The Other World

I've been quiet for quite a while. A small miracle. Anyway... hey, Selby won despite the tricky beginning. I still can't believe O'Sullivan actually lost to Higgins 9 to 13. Tomorrow we'll be watching the finals in suspense who will be the World Champion 2007 in snooker. I think John Higgins is going to kick Selby's ass. But we'll know better tomorrow night, in addition to the identity of France's new president. I prefer Royal to Sarkozy but then again, I'm not to o familiar with the nuances of their political views; I just think it would be great to have one more female leader in Europe. To be brutally honest, I'm somewhat surprised they haven't had a female president already.

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Today's main feature: studying abroad. I was supposed to write about the abortion issue started by Martin but after a couple of minutes writing I was just so angry I couldn't keep on going; I tend to get side-tracked when I'm angry and this issue was no exception. I ended up ranting and raving about Christianity in general, and I wasn't too gentle. I accused them of narrow-mindedness and then realised I had descended to their level with that text so I deleted the whole thing.

But the exchange student matter. I've been going through the home page of the British university I would like to study in. Someone once said that I would probably like it in Cambridge; I almost burst into tears merely due tot the idea that someone who was accepted there imagined I could study there. Actually, it's in Wales. I've been studying Welsh on my own for a while; my motivation then was to get the basics of Welsh so that I would have some kind of advantage to most other foreigners who would be applying a job in Wales at the same as I would.

Then I started thinking why not study at a university. But I don't think it would work out. I went through the estimated costs per month, and the accommodation alone takes three and a half hundred euros each month when the room is the smallest possible self-catered room with shared bathrooms and kitchens; the en suites are naturally more expensive. And then there would be the tuition fee (which was categorised as “to be announced”; in other words, I have got a clue what it might be, so I’m just expecting the worst possible on Finnish standards). And we mustn’t forget the every day costs, food and travelling and phone bills et cetera. In addition to these, there are the flight expenses and the costs for the official language test IELT 6.0 and the rest bureaucratic fees there are. It’s so very nice to know that only those with rich and generous parents can get a degree from a foreign university. This is one of the things that make me play with the idea of letting go; just giving up all the unsatisfying efforts to be a productive member of society and go insane. Wouldn’t it be nice? Spending all days putting together jigsaw puzzles and behaving in an irresponsible manner, and be under such a heavy medication I wouldn’t even notice I have no freedom none whatsoever. The sweet oblivion. But as I said, I’m just playing with the idea. I’m more likely to kill myself than get committed in a mental institution.

Since I'm discussing studying, an update is in order; during the past two weeks I have had FOUR fives. Therefore my overall average is 4,4. I'm quite proud of myself, to tell you the truth. I'm not particularly gifted at anything else but whining (and other less positive things) so the only thing I can do is to be a pinko (and with that spelling, people, no apostrophes!). There is actually a translation, "teacher's pet", but I don't think it's accurate; of course, I can be a teacher's pet and get better grades by intentionally subtly sucking them up, but not all getting good grades speak with their teachers to great extents outside classes or even in classes.

Talking about updates, let it be noted that I have again taken what is rightfully mine, and I'm currently at the top of the high scores list of the wormie game, this time with 15,550 points. I'd like to see someone top that.

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The Meme of the Day:
“Which Dark Angel character are you?” from http://www.rikos.net/quiz2.htm.

“Dark Angel -testin mukaan olet Original Cindy.

Original Cindy on leppoisa ja hyväntuulinen tyyppi, joka lähinnä keskittyy etsiskelemään seuraa sähäköistä tytöistä. Original Cindy on ystävä, johon voi aina luottaa, vaikka oudot tilanteet tätä aluksi hiukan hämmentäisivätkin.”

Okay, so here's the thing; I know this African exchange student, and (as far as I'm concerned) we're sort of friends (as in "kaveri", not as in "ystävä"; there's a semantic difference). But now as I'm in the university's IT class with him, he did something I don't quite understand. He has hugged me before (on Monday, if I recall correctly) and he has taken up the habit to touch my shoulders or back if he goes by... okay, irrelevant. The point is that he just went outside the room for a while and as he came back he came to hug me from behind; he put his arms around me and kissed my neck through my hair. What exactly am I to understand by this?

I mean, I don't usually care what other people think but I'm not comfortable with the idea of him thinking I'm so egoistic I instantly think that his behaviour is because he's madly in love with me (which he has actually said twice already) instead of that it's not due to our cultural differences (and therefore perfectly innocent action) but for some deeper meaning... Why cannot women be this friendly with me?

Others are missing, too. It appears a certain redhead guitarrist never turned up to carry out his civil duty as a man (should be either obligatory or voluntary to begin with, as far as I'm concerned).

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The Meme of the Day:
The Acronym generator (http://www.lokalisointi.org/cgi-bin/fun/acronym/akronyymi.cgi), which defines me as follows.

S.P.L.E.N.E.T.I.C.:
Surullisen Pissapäinen ja Lihava Eksentrikko joka Nipottaa, Elostelee Taitavasti ja Innoittavasti ja C-koodaa.

I'm speechless.

I have been deposed from my throne of The Bad Teenager of the family.

Today my little brother, seventeen years old, did something *very* unexpected. I came home from BodyCombat (yes, She was there, too) and found that someone has really tried to get me on the phone: four different people had called me. I called back to my mother, and learned that my brother had went to school as any other day, spent the day at school as a good student should and got off somewhere at noon. Everything as usual so far. But here's the twist: instead of going home he had apparently got on a bus going to the nearest train station and then he had gone to Oulu with the train; all this without notifying a single person, not even my little sister with whom he's much closer than with me. My parents had, surprisingly enough, wondered where the hell he was and eventually called the police as well as every single person he might have gone to, including me. But he had gone to some church worker who used to work for the Lutheran church of my previous home town earlier. He didn't answer his phone until my uncle, his godfather, who happens to be a police officer, called him. So now he's in Oulu with the priest’s family until further notice.

I'm just not very prone to trust my mother to tell the truth. I kept asking what the hell had happened there to make him do something like this, but she kept repeating that everything has been as usual. Bullocks! My brother is a sensible person, he wouldn't just take off like this without a bloody good reason. I mean, he's among the top of his class, and now he's going to skip two days from school! You can tell me I told you so when I finally figure out what it was that our mockery of a father did when he was drunk. I don't know yet what it was or even when, but there's got to be something. Did he hit him? He hit me, and I was a girl, dammit! Or maybe he just kept going on with that crap he always goes when he's drunk and just crossed the line some day. And now, after dwelling on that something in his mind for days my brother just had enough, and he became so fed up with it that he needed to leave like that. Something tells me he's going to continue on the same path as me and my little sister and move put from home at the age of seventeen. And I would also assume that the tradition of psychologists' involvement (or priests', similar function sometimes) also continues.

The timing, I have to say was somewhat peculiar: it's Mother's Day in two weeks. Is this some kind of a statement from him? "Fucking happy Mother's Day!"

Today is (or was about an hour ago) the 488th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death. The quote above was found in one of his journals in form of a riddle; the sentence was hidden inside notes and other musical symbols. To those not so familiar with Italian (the most beautiful language in the world, as far as I'm concerned) it reads "Only love makes me remember, it alone stirs my heart". Today I've been thinking of that line as I've been listening to Roxette ("what's she like, when you're making love and stars are in her eyes, when you're looking for the answers in her smile...") and thinking of Her. If She says anything to me, if it was only a soundless greeting, I fall for Her all over again. I'm not sure if I even want to let it go, though. The one time earlier this spring I was about to (after the straightness obstacle) I felt so empty afterwards, as if I had lost a physical part of myself and felt some kind of a psychological phantom pain. I suppose this love, albeit unrewarding one, consoles me, in a way. I don't think I'm ready to give that up just yet, not until I'm open enough to have an actual relationship with someone.

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The Meme of the Day:

Virtual resurrection from http://paavo.vuodatus.net/blog/481297.
Here is a meme from six feet under. Bring ten artists back to life virtually.

1. Simone de Beauvoir
If I had the possibility to go back in time, I would want to meet her; if not speak to her but at least see her. There is, however, a problem: her resurrection is in striking conflict with Existentialism, which would make me consider this particular resurrection thrice.

2. Leonardo da Vinci
He would fix about half of this world's scientific problems as soon as he had brought his scientific knowledge up to date.

3. Roald Dahl
I wouldn't mind more stories like "Landlady".

4. J.R.R. Tolkien
There are about a million fans ready to read the version of Silmarillion finished by him, including me. An maybe he could complete the Elvish languages, too, so they could actually be used, like Klingon.

5. Douglas Adams
The author resurrections continue and the explanation is exactly the same as with Dahl.

6. Anton Szandor LaVey
For the sake of personal interest; he could also develop the Satanic philosophy further.

7. Oscar Wilde
I would welcome his sarcastic remarks of this world with arms wide open. And a writer like him would deserve to get a taste of this world were he wouldn't be thrown behind bars for being homosexual.

8. Caligula
Just to make the yellow press busy, although I'm not sure whether he was actually an artist. Well, I suppose the basic education in ancient Greek included artistic subjects to some extent.

9. Mozart
He could probably stir up a scandal or two but mainly I'm interested in the musical aspect.

10. Hitler
Before entering politics, he was actually a painter. If he were brought to this world at that age, would he turn out to be the same murderer as he did decades ago?

How will you die? - http://www.quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=8960&first=yes

“Your death will be by disappearing, probably a camping trip gone wrong or an evening hike you never returned from. Always remember that one guy who was hiking alone and got in a rock slide. He could have died, but he cut his own hand off to save himself. Don't end up like him (or worse, dead).”

Disappear 80%
Poison 67%
Suicide 53%
Accident 47%
Disease 47%
Gunshot 40%
Cut Throat 33%
Bomb 33%
Natural Causes 33%
Drowning 33%
Stabbed 33%
Suffocated 27%
Eaten 7%

And to continue around this morbid subject…

When will you die? - http://www.testimaa.com/testi.php?t=kuolema

“Kuolet 28.9.2055.”

And a second opinion, while I’m at it, from http://www.deathclock.com/ which says I’ll die on Friday, November 16, 2040 and, as I’m writing this, seconds slip through the narrow passage of the hourglass of my life, leaving me 1,058,596,525 seconds to live.

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Woody Allen:
"Death is one of the few things that can be done as easily as lying down. The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you."

T.S. Eliot:
“It is worth dying to find out what life is.”

Edgar Allan Poe:
“The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins?”

Mark Twain:
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

Euripides:
“No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.“

Joshua Bruns:
“The trouble with quotes about death is that 99.999 percent of them are made by people who are still alive.”

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I continued to think of death even further and I ended up re-visiting one site where you can design a rudimentary version of your dream tombstone (http://www.hautakivi.net/index.php?sivu=suunnitele1), “rudimentary” being the operative word. So, I now have a sketch and the essential information of the tombstone I would like to have some day. It is quite unconventional, I’ve ever seen only one stone with a pentagram before. And I am well aware of the fact I’m not Wiccan, but then again it is the things the pentagram symbolises to me that matter. The bronze decoration also has to be specially made; it will be expensive but I will *not* tolerate a single Christian symbol above my grave. The people left behind hopefully are able to acknowledge that fact instead of hiding behind the excuse of saving my soul; I understand that people who are going to see the stone will be alive but what is above my grave is the one thing to represent me as what I was when I was alive, not what others wanted me to be.

But if you wish to have a less serious approach to the matter, write your own tombstone at http://journals.aol.com/johnmscalzi/bytheway/entries/2006/07/19/write-your-own-tombstone/6221. I would show you mine if I knew how to make it smaller and turn the picture into a file lepakkolaakso approves. I wrote "The FBI's most unwanted. F.M. Luder." What a surprise.

I came to wonder why we are celebrating vappu. According to the omniscient Wikipedia, the first of May is adopted from Sweden, which in turn adopted it from the British. It would appear that the reason for most Finns to get a day off from work or school to get completely wasted is due to a British catholic saint called Walburga whose bones were transported back to her home country centuries after her death on 1.5., thus making it her feast day in England and therefore also in Scandinavia. I really do prefer the pagan view, Beltane, on this matter. Having a Lutheran holiday is one thing, but a Catholic one... seems awfully distant for someone brought up in Finland where Catholics are undoubtedly in the minority.

And then there is this business with putting on the student cap on statues. Mainly the targets tend to be females (Helsinki, Rauma, Tampere, Turku), or writers (Jyväskylä, Kajaani, Oulu, Vaasa), or animals (Lahti, Lappeenranta, Savonlinna), or a combination of two of these (Pori; the bear appears to be a female). Kuopio is the only town in Finland I know for sure put a cap on a male statue. But why? Why put a cap on a statue on vappu? Whose cap? What happens to the cap. Probably gets mysteriously lost during the few veiled hours before dawn. I know the tradition comes from Sweden but I couldn't track down the origins and motivations there.

I’m frustrated. One day off my usual routine and I have nothing interesting to do. There’s very little things to do in my town, as far as I know anyway, as far as absolutists are in question. Maybe I should just dig up that cap of mine and at least pretend I’m having the time of my life. Or I could leave it be and mope around at home, maybe go to the market square some time during the day see what they have there; at least they have Celesty there, I just don’t know when. Or I could read; after all I still have that Nathanael West waiting.

I am currently sitting in an IT class at the university and I just couldn't resist the temptation to describe the mayhem in here at the moment. It appears several techers have put deadlines on different essays to this day, the one day between the weekend and vappu. I can already imagine the malicious grin spreading all over the teachers' faces today when they think of all those students who have been partying since Friday to wake up today at two p.m. just to realise they have to drag their hang-overed asses to the university to write and print these essays to hand in today. I am convinced none of those teachers come here today to pick them up but I suppose it gives them a feeling of extreme power to know how we sweat to return them within the deadline.

And now the printer went on Bartleby mode! This is hilarious! I may have to calmly walk outside to the hallway and split my sides laughing there. =D

This definitely qualifies as rotfastic.

I watched that X-Files episode, "Closure", yesterday. In the end I burst out in tears. Mulder reuniting with the soul of her dead sister in the nocturnal field, surrounded by more souls of dead children, and that ethereal music in the background... I couldn't keep myself from crying; there's only so much I can take. It was just so beautiful, what Mulder needed; a closure to his lifelong quest to find out what really happened to her sister.

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The Meme of the Day:
I stole this one from Druusi:

http://www.quizilla.com/users/KatherynS/quizzes/What%20breed%20of%20cat%20are%20you?/

“You are a Persian! You are quiet, gentle, and loving, though sometimes you need extra attention and care. Some might call you high maintenance, but you just need to be pampered.”

I suppose that’s not that far, in feline terms, anyway.

I came across with a peculiar piece of news the other day; it appears that scientists have found a planet outside our solar system whose conditions seem to be very similar to those in Earth. I found this article on the subject:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HABITABLE_PLANET?SITE=NDBIS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT.

You know what I think? I think that this whole talk about humankind reaching out to space in order to gain deeper knowledge of our planet and our existence is just bullocks. These noble intentions are merely there to cover up the real reasons for humankind’s eager expansion of the frontier. What we are actually looking for from the skies above are habitable planets, which we can invade if we manage to develop the technology enough before we destroy the Earth and Homo bloody Sapiens along with it. You know what? Maybe we would deserve it. We had a chance to take care of this planet in which we are, for the time being, living but instead we keep abusing it due to creed, vanity and thoroughly false and naïve feeling of superiority. We are superior only in closing our eyes to have a feeble excuse to ignore all the things we are doing wrong, things some of which we might actually be able to change. So, in our almighty stupidity, we reach out in space, hoping to find a planet to inhabit before it’s too late for us.

See how arrogant we are, thinking we are alone in this vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big universe. I mean, some might say we explore space in order to find signs of life on other planets but really, after the Voyagers, the humankind hasn’t seriously tried to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life forms. We look for places to move when it’s time for us to face the consequences of our own mistakes, mistakes we could have fixed.

Okay. Let us assume we found a habitable planet whose size was relatively similar to Earth's with temperatures that would permit liquid water, and we had the technology to transport life from Earth there. What would this include? Would we build a modern Noah’s ark with the entire earthling fauna as well as flora, to make the new planet resemble Earth as it was before humans began systematically destroying it? Or would the new planet resemble those seen in sci-fi visualisations, with only humans in weird costumes, an animal or two to experiment with, and a huge amount of advanced technology? Or would it be something else?

What if the planet wasn’t big enough to move the whole, ever-growing humankind to live there? On what basis would we choose those to be transported to start a brand new, advanced version of humankind, Homo Sapiens Progressus, Humankind 2.0? With eugenics, perhaps; accepting only those with the best genetic make-up including such qualities as athletic body build, excellent health, outstanding procreation abilities and above average intelligence, all between a certain age scale (of course) so that they could produce more of these über-beings to develop humankind to the point of ruling the entire universe? After all, this would be a golden opportunity to get rid of all those pain-in-the-ass diseases, the by-products of our own ambition; a limited number excluding everyone who have been decided to be too old, too ugly, too unhealthy, or otherwise having aspects the people in power dislike. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would be more than happy to see the Third world with its problems to disappear, drown in the fiery ocean of destruction as Mother Nature gets back at us. Out of sight, out of mind. Or maybe they would come up with a global lottery. “May I present to you this week’s main prize: million one-way tickets to Planet X! Is it you who is going to have this once-in-a-lifetime possibility to wake up watching the Red Dwarf rise on the horizon with your loved ones? With ten correct numbers and only fifty cents a row it might be! Don’t miss this opportunity, because I know you are just dying to get up here!” Yee-ha. I’m sure ex-president Carter didn’t know the message in the Golden Record still travelling in those two Voyagers is now a lie.

"We cast this message into the cosmos… Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -perhaps many- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

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The Meme of the Day:

What planet are you from?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatplanetareyoufromquiz/

“You are from Jupiter.

You are exuberantly curious - and you love to explore newness. Enthusiastic and optimistic, you get a kick out of stimulating intellectual discussions. Foreign cultures and languages fascinate you. You love the outdoors, animals, and freedom. Chances are you tend to exaggerate, so try to keep a lid on that. If you do, you'll continue to be known for your confidence, generosity, and sense of justice.”