#42

"Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything."

I had a friend in high school who was hardcore into physics and chemistry (and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and he used to have that quote on his bookstore bonus card. I have a quote from the Little Prince. Ah, memories.

Anyway, I'm mostly through CoHF now, and so far it's been really good! I haven't really been able to take it anywhere - naturally, because it's so huge I can't very conveniently carry it anywhere. It's very easy to read, on the eyes, but the book is so huge and heavy I have to worm around trying to find a position that won't tire out my hands and arms in three seconds flat. The struggle is real. Also I saw Cassandra Clare doing a Q&A session on Twitter, and it cleared up a lot about the build of the Shadowhunter!verse for me. For example, she's planning for the universe to include 5 book series... and they'll be published partly out of chronological order. There's going to be one that's set after The Infernal Devices but before The Mortal Instruments - that's the second one from now she's going to write. The next one to see the light of day (first book is planned to be released in 2015) is set after TMI, if I understood correctly. Then the third and last to-be-released series is going to be the last in chronological order as well. I still need to buy the Shadowhunters' codex and The Bane Chronicles is going to have it's first 10-story edition bound into a book this October, apparently. I'm pretty excited.

Anyway, the book series in chronological order are going to be:
The Infernal Devices
The Last Hours
The Mortal Instruments
The Dark Artifices
The Wicked Powers

and then there's also The Bane Chronicles, and that Magisterium series she's co-writing with Holly Black.... can't claim I'm not excited, really.

Phew, that's definitely enough about Cassie Clare for now. I really like her writing - it's effortless to read and fun, and the characters are interesting even though their relationships and the story arches kind of tend to repeat each other ... at least when it comes to comparing TMI and TID. Oh well. Still entertaining!

I lied, now I'm done talking about Cassie Clare. Ha.

Anyway, I hung out with J yesterday, and since the weather prediction said it was going to rain, we planned to stay inside. Naturally, it ended up being a sunny if not very hot day. Still, we had fun - we watched the first 3 X-Men movies at J's house. They were pretty good, although looking back at their plot twists after having seen DOFP kind of shows you how little they've done towards actually structuring a long movie series - at least Marvel has learned a lot in that area since starting the Avengers CU / storyline. Storm's hair kept getting better in every movie, that was about the only consistent in the series, let's be real. I still enjoyed them though, don't get me wrong - but my amusement doesn't require sound plot devices and character development to be appeased when it comes to entertainment, really. I acknowledge that and actually talk about it a lot.

I'm supposed to be working on my late assignment that I had left over from January. We'll see what comes of that - if I could just catch myself back up on the research I've already done and so on, that would actually work out great. I usually don't stretch out the writing of assignment over this long a time period but I've been putting this one off way too long... the last saved version is from almost 3 months ago, at this point. I have a vague urge to bring my Macbook to camp with me, but being realistic - I probably won't have time to write at any point. We'll see what I'm going to do. (I could always choose to spend less time with the camp kids and/or young leaders and spend like an hour a day writing, but... yep, we'll see.)

OH! I'm also thinking I should actually start a third blog. Granted, I don't really publish a lot on my hidden blog anyway, so I actually only have one - but I haven't really felt like this is the place for me to post pictures. I just imported the batch I shot in Amsterdam to my laptop a few days ago, and thought I might like to put them up somewhere. I really don't care if people use my very mediocre photos somewhere, so I'm not morally opposed to uploading them onto the interwebs... I might just do that. I don't really go around with my SLR with me since it's kind of a bother to lug around, but maybe I'd have more incentive to do that, too, if I had a purpose for taking the pictures, you know...?

I'm in the process of figuring out if I'd like to use tumblr. or blogger or some other blog site entirely for the photography blog. The idea will shape out more precisely later, I'm sure.

Bye!

#41

It's been a rather bizarre 2 days for me, appearance- and music-wise, not that it really matters, but still. Whoa. I'm currently sitting on my bed, listening to One Direction of all things - wearing a dress. I think this is the first time I've worn one since my, eh, "junior prom" in high school. Wow. But yeah, I downloaded the two 1D albums I had never listened to, and the 5SOS album. Ed Sheeran's + is almost downloaded. I'm thinking I should download some We The Kings pretty soon...

Really, I refuse to commit to any prejudices about music genres at this point. Or most bands, unless they've proved themselves to be complete dickwads. (cough, JB, cough cough.) I like light-hearted pop as a child and later after discovering j- and k-pop; why on Earth would I refuse to listen to their western counterparts, basically? Backstreet Boys was da bomb when I was a children.

My copy of City of Heavenly Fire arrived! Hallelujah! I ended up ordering it from the UK after Amazon.com let me down, and it arrived really quickly. But holy shit, this is one huge paperback! It's basically about 2 times as big as the other books in the series or TID... so much for a unified bookshelf look, huh. Oh well. The text is big, which means it's pretty easy to read, but it's so heavy I can't really bring it with me anywhere, which is kind of a downer. Well, I'll live, I'm sure. I'm almost halfway through it at this point anyway.

I need to get some stuff done before camp - I just realised today that it's only 10 days away! My epic package from YesAsia might, might arrive the week before I leave (in other words, next week) or not, then I should send out some emails asking about intern positions for the autumn (we have a diversity/multiculturalism internship coming, I'm pretty pumped) and maybe write up some reports for school assignments... I have several I still need to complete. But we'll see. Agh.

Oh! By the way, my Hiddles package made it here from the customs office! In mint condition and everything, but damn those ended up being some expensive DVD's, ha. 50€ or so for the package of 2 DVD's counting in shipping/handling costs and then about 12€ for customs. But they were pretty acclaimed (for indie films) so I'll watch them and decide whether they were worth it or not. I also want to find a region 2 DVD version of War Horse somewhere but it's basically been impossible to find! Unbelievable. I'll keep trying.

Well, I don't have anything else to talk about now, so...

Bye!

#40

Here we are, post n:o 40!

Nothing special about it, really, round numbers just appeal to me a bit.

Anyway, what the hell was I going to write about? Oh, right. The confirmation mass was on Sunday - we ended up going to one of the kids' party because they found us despite attempts to hide from such invitations... oh well. It's a bit awkward to go to those, because you usually don't know the kid that well. Anyway, they had good food... I guess? I felt hella classy in my new clothes and shoes, though, so that was a win. Everything went pretty well, and I read parts of a prayer thing and didn't fuck up, despite the expectation of it causing me to sweat profusely. Another small hurdle cleared! I'm pretty sure I'll always be nervous about speaking in front of an audience, and I'm just glad it doesn't give me, like, crippling anxiety or anything.

We also went for a bit of a speed shopping spree with my mom on Saturday. I bought myself some exercise clothes [gasp!] and running shoes. Maybe I'll go running at some point this summer. (Being real, I'll probably do it like once and call it quits. I'm not a very consistent person. But at least now I have the gear and thus the option to go, should I want to!)

Today I finally got an arrival notification on my Amazon package (containing Archipelago and Unrelated DVDs) and ta-da it got stopped at customs... the guidelines for customs have changed a lot since I last had to go there though, wow. First of all, you have to pay customs for anything surpassing the value of 22€ that comes from outside the EU and basically you have to declare almost everything that comes from outside the EU anyway. Also, you can't just go to the nearest customs station, bring invoices and/or receipts, pay and receive your package there - no! Now you have to go through the declaring process (which you can, though, still do at the actual customs station or online or via phone, or you can pay for the post office people to do it) and then they post the package to you. From customs.
Excuse me but I don't feel like that makes a lot of sense...

Anyway, I hope I got all the information correct - there was no option for DVD films, and I'm not sure if the package actually came from Australia or the US since the seller had listed both of those as their locations - so they'll be able to post my precious Hiddles movies to me soon!

I think I'm going to play a bit of DmC now, before heading to bed.

Bye!

#39

THE GIRUGAMESH CONCERT WAS SO. COOL.

I bought way too much band merch again but oh well, I had enough money at the moment so whatever. I got a t-shirt, a tote bag, a poster, the Monster CD and a dog tag. Altogether, they weren't that expensive, I just bought so many products that the total was quite a bit of money. The 2011 concert was kind of a let-down setlist and gig vibe-wise but this one totally made up for it. It was largely due to the kind of returning to their roots girugamesh did when it comes to music style. Must be partly because of the BEST OF-collection they recently released - that sort of stuff is bound to take you back a bit. ALSO, RYO WAS ADORABLE AS HELL HOLY SHIT. The feels. Nii's socks and Shuu's jafro, too, though...

We only waited in line for about 3,5 hours and got to a really good spot in the venue. They began on time and played a pretty short set, which seemed even shorter because it was so, I don't know, powerful I guess? I wish it had lasted longer.

My mom's in Tampere for a congress thing so I'm at home with my dad. We decided to watch a movie so I brought out the DVD's I had that we had yet to see (or my mom wouldn't want to watch) and we decided on the Black Swan. It has been supremely awkward but I still think it's a pretty good movie. It was very very impressive in the movie theatre.

Anyway, I can't think of anything more I'd want to say right now! Except for the fact that my JBL portable speaker is absolutely perfect to use while waiting in line, ha.

Bye!

#38

We're nearing the 40 post mark, wow!

I just got back from camp yesterday. The past 2 weeks have been crazy! And of course, there's the girugamesh concert to worry about tomorrow... I'm pretty excited though, I downloaded their latest album and it. Kicks. Ass. I teared up a little bit when the intro started, I was so excited about it.

It feels like I haven't been home in ages, because I was only home for about 30-something hours between coming back from Amsterdam and leaving for camp. It was a lot of fun, the kids were very kind and not very cunning so they made my job as a night guard easy. I was also a hit because I made them play this little thing with a simple song and gestures that they adored (because of all the potential penis jokes). Then we were leaving, and I went with the group's luggage and the summer theologist to shore from the island before the rest of the camp left. When we were already at shore, one of the other leaders at camp just texted us like "they're all bawling whoa" and then the kids arrived, crying their eyes out. I felt kind of bad. Oh well, at least they enjoyed camp and didn't get hysterical on the last evening, it's always a nightmare when that happens.

I was totally prepared to not smoke at all at camp, but I smoked a full pack because I had convenient free time during the days. Even my "teaching session" went okay, although it isn't a very natural position for me to assume. I don't really have an instinct for such things... I just winged it and I guess they didn't hate me so... yay? The most accomplished I felt when I hosted the camp's last afternoon meditation and about a third of the group started snoring. Aw. (Obviously this had a lot to do with them sleeping poorly the night before and also being on a physically and mentally tiring camp for almost a week but still.)

Considering the amount of time I spent just sitting indoors or in the shade, I'm unbelievably tan. What even. I don't really mind - but I had to buy a big after sun lotion... not because I was burning in the sun all the time, but because everyone else was. I kept lending out my tiny tube of aloe vera to everyone who had roasted themselves at camp. I don't even know if it helped that much but at least it was enough of a placebo to convince people, I guess?

Seriously though, I'm super excited to go wait in line tomorrow. I can bring my new speaker and we can jam out to giru all day before the show! Aww yiss.

Bye for now!

#37

Well, I'm back from the Netherlands now! Amsterdam was nothing mind-blowing but very nice. I enjoyed the museums and Anne Frank's house, and we didn't even have to wait in line for crazy amounts of time - which was good, because the relics weren't like the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Anyway, now I've seen my Rembrandts and Van Goghs.

It was really amusing how obvious the pot-smoking was in a normal streetview. Coffee shops were at every street corner in town, and one of them was even called "the bushmaster". I am amused. The sweet smell was everywhere too. We ate at an Irish pub like 3 times, ha. The food was good though.

While we were in Amsterdam, we went shopping and I bought a Marvel shirt (what a surprise) and some Body Shop stuff. The best hits I got were at the Schiphol airport when we were leaving, though - I found the JBL bluetooth speaker I had been looking for everywhere, as well as some Marvel comics (Avengers vs. X-men and a Cap one) and Maltesers. Super happy fun time!

I've mostly done my packing for camp, but I still need to plan some of the learning sessions I'm leading next week... I also have a meditation and prayer moment to plan. But I mostly have ideas for all of them so I guess it'll probably be fine? I'm going to try and plan them as well as I can tonight so I don't have to worry about them too much tomorrow before leaving for camp.

I really don't have much else to talk about right now,  so I'm gonna go and watch the rest of 12 years a slave.

Bye!