Just had to tell you...

...that I've written five pages already! Goooood flow. I love writing!!!

One of these days I'm going to get carried away and let you read something of mine, and then you can tell me if I really suck. This current one is in Finnish and sort of semi-autobiographical, which is perhaps why it is so far rather easy to write.

Hmm, when my financing runs out and I won't get any money, I can always sell the apartment and move to Goa or to my grandparents' old house. With all that money I should be able to survive nearly four years. I can sunbath, shovel snow, grow potatoes, pick berries, write books, read books, learn languages, listen to music, play the keyboard, meditate and be good to mother nature. Is it weird that I actually find that tempting?

This is my hundredth post by the way. Kind of wasted, huh?

Creative crisis in D-minor

I have practised the fine art of cleaning this weekend. Laundry done, dishes washed, bathroom cleaned, house vacuumed and one cat spooked out. The house is spotless - well, more spotless than it was Friday anyway - the plants have been resoiled, the balcony furnished for the summer and the kitchen furniture moved around accordingly, since it now lacks one shelf. I have also practised my kitchen skills and prepared salmon soup. Nowhere near the best salmon soup I've ever eaten, but still good. Next time I'll skip the green pea's though.

The question is what else have I done? Does sudokus and net-surfing count? Stuffing more chocolate and liquorice into m'body? I was planning to try and write something today. Perhaps I should just get on with that. The only thing is that I'm annoyed with all of my old stories. They are naïve and pointless. You can only write something good, if you have something to say, so what is it that I want to say exactly? That we should beware of people who want to nuke their problems out of existance? I don't know if you noticed it, but there was a small news clip in the paper this morning; it said that the US is thinking of nuking Iran, because Bush and his cronies are convinced that the Iranian president is a new Hitler. Wasn't that a happy piece of information? It's also an ingenious final solution. If you wish to prevent anyone from ever using nuclear weapons - since those dastardly little things can kill people and all - go and kill all the people who might use them. "Ich muss zerstören, doch es darf nicht mir gehören...."

Music and chocolate

Not even with all the best of intentions.... Yep, I don't seem to be able to manage anymore the same kind of enthusiasm for my poor little blog than I did in the beginning. Is it already a year since I started writing my blog? Hmm, almost, a couple more weeks to go, it seems. My first entry (Margyarad, not here) seems to be from the 22nd of April last year.

It's been quite a good week again. Yesterday was my turn to teach on that methodology course for post-graduate students that I mentioned some time ago: mentality history and Fernand Braudel's concept of historical time. It went much much better than last year and I'm quite happy with the lesson. It does indeed help if you actually understand what you are teaching.

Since I had such an arduous time preparing for the course earlier this week, I took it a bit easier today. I stayed home, stuffed myself with candy from "Hullut päivät" and took a break from working in the middle of the day to watch a German children's movie from TV. Now, why would she do that? Watch a kids' movie? Probably to learn German, you may guess. Or could it have something to do with the fact that everyone's favourite singer, that big bloke from Rammstein, was playing one of the bad guys? Would she skip the pleasures of working just to see Till throw some muscle around? Now that is the question...

Wednesday I went to the release party of Montevideo's debut album "Come clean". My sister's boyfriend plays in the band, so I was invited to come along too. They were playing in a nice little place called Belly. Not a whole lot of people in there, but the atmosphere was good. And so was the music. They got four stars in today's Helsingin Sanomat and rightly so, I say. They really are very good.

I'm back!

Gosh, I've been gone for nearly three weeks! Pheew! Well, I'll try to be a good girl from now on and write here a bit more often.

I came back from Barcelona late last wednesday. A week of sunshine and warmth, parks and beaches, museums, churches, art and architecture, tapas, sangria, carajillos and pastries behind me. It was GOOOOOD! Especially the sunshine.

The first couple of days the temperature was still below twenty, but on the best days it got to somewhere around 23 degrees. When I left Finland Tuesday morning, it was in the freezing weather of -12 degrees, so I rather enjoyed the difference. In Barcelona it was also easy to notice how people in different parts of the world are accustomed to different weather. You could see tourists there enjoying the weather in t-shirts and some even in shorts; the locals on the other hand were sporting heavy winter coats and shoes. Winter coats in a weather the likes of which you can expect here in June or July...

I don't still have too many pics to show, since the CD on which I loaded the pics, claims to be empty. I may have to wait until I get the pictures from my sister's computer, which may take quite a long time. There are a meagre six or seven pics on my photobucket, so those who know and remember the address can go and check them out. Most of the good pics are still to come though, since there really was quite a lot to see.

Montjuïc and Park Güell ended up being my favourite places. Montjuïc is a beautiful tall hill, on which you can find beautiful parks, museums and an old 18th century castle (and for instance the Olympic Stadium which failed to interest me in the least). I did however spend two days up near the castle, on a beautiful place overlooking the sea, reading my book and enjoying my lunch.

Park Güell, a beautiful park with lots of Antonio Gaudi's designs, was equally beautiful. The only annoying thing were the immense hoards of Italian, French and Spanish school children of all ages, who had taken over entire Barcelona. There were all over Park Güell as well, but eventually I succeeded in finding a place up in the hills, where I could settle with my book and lunch without being deafened by all the yelling and laughing.

I got more convinced than ever that heaven is sunbathing among nature and reading a good book. There really is nothing better.

And think that some lucky buggers get to do that for nearly all year round, whereas we are lucky if we manage two months.