for weeks, until I went there last week and said "Hi, I was just wondering when I'll get my flute back", and they said, "Yeah, there wasn't a deadline for it said anywhere, and it's been vacation time, so it hasn't been a priority", but it should be done when I go get it tomorrow.
7. I am now officially a journalism student. Though I'm planning on studying more biotechnology than journalism this year. And a lot of ecology, since that's apparently the only thing they ask in the biology exam to get in to study that. Well, mostly, not only. I may just be bitter, because I screwed up three of five questions in the exam, because they're ecology, which I'm not good at, because we didn't really study that on IB, and I'm more interested in all the other stuff than that.
Ok, you've heard that already, since we bitched about it with a friend of yours when you were there and I saw them. So I'll shut up about it.
I think that's enough of random things for today. I'm waiting for what ever you've already written for me that will come up on Friday.
~matu
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Friday, July 25, 2014
Status update or whatever
Hello, it's Me From the Past again. Did you miss me? (That is a reference, did you get it?)
We're going up to Canada again, this time leaving around noon and I have to watch Leila in the morning so I don't have time to write this tomorrow, so I'll just write this now. Also, we're gonna be gone for two weeks. Fuck that. Anyway, I'll write next week's post today as well. Just ignore it, mmkay? And yes, I will be writing more punishment posts hurray. That was sarcastic. I now realize that text is not the best medium to be sarcastic in.
I... don't really know what to tell you right now. Uhh.
I can't believe how little time I have left. It's crazy really. Like, after we come back down it's already August. And then it's a matter of weeks. I haven't gotten a confirmation for the plane ticket yet though.... That is a thing I should probably worry about... Ahh, fuck. I kinda wanna just come home right now and sleep for the next month and then start Uni probably because I don't really know what else to do with my time. I mean I have many things I would like to do with my time, but school might actually be useful or whatever. I need to go to the bathroom, hold on a sec.
So anyway.
I have so much to do for the next weeks. Like, I have about ten shows on my computer and a handful of movies, and I have two books and so many fics and a million things to draw, like Cinnamon and my Sapphire nuzlocke, and several things to write, like a Hunger Games/SPN crossover fic and this other fic where Cas is an android, not to mention DRAGONSSS. It is entirely possible that I will end up doing very little of these things, but it is two weeks and I have no internet so idk anything can happen really. I've never gone this long without an internet. Or at least I can't remember the last time....
Wait, I need to write two posts in advance. Awwww fuck, I wanna sleeeeepppppppppp.
I'm just gonna end this here. I'll see you in two weeks if I'm not dead...
Pie out.
We're going up to Canada again, this time leaving around noon and I have to watch Leila in the morning so I don't have time to write this tomorrow, so I'll just write this now. Also, we're gonna be gone for two weeks. Fuck that. Anyway, I'll write next week's post today as well. Just ignore it, mmkay? And yes, I will be writing more punishment posts hurray. That was sarcastic. I now realize that text is not the best medium to be sarcastic in.
I... don't really know what to tell you right now. Uhh.
I can't believe how little time I have left. It's crazy really. Like, after we come back down it's already August. And then it's a matter of weeks. I haven't gotten a confirmation for the plane ticket yet though.... That is a thing I should probably worry about... Ahh, fuck. I kinda wanna just come home right now and sleep for the next month and then start Uni probably because I don't really know what else to do with my time. I mean I have many things I would like to do with my time, but school might actually be useful or whatever. I need to go to the bathroom, hold on a sec.
So anyway.
I have so much to do for the next weeks. Like, I have about ten shows on my computer and a handful of movies, and I have two books and so many fics and a million things to draw, like Cinnamon and my Sapphire nuzlocke, and several things to write, like a Hunger Games/SPN crossover fic and this other fic where Cas is an android, not to mention DRAGONSSS. It is entirely possible that I will end up doing very little of these things, but it is two weeks and I have no internet so idk anything can happen really. I've never gone this long without an internet. Or at least I can't remember the last time....
Wait, I need to write two posts in advance. Awwww fuck, I wanna sleeeeepppppppppp.
I'm just gonna end this here. I'll see you in two weeks if I'm not dead...
Pie out.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Work
Ok, so when you were here, you read a story I wrote about a king who was trying to prevent his people from getting sick. You didn't understand what it was about, so I promised to tell you about what we're doing at work this summer.
Before I start, I'll let you know that all the links lead to pages in Opasnet that are in Finnish. However, you can find links to corresponding pages in English on those pages. Though I'm not sure how much anything there is on them.
As you know, I'm working for dad. Again. It's my sixth summer, which seems unbelievable. This year we are doing two things. One is pretty much done already. We organised some conversation that was had about a future plan of the traffic and communications ministry that they're doing getting ready for next year's governmental election.
The bigger thing we're doing this year is assessment about pneumococcal vaccines.
The background info is this: Streptococcus pneumoniae are bacteria that cause all kinds of things from a simple ear infections to meningitis and pneumonia. In 2010, they added a vaccine for pneumococcal diseases in the national vaccination program, which means that in Finland every child born gets it with all the usual vaccinations when they're under 1 year.
The state had a contract to get the vaccines for the four first years (I assume four, since that's how long it's been since it was taken into use). Now they're wanting a new contract. However, everyone making decisions about vaccinations is completely fed up with fighting with the same anti-vaxxers after every single decision they make. So what they're doing now is they're doing is making the decision and conversation leading to that decision publicly from the very beginning. So that's what we're doing. Organising conversation about pneumococcal vaccines, so that the people choosing between two vaccines can make a good decision that everyone can have had a say on, so they won't come complaining later.
Or, well. That's what we would be doing, if there was any conversation going on. Which there isn't, because no one knows about what we're doing, because the people in the Institute of Health and Welfare's PR-department think it's not worth starting to send info about this to newspaper and stuff, because participating in the conversation would be too difficult for normal people, even though the whole point of doing it like this is to give the normal people a chance to participate. So there's nothing to organise.
During the time we've spend not organising the conversation we've for example made a questionnaire about some questions having to do with the decision that have more to do with ethics than actually factual information about the vaccines or the diseases they're trying to prevent. We're doing this to have a simple, easy and quick way for anyone to participate in the decision-making, so we can try to prove the PR-people wrong. You should go answer that. You all should go answer that. Though there's a chance it might still change a little bit after we get some feedback from people about stuff like the clarity about the questions. The content will pretty surely stay the same, though, so go. Answer. Give us opinions about ethics.
And that's how we come back to the story I wrote. Last week when we were planning the questionnaire with dad, we came to the conclusion that we need to clarify question 2. Dad spent the whole time talking about how we should write a story to make it clearer. Or course, he didn't mean an actual story, but a bit of text that is now in Q2. Well, below the questionnaire.
But since he was talking about a story, I decided I wanted to write the same thing into an actual story anyway. So that's what I did. And that's what you read and didn't understand. So go check the questionnaire. The story will make a lot more sense, since it's actually just a different version of the second question.
So that's what I'm doing this summer.
Or at least trying to. There isn't all that much work to do since there's no one participating in the conversation. Also the sun and temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius (in the shade) is pretty distracting. I'm not complaining, mind you. I like these temperatures. It just makes concentrating on stuff I should be doing more difficult.
On the other hand, I checked out classes for myself for next year (journalism, biotechnology, and I'm thinking if I should take some French. I'd prefer Italian or Portuguese, but those aren't options here. And maybe I'd actually be able to speak French after studying it from the beginning for the second time.)
So that's what I'm doing this summer at work.
If someone wants to read the story I could post it here as a separate extra post. Or put it somewhere up on Opasnet.
~matu
Before I start, I'll let you know that all the links lead to pages in Opasnet that are in Finnish. However, you can find links to corresponding pages in English on those pages. Though I'm not sure how much anything there is on them.
As you know, I'm working for dad. Again. It's my sixth summer, which seems unbelievable. This year we are doing two things. One is pretty much done already. We organised some conversation that was had about a future plan of the traffic and communications ministry that they're doing getting ready for next year's governmental election.
The bigger thing we're doing this year is assessment about pneumococcal vaccines.
The background info is this: Streptococcus pneumoniae are bacteria that cause all kinds of things from a simple ear infections to meningitis and pneumonia. In 2010, they added a vaccine for pneumococcal diseases in the national vaccination program, which means that in Finland every child born gets it with all the usual vaccinations when they're under 1 year.
The state had a contract to get the vaccines for the four first years (I assume four, since that's how long it's been since it was taken into use). Now they're wanting a new contract. However, everyone making decisions about vaccinations is completely fed up with fighting with the same anti-vaxxers after every single decision they make. So what they're doing now is they're doing is making the decision and conversation leading to that decision publicly from the very beginning. So that's what we're doing. Organising conversation about pneumococcal vaccines, so that the people choosing between two vaccines can make a good decision that everyone can have had a say on, so they won't come complaining later.
Or, well. That's what we would be doing, if there was any conversation going on. Which there isn't, because no one knows about what we're doing, because the people in the Institute of Health and Welfare's PR-department think it's not worth starting to send info about this to newspaper and stuff, because participating in the conversation would be too difficult for normal people, even though the whole point of doing it like this is to give the normal people a chance to participate. So there's nothing to organise.
During the time we've spend not organising the conversation we've for example made a questionnaire about some questions having to do with the decision that have more to do with ethics than actually factual information about the vaccines or the diseases they're trying to prevent. We're doing this to have a simple, easy and quick way for anyone to participate in the decision-making, so we can try to prove the PR-people wrong. You should go answer that. You all should go answer that. Though there's a chance it might still change a little bit after we get some feedback from people about stuff like the clarity about the questions. The content will pretty surely stay the same, though, so go. Answer. Give us opinions about ethics.
And that's how we come back to the story I wrote. Last week when we were planning the questionnaire with dad, we came to the conclusion that we need to clarify question 2. Dad spent the whole time talking about how we should write a story to make it clearer. Or course, he didn't mean an actual story, but a bit of text that is now in Q2. Well, below the questionnaire.
But since he was talking about a story, I decided I wanted to write the same thing into an actual story anyway. So that's what I did. And that's what you read and didn't understand. So go check the questionnaire. The story will make a lot more sense, since it's actually just a different version of the second question.
So that's what I'm doing this summer.
Or at least trying to. There isn't all that much work to do since there's no one participating in the conversation. Also the sun and temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius (in the shade) is pretty distracting. I'm not complaining, mind you. I like these temperatures. It just makes concentrating on stuff I should be doing more difficult.
On the other hand, I checked out classes for myself for next year (journalism, biotechnology, and I'm thinking if I should take some French. I'd prefer Italian or Portuguese, but those aren't options here. And maybe I'd actually be able to speak French after studying it from the beginning for the second time.)
So that's what I'm doing this summer at work.
If someone wants to read the story I could post it here as a separate extra post. Or put it somewhere up on Opasnet.
~matu
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The little things
I am late, I am aware of that. I haven't had internet access since Thursday prevening. But now I do, yay.
More airport updates. Today I'm going to list a few of the little things that are different in in US. And I mean little things.
Showers. The American showers are stupid. In Finland you have two knobs, one for temperature and one for pressure, or at least the kind of knob you twist from side to side to change temperature and up and down to put the shower on. Not in US, no, 'cause that would be convenient. In the US, there is one knob that turns one way and if you want to get hot water you first have to suffer through a burst of cold water, because then you twist it it is first cold and then hot. This is very annoying because you can't turn the shower off without the water getting cold. Also the hot water can only come out with full blast and that's just stupid.
Not leaving the bathrooms, the toilet seats are also different. They're wider, but also flatter, which is weird. I mean, Finnish seats are much more, uh, deep? Steep? Plus, you can never know where the flushing mechanism is. Also, although this probably depends on the sink, the sinks can be really stupid. Like, my faucet is three cm from the back edge of the sink even though the sink is fairly big. Which is kinda inconvenient when you want to wash your hands.
Enough about toilets. I'm running out of time.
The bed sizes are consistent (thank god) but you can't really know their size related to the other beds. Or at all. There's a normal, and a double and a queen and a king and probably a super-mega-king, but you don't really know how big they are and how much bigger is this compared to that. Also, the bed linen are different, kinda. They're 90% of the time fitted (with a rubber band at the edge y'know) and they don't have blanket covers. They have a sheet and then put the blanket on top of the sheet. I think they used to do that in Finland as well once upon a time?
What else, hmm. You can turn right on red (with a car) unless stated you can't. Nobody uses the turn signal, it is really inconvenient to get anywhere on foot and you can park pretty much anywhere. With is really weird. They don't have like marked parking spots, you just park there if there's enough space between the cars. I mean, on parking lots they have of course, but not on the sides of the roads.
People engage in small talk much more frequently than in Finland (surprise) and this is a problem for me not only because I'm a Finn, but because I'm pretty bad at chit-chat even for a Finn. I just like to go on about my business and get things done, I don't really care about the weather. But yeah. That's just me.
When you watch TV, the commercial brakes just start. There is no indication that a commercial brake is starting, nor is there no indication that it's ending. It just does. With is somewhat inconvenient, because when it starts, I tend to start doing something else (playing with my phone etc) and mute the TV, so I have to keep looking at it to see if the show is back on. Also there is a few second period at the beginning that I have no sound and that can be really annoying. And although I have subtitles they disappear when I change the volume, so that sucks. There's also an awful lot of commercial brakes, but I can live with that.
Ahh, the boarding's starting. And I'm running out of charge. Well, I can't really think of anything more anyway, so bye for now.
Pie out.
More airport updates. Today I'm going to list a few of the little things that are different in in US. And I mean little things.
Showers. The American showers are stupid. In Finland you have two knobs, one for temperature and one for pressure, or at least the kind of knob you twist from side to side to change temperature and up and down to put the shower on. Not in US, no, 'cause that would be convenient. In the US, there is one knob that turns one way and if you want to get hot water you first have to suffer through a burst of cold water, because then you twist it it is first cold and then hot. This is very annoying because you can't turn the shower off without the water getting cold. Also the hot water can only come out with full blast and that's just stupid.
Not leaving the bathrooms, the toilet seats are also different. They're wider, but also flatter, which is weird. I mean, Finnish seats are much more, uh, deep? Steep? Plus, you can never know where the flushing mechanism is. Also, although this probably depends on the sink, the sinks can be really stupid. Like, my faucet is three cm from the back edge of the sink even though the sink is fairly big. Which is kinda inconvenient when you want to wash your hands.
Enough about toilets. I'm running out of time.
The bed sizes are consistent (thank god) but you can't really know their size related to the other beds. Or at all. There's a normal, and a double and a queen and a king and probably a super-mega-king, but you don't really know how big they are and how much bigger is this compared to that. Also, the bed linen are different, kinda. They're 90% of the time fitted (with a rubber band at the edge y'know) and they don't have blanket covers. They have a sheet and then put the blanket on top of the sheet. I think they used to do that in Finland as well once upon a time?
What else, hmm. You can turn right on red (with a car) unless stated you can't. Nobody uses the turn signal, it is really inconvenient to get anywhere on foot and you can park pretty much anywhere. With is really weird. They don't have like marked parking spots, you just park there if there's enough space between the cars. I mean, on parking lots they have of course, but not on the sides of the roads.
People engage in small talk much more frequently than in Finland (surprise) and this is a problem for me not only because I'm a Finn, but because I'm pretty bad at chit-chat even for a Finn. I just like to go on about my business and get things done, I don't really care about the weather. But yeah. That's just me.
When you watch TV, the commercial brakes just start. There is no indication that a commercial brake is starting, nor is there no indication that it's ending. It just does. With is somewhat inconvenient, because when it starts, I tend to start doing something else (playing with my phone etc) and mute the TV, so I have to keep looking at it to see if the show is back on. Also there is a few second period at the beginning that I have no sound and that can be really annoying. And although I have subtitles they disappear when I change the volume, so that sucks. There's also an awful lot of commercial brakes, but I can live with that.
Ahh, the boarding's starting. And I'm running out of charge. Well, I can't really think of anything more anyway, so bye for now.
Pie out.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Protu
You're literally sitting one couch away from me, and I've already told you pretty much all of this, so I'm going to keep it short and tell all the other (maybe two) people who read our blog about the camp I was on last week. Cooking. With our sister.
So, eight days.
On the first day, we got there. The last camp was still kinda cleaning up, and the kitchen was a mess, and everything there seemed to be a little sticky. So for the first 24 hours or so, while cooking for 22 people, we also scrubbed the whole place, and arranged it, and pretty much made everything neat enough to be a kitchen that isn't a little disgusting and in where you can actually find the stuff you're looking for.
We argued about what music to play while cooking for the first couple of days. She thought the music I had on my laptop was not good music, and I though the music she had was weird. I had the argument of having five times more music on my laptop than she did.
Eventually, however, we settled (as you already know) on a 10 hour loop of 500 miles. There was actually one girl in he team who came to the kitchen to listen to us playing it. Which was pretty awesome. (She was actually pretty awesome also otherwise.)
Also, we made different colored foods on different days. Starting on Monday, through to Saturday, for six days we went from red to purple, in a rainbow order. A lot of the foods were a really weird color (I'd have pictures, but my camera battery ended on like the second day, and I was too stupid to take the charger with me), but we got really good feed back about them in the end of the week. Not only that they were really good, but also for the weird colors.
Probably the greatest food we made, though, was cheesecakes. We made them on a day when a girl came from SETA, and they were talking about sexuality and stuff also otherwise. We made striped rainbow cheesecakes with purple on the bottom, and a strawberry (=red) topping. People loved them. I would put up a picture, but again, the battery on my camera died. I am sad.
On Saturday, meaning the day before the camp ended, we had to clean and pack and cook and get as much ready for cooking for 60 people the next day as possible, we played a few more hours of 500 miles.
Cooking for a lot of people is pretty much like this: chop, boil, cook, serve, clean, wipe, wash dishes, and start all over again. You need to have a certain kind of nerve to be able to do it.
I think that's a pretty summary of the week. Now I want to concentrate on Mulan I should be watching with you.
~matu
So, eight days.
On the first day, we got there. The last camp was still kinda cleaning up, and the kitchen was a mess, and everything there seemed to be a little sticky. So for the first 24 hours or so, while cooking for 22 people, we also scrubbed the whole place, and arranged it, and pretty much made everything neat enough to be a kitchen that isn't a little disgusting and in where you can actually find the stuff you're looking for.
We argued about what music to play while cooking for the first couple of days. She thought the music I had on my laptop was not good music, and I though the music she had was weird. I had the argument of having five times more music on my laptop than she did.
Eventually, however, we settled (as you already know) on a 10 hour loop of 500 miles. There was actually one girl in he team who came to the kitchen to listen to us playing it. Which was pretty awesome. (She was actually pretty awesome also otherwise.)
Also, we made different colored foods on different days. Starting on Monday, through to Saturday, for six days we went from red to purple, in a rainbow order. A lot of the foods were a really weird color (I'd have pictures, but my camera battery ended on like the second day, and I was too stupid to take the charger with me), but we got really good feed back about them in the end of the week. Not only that they were really good, but also for the weird colors.
Probably the greatest food we made, though, was cheesecakes. We made them on a day when a girl came from SETA, and they were talking about sexuality and stuff also otherwise. We made striped rainbow cheesecakes with purple on the bottom, and a strawberry (=red) topping. People loved them. I would put up a picture, but again, the battery on my camera died. I am sad.
On Saturday, meaning the day before the camp ended, we had to clean and pack and cook and get as much ready for cooking for 60 people the next day as possible, we played a few more hours of 500 miles.
Cooking for a lot of people is pretty much like this: chop, boil, cook, serve, clean, wipe, wash dishes, and start all over again. You need to have a certain kind of nerve to be able to do it.
I think that's a pretty summary of the week. Now I want to concentrate on Mulan I should be watching with you.
~matu
Friday, July 11, 2014
Pie gets deep at an airport
This internet ssuccckkksss oh my GOD. And I have like four hours until boarding, I did not sign up for this shit. I couldn't even get a proper signal in Boston! I apologize in advance for all the typos there will be. Or would be, if I had no spell check.
Anyway. Good morning, I am right now at München. Munich. Whatever. My internal clock is quarter to five but the one hanging from the ceiling says it's quarter to eleven. I have slept maybe three hours tonight/last night and the food was simply horrid. There's a little cafe thing quite close to my gate, so I could go eat but I'm too tired to think about eating and besides I'm still sorta nauseous from the bumpy landing, ughhh. Let's just say I'm not at my best at the moment. Maybe I should find a quiet corner and sleep for a few hours...
I'll be arriving at 18:35, by the way. Then I'll sleep until tomorrow.
I read The Alchemist of Souls last weekend. It was good. Spent the whole weekend reading, or most of it anyway, we did go to this beach "party" thing on Saturday evening. There were free hot dogs, so I'm not complaining. Anyway, went ahead and bought the other two books as well, although I haven't had much time to read them yet. The characters are awesome. But dude, Coby is 17 how has her period not started yet?? Like I'm not entirely sure about the exact biology, but she has gone through puberty (her breasts have grown which is why she has the corset) and isn't that when they start?? Right?? Also, how do you pronounce Kiiren. I always read it like the Finnish way, but it was hyphenated as Ki-iren several times, so..?
The whole soul-rebirth thing was pretty cool. For a sec in the middle I though that the reason Mal and Sandy were twins was because of Erished's soul, but it getting split up does make more sense. I was actually expecting some kind of mind meld thing at the end where Mal would take up the entirety of Erished's soul to let Sandy live a normal life (and I may have been kinda rooting for Mal/Kiiren, but I was pretty sure that wasn't gonna happen with Coby around... But that's cool, Coby is awesome and I really like them together as well, haha). Although I think it's kinda unfair that in order for Sandy to stay sane his body needs to be taken over by Erished (at least that's what I understood?) because I kinda thought that they would co-exist/be merged into one soul or something. Now there's essentially two people in one body and that's not good.
What else did I want to say about that, uhh..... I was really surprised about what happened to the theater group! Like that was really... big. Brilliant, although horrible for them, and really touching writing. The writing is otherwise really good too, it really sweeps you away. Also I like the changing perspective, and I like how you can tell who's speaking from the way they address the others, you know the names and stuff. So yeah, really good, thank you for leaving it with me~
(I might art about it later next week, huehue~)
I watched The LEGO Movie in the airplane. And oh my god it was brilliant. Just awesome. Awesome. I mean not only is it made with LEGOs (which is already insanely cool), but the story was brilliant and the jokes funny and ahhh. Thank god the seat next to me was empty, otherwise they would've been very weirded out but my overly emotional responses to a bunch of LEGOs on a little screen. If anyone tells you the kids' movies are dumb, you slap them, because kids' movies are some of the best there are.
There's a girl here. She's sitting on a luggage trolley while her probably-boyfriend pushes her around. She's snapping pictures on a camera and I couldn't help but grin at her and she grinned back. Now they switched and she's pushing him and they're mad cute oh no. It's funny how little things can brighten up your whole day. That reminds me. Last Thursday, as we were going to Canada, we were driving on the highway and I was just gazing out the window when I glanced at the car we were passing. There were three girls in it (could've been four, I'm not sure if there was one or two people in the backseat), young-ish girls, about our age, and the one in the backseat was waving out the window. And so I waved back as we passed and her face just exploded into a smile.
And that is just one of those things that make your whole day a bit better. So maybe I am hungry and tired and starting to get a headache, but still I can't really be pissed when the world is full of interesting people doing interesting things and sometimes you get to peek into those lives even just a bit. And when random people do something fun and spontaneous you just have to smile. I miss my friends. I miss mom and dad and all of you. I'll see you soon.
Pie out.
Anyway. Good morning, I am right now at München. Munich. Whatever. My internal clock is quarter to five but the one hanging from the ceiling says it's quarter to eleven. I have slept maybe three hours tonight/last night and the food was simply horrid. There's a little cafe thing quite close to my gate, so I could go eat but I'm too tired to think about eating and besides I'm still sorta nauseous from the bumpy landing, ughhh. Let's just say I'm not at my best at the moment. Maybe I should find a quiet corner and sleep for a few hours...
I'll be arriving at 18:35, by the way. Then I'll sleep until tomorrow.
I read The Alchemist of Souls last weekend. It was good. Spent the whole weekend reading, or most of it anyway, we did go to this beach "party" thing on Saturday evening. There were free hot dogs, so I'm not complaining. Anyway, went ahead and bought the other two books as well, although I haven't had much time to read them yet. The characters are awesome. But dude, Coby is 17 how has her period not started yet?? Like I'm not entirely sure about the exact biology, but she has gone through puberty (her breasts have grown which is why she has the corset) and isn't that when they start?? Right?? Also, how do you pronounce Kiiren. I always read it like the Finnish way, but it was hyphenated as Ki-iren several times, so..?
The whole soul-rebirth thing was pretty cool. For a sec in the middle I though that the reason Mal and Sandy were twins was because of Erished's soul, but it getting split up does make more sense. I was actually expecting some kind of mind meld thing at the end where Mal would take up the entirety of Erished's soul to let Sandy live a normal life (and I may have been kinda rooting for Mal/Kiiren, but I was pretty sure that wasn't gonna happen with Coby around... But that's cool, Coby is awesome and I really like them together as well, haha). Although I think it's kinda unfair that in order for Sandy to stay sane his body needs to be taken over by Erished (at least that's what I understood?) because I kinda thought that they would co-exist/be merged into one soul or something. Now there's essentially two people in one body and that's not good.
What else did I want to say about that, uhh..... I was really surprised about what happened to the theater group! Like that was really... big. Brilliant, although horrible for them, and really touching writing. The writing is otherwise really good too, it really sweeps you away. Also I like the changing perspective, and I like how you can tell who's speaking from the way they address the others, you know the names and stuff. So yeah, really good, thank you for leaving it with me~
(I might art about it later next week, huehue~)
I watched The LEGO Movie in the airplane. And oh my god it was brilliant. Just awesome. Awesome. I mean not only is it made with LEGOs (which is already insanely cool), but the story was brilliant and the jokes funny and ahhh. Thank god the seat next to me was empty, otherwise they would've been very weirded out but my overly emotional responses to a bunch of LEGOs on a little screen. If anyone tells you the kids' movies are dumb, you slap them, because kids' movies are some of the best there are.
There's a girl here. She's sitting on a luggage trolley while her probably-boyfriend pushes her around. She's snapping pictures on a camera and I couldn't help but grin at her and she grinned back. Now they switched and she's pushing him and they're mad cute oh no. It's funny how little things can brighten up your whole day. That reminds me. Last Thursday, as we were going to Canada, we were driving on the highway and I was just gazing out the window when I glanced at the car we were passing. There were three girls in it (could've been four, I'm not sure if there was one or two people in the backseat), young-ish girls, about our age, and the one in the backseat was waving out the window. And so I waved back as we passed and her face just exploded into a smile.
And that is just one of those things that make your whole day a bit better. So maybe I am hungry and tired and starting to get a headache, but still I can't really be pissed when the world is full of interesting people doing interesting things and sometimes you get to peek into those lives even just a bit. And when random people do something fun and spontaneous you just have to smile. I miss my friends. I miss mom and dad and all of you. I'll see you soon.
Pie out.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Meat
Hello to you from the past, again.
Right now I am cooking on a camp, like I said last week. Because of this, I want to talk to you about food.
More specifically, I want to talk to you about meat.
And still more specifically, I want to talk to you about the effects of eating meat on the world.
First of all, how much do people eat meat?
In the USA, an average person eats 27 kg of beef, 21 kg of pork and 44 kg of chicken every year. In the EU the same numbers are 11, 32 and 21. In South Africa 13, 5, and 32, though to my knowledge most of Africa hardly eats any beef or pork at all.
Then emissions.
37% of all human methane emissions are from livestock.
Total GHG emissions attributable to livestock products is 32 564 CO2e a year, 51% of all human GHG emissions.
(I got these numbers here. They're from 2009)
However, Wikipedia tells me that according to a recent FAO estimate, it's only 14,5%. So I don't know. They both to agree that a previous (2004, I think), estimate was 18%
Not only do raising animals produce greenhouse gasses, it reduces the absorption of them out of the air. Because the world eats so much meat, there isn't enough grassland to feed it all, which means you have to cut down forest to make up space for all the cows. This is bad especially when it comes to rainforests, because they suck in enormous amounts of CO2, and when you cut it down (or burn), plant some small grasses on it, and stick the area with cows, it stops absorbing greenhouse gasses and starts emitting them. And actually apparently just cutting down forests emits green house gases, not only stops to absorb them.
Animals also need huge amounts of water. To produce 1 kg of beef, you need about 17 000 litres of water (says, yes, Wikipedia). To produce the same amount of soy beans, you need about 2500. And for example potatoes take still a lot less. Admittedly there's not much protein in potatoes, though.
And then, of course, there's the thing about being able to feed so much more people by just eating the stuff you grow instead of eating things that eat the things that you grow. I found a page that said it would be possible to feed 800 million people with all the grain that is used to feed livestock in the USA alone. Though article is from 1997, so I'm not sure if that still applies. Also producing the stuff animals eat take even more water and resources and space, which means more forest cut into fields, which means less plants to suck up the CO2 stuck in the atmosphere.
Producing meat is simply a very inefficient way to use all the space on this planet.
On top of all this, according to The Guardian (there's also a good table of how much water it takes to produce all kinds of foods on that page. Apparently chocolate takes even more water than beef), people throw away half of all the food produced. A lot of it before it even gets to the shops. That's not just meat, but food in general, so I'm getting a little off topic, but still.
Also, apparently eating meat increases risk of cancer.
Though it seems to me that quite literally everything increases the risk of cancer.
I wanted to make a neat post, give a list of numbers of how much eating meat burdens the planet, but it's surprisingly difficult to find numbers in the internet. Or then the numbers I find are contradicting.
Ok, here's the point: the world would be so much better off if people didn't eat meat. Or at least ate it a little less. Or a lot less. There are a lot of people who don't eat any meat at all, and they're fine. The human race would be just fine with less.
~matu
Friday, July 4, 2014
America, f*ck yeah
Hi, it's me from yesterday, because we're leaving for Canada in the evening and I have to write this beforehand. But anyway.
It's 4th of July, hooray. And today I'm gonna talk about the differences in Finnish and American things.
The biggest thing that surprised me was how much there is communication. I mean like, once I needed to buy yeast, but I couldn't find it in our shop so Maria called another shop to ask if they had. Like, she called a shop. What. I've also noticed that there is a lot more self service things here. Like there are several self checkouts at stores, you can loan library books by yourself (although I think you can do that in Finland too?) and you can just do basically anything by yourself if you want to. It's kinda weird, there is a lot more service and self service simultaneously and that seems like a really weird idea.
Another difference is the traffic. I think I've talked about it before, but I don't like traffic here. There's at leas two lanes on basically every road, so many cars, and no one uses signals. You can make a right turn even if the light is red, and when you turn you go to whatever lane you want to (assuming you go from one lane to several). It's just really crazy. I don't drive that much, and I only drive the same routes, so I'm ok but man, if I had to drive somewhere I've never driven before...
It is hot as balls here. Seriously, all the flipping time. Now I'm glad that the basement is cool. Just the other day, it wasn't even sunny and it was +30°. I've been eating a lot of ice cream. I actually have some Ben&Jerry's in the freezer right now and I'm gonna go get it once I'm done with this.
What else, uhh. There is a surprisingly small amount of difference in my daily life compared to that in Finland, except I don't go to school, I take care of kids, but still. And I don't really leave the house anyway, so I don't really know what's going on out there, haha.....
I could get serious for a moment and talk about important things, like the school system or the health care system or the fucked up gun policies or maybe same sex marriage (which if I have understood correctly is actually making progress so that's good), but I don't really have time or energy to do that right now. Point is, some things may be kinda better here, but fuck all if I'm not glad to be coming home in two months. That's all I guess. Bye.
Pie out.
P.S. Next week's post will be brought to you from an airport, holy shit.
It's 4th of July, hooray. And today I'm gonna talk about the differences in Finnish and American things.
The biggest thing that surprised me was how much there is communication. I mean like, once I needed to buy yeast, but I couldn't find it in our shop so Maria called another shop to ask if they had. Like, she called a shop. What. I've also noticed that there is a lot more self service things here. Like there are several self checkouts at stores, you can loan library books by yourself (although I think you can do that in Finland too?) and you can just do basically anything by yourself if you want to. It's kinda weird, there is a lot more service and self service simultaneously and that seems like a really weird idea.
Another difference is the traffic. I think I've talked about it before, but I don't like traffic here. There's at leas two lanes on basically every road, so many cars, and no one uses signals. You can make a right turn even if the light is red, and when you turn you go to whatever lane you want to (assuming you go from one lane to several). It's just really crazy. I don't drive that much, and I only drive the same routes, so I'm ok but man, if I had to drive somewhere I've never driven before...
It is hot as balls here. Seriously, all the flipping time. Now I'm glad that the basement is cool. Just the other day, it wasn't even sunny and it was +30°. I've been eating a lot of ice cream. I actually have some Ben&Jerry's in the freezer right now and I'm gonna go get it once I'm done with this.
What else, uhh. There is a surprisingly small amount of difference in my daily life compared to that in Finland, except I don't go to school, I take care of kids, but still. And I don't really leave the house anyway, so I don't really know what's going on out there, haha.....
I could get serious for a moment and talk about important things, like the school system or the health care system or the fucked up gun policies or maybe same sex marriage (which if I have understood correctly is actually making progress so that's good), but I don't really have time or energy to do that right now. Point is, some things may be kinda better here, but fuck all if I'm not glad to be coming home in two months. That's all I guess. Bye.
Pie out.
P.S. Next week's post will be brought to you from an airport, holy shit.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Small talk
Good morning.
It's not morning.
I hate small talk, because in the end it's pretty useless. It's just words, that don't really matter, that's only purpose is avoiding awkward silences. People in Finland, I've heard, do less small talk than people in other countries. I'm thinking maybe that's because in Finland we're so antisocial, that silences aren't awkward, or at least talking would be even more awkward.
Today, even though I already said I do not like small talk, I'll talk about a topic that is in the very center of small talk: weather.
And probably some other stuff that sprawls from there, we'll see.
It was warm in Finland in the end of May. Now it's not. I wrote about how temperatures in Finland seem to vary during the year way more than in many other places.
However, it seems that now we've had a warm winter and a cold summer. Meaning that the almost the whole winter was +5 °C and raining, and the whole June it's been +15 °C and raining.
So that's fun.
Though I heard a rumour that it should get warmer again in a week. But then again, in late spring I heard a rumour that it's going to be a very warm summer, and we haven't seen that so far, so who knows.
The problem with the cold is also that strawberries are apparently later than normally and smaller and probably more expensive, because they don't get to grow. Some weeks ago I read from somewhere that because is was so warm in the end of May, the strawberries are just almost ready, because they got a good early head start because of the sun and warmth, and once it gets warm again they'll be ready to eat in no time. But the warm never came, so now instead of doing really well, they're doing worse than usually.
Oh, you know what else than strawberries is good? Lemons!
And ice cream. I've felt like buying some ice cream for a while even though it's been cold, but I haven't quite gotten to it yet. Which is good, because it means that the idea of me not having any money is very deep inside me, which means that even though I'm making 3500 over the summer if I keep this pace up, I can use that money for something other than what ever I happen to feel like eating at the moment. Like travel, which I think is a way better use for my money than buying ice cream. The place I'd most want to go right now is probably Mauritius. Did I make a post about that some way back? I guess I have a thing for biological hotspots. You know, places that are completely isolated from the rest of the world, that the animals and plants are completely different than anywhere else. Well, at least until human being come with their cats and rats and pigs, and eat all the dodos away.
Anyway.
I'd also really like to go to Malta, which would be way closer than Mauritius, and Brazil. And, you know, a bunch of other places. But those most. Also, New Zealand. Some places in Asia might be cool too.
... How did I get here?
During the last couple of weeks I've read more books. The Raw Shark Texts, Flowers for Algernon and Fahrenheit 451. It turns out that I don't like dystopian classics too much, because the language is somehow weird. Though it might also be that it's just the translation that makes them sound weird (yeah, I read then in Finnish because I borrowed then from a friend), because I really like 1984.
The Raw Shark Texts isn't a dystopian, and that one I liked best of the three. That might be partly because my brief studies in the field of journalism and communication during the last year, because the traces people leave by communicating were in a central role in the story.
Also during the last couple of weeks I've watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog through like twice, and listened to the soundtrack a few times, and had it (the whole, not just the soundtrack) play on the background while working some day. Simply because Neil Patrick Harris can sing so well.
Ok, that's probably enough of saying nothing for today. Next week I'll be cooking on a protu, so I'll have to write the post beforehand. So don't be confused if it's already up there, scheduled, on Friday.
~matu
It's not morning.
I hate small talk, because in the end it's pretty useless. It's just words, that don't really matter, that's only purpose is avoiding awkward silences. People in Finland, I've heard, do less small talk than people in other countries. I'm thinking maybe that's because in Finland we're so antisocial, that silences aren't awkward, or at least talking would be even more awkward.
Today, even though I already said I do not like small talk, I'll talk about a topic that is in the very center of small talk: weather.
And probably some other stuff that sprawls from there, we'll see.
It was warm in Finland in the end of May. Now it's not. I wrote about how temperatures in Finland seem to vary during the year way more than in many other places.
However, it seems that now we've had a warm winter and a cold summer. Meaning that the almost the whole winter was +5 °C and raining, and the whole June it's been +15 °C and raining.
So that's fun.
Though I heard a rumour that it should get warmer again in a week. But then again, in late spring I heard a rumour that it's going to be a very warm summer, and we haven't seen that so far, so who knows.
The problem with the cold is also that strawberries are apparently later than normally and smaller and probably more expensive, because they don't get to grow. Some weeks ago I read from somewhere that because is was so warm in the end of May, the strawberries are just almost ready, because they got a good early head start because of the sun and warmth, and once it gets warm again they'll be ready to eat in no time. But the warm never came, so now instead of doing really well, they're doing worse than usually.
Oh, you know what else than strawberries is good? Lemons!
And ice cream. I've felt like buying some ice cream for a while even though it's been cold, but I haven't quite gotten to it yet. Which is good, because it means that the idea of me not having any money is very deep inside me, which means that even though I'm making 3500 over the summer if I keep this pace up, I can use that money for something other than what ever I happen to feel like eating at the moment. Like travel, which I think is a way better use for my money than buying ice cream. The place I'd most want to go right now is probably Mauritius. Did I make a post about that some way back? I guess I have a thing for biological hotspots. You know, places that are completely isolated from the rest of the world, that the animals and plants are completely different than anywhere else. Well, at least until human being come with their cats and rats and pigs, and eat all the dodos away.
Anyway.
I'd also really like to go to Malta, which would be way closer than Mauritius, and Brazil. And, you know, a bunch of other places. But those most. Also, New Zealand. Some places in Asia might be cool too.
... How did I get here?
During the last couple of weeks I've read more books. The Raw Shark Texts, Flowers for Algernon and Fahrenheit 451. It turns out that I don't like dystopian classics too much, because the language is somehow weird. Though it might also be that it's just the translation that makes them sound weird (yeah, I read then in Finnish because I borrowed then from a friend), because I really like 1984.
The Raw Shark Texts isn't a dystopian, and that one I liked best of the three. That might be partly because my brief studies in the field of journalism and communication during the last year, because the traces people leave by communicating were in a central role in the story.
Also during the last couple of weeks I've watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog through like twice, and listened to the soundtrack a few times, and had it (the whole, not just the soundtrack) play on the background while working some day. Simply because Neil Patrick Harris can sing so well.
Ok, that's probably enough of saying nothing for today. Next week I'll be cooking on a protu, so I'll have to write the post beforehand. So don't be confused if it's already up there, scheduled, on Friday.
~matu
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)