#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!

#36

I feel super scatterbrained today, wow.

I started playing DmC Devil May Cry the day before yesterday, and I like it a lot! It's easier to play in longer chunks of time, because you need a while to get the hang of all the weapon keymapping and various combos, but it's not too much of a hassle when you have time to get used to it at the start of a session. I love the soundtrack as well, and the graphics are gorgeous. I chortled so much at the white wig cutscene though, I can't even deal. The only thing that bothers me a bit is the language that the characters use. I don't have any problems whatsoever with swearing, but it sounds a bit pretentious in most of the dialogue - it seems like the scriptwriters just basically added a bunch of swearwords every once in a while to make the game seem more edgy and vulgar. Eh.

I'm going to see the new X-Men tonight! I'm pretty excited, although I'll probably have to wikipedia a bit for the major plotpoints of the previous films in the franchise - I haven't seen a single X-Men film to date. Which is a bit weird, because the premise of superheroes and strange creatures saving words and having personal crises is obviously right up my alley, but somehow I've never felt like I would particularly want to watch them? Oh well. Maybe seeing this one will change my mind. I'm looking forward to Mystique a lot, she seems like such an awesome character. Also McAvoy and Fassbender have such epic bromance I want to see how their characters interact so hatefully towards each other on the screen, haha.

I've made some progress on my school assignments as well. It seems likely that I'll have to finish the trainee report tonight after getting home from the movies, because I'm going to be in Amsterdam for the last 3 days before the deadline. I just found out that our flight is in fact not departing at 8.30 in the morning, but arriving at that time - which means that I'll have to be ready to leave at about 5am... and I'm going to the Sonisphere patrol with Saapas. Not a lot of sleep for me, it seems. I think I'll go buy myself an energy drink for the morning, or something.

The most major problem I'm having with the report is structuring the information I already have most of in my head. There's basically so much that I really need to get the general structure of the text fixed in my head, so I can write efficiently and concisely without repeating too much and so on. I also need to find some sources I could use for the theoretical stuff I've mostly been whipping up out of thin air... damn. Well, I have the books ready and some of the structure thought out on paper, so I hope I'll be able to finish it tonight? Fingers crossed!

Anyway, I'll try to get some more writing done before I head to the movies.

Bye!

#35

I went shopping! Yay! It was a lot of fun to spend time with J and her little sisters. There was quite a bit of shopping-related drama though, as expected.

I got me a laptop messenger bag, that I can fit the laptop in with cords and my Super Drive and external drives. It's still really slim though, which I appreciate. It's not blatantly obvious that it's a laptop carrier, but it's not humongous either. So if I know I'm going to a meeting or something, I can just bring that bag with my calendar and stuff, and won't have to pack a huge backpack to bring my computer. Victory! I also got some PC games, a Black Swan DVD, two pairs of shorts and a sort of blazer vest. And a case for my iPhone that has a cover for the front as well as the back.

Basically, I mostly got stuff that I actually needed.

I've done some assignments I had hanging over me, now I only have a few left to do before summer actually starts. I've been working on them consistently almost every day without stressing or tiring myself out completely, which looks good. It's a shame this good mix of energy and motivation only struck me about 10 days after the semester ended for the summer. I guess that's how it would go, right?

All I still need to buy, basically, is a bluetooth speaker by JHB (or something? I'm not sure if that's the brand I was recommended) and a Wii Mini since I don't have enough patience to fix the hand-me-down Wii I've been trying to work on... It's lookin' good.

A package arrived for me but I got home too late to pick it up from the post office today! Damn. I have to do it tomorrow - as early as I possibly can, hee hee.

Anyway, I can't think of anything else I'd like to write about tonight, so bye!

#34

Hello!

I managed to get my customised style packages for school assignments to work in Word for Mac. I feel super accomplished! Also, I actually have hopes of being able to complete assignments on my laptop now which is great, not going to lie. I even copied pretty much all of my files to the external drive in the past 2 days, and I had a pretty neat surprise coming for me on that front as well - my drive is formatted in fat32, which means that both a PC and a Mac can read the files on it and write on it as well. It made the whole data transfer business so much easier, I can hardly believe it.

I still haven't been able to figure out the mail servers, but my dad knows something about those apparently, so maybe he'll be able to help me at some point.

I've gone a little shopping-crazy after I got the money from my grandpa. I have about 6 or so packages coming for me from online shopping - I have two raffle prizes, 5 Tolkien books, some Swamp Family memorabilia, Hiddles movies, makeup, and the last book in the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare on the way at least. I also went to KCM yesterday, and bought Coldplay's new album Ghost Stories and two movies: Rush and the one about wikileaks, I think it's called... Fifth State? Or something to that effect.

Anyway, we watched Rush with my parents last night, and it was insanely good! I hate motor sports, but the cinematography and casting and the pacing of the story altogether made it really impressive and touching. For my parents, there was obviously the extra dimension of having watched F1 in the mid-70's - they already knew who the characters were and pretty much what happened to them. I was so caught up in the suspense I actually had to google the real-life stories of Niki Lauda and James Hunt, because I couldn't bear to wait until later in the movie to find out, haha. Also, Chris Hemsworth was obviously flawless and glorious, and I really like Daniel Brühl after this as well. I mean, I had a sort of grudging respect for him after watching the Inglourious Basterds, but his character was such a douchebag that I really couldn't make myself like him too much. The struggle is real.

I'm still on the hunt for a region 2 War Horse DVD that doesn't cost 30-something dollars. Also, I want to buy The Gathering Storm and the British versions of Wallander because - and I'm sure you've guessed it by now - they star Hiddleston. At some point we are going to have the Hiddles marathon of our dreams, God damn it!

Anyway, I think it's a good place to end this entry. I'm really lazy about adding pictures to my posts - I'll try to work on that.