#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.