Warped Wonderland

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:31:43 GMT

So much for faster updates, sorry. It's not that I've been that busy either, just lazy again.

School started a couple of weeks ago and I'm only now starting to get my first real homework assignments. I'm not sure which way I prefer more, the WWU method of giving lots of smaller bits of homework with only a few days to complete them or the Finnish way that gives me bigger projects with more time to complete them. Usually I think I'd prefer the latter option because it leaves me with a lot more free time, but I've noticed that it's also more stressful, because I tend to leave my homework until the last minute and until I finally do start working on it, I keep stressing about the deadline approaching. At WWU, even though I had more work, somehow I wasn't as stressed out because I learned how to do things at a steady pace. I wonder where all those new time management skills I learned disappeared to?

I'm finally taking that Swedish speaking course that I've been putting off for the last three years, and as I had guessed I seriously hate it, even though it's a lot easier than I had feared. The teacher lets us talk to each other in small groups and only occasionally listens in, so it's not that bad even if I keep making mistakes and forgetting my whole vocabulary all the time... I'm trying to refresh my memory by reading Harry Potter och Fången från Azkaban and I think it's somewhat working. Because I already know the story by heart, I don't have to check the dictionary as often.

I'm still getting along well with my roommate, but I'm getting slightly annoyed by the fact that she has visitors almost every night. It's not that they're being really loud or breaking things, but since they tend to hang out in the kitchen, it's a bit awkward for me to go cook something when I want to. In her defense, she did ask me if her constant visitors are bothering me and I said it's okay with me.

In other news, I have serious plans to start writing fanfic again. I haven't written almost anything in eight years (not since my Harry Potter days when Lily/James was my OTP), but I've been trying to work up the motivation to start writing again. I suppose one of my biggest problems has been the fact that nowadays I have so many fandoms (different manga/anime series) that I never stop in one of them for long enough to get any decent fic ideas. Now I've finally come up with an idea for a multi-chapter Kyou Kara Maou fic, which I really want to write. I'm a slow writer in general so it'll probably take me a long time to finish, but I seriously need to do it if I want to get rid of my 8-year-old writer's block.

My top 17 favorite anime

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:42:12 GMT

This post will not interest those who don't care about anime.

I've just been wanting to make a list of my favorite anime for a while, and thought now would be a good time. There are still plenty of anime I haven't watched, but these are the ones that I currently love above all others.

I started out by listing the 80 most memorable anime series (I'm leaving out movies from this list) that I've watched and then started crossing out those that I didn't like as much as others. I meant to get the list down to 15 but once I had 17 anime left I realized I didn't have the heart to cross any more out. Thus, my top 17 anime list was born. I also realized that I can't really put them in any order of preference since I love them all for completely different reasons, so I'm putting them in alphabetical order. And now, on to the list:

- Detective Academy Q - Many have never even heard of this series, but it's one of my favorites because I like the characters and I like detective stories. Enough said.

- Fullmetal Alchemist - A true classic that everyone should see. The anime and manga story lines separate from each other early on, but both versions are truly brilliant. Look at all that angst!

- Ghost Hunt - Fascinating ghost stories and interesting characters. I prefer the manga version, but the anime is also great. I may write a fanfic for this someday...

- Hikaru no go - This is one of my Top 5 favorites and for some reason it's the one I most frequently rewatch and the fandom I would be most inspired to write fanfiction for. Man, I love AUs in this fandom. I have no idea why an anime about a board game can be so fascinating. Well okay, the obsessive Hikaru/Akira rivalry is a major part of it.

- Kyou Kara Maou - Lots of pretty men, intentional yaoi hints and plenty of "I would die for you" moments from my favorite character, Conrad :). What more could I want? Granted, this isn't one of the best series out there, but it so happens that I love even the stupid and cliché moments in this! Basically, a guy gets flushed down the toilet and ends up in another world where he is immediately crowned as the Demon King...

- Naruto - Do I really need to explain? True awesomness. I prefer the manga version though, because the anime has a lot of annoying fillers.

- Natsume Yuujinchou - I just want to give Natsume a hug. This series might be too cute and cuddly for some anime fans, but I love its mix of cute and serious.

- Ookiku Furikabutte - Baseball, team spirit and fascinating characters who are at times very funny and at times wonderfully serious. This is probably my favorite sports anime and the only one who made it to this list, even though I also love Major, Prince of Tennis, Initial D, Eyeshield 21 and Hajime no Ippo to pieces.

- Ouran High School Host Club - Not my absolute favorite by any means, but deserves its place on this list. Hilarious, but has its serious moments.

- Saiyuki - This series has made me cry more than any other (again, the manga is better than the anime) and is probably my number one favorite. Take four guys with very tragic pasts and put them together on a long journey. Pure awesomness ensues.

- Shounen Onmyouji - I'm actually surprised this series isn't more popular. I love watching the interactions between the two main characters (a boy and his guardian spirit/god). It's based on a novel series and the anime only covers the first eight out of over 20. I'm dying to get my hands on those novels, but since they're only available in Japanese, I'm extra motivated to learn the language!

- Skip Beat - A girl is betrayed by her crush who uses her as a maid while he himself is starting a career as a singer. Said girl decides to take revenge by becoming an actor. After 23 or so volumes of manga, the main character is still completely oblivious to the fact that there's a bunch of guys in love with her. Not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely in my top 3.

- Tactics - Again, I mostly love watching the two main characters interacting (a guy and his spirit servant or in more specific terms an onmyouji and his tengu servant). And yes, I do occasionally read yaoi fanfics in this fandom.

- Toshokan Sensou (Library War) - The fight against censorship has turned into a small war in this anime. It's only 13 episodes long, but definitely worth watching. Has some het romance.

- (The) Twelve Kingdoms - A girl is taken to another world and becomes a queen. A lot more fascinating than it sounds. I'm so going to cosplay this series in the next animecon.

- (The) Vision of Escaflowne - Yet another girl-is-thrown-into-another-world story, but this one is a true masterpiece. It's an old series (1996), but still one of the best there is. I would recommend this to everybody.

- xxxHOLiC - When I first tried reading the manga of this, I had no clue what was happening and gave up. I tried again a year later and was hopelessly hooked. A guy sees spirits and goes to a shop that grants wishes to get rid of his skill, but he ends up becoming the shop keepers employee instead. It's a complicated series that is a crossover with Tsubasa reservoir Chronicle, another series by CLAMP.

And here ends my list. Even though I didn't describe each anime in detail, it still took me two hours to write this thing. Can't be bothered to check this post for typos. To make this list as short as possible I had to leave out a lot of series I love, so if you know a good series that is not on the list, I either haven't seen it or I just preferred these over that one.

New home, new start

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:30:06 GMT

Where did all those weeks go? I spent over a month at home just lazying around and doing absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. I haven't had a proper summer vacation in four years so it was nice to be able to relax for once. Then again, I discovered that long vacations don't suit me. They make me lose all my motivation and then I start hating myself for being so damn lazy. Ugh.

I also discovered that I should never go back to my mom's place for more than a couple of days at a time. Being there drives me insane and makes me revert back to my old childish self. I need to have my own place in order to act more like an adult.

I just moved to my new apartment two days ago and I've finally finished unpacking my stuff. My apartment is bigger than my old one and has a separate kitchen, but on the other hand it's farther away from the university (9 km) and I have a roommate. The rent is low though, and the area is beautiful, so I'm not complaining. I was a bit worried about what kind of person my roommate would be, but my first impression of her is good (she just arrived a half an hour ago). It's funny how I never really talked to foreigners before my exchange year, but now I can't seem to escape internationality. You see, my roommate is an exchange student from Germany. I'm afraid my German has gotten extremely rusty... But luckily she speaks good English. And she also seems to be interested in learning Finnish (in a year...?).

So, I'm currently in the process of settling down to my new apartment and trying to figure out what courses I need to take next year since they went and changed my whole major while I was gone. Thanks a lot for that, by the way. I still haven't managed to read anything in Swedish and I'm supposed to take a Swedish speaking class. It's so going to kill me. Luckily my motivation for studying Japanese on my own is still going strong.

Not much has happened in the last seven or so weeks, other than me attending Animecon/Finncon 2009 in Helsinki. It was a lot of fun, but I was a little sad to see that since the whole anime/manga phenomenon is still so new to Finland, I'm one of the few older people interested in cosplaying and things like that. I'm not sure if I'm that interested in trying to mingle with a bunch of 15-year-olds. I hear there's supposed to be some sort of anime club at my university so maybe I'll check that out. Because the con was also a sci-fi/fantasy convention, we had some international guest speakers there, like George R.R. Martin. Everyone is always recommending his books to me, but I still haven't managed to try them. I still went to listen to his interview just in case I ever happen to become a fan.

I'll try to update more often from now on, now that I've finally gotten away from my mom's and I can stop being so horribly lazy. I already regret not updating during these last weeks since it's now hard to put into words what I felt some time ago. It's occasionally fun to read my own writings and see if I've changed any from back then.

Of homecomings and adjusting

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:31:43 GMT

Home sweet home. I've been back for a couple of days now, but was too tired and lazy to update until now. I had a major case of jet lag, but I'm mostly over that by now.

My flight home was absolutely horrible, due to PMS pains, nausea, tiredness, uncomfortable plane seats, a screaming baby that sounded more like a cat being tortured, and me sitting between two guys who talked to each other through most of my flight from London to Helsinki while I tried to sleep. One of the guys was from Texas and the other one from Helsinki and they apparently discovered during the flight that they worked in the same field and that they both loved blues and played in underground bands. It might have been kind of interesting to listen to if I hadn't been feeling so awful at the time. I actually talked to the guy from Texas for a while before the other guy got there and he was really interested in knowing things about Finland. Can you believe that the first American to ask me what "thank you" and "hello" are in Finnish is someone I meet on my way back home? During the last nine months no one else asked me that. Anyway, I was so happy when I finally arrived in Helsinki where my mom was waiting for me. By the time we got home I had been awake for around 30 hours (I slept a bit on the plane but that wasn't proper rest) and I just crashed into bed.

I woke up pretty early the next morning, still feeling extremely tired but not really sleepy so I got up. This is basically what happened when I got downstairs and saw my mom:

Me: *in English* Man, I feel so disoriented!
My mom: *looks at me weird*
Me: ... I said that in English, didn't I?
My mom: You know, I wouldn't even have commented if I had understood what you said.
Me: But I don't remember what that is in Finnish!

In other words, I'm having some major trouble switching back to Finnish. I keep using small English words and phrases in the middle of conversation and I don't always even notice it. My Finnish grammar is odd at times and I keep making stupid mistakes. I also still easily slip back into using English if someone surprises me. The books I sent through the mail arrived two days ago, but since I wasn't expecting it so soon I was surprised to see the package delivered to our door and when I opened the door I said "Hello?" in English. I really need to start reading those books in Finnish soon...

Other than that, I haven't really experienced a reverse culture shock yet. Of course, I'm starting to pay attention to some small differences between Finland and America, but it hasn't really been anything that shocking. Maybe the cultural differences will hit me when I start classes again in September. We'll see.

It's annoying that I bought lots of new summer clothing in America, but lately it's been so cold in Finland that if I want to wear them, I also have to put on a warm jacket (which effectively hides my new clothes).

Oh, I also got a new phone and a new number. I would've sent some text messages around notifying people of it, but apparently my sim card hasn't been activated yet (that's what you get when you try to get a new number right before the Midsummer holiday, I suppose...) so I'm still waiting... I like my new phone though. It's at least a lot more modern than my old one that I had bought in 2002.

Of endings

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:05:03 GMT

And so it comes to an end. After nine months in America, I’m finally going home.

It’s been a crazy week. I’ve been so busy studying for my finals and packing up and running around trying to tie up all the loose ends that I haven’t had the time to update recently. But school is over now and in 48 hours I’ll be back in Finland. I moved out of the dorms yesterday (after a great deal of panic and stress over who had whose room keys and going over deadlines, etc.) and I’m currently freeloading at my friend’s house, waiting for Sunday evening when I’ll be flying home from Seattle (arriving in Helsinki on Monday evening). I did some major last-minute clothes shopping on Thursday and bought a second suitcase for all the stuff I’ve bought during the last year. I think both of my suitcases will still be over the weight limit, but in that case I’ll just pay that extra 45 dollars for each. I already spent a bit over 100 dollars to send most of the books I want to keep through the mail.

I’m not really as sad about leaving America as I thought I would be. I like the friendly atmosphere, but it sometimes gets on my nerves when you can’t go to a bus or a grocery store without having to greet somebody. I’m also tired of the fast paced studying that leaves you almost no time to yourself, never mind to your friends, if you want to do your school work properly. I’m glad I got to experience it at least once, but I’m so ready to put it behind me. I’ll be leaving behind a great friend, but she has plans to move to Norway permanently some day so hopefully I won’t lose that connection. Most of the other people I interacted with were other exchange students who are also leaving Bellingham.

Hmm. Somehow I thought this whole leaving America thing would make me more emotional and thoughtful, but I’m honestly just drawing a blank. I’m not sad about leaving and I’m not gonna really miss most of the things in here either, even though I rather like Bellingham. Maybe I’ll start feeling more strange about this after I get back home and have a chance to think about it more. The last few days haven’t really left me a lot of time to actually ponder on my feelings.

Gosh, I’m so tired I can’t think straight (like usual). I just wanted to update my journal for the last time from America before this year ends, so I wrote down whatever came to mind. I’ll probably write more about my experiences after I get home, but for now this will have to do.

No rest for the wicked... or the sick

Fri, 29 May 2009 06:07:39 GMT

Curse you, American college homework. I've been sick for the past five days (an annoying cold that has become worse every day), but I haven't been able to rest at all because I've had so much homework to do. Earlier today I attempted to write yet another short paper, and I just felt so ridiculous when I honestly couldn't concentrate enough to tell whether my sentences made any sense or not.

I also applied for an apartment in Tampere. I expected it to take at least a week or two so imagine my surprise when they already sent me an offer which they want me to sign by first of June. Right. Sorry, but since I would have to cross an ocean and two continents to do that, I think I'll pass. I asked if I could accept the offer in July, but if not, I think it should be pretty easy to get another good offer later since this one felt a bit too easy get.

Oh damn, my head hurts so bad... Would it be so much to ask if I could just put everything aside for a couple of days and just rest? *cries and crawls into bed*

Of a month gone by

Mon, 25 May 2009 17:32:59 GMT

Has it really been almost a month since my last update? Whoops. I can only blame homework, some stupid PC games that managed to distract me for a while and those annoying I'll-just-do-it-tomorrow thoughts that kept pushing it back. But here I am.

So. One thing that happened was that the baseball game trip to Seattle got canceled. I was extremely disappointed. Since the university doesn't have its own baseball team this would have been my only chance to go watch some baseball (and Major league at that!), but no, they canceled it because of the threat of swine flu. And when I tried to sign up for a hiking trip up to Mount Baker to console myself, that was canceled too. All in all, I've pretty much lost all faith in WWU excursions. Three out of four I was interested in got canceled in the last five months or so. I'm kind of glad I didn't update my lj when I first heard about it, or you would've seen plenty of angry ranting.

Since the university obviously wasn't sending me to Seattle, I decided to go on my own. That was too days ago. I got a friend to come with me and at least I had a blast. When I visited Vancouver some months ago, the trip ended up being really boring since we had no plans what to do when we actually got there. This time (I was with a different friend) we had a list of four places we wanted to go and we ended up running out of time so that we only managed a really quick stop at the last place (Daiso, which sells cheap Japanese stuff). I showed my friend around the Pike Street Public Market and the Waterfront and then we headed to Uwajimaya, which a huge joined Japanese grocery store and book store.

We were in a hurry by that time so we skipped the grocery store (man, I would've liked to buy some Japanese food!) and spent like an hour at the book store (and I would've gladly spent another hour but we still wanted to make it to Daiso before our bus left). I bought the second book in a kanji learning series (the first one teaches the basic meanings of kanji, the second one how to read them in Japanese), a bunch of manga (English translations) and also one book and one manga in Japanese for practice purposes. I'm still really slow at reading Japanese so I didn't have the time to pick out a book on the basis of the story synopsis (it took a lot of time just to find the section of the store that had novels since all the section names were written in Japanese, half of them in kanji). I ended up buying a random book (はじめてのことがいっぱい) by Yoshimoto Banana, who is a popular, contemporary female author. I had heard before that she uses a lot of casual, everyday expressions in her writing and that's what I'm really looking forward to since the textbook we use in class was written in the seventies and mainly uses the kind of formal Japanese that you would only use if you're trying to impress your professor or something. You wouldn't use it when talking casually with Japanese friends. The book I bought also seems to have quite a lot of hiragana and a relatively low amount of kanji so it should be a good choice for my first proper reading experience in Japanese.

There's only three weeks left before I go home so I'm busily finishing my homework and packing up all my stuff at the same time. I've bought a lot of new stuff, but I should be able to fit everything I want to keep in my luggage (I'll buy a second suitcase soon) as long as I send a part of my books in the mail. I've also been lazy about looking for a new apartment in Tampere so I'll have to fill my application today. I tried sending an email to the Student Housing Foundation to see if I could move in with a friend, but apparently I'm a couple of months too late. Darn.

I know there have been a lot of small stuff going on in the last month that I meant to write about, but I can't remember most of it anymore. Hmm...

It's amazing how I've been able to adjust to the American study style. In Finland we're used to relatively small amounts of homework but we still complain about how much stuff we have to do. When I was younger I spent a lot of time on FFN.net and I always thought that the American writers, who usually mentioned their homework as the main reason why they couldn't update so often, in reality had about as much homework as I did. Boy, was I wrong. Compared to your average American high school or university student, a Finnish student has lots of free time. I only found out the true meaning of being busy when I came here, and I know people here who are taking much more difficult and time-consuming classes than I am. Recently I visited the website of a Finnish newspaper and by chance I saw an article titled something like this: "Every fifth high school girl in Finland says they can't keep up with classes". Honestly, every Finn should be required to spend a couple of months in an American school so that they could understand how easy they have it. And Japan is still a lot worse than America when it comes to the amount of schoolwork. I'm not trying to insult anybody with this, it's just subjective observation.

I remember how I used to be so stressed out about having to do one piece of homework every two days or so in Finland (no matter if the homework could be completed in half an hour or required six). When I first started taking classes here last September, I took the first two weeks pretty easy and when I was forced to realize that it wasn't nearly enough, I spent the next month trying desperately to catch up. A couple of weeks ago I realized one Wednesday morning that I had two days to learn 70 kanji, read the last 60 pages of a book which I also had to write a one page essay on, and do my regular Japanese homework which takes about an hour every day. Had this situation happened a year ago in Finland, I think I would've had a nervous breakdown or something. But now I wasn't even stressed out. I managed to do everything just fine and even managed to squeeze in a couple of hours of anime watching. If there's one thing I've learned this last year it's how to manage my time. I'm just hoping I don't fall back to my old lazy habits when I go back to Finland.

And that's all for today, folks.

Of strange happenings

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:18:35 GMT

Within two days I've had two odd things happen to me. One of them I can somewhat explain, but not the other one. In any case, both made me momentarily feel like something very mysterious had happened. It was interesting.

Yesterday morning at eight o'clock I received a text message from a friend. That would have been nothing special in itself, but the message was really confusing, like we were in the middle of a conversation, and at the same time oddly familiar. I realized that it looked exactly like a text message I had received from the same friend back in December. Huh. How is it possible to get an old text message to your phone again after four months? I haven't talked to my friend since I got the message so I don't know if she knows anything about it.

Secondly, today I received a surprise present from a vending machine. I was trying to use a certain vending machine for the first time and I was unsure how to work it. I gave the machine a one dollar bill and I put some coins into a slot that looked like it was meant for coins. I could see however, that my coins were still stuck just within the hole and they had not properly gone into the machine. I didn't know what to do so I tried pressing the big black button. No, I did not get the drink I wanted. Instead, the machine decided to spit out a one dollar coin. It literally came flying out of the machine. I was extremely mystified, because until then I didn't think one dollar coins even existed. I consulted my trusty old friend Wikipedia and that explained things a bit (there are series of minted one dollar coins that can be used in certain vending machines and such). I still don't know how it came flying out of the machine though. I spent 1,50 dollars on a drink and got a 1 dollar coin back instead. Huh.

Speaking of coins, I've been collecting different kinds of quarter dollars for fun. For my Finnish friends who might not know, there's a series of quarter dollar coins in circulation that feature each of the 50 states. I currently have approximately 20 different states. It's kind of silly to collect them but I thought it would make a fun souvenir. I don't think I'll have time to complete my collection though.

It's finally getting warmer and I noticed that I had only brought one sleeveless shirt with me from home. So, today I went on a bit of a spending spree (140 dollars on 7 pieces of clothing) and bought myself a new summer wardrobe. Amazing how new clothes can make you so happy. Part of it is of course due to the fact that I have lost weight in recent years and that's why clothes are finally starting to look somewhat good on me.

I'm finally done with my mid-term from hell. I don't know how they expect me to write a well-composed essay in 25 minutes... Yeah right.

By the way, friends back home, anything particular you'd like as a souvenir?

Of anything, everything, something and nothing

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:58:28 GMT

A week sure flies by fast. I'm so busy with my homework (and I will continue to be until the very end) that I really don't have time to do much of anything else (okay, fine, I do manage to squeeze in about two hours of manga and anime every day). It's taken me two weeks to catch up on my reading since I missed a whole weekend thanks to Sakuracon. And I'm reading like 50-100 pages every day (plus writing the occasional essay and Japanese translation). Mid-terms next week. Ugh. Right now I'm really glad this is my last quarter here and I can look forward to a couple of months of freedom after this. Then again, I do have a long list of things I both want and need to do over the summer.

Because I was gone for one weekend and after that my mom has been out of the country for two weeks on a vacation, I haven't had the chance to speak any Finnish in three weeks. It's funny how the less I get to speak Finnish, the more my inner monologue reverts back to Finnish. It's like an addiction... 7 weeks, 7 weeks, 7 weeks! *chants*

I accidentally overheard a pretty strange fight earlier (they were talking right outside my window!) between who I assume were a gay guy and a straight guy (since I heard them mention both a girlfriend and a boyfriend). It was really confusing and I could only hear one side of the conversation, but I couldn't help listening in when they started shouting things like: "you have no right to talk to my boyfriend like that", "you are nobody to me", "I never want to speak to you again", etc. At the end the assumed-gay-guy was repeatedly shouting at the other: "Hit me! Hit me!". It was so weird.

And here's a little something that happened in my Japanese literature class:
(on discussing tall tales)
Italian professor: "Have you ever heard that saying that the bigger the lie the better it is? I don't know who said that, but it's true, don't you think?"
Student: "Actually, that's a quote from Hitler's Mein Kampf."
Italian professor: "What?! Really?!"
I found it kind of funny how he was exitedly talking about an idea that he agreed with and then he found out that he had just quoted Hitler of all people...

By the way, I was pretty miffed to find out that this last week the weather has been warmer in Finland than in here. Grr.

Once again, please excuse the randomness of this post.

I think our hands just had a baby...

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:25:22 GMT

Went to to the theater to see "17 again" without much expectations (we decided to see it on a whim), but I was pleasantly surprised. I'm no fan of the High School Musical films so it was nice to see Zac Efron redeem himself. The audience consisted mostly of high school girls, which in some other situation might have been extremely annoying, but since most of them were probably there to see Zac Efron, they were really into the movie and the mood in the room was amazing. I laughed at so many parts that I probably never would have laughed at had I been watching the movie by myself. It was nice to see I can still enjoy teen movies.

On the way back the bus driver was apparently trying to be funny and was doing some kind of a game show imitation. It was rather funny until one passenger (I assume he may have been drunk) started swearing at him in a rather scary tone. The bus driver reacted by threatening to throw said passenger out at the next bus stop. Thankfully the scary guy was quiet for the rest of the trip, but he was sitting right in front of us so we were too scared to say a word.

Oh yeah, I watched Twilight too. Why is it that I always like movies that everyone else hates? It didn't exactly become my new favorite movie or anything, but I didn't see anything that wrong with it. And I don't even like vampire stories.

Busy, busy, busy...

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:50:26 GMT

I am a Finn in America taking a Japanese literature course taught by an Italian. Funny how life works sometimes.

A random funny thing of the day: a bunch of people were rowing a rubber boat in the campus fountain with one of them dressed up as a pirate. I think they were advertising a Pirates of the Caribbean movie night or something.

And now the real reason for this update: I am going to be insanely busy for a bit over a week and will not be updating again until after Sakuracon. Because I'll be gone for that whole weekend, I have to do all my homework beforehand and there happens to be quite a bit. In the Japanese literature course we have to do presentations and when we drew lotteries, I was unlucky enough to get the Monday right after Sakuracon as my presentation day. Which means I have to prepare for it now. I'm going to spend the whole day tomorrow on my Hakkai cosplay costume, but I'm afraid I might still not be able to finish it. Right about now it's really starting to annoy me that a small amount of sewing that would have taken an hour or two with a sewing machine takes me a couple of days by hand. And I don't have that much time...

Anyways, I'll be back in a bit over a week and then I'll post pictures :).

Vancouver and start of spring quarter

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:52:08 GMT

Where did my spring break go? Pretty much the only things I remember doing are my short trip to Vancouver and reading manga for the rest of the time... And I had such a big list of things I wanted to do during the break too. Darn.

Tomorrow begins my last quarter in America. I'm going home as soon as the quarter ends even though I've heard that many of the other exchange students are going to stay in the US for a while longer and travel around. I don't know why that possibility never even crossed my mind when I set the return date for my plane tickets, but after giving it some though, I don't think I regret missing that chance to travel. My recent trip to Vancouver showed me very clearly that I'm just not cut out to be a tourist. I lack the enthusiasm for it, and every big city just looks the same to me. I would have been a lot more interested in touring national parks and stuff. But yeah, I think I'm ready to go home sooner rather than later.

I got back from Vancouver on Friday, but didn't find the energy to talk about it before now. It wasn't a particularly pleasant trip, but worth doing regardless. Crossing the US border was as nerve-wrecking as the first time, but we got through the customs guy's questioning without any big mishaps (I'm damn glad my friend remembered the name of our hotel, because I sure didn't!). Vancouver itself wasn't all that pretty because the whole city was busily preparing for next years Winter Olympics and there was construction work everywhere. We also realized that we didn't have a plan what we wanted to do in Vancouver so we ended up pretty much just wandering around the city's downtown area and stopping by random shops. It was pretty annoying that Vancouver seems to have the exact same kind of souvenir shops on just about every street (with all the same products). My favorite finds were a Japanese grocery store and a Moomins book (didn't buy it, just liked seeing it in the book shop). I also discovered that if you go to an organic food store in Vancouver, the only liquorice you'll find there is made in Finland (they had both Panda and Halva too!). It was kinda weird walking around in Vancouver since it seemed like half the city's population is Asian. There was Chinese, Japanese and Korean writing everywhere and even some of the street signs (mostly in Chinatown though) had the street name both in English and in Chinese. So weird. My Indonesian friend took me to an Indonesian restaurant (which was playing Chinese music for some reason) and I thought the food was pretty good.

Here's one of my favorite moments during our trip:
Passerby: "Do you know where *** is?
My Indonesian friend: "No, we don't, sorry. We're from America."
Me: "..."
Depends on how you look at it, I suppose XD.

My friend didn't buy anything during the trip and it became clear to me very quickly that her main purpose in coming with me was that she was hoping to see Robert Pattison, who was supposed to be in town last week filming New Moon. Predictably, we didn't end up seeing him or anyone else famous for that matter. I was glad that she was with me though, since she didn't have any problems asking people for directions whereas I've always hated doing that. I took some random pictures, but they're honestly nothing special so I think I'll refrain from posting any this time. The weather was so bad during the trip that I didn't even get any good pictures of the surrounding mountains.

I bought my new course books today and it looks like I'm in for a busy two and a half months. I'm taking on a bigger workload than in the previous quarters so I'll probably be extra busy. I'm taking the kanji course again so that means another 450 kanji to learn. Besides that I'm taking another course in Japanese, East Asian history in Early-Modern/Modern era and Japanese literature in translation. I have 9 new books to read just for the last two courses.

Sakuracon is less than two weeks away now and my cosplay costumes are still in the works. Looks like I'll have to do some last-minute sewing again. My wigs arrived in the mail, but I still need to go buy some shoes and a white shirt... Busy, busy.

And that's all for today, folks.

Spring break!

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:12:22 GMT

Why is it that whenever I do have free time I don't feel like updating my lj, but when I'm up to my ears in homework I get the strange urge to write... *sigh* I finished my finals last Thursday (they went pretty much as expected) and right now I'm enjoying my spring break. It's hard to believe that soon I'll begin my last quarter here and right after that I'm going home. I'm both happy and kinda sad about that... But I do know that no matter how much I'm going to travel from now on, I probably can't ever leave Finland completely. It's where I feel most at home after all.

I didn't originally have any particular plans for spring break and I was just gonna take it easy at home, but it seems I'm going to make an overnight trip to Vancouver after all, yay! I've been wanting to go to Vancouver for ages, but either the timing was off or I couldn't find anyone to go with me. It's so ridiculously close (only 72 km!) that I would be insane not to go there when I have the chance. Luckily, an old aikido buddy of mine (an Indonesian girl) wanted to go too so we're heading over there for two days! And we might also make a day trip to Seattle next Monday before my classes begin. Oh yeah, did I mention I also signed up for another trip to Seattle (in May) which will include getting to watch a Major league baseball game? I can't wait!

As usual, for the past few days I've been working on my cosplay costumes and reading manga and watching anime and random Asian movies and dramas. I recommend watching "Fly Daddy Fly" (a Korean movie) if you ever feel like watching a good family centered story. A good example of how you miss great stuff if you just stick to watching Hollywood productions :).

It's sometimes pretty annoying that I can't seem to watch an anime without seeing potential yaoi pairings everywhere and innuendos in everything they do. Gah. I've just finished watching Initial D, a story about car racing (I have no idea why I love watching random sport anime...), and there were some things in it that I just couldn't help but see with my slasher's eyes. In what world does a guy challenge his rival to a contest by sending him a bouquet of red roses? And later on said rival keeps blushing when the other guy compliments his driving... Egads.

No matter how much anime and manga I watch and read, I always come back to those few that in my eyes stand far above the rest. Saiyuki keeps breaking my heart and Skip Beat keeps mending it. The latest Saiyuki Gaiden chapter made me cry (No! Konzen, don't die!!! I know you'll be reincarnated and all, but still don't diiiiiiieeeee!!! *sob*) and I've long since lost count of how many times I've reread Skip Beat...

Oh, yeah! And I finally figured out how to use Japanese letters on my computer. 私は、やっと、日本語で書けるようになりました。すごいでしょう。^_^

I sure seem to love rambling on about random things...

What a pain in the neck...

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:49:34 GMT

I've never believed that Friday 13th is any more unlucky than any other day of the year, but today I'm not so sure anymore... You know how you sometimes wake up in the morning with your neck so stiff that you can hardly move your head? Well that happened to me today. And it hurts so much I seriously just want to cry every time I manage to irritate my neck muscles by moving my head a tiny bit in the wrong direction. I dragged myself to my first class but had to stay home after that because the pain was accumulating. Right now I'm feeling all fuzzy because I took some painkillers (and it still hurts...). You wouldn't believe how many typos I've already had to correct in this post because my brain isn't working properly. I'm just glad that the pain usually only lasts a day so I should be healed tomorrow after a night's sleep.

I almost failed my last kanji quiz yesterday (you have to get 90% right) because I repeated the same tiny mistake five times. Lame...

Next week is finals week and then I finally get a week of blessed freedom before my last quarter here starts. Luckily, I managed to register for all the classes I wanted to take, so that's taken care of.

Gah, I really need to just stop typing before I start writing something completely incoherent because of the painkillers...

When will this ever end...

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:52:20 GMT

Dear Mr. Cold,

I had hoped you would have realized by now that you are an unwanted visitor in my life. Yet you keep coming over almost once a month (this is the fourth time in less than six months, you jerk!) and you always overstay your welcome (not that you were welcome in the first place). You always make me feel absolutely horrible. You make it difficult to breathe and you make me see nightmares which leave me exhausted. You seem to find it necessary to make my throat feel like it's on fire and being stabbed by a thousand needles at the same time. You also make me unable to do my homework properly, and you do it without any consideration whatsoever for my busy schedule. Even now I have two papers due on Tuesday which I haven't even started and a long English-Japanese translation. Thanks to you I haven't been able to do anything except sit around feeling sorry for myself. Thanks for nothing, you damn pest.

Please leave me alone.
Resentfully yours,
me

Of self-contemplation and unexplored opportunities

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:07:53 GMT

Wow, I sure seem to be updating often recently.

This time I wanted to share some thoughts about myself in the hopes that writing them down might somehow help me understand myself and the choices I've made. So here goes.

I've always been the sort of person who gets extremely enthusiastic about things that really interest me. In most cases my enthusiasm ends up lasting only for a short while, but in few special cases my enthusiasm has lead to me to dedicate years of my life to those interests, namely Harry Potter and anime/manga. The only problem is that once I'm interested in something, I want to concentrate on only that one thing and cast other interests aside. I don't even know how to obsess over more than two or three things at a time. For example, my interest in Harry Potter dwindled immediately when I found manga and anime. But I'm not going to talk about those two. Right now I'm much more interested in contemplating all the other short-lived interests that I let slip by. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like today if I had chosen to pursue some other interest instead of the ones I did pursue.

When I was really young (around 5 or 6), people often told me that I was good at drawing. I was about to start elementary school and my mom decided to enroll me in a special art oriented class. But then we moved before I could begin that class and I enrolled in a smaller elementary school in the countryside that didn't have an art oriented class. I always got high grades on my drawings throughout my schooling (I did pencil drawings whenever I could since I totally suck at coloring), but I never dedicated myself to learning more techniques. Even now I often have the urge to draw something (mainly human figures) whenever I see amazing art made by others, but I always stop from trying because I know I would have to spend a lot of time studying different drawing styles before I could find my own. And learning how to paint properly (I'm most interested in watercolors) would require a lot more time on top of that. This is the point where I always stop myself and decide that there are other things that interest me even more and which need my full concentration. So I never learn how to draw well.

Next, music. Aside from the recorder, which everybody had to learn to play in elementary school, I have at some point tried to learn how to play the piano, the drums, the trumpet and the guitar. I also used to love singing until it came very clear that I have no talent in singing whatsoever (or a sense of rhythm for that matter). I gave up on the last three instruments on my list in a few weeks, but played the piano for two years or so until my teacher tried to teach me how to play harder pieces which I never seemed to get any better at. I also didn't like the teacher so I decided to quit. I wonder if I might have ended up in a local band if I had continued learning (some girls in our year actually did start a band). Nowadays I sometimes dream of taking piano lessons again in the future, just for my own amusement. I have no idea whether or not I ever will.

I tried sports too. I was especially good at the shot put and used to get the gold metal almost every time (I can now admit that the only reason that happened was because there weren't many participants in our small town competitions and I was the only one who was actually interested). That interest lasted until I tried to compete in a much larger district tournament and I didn't even make it into the finals. That's the point when I decided to quit.

Back in elementary school I used to act a lot in plays and things like that. That ended when I developed a bad case of stage fright that is still a huge problem for me.

Other very short lived interests include for example pesäpallo (the Finnish version of baseball), fishing, math, songwriting (don't ask...), knitting (I still knit occasionally), image editing, and aikido (the most recent addition to my list).

And finally, my biggest regret of all: writing. I used to write a lot when I was younger and my most productive season was around the time I was 13. Becoming a writer has always been a dream of mine and back then I fully intended to continue writing fanfiction until I felt ready to try writing something original. But guess what? I stopped. I suddenly developed this very bothersome sense of self-criticism which made me unable to be satisfied with anything I wrote. I also stopped actively reading Finnish books around that time so there was no way for me to learn new ways to express myself through writing.

So what does this all boil down to? In the end I always realize that if I want to truly become good at something, I need to give that something my full concentration and cast aside the other, less important things. If I had tried to pursue all (or at least a larger number) of my interests, I don't think I would have ever become truly good at any of them and I would just have become frustrated and stressed out (I know the limits of my attention span). My current main interests are learning Japanese (which is so connected to anime and manga that I'm not even mentioning them separately) and translating. Both are things that I don't want to do halfheartedly and that I want to become truly proficient in. Japanese especially will take a lot of work to learn. That's why I'm trying my best not to let other potentially interesting things distract me. My recent interest in cosplay is already taking away a lot of studying time (especially because sewing everything by hand takes so much more time than doing it with a sewing machine!).

Honestly, it all comes down to lack of time. If I had all the time in the world, I would love to pick up my piano lessons again and start learning how to draw and paint. I would like to go hiking and skiing many times a year and travel to countries around the world. I would like to write all the time, even if I never published anything. I would like to read all the interesting books that I can find and afterwards go back and reread all of them. I would like to spend more time with my friends and do all sorts of fun things with them (things that preferably don't involve alcohol...). I want to date and get married and have two kids who'll demand all my attention for the next twenty years. And so much more.

But I have to think of my future. I only have a couple of years left before I have to start working so that I can make a living. And then I'll have even less time for other things. And before that, I'm in a great hurry to become as good at Japanese as I possibly can since I probably won't have that much time to concentrate on learning it after I start working.

I feel like I've wasted so much time. I could be totally fluent in Swedish by now if I had taken my studies more seriously. Instead of once wasting a whole summer vacation on playing Rollercoaster Tycoon (another short lived obsession) I could have been writing. Or drawing.

I don't ever want to go back to being the lazy old me who wasted time on things that I don't even remember anymore and who never became good at anything. ((And just for the record, I don't consider watching anime a waste of time. However, watching the same anime for the fifth time because I'm too lazy to do anything else is a waste of time.))

Life's too damn short.

Of cosplay and great finds

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:18:39 GMT

So, it looks like I really will be doing a Hetalia cosplay at Sakuracon (along with my Hakkai cosplay). Up until today I was unsure whether I should do it or not since I wasn't willing to spend a lot of time on making the costume. In other words, it all depended on whether or not I could find a good (and cheap) coat that wouldn't need many alterations. And guess what? I found one! It's a proper army coat that only cost me 10 dollars since I got it second-hand. I honestly wasn't expecting to find anything usable, so imagine my surprise when I really did find something! I was originally looking for a coat for a Finland-san costume, but the coat I found is actually perfect for a Sweden-san costume, so I'm changing my plans and going as Sweden instead. I'm actually happier that I can go as Sweden, since I like his character a lot more than I like Finland. Finland is portrayed as the small and cute type (and I don't like that type!) whereas Sweden is a stoic, cool guy. I think I just felt obliged to go as Finland since I'm Finnish. But screw that, I'm going as Sweden.

Now I just need to order some wigs...

Of... oh who cares!

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:31:34 GMT

For once, I had a pretty productive day. I bumped into two almost-friends (separately) who I hadn't seen in a while and got to talk to them for a moment (for me it's enough that I get to reaffirm every once in a while that these people haven't totally forgotten my existence).

Second, I signed up for a one-day cross country skiing trip to the North Cascades. I always knew that the University had an outdoors center, but I never quite realized that they often organize interesting trips in which everyone is welcome to participate. Washington state has plenty of national parks, mountains and other beautiful landscapes that are just waiting to be explored. Most of the one-day trips by outdoor center cost about 30 dollars plus whatever equipment you need to rent. I wouldn't call that a bad price when you get to explore some of the most beautiful landscapes in the whole country. I'm glad I still have some months left so I can keep an eye out for any other interesting trips. I would definitely like to go hiking up either Mount Baker or any other nearby mountains (many of them are actually dormant volcanoes!). It'll be fun to get to ski again, since the last time I went skiing was around ten years ago (I have this sudden urge to start saving for a trip to Lapland...). I'm definitely taking my camera so look forward to pictures!

What else...? Oh yes, I also attended a linguistics club meeting since they were doing a short crash course in Swedish :D. Language wise I didn't learn anything new (no surprise there) but the lecturer (a Swedish woman who has apparently lived in the US for so long that her Swedish has gotten really rusty... I was even tempted to correct her at one point) had some interesting cultural facts and stories to share that I hadn't heard before. Why did I even bother going, you may ask. To be completely honest, I just wanted to feel smug that I was the only one there besides the lecturer who could understand Swedish. Shame on me.

I was also supposed to go to Seattle on Saturday, but the trip was cancelled because I was pretty much the only one who signed up *pout*. Then again, I can go whenever I want as long as I find means of transport (the public transportation system here is so complicated...). I also want to go to Vancouver someday soon (it's so close that I can easily just do a day trip).

Now I need to study the next 50 kanji that will be in tomorrow's quiz. Joy.

Of awesome webcomics and fangirling

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:59:41 GMT

Hello all you people who like very weird pairings. If you thought it was impossible to pair two countries together, you were dead wrong. I just found out that there is a web manga, called Hetalia, that has one character representing each country in the world (well not all of them, at least not yet). The manga is mostly a long series of gags centered around various historical events (mainly in Europe but other places as well). It seems to have both shounen-ai and het with many weird pairings.

The fandom recognizes Sweden-san and Finland-san as a married couple (though Finland-san seems to be both in denial and a bit scared of his husband...). See their profiles This pairing seems to have quite a large fandom too (I think I just joined the fandom...) LOL.

Translated versions of the main Sweden-san/Finland-san strips:
Running away with Su-san
The Violent Su-san of Northern Europe Takes a Swing
Sweden, me and Dambolis
Christmas Rampage '07, Part One
Polish Swedish Wars 1598 (1621)-1629
Battle for America
5 Year Commemoration Comic
Happy 2009

Here's a funny little fanart What else would a Finn give to his loved one on Valentine's day but salmiakki? *can't stop laughing*

And if you happen to be interested in the other countries, see the full Hetalia scanlation list: Hetalia scanlations

I actually found this because the anime version just began airing (5 minute long episodes). We have only had a short glimpse of Sweden-san and Finland-san so far, and I'm really waiting for them to get their own episode (or more).

Don't you just love finding random fun things online?

Edit. Is it totally crazy that I'm already considering making a Finland-san cosplay costume even though I just found this series this morning? It would be great to go to Sakuracon as a Finn cosplaying as Finland ^_^. Of course I'd also bring along my Hakkai costume (which is about halfway done) since I've already put so much work into it. Most hardcore cosplayers come to conventions with more than one costume anyway. Finland's outfit would be easy enough to do if I can just find the right kind of jacket.

Of wildlife sightings

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:43:36 GMT

List of wildlife I've seen in the last four months:
- more squirrels than I can count
- a black rat
- a raccoon (right outside my front door!)
- 9 deers (yes, I'm counting)

And today I finally got a picture! They come visit our dormitory every now and then and this time they stayed long enough for me to go grab my camera. I actually took like 20 pictures, but most turned out really bad (why am I so bad with a camera?!).

If looks could kill...

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:54:05 GMT

Someone kill me.

My roommates are singing karaoke in the living room. Very loudly. And very off-key. In the middle of the day. While I'm trying to study.

How is it even possible for latino music to sound more like Buddhist chanting?

Of homesickness, unsocialness and inspiration

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:27:06 GMT

Fine, I admit. I'm getting homesick.

I think this feeling has been building up for weeks, but today I'll finally admit it.

Sibelius, Ultra Bra and salmiakki aren't helping. I think it's the general atmosphere of Finland that I miss most. After growing up feeling that I don't constantly have to try and make contact with people (like on a bus or in a store), American friendliness is getting way too overwhelming for me. Everyone everywhere is always asking the question that I've grown to hate: "How are you?". It doesn't matter if it's only been two hours since you last saw each other, they may already want to repeat the question. And I hate repeating the same "Fine, how are you" every single time. Every question always seems to begin with a "how" and it's very frustrating because there's never an easy way to answer those questions unless you're satisfied with repeating "fine" and "good" and having the conversation end there (you try and answer "How's it different here from where you come from?" with a few words).

I don't like small talk. If I have to make conversation, I'd rather forget all the meaningless how-are-yous and what-are-your-classes-like and the ever so annoying comments about the weather, and start talking about things that are really on my mind. I just feel like here you have to be a really really close friend with somebody before you can finally get over the small talk stage. And I just don't have the energy or motivation to try to get to that point. I'd much rather jump straight to the personal things and comfortable silences. I hate the feeling that I have to fill the silence all the time. I miss the few friends I have back home because there's no such pressure with them.

If it weren't for K (the only person here I can really talk to) and to a lesser extent Y, I might be tempted to just stop all attempts to have a social life for the next four months. I don't exactly feel lonely, since I've always enjoyed being by myself. My feelings consist more of stress and guilt caused by the thought that people expect me to make new friends here and I'm not. Why can't it be okay to just have a few close friends? I'm personally more than happy that I've managed to get one really good friend here.

As you can see, my time here hasn't made me any more social. If anything, I've gained more appreciation for the friends I do have. I've also found a new motivation for learning. For the first time in my life I'm actually willingly spending extra time on studying and I suddenly have all these new goals that I want to reach. I even found my long-lost inspiration for writing (original stories, not really fan fiction). I don't really have time to start any writing projects while I'm here but I've started writing down plot bunnies for when I do have time. My dream of writing a book of my own is alive again.

Of common colds

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:07:12 GMT

I hate being sick.

This is the third time in four months that I've gotten a cold and it sucks. Seems like the Washington climate has something against me :(. It always happens right before an exam too (then again, there's never a week without at least one quiz, usually many). I somehow managed to score full points out of yesterday's kanji quiz even with my mind all fuzzy, but today's bigger exam on early samurai history was a disaster. Too many names to remember... I usually have an easy time remembering Japanese names, but my cold prevented me from reviewing yesterday (I did try, but I pretty much ended up just staring at the text without comprehending anything). Why do Japanese people have to like repeating the same kanji in the names of everyone belonging to the same family? For example, Oda Nobunaga's father's name was Nobuhide, his grandfather was Nobusada, seven of his brothers had names beginning with Nobu as well as nine of his sons. Makes it really hard to remember which family member did what (though thankfully this time I didn't have to remember any relatives from this particular family).

My roommate seems to be wary of catching my cold, judging by the fact that she has temporarily moved to the living room in order to avoid me. Can't say I blame her since whenever my last roommate got sick, I immediately got a cold too.

My colds also always seem to happen right when someone is about to invite me to go do something fun (which doesn't happen too often). Last time I had to miss a birthday party and this time an invitation to the movies (I have not, in fact, been to a movie theater in Bellingham yet). Sucks.

What else? Oh yeah, I just quit aikido. I like aikido itself, but I was never too fond of the way they taught it. I would have liked to concentrate on learning one move properly at a time, but we always tried to learn many different ones in a single session and only spent a short time on each. Then we would have a new set of moves the next week and I just kept feeling like I wasn't learning any moves properly. Because I kept feeling like I wasn't improving at all I dreaded going there every week and all that dread has been rather stressful. So I quit. I'll probably take a couple of weeks off of club activity and then I'll join the anime club in the hopes that I'll have time to make a friend or two before I go back to Finland.

Shit, my head is killing me... I've been spending so much time sick that I even had to ask mom to send me more painkillers (I'd rather not try American ones when I don't have to). She also sent me 3 kilos of Finnish candy (so much for my diet).

A Japanese friend showed me a couple of ways to write my first name with kanji and I liked the ones that meant "true logic". Not totally me, but sounded cool.

Again, no energy to check for typos in this post.

Icon meme

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:17:20 GMT

Couldn't resist. Meme stolen from xbloodxraynex.

MAH ICONS.

default	oldest	newest


saddest	happiest	angriest


cutest	sexiest	funniest


fave het ship	fave fandom	fave animated


best quote	best textless	fave shounen-ai ship


use the most	favorite

HOW MANY ICONS DO YOU HAVE: 90
OUT OF HOW MANY AVAILABLE ICONS SPACES: 105
IF YOU COULD BUY SPACE FOR MORE, WOULD YOU: Though I love having a lot of icons, I think 105 is enough.
DO YOUR ICONS MAKE A STATEMENT: That I'm a manga/anime otaku.
WHAT FANDOM DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: Saiyuki
AND THE SECOND MOST: Ookiku Furikabutte (I didn't even realize I had so many of them!)
WHAT SHIP DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: Booth/Brennan (2 icons). I usually try to keep it so that I only have one icon of each pairing at one time.
ARE YOUR ICONS MADE MOSTLY BY OTHER PEOPLE: Yes.
DO YOU MAKE ICONS: Occasionally, though nothing fancy.
ARE THEY ANY GOOD: As I said, nothing fancy.
ANIMATED ICONS ARE: Okay at times, but looking at them for too long makes my head spin.

DO THE MEME.
Coding can be found here

Of who knows what

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:16:16 GMT

Congrats Obama and congrats USA. Listened to Obama's inauguration speech on youtube and it sure sounded good, even though I know next to nothing about politics and I wasn't really concentrating on listening all that hard. Just thought I should listen to it since I happen to be in the country at this historic moment. Most people around here sound very optimistic about the new president so I'm happy for them.

And now that I have that out of the way, it's back to my ever so boring every day life. *bored tone* Yay. As expected, nothing much has happened (and I'm way too tired and lazy to write anything long right now) so here's a short list of random and pointless happenings and thoughts from the last week:

Got told by a man in the grocery store that apparently peanut butter isn't good for you.

I found out that I'm apparently addicted to multi-tasking and it's really hard trying to concentrate on just one thing at a time.

I skipped aikido class today because I felt lazy. Although I like it, I'm considering dropping it when the Spring quarter starts. I never meant for it to be a permanent hobby anyway and I'd like to try some other club too.

I'm currently wasting my time by going through random TV series, both old and new. So far I've finished watching all existing episodes of Supernatural (which rocks my socks) and Medium, and I'm currently rewatching Smallville and Stargate SG-1. Once I get through those I'll move on to Doctor Who and Heroes. So much for any attempts to have a social life.

Half my homework in this quarter consists of learning kanji. About 60 a week. Anyone else would probably call it pure torture (I fail to see why I need to learn the kanji for gall bladder. How, um... useful), but I'm actually enjoying it. Go figure.

My Finnish continues to deteriorate from lack of use (I only use it once a week when I talk with my mom). Once I come back to Finland I'll have to spend the first month reading some proper Finnish literature.

I fed some salmiakki to an American friend. It wasn't pretty.

I have a prepaid phone which requires me to buy 300 minutes every two months or the service expires. The price isn't too bad, but the problem is that I don't use my phone anywhere near that much. In the last four months I've only used a bit over 100 minutes out of the 600 I had and I need to buy the next 300 minutes in a couple of days. I'd survive until June with the amount I have on my phone right now, but I'll have to buy 900 minutes extra to keep the phone working until June. Isn't that just peachy.

It was so sunny and warm earlier today that for a moment it felt like Finland in April. I am so not missing Finnish winters.

Can't be bothered to check this post for typos. Maybe tomorrow.