ihmemaassa

Lämmitysten vieraana istuen katson ikkunalta ulos miten viimeinen auringonvalo maalaa taivaan punaiseksi ja loppuun loppussa katoaa kokonaan yönsinisessa. Viimeisessa kahdessa yössä oli eka kertaa pimeää. Yleensä pilvet vaikuuttavat kaupunginvalojen takia oranssilta, joten keskellä yöllä on jopa paljon vaaleampaa kuin viideltä iltapäivällä. Mutta nyt valot katoaavat pikkuhilja, ja tunnelma on hiljaa ja rauhallista.
Olin aikaisemmin kävelyssä Tapulialueella nauttimaan auringosta ja lumista - kävelin ja kävelin ja kävelin ja vaikka olin jo melkein kotona, kävelin vaan eteenpäin. Ei Tapuliakaan niin pieni oo, kun osaat kävellä tässä kaksi tuntia. Sen jälkeen kasvoni olivat tavallaan "jäättyneet", mutta muuten ei oli liian kylmää, vaikka oli vaan -12 astetta.
Kaunista! Tänään on siin viimeistan ensimmäinen adventti-suununtai, ja siltäkin täällä hetkellä tuntuu. Meillä on keittiössä kaunis adventtikynttilä, mutta ei keittiössä jaksa istua, kun omalla huoneessa on niin mukavaa olla. youtubesta soittaa islantilainen Ég hlakka svo til, kun nyt alkaa ihan oikeasti joulunodotusaika, ja kappale on kai maailman kaunein joulunodotus-kappale, vaikka se kertoo kesästäkin ;) Kiva kun nyt "saada" kuuntella sellaista musaa. Harmi, että taas olen poissa Fennistikan/Skandinavistikan laitoksen Lucia/Pikkujoulubiileistä. Ois kyllä hienoo jos voisin kuunella Ása & islantikurssilaiset laulamaan tätä. Tai lauleskella itse pohjolais-joululauluja.

Huh. Nyt on ulkona todella pimeää O.o Uskomatonta. 

Myös rakkaalle perheelle pitsäisi kirjoittaa... 
 

vittu ku vituttaa

Eikä itse asiassa vituttaa. Tänään oli vaan niin tyhmä ja turha päivä että olen vähän ... tylsistynyt.
Eilisen adventti-illallinen meni loistavasti, pizzaamme kehuttiin vielä tänään, ja koko ilta oli tosi mukavaa. Mul' oli eilen taas Suullinen viestintä-kurssi ja jouduimme kirjoittamaan sellaisen iroonisen itsenäisyyspäivänjuhlapuheen. Meidän oli adjektiiveista täynnä, ja koko tämä "projekti" oli tosi hauskaa. Kurssin jälkeen pitäisi mennä ostoksiin ja sit takaisin kotiin täysillä pussilla jään kautta. En pudonnut -jes. Kotoa taas takaisin postiin ja K-Markettiin, viimeiset ostokset ja sen jälkeen vähän asunnon sivoaamista. Kun Kristina tuli, aloitimme valmistelua ja Rebecca autoi
tuleessaan viimeistaan valmistelemaan pizzaa. Myös Gabriela ja Anne löysivät perille, ja sitten oli vielä Meri, ja Paula, ja vähän myöhään toinen Paula. Oli kyllä kiva porukka, nauroimme paljon ja keskustelu oli ihan oikeasti kaikesta. Jälkkäri sai paljon kehuakin - vanillajäätelö, vispikerma ja vadelmat, namnam. Tästä tulee ilman muuta tämän vuodenvaihtelun jälkkäriksi, kun aion, niin kun viime vuosina, olla koko päivä keittiössä (nyt kun keittiö on olemassa) laittamaan ruokaa ja nauttimaan sen jälkeen hyvästä ruuastakin. Tällä hetkellä tuntuu siltä, että jostain syystä en oikeasti viitsi olla poissa tästä kaupungista vuodenvaihdon aikana. Haluan olla Tuomikirkon edessä katsomaan ilotulitusta, nauttimaan kaupungin tunnelmasta pari tuntia (jos säätilanne ei vaihtelee, niin ehkä vain pari minuttia ;)) ja sen jälkeen olla ... kahdestaan. Ehkä TREelle matkustaan siis heti vuoden alussa kahdeksi yöksi, jos mahtuis sen suhteen, että tää on meidän ainoa aikaa yhdessä 3 kuukauden jälkeen ja emme tiedä vielä, miten se sen jälkeen sujuu. Vaikka Treellekin haluaisin matkustaa taas Annen kanssa. Onhan se kuitenkin Tampere, ei voi muuta.
Mutta ehkä pääkaupungille saan vierailuakin ens vuonna.

Noh mut hei, eilisestä vielä. Tytöt lähtivat keskiyönä ja Kristinan kanssa istuimme vielä kahteen asti keittiössä katsomassa videoita youtubesta. Hauskaa ku Suomesta tuli niin paskamusiikki Euroviisuun 1970-80-luvulla XD Voi kamalaa!!! ... siirsimme aihetta siis nykymusikiin ja kuuntelimme vähän herra Mikojania ja Popedaakin kun Drive Songia piti näyttää Kristinalle. But it's in Finnish! - Onpa kyllä vielä mukava muisto, tämä.
Mitäs vielä... tytöt on tänä iltana VirginOilissa katsomaan 69Eyesin keikkaa, kun itse makaan sohvalla kuntelemassa vähän Musetta, vaikkakin ei jaksaa kuunnella paljon muuta kun The Restistance ja Black Holes&Relevations levyjä. He aikovat mennä keikan jälkeen taas Bäkkäriin, mutta ei tätä tänään oikeasti maistuu. Laiskapäivä. Olin niin väsynyt koko ajan että en ehtinyt tehdä mitään. Noniin, kirjoitin pari arkistokorttia. Kyllä mä rakastan suomen lauseoppi. ...Hyi. -.-° Huomenna siitä sitten enemmän.
Vähän ärsyttävä että olisin tänään Espoossa, jos keikkaa ei jouduttaisi peruttuksi sen baarin takia. Eli ei muuta kun kiitos kovasti -.- Ei arvistustakaan, miksi keikkaa siirettiin juuri Seinäjoelle, mut hei. Ens vuonna on vielä mahdollista keikkoihin. JA tietysti Kouvolassa ens lauantaina. Eli keikkaa odotellessa.
Juu, ja sain vielä viestin rakas isovelista :D Julius kävelee molemmilla käsillä ja yritä itse kävellä kaiken pitkin, mihin hän osaa tarttua kiinni. Onhan Juliuskulta nyt jo isopoikakin! <3 Hän varmasti kävelee itse joulun aikana. Hehe. Iso pikkukultani. <3

Ehkä menisin jo nukkumaan... tai ainakin lukemaan 27:tä.
Huomiseen!

♥ [or: a slight overuse of the word 'beautiful']

... and the name of my new musical love is:
Mads Langer
WOW!! I mean, I already was completely obsessed with Beauty of the Dark on TVD, and the fact that they choose another song right away made me smile, because, hey, they do know how to find some good music - but who would have thought that basically each and every song of his is just totally beautiful? It's really been quite a long while that I found an artist that's so vocally and lyrically talented - I'm really impressed. So right now I'm basically living on youtube, but I'm totally going to get the record next month [you know, so much month at the end of the money...] - especially since the record includes a DVD with a concert from Copenhagen.. actually I think it's the concert that's on youtube as well. ... which then is absolutely beautiful.
At the moment it's still so hard to choose, though, because I'm falling in love with a song and then I listen to the next one and fall in love with it just as much.
But right now I'm obsessing over Stille før Storm, which apparently is a cover that was recorded for some tribute record. Seriously, apart from the fact that I cannot grasp just how vocally talented that guy is - how can somebody actually make a language like Danish sound beautiful?! I'm so taken away ... 



Well, enough drooling.
Today was wonderful. First of all the sun was shining for the first time in ... I guess a bit more than a week again. -7 or even colder again, and the wind is really somehow deadly
Met for lunch with Melanie who's finally back from Lapland (and I'm totally going there on one of the ESN tours next year) and after that we took a little walk because I showed her the hotel her friends are going to stay in over the weekend and then we've been to levykauppa - or levykauppaa, actually, since we've been to two XD - and then after that finally went to Café Java again, where I had a HUGE chocolate muffin and of course a hot chocolate. Gosh, I love this place. It's so cozy and it's really the best spot to sit and watch the people walking / rushing past. I don't know, Mannerheimintie is like the heartbeat of the city anyway, and sitting up there at Café Java you'll just simply get the pulse of it all. I just love the view down the street, seeing Stockmann and Ylioppilastalot/-aukio etc... ah... ♥ Beautiful, beautiful Helsinki.

Kristina and I finished  planning our Advent-Dinner for tomorrow. We're the spontaneous kind I guess.  So I'll have to go buy some stuff tomorrow and then there'll be lots of preparing. I'm curious about her friends and generally about the whole night. I might get to speak Finnish, yesh. Anne&Gabriela are going to be here as well, too bad Melanie has her friends over. But we're already so many that it wouldn't really work out with three more. However, I might join them at Bäkkäri later in the night. I'm not sure if I really want to travel back to town for the night, returning at like 5 in the morning or so. I love the nights out but Puistola is a stupid place to live when having to get back to. I'll see. I guess I'll rather join them on Saturday. And then there'll be our two roadtrippin weekends. I sort of forgot that Kouvola is next week already. Eeeeeep ^______^' I mean I kept mentioning it, but I hadn't realised it's really next weekend already. Can't waiiit. It's going to be so much fun with the girls :D
Haha and I'm of course looking forward to see the same hackfressen as on any other show... ;D Shush. Anyway: it's going to rock. Period. We're also seeing Naked the night before, so yay.


I've been writing on this for hours now, kept being distracted by everything and anything, so... guess I should stop and think of sth more tomorrow or on the weekend or whenever. 

Of course, I have to add the song.




Fact fiction.

Beautiful Helsinki is drowning in snow, there's not a spot of street or grass or anything visible and the world is white. The wind makes snowdrifts and the "little" snow they plough piles up in snowhills 3m high. I think Töölöönlahti is frozen by now, and all the light and the snow on the domes of the Cathedral make it look all the more white. Aleksanterinkatu is decorated with the traditional Christmaslights and the combination of it all makes the City so much more alight. Yes, it is beautiful. The atmosphere so easily gets solemn.
Got a parcel from home today, lots of christmas-like stuff like sweets and tons of chocolate and a beautiful violet, almost lilac blanket, bedlinen and stuff like that. On Friday we're going to have dinner here with mostly friends of Kristina, but Gabriela and Anne (and maybe Melanie, though I think her friends are here that weekend...) might also come over, and Sunday is already the 1. Advent. I've never paid attention to the advent weekends, nor thought about what "Advent" even means or what it's good for, but I seem to understand this year. - Light and warmth and cosy feelings in such a cold and dark season. The snow and freezing temperatures make it all so much clearer than the desolate, rainy grey mass I know November to be like. 

And despite all I'm a little depressed. Things went very wrong last night, and now ... well. I don't know. 
I'm going to light a few candles now, continue listening to Mads Langer's beautiful performance of Fact Fiction.... I hope the recording will be coming out soon, I really want to buy it. 


"Imagine a world without me - say you're falling apart
Let's pretend you've missed me for a while
Wouldn't you say you were lonely and love was breaking your heart?
Put on your Sunday best and fake a smile
I dream of dreaming dreams of her - in twilight she's a constant blur

The picture is clear and I'm still fact she's fiction
Remember the night you were with me - fell asleep by my side

Strangers together - your hand in mine
How come we never came closer when all the stars were alight?
I thought we had a moment
I dream of dreaming dreams of her - in twilight she's a constant blur

The picture is clear and I'm still fact she's fiction
I seem to miss the missing part, she's still my favorite work of art
The picture is clear and I'm still fact she's fiction
Nothing has changed cause I'm still fact - she's fiction

Or I may be imperfectly formed in this contradiction
I dream of dreaming dreams of her - in twilight she's a constant blur

The picture is clear cause I'm still fact she's fiction
I fell in love with her longing - let's just say that she never found out

Who it was she never found in me"
[m/l: Mads Langer]
Send "Fact Fiction" Ringtone to your Cel

you give me heart to carry on

Even though I did manage to overcome my earlier depression cause by some sort of "major, epic, monumental" feeling of nostalgia there's an entry from my 'normal' blog that I made exactly a year ago while going through (yet another) rough patch. Back then I didn't believe that I would be here right now, but I am, so ... I don't know. I need to revive that thought because it really kept me alive that winter.   
"...ja kenenkään ei tarvitse ymmärtää mitä kaikki sitä merkitse,
kenenkään ei tarvitse ymmärtää, miksi on niin tärkeää, niin välttämättöntä mennä takaisin.
Kenenkään ei tarvitse ymmärtää, miten yhtäkkiä itkettän kun mietän sitä kuka vei minut tänne, kenestä olen oikeasti oppinut, mitä ja kuka on yksin ja ainut syy minulle että nousen sängystä ylös joka päivä uskoen siihen että ehkä vois olla vielä joku mahdollisuus minulle, kun on jaksannut jo niin paljon, kun olen tullut jo niin kaukan. Ei kenellekään tarvitse olla järkevä kuinka paljon oon velkaa; että joku pelasti elämäni vaikken olisi joutunut kuolemaan - pelasti elämäni vain sen takia että näytti minulle oikein tien, antoi minulle uskoa ja antoi minulle varmuus että kyllä on olemassa tie, jos on tahtoa, vaikkei olisi mitään plan b:tä..."
 Rivi, joka pysytti minut hengissä, joka jonkin verran itketti minua aina kun olen kuullut sen oli "harhaan jalkani astuu mutta jää kantaa. - Kuka minut maalin kantaa... - kantaa?"
- Viime talvella olin sokeana pimeydessä mutta tarttui kiinni erään, pieneen valonsäteen joka oikeasti enemmin meni pois, eikä tuli lähemmäs. Ei siellä ollut mitään plan b:tä - vain lohduton toive, mahdoton haave, ja syvä toivomus. Ja juuri se, juuri se synkyys ja pelko ja jollain lailla mielensairaus, jos puhutaan "oikeasta massenusta", josta kukaan ei koskaan teki diagnoosia, yhdessä tän toiveen ja unelman kanssa oli loppuun lopussa se, mitä pysytti mut hengissä - "sen" takia, vai "teidän" vai edes "heidän" takia, vain minkätähden vaan - minä en tiedä. Se oli mitään muuta kuin onni, mitään kun onnellinen sattuma, että olen jo nuorena, teininä oppinnut antaa musiikille mahdollisuus kantaa minut pois "pahasta". Olen aina ollut sellaisena: olen aina rakastanut siihen ja ihastunut siihen ja tuntenut sitä, mitä kuunnelin - ja juuri sen takia oli viime talvena niin tärkeä, että olin tiennyt että "tämä on se yksi pysyvä asia, joka ei koska pettää mut" - kun niin moni olivat pettäneet minut, kun olin itse pettänyt niin moneet.
Se kuitenkin onnistui vietämään minulle tänne, ja vaikka kielitaitotesti meni pieleen, vaikka koko se vuoden 2009 kesä, syksy ja talvi oli niin masentunut - minä istun nyt Puistolassa sängyssä ja kirjoittelen tummasta menneisyydestä. Ei plan b:tä vieläkään löydetty, mutta olen kuitenkin jonkin verran maalissa - ja kyllä astuin harhaankin aika paljon, mutta jää kuitenkin kantoi jostainkin syystä. Kuka minut maalin kantoi? - Niitä on pari. Siskoni kantoi, rakkaani kantoi, musiikki kantoi, opettaja kantoi --- itse kannoin.
Minä en tiedä, mitä tapahtui, mitä on tänään erilaista viime vuotta verratuna. En tiedä, muutuinko itse vai muutuiko näkökulma elämään kohta, vai edes näkökulma Suomeen kohta (vaikka totta toi todellakaan muutui) - mutta muutuihan ainakin jotakin. Ei elämä ole parempi Suomessa. Itse asiassa se on joskus hieman vaikeampi. 

Ei ongelmiani "maagisesti" ratkaistui 
- mutta kuitenkin kaikki on jollain lailla erilaista.
Tänään minä voin sanoa että elämä on kyllä vitun narttu, mutta on sehan kuitenkin kaunis! Ei elämästä koskaan tule paras ystaväni, mutta kyllä mä nautin tästä, ja aion elää joku hetki täysillä. Tiedän, että haaveista ei saa rahat, ja että tilanne ei koskaan parenee. Tiedän että minulla en ole mitään suurta mahdollisuutta - ei tässä, ei Kölnissäkään - mutta kuitenkin aion yritä, ja pyrkiä onnistumaan, koska vailla toivoa ja vailla ainakin piennempää kipinää hulluutta kukaan ei tässä elämässä selviä.
Minä löydän tieni. En tiedä milloin vai mistä vai mihin suuntaan ... mutta kyllä mä joudun löytämään tieni. - vaikka silloin, jos en itse usko siihen. ...

Time


Stuck on the INCEPTION-soundtrack again, I can't get over how absolutely brilliantly composed the pieces are. Well, the whole film is brilliant (extraordinary, ingenious, ... absolutely mindblowing) so I guess it's just fair to have a great composer for it. I can't wait for it to appear on DVD, and it's really been ages since I bought a film on DVD as soon as it came out... I guess the only films I ever bought right on their release were the three LotR Extended Editions.
Time really moves me. It always makes me think of the movies last, say, five minutes, when everyone is waking up and exchanges glances and then, on the airport, pretends to never have seen either of the others. "Welcome home, sir..." - Perfect.


So...
the initial plan was to do a lot of translation work today since the page turns 1 - technically 2 - on Tuesday and I want to post something all over next week "in celebration". I didn't really get very far with it. At first it was my turn to clean the flat so I did that (even tidied my room - sorta) and then I just sorted some old translations, which took quite a while,wrote two or three missing ones myself, but other than that, I wasn't being very productive.
I furthermore had something that felt like a near-death experience when all of a sudden my back, stomach AND abdomen started started hurting like hell - at once. For ten minutes I was so frantic with pain that I couldn't even think - and then it was over as quickly as it had started. Stupid.

After I'd calmed down I quickly walked over to the shop and got something to eat for lunch and when I was done with everything - cooking eating dishes - and wanted to go back to work (or start work, in the first place) Gabriela sent me a message inviting me to watch The Social Network and have a Glögi over at her place. Happy that I'd bought cookies I agreed, got ready and then took the half past 6 train into town. 
I finally got to wear my woolen dress as well, yay. I've been wanting to wear it for weeks, which is a very wise decision with a temperature around zero. I mixed it with my tightest jeans and it even worked with the legwarmers, ihan jees. I guess with the jeans it's also family-approved, so I have an outfit. lol.
 

Sooo on my way to Gabriela I met Anne at around HeavyCorner and we finished the last metres together, marvelling at the snow. Then we tried to watch The Social Network at Gabriela's but weren't really successful. Bad quality, even worse stream. Sucks, because the film is really good and well done. Yay for Malese, I still miss Anna ;) Well, she says two words. Still. 
In the loading breaks we talked - about facebook XD  and about fb friends you add but don't stay in contact with so that you delete them anyways, about stalking people you can't stand and about all those things in general. Well yah ... social networking. We people can be so stupid and yet it's so very addictive. I really need to see the whole movie. .. yeah, because it refused to stop loading or playing or do anything at all when there was like half an hour left to watch so that we eventually gave up. 
But well, we also had Glögi and piparikakut and my fake-oreo cookies AND fazerin joulusuklaa. Which, all in all, is very addictive, too. 
It was a nice evening, so different from what I would have done with Melanie & Judith and yet equally enjoyable. I'm sooo looking forward to our two party-weekends, it's gonna be so much fun! lol, like earlier that week at Bäkkäri. Terrible, terrible lakritsi. But I'm still not over that one hobby psychologist-guy xD He was nice. 



Anyway, it's past two already. I don't know how the days pass so quickly. I guess I need to read a few more pages before sleeping, I stopped last night right before two of the stories were linked to one another for the first time, so I need to catch up now.
Aleksi tomorrow then. I'm really gettin into that Christmas mood. (:

A Dream within a Dream

The snow and the afternoon gloom painted the world in blue when I went home from university and I still haven't got used to the fact that this place is so breathtakingly beautiful. At first it was the blue, cloudless sky and the water glistening in sunlight, then it was the colourful autumn-leaves that set all the trees aflame and didn't even give the -at times- grey sky a chance, and now, all of a sudden, it's the snow. Haha, I'm a sucker for this place. But yes, I love it.
I missed my "last" train this morning because it was so frozen that I couldn't make it to the trainsstation as fast as I had intended to. - The truth is, I missed my train because I slept in and then took way too my time with everything :P But still. Everything is frozen. I believe to feel that the cold here is different. I don't know if it's true, though. It's just that I was freezing a lot more a couple of weeks ago when we had around 5°C and rain. This morning there were, if at all -2°C and I didn't technically freeze. I wore the right clothes, and the wind hurt my face and bit at my hands (they're all dry, need to take care from now on!) but ... it was fine.
In suullinen viestintä we talked all the time. Well XD It's a conversation class so we're bound to talk, but we had a very interesting conversation about how Finns easily switch to English with foreigners but how we're in a very advantageous position. Rigina said a lot about us being open minded and educated enough to be able to  get in contact with people and to state our opinion without having to go back to English and about us being, somehow "strong" enough to insist on our right to use the Finnish language and so on. It was really very interesting.
Based on our discussion I bought that new book. The author, originally from Slovakia, wrote it in Finnish and was one of the nominees for the Finlandia Palkinto. Quite a revolution for an award you can only get (and usually can only get nominated for) when you're of finnish Nationality. It was really weird. When Rigina told us about the book it was really like "you know, this could be your future - you've all come here as foreigners, as immigrants, so in a sense you share ways with her. She had to go the same way that you're going and ended up as a nominee for Finlandia and won HS kirjallisuuspalkinto."

... well.
I bought the book to see what could be my future and I have to say that it's really good. I haven't found access to the story yet because it's actually comprised of lots of different stories

and I haven't yet found out how to put them together. BUT it's brilliant and now you can guess how I feel about the book. Maybe it would be a very interesting project to try out. ... hmm.

Well well. 
Song of the day would be this one:



Winter's first call

So.
I'm restarting in the blogging world with a place that's intended for anything that's meant to be said. My old blog on myblog is too important to me to be cast away, so this is just another one. 

Winter made his first real claim over the world today, and I awoke to a white, covered-with-snow Puistola after a couple of days of temperatures around zero and no rain or anything at all. Only last night I said that the air was very dry, and that everything was frozen ... and then it snowed the whole night and we had 10cm or more fresh snow when I woke up, and it continued snowing until a couple of hours ago. The world looks clean and beautiful and I finally feel at peace. Snow seriously make me laugh like a child. When I was outside earlier I felt like I had never seen snow in my life.
Well, I haven't - or certainly not THAT much snow after the first time it really snows at all.

All of this reminds me of Narnia.
Which means that tomorrow I will hit town and buy the DVDs. It's "almost" Christmas and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe makes me think of Christmas. Narnia always makes me cry because it's so incredibly beautifully told. And because I love Lucy so much. And Susan and Edmund and Peter. And Mr Tumnus. And all of this in general.
I love Narnia. 



... so much for this :) 
And so much for a first entry. So many things on my mind ... maybe I should try this.
My answers are in italics. 




1. It sounds weird, but sometimes I'd like to sit down with the people I don't like and chat about what problem we have with each other, especially when we were never introduced.
2. Silence is like music to my ears.
3. I am grateful for the opportunity to stay in The Cathedral for a while and express my gratitude and worries by just focussing on them.
4. Nothing happens until first there is a dream, and that's why they say "never say never"
5. A rainy day is absolutely not imaginable after today :)
6. Music saved my life in many situations and everybody is allowed to know this about me. 
7. Dear November, please go on just like that. You started off so dark and weird, but now you're just beautiful.
8. Doing at least a little is better than nothing.
9. Halloween was the end of Fall for me. Everything after that just gets closer to closer to Christmas and I love it.
10. Glögi & Piparikakut tastes best in winter.
11. When I look out of the window, I see lots and lots of snow XD
12. People always pretend to have the best justifications for everything they do in front of others, but does it really have to be this way?