Lost in translation

I've seen the much-spoken-of film today and I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. I would like to go to Tokio, though.

What am I still doing up, anyway?

Well damn!

Not 24 hours has passed since I said I don't hold with all these old-man-in-the-sky religions and other antropomorphic personifications, and now GOD has been around and gone signed my guestbook. Sheesh. I guess it's too late to redeem myself.

Friday 5

Adam asks:

Going through some old papers my parents brought from their house last week, I found several notes to my parents from teachers I'd had growing up. I got to thinking about the legions of teachers I had for the first 21 years of my life, and wondered:

Who were the 5 that had the greatest impact on me as a person, for good or ill?

This question sent me on a fruitful Google-trip to the Memory Lane. Of course, my school-years are not that many [9 years of Finnish basic education + 3 years of vocational] and still pretty fresh [graduated in 1998], so I didn't have to go very far back. I don't know how much of an impact my teachers ever had, but these are the teachers that have stuck with me, and I suppose, in their small way are a part of my psychological makeup. [Too much mascara there darling, and you could use some blush on your cheeks] I was a forgettable kid in school, and most teachers who did note me called me either Kati or Terhi, for my two sisters went to the same schools before me.

1) I was so impressed with my first and second grade teacher and I was quite reproachful some years later when he couldn't remember me. He is a writer of children's book, which I thought was so cool. He also played a number of instruments, and Für Elise is still my favourite piano piece ever.

2) My teacher in maths in the 7th and 8th grade (I think) - he was the first person ever who actually made it possible for me to get my mind around numbers. Incidentally he's also the little brother of the above teacher. Of course I didn't appreciate it at the time, but he was actually a really good teacher with a great sense of humour. [Funnily enough, his substitute/follower was a nazi who was the first and only person ever to give me a grade of 4- (equivalent of F-)]

3) Through 7th to 9th my Swedish teacher and I had mutual loathing towards each other. She had previously been teaching my older sister and assumed that I would fit into the same mold of general niceness and teacher's pet-ness, and I of course rebelled against such predisposition. My grades went from perfect to barely satisfactory, not because I couldn't learn but because I couldn't be arsed. In retrospect, I feel sorry for her (the class really didn't treat her nicely) and also realise that the only person who lost in the deal was me, since I still can't speak Swedish properly.
Not that I actually need to, but it does look nice on the CV to list more than two languages.

4) I had an old lady for a Finnish teacher on 7th grade who was the first person to actually encourage me on writing and give helpful advice. I suppose she was nice to me because you don't often meet pupils who're actually enjoying the assignments so much that they exceed the required length by about ten pages.

5) My third grade teacher, who was a competing aerobics champion and a tenuous bitch with really bad teeth. Firstly, I was never any good in sports, and she tended to notice only girls that were. Secondly, after the first half term she spent a lot of time yelling at me in the class. It was probably because I'd got caught for not doing any homework during the first term... I spent the second term in detention every day, catching up on the work, and I was particularly bitter about the English assignments.
We had to copy every chapter into the exercise book in Finnish, English and in phonics. No, seriously. It went something like this: [helou] [mai] [neim] [is] [lo:ra] [and] [ai] [heit] [mai] [ti:tzer]
First of all, I'm glad I did get caught and was made to learn the lesson, but I think I also learned during the third grade that not all authorities are always right, nor are they necessarily nice or just or to be respected.

Runner-up: Speedy, the pervert who was teaching English (7-9th grade).

Damn them hormones

For the record; today stinks. I want to crawl under a duvet in a hole in the earth and eat unhealthy things until I'm too sick to move. And then I want to roll over and sleep until next century or so.

What did the fish say when he hit a concrete wall?

"Dam!"

Bush the Evil

Adam says it far better than I ever could. I don't usually attempt to express my opinion about politics, but the discrimination against gay people in US is disgusting, not to mention how worrying it is that these hypocritical assholes may actually get away with it?

Grab your pitchforks and tally ho!

It's barely end of February, and there's already heated discussions about summer holidays. I am told I should mark down which weeks I want to have as holiday and mark my territory because a war is imminent... And all this just because Simple is back to work.

I personally hate having to commit to anything even a week ahead, even more so when we're talking about things in three, five or six months' time.

And to think it was so nice in the office the last couple of days. Arse.

... pay-lots-of-bills day...

Wohoo! Pay day! And bonus pay day!!

Notes on Danes

Did I ever tell you the theory of Danes I'm working on? I think I'm on to the base reason why Danes are so bloody rude - you risk being stampeded to death just by taking the metro - and it goes something like this:

In the beginning, all these big, burly men (the vikings) left Denmark in search of, I don't know, glory and riches (or quite possibly, to get away from Danish women; Simple being the stereotypal case in point). By so removing big-and-burly from the gene pool, Denmark has since been populated by women who are by definition handsome, and (by selective breeding, I suspect) men who are best described as pretty.

Now, in a society full of large beefy men, if someone elbows another the offender will soon be smacked down, or about. This usually (eventually) leads to either extinction of the species or the creation of something called "manners" (or in some obscure cases, it leads to greco-roman wrestling, but that's too disturbing to bear thinking about).

In any case, instead evolution taking it's natural course, there's now several generations of burly women running about armed with elbows, baby carriages and handbags, screaming "Me first, I'm a woman!" This attitude has been passed on to children and grandchildren, and regardless of age or sex, Danes seem to possess no inhibitions of personal space when pushing and shoving to be the first ones in and out of buses, metros, stores, clubs, restaurants, lifts, escalators, etc...

Which reminds me, Cat Eyes pointed out something that's funny and accurate - Copenhagen is probably the only large city in Europe where the city had to make a special campaign (in 2003) to educate people to "Stand on the right, walk on the left" in escalators, and to "Stand aside when people are trying to get in or out" of metro cars.

Disclaimer: Not all Danes are rude or evil. I know some very nice Danish people. Cat Eyes and Valkyria are lovely people, for instance. Mentally a little unstable, perhaps, but very charming and pleasant.

The currently elevated state is probably also being enhanced by the fact that both Simple and the Wee Bitch are off. It's nice and relaxed in the office!

Moogie News

Aside from below, I'm floating somewhere above the clouds over a webcam chat I received from a netcafé somewhere in Middle East yesterday. Wheeeeeeeee.

Personal offence

It's snowing and I am not in a mountain hut somewhere with a warm fire going and my skis or snowboard waiting outside. So stop it!

Excuse me for thinking logically

You would think that when you receive an invitation to a mandatory education session - in a multinational company, no less - and the invitation plus agenda are in English, that the education would follow suit?

No. Apparently not.

Updated:
I knew it. I wrote an email asking that the language of the education would be mentioned in the invitation, as "it feels a bit silly to sit through and education I don't understand" - and that got forwarded to my biggest manager. Of course. I never wanted to draw attention to myself, damn it. In my life, it never pays to complain. Argh.

Combine ingredient: in my interview for the job I said I would learn Danish.

Combine ingredient: Biggest boss has an exceptionally good memory for things like that.

Combine ingredient: Manager has promised to talk to the biggest boss about me wanting to relocate to another job.

I'm doomed, I tell you. Doomed.

Yarrrgh

I did something different last night and decided to sleep on the floor. Well, on top of another duvet, which was on the floor. This because my back is hurting so badly I'm even considering to see a doctor about it. I can see how that'll go:

doctor: "Lose weight and you'll be fine."
me: "But doctor, I can't exercise because it hurts my back."
doctor: "Well, losing weight will fix that, eh?"

Actually that reminds me of my experience with a nutrition therapist I saw some years ago over my allergies:

therapist: "Eat variably."
me: "But what should I eat, I've got lots of allergies?"
therapist: *pointing at the food circle*
me: "But, I'm allergic to over half of the things displayed on it!"
therapist: "Oh. Well. Eat variably."
me: "But what should I eat?"
therapist: *pointing at the food circle*
repeat ad infinitum

Ur. I don't know if I should be stretching or not since it hurts anyway. I'm worried I'll make it worse.

Something odd is afoot

I woke up yesterday to a parade of ponies and a marching band outside my window.
This morning I saw a couple of miniature knights, and just now I saw a devil, a bunny, a cardboard horse with a rider, another knight and a wizard walk around the corner.

Either Hogwarts really exists and Lord Vordemort has just been vanquished, or then someone's failed to educate me on some of the Danish customs.

There's a little rebel inside all of us

And mine's begging me to shave my head. Again.

Laura, 18

Aw. So sweet and young. Isn't that cute?

Weekend waster

I feel kind of guilty for spending the whole weekend indoors, in spite of the beautiful weather. But on the other hand, I've made considerable progress with my website.

Now if only I could get rid of the reflex of trying Ctrl-V everytime I need to type a space. Grrrr.

Re-think/Friday 5

Having racked my brain a little further, and having been feeling emotionally retarded for a weekend, I've come to a conclusion that I can remember one occasion when I felt my whole life was going to change.

3) This was in the teenage years in my hometown, and as it was Friday night, we (a bunch of girls) had gone out drinking. I won't go into detail of what happened exactly, but that night - and it's still unclear to me for what reason this happened - every single one of the girls I knew (including my best friend) had made a decicion not to "be my friends" and desert me as soon as we got to a state of inebriation. I know this because they would all, silly as it sounds, run away from me as soon as they saw me. I remember getting home in tears, crying for a whole weekend and wanting to die and never wanting to face another human being again; and definitely not wanting to go to school to find myself Billy No-Mates. Things did change, although eventually I had just slid down a notch on the social scale and wasn't in the "best friend" status anymore.

[It was such a cruel, deep hurt at the time - hey, even teenagers can feel - that it's no wonder I'm forever suffering from fear of rejection and unwillingness to commit myself to any social circle. Hmmm. I wonder if that's true.]

Friday 5

This week my brain is racked by Mojave 66:

My apologies for the lateness-- I've been scrambling at odd hours to try to get into San Francisco's City Hall to marry my partner of 12 years. It's been an amazing, profound experience-- such an outpouring of love and support from damn near everybody in our city. Florists have been dropping off free roses, there are offers of discounted hotel rooms, people passing around food and honking and waving their support.

So this week's question is inspired by all this: what are the five most profound moments of your life? Those are those moments when you know your life is going to be altered for better OR for worse, that the path you've chosen has either been slightly altered or you've even fallen off a damn cliff and now it's incredibly altered. You may have no clue where this new path will take you, but you know for a fact that you're stepping off in a new direction.

First of all; all the best for Mojave and her partner :-)

1) Move #1 (not really a single moment): I was fifteen, going sixteen and moved from my hometown to the capital area all by myself to study arts. I doubt I realised the significance of the change back then, but it did mean I took a leap of growth in independence and self-sufficiency.

2) Move #2 (this isn't a single profound moment either): This was a conscious decision to uproot my life and let go everything that was unnecessary - I changed jobs from advertising to customer support, country from Finland to Scotland, left all my friends and everything I knew behind. Actually, I think the change was smaller than I was hoping for; most of the problems were the kind that came with me, and I feel I might have been a losing party in this deal. However, I did live and learn and grow up a little bit more during the transition.

(I was going to list move #3 from Scotland to Denmark here, but I realised my life didn't actually change as much as it simply slid into a standstill.)

Profound, profound... I had a talk about something like this at an earlier point with Moogie, and he wouldn't believe that I really never felt or experienced any big things in life. I'm afraid I will have to admit defeat; profound moments come from special relationships, I think, and I haven't had any so far. Sorry!

*hangs head in shame*

Friday 5 participants in the left side bar.

Cranky

For future reference, I would like to ban my father from appearing in my dreams until he learns some goddamn manners. What an arse!

Thou Shalt Speak Thy Mind

Well, that went smoothly. I think my exact words were

"I don't want to do customer support anymore because I hate people."
I also said I'm hoping to change jobs in the next six months. And in case you're interested, my courses of choice are 1001 Fun Things To Do With This Useless Database We Spent Millions To Develop and a bonus of Info On These Nifty Things We Sell. Yay!

Work Education

Uh oh. Time for the Crap-I-Must-Pretend-To-Be-Interested-In-For-The-Sake-Of-Career-Development Meeting. What courses should I express interested in? The options are all equally tantalizing:

• How To Talk More Bullshit
  
• Hours Of Bollocks About The Company
  
• 1001 Fun Things To Do With This Useless Database We Spent Millions To Develop
  
• Get Used To The Idea Of Not Having A Personal Life
  
• Suck Up To Your Customers
  
• Suck Up To Your Managers
  
• Learn To Smile When It Hurts
  
• Brainwash At Home

I know. I have a Bad Attitude. I am not a Team Member and I don't Make An Effort. I wonder if I could get the Company to pay for a course in How To Dig Out Your Eyes With A Spoon?

Meet Skippy

This is funny. Cheers to Jon for the link.

Running on aggression

Today's a good day for you to come to me with any shitty jobs. I'll bite your head off, and then fix all your problems out of sheer spite.

Fucking fucking fuck.

REDRUM

OK. I lasted 2½ days. But now it's over. I can't hold it in any longer. It had to happen, and I'm sorry you had to be here to witness it.

I must kill the Wee Bitch!!

Is there no way to make her to bloody shut up and cease with the stupid questions?! Arghhhhhh.

So true

You are Schroeder!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

[borrowed from Martinimade]

Soul for sale

I've been up half the night trying to decide if I should apply for the new openings the company has at the offices in Madrid (that'd be in Spain). On one hand I hate the company, and I'll never be good at the job I do here. On the other, it's a free relocation, secure job and a reasonable pay. If I stay, I'll hate myself for failing to realise my dreams. If I leave, and end up jobless, I'll be an even bigger failure.

Uh, and if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.

Vile

That's my new favourite word: Shoes which make your socks so wet you can squeeze water out of them are vile.

Also, banana and sugar on a sandwich is vile. But not as vile as finding a used tampon on the floor of the ladies' toilet.

So odd

I'm nine hits away from 10 000 hits on this site. Woo-hoo! What on earth do you come here for anyway?

Great... Now it's in my head

Underneath your clothes
There's an endless story
There's the man I chose
There's my territory
And all the things
I deserve
For being such
A good girl, honey...

But who gives a damn, really?

I learned last week that there's a strong culture in Copenhagen which dictates that everyone should pretend to be really well off on all accounts of life. No wonder I'm ever so unpopular here.

Actually, we had a short discussion about pretending to be something you're not. I was quite surprised to find (though it actually surprises me that it surprises me) that Macho (the opposing figure in the conversation) actually thought it's completely normal that you should work to keep up an image of yourself that is better, or at least different, than what you really are. I asked why it would matter what complete strangers think about you; my point of view being that those who know me can't be fooled by pretending, and those who don't know me don't matter. Macho claimed that to live like this you have to really like who you are, but once again I have to disagree.

It's well-known that most of the time I hate myself; or to be fair, occasionally it's just mild dislike on the back of my mind - and I'm saying this as an outright fact, not as a cry for objections or pity. I don't like me - however, I have never been more miserable in my life or about myself than when or if I've been pretending to be something I'm not. It's hard to believe this is an unique quality.

What makes anyone think that they will be more popular, or more liked, because they pretend to be someone they're not? Or, actually, are people really so fond of completely superficial relationships that they're willing to work hard to keep up an unreal image of themselves? This isn't really such a big revelation to the mind of the mankind, but I still find it incredibly... odd.

I don't know about you, but I've always liked honest people with real personalities over people who play some kind of a role [and you can always tell]; and I've always hated trying to make myself look prettier or thinner or funnier or more social than I really am; because if people don't like me as I am, they don't matter. I feel no need to please anyone.

So just so you know: I'm fat; I'm a slob; I'm lazy; I like eating sweets; I like sleeping; my house is a mess; my job is unglorious pit of hell, and the only reason I'm here is because I'm lazy; I'm certainly not an admirable person; not too intelligent although sometimes I have a tendency to look down on other people's cognitive abilities; I'm selfish, although I do work on being nice to people for good manners' sake. I smell-test my clothes in the morning rather than do regular laundry. My socks have holes in them, and I don't care.

All gone

There. Last of energy used. I'm now back to my normal state of hate-my-job-and-want-to-die.

Oooeeerrrr

I have so much energy left over from last week that I can barely sit still. Unfortunately I'm stuck in front of this desk for the next eight hours - or so - so it'll probably evaporate before soon and by the time I get home all these unhealthy notions about - god forbid - jogging will have likewise disappeared.

I came to work to find my reputation precede me. One of the women in my skiing group used to call me "Speedy Laura" because, well, I was skiing faster down the hill than the other people, and people at work have already heard about this. I think it's kind ironic (that I of all people would be called "speedy").

I got mail from Moogie!
I got mail from Moogie!
I got mail from Moogie!
I got mail from Moogie!

*doing a little Snoopy dance*

I'm back

Sadly, I have no broken bones. The highlights from the trip [aside from skiing and ski-instructors who were lovely, and all that] were beating Macho in snow fight (something good came out of doing martial arts after all) and only narrowly losing to him in arm wrestling. According to Cat Eyes he only won because he was cheating anyway. Hah!

On a negative side, I feel so butch right now. Rrrrrr. Beer. Boobies.

Must sleep.

That's it, then

Well, I'm off. I'll be back on Monday the 16th, unless I've fallen off some mountain, in which case I may or may not be back.

Bye!

I wonder...

Is there anything better in my current job than updating the voice mail: "Hi, you've tried to reach Laura. I'm on holiday. Please take all your complaints, queries and pissy attitude to the Wee Bitch. Thank you."

Coincidences

I was out with Cat Eyes looking for a Christmas present to a friend of hers, and I suggested a book called the Alchemist. She ended up buying it to herself.

A little while after that she mentioned having read the book, which in turn made me wonder how the book ended since I had no recollection of it.

Some time ago I watched a documentary on Discovery which brought forth the idea that everything in the universe is connected, as if we are part of one giant living organism.

Since the idea had been bubbling in my mind for a while, I started reading the Alchemist again, and it instantly connected with the documentary on Discovery, because of the message in the book which says "all things are one."

I was very touched by the philosophy in the book, and while trying to explain the "all is one" philosophy, I've been trying to describe a certain picture, which sort of explains it, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it's called.

Today I read Julie's blog, in particular this post, which in turn links to this site where I finally found out that the picture is called Mandelbrot set!

Mandelbrot set

It doesn't have to make any sense to you. I feel so much better now. Thank you.

Breaking the silence

It's my last day in the office before the trip to Austria. By the looks of it, I don't have time to try to arrange for a travel insurance, so if I break my neck on skis on some mountain, no one benefits from it except for me. Damn!

Friday 5

This week's question provided by Morgaine:
Well, I've been thinking about absent friends - the people you just aren't in contact with any more, for whatever reason. Maybe it was intentional, on either of your parts, maybe there is something unresolved between you, maybe you just lost a phone number or address and you would be in touch, if only you could! - so:

Who are the five people from your past you would most like to be able to see, speak to or simply communicate with, by whatever means? Why did you lost touch? What would you tell them if only you had the chance - without fear of major repercussions, especially if that's why you haven't been in touch already!

I've lost touch with a lot of people because of moving in and out of country – although strangely enough, I've lately re-contacted a lot of old friends by coincidence rather than by actually meaning to do it. Of course, I don't have that much of a past, either.

1) I would get in contact with my mother's mother who died a year ago. I never was close to her and I would like to talk about her past and what her life was like, what she has done and how life was in the past. I would want to make up for 24 years of never really chatting with her; see if we have anything in common.

2) I'd like to get back in touch with a childhood friend – we lived together in Helsinki for a while, but we lost contact after I moved to Scotland. I sometimes dream about her, and I keep thinking it's a sign I should get in contact with her, but somehow I just never do. There isn't a particular thing I'd like to talk to her about, but I'd like to get back in touch.

3) Likewise when I was 16 I lived with a 24-year old Canadian girl for a while, she was in Helsinki to do her thesis. I think she thought I was a bit weird but entertaining. It'd be fun to catch up with her just to see what's been happening in our lives.

4) Clinging to straws here. I'd like to meet the scary old man who lived in my neighbourhood when I was a kid. There was something wrong with his neck, so he always had his head tilted to a side, and whenever he saw me, he'd go "And whose boy are you then?" I'd probably ask him what happened to his neck. I'm sure he isn't at all scary really.

5) This answer is probably cheating, but I'd like to meet up with the 15-year old me. I'd like to talk about my dreams back then, and what my ambitions were. I'd like to apologise for getting lost from the track and talk about how to fix things, because as everyone knows; teenagers have all the answers.

Full list of F5-participants on the left.