wrybaby

I've somewhat lost interest in updating this because everything I think of writing is nothing but introspection. And all I do is school work and procrastination, in varying proportions.

I got the response paper back that I wrote last week, the one I wrote at midnight; where I took out my frustration with writing it on the book.
Returning the paper, the teacher asked me what I used to study before I came here. It didn't even occur to me to wonder how the hell he came to that correct conclusion; just what it was he figured I studied. (Naturally, my first reaction when he said that was "oh great, the writing’s so bad it shines to miles' radius that my calling is somewhere else".)
My philosophical views on morals reminded him of Kant, that's how. And he disagrees with Kant. My views aren't based on having been force-fed Kant, 'cause I honestly can't even remember what the guy was all about. But I would have loved to start arguing about philosophy - much more fun than any other kind of arguments. I am satisfied with the fact it was my paper that caught his attention to the degree that he wanted to point it out.

I also nearly went mad over the linguistics essay, for which I got the assignment in September. What's a better time to start working on it than 4 days before the due date. I was embarrassed to hand it in, and today I had the much dreaded meeting with the grammar course teacher, where he explained his corrections on it. And he was apologetic about them, explaining how he's very particular about the essays, showing me how many marks some other essays had, for comparison. "Yours wasn't so bad". I just told him I'd been expecting it to be worse.
Apparently I give out the vibe of an overly conscientious student, who demands a whole lot of themselves and could break down the moment someone says something negative about the results of their efforts, without softening it first. Oh wait, that's actually the case here. Although, nobody could ever write anything flawlessly if you ask him (except Shakespeare). And that's the way it should be. He's a native English speaker who's (rightfully) a nitpicking linguist and that considered, I didn't do so bad.
Generally, looking at my accomplishments you'd never guess how seriously I always take my assignments, and I think it should be the other way round.

Lately, a lot of disinfection stuff has emerged in the bathrooms at the uni. I always soak my hands in that whenever it's available, just because the thought of having minimized the amount of germs on my hands is soothing. But does that even kill viruses? What the heck is it there for, then.
Having read some reports of people who caught the milder version of swine flu, I got to thinking I might have had the same thing in May. Ergo, unlike I suspected, it might not have been just the different bacterial strain in America, I never get so ill for such a long time when it's the common cold. It could've been influenza, just not sure if it was the swine variation. If I get the thing now, it's safe to say it wasn't.

Here's what the notion of "happy medium" seems to mean to me: I go from one extreme to the other, the 'medium' part there being the average of the two. Like if one hand is in a bowl full of ice water and the other in the oven, everything should be fine on average.
I need to go far enough to one end to freak out and change my ways, which is what happened now. Finally, all sorts of habits of mine effectively struck me as very far from advisable - I realized that wasn't the way to conquer the world. After the reform, I'm all about reading stuff that won't contribute to my brains withering away; eating vegetables; and drinking green tea. None of which I really ever used to do before. So I went far onto the other extreme, I suppose the next item on the list would be yoga mania.
For some people it apparently works beautifully to divide their time between little bits of everything in healthy amounts, but for me it's to the hilt or not at all. The current style feels a lot better, now all I need to learn is how to go to sleep before 1am when you keep having 10am classes.

The fact I missed first 2 weeks of school is a handy scapegoat for the fact that I am nearly completely unaware of what’s going on, STILL. That excuse is about to get old soon, but I went ahead and wrote a response paper on Wuthering Heights, only to find out we didn’t have to. For once, I'd actually gotten something on the paper and was pretty pleased with it, then this. Not to mention all the time gone to waste on it.
I also went through disproportionate trouble to get my study plan papers filled out for this year, prompting the teacher responsible for it to email me about it twice. Upon then handing it in the other day, I told him I had some problems with it. He said I shouldn’t take it so seriously.
That's descriptive of what's been bugging me and preventing progress, 'cause I'm constantly going from the assumption I should do better but can't, so why bother at all. Turns out, that's not how it works.

Even after getting that straight for the 29th time, I had to struggle with another response paper for days. The novel's all about sin (Puritan America in the 17th century), and I don’t really believe in the concept. So I couldn’t get over the blank page syndrome for days.
In the end, my solution was to try to be eloquent enough so the teacher wouldn't necessarily notice that I was mainly just talking about my aversion to sin. Then I added some excessive irony, to distract attention from the fact I didn't have too much to say about the book. I thought it turned out much better than I was expecting, and after I finally finished it, I felt like I'd run a marathon.

This time of year might well be my favorite, or at least it always is when it's on. Both the yellow foliage phase and the "will it snow or not" suspense. It gladdens me when it does.
I don't know if my sudden desire to go to London has something to do with my excitement about Britain that regularly occurs right about this point of the year.
With a short-term summer job I could go to London next summer. Wouldn't even be good enough though, because to me London is a place that you should visit between October and March, to ensure the weather would be as bad as possible. Otherwise it's like going to Paris and finding the Eiffel Tower missing.
Since I keep not winning the lottery, it's gonna be a hard time choosing between all the places I wanna go.

"Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything's different."

The father of the quote, Bill Watterson, has also said: "Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless".
If there's truth in that, this weekend hasn't been counting since, shockingly, I spent half of it reading Wuthering Heights which is part of a compulsory literature course.
I started on Thursday and it took me roughly 3 days to finish it, spending about 70% of my waking time on it. I'd have managed it in 4 hours if I hadn't seen fit to place emphasis on actually understanding any of it. I do love the way it's written, every simple little thing is expressed in the most complicated and fancy way possible. It's truly rewarding and worth the head-scratching, when after reading a sentence 2 to 3 times, you get what it means. And there I was, thinking I knew English.

The material was at times way more hardcore than I was expecting: "Had I been born where laws are less strict, and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of those two, as an evening's amusement". Especially in the context of the particular situation where it was uttered, that was a bit of a surprise, even coming from Heathcliff.
I wanted to read the novel ever since I heard Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights again for the first time since my childhood some years ago - and now when I looked into her motives for writing a song about that story, she mentioned she was intrigued by the fact she shares a birthday with Emily Brontë, which coincidentally I do too.

~

The other day, I had the same unlikely thing happen to me for the second time within one year.
First, a random thought crossed my mind - how long the light bulb of my desk lamp will last. It just emerged out of nothing; the light hadn't been flickering at all or dimmed down or anything, it was completely normal. I don't get those thoughts very often, just about 2 times in the past year.
Each time, it has died within the next hour of the moment I thought about it. It was weird enough the first time, so it was at least doubly as weird the second.

I discovered what I came to regard as a rather original feature film. It’s an independent film set in England, in which an exceptionally introspective young man without much self-confidence suffers from a quarter-life existential crisis and has such a catastrophic relationship to his parents that that alone makes for some heavily absurd black comedy, and yet it’s really depressing to watch most of the time. While being amusing. The bloke, who’s also an aspiring, yet talentless musician, is so sympathetic and on the other hand so annoyingly helpless you'd like to strangle him for a bit. But then he's just so adorable in a pathetic way that one wouldn't have the heart. And the character’s totally plausible at that, not a caricature. That’s what I meant by ‘original’.
It’s also a good role for Rob Pattinson (yes, I like him now) to show that he probably shouldn’t be condemned useless as an actor solely based on all the strange eyeballing as Edward Cullen. I saw some interview clips with him making self-deprecating comments about the Twilight role, and the art of self-deprecation is simply grand. Although if you do it wrong, you just end up looking neurotic (like me; see what I did there) but done right, it’ll give a pleasant impression of you and prevent a stupid one.
Well, anyway, How to Be (2008) is something I’ll have to watch again under more suitable circumstances, it was actually pretty damn funny in a warped way.

I caved and finally watched Twilight. It was in fact the second time I started downloading it - and the first time it got finished, meaning I didn't cancel it half-way through like in the spring, thinking that sort of stuff is way below me. Now, I thought I'd have to have a look purely because it's such a big thing at the moment (but that's just an excuse since I have no compelling need to familiarize myself with for example Harry Potter; in reality I was suspecting I have the spot Twilight's supposed to hit).

And after watching it, I feel weak to admit I actually liked it, though just a moderate and healthy amount (unlike many other people). The whole thing's like mental masturbation for teenage girls; I'm past teenage at least by what it states on my birth certificate but I can still see where the screaming girls are coming from. I was there too once, except I didn't literally scream.
I got a bit startled by the fact I don't really have anything negative to say about the film. Sure, it could be different in many ways to make it more this and that, but then again, it's perfect just the way it is; the way it was intended to be. It appeals perfectly to what it's supposed to be appealing to, so any flaws are easy to overlook. It's like a Harlequin novel that's somewhat classier than those books you see in the magazine department of supermarkets. The target audience is obviously happy, the producers are happy (and wealthy), so it's all good. That's exactly why my opinion of Mission: Impossible 2 just isn't legit to anyone who happens to have appreciation for Tom Cruise being a "realistic" action hero in a story that no other story can compete with in predictability. I fucking hate the movie. Reviews only count coming from someone who normally likes the sort of stuff in question, and apparently I have a soft spot for twisted chick flicks.
And as for the huge Robert Pattinson hype that's currently on the loose, now that I don't really get on a personal level. The little missies that take part in it are presumably so unaware of the whole industry behind it and how it works. (And it works perfectly for the big bosses behind the scenes.) Although, when I was in their shoes 10 years ago, I did have an idea of it, so maybe I'm just underestimating the pre-teens of today.
The first time I ever saw a picture of Pattinson, I didn't know anything about the whole franchise or who he was, but my first thought was, "for once one of these teen idols looks even slightly memorable". In the movie, he looks like he's on the borderline of "can/cannot act" but I suppose that's part of the role. And I also had to do some youtube research on him off-screen and it looks like he has a British sense of humor, which is a plus and makes him less bland and flat than many Americans tend to be.
So it's just the perfect product from everyone's point of view, except the main stars of the movie that lost their privacy and chance at a normal life for the next 2 years. Which makes one wonder, just how strange hordes of people can get, making it so damn difficult for people who simply happen to be known (of) by many other people.

Note to self: next time you buy a bottle of wine, make sure already in the store that it has a normal cap if you don't own a corkscrew. (I don't know how many more times I have to make the same mistake until I learn.) I don't, and of course I couldn't take that into consideration until I was about to open the bottle. I did some research on alternative opening methods, and ended up using the "push cork in", making creative use of my tool kit. At least I was smart enough to go perform it the bathroom, because I ended up breaking the bottle, after some more or less comical steps. All the while I couldn't stop thinking what some la-di-da wine connoisseurs would've thought if they'd seen me pour the (remaining) wine in an empty gin bottle. Should be an interesting taste. Elitism and all its followers can go to hell.

I had a nice afternoon today. Nothing beats going to a local bar on a Wednesday at 5:30pm. I'm gonna have to write down the description I came up with, of the differences of between being drunk, sober and high (here it is, S! Just couldn't let it slip). When you're drunk enough, everything seems blurry and unclear, you may not be able to make much sense of anything and it just doesn't even matter. When you're sober, everything is seemingly clear on the surface level but still, nothing really makes sense and it bugs the hell out of you (I'm just talking about how it's with me personally here). Stoned, everything is clear as ever and makes sense like never before. I really wanna go to Netherlands now. Next summer if I have money...

Now I’ve heard the album enough to have formed a more lasting picture.
Strangely enough, their albums always seem to have the same ratio of songs I think are 1) dull-ish (this time there's two such tracks); 2) the usual, non-disappointing quality (also two); 3) highly delicious (about four this time) and finally 4) the two that are my absolute favorites, easily even among the best out of their entire discography.
Funny how it always goes like that with every album of theirs. (I’m disregarding Pussy altogether because it simply doesn’t belong, I keep forgetting the piece even exists.)

Uncharacteristically of me, I read a lengthy and detailed review that dealt with each song individually. The writer shared almost the exact same taste with me, which rarely happens. What a relief: for once somebody who has a clue!
I’d read an interview with Richard earlier, in which he revealed his fave song, and it happens to be one of the two that I can’t say I like very much – and now I found out that he specifically doesn’t like one of my two super favorites (apparently he had to give in to some of the other members to put it on the album). What is wrong with him?!
Frühling in Paris might just come close to being my new Morgenstern, ie a very dear piece of art. The one I don’t like and he does is Roter Sand, which supposedly is some sort of masterpiece, but all it does is numbs my mind to the point of falling asleep. What seals it is the fact it's not even melancholy enough for such a quiet and slow song. So it does nothing for me. Oh and it has no drums, now I see the connection. If one wants to simplify things, I'd rather lose some other elements and keep the drums.

When the title track leaked sometime in the summer and I downloaded it then, I kept listening to it, trying to get into it and despite all the efforts, it only sounded acceptable at best and I never thought the album could come to be like this for me.
This reminds me of when I first discovered Mutter in 2002, it was the best shit ever. In a way, it still is but LIFAD is like a Mutter on the next step of evolution, with more brains (generally speaking at least). An even more eccentric Mutter that learned to do more interesting stuff especially when it comes to the percussion department and keyboards. If someone honestly prefers Mutter to LIFAD, the way I see it it’s because of some misplaced nostalgia and/or the absence of Pussy. In either case, he or she should give it up already.
I started getting ever so slightly bored listening to the same old songs of theirs, even if I didn't realize it was overexposal but the songs just stopped tasting like anything. And now my opinion is that they did good, they did so good this time.

The new Rammstein is here. It took a while for me to make up my mind about actually buying it, since I’m so reluctant to be giving out money for anything except groceries.
I knew that if I didn’t buy it straight away, I’d end up downloading it for free and after that I would never have gotten around to buying it, that’s a fact. Why pay for something you already have? Except for ethics, but what is that anyway, is that something you can eat? And I have no real desire to support the band financially ‘cause they’re filthy rich as it is and I did pay 75 € for the concert ticket already.
So the reason why I decided to buy the album was the old habit of buying everything essential they put out, I’ve been doing it for ages so why stop now. And also, I’d have suffered a sting of conscience calling myself a fan while not having paid for the new album. It’s like I also bought myself a clean conscience. Had I not purchased the work, I would’ve felt like a sleazebag and also as though it were some sort of a protest, and if I’m protesting against the music industry for setting such high prices for records and also the band itself, still listening to the music and enjoying it would be hypocritical and an embarrassment.
Besides, based on what I heard in advance, I was expecting it to be an 'okay' record at the very least.

Now, this is a hasty, by no means final, analysis based on hearing each song about 2,4 times on average. The album as a whole is still slightly messy in my mind, and there's songs on it that don't seem too creative and inspired to me at this time - although may it be said that there are very few songs in the world that I found genius within the first 5 times I listened them through.
The album has one or two downright boring songs, then there's a few with good potential, a few fascinating ones - and: I did find a potential newcomer to my top 10 of Rammstein songs, it's the one that I had the biggest expectations for; the one about Herr Fritzl, the Austrian gent who held his daughter prisoner in the basement. Wiener Blut is brutal, the theme is outrageous and the lyrics disgusting, which is just the way I like it. In that respect, it's like Mein Teil of 2009, with the distinction that incest is worse than cannibalism. On the other hand, these strong first impressions tend to fade with time, which is when the initially boring ones start to shine.
A pleasant surprise was one song that, based on previews, I was expecting to suck big time and be The Meek and Mushy One I Would Always Skip, but instead I grew quite fond of it (Frühling in Paris). We'll see how that'll last, but at the moment, that song is incredibly far from boring, it has loads of good ideas that were carried out the right way.

What I like about certain songs is that they obscurely remind me of some of their old stuff, not in an obvious but in a rather sneaky way. It's not like they lazily redid old songs to sell them as new, but they used some ideas that worked before and the stuff still sounds fresh. The fun part is trying to work out which song they remind me of, because it's not so obvious. Like a game of finding the counterparts.
That Pussy joke got so old after about 10 minutes, and the piece doesn't really fit in with all the rest of the material (for which I'm grateful).
What also bugs me is that there's a couple songs on the double edition's bonus cd that I'd use to replace a few IMO weaker songs on the actual album any time. I don't want to talk negatively about any specific songs mentioning titles after barely hearing them once, but I'd put Führe mich and Donaukinder on the actual album anyday and throw a couple of others out. Then again, it might change later on.
I don't know how music critics can give an album stars or grades after going through it just once or twice. Then again, others' opinions are worthless from your own point of view anyway, so reviews are good for nothing, whether the reviewer listened the album just half-way through or 20 times.
If I had to give it stars now, I think it'd be ***½ or ****-, but I know it's gonna go up soon; partly since they're my favorite and I'm biased, but mostly because it always takes a while for the dust to settle and the mess to clear. It could very well reach *****- at some point.

// Another round of listening confirmed that it is definitely at least a **** album we have here.

I once stumbled upon a quote by Albert Schweitzer who said happiness was nothing more than a good health and a bad memory. One of my biggest problems is that I have a way too well-functioning memory. I don’t know what kind of memories were standing in the way of his happiness; good or bad. I know in my case it’s the good ones.
It’s such a cosmic joke: first you’re waiting for something good to happen, and eventually it will. Then, eventually it will also come to an end; and you may or may not end up feeling like shit because of it. I suppose it’s just your basic greed, incapability to be satisfied with the limited period of good times and instead just wanting more. Yet there is no more, things end.

It was about 1:30 at night when I started thinking about this, so I inevitably drifted further (anything except falling asleep at a time when that would be an idea to consider) and pondered: if there was a possibility to erase some memories that you could select yourself, would I do it and what memories would they be. (Only now did I realize there’s a good movie about this, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.) And to what range of consequences it’d lead.
I just watched another movie the other day (Lola rennt) which deals with how every little choice we make changes the whole future. Then again, this is philosophy more than a definite fact ‘cause someone might argue you can’t change something that isn’t even in existence yet.
Every little thing you do or don’t do has an effect, possibly enormous, on what will happen in the future, like according to chaos theory (and there’s at least one movie about that too, they keep coming back to me now). And your memories affect your decisions as to what you do or don’t do. So erasing some things might make you make different choices and your life could be very different. Erasing a lot of stuff from the mind would lead to being a child again, losing all the lessons you’ve learned and being stupid or underdeveloped in a way and being stuck there (which could be one definition of happiness); then on the other hand without past disappointments and failures, you could stay optimistic a lot easier. And without past good moments the present would seem a lot better, since I wouldn’t know about anything better. Then there’s the other factor, which is that there might be great things in the past that have a positive effect on one’s current outlook on like, for instance.

I’m not talking about erasing everything, because I wouldn’t wanna go back to being a mental 4-year-old. Just erasing one or two bad memories from which I didn’t learn anything but which continue to have a negative impact on my life, and then a couple of good ones that just make me feel sad. Actually, I can only pinpoint one such thing right now.

The bright side is, I have a variety of bad memories from which I learned a lot, I should think about them more often! I love dwelling in semi-traumatic memories because after that, coming back to this moment feels so relieving. I’d never delete the memory of England, for example. It has produced huge amounts of joy, to use a slight overstatement for the sake of emphasizing.
Looks like many of the good as well as bad memories that I wouldn’t want to get rid of are those of events or predicaments that happened quite a while back, whereas good/bad stuff in the not-so-distant past is something I could readily throw away. Maybe I’ll just have to wait awhile to make them beneficial.

I just invested 292 euros in a little trip to Berlin in December, just before New Year's. The hotel is within walking distance of the city center and has breakfast and wireless internet and all. Now I can quit going back and forth about what to do and where to go. (How annoyingly ironic is the fact that now that I have a credit card, all the travel agencies have started accepting bank payment from my bank, and it's even cheaper that way than with the card. I noticed a similar thing about the usefulness of the card on ebay.co.uk and .de; it's apparently just Americans that are crazy about credit cards.)
I've been wanting to go to Berlin for the longest time, and I've been to Germany 3 times, spent there altogether 3 months and a week, and still I never went to Berlin and it has been bugging me all along. I settled for just 3 nights because after all, I'm going there by myself. With some company I think I would've had to make it at least a week but now I think this suffices, for now. I have a pretty strong feeling I'll be going to Germany in the relatively near future for a longer time anyway.

And about that. I got really worked up about the fee Yle is now making us all pay starting 2012. I never thought it was a big deal before, but then it actually got confirmed and I am not fond of the idea. My political leftism is significantly weakened when it comes to this particular case. I don't own a TV and I never listen to the radio and I can also manage without Yle's online services, thank you very much. I can find a better use for 14€ a month than something I don't even have access to. (Yeah yeah, we pay for libraries and stuff too but for some reason that doesn't feel as bad.) Especially since the amount is the same for everybody, regardless of their income and since the money Yle will now be getting with the new payment exceeds their past budget by far. I don't even care to know what they'll spend that extra money on, I don't think anybody will notice any change in the quality of their services.
I'm hopeful I won't be living in Finland at the time so I can just skip paying. That's what settles it for me, I'll be trying my utmost so I don't have to.

Anyway, I think I better start practising that German again, 'cause I will not be speaking English in Berlin. I can't even believe I'm finally going there. And as I've said before, I've been missing Germany to an extent where Berlin can just suck all it wants and I won't even mind.

Even though I'm not particularly content and happy with much anything right now, in the past few days I've felt a compelling need to laugh, with or without a reason. By 'need' I don't mean so much desire but an irresistible compulsion, like a reflex. This has manifested in finding for instance typos incredibly entertaining, not to mention some random actor playing Kevin Federline in a MadTv skit on Youtube.
My recent Youtube addiction is only due to MadTv. The skits are for the most part stupid as hell, but that does nothing to curb the laughter; vice versa. The actors know their stuff, and I've always had a love for well-made parody, which is what many of their works are. Too bad parodies only work if you know the original well enough, but there's some amazing impersonations too. There's a guy who does both a dead-on Snoop Dogg and Obama. Then the combined Forrest Gump & Pulp Fiction parody, and 'Malcolm X in the Middle', which is even funny as a title, since the trail of thoughts that led to the realization of that skit is so easy to follow, the kind of awkward joke that sometimes just hits the spot. The result makes no sense but that's the best part.
I almost put a bunch of links here but I'll settle for just this one, which is an apt commentary on how the world is today. (There's probably something very wrong with me 'cause the boy's "I wish my dad wasn't really dead" cracks me up. It's not the fact his father is deceased but the fact political incorrectness is even funnier than those typos.)

As a fresh credit card holder, I could now book all the flights and hotels I want without bumping into an obstacle that is the lack of said piece of plastic. And I do want to, but the problem there is, I'm torn between a couple of destinations and also the option of saving money for next year, which is when I might be going somewhere for more than a vacation. An ex-roommate of mine is trying to get me to visit her in the States in the winter, and I'd be booking the flights right now, if I was just a little more irresponsible and incapable of thinking ahead financially more than 1 month.
On the other hand, doing things that have perhaps not fully been thought through usually has 2 possible outcomes: either a disaster or something rather great. Being overly cautious with everything often leads to a dull life. So I'm still undecided. (Chicago in the winter, seeing some people again; a hell of a lot of expensive hotel nights, me wondering where all the money went.) Or the Christmas break in Berlin that I came up with while still in the States. Or, none of the above.

It's been a good while since I last fangirled so here's filling that quota, for a few months at least.
I doubt I could have any higher of an opinion of Christoph Schneider; I've thought so countless times in the past 8 years or so, but keep getting proved wrong. (I feel like letting an overflow of positive things out right now; consider it an ode to not being so fucking fashionably cynical. Ach du, that would've made a good header for this entry but I can't use it now.)

I just watched an episode of a drummer talk show online. The two other participants were some Yank and an Austrian turned American (judging from his nearly perfect accentlessness and how much crap he was talking). Those two were talking most of the time and sounding like they thought everything they had to say was of class 1 importance. Compared to them, Schneider seemed even more modest and level-headed than normally, and he always seems like that anyway. And the things he said, when the talk turned to physics. Or metaphysics, that's the kind of stuff most people think is crazy talk (I don't, in case it wasn't generally known). He also always seems to be the one who subtly leads the discussion to societal issues, no matter what the original topic was. Even with the strong German accent - that hasn’t even faded after all these years and that sounds almost like a comedian had invented a hilarious character - he seemed so damn smart, and he still had the most substance of all of them, in the light of the load of empty words the others were producing. Of course he seems different in German interviews, who wouldn't. I wouldn't wanna be on national TV being interviewed in Swedish 'cause the impression I'd make would be considerably less intelligent than Schneider's in English.

I know my view isn't as biased as one could suspect, as affected by my strong inclination to think he's great, because there've been plenty of cases where I've thought someone was great and then heard them open their mouth and poof, the illusion was gone. So I’m not really even blinded by a sticky favorable first impression.
Strange thing is, I somehow, mysteriously and against my nature, used to think he was all that and then some long before I knew anything about him and the more I find out, the bigger the impression he makes. In fact, I used to be surprised to read or hear his interviews; he actually makes sense, on top of everything else! (That is, says stuff I could've said myself.) At some point I "rationally" tried to think that one with such a… presentable physical appearance could hardly be that intelligent, which is obviously a moronic prejudice.
I wouldn't be speaking so highly of any random person who looks cool behind a drum set and happens to have had his part in making my favorite music, but it's nearly 8 years we're talking about, at some point the level of randomness sort of sinks.
Not to go completely overboard with the praising, I'll have to say he could consider cutting his hair a little and wearing other kind of shirts, the ones he used to wear before. That's about it.


That ended up coming out so plentiful that I'll leave the other stuff I wanted to say for some other time. It was mainly about now having a fairly clear feeling about when and where I intend to do my exchange period. Shouldn't have allowed myself to even go there yet, since now I'm more excited about that than the ever-so-boring current issues.

Random episode of the day: I'm walking home, and as I'm passing by a car that has stopped at a stoplight, one of the doors opens. A young man asks me about the location of what happens to be the main street in this town. Everybody has to know approximately where it is; even out-of-towners, if they just look at a map - which is a smart thing to do if you go driving someplace you’re not familiar with and don't have GPS. I point in a direction, tell him it’s far from here. He says, “Could you give me your number, just in case”. I say “no” and continue walking.
I should’ve found an old man near by, pointed at him and said “but I’m sure he’ll be happy to help you out”.

I was a little harsh in my description of my relationship to my studies earlier; either that or the crisis was rather short-lived. At times I find myself liking linguistics simply because I get it, for the most part at least.
It’s like Math classes in high school, where most of the time I didn’t have a clue and then when I put my mind to it, the principles dawned on me for a split second (the enlightenment vanished just as quickly though); in linguistics it’s darn complicated, too, a far cry from the grammar parts of high school English classes, but I usually get it without as much effort and the feeling of enlightenment is almost as good.
Literature is the department where my agony mostly lies. I tried some sonnets from the 15th century last year and I just didn’t understand what they were about so I gave up, on all other literature too. Linguistics of English is a bit like mathematics of language, and still it’s closer to me than literature.
I’d love to love reading but it was a mistake to start with sonnets, because they scared the shit out of me.
I’m like a different person on linguistics classes and literature ones. In linguistics I keep answering questions not specifically targeted at me and that no one else knows the answer to, just to get a chance to shine, and in literature I shut up ‘cause I haven’t even obtained the book we’re supposed to be discussing.
Right now I’m on three (3) literature courses, so I’m not gonna be having that much fun unless I manage to straighten my attitude.
I thought about that yesterday and coincidentally, just today a literature teacher of mine who's becoming my favorite (the Englishman who doesn't like America, and also despises the "hellhole" of England, by the way) told us he used to teach linguistics but switched, so conversion is possible!

I’ve discovered a practical way to save money. I was in need of new jeans since spring, because the old ones had gotten too big to stay up. Now that I’m back and tried them on, I can hardly fit in them. Thank you America! This is also perfect ‘cause now I can save on grocery costs! And it’ll be about 3 months until I even have to consider getting new pants (because I do fit in the old ones, even if just barely). I’m not blaming America’s healthy and wholesome culinary culture but the fact I drank so much alcohol. I did have a burger or two but that doesn’t explain this. Moreover, American candy generally sucks, so I didn’t even have to resist temptation. If anything, I ate less than normally, because I simply didn’t have time. Ironic.

I’m having a bit of a crisis here. It’s your average “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up”, except I do have an idea and it’s the same idea I’ve had for almost 10 years, too, so that’s not really the issue. The issue is, getting there would be possible without any formal qualifications whatsoever if you get incredibly lucky, but I never counted on that, so I’ve been going in and out of universities. I’ve tried all kinds of minor subjects and while they fascinate me in theory and momentarily in practice, I have too short an attention span to be really able to focus on anything the way one should.
I don’t go to university because I find the studies endlessly intriguing (because I could read about that stuff in books on my own, without having to obey anyone else’s schedules); I go to university because we’re brought up to believe that in order to have a “good” profession and job one day, you either have to have rare and valuable connections or a solid education (preferably both, of course but that’s one utopia that I never even came close to). I don’t have any connections anywhere, so university it is, but most of the time I fail to see the point. Especially since as a humanities student, I get to hear on a daily basis (if I cared to listen) how it’s no use. There was a time when I let it bother me but then grasped that humanities and possibly social sciences are the only realistic branches for me to consider. Because the rest just doesn’t interest me enough and/or I lack the brains.
The only lectures I can stay awake on are the mass communication ones, but even there it seems like I’m taking the same damn course over and over again, the same principles and theories just get repeated. The only course I thought was both interesting and potentially useful was the one about the relation between media and culture, and that was mainly due to the professor who made it so riveting. He reminded me of Santa Claus, he talked really loud with a Southern accent and was provocative. I need to make an extra effort not to go narcoleptic on lectures where the teacher is a barely graduated MA with a peeping voice and no interesting way of putting whatever it is they’re trying to bring across. That is too often the case.

English would be great if I hadn’t decided I absolutely will not be a teacher. I could see myself doing it part-time but that cannot be all.
I can somehow see why I should study linguistics and English grammar, but I’m blind to the purpose of having to go through all the Shakespeare. Other than that I’m here now, majoring in this and not changing anymore, so I’m gonna have to grit my teeth and try to get this over with. Once I possibly have the BA, I’m planning on taking some one-year Master course on something related to Mass Communication either here or in some other country, and that’ll be my academic career then, whether it’s enough for the cold corporate world or not.
I’m also thinking I might be taking the official translator’s exam at some point so I could do that as a freelancer. The fact there is such an exam is precisely why I dropped out of translation. They were teaching us all these things that were in no way relevant from translator’s work’s point of view. Especially since we were also told anybody could work in that field without the degree, and they do; practically all it takes is the exam. Why the hell should I have gone through all that theory about some guy that invented translating in the year 1364 then.

Now I’m back to that thought, which was the inspiration for this entry, and the answer is now that I have to go through something and this is probably the most bearable of all the alternatives.
And all this brings us back to the fact I’ve bumped into many, many times in the past: you can plan your education and life all you want to make it perfect and just the way you wanted, but it just might not turn that way after all - or if it does, it might suck instead of being the glorious life you thought it’d be. I guess where I'm going with this is that if it works that way, it might also work the other way round.
What’s a little Shakespeare, when I actually have that; I could be having nothing at all and going to the social security office to get money for booze and… glue, or whatever it is they take.

Oh good Lord my fingers are still almost trembling. What an exciting 10 minutes it was.

It was basically a flip-a-coin situation, both options equally bad. I went to R-kioski about 50 minutes before 9 just to see what the situation was and ask about the tickets. The older female salesperson didn’t know jack and also couldn’t understand my basic question about if you can get the tickets there in the first place, even though I do not have them reserved BECAUSE THE SALE HASN’T BEGUN YET. Then, when we’d sorted that out, I asked her if you could buy field tickets there or no. She said she doesn’t know, “we’ll see about that then”. Do you moron not understand it will be too late then?!?
I simply couldn’t leave it up to someone like her, I also figured she would be too slow in the sales situation anyway. So, I stayed at home, by my computer, hitting F5 frantically. At least I wouldn’t have to hold back my reaction in case it failed. I was afraid I was gonna throw a public tantrum if something went wrong since I obviously have a rather low level of self-control in certain situations.
Also, doing it online had more of a suspense aspect to it, and the speed of my connection appears to be decent. I thought I'd rather leave it to my own poor judgment and technology than some random salesclerk who barely knows how to do her job. The possible fiasco is easier to cope with then.

I went to Tiketti first, because all they had were field tickets. It worked fine until about 8:50 when it started taking its time downloading the damn page, that's when I started to panic. I tried Lippupiste and got through, could hardly type in my info 'cause I was shaking so bad. I didn't have high hopes for that, since the problem there was, they didn't offer bank payment option for the very bank my unfortunate account is in.
There was a Visa Electron option though and I tried that even though I have very discouraging experiences of that. When I proceeded to pay, there were only regular Visa and Mastercard options. I just typed in my Electron numbers for the hell of it, and pressed "go". And then it just thanked me for my purchase. Man I'm glad I was prepared for this scenario by transferring enough money to my other account from my savings account just before, because if I'd had to start playing with the online bank in that situation, it would've ruined the whole thing.

I cannot believe it worked out and I made the right choice. Who would have thought you can actually get field tickets online, I know I had to see it for myself before believing. Although not nearly everybody was this lucky, the website is full of feedback from angry people who were left without a ticket despite doing all the same things I did and at the same time. No later than at 9:14 Tiketti told me field tickets were sold out.


// 12:08 http://www.iltasanomat.fi/viihde/uutinen.asp?id=1732471

I didn’t think I’d come to this now but I’m nervous about Monday morning and the war that is trying to purchase a ticket. I wouldn’t be thinking it was so damn difficult, if 5 years ago the field tickets hadn’t been sold out in, what, 2 minutes.
So many strategies I’ve considered and none without faults. I’m still undecided, but right now it’s a battle between the Internet and the nearest R-kioski. I’ll be trying the phone lines as well but the possibility of failing in spite of all the precautions is very much present. And if at 9:10 I’m without a ticket then I will be blaming myself for choosing the wrong ticket-obtaining method in any case.

If don’t manage to get a field ticket, I will have to resort to online auction. It’s not the sky-high price that hurts, but giving in to scumbags that never intended to go to the concert in the first place, but rather just milk the little money of those of us who really WANT to go and are possibly even students.
I don’t wish to feed and reward that cold scheming but I don't wish to miss the gig either, so it’s complex. This is where it’s good to have such obscene prices for the tickets to begin with, that ought to restrict the number of people trying to get them.
The field ticket is crucial to me because firstly, after Slipknot last year, I don't like to be in the section where people are practically sleeping, and also, even a theoretical possibility of an aftershow backstage is just too much for me to pass voluntarily. I had too much fun in 2004. Even if they don't have the kind of aftershow this time, front row is still gonna be worth it, I won't settle for anything less, honestly I'd rather sit at home.
A funny detail btw: exactly one year ago on Sept 21 I had a dream I went to their concert (according to this journal), and this year Sept 21 is when the ticket sale begins.

I am to no extent surprised that M did not respond to a spotlessly casual email I sent him; I’d have been more shocked to receive a reply, actually.
Although normally in this kind of case I'd let it be, I just had to send him another short message with a link to the video for Pussy, stating simply that I don’t care if he replies or not but I just wanna make sure he sees it. (I never would’ve done it, had we not discussed Rammstein and established we both are in possession of their entire discography.)
I’m only disappointed they didn’t release the video while I was still there, so I could’ve shown it to him at work, it would have been perfect with the lyrics and all.
He seemingly took nothing seriously, except for some stuff. I do give him credit for how well he managed to conceal the fact he had a problem with my straight-forward behavior. He was free to make all the jokes he wanted but when I did, then it was BAD all of a sudden. But oh, it wasn’t a joke. Maybe that was the problem.

~

I know I’m annoyingly full of this topic already, it’s the same thing I was painfully aware of just after my first two jobs abroad: people are just so much more polite and social elsewhere. I live in a building where roughly a half of the inhabitants are foreign students and they are the only strangers I’ve said hi to and gotten a reply from since I came back. Maybe I just notice it better when an Asian guy keeps the door open for me than if a Finn does, but then again, no Finn has done that for me lately, or said hi for that matter. Just the other day I had a little chat with one of them, only because he "just thought it'd be nice to say hi". Well, I really don't mind. You so can easily go mute here.
It feels strange when you first go somewhere else and they just won't let you be, but once you get used to it and then come back, it feels like a ghost town here.

It has happened. I've come to terms with the new Rammstein and I'm loving it. I came to appreciate the brilliance of Pussy after hearing another song off the new album which was exactly what I was expecting of them, so I can chill with the humor stuff as well. The good one is nothing new in terms of a big change but still it's not old either, so it's perfect.
And it's amazing how much less shitty Pussy sounds knowing it's not all gonna be like this. It sounds like they'd taken their fair share of magic mushrooms while they wrote this, beats Amerika any day of the week. But maybe it was just tequila.
I'm not going to the concert unless I get a field ticket, that much has been clear ever since the first time I saw them. The question remains, am I gonna resort to online auction to get it in case getting it the official way turns out to be as big of a fail as it did in 2004, or will I let it go altogether. I'm also bugged by the dilemma of how much earlier I should go waiting outside the ticket selling place. I'm thinking 1-2 hours before it opens, but I have no clue if that's even nearly enough. Then, 3 hours seems like overdoing it, I'm not waking up at 5 just because of that. This is not 2002. But if I'm about the 5th person in line, that might ruin it for me.


Today I exceeded myself by going to a literature course tutorial, led by a teacher I know from last year but who doesn’t know me because I wasn’t the most diligent student when it came to literature. Even though he doesn’t/didn't know me at all, that doesn’t mean I don’t know him; I know his humor and predispositions very well due to the lectures by him I did go to last year.
I went to the tutorial class and when had to explain why I was absent the 2 first times, I said I was out of the country. He then asked me where I’d been; if it was anywhere interesting. I said it was the United States. His response: "Ahh no, I said “interesting”!!". It got even better when I told him I was in Wisconsin, which I hear is nothing but woods and wolves.
He’s British and he’s quite a bit of a left-winger by his political views, doesn’t like capitalism and America that much, so I was fully expecting those comments. It’s confusing ‘cause he’s also on the extreme end of irony some of the time, like today he was supposedly praising Margaret Thatcher which I think must’ve been sarcasm seeing as she’s a Tory.

Last night I had a dream where I was back in the States, and even though I woke up several times in between, it just kept going all night. On one hand I'd like to be there and on the other, I don't know where I'd like to be, just somewhere else. I constantly feel like my being here is just temporary. The other day I almost printed out an application for an exchange semester in Germany next spring, but that'd be too soon so I gave it up.
There's this application on Facebook that gives you random fortune cookie fortunes, and this morning I got "It takes more than good memory to have good memories" which is amazingly true. And the timing couldn't've been more perfect.

My favorite band of 7 years, Rammstein, are coming to Finland in February, and I'll be there, but I just don't know what to think of their new single "Pussy" (whoever came up with the idea to make that the official title should be fired if it weren't a band member 'cause them I always have to forgive), its explicit porn theme and all the promotional videos that are in line with it. It's not so much about the porn itself, but the reason they decided to resort to something like that. It's just too obvious and too much out there.
I most sincerely have nothing against pornography (I'd be a hypocrite if I said I did), but I just always thought it'd be good to keep that and music apart. Porn is just porn, not related to anything else.
Then again, it's most definitely controversial, and that's exactly what Rammstein's always been all about. If they're making even me react like a prudish middle-aged Christian woman, then they've certainly accomplished the mission. So I don't know if I should worship them even more or what.

Maybe what bothers me most about Pussy is the fact it's in English. They've made plenty of songs with the same theme but those were in German. I had enough to tolerate with Amerika and now this. Perhaps I was just expecting them to REALLY cross the line this time, with something completely outrageous - which they did, but instead of a serial killer theme they went with sex. And everyone who reacts shocked and offended now just underlines how stupid people really are: those two are really the opposites, one has the potential to create life and the other to destroy it.
That's one comical analysis, and it might be that nobody else is shocked here but apparently me; I just can't decide if the whole thing is totally tasteless or genius.


// Sept 16 The video for Pussy premiered online, I watched it and I actually, literally lolled. My opinions are still very contradicting. In a way it's not that bad of a joke, but why does it have to be the 1st single, way too prominent. Also, not a good song musically. Are they so jaded they can't make music without turning it into a comedy sketch?
And this time they've decided to take every well-worn thing they've been stereotyped as and stuff it into one song and video (it's all about stuffing anyway, so...)
The best part was Schneider, without that I probably couldn't have watched it through. He's the only one who somehow always manages to maintain some dignity despite whatever insane stuff the band does on videos and gigs. Even now, and that's what makes it hilarious.

In about 2 weeks we’ll know if I'm a new Visa credit card holder or a reject; I went to the bank today to leave an application. It was so much easier in person than when I was trying to do it online in the spring. And I got the nicest young bank lady to help me with it, so I didn’t have to get my day ruined by an impolite old broad. She said the application most likely would go through since the document I got from the uni in May states I had 91 credits on May 15 and what matters is that it's at least 90.
What I found strange is that at the bank there was a radio station on and they were playing a weird schlager type of cover of Ayo Technology by 50 Cent and J. Timberlake, which is a song I started liking last year (in spite of the former, I might add) and which we talked about with M at work once. Why do my surroundings keep randomly reminding me of him??

I was interviewed for a gallup today, I wish I would've said no but the interviewer didn't give me a chance and what's worse, they took my picture, too, along with my full name. And that wasn't even the worst part, which was that the question was about swine flu and my answer was something like "I haven't really thought about it at all" and of course I had to mention having been out of the country for 3 months so I don't know what's going on with that in Finland. I don't even wanna see whatever idiotic there is going to be in the paper above my name. On the other hand, I also could've started babbling about my hygiene neurosis getting worse, so maybe the 'idk, whatever' answer was preferable after all. The woman seemed like she was trying to get a more decent reply out of me by asking if I've at least thought about what if I have to stay out of school and work in case I get sick. Well thank you for the reminder, as if the start of the semester wasn't freaking me out enough. (I should've told her she's about 4 months late, it was back in May that I thought we were all gonna die.)
On the bright side, at least then I'd have a legitimate excuse to give to the Social Insurance Institution as to why I didn't gather enough credits for the school year. I have no explanation for the past year, which is just one of the several things why I feel like I'm screwed.

School started today for me, and man am I behind on everything already, at least last year it took about a month for this to happen.
I had an appointment with one of my teachers about a course, and he gave me material to base my linguistics essay on. I had a few topics to choose from and I went for “The Function and Meanings of the Word With”, because it sounded most fun (welcome to the world of a twisted language student). I was even able to make a few effortless albeit semi-accidental puns while talking about the topic but I had to underline them too much with my tone, so maybe they weren't that brilliant.
I started taking the course American Literature I again, ‘cause last year I just dumped it. The teacher was telling us about how America has no official language which offered him an opportunity to make a nice anti-America joke about us having to do a language practice in a country where English is the official language; so nobody can go to America. Alarmingly (from the point of view of my sense of humor), for a split-second I missed the fact he was kidding and was all “dude, you cannot be serious”, turns out he wasn’t. I’m estimating writing that report will be the easiest and most pleasant 4 credits I’ll earn this year.

If you're feeling lousy as shit to begin with, then you can be sure that more bad happens, this is a phenomenon I already wrote about in December.

I moved today, and the place already looks cozy and all, but I always have serious trouble coping with any major changes in the beginning, and now there's been too many of those within too small of a time-frame. So for a moment I thought I was gonna lose it, and that is when I discovered, while unpacking, that the power adapter for my laptop was missing. So, a good 30 minutes time before the computer would shut down. I had to go to an electronics store to get a new one, so much for the saving plan. I was over the moon with joy when I found the old one, best 89€ ever spent. MOTHERFUCKER
To make things perfect, it was also raining heavily and my shoes let all the water through right after I went outside.
I don't even know where I got the energy to go anywhere - even though I do know the only way from that feeling is up, there also would've been the option of about 10 meters down, out of my window.
It's all about the "home"coming that I really have a hard time dealing with, the only thing that cheers me up right now is to think it won't be too long before I'm going again. Destination still most unclear at this point, but it doesn't matter.
I had to observe for a moment to realize that here, people don't say hi to their neighbors in the hallways. I almost did that, but they didn't even look my way so I figured that's the way it works. And when I just went grocery shopping, I was *this* close to saying "excuse me" to an employee who was standing in my way. In English, but even in Finnish that would've been out of the ordinary. Then, when I went to pay, I didn't put my basket away at the checkout because I'm used to the Walmart way, which is to take the basket  with you to the exit where you're supposed to drop it off.
I put a map of Wisconsin on my wall, snatched it from work. It has an ad on the bottom part: "SAVE UP TO 35%". Oh the nostalgia.

I still have some Chicago (& Wisconsin) pics I haven’t put on Facebook, which reminds me: the roommate who asked me for the photos, and whom I told there’s some on Facebook (so stop begging), actually went ahead and copied some of the photos from my album and put them up in her Facebook photo album. I still haven’t forgiven her, because I have been given absolutely no credit for them whatsoever and, to say so myself, those pictures happen to differ from all the rest of her pics in that they’re a lot better. So thanks a bunch.
If I only had the nerve, I would comment on them and tell her to either mention who took them or take them the fuck off of there. All of this does nothing but emphasizes the fact that not only me but a few others too thought she was a pain in the ass for a lot of the time. And that of course had nothing to do with the photos, but that simply does it. Never was my favorite person there in the first place. (She’s nice enough but we were very different in the most essential areas: I’m particular about stuff like the photos and pretty much nothing else, and she was a cleaning maniac and overly energetic and hyper about stuff I found boring. So there was no way we could ever be best buddies)

I’ve been thinking about how rare it is to have someone annoy the hell out of you and still like the person a lot. It barely ever happens to me, so that’s why I still can’t get M out of my head. I think it’s because he’s extremely insightful and gets a lot of stuff that is not out there for anyone to see. (It’s not every day you encounter someone who seems to read your mind, and who hasn’t had years to get to know you.) That’s something I appreciate to the extent that I’m willing to forgive irritating stuff on the side, or if I rephrase that, the irritation becomes positive, even desirable. I didn’t have to be careful at all in my communication with him, because he wasn’t careful with me either. He was always telling me I should be a lawyer, because of the way I always came up with counterarguments (or excuses, as he called them) so quickly; well, he should be a psychologist then.

It can’t be a coincidence that the roommate mentioned above really, really hated M from the bottom of her heart. I have a suspicion she wasn’t a fan of me either, but she had to live with me so we were in polite terms.
And we never came close to a fight ‘cause I decided to shut my trap whenever she started to piss me off, I just knew it wouldn’t end well if I let her know what I thought.
Sometime in the beginning, M accused me of being “unfriendly”. It was strange ‘cause I hadn’t noticed being like that, but I guess he was right about that since he was about everything else too. That was when I thought he was rude towards me so I didn’t particularly like him – I wanted to like him but he made it too damn hard. I told him the reason for that is that he was just so annoying (using those words). After we had both confessed we liked each other (even though I was the only one who said the exact words but it’s fine, I’m good at interpreting), it didn’t matter what we said or did, it was all okay.

I’ve been wondering about the range of annoying qualities in fellow people (including myself), and the situations where they culminate so that there’s almost the makings of a fight. It could be that Person A doesn’t realize how much they’re pissing Person B off, or that the feeling of annoyance is fully mutual and both realize it. I’d like to know how exactly it went in all of my conflict situations with people. When was I annoying, so that they wouldn’t show it at all?
Someone might call it gossiping or talking shit behind others’ backs but after 3.5 months, it’s more like a form of venting and getting rid of excessive stress to just let it all out: I discussed this topic with the roommates and coworkers that were the closest to me, just before we left. We shared a lot of opinions about the people we were talking about.
The one I probably felt the most connected with was coincidentally a roommate who was above average in eccentricity, the one who had the thing with the maintenance man, R. She’s much more easy-going than I am but I sort of tried to learn it from her. She could reveal all her freaky stuff to me and vice versa.

I will be emailing M at some point, just that it’s gonna be difficult since there’s enough proof that whenever I try to communicate with someone in writing in a situation like this, they get the wrong idea or otherwise get put off, I don’t know what it is. It never happens in an IRL situation. Maybe I don’t use enough smileys so they think I’m evil :)))
Although I have no clue what I mean by “situation like this” because there’s never been a situation remotely like this before. He even made sure I could read the handwriting when he gave me the piece of paper with the address (and the handwriting was among the clearest I’ve seen, nothing like his scribbling at work), so I think I am going to have to drop a line or two (or in my case, 49). Maybe the email’s just gonna be automatically thrown straight to junk mail by the provider or he decides to ignore it, but I will send something. I miss him, but that won’t be in the message.
A roommate/coworker once pointed it out to me every time Martin’s working the same shift with me, I’m smiling a lot more than usually. That pretty much rests my case.

Perhaps that will all fade into oblivion in a week, but in case it doesn't, I will have to consider the Christmas holiday in Chicago after all. Maybe even as a credit card holder by then; I'll be leaving the application on Monday.