#14

The time before Christmas definitely is busy.

I was so relieved when we finished the seminar on Wednesday. We got relatively good feedback and some constructive criticism on our work, and decided that we'd improve the general sections a little and then each person would improve their own chapters how and if they saw fit. I did most of the general parts, seeing as I had had to leave early on the day the others had just started writing the end chapter of the work, and I also happened to apparently be the only one who remembered the whole thing. Another girl also corrected her chapter and then we handed it in on Friday.

THE HOBBIT THOUGH. I spent most of Tuesday, Wednesday - and, let's be real, Thursday as well - sewing my Elven costume. I was obviously in a bit of a hurry, and hadn't sewn for years, but it turned out really nice! The fleece material I used for the cloak was very stretchy and irritating, though, and I didn't know how to change the needle on our extra-smart-super-automatic sewing machine, but at least it held together! I'm probably going to make another cloak to a similar pattern but with thinner sack-like fabric at some point. I'll add some pictures of the costume on here later. I also grew very fond of the latex ears! Putting them on turned out to be a more hurried affair that I'd have liked, but they attached okay and I even got them off in one piece. Many people use latex prosthetics just the one time, but 24 euros is a bit steep for a few hours in elf ears, in my honest opinion. I'm sure I can get 2 or 3 more uses out of them, so long as I'm careful and also pay more attention to using the liquid latex on the edges as to make it less messy than this time. It was maybe the strangest feeling I've ever had to stand outside a cinema, dressed like an elf, smoking a cigarette.

The movie, too! I was very excited. Thank God I'm no kind of lore purist so the various and many plot deviations and extra features / characters didn't squick me. I adored it! Although, I do kind of wish that the Mikael Persbrandt/Beorn scene hadn't been so hurried ( seeing as I love both the character and the actor ) but still. And Thranduil, I cannot even function. I nearly toppled over laughing when he appeared in his first scene: I've spent the past year and a half praising Lee Pace's eyebrows to the high heavens, and then the camera pans in on Thranduil. First it shows the hem of an ornate cloth, then his hand, and. Then. A. Full. Screen-sized. Shot. Of. His. Eyes. And. Eyebrows. It was glorious! I also have all of the bitter feelings towards Peter Jackson for making all of the dwarves so loveable - it's going to kill me to see them die in The Hobbit part III. What happens to Kili (and, I assume, subsequently to Tauriel) is going to be torture to see, I already know.

On Friday I mostly laid about and corrected the school text. Then nearly all of Saturday I spent clearing out and dusting my bookshelves. I found so many old treasures - and some old crap, as well. It was nice to go through everything. I also laid out some 2 huge bags of manga I want to sell - almost all of my comics now fit into one small shelf. The wobbling piles of unread books also could be shoved into my shelves for the most part. My room looks a lot more put together now. And smells less dusty.

Speaking of books, I started reading the Infernal Devices trilogy by Cassandra Clare last night. So far, mostly because of the age setting of the books, it seems a lot more interesting than the Mortal Instruments - and I've loved that series as well! I think the 1800's feel just brings a bit of extra oomph - TMI is essentially the basic modern-day-heroine-finds-out-about-the-supernatural-and-falls-in-love-blah-blah-plotline, after all. The conservatism and misogyny etcetera seem a little too sharply exaggerated (descriptions of the horror of women wearing trousers don't really go with the flow of the rest of the characters' internal dialogue at all times) but still, it's a nice addition, and nowhere near so disturbing as to make me want to stop reading. Since the general character premises are very similar to TMI (non-Shadowhunter girl who is unaware of the Underworld has their only remaining family member lost/kidnapped, is saved and moved to an Institute by a haughty, attractive rascal-type Shadowhunter boy, there's the boy's parabatai, another girl who is rather unpleasant towards the protagonist, and the young Shadowhunters' pseudo-parents.... rather a lot of similarities, really) it's difficult not to compare the two. But I do really like the plotline so far, it definitely doesn't seem boring or too similar to Clary's at least on more detailed levels.

But my aunt and uncle have now arrived, bye! I'll get back to TID and reviewing the series later.

(Advent calendar chocolate still sucky. Thank god there are only 3 more pieces.)

#13

Whew! I feel so great! I stayed up until 3 am last night writing that assignment on Luther's theology. But I finished it and got through the spoken Swedish exam, too. It's great to not have any schoolwork hanging over me. I even had time to play Tera today. I might even get to play some of the new MMORPG's I've been downloading.

I started watching HarshlyCritical's Uri RPG Maker playthroughs. I really like them! I've watched through all of Mermaid Swamp and, I think, most of the Crooked Man even though he hasn't finished the game yet. There's a third one called Paranoiac or something, I think I'll play that through myself! They're vaguely horror-esque but the pixel style makes it not that scary. Also I've been spotting all the hints before HC basically and the puzzles aren't too difficult, so I won't be stuck and frustrated, probably.

My liquid latex and Grimas Camouflage makeup arrived today! I was just prancing around with the ears on (unattached) for a while. So excited! I only need to read one group assignment tomorrow so I can work on my elf costume, oooooh. I think I'm going to ask if our group of friends wants to go see it on Thursday, maybe. I'd have time to finish the costume and put it on, etc. I'll see if I have time to quickly knit some no-fingered gloves from the same yarn I used for the hood and ponchette.

But yeah, that's pretty much all that's happened today. The seminars are on Wednesday and unless we get some minor improvements to do on our group assignment, that'll mean it's Christmas Holidays for me! Boo-yah!

#12

I'm already getting a little sloppy about posting here! To be fair, I had lots of stuff to do on Thursday and Friday though, and tried to avoid the computer in order to keep from procrastinating too much.

That's what I'm doing right now, as well, though. Urgh! But I feel like I haven't found very relevant information on my assignment subject so far. Oh dear. I have lots of books to use though, so I should be alright.

On Thursday, we had a full day of lectures, and yestersay, I wrote 13 pages of essays! I did both parts of our home exam. I should probably email the first part to our teacher, I turned the second part in online already. I'm just not sure if I need to write in the reference pages from the book we were using for that Old Testament assignment. 

I managed to finish the exams (or actually, get to the part where I feel too braindead to add anything meaningful to my answers and I just turned it in regardless of how semi-sloppy it was) in time to make it to the "usual clients" things at Talo... we had some tortillas and won a competition. They'd started painting a canvas thing for the wall on Art Weekend, and I worked on it for a while with J. She was coloring in the Earth while I sketched out and started to paint a dream catcher. The sketch went well so the painting was easy. It did take a lot of effort though!

After Talo, we went to J's house and watched the first movie in the Hollow Crown series. It was Richard II, aka almost 2,5 hours of Shakespeare! We could have technically watched some more as well, but watching those Shakespeare plays takes a lot of mental effort, so we decided to call it a night at that. (It was nearing 2am, so it was good anyway. I knew I needed to wake up at a semi-reasonable hour to work on our group's assignment today.) Richard had lots of monologues and he was extra-fabulous! Also very skinny and he had a high-pitched voice. But I love the poetic nature of the scripts, as well as the shakespearian way of speaking altogether. Sigh. We'll watch half of Henry IV next time, probably.

Bye for now! I'll try and investigate Luther's theology. 

#11

The start of the week has been rather busy! On Sunday I basically just lay in bed sleeping when I was supposed to do an assignment... on Monday, I had a long day of school (9 hours - a full day and the Swedish exam after that) and I was at work archiving some papers for my father for 11 hours, although I only worked for 9 of those since I went to pick up the latex ear tips, some jeans and fabric in the afternoon with a friend. The assignment's deadline had been extended until Tuesday evening but obviously I didn't even remember that and was completely knackered when I got home from work, anyway. Apparently the alphabetizing I did was done well though, so I'm glad!

HIDDLES TIME:

First of all, the DVDs arrived yesterday! I was very tired when I came home from work, but then I saw the "You have a large package" -note and I just ran off because the post office was going to be open for another 40 minutes. I haven't had any time to watch them yet, so I've had to settle with just touching them every once in a while. Turns out that the mini series and apparently also War Horse are going to be aired on Finnish TV as well this month? I'm rather confused but totally fine with it, hee hee.

SECOND OF ALL. Remember when I thought that the Coriolanus footage wasn't going to come to cinemas in Finland? IT. DID. Just last night I Googled it just for the sake of it and found out that the only showing was almost sold out! Basically I panicked and wailed at my friends, and one of them promised to go with me. So I bought 2 tickets when there were only 4 left! I'm so happy ~

I've forgotten to eat out of my advent calendar for several days. The chocolate just does not appeal to me.

My parents have been hooked on Downton Abbey since it started airing in Finland, and lately I've been watching it with them! It's a good show, but considering my academic "prestige" watching TV shows and movies every night is not a very productive endeavour. Normally when I watch on my computer, I can kind of work simultaneously (or at least between episodes) but the shows we watch tend to be either long in and of themselves or just getting to watch them is a time-consuming project. I've been trying to keep to a good sleeping pattern too, so working at night isn't very easy.

I just realized how fast the Hobbit movie viewing has snuck up on me! I started knitting the ponchette today, and I still need to at least sew the tunic I bought some heavy, warm fabric for. I have a big hunk of fleece for the cloak as well, but I can use that as is with some creative safety pins in a pinch.

Time to go enjoy some (real) chocolate and old school detective stories by Agatha Christie!

#10

The printer next to me is apparently trying to accept a call at the moment? The mysteries of modern technology.

Anyway, A's graduation party was yesterday. I barely finished her book in time, I drew the last illustration at 3.07 pm and left for the party at 3.12. I would never get anything done without deadlines! I always cut things very close. But she seemed to love the book and so it was worth it. I'm really glad, too, that I managed to finish it and it turned out so well! Her party was fun otherwise, too. We met with a couple friends at Malmi and bought her flowers (I bought a lily branch because she mentioned she liked them) and then went to the party location. The people came and went in turns, and in the end there were about 8 or 9 of us at the after party. The "official" party had started at 4 pm and we eventually continued to a bar just before midnight. We went to Club Vatican because of the convenient location and free entry. A certainly enjoyed herself, and I got to talk to some friends of hers I hadn't really known before, too. Very cool. We left with A and J to A's big sister's apartment to sleep, eventually. We couldn't be bothered with public transportation so we took a cab. Thankfully we'd left early enough for there to be no line at the taxi spot! After waking up, we went to McDonald's and then I got home.

I had an assignment due today on the Old Testament.... I slept through half of the afternoon and drove my sister home only to realize that the deadline wasn't, in fact, at midnight but at 8 pm. A bit of a bummer. I wish I'd realized to check it earlier, I would've done it during the week or not taken so many naps today... Oh well. Failing to make it at a deadline hasn't exactly been an uncommon problem in my Diak career. I've also completely neglected our assignments for Swedish and the acknowledgement of previous studies, which I was supposed to do for English. Oh well.

Mother is also on my case about getting a summer job. Realistically, I know my own laziness is the actual reason for me never having a job - or rather, that I'd rather have no money than to go through the trouble of finding work. I'm aware it's an extreme privilege. I don't know, maybe I'm just a stuck-up middle class child who's grown up in a bubble and has no touch to the real world? Very likely. But I can hardly tell that by myself, huh? To be honest, as my views for the future are so negative, I don't actually have any ambition whatsoever, for anything. So long as I can mooch off my parents, why on earth would I use my time to work? It's not like I need to save for anything beyond age 35 or whatever time I pick to die.

This went wildly off topic, but my point was, even if the fault in the matter is mine in actuality, complaining about not working towards these things hardly makes me less anxious about the job-searching process. I have no problem with working per say, I'd just prefer being shown whatever work needs to be done to trying to think up some myself. If I was a firm believer in Freud's theories, that mentality could probably be traced back to my mother's treatment of me, couldn't it? Maybe that's something I should write about in I'll Sleep When I'm Dead? It could alternately be thoughts on how my own and others' psyche works as well as for venting, because I know that at least the stuff I think about concerning my own mental issues and difficulties are closely related to things I find painful to think about.

I need some new jeans. I only have two pairs of skinny jeans (which I've been wearing almost all the time this autumn - half because I like the look of them, half because they look less bummed than most of my other types of pants and so I wore mostly them to my trainee workplace) and the black pair has a huge, gaping hole at the crotch. Thank god it has decent waist/leg inch measurements so I can just pick up a similarly sized pair from Seppälä, H&M or JC. I'm thinking I'll go buy the jeans on the same trip with the latex ear purchase and when I go look for fabrics for my elf outfit.

In other news, while I was writing this post, the printer continued to try and take the call 9 times.

Good night.

#9

I'm just really, really confused at this point! The concert yesterday made me so happy I just... don't even know how to deal.

Both me and J made it on time to the Central Railway Station - our buses literally pulled onto the station curb at the exact same time, it was magic, I swear - and got some food before heading to Korjaamo. We accidentally headed in through a back door but then felt like dickheads so we went outside to stand with the others. (I'm pretty sure they would've driven us out at some point anyway.) We hung out with the Club of the Lost Ones and it was a lot of fun. Even A made it in time, and we could stand under an awning so the occasional drizzle didn't bother us. The Korjaamo staff kept trying to persuade us to go inside into the bar area. Even Arto came up to us at the front of the line and hung out for a couple of minutes.

We made it inside eventually, and to the front row. There were extremely awkward people next to us - we're pretty sure that the one who asked J out was actually gay and just didn't know it yet. The show was up to par - for Pariisin Kevät, awesome obviously - and I got to high five Antti and the sound guy gave me one of the setlists. Arto also danced in front of us like 7 times. HA. Every show,  I swear. I bought a band shirt that has a 4-eyed dobermann head on top of a triangle and a "PARIISIN KEVÄT" text. 

I made some progress on A's book yesterday, as well! I glued in and drew some pages and pre-cut the pictures for several more. I figured that if I had pre-cut images, the glueing portion might go faster as well? I don't know. Putting the glue on made me a bit irritated, it kept smudging everywhere. But I'll live. 

I can't glue the drawn portraits on until I've scanned them, though. And I can't scan anything as of now, since our upstairs desktop is being odd about the network connections. Sigh.

I'm going to start working on the book again! Let's hope today's calendar chocolate won't leave a bad taste in my mouth.

#8

Apparently I'm going to post every day now! I feel so excited about the things I'm working on that I want to write progress reports somewhere all the time. I had to restrain myself from writing this at noon.

I slept in by accident today... I was a bit late to our Bible group. But luckily my dad had left me the car to drive to school and back so it didn't take me more than 40 minutes after waking up to get to school. The other girl in my group called me half an hour after the group was supposed to start like "Where are you?" and I groaned into the phone something to the effect of "...guess who just woke up?"... Apparently I sounded quite like a hungover rock grandpa. Because I had the car I barely missed half of the first study session, and stayed after with the others to hand in a report on how each of us prepared and led one of the sessions.

Leading a session like this for and with people in my class is rather different than doing the same at, say, a confirmation camp. Everyone has some kind of opinion, basic interest and even pre-existing background information on most passages that we cover. It's not very challenging for a leader to engage very conversationally prepared groups into just conversation. If we had to do the same with teenagers, a very different approach to the Bible would most likely be required, since often they tend to lack both basic interest and background information. Obviously teenagers don't tend to have the most impressive attention spans either.

I finished the coloring on Tyler Hoechlin's portrait today! Note to self: drawing stubble is a  p a i n . His face turned a bit lopsided but I liked it a lot! I'm so happy about finishing the portraits - especially Tom and Tyler, since they both turned out really well and I was also very apprehensive about drawing both of the men, since I've had trouble with them and their specific faces in the past.... Sometimes it can be very difficult for me to grasp how someone's facial features click. Obviously I've spent enough time ogling their lovely faces to memorize them as well as I evidently had.

Also on the printing front, I'm doing great: combining what I finished last night and this afternoon, I only have 2 more collages to put together and print: the k-pop one and the general "sneak-peek" one for near to the beginning of the book. I also showed around a lot of the collages I'd already printed at Talo. I assumed the lady of Saturday would be so busy planning her own party that she wouldn't come there and apparently I was correct (thank god!). I would've had to hide them otherwise.

There's a guy at Talo who seems to really want to be my friend? Or that's what I'm assuming here, seeing that as far as I know, he has a girlfriend...? I find his way of talking and being vaguely irritating, so I don't really understand what's making him constantly appear and comment on whatever I'm doing. I don't actually care one way or another (unless he's interested and still dating, in which case, he's clearly a douche and I want nothing to do with him) but I find it rather confusing. We've co-existed at Talo for years without any need for extended contact, so why now?

My internet is not agreeing with me at the present. Thank god I can use the downstairs Wi-Fi on my iPhone and plug it in as a personal hotspot for the more urgent internet needs. Tumblr would most likely run extremely slowly on this internet path, but it works for Google image search so I'm happy.

The friend I'm going to tomorrow's Pariisin Kevät concert with is über excited, and it's rubbing off on me a bit! I can feel the enthusiasm growing in my stomach, ooh. She must really value this band, because she hates the cold with a burning passion (ha) and still agreed to come wait in line with me for 2 hours in the cold. What true fans we are.

In other news - the piece of chocolate in my advent calendar was recognizable as a holly branch today! Go Minions.

#7

This reminds me, I need to eat today out of the advent calendar! The pieces of chocolate in the Minions calendar are always so misshapen I can barely make out what the shapes are supposed to represent. The taste of "calendar chocolate" has never been very appealing to me, either, but I'll make do.

We had a half-day lecture on some viewpoints and facets of the Old Testament, and then two consequent Bible study groups before leaving. Now all the school I have this week is just two more Bible study groups - that's basically it! I'm not sure if I have a stay-at-home/online exam on Thursday or if it's just the OT assignment we're doing anyway, that's due on Sunday. The assignment descriptions seemed very similar. I hope it's the same one, plowing through what is essentially one assignment twice in the same week hardly seems like a productive use of my time.

I did manage to be productive today, though! My Bible study group was kind of meh since I barely even read the text ahead of time, but we have a good group and the conversation went well. (Leviathan is clearly our favorite subject, though. We also discussed consuming food through hands and I went a bit tumblr. I think at least one person in our group thought I was maybe a little crazy. But I digress.) Also, during the morning's lecture, I managed to color in the outline of Tom I made on Monday! It looks so nice and everything worked well - I even found a more alive color to use for his "ruddy Scottish farmer-like complexion" than the yellowy, often slightly sick-seeming tone I used for Ewan. I know that being able to mix colors from any colored pencil colors is a skill that's vital to drawing with the tool but it's very difficult when there's nothing even vaguely peachy to use. The range in the black wood colored pencils I like to use has very few useful variations in the skintone palette. Basically, there're a couple of yellows, orange, pink, red and magenta. Hardly very useful. Also, for my personal use, as I like to draw portraits of humans, a mid-tone brown would be a great thing to have. As of now, the kit includes a beigey light brown/yellow pencil and then the dark, almost-black brown pencil.

Next up when it comes to the portraits is Tyler Hoechlin! I feel like I'm really challenging myself with this one. His stubble makes it very difficult to get his divine jawline right. Even in the picture I used of Tom (wherein he had stubble), the facial hair is much less dark and opaque, and it also covers less of Tom's face than Tyler's award-winning scruff does his.

My plan for the book goes somewhat thusly:

Today (Tuesday):
- printing of at least 12 pages with chosen, cropped pictures
- possibly cutting the pictures down and preparing them to be glued onto the book
(do I need photograph corners? tape?)
- printing out the ab & butt pages
- possibly starting on the outline for the THoech portrait

Wednesday:
- more printing
- definitely some cutting and glueing
- hopefully finishing the THoech portrait
- maybe some more if schoolwork lets me (depending on how that exam thing is going to play out)

So there! Right now, I can hardly concentrate on other things, the book is kind of a major project. I hope I'm not too dead to start working on our group assignment on Sunday! Based on how not diligent I've been about finishing assignments on time so far, I'm guessing a lot of my capacity for schoolwork will be consumed by the Bible study assignment. Hopefully this pile of projects will turn out to be an example in ongoing improvement of my study habits!

#6

I'm a little worried for a friend of mine. I know there have been periods of time he hasn't been doing so good in the past, and it's not like all aspects of his life as causing him a lot of happiness as it is, but now he tells me he's had to be in contact with social workers? I mean, clearly, with studying social work, I know there are hundreds of things he could be trying to settle with them that are completely harmless, but I can't help but be concerned... We were supposed to go buy the elf ears from Punanaamio today, and I was thinking about buying materials for the tunic and cloak as well. Oh well, maybe we're doing that tomorrow, if he feels up to it.

Today we were studying very basic things about the Old Testament. I feel like we've gone through a lot of it before, even though the primary biblical focus of our theological/exegetical studies have been in the New Testament. We did get some "new" discussion going on about the creation myths and the story behind Samuel's birth.

Also a grand achievement: I'm halfway done with the drawings for my friend's book! I took a sketchbook, pens and pencils along to school and drew the complete, colored-in portrait of Ewan McGregor during today's lecture, and got in most of the rough outline of the Hiddleston piece. I think the practice I did with colored pencils this autumn really shows up in the Ewan McGregor one! I'm so happy about it. Also the semi-realistic semi-cartoon-type style of the portrait really appeals to me. I'll scan them and post them on here as well as on DeviantArt, maybe.

I've tried to draw Tom out of memory before, but it's always turned out weird, so I was quite apprehensive to start drawing him... so far, it seems to be going great. Even with just very basic lineart (for example, his eyes and mouth are just rough outlines without the pupils or teeth drawn in) it resembles him! That's probably mainly due to the fact that I did put in the places where his face tends to wrinkle around his smile. The crow's teeth are very characteristic of him, I find.

Now, before this turns into waxing poetic about Hiddleston - again - I'm supposed to go read up on the Bible study group I'm "hosting" tomorrow. I can't, for the life of me, remember any of the instructions from last year! I'll check if there's anything specific I have to do besides read up on the sources I have and maybe pose a few questions. I recall that we never did anything special or prayed during last year's round of this exercise, so I doubt I'll have to pay any attention to that sort of thing.

Kind-of-post-script:
A few days ago my dad tried to get me to come on the phone for a survey some service or other was doing on radio listening habits. He mentioned something about there being gift cards involved as a reward, or something to that effect. Earlier tonight, while I was almost-napping on the couch, my mom came upstairs with the landline in her hand and told me it was the survey. I responded to the short thing half-awake, and then the researchperson mentioned nothing about any gift cards...? I'm disappointed now.

#5

I had a big urge to post yesterday as well, even though I've been on a once-every-other-day posting streak since the first "real" post on this blog! Actually, I thought today was still yesterday and the streak was going to break with this post, but apparently not.

I was chatting with J last night and she invited me over - she's basically got cabin fever because she didn't leave her house other than going for the groceries once between Tuesday and Sunday. I got to watch The Deep Blue Sea in HD quality, basically, because she has Netflix and it was on there.... so happy! I feel like I could watch that movie every day, artsy and confusing as it is. The three timelines started to finally make sense to me during the second watching. And I'd never actually understood how much of the movie is to the soundtrack of tragic violin solos! This time around, I couldn't help noticing the heart-wrenching violin music any time it started playing. Also it's just such a visual and overall stunning movie - I loved all the sets, the 50's clothes, the music they play in the pubs.... ahh.

I found the DVD at a discount on CDON.com so I got to order it now. I chose an email invoice/bill as the payment method, but it didn't arrive immediately, so now I'm a bit confused. Does this mean it won't show up until several days from now and will only be shipped after the bill has been delivered and the payment cleared? I was maybe a little hasty in my urge to get the order in, I should have looked that up on the store's Help-section or something.

I haven't got a lot of work into A's graduation manbook yet! I need to rectify that today, or I'm going to be in a big hurry later in the week. I figured out Dropbox and I've put in the 120-ish pictures I've found so far but I need to look for many more. I think I could maybe finish one of the intended drawings tonight? Here's to hoping.

I honestly can't wait for Hollow Crown to arrive! The medium hair + beard look is one of my favorites on Tom. Also, judging by the gifs, it's a really beautiful series of films/plays, and he's in at least 2 or 3 out of the 4 as I've understood it. Prince Hal for the win.

(Obviously he doesn't have the glorious facial hair in this picture - it's from the pre-Henry-V stage of the mini series. Still, the flowy hair is much appreciated by yours truly.)

I'm trying to keep this blog as a coherent thing for me to use. It's so very difficult for me to not include smileys, acronyms, abbreviations and exclamations from my typical, horrendous, I-only-use-it-ironically-internet language between the sentences! Especially the kaomojis I'm used to inserting at any opportunity are very difficult to steer clear from. Writing on the desktop helps - those are only available for me on my iDevices as of now.

I tend to get very melancholic about my own inability to start doing things. It's like a dangerous loop for me - I know it's about my own initiative whether I start doing things on time or not, and I know it's something I need and want to change, but the lack of initiative is what stops me from improving my willpower to start things... I don't even know. I think I inadvertently cause a lot of stress for myself when I worry about this aspect in my personality - which, again, takes away from my energy to go ahead and do everything I've planned. I wish there was a handy guide telling me how to get past this.

At any rate, I will proceed to scour the interwebs for hot men, and wait anxiously for my e-bill for the glorious, glorious DVD's !

#4

I did all of my Christmas shopping today. I don't really do the whole present-giving thing, but one of my friends always gets really excited about buying me presents on any occasion, and I feel bad for not getting anything for her... so I'm building her a box very basic stuff. I bought the box and a bow to put on top, and some Christmas tea and candy. I'm also going to try and make her a beanie I've been supposed to knit for over a year now... not very specific or effort-requiring presents but I know it's the thought that counts. Also, her book is taking up a lot of effort so I feel like that's going to compensate a bit.

I've been looking for pictures for her book! It's very difficult to find good pictures of Ewan McGregor... he's been acting so long that a lot of the older, weirder photos tend to pop up in searches. I have about 110 pictures looked up right now, but they're very Hiddles-biased and so I'm going to need to find a lot more. We'll see if I can put them into a SkyDrive album or something, sending them ~4 at a time to my email would be horrible.

We were looking around in various shops, including the bookstore. My mom tends to buy our family books for presents - or rather, we all read a lot and buy books as gifts to one another - and she didn't know what I would want so I got to pick something from the store. I chose the lovely, big comprehensive edition of H.P. Lovecrafts "weirdest stories" - Necronomicon. I don't get to have it until actual Christmas, but still. I've never read Lovecraft even though the lore is somewhat familiar to me, because the legend of Chtulthu is used to widely as an intertextual mythological reference.

I don't know if I wrote about this last time, but I got a partner for our test in spoken Swedish. I had sort of hoped I could just go and join a pair of my classmates as a third participant, but apparently that didn't work... regardless, I have a partner now so everything is all right. I'll have to take care and try to adjust to her level of Swedish before the test.

I got into a very strange mood yesterday. Usually I only want to see overly romantic/sweet movies when I'm on my period (or with a group of friends wanting to laugh at cliché plot devices) but now they've already gone way past and I'm questioning my hormones. At any rate, I watched Pride & Prejudice! It was as good as I remembered, only I hadn't realized the sheer amount of great and currently popular actors were in it! Keira Knightley I remembered, obviously, but I hadn't even made the connection between Matthew MacFadyen and the dweeb from Death At A Funeral? I suppose the dashing Mr. Darcy was such a different character I never thought about it. Also Jena Malone was one of the Bennett sisters, and Mr. Bennett was played by Donald Sutherland. I don't think I've ever found a stranger connection in two casts - President Snow was marrying off Johanna Mason at 15, HA. It was very dramatic, too! Now I'm a bit disappointed about the fact that I don't own any more Austen-based movies on DVD. It would be rather tragic to see, say, Sense & Sensibility in choppy, pixelated online stream quality.

Since my mother paid a visit to Stockmann Delicacy we now have two types of great blue cheese and crackers, which I'll get to eat tonight if we watch something together, and I also got some sour cream & onion chips. Life is good.

#3

The Retro camp would be this weekend. I kind of wanted to go but then again, I didn't? I don't even know why, really, I just feel like everyone who I knew would be going is irritating me lately except for my best friend... I can see her some other time.

We were at Talo on Wednesday and arrived when mass was nearing the end (or so we assumed). When we were removing our shoes and outerwear, people were already leaving the church "space" in the building, so obviously we didn't really see the point in being extra-quiet (like we are supposed to be when the mass is in progress). 

Then a minute later one of the worker comes up and basically says "You don't need to be coming here anymore if you can't be quiet, there was an unbelievable amount of noise and ruckus during communion"... we weren't even in the building during communion, you utter twat. Getting yelled at effectively ruined any contentedness any of us had to be there. But luckily it was only open for a little over an hour after we arrived, so we just left. It's pretty sad because I kind of don't even want to go back tomorrow? 

Oh well. 

We're holding a mass tomorrow on campus. My group was supposed to handle basically advertising the thing everywhere and creating a Powerpoint presentation with the song lyrics and such... basically I did all of it. I don't really mind, it was an easy task and we (as a group) didn't want to / couldn't spare a lot of time to do it properly so at least it got done up to my standards. I even got the pictures I was supposed to, after we rehearsed it and the girl who had the pictures was AWOL due to a doctor's appointment. I'm pretty sure I'll be the one running the presentation tomorrow as well, since I'm pretty much the only one who knows what the heck is going on.

My Hiddlesmania has reached disturbing proportions. I literally breathe out a "hallelujah" whenever I see a new picture? I swear, this is the most ridiculous bout of fangirling / "celebrity crush" I have ever had. I'm not exactly complaining - he's a gorgeous gentleman with the most precious soul, I swear - but I do feel quite shallow and pathetic. Well, being a fan doesn't have to be shameful! At least I have several friends who share my enthusiasm, ha. I watched The Deep Blue Sea earlier this week and adored it - I only need to buy it on DVD or something in order to get the visuals up to par. It was such a mess of pixels I felt like I was listening to a radio drama or something. Also, I finally managed to watch the rest of War Horse. I don't know if the movie intended to be as hilarious as it ended up being (at least from my perspective) or if it maybe was some kind of horseriding-teenager-oriented movie? The relationships between human(s) and horse(s) were so overly romanticized it seemed a bit silly. Especially when most people seemed to form soul-crushingly strong bonds with the horses in a matter of days... And the anticlimatic way they shot the deaths of 300 cavarly (including Captain Nicholson aka Tom) was also a strong hint to that effect.

I think I should probably finish as much of A's book next weekend as possible. I'll be at home, so I can seriously get to the printing portion of the thing. I should also at least draw Ewan - hopefully get started on either Hoechlin or Hiddles after that. All these unfinished projects are a big reason as to why I'm skipping out on the Retro camp. 

There's a string of thoughts I think I need to vent about onto I'll sleep when I'm dead.

It's a bit sad that I need to use it again, but that's what it's for. Hopefully this won't be a very long episode.

Until next time, here's a War Horse!Hiddles with Bonus!Cumberbatch!

#2

First actual post is finally happening! WOOP.

It's been a little difficult to adjust to being at school regularly again. Because of our trainee periods, we've had relatively little time at the actual campus on lectures since March. I really do enjoy being at school and just being able to receive information, as a student. I love my class, and traineeships are taxing in the way you have to pick up a working person's position in the community. It's challenging but also rewarding, and tends to take a lot of energy. 

I had applied for a summer job in my church, and didn't get the position... I was a little bummed when they called to inform me about it last Saturday, but to be completely honest, it was a thing I pretty much expected. The interview didn't go too well, and I felt like at least in that setting, I couldn't muster up the maturity a job in the church's youth work would require, and the interviewers most likely felt that too. 

Even though losing that particular job opportunity wasn't really a very big setback, I feel like it mentally made me feel a bit insecure. I try to veer away from blaming anxiety or bad self-esteem for these kinds of disappointments, because even though it affects my life and a big part of why I got so depressed in my abiturient year, I really don't think it's an issue I have to regularly struggle with. Realistically, my biggest issue is the lack of drive in all aspects of my life. Call it lack of ambition if you will, mostly I think I don't really feel the urge to accomplish anything, and so I don't put out a lot of effort and tend to lose opportunities because of that. It's an element of my character that I continuously struggle with.

Enough of this moaning and whining though - I don't want this blog to turn into such a morose affair as I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Tomorrow I'm going to Punanaamio and the Reuse Center with Samuli to get started on our costumes for the premiere of The Hobbit - The Desolation Of Smaug. It's one of my ongoing project at the moment, that I will try and document the progress of on this blog. (Another one is the manflesh book I'm building for A's graduation.)

So far, I have the knit hood base that needs to be sewn together and the tassels need to be attached. I also have the required materials for the ponchette I'm making to coordinate with the hood. Maybe buying latex elf-ear tips and the tunic/cape materials will inspire me to work on that more as well! 

I also have a complete plan on what's going where for Annette's book, but I need to get to the printing-and-gluing portion soon - I only have a week and a half left to finish it! Most of it will be rather quick work, but I'm planning to include some "full-page" pencil/colored pencil drawings that I'll need time to work on. I knew I wouldn't be working on it night and day, so I tried to be rather unambitious with the planning - only some chibi comics to go with specific portions of the book, and three drawings of actors that I'm going to decorate with silk string roses for flower crows. Because we share a lot of preferences, I'm going to get to draw Tom Hiddleston and Tyler Hoechlin! I'm also including her all-time favourite Ewan McGregor, who I don't have much of a personal attachment to but it's not like it'll be a hardship to procure. 

We just started a new study module at school (Christianity studies again!) and got handed a lot of assignments this Monday. We're, as a group, preparing and hosting a mass on campus this Friday, doing Bible study groups throughout the next 4 weeks and doing a major group assignment as well. I got a great group for the big assignment, as well as an interesting subject, so it shoud be great so long as I put forth a lot of effort to do well on it.

This concludes my first actual post on (undecided). Tomorrow, I'm going to show for the costume materials and go return and borrow some study-related books from the Diak campus library in Helsinki.

I'll probably try to post again later this week, to have a look on the progress I'll hopefully be making on my various projects!

#1

This post has the same title as the first post in my venting blog, which I've had for several years now.
It's very reassuring to see I haven't felt like that since March.

The fact that my bouts of "depression" have become less regular is part of the reason why I created this blog. (I use the quotation marks because in no way am I implying that I have diagnosed depression or that occasionally feeling down - even hellishly so - equates to an actual mental disorder.)

I have always had at least a partial interest in keeping journals and diaries, and this is legitimately the least messy and prone-to-be-found way of doing it. Writing on a screen is a lost more comfortable for me than paper.

And while I've maintained that what I like to call my "angst-blog" is reserved for only when I'm at my lowest, I decided to start another blog, more of a general thing where I could put down my thoughts. This way I don't have to see my worst parts whenever I scroll into the wrong post between general ideas, but I can go back and look how far I've come since several of the posts on I'll sleep when I'm dead.

I'm thinking I might include various projects I'm working on as well as my studies and the things I do in my daily life. If I keep up with this - even irregularly - I already know from experience it will be lovely to read my thoughts later.

Like the previous blog, I'm making this one visible only to me, and unreachable via search engines.
(At least for now.)