The Other World

Ei saatana...

Imagine a hug. Yeah, that one. It is henceforth banned. Why? Because it brings genitals so close together and thus lures innocent Christian kids to having es ee ex. NO! WE WON'T HAVE ANY OF THAT! That's why you'll be releaved to know that True Christians (TM) have the Answer: the Christian side hug.

Yeah...

I agree with RationalDischarge: "Leave it to fundamentalists to read depravity and moral failure into a completely innocuous, NON-sexual activity." Next they'll be banning touching because that to is an open invitation to having sex. But notice the funny thing: "I'm a rough rider filled with Christ luv." = I am having anal sex without lube with Jay Cee as the top. But front hugging is bad... I suppose only perverts find sexual aspect in a non-sexual activity.

Post scriptum: Also remember to ban mushrooms, bananas (that means you too, Ray darling!), cucumbers, apples, oysters... and bowls and containers and sticks and belts and... let's just all wear full-burkhas regardless of one's gender. But.. but.. but I will know what's underneath! GENITALS! Ooooh.. ahh... I'm.. filled... with Christian love... oohh... No, no, NOOOO! Kill them, kill'em all!!! No other genitals but mine!!!!

En näköjään pysty ohittamaan kirjameemiä.

1) Mikä kirja itketti?
'Linnunradan käsikirja' -trilogian kohta kun Marvin kuoli. 'HP ja kuoleman varjelukset' kirja, kun Kalkaros kuoli.

2) Mikä nauratti?
Jotkut kirjat, joita EI kuvata takakannessa ratkiriemukkaiksi, tuppaavat kutittelemaan kieroutuneita nauruhermojani. Tähän kategoriaan eivät siis kuulu esimerkiksi Roddy Doylen 'The Snapper'.

3) Mikä oksetti?
Ks. kysymys kuusi.

4) Mihin henkilöhahmoon samaistuit?
Kalkarokseen ja Marviniin, mistä johtunee heidän kuolemiensa aiheuttama emotionaalinen reaktio. Hothead Paisaniin!

5) Minkä kirjan jätit kesken?
Kynnys jättää huonot kirjat kesken on minulla erittäin korkea, mutta se yksi joka sietokyvyn ylitti... no, en taida mainostaa mokomaa lätyskää.

6) Minkä kirjan toivoisit jättäneesi kesken?
Kaikki ne Sweet Valley High -kirjat, jotka ympäristön paineesta luin ala- ja yläasteen aikana.

7) Minkä kirjan luit uudestaan?
En ole oikeastaan uudelleenlukuihmisiä. Taidan lukea käännöksiä, jolloin sen voisi lukea uudestaan lukemiseksi. No Pottereita on ainakin tullut luettua useampaan kertaan kummallakin kielellä. Ja sitten Stephen Kingin 'Carrien' olen lukenut monta kertaa.

8) Minkä kirjan luit mutta et kehtaa myöntää lukeneesi (paitsi mulle nyt kahden kesken kun vartavasten kysytään)?
Kehtaan myöntää! Kaikki kirjat ovat tutustumisen arvoisia, jotkut jopa lukemisen arvoisia, mutta joka tapauksessa ne ovat osa suurempaa tietoutta omasta kirjallisuustiedostani. Tai no... ne SVH:t on kyllä tökkimisen takana saadakseni myönnettyä, että näitäkin on luettu. Vetoan kuitenkin lieventäviin asianhaaroihin: en tuntenut silloin Simone de Beauvoiria ja olin joukkopaineen alainen!

9) Mitä kirjaa suosittelet?
Virginie Despentes: King Kong -tyttö
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale
Emma Donoghue: Kissing the Witch
Carl Sagan: Billions & Billions
Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion

10) Minkä kirjan lukemisesta olet ylpeä (Esim. onko joku ihminen jossain joskus todella lukenut Alastalon salin alusta loppuun, josta kaiketi sopii olla ylpeä)?
Olen ylpeä kaikkien klassikoiden lukemisesta. Eli kun saan 'Tuntemattoman sotilaan' luettua, olen erityisen ylpeä itsestäni. Sama juttu kunhan saan Jane Austenin 'Pride & Prejudicen' luettua (en tosin ihan heti: 3 kuukautta = 17 lukua, eli katsotaan ensi syksynä tilannetta uudelleen...). Ovidiuksen 'Metamorfooseja', Miltonin 'Paradise Lost', Alighierin 'Jumalainen näytelmä', kaikki nämä runomuotoiset järkäleklassikot... niistä kertyy ylpeyspisteitä aika reilusti.

Again, I managed to bring up the ultimate question in class: gradu. I was wondering where the hell people get their topics and can be pleased with something completely trivial. The teacher's answer very much suggested that writing a gradu for the sake of writing a gradu is a good thing, not to be questioned. I very much disagreed (no surprises here...): seriously, what's the point of doing that? And then of course the subject of justification: why is this topic worth studying? Does it make it justifiable if no one has ever done a study on that? I do understand (with reluctance, though) that a gradu or even a doctorate will not change the world. So why the fuck do I still keep doing this? Because I don't want to be mediocre. I can fail miserably or be the top of the class but I will not be "okay" or "fine"! This leaves a problem: either I learn to think differently or I have to decide whether to graduate at all.

-------

The revenge of the curse of the social atom:

Back with the humanist group. Miserable. Absolutely depressing. We had to make a list of the top values we want from our careers. Then checking things that apply from a list and thus determine the anchors of the careers. My were (no surprises here either...) independence and balance. When the time came, again, to talk about other people I lost it. No keeping cool, but I just kept going on about not belonging, that I fell alienated from other students, from other people, how I have no idea why people do the things they do. One of the other students asked me an interesting -and what should have been an expected- question: why do I so strongly refuse to go for a job that requires interacting with people? Why do I not like people? And I poured all this out. Now I feel even worse than I did in the beginning of the course; before I was at a loss within the humanist scene, now I'm at a loss within everything because I so clearly should not be a humanist, but to study something systematic, logical, firm, hard sciences. The mentor of the course (really cute, by the way ;D) suggested I should consider certain business areas (...), financing or management, or physics or something like that.

Post scriptum: we also had to write a guided CV. Last question was about special skills. I have none, since ranting and raving are not included as such. Ended up writing the first seventy digits of pi on the lines. So sad.

So. Not only do I know find myself surrounded by intelligent, funny, beautiful and sexy women, or notice all the nice little things, or have a magnified tendency to like things (!), but now I'm also browsing through the webpages of the University of Amsterdam and NOT feeling anxious about the possibility of studying literature there and perhaps staying there for a longer time than the two years the degree takes.

I repeat: This is getting really weird!

Got Epica's two latest albums on mail yesterday. They can be described with two words: ingenious and fantastic. Listening to 'Design Your Universe' and especially 'Unleashed' and 'Martyr of the Free Word'. They make shivers run down my spine, and give me goosepumps. I now have an idea what aural orgasm means (some critic use the term when describing his experience of Nightwish's 'Once'). Extra credit for the unique art work done for the album's booklet. Not many are willing to spend time, energy and money for those in these times of electronic downloads.

And The Classical Conspiracy is just bloody great. I remember reading one of Tuomas Holopainen's interviews in which he said it would be interesting to do concerts with a live orchestra. Sorry, mate, but Epica did it first. And I love the sound of their songs that way, but even more I enjoy the symphonic metal versions of some of the most famous classical pieces and movie orchestrations. These include Verdi, Vivaldi and so on. Right now I'm, again, listening to The Imperial March from Star Wars V. It reminds me of the fun I had when playing the Lego Star Wars game where they had done a heavy metal version of this same song. ;) The first Lego SW game had a techno version of the song! :) The Pirates of the Caribbean medley is fantastic, too!

Fuck. My meds are either having a very odd side-effect way too late, or it's starting to work. From gloomy Burtonesque underworld to sunshine where one cannot but notice all those intelligent, funny, beautiful and sexy women. I'd say that I'm almost turning into a straight male; unlike them, I have no problem respecting women and treating them accordingly. Nor do I think too much of myself; I'm no centre of the universe (except maybe in The Other World) and I'm nowhere near delusional enough to believe I'm irresistable and thus push myself on them.

Post scriptum: Wow. Started out as a positive blogging, ended up spitting on men again. Damn, I'm good! ;)

Massa just blogged about the prediction of the end of the world coming in December 2012. I remember this same thing from sixth grade history lessons. Now, it's actually been argued by historians to have been a miscalculations (different mathematical systems and ortography does pose a possible mistake). Especially now that Emmerich has done yet another EndOfTheWorld movie (he has a fetish on the apocalypso, doesn't he?) I'm even less prone to believe in it. Not to mention that the Mayan calendar's end doesn't mean the world is about to end? Sounds like quite a leap there.

Anyway, I started to play the game "What if..?" What if the world did end for some reason in 2012? The first thing to come to mind was, surprise surprise, sex. I would like to have sex before that. And not just any sex: good sex. No point in having bad sex and then die. That's pretty much the only thing I'd like to do. Actually, no. I'd also like to kill some guy who deserved it. I have quite a few candidates for that already. What else? Well, I'd be sorry for not having read all the books I would've wanted to read. Perhaps it would have been nice to have had a glimpse of love, too, though I still argue I'm too damaged for that. That's about it. Since I don't have friends, no need to say goodbye to anyone, I suppose. Except my cousin; I'd like to see her one more time.

You have got to watch this! The Intelligence Squared Debate on the topic "Is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world?"

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F821DBF3CE3374A3
(Five parts, each about 10 minutes long)

For: a Nigerian Archbishop with really fancy clothing and jewelry & a British conservative female politician who converted into Catholicism after the Anglican church started to ordain women as pastors

Against: a very well-know British writer and journalist & a very well-known (and along with the previous, one of the few men I can respect) British actor

I was against before and now I'm even more against.

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/

Ilmoittauduin epätoivon ajamana humanistiopiskelijoille suunnattuun ura- ja itsetuntemusryhmään. Tänään ohjelmassa oli, ja on kotitehtävänä edelleen ohjelmassa, piirtää sosiaalinen atomi. Jo nimi itsessään oli.. no, sanotaanko ettei atomin täyttö ainakaan tilasta tule olemaan kiinni. Piirsin sitten atomin, minä ytimenä ja neljä elektronikuorta joita täyttää jos keksin jotain täytettävää. Onneksi elektroneiksi saa laittaa myös asioita, aatteita ja muita abstrakteja asioita, ei ainoastaan ihmisiä ja eläimiä. Jälkimmäisellä se atomi olisi vielä tyhjempi kuin nyt. Voin jo kuvitella ensi maanantain: kaikki muut näyttävät isoa ja täyteliästä malliaan sosiaalisesta atomista, jossa lähimpänä ydintä ovat perheet ja poikaystävät ja lähimmät ystävät. Mitäs mulla siinä kohtaa on? Kirjallisuus ja feminismi. Pitäisiköhän laittaa Simone de Beauvoir sinne jonnekin, että atomissa olisi muitakin ihmisiä kuin serkkuni?

"The cosmos is also within us, we're made of star stuff..."

http://www.carlsaganday.com/

To celebrate the day you may want to listen to the interesting samplings of scientific symphonies. Who ever said that science cannot be wondorous and poetic?

Symphony of Science - We Are All Connected (Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye):

A Glorious Dawn (Carl Sagan ft. Stephen Hawking):

Great thanks to Melodysheep for making these!

Post scriptum: Don't forget Sagan's wonderful books, especially 'Billions & Billions' and 'The Demon-Haunted World'!