Tuesday, May 30, 2006

On France

As zou might have guessed, if i came back, it means that I had been somewhere, Paris in this case. Art history department excursion. I should have guessed that if the professors are 149th and 20th century, then it's not going to be my cup of tea (nor coffee, toilet disinfectant or any other liquid, for that matter). And it wasw not, with a huge help from Paris itself. Kirsi told me before i had gone, that she would like to go there for honeymoon. Poor girl.
Paris is big, equipped with totally megalomaniac urbanism (okay, it looks cool when you see the arch from la Défense or from Louvre and it's one big long wide street...... but it's uninhabitable), and that's it. There's no decent centre where you would dfind the city hall with a nice tower, surrounded with the usual medieval maze where you can read the development of the city. Paris has no charm - that's the most accurate feeling I had.
We've been to La Defense. I used to be a great fan of modern architecture and even more modern architecture, glass walls and that stuff.. and then I went to Italy. I realized that (1) architecture which is able to withstand 1 000 years of everything passing around and Italian history was no idylle, is not made from big pieces of glass. Although it§s easier to make good photographs. THere will be some as soon as i find the cable:-)

Monday, May 29, 2006

paris sucked.

The frog-eaters have good public relations but I was utterly disappointed. Paris is big, dirty, inhabited by half of Africa and as I'm an awful racist, nazi chauvinist and idunnowhat else, I felt a bit uncomfortable and it didn't help when one of those, uhm, well suntanned citizens tried to rob a friend of mine.
Next time I'm going to Finland.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

I'm blogging again.

And everything - yesterday I got the comp debugged, firewalls installed and whatever and as Barka came to get her tripod, Linda came because she heard of the homemade smoked meat and there was some wine and almonds and things, we had a sort of improvised arty and a damn good time. Tähti had some fun because we were sitting around the table and she could somply walk on us to choose the best lap to lie on and purr.
Speaking of the cat, yesterday I got some Purina with duck and she's crazy after it. I used to feed her some Acana granules but they didn't have them in the shop so I got whatever sounded edible.... and Tähti had an almost full bowl in the morning, ate it whole, made a content face and now she was siting by hte bowl making urging looks.... But when i came back to my room, she settled on a clean bed linen for a nice nap (see above). I hereby declare that I haven't got the linen to match her eyes, I found it at home 2 (i. e. at my parents' house where i still stay quite often and where I'll spend the summer because I'll get my home 1 reconstructed) and mom gave them (I have two, in fact) saying 'I thought of throwing them away anyway'. What a frugality.
I should go packing, I'm leaving for Paris tonight. Nothing romantic, just a trip to see some more art stuff. And I want to get a Courreges perfume and some books on medieval Scandinavia, Romanesque sculpture in France and Spain, which means basically the whole production of Zodiaque, one of the loveliest publishing houses I know which specializes in local Romanesque and has a million monographies in the uppermost technical quality on things like Romanesque in Arles, Coutances or wherever. And I won't be able to afford them.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Woe upon those who administer the school network,

for the Photoshop collapsed and the only comp remaining where it works (worked yesterday, to be exact) is occupied by some unfriendly-looking person. So I waited for a while in case the woman had a lunch appointment or something (I live in GMT+1 timezone and haven't discovered how to chnce the time settings yet. Not that I bothered. NOw it's around two here.) and then gave in and started looking for books. I mean, texts available on internet, because the Photoshop collapse met me while scanning the C. A. Nordman's Medeltida skulptur i Finland. If you have a spare copy, let me know. Or a spare copy of anything else on medieval art in Scandinavia and around. Tomorrow I'll make the library lady sick becase I'll go and copy 800+ pages on... well, scandinavian medieval sculpture, whatever it might be. There's a crappy old copier in one of the university libraries and if I bring my own paper, I can copy for free, which... well, yesterday I bought Beverly Feldman stilettoes and remained with CZK 400 for the rest of the month. It's something like 14 euros, if you need to know that. I'm on a low budget in general and the cat needs to eat something else than pasta and raisins or what the hell is left in the cupboard.

Awake and alive

If someone could please tell me how to arrange more pics in one blog entry, I'd be grateful.
I was at home 2 for a few weeks, there was a school
trip nobly called excursion (anyways, it means lazying around architecture, not just unspecified lazying around....) and I was lazy to carry mz camera around all the time. I think I have some pics so I'll maybe post them as soon as my home comp is disinfected. The guy who lent it to me didn't warn me that there was no firewall so it's full of viruses and today my friend's boyfriend, who is a nerd, comes to fix it.... so I'll continue from home, I need to scan the Medeltida skulptur i Finland book and there's still some 400 pages to do......

I finished the sweater.



Even my lovely sweet mother who wastes no time when there's a possibility of some nasty remark (it was 'You're wasting yarn again, you'll never finish it and anyway, you cannot knit' this time) admitted that it is cool. Well, when I was putting it together, I realized that one ball was from a different batch and the caramel brown is a bit lighter but te good thing about this type of yarn is that the mistakes, irregularities and all sorts of things I'm prone to are hidden easily.
And, in order not to be bored, I started a new sweater. I expect that my knitting efforts will stick to sweaters, because I don't wear much of scarves, mittens or woolen socks (as for socks, if I could go barefoot all year round, I'd be perfectly content with it.) and seems to me that there aren't many people around who would fully appreciate handknit gifts. Seves them right, I'll be the cool one. As to my new sweater, it's made on two round needlesso that the columns of stitches aren't vertical but diagonal, to one side on the outside and to other side on the inside. There are stripes only on the upside, it'll be all white inside. And I have no idea how I'll make the upper part, shouders and the neckline. I invented this way of knitting a few years ago when I was watching a movie, starting a sweater which remains unfinished because the size wouldn't fit anyone above 12 years of age, I'll rip it some day.... well, I was watching something on TV, messing up with yarn, and it just happened. I guess someone had invented this before but in case I was the genius:-)), I'll try to give a rough description: it's better to do it on round needles, as for flat pieces, I tried it and i have no idea what to do at the end. I did something without having much idea of knowing it - I'll analyze it someday. However, it's just alternating knit and purl stitches, the knit comes on the first needle (closer to you), the purl comes on the second one. When you're starting the third row, there's the knit stitch first, on the first needle - the yarn goes zigzag between the needles. So you knit the purl one first, thus shifting by one the columns... then it's the knit stitch on the first needle, and so on ad infinitum.
I'll supply some drawings as soon as i make them. I think there could be different patterns on both sides but I'll try this later.....

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

I knit.




I have already mentioned it. Not that I was too good. This woman is good. I have no idea what those patterns of dots and slashes and crosses and things in the knitting mags mean. I'm visual and if I want something, I jsut have it in my head. but I'm too lazy for reindeer patterns and when I need those, it's easier to make my mom feel guilty and knit a reindeer something for me. Although it might take years, there's half of the reindeer and moose sweater meant for my uhm, 25th? 24th? birthday still somewhere and I stole the kniting needles because I just needed size four.
The first pic is one of my favorite Benetton sweaters, note the cut (Yeah, the creature lying on it is Tähti and she used the two seconds before I grabbed the camera to settle into something soft and warm....). I just love the wide sleeves. They had sweaters in the same cut in the 1998 winter season, I think, with embroidered something, and I had two of them. One fell apart from frequent wearing, the other was left at the bottom of the wardrobe and fished out for cleaning reasons in late 2003. I started to wear it again and the people came asking like Oh, where you got such a nice piece, your grandma did it? and stuff. As this white one isn't in the best shape anymore.... Tähti likes it and it goes well with her color, but anyway, it's not cool for wearing anymore. The other day I went to buy some yellow thread to fix the torn seam on my Vuitton bag (I'm not rich. Ths was something like 30euros in a secondhand shop in Firenze, Italy and i needed a medium-size bag for weekend trips anyway) and found yarn instead. This one. It makes a nice fractal pattern.... And it'll be ready this week.

So.


I'm blogging from home. Means from my messy room, nothing like I'm back in the country after a nice holiday or whatever. Got the Internet working (it wasn't as tough as I thought). The bad thing is that now I have basically no reason to go out:-))). Maybe I could stop going shopping, too, I could call it Supplies Expedition and make notes about it into Captain's log, not that I had any but this blog:-)

I learned how to upload images to the blog.... so this one above is my humble self and Hiisi, British Shorthair kitten of something like five months and already bigger than my grown-up Siamese. And as you can see the beginning cellulite on my upper arms, yeah, i should be on a diet, not hanging at friends' places and eatindg their cakes. Yes, bad me. (And thumbs up to Barka's mother-in-law for her baking skills.)

Monday, May 15, 2006

On politics.


We are to have elections. Great part of the political people are communists, regardless in which parties. However, on Sunday, we went out and there was a campaign. One of the parties chose blue as their heraldic colour and they were giving out irises.... I was trying to explain to my Finnish companions that they are here, and here people take what's given for free and ask for another portion - they had a bit of problem with this concept. However, as the political people were all over, I accumulated a nice bouquet. So, once upon a time, politicla action raised mthe level of my life.
Note the Alvar Aalto vase. That's the thing I bought for the first money I earned. My mom wouldn't speak to me for a few days for such wasting of money.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Yes!

So, Mom came. She wasn't totally pissed off because of the cat - just said that I had betrayed her and that I should have at least asked her (...). She liked the map of Scandinavia on the inside of the toilet door - and she hates toilet readers like me.... Ahe even said that my appartment is surprisingly tidy. What the fuck is up with her?

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Today I finally went to take Tähti for a rabies and idunnowhat vaccination. Not that I was so busy but I need to get up earlier for this and I just like to lie in bed with Tähti curled around my hand. However, IK got up, grabbbed her (she doesn't like the kitty carrier, of course). She was screaming, as usual... and three people were needed to hold her for the second shot. She's overweight, too, since the last visit on March 15, she fattened from 3.5 to 4.2. I was told that it's not a good idea to leave her with a full bowl, just feed her in the morning and evening. She will be pissed off (and the Siamese can ve very theatrically angry) but well, I don't want to have a fat ball of her. Bad enough that I have a beer gut... or, to be exact, a cookie gut.

Anyway.

Yesterday I went to the Doc. My allergy started to be a bit more annoying than I was willing to tolerate so I decided to see my GP after quite a time. I arrived just at the beginning of her office hours and realized that the damn pensioners had to be waiting overnight or what because there were at least ten of them to get their dose of chatting of their poor health. Covered by the public insurance. I waited for two hours, it took me one minute to explain what's wrong, in another minute I got my prescription for seventh generation of anti-allergy things and left so that the other pensioners could go and complaint.... The day was already wasted - my original plan was to be on train to Prague at around that time.... So I just hung around. I went home in a relaxed manner, had my nth coffee, dropped at the office to say hello to the guys (one had just had an accident with the company car, poor him), spend some time burning cds (yes, my own data) and then went in the direction of the station, shopping. Got some more yarn for my sweater (they had the last three balls, I hope it's enough) and then happily set off to Prague. I finally managed to call the internet provider to come and fix the thing... the problem is that they need the installation cds for Windows and of course I don't have them. I'll see.
I wanted to go out with Kirsi to see the ice-hockey match, she said that the Finns in the pub wouldn't probably beat me but the internet woman was late so I didn't manage.

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Wednesday, May 03, 2006

This will be about art...

... but i cannot process the pics here decently and talking about art without pics is quite useless. However, yesterday I was in the cathedral, in the triforium (meaning something like an upper storey passageway around the building, for those who think that architecture sucks:-)), there's a gallery of portrait busts of the kings and other royalty and also the cathedral builders. There will be pics too, during the weekend I'll process them. I cannot do it at school because I cannot connect the camera to those comps where Photoshop is, I cannot burn it onto a cd where there's no Photoshop... some genius created the network....

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Tuesday, May 02, 2006

...

At least in someone's thoughts I got to a language level 2, I got a whole damn long mail in Finnish:-)

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School trip

Even at universities there are school trips. masked by the name Specialized excursions. Thus I spent a weekend in Dresden. Moreless, we were lodged in Děčín, the decent place nearest to the German borders and took a train to Dresden itself. There will be pics and some art history crap later, be sure about it.... but right now I don't have the camera cable with me.
So, impressions and reminiscences: It sucked. Dresden is all rococo and things I don't prefer for their aesthetic qualities. However, on Sunday when it didn;t rain, I just walked around and sort of enjoyed myself. The worst thing were people. It seemed to me that all those in the department whom I dislike gathered there. On Friday evening I was lucky to miss the party, I left my passport at home and took a later train; the other day we were dining in a pub and I sort of concentrated on my plate most of the time. All Sunday long, the people just meditated upon how to get some cheap alcohol for the way back. I was soo happy to be back home...
Pics tomorrow, maybe

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Cat hair everywhere

Tähti is shedding, that's it. So I still eat cat hair, drink cat hair, bathe in cat hair, sleep in cat hair, walk on cat hair.... She is also swinging on the curtains and destroying my innocent defenseless carpet from the Ikea sale. And mom is coming the next week. I think she doesn't know about my cat. Well, in fact she should know because I mentioned her, Tähti, I mean, on the now disused blog she used to read. Mom will be screaming and I don't care a damn, to tell the truth. After all, I'm nearly thirty and it's nice from her that she banned me from having cats and dating Finns (I'll write about this later. Meantime you can tell me whether you feel this idiotic or racist.) but I live my own life, go live yours yourself, thank you.
I made tiramisu yesterday. Not that I would plan it. I planned to go on diet. But... I and Kirsi went shopping together and it just came to my mind that well, I could make it. And sort of thought aloud whether to make the 18 portions baking tray or just some normal amount. Then rethought the concept, because the normal amount is 24 portions baking tray, which gets easily eaten by five people in one evening. As a result, this week I'm getting no thinner, I'll live on tiramisu and ribollita.
And, the most important domestic matter of this week, I have a computer. Some two weeks ago I bumped to a friend, we cursed the school comps together and I just said that I needed an office to keep my papers spread around and things... and he just said Oh, you don't have a comp at home? I can lend you mine.. and a few days later he just brought it to my place. Mmo will be pissed off - what would people think, that she isn't able to buy a computer for her daughter or something? - but.. well, she's always pissed off when I show some independence. So, I'll call to the cable provider and get the Internet connection and then I'll have no reason to go out but to throw out the rubbish.

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