Growing up...

So yes my dear pumpkins, Anton got a 'real' job. i.e. got a permanent contract... wow... ehrm... eeek... hmmm....
For those of you who don't know, I now work as a consultant and I work in the telecoms industry. You'll have to ask for more details if you want them.
Now I can for a moment forget about that "what the f*ck am I gonna do in 3 months time?" whining that's been going on for way too long. And now I can concentrate on the essential... (oh yeah, if someone wants to define 'essential' for me, please feel free).

Yes, it has been almost 9 months since I last wrote, but hey, they world's still spinning, and no, I haven't been pregnant, so no such news either. I've just been going about my business as usual. Some people got married, others were born, c'est la vie.

Merry Christmas, Happy Easter and Happy Birthday to those I have forgotten.

So... what's in store for this year?

April - allergy month, no big happenings except for me getting another bonus in the age department..
May - WEDDING BELLS (not for me). This year EVERYBODY seems to get married in May...
June - Midsummer in Copenhagen OR the Faroe Islands (is that how you spell it?)
July - maybe a stint to the cottage? maybe a trip to Brussels?
August - HOLIDAY!!! definitely/maybe a trip to California

Oh, and hopefully some crayfish at some point...

Love and hugs to all, keep in touch!

Cottage life...

Ha, today I get my weekend at the Cottage! Loooovely, so far they've predicted nice weather so thumbs up.
I plan to finish the Harry Potter book. only a few hundred pages left.
Other than that I'll just chill. I will be in the sun, sipping some wine or something nice, no stress.

Alternatively it will be pissing down with rain and we will be stuck inside doing crosswords. Hopefully not.

Huggles!

I AM Harry Potter

Seriously, how dumb can a person be...

I managed to get a scar in my forehead, now how "last year" isn't that! Well... I was falling a sleep, had one of those twitches/spasms that one get when falling asleep... and that resulted in a scar :)

And this all relates to Harry Potter cos I'm reading the last one, 20 chapters read, still many to go. Quite good so far, but not THAT amazing.

Other than that, the last 2 months have been busy... I've been working my ass off, no vacation. (but we're gonna go to Italy in September, I managed to rake up enough OT hrs).

Jiihaa! waiting for the sun!

Lintsi...

YAY, I'm going to Linnanmäki today!!! The weather is gorgeous and someone else is paying for the party...

ESC2007.... getting hotter!

ESC2007 is the best thing in Helsinki/Finland this year!!!

HA, I just found out I get to go to the semi-finals tomorrow! Absolutely bloody brill!

Eeeeek, what should I wear??

27... ...and counting!

So, another year has gone by, but hey, I'm still alive and kicking...
No big drama with getting older this year, the 'sad' thing is that already in January I thought I was 27.

So which is worse, being 27 or not knowing that you're not 27? :-) I'm not sure, but I guess it doesn't matter. Now at least it's a fact that I am.

Today is Vappu/Vappen, no big drama with that either. I think we're staying home, no big inspiration to go get pissed drunk and crawl around Central Helsinki... I could say "been there, done that" but in order not to incriminate myself I'll let the readers use their imagination.
We have been blessed with the presence of our niece/godchild, Smilla, so we can use the excuse of dog-sitting to just stay home. Is this a symptom of (old) age? Not as eager to join crazy parties. Somehow I don't think so as already this year there have been quite a few crazy parties. :-)

So what plans do we have for ESC 2007 in Helsinki? hmmm... damn, gotta get busy sorting out something fun! It's hopefully gonna be big and lound and pretty damn camp :-)

*Inviiiincibleeeeee* ;)

One turn, deadend?

Hey,

So, on Monday I started my new job. More (but not much) about it in a bit.

Last time I wrote I was at a crossroads. Since then I've taken a few turns, flips and flops. So my last job ended at the end of March. I managed to have a 2½ week vacation (first since July 2005). One week of that was spent in Åre, it was great, absolutely gorgeous. I went there for a skiing holiday with my darling Tååni, and my darling brother. And we didn't even end up killing each other.
The trip up was quite an adventure. We drove via Åbo, took the SeaWind ferry over to Stockholm. The ferry was somewhat of an experience, the best way I can describe it is "cheap and cheerful". Then we drove via Gävle and visited some relatives. When leaving Gävle we got stuck in a massive snowstorm, so the drive up to Åre took something like 8hrs.
The week there was heavy hardcore snowboarding and skiing. The weather was so-so, but it was fun.
No problems with the trip pack.

So after returning from there I dedicated my time to finding a job. I only had to be officially unemployed for 2 weeks before my new job began. The title is Content Administrator/Manager and I'm working through Eilakaisla for one of their clients. For now it's until the end of June 2007, but it might continue, we'll see what happens.
So far it's been great, I finally got my own computer yesterday :) it only took 1 week to get it formatted and cleaned...
There's a LOT of things to learn, but so far it's all really interesting and I truly feel I'm actually understanding and learning what I'm doing or supposed to do. Which is nice. It's always nice to work with something which is interesting and rewarding in the way that you feel you know what you're doing. All I can say is that I think I at some time have been in a job or jobs where that has not been the case.
Of course there are a few things I could wish to be a bit 'better' or different, but this is good for now.

Happy belated Easter and upcoming Vappu!

Lucky Charms

Hi,

Please pray for me, or keep your fingers crossed or whatever you believe in :)

It's yet again a time in my life when I'm at a crossroads(, or traffic light). Depends on how you look at it. Either I decide which way to go, or I'll see if it changes to a green light.

Short and sweet, things are in the making, we'll see what happens. Don't wanna say too much for fear of jinxing it.

Packing, packing, packed.

Damn, I've become pretty good at this. It took me all of 10 minutes to pack my trolley for the weekend. I guess that's something I've learned over the years. To pack quickly and lightly.

Tomorrow I'm heading off to Joensuu again for a nice relaxed weekend. It's just so nice to get away from hectic Helsinki.

Today I noticed it. It was past 5pm and it was still light outside!! Amazing, I think spring is on the way (even though it's -20 outside). But now we see the light, soon we'll get the warmth. Aaaaaah can't wait!
I got so excited I wanted to walk all the way home, but then I walked for 15 minutes and noticed that it was pretty cold so I took the bus. I guess the walk woulda been better, had I had my proper coat (but as SOMEONE poured beer/bitter/whatever on it last night, it was still wet after me washing it).

Hooray, have a good weekend!

Home, ill, bleurgh!

So, I'm home in bed again. Was at work yesterday, got a weird splitting headache, so I'm back in bed.
Doctor ordered me to take antibiotics last Thursday, so now I'm taking those and painkillers. Yeehaw, pills are good!

I've finished typing up my first diary.( It's 10 December 2000 and I'm back in Santiago, having spent almost a week in Argentina. )

Hmm.. I wonder where my second book is? Maybe somewhere in my parents house (eeek!!). But I think that one is not as detailed as I got tired of writing daily. So if the first book included 2 months, the second includes the rest, until I think I stopped writing at some point in Indonesia...

My biggest thoughts after reading this first book are: "I wish I was somewhere warm" and "I wonder what happened to all those people" (yes, cliché I know, but it's true, so many lives that met, if even ever so briefly...)

I'll sit in bed today thinking about this. (it's -14 celsius outside so no wish to go out there either).

edit:

Something I found that was my guideline for my travel:

"I have to hurry
have to leave
fly far
travel into different smells
I have to go
brake my chains
rip out my roots
let my heart burn
and point blindly at the globe

I have to cough
some highway dust
have to sail
a few more storms
I have to go
out looking for my soul

I have to walk streets
were no one knows my name
my face a mystery, not a label
go places
were dreams are different

I have to fly
hang out my heart to dry
in the warm breezes of lands
i could never imagine
And then maybe
I'll return
as myself "

Thank you "Jess" for writing it. It may be a bit outdated, but still has something universally valid.

Are Diaries good or dangerous?!?

Hey, long time, happy Valentine's and all that...

So, I've begun a project that is maybe long overdue (or that will never be finished).
I've started typing up my diary from my RTW (round-the-world) trip from 2000-2001. It's weird, after writing the entries, I haven't looked at them until now, 7 years later.
The questions is what to do with it? My primary reason for typing them into a word document is to preserve them in some kinda data format, in case I in the future plan to do something with them.
(personal note: writing as process, writing as sharing information)
So while reading through them I can only think: "who would I ever let read these things?", "why would anybody want to read them?". At the time of writing them, they were partially my log book, so a lot of the information is tedious bus numbers or where i stayed. At the same time some of it is like a letter to a friend, and a lot of it is me going through emotions and feelings.
What is this information I could think of sharing? Do I want to share all of it? ...maybe not... :-)
Maybe some day you will see it published in some way, and let's just hope it has undergone serious editing by that time. ON THE OTHER HAND, I feel like the manuscript is valuable in the sense that it horribly honestly presents a lot of what happened. But as with everything it is "aikaan sidottu" i.e. tied to the temporal setting where it was created.

The other point I wanted to bring up was this process of writing and reading through the material. It is amazing, the things we've forgotten, the people we remember once we read about them later. And also how our view of things change over the years. 7 years later I notice I maybe think of issues in a completely different way from September 2000, when I set out on my journey. But, I guess that is part of the beauty of life.

I will not claim to have developed since that time, but I've surely changed. :-)

All good comments and ideas about what to do with the material will be considered. And the best one may be awarded with a free copy.

MUAH!

Sport is good, right?

Wow, today I felt really good!
I've been trying to go to the gym regularly since the beginning of the year and I've actually managed 2-3 times/week. But the great thing is that I'm not feeling like "oh shit, do I HAVE TO go to the gym?". Now I rather feel like "ooh ooh, gotta go to gym, wanna go to gym". Ok, it's a bit manic, but I still think it's better than sitting at home eating crisps/potato chips. Or maybe I'm just not working out hard enough to make me so sore I don't wanna go there for a while... Lots of maybes.
This all just leads me to think that it's true what they say: doing some kinda sport activity regularly actually makes you feel better. And that it works like some kinda drug, you just want more more and more. Not that I know anything about real drugs... it's all hearsay.
Knock on wood! (Let's see how long it takes before I'm back on that couch with my Pringles)

The other thing I'm trying to pick up is swimming. Ok, I thought I was just gonna jump in the pool and I'd be like a natural swimmer. Like how hard can it be really? LOL, well it is. I mean, I haven't been swimming since the eighties or something, and THAT is a long time ago. I did go to the mandatory swimming lessons back in the days, and I'm sure I learned something. But why do I feel like a dork now that I'm in the pool?
I take a few strokes and I'm sure my rhythm is all off, and that I do the kick and the stroke in the wrong order... I mean, the technique should be somewhere in my brain. Why can't I just wake it up?
OK, so I've admitted to myself that maybe I should go take some adult swimming lessons (NO, not THAT kind of adult swimming lessons). So now I'm looking at options for that. We'll see what I find.
Until then I'll just look like a dork in the pool and feel completely exhausted after 300m of swimming. :)

So, my message of the day to y'all is: find a sport you like and DO IT. It'll make you feel good! (and once you're burning more calories, you can eat more crisps/chips ;) )

*muah*

New year, new tricks

Time for an update: IT'S SNOWING!!!!, and that is a great reason to get motivated to write in the blog. (I would try to take pics and put them up here, BUT my laptop is so shit so I can't be bothered)

All my friends in SE Asia are probably looking at me like "so what, what's the big deal with some white powder?". All my friends in Finland will understand...
Short lesson in Finnish mentality: Most of us have been suicidal since October-November because it's been so f*ckin' dark. You wake up at 7am, it's dark. You go to work and while you sit inside from 9am to 5pm, it gets just a tad lighter (not noticeably). You're bitter coz you have to sit inside. When you finally leave work at 5pm(ish) to go home, guess what, it's dark! :-) Doesn't really inspire you to achieve great things... but keeps the sales figures for IKEAs tealights rising. Hooray for Ingvar.
But now our lives are smiling again, it's nice and light outside. When you wake up in the morning you can look at all the nice beautiful trees and have happy thoughts (without pills). It's actually really really nice!! Soon the first rays of the spring sun will start warming our hearts and we start looking forward to the summer and sitting in the parks with some bubbly... :)

So what else is new, oh yeah, great news (for me, for you it's probably nothing). We got our dishwasher fixed after approx 18 months of bitching about it not working. This morning the kind little dishwasher-fixer-guy came round to the flat and changed the thing that sprays water around the upper part of the dishwasher (HEY, I'm not supposed to know this vocabulary, so I won't even try :) ). So now we should be able to eat form clean dishes...
Maybe it's time to try it out and invite someone over for dinner :)
Oh yeah, moral of the story: it's expensive to fix a dishwasher. We got a bill for the hefty sum of 131€!!! for a piece of plastic from Italy....

Well, while I'm on a roll here. Big plans for 2007. January has been mostly keeping off the booze and the red meat... and taking up swimming, new sport, new challenges. I have also taken a new approach to going to the gym (i.e. actually even going there).
March is for skiing in Åre.
April might bring along a trip to Brussels (and Rome).
August we've been (or will hopefully be) invited to a wedding in Canada.
End of the year? who knows... suggestions? more invitations? ;)

I'm currently looking at some job ops in the UK and/or Ireland, we'll see what happens with those.

Big hugs all around!!

Listan:

Fyra arbeten som jag har haft i mitt liv:
1. P-nisse
2. IT-nöörd
3. Turistnöörd
4. Deli-nöörd

(fråga int, vet inte varför jag kände mig nöördig just nu)

Fyra filmer jag kan se om och om igen:
1. Priscilla, queen of the desert
2. Good Will Hunting (det var en tid i mitt liv...)
3. Sagan om ringen - trilogin
4. Lion King

Fyra städer jag har bott i:
1. Helsingfors (torde väl inte räknas om jag ännu bor här)
2. lilla London, UK
3. lilla Iroquois i Canada
4. lilla Kilo i Esbo
5. diverse små skrubb och hotell under min världenrunt-resa :)

Fyra tv-serier jag gärna ser:
1. Weeds
2. QAF
3. Pako (Prison Break)
4. aaaargh, började just följa med Desperate Housewives och är redan hooked.

Fyra ställen jag vill åka till:
1. Japan
2. South Africa (pånytt)
3. tillbaka till SE Asia
4. Alaska

Fyra webbsidor jag besöker dagligen:
1. www.hs.fi
2. www.mobil.se
3. www.gmail.com (okej, den var dålig)
4. www.pandora.com

Fyra favoriträtter:
1. allt med färskpasta
2. nästan allt italienskt
3. en god fransk löksoppa
4. nästan allt me choko ;)

Fyra ställen där jag trivs:
1. hemma under täcket
2. på stranden (när det inte regnar, nångång på sommarn även i regnet)
3. på en skön soffa me en god drink (eller bra sällskap)
4. i badkaret

-tack ted o marika för utmaningen

News regarding career

Hi all, I might as well take the opportunity and update you on the fact that I got 3 more months where I'm working now (i.e. until end of March 2007), but I'm still looking at options. So *wink wink* let me know if you can think of anything.

Lots of Xmas wishes from the bottom of my heart!

-Anton

Merry Christmas everybody.

I'm blatantly plagiarizing by copying the following X-mas snippet:

"Dear All

Holiday Greetings to everyone, I wanted to send some sort of holiday greeting to my family and friends, but it is so difficult in today'sworld to know exactly what to say without offending someone. So I met with my attorney yesterday, and on his advice I wish to say the following:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress,non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solsticeholiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for thereligious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling andmedically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for thecalendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to societyhave helped make our country great (not to imply that Australia isnecessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freelytransferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes forher/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and isrevocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warrantedto perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings fora period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer: No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced"

Vacation in sight

The second good news this week (and this one's not related to politics):

I'm getting a vacation!!!!

I'm über-thrilled!! So, March 2007, 1 week skiing/snowboarding in Åre. That's a skiing resort town thingie in Sweden. I'm so looking forward to it. Especially sinceI haven't been skiing since high school (and yes, believe it or not, that is a long time ago!!). SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Yay yay.Whooptydoo!

Ooooh, so much to plan!! What should I wear?!?!?! ;-)

*muah* pumpkins

p.s. and I'm also happy about the Dems getting the Senate.

Thank you and Congratulations US of A

Wow, this is one of the only times I will discuss politics on here.

But I just wish to express my joy at the Democrats winning the midterms! It's not by much, but hopefully it will have some effect on the current "isolation through aggression" policy that has been going on for long enough.

We will see what happens, but any change is a good one. And getting rid of Rumsfeld, GOOD! Still a few asses left in leading positions though ;-)

Hasta luego!

"Regnar i Rio" - men knappt i Helsingfors

Ååååh, Lisa Nilsson is a fine woman. And for those of you who do not know -> www.lisanilsson.se

Last night she held a concert in Helsinki at Savoy. And I have to say the music was lovely. Her voice is gorgeous, indeed, and the Brazilianesque band was quite cool and funky.

It is so nice to hear artists who sound good also live and who 'really' sing. There are enough of those out there that lip sync or do other kinda cheap crap :-)

Approx 90% of the material in the concert was from her latest album Hotel Vermont 609, which is a result of her hiatus year in Brazil. Most of it I really liked, some of it is was mediocre. She also payed homage to Aki Sirkesalo, her personal friend who passed away in "the tsunami", by singing their duet Mysteriet. Other old stuff she sang was Viola, Himlen runt Hörnet and Små Rum. Having adapted them to the band, some of them had lost a little of the "charm" that they have in their simplicity.

Overall it was a great 2h concert. And the geeza playing the funky tambourine was really cool. The amount of noises one can get from an instrument like that is amazing.

But I just can't get over how boring the crowd is in most of the concerts I have been in Finland. I mean, they seem to appreciate the music (they clap) but other than that they just sit there. Some even dare to tap their leg to the rhythm of the music. But yesterday it was justa bit sad, as the sounds were so much "south american" and to me that demands the opportunity to sway and dance and express oneself.

...or then I'm just a drama queen...

Well, that was this month's cultural event. In December it will be Club for Five's Christmas Concert (also in Savoy).

On Monday we got our first "official" snow in Helsinki, yay (!)

Midlife - bloody - crisis... literally

Hej å hopp!

So yes, I've definitely been contaminated by midlife crisis. LOL. And what are the obvious signs? well, what do people do? buy stupid toys? jump out of a plane? get tattoos? leave their wives and go off with someone 20 years younger?
Oh... and then there's the one regarding piercings :-) Yes, sirrreeee..... Yes, I admit, I went for it. And yes, I am (already) 26 years old. But to my defence, I have been thinking about it for the past few years. So, last monday (23rd October 2006) I walked into Harness Bodypiercing Studio (www.yazka.com) and decided to have it done... Well, the first thing the sweet young lady did was that she demanded I go eat something to get my blood sugar levels up. So I had a banana and a yoghurt. But I was still determined to do it. I had been thinking it over even more seriously during last week. Dunno why, maybe the planets were in some wierd position.
Oh, you want to know where I took it? The tongue.
So after a few deep breaths and choosing a Bioplast(tm) plasticy 'stud' (what are they called?), out came the clamps, grapped my tongue, and ZAPP it was in. Did it hurt? Well... what shold I say? A little, I mean, it was quickly over, it was kinda like a pinch. So, it doesn't hurt like pulling out wisdom teeth, but it's not as painless as.... gettin your ears pierced. So, go figure if it's for you or not. But afterwards my body had some kinda reaction cos I started to sweat really profusely. But it only took about 5-10 minutes to calm down.
So, now I'm on a no-lactose, no-alcohol diet for a few weeks (and I only just got rid of the fasting diet!!). The last few days have gone trying to get acquainted with my tongue again. I feel a bit like a cow as I'm trying to chew food without biting my tongue. Only once I got the 'stud' caught on my teeth, and OH BOY, it hurts!! cos your tongue's reflex is to pull back the tongue, which means it rips at the hole. OUCH. I'll try not to do it again :-) So that's the bloody bit. So, eating soft foods, washing out with Corsodyl (which truly tastes like shit) and trying not to sound like the campest camper, there's just a few of the challenges I'm dealing with. But it's fun. Can't wait to put a bling in there. It's a shame they don't do Svarowsky for tongues. Wouldn't that just be über-camp.
Yes, and I'm also on a no-mucous-membrane diet for a few weeks... you figure out what that means :-) It's all for the sake of not getting any infections. That would be uuuuugly.

Sorry for not informing before now, but I had to keep the suprise moment for my darling hubby. You shoulda seen his face when he saw it ;) I think he was gonna faint.

So that's what I've done. Deal with it. I just 2 years ago got rid of my ear piercing, so now I've got a new toy. :-) tee hee!

I'll try and put up some pics once I get around to it... It's just a hassle with combining old laptops, memorysticks, yadda yadda, complications... yadda yadda... crash boom bang... yadda yadda... "fucking computer" WHAM..... "oh shit, I'll just go to bed".

Well, tomorrow's Friday again. Whoodles!