First colder day

Today I've been to the movies. To see how the German Kinos work and to find out it I would understand the language. The result was that I didn't get quite all of it, but enough to be able to comfortably follow the story. Reminded me actually a little of the first time of going to the movies in the States. I didn't get all of it then either even though my English was better already then than my German is now.

I went to the movies after having just come from a bookstore, where I purchased a good grammar guide and a practise book. I can understand written German better and better, but I came to the conclusion that if I want to leave here speaking fluent German, I have to start actively practising. So now I have the books for that. We'll see how that works.

Jep, but what else. I booked the train and the hotel for the Augsburg trip yesterday. I have also tried to decide where else I would like to go, since there are lots of free weekends and quite a good amount of relatively cheap trips on offer. Oh, jeeee. It seems I am going to do all of the travelling that I didn't do during the past ten years during these four months alone. I am really going to get spoiled here with all these possibilities.

I have to figure out how it is possible to live with this stresslessness, this enthusiasm for new things and for learning in Helsinki too. It has to be possible.

Monday, mooondaaaaaaaaaaaay

I am again very pleased with life.

I got the ticket to the Eisbrecher concert today. It found me even though I forgot to add the "absolutely necessary" order number when I paid it. So I am going to see Eisbrecher! Oh frigging yes!! I hope they do Dornentanz. I love Dornentanz. I love Rappunzel even more, but I bet they don't play that, since it is actually Megaherz and not Eisbrecher. Megaherz being the old band of the singer, so it isn't as far fetched as it sounds.

J and I signed the rental agreement for the apartment, so that is settled. Quite pleased about that too. Dear sisters, be prepared, since this means that I'm going to ask to you to go and do something about that mountain of clothes that got left behind in the living room. Will get back to you on that one.

I was also just now to listen to a Polish doctorand talking about her dissertation project. I'm almost sure that she was one of the people who I met at the summer course here few years ago. I'm not sure, so I have to go and see her to find out.

Yep, but the thing that added to the "I am again very pleased with life" was that I managed to get my mouth open and ask a couple of very basic, but relatively important methodological questions. The people who were so to say "running the show" seemed to appreciate them. I'm very big on reading body-language, you know. Difficult language, but I do claim I can interpret it relatively well. Jup, but it was not just body language. One of the organisers came to me right after the meeting was over, rather enthusiastically for that, and asked me if I would like to talk about my project. Yep, yep, yep.

I also finally re-introduced myself to Professor S - I know, I should have done that two weeks ago, but you know me, I don't like going to talk to people - and he seemed very pleased to meet me again and suggested we go have lunch someday. He also asked about common friends, so greetings from him!

Summery days

How wonderful is summer. The weather continued great today, it was possibly even better than yesterday. According to the internet weather reports it was 23 degrees during the day and I have no reason to doubt that.

I went out earlier to visit this big city forest in the south part of Frankfurt. It's big; it's beautiful. I had a book, I had something to eat. I had jeans and a top on and it was hot. Those are ingredients for good things. Being able to sit outside and not be cold is one of life's great pleasures. If I said that already yesterday, then it is worth repeating. One of the great pleasures.

I am so going to get spoiled here and get used to a wonderful weather. Even thinking about the Finnish weather makes me shiver. Wääähhhhh...

Yup, but the food is starting to smell really good in the oven, so I think I'll go and eat now.

Mainz

Today I've been to Mainz.

Mainz is a beautiful city, nearly two thousand years old with remains still left from the Roman times. It's not very far from Frankfurt - it took only an hour and twenty minutes from my doorstep to make it to the main railway station in Mainz. All at the incredibly cheap price of 8,40 euros - there and back. Now that I call good service.


Mainz used to be a very important archbishopric from the Middle Ages on and there are still a number of impressive looking churches all around - intact, in ruins or renovated after the Second World War. There's the cathedral, which I managed to visit opportunely right at the time when a male choir was singing there. It sounded very good; the sound of their voices lingered in the air for seconds even after they had finished.




Then there was another church in ruins, where Johannes Gutenberg was said to have been baptised. It was really rather beautiful and very close to the river. I saw it right after I came from this Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, which happened to get on my way and was free. I've seen lots of beautiful objects today, I can tell you. Things that people have made during three thousand years or so - from four thousand years and more back to the early middle ages. Someone has made all those things, used them, wanted beautiful and totally impractical things around even thousands of years ago.



Yep. And then there of course was the river. Mainz is where Main - which goes through Frankfurt - meets Rein. The S-Bahn follows Main at the intersection of the rivers, so you can see it clearly. Very beautiful sight. And you can see so well how much bigger Rein is than Main. I didn't do any river cruises, but maybe one of these days yet.


Jep, but it was much, much fun. The day was - and is - beautiful: the sun shines, it's probably the warmest day in these two weeks and really feels like summer. And me do loves summer. I definitely had a vacationy feeling this time. I walked around the old town, which is much more impressive than in Frankfurt. I had lunch in a nice place near the cathedral and I sat a little while writing at the old Roman fortress. It was up on the hill, where it was peaceful, quiet and gorgeous.

I am so going to continue this travelling thingy.

Freitag

Darned, I've sat on the computer so long already writing letters and translating that Emigrate article that I forgot I haven't been here yet. So, what should I write about today?

I haven't really done anything specific today, since I thought I'd tried to diminish the pile of unanswered e-mails a bit. Not that I got hardly anywhere. But I'll get there! Eventually. One day. Take a cup of coffee and wait patiently, please.

This "no television" -thing has still made it more understandable how in the olden days the people had time for all that unending correspondence with friends and families and the odd acquaintances of aunt Mildred's third cousins' from Upper-Nirgends-upon-Avon. In the usual life at home it takes me about six months to answer a letter, here my average time is more akin to a week. That, methinks, is considerable improvement. Prithee and all that to ye olden fellows.

I think I'll go read now. I'll report back tomorrow, since I have plans for this merry day of Saturn.

Today's opus - var så god

I'm starting to feel as if I were on vacation. Not because I wouldn't be working, because I haven't worked this productively since last February, but because the stress levels are going down. That's the best thing about vacations - no expectations, no demands.

Here it is basically the same. No one knows me - except for J - so if I don't feel like socialising, I can stay in my room and it bothers absolutely no one. If I need to see people, I can go down to the library, head out to town or go see J and tell him I'd like to join him for lunch.

A stress-free state of mind is a very good thing. It releases so much energy that you can use for other things than just wasting the hours away. I find myself sitting by the river and scribbling down thoughts about my dissertation - big bonus, since usually that thing does not enter my mind during off-office hours except as a big looming monster. Now I am starting to think of it more and more fondly.

I am starting to like the city, which is a very strange thing indeed. That I like cities in general, that is, not Frankfurt in particular. Thus far I'm quite fond of Frankfurt, but I've never liked Helsinki very much and I wasn't quite sure if I could ever see myself as a city person.

Now I am wondering whether it is perhaps possible to live a stress-free life without escaping to the country and giving up all thoughts of some kind of a career? That is something to think about.

Yep, but anyway, today I went to have lunch with J again. Some of the German doctorands turned up as well and I had a chance to get to know some of them. I had a very nice chat with one of them on the way back in the U-Bahn. All in German, which made me realise that even though my spoken German isn't anywhere near perfect or even particularly good, it still doesn't suck totally.

The guy I was having the chat with complimented me on my accent - or the lack of it. Which was nice, because even though my grammar sucks and my vocabulary badly needs improving, my accent is actually quite decent. Not that anyone would mistake me for a native, but my German still sounds much better than that of many people who grammatically and otherwise speak the language much better. I notice it even here in most of the stores. Frankfurt, you see, is very much a city of immigrants and a great majority of the shop clerks I've met so far have been non-natives.

Later I went to the Alsatian fair again. It's on until the end of the week, so I decided to go and redo yesterday. I sat there, had a glass of wine and scribbled some more. I knew it wasn't going to be as good as yesterday, so I wasn't disappointed that it wasn't. I was really happy there yesterday, you see, and you just can't purposely create those little moments of happiness.

Yep, but then I went to walk by the river for a moment, bought eight really tempting looking books for just nine euros on the way back and took the U-Bahn back home. Now I think I'll try translating an interview from German to English - to practise the language and to make a few people happy.

Oh, and J may just rent my apartment for the rest of the year. How perfect would that be. Money. No worries about someone ripping the place apart or making away with all my stuff. I could go travelling with a good conscience.

Very happy today

I've had a wonderful day. Work continued as good as it just possible to be and then - around fivish - I went out because I needed to see some life around me.

I had thought about finding a cafe somewhere and sitting around for a bit. Before I found a nice looking place though, I found something even better. A small Alsatian fair with a band playing French music, tables under a big canopy and people selling Alsatian wine, food and delicacies.

It looked perfect, so I bought myself a café-au-lait (yeah, I know, I don't really drink coffee, but sometimes one has to try new things) and a good looking pastry, which didn't taste too bad either.

The French - or possibly Alsatian - band kept playing and a woman with a beautiful voice was singing chansons. I ate my pastry and then decided to do some writing.

I started a new story yesterday and continued with it today. It was so much fun. I sat there, listening to the music, the tourists and locals laughing around and wrote and wrote and wrote. I think I was there for almost an hour and a half.

I made a resolution yesterday to write fiction from now on every day. It can be just a few lines if I don't have the time for more, but at least something. I think today I could add to it the resolution of trying to do that on a regular basis somewhere in public - in cafés, parks, restaurants...

I think I've mentioned before that writing is something I really love to do. That if I ever won the lottery and didn't need to worry about the paychecks...

But who knows. If I do write every day then in a year I could easily have five hundred pages written, even a thousand. When writing the dissertation even one page is often just beyond pain, but when doing fiction pages sometimes just float out of nowhere. Of course some of it is always crap and would end up deleted in the final phase, but...who knows. Maybe practice does make the master and one beautiful day I have something that could be out there for people to read. Perhaps not, but I suppose it isn't the main point either. The point is that writing makes me happy.

It was really so good. Sitting under the maple trees and just letting your pen fly.

Again work related....

I love Bernhard Diestelkamp. Truly. I found this wonderful article by him (Die Durchsetzung des Rechtsmittels der Appellation im weltlichen Prozeβrecht Deutschlands), which I seriously should have read already six years ago.

He explains so beautifully in just two pages some very elementary things about the old "dinggenossenschatlich" jurisdiction and the difference between turning to an higher authority in the old system and the actual Appellation. Considering the topic of my dissertation these are the sort of basic "2 + 2 = 4" -type of things that one should really know by heart. I on the other hand have somewhere along the way made the mistake of starting right away with the higher mathematics. If you can't count 2 + 2, how on earth are you supposed to understand how derivation works? No wonder I've gotten so insanely frustrated sometimes.

I have to read a one or two of his other stuff in case he explains a few more elementary things. He writes such beautiful and simple language too, he does. Unlike Jürgen Weitzel, who has written a huge number of books that I really have to read. I'm not at all looking forward to that though, since his way of writing is totally impossible. Insane sentence structures and such language. If you are into science, where you job is to spread knowledge, you don't play with the language like that. That is for fiction, that is.

Weitzel's article was one of those that drove me insane last week. He writes basically of extremely interesting things, but the language... One of his books was the first one I ever tried reading in German a few years ago. It took me honestly an hour to read through two pages and I am not kidding or over-exaggerating here one single bit. Based on last week's experience I may have to start translating again when I finally gather the courage to pick up his works. Unlike Diestelkamp where I thus far have had to look up only one single word per five pages. Why can't they all write like him?

Old sagas are so interesting

Hehe, always believe horoscopes. That is the lesson of today.

I'm seriously loving being a researcher again - at the moment. Due to the whole discpline and "fix things or they will become much more messier" commands of the horoscope I outlined a scheme, rough chapters, for the dissertation and then started reading through the whole thing. I decided to make things a bit simpler, because otherwise I would never have gotten anywhere. Those slightly perfectionistic tendencies of mine, you know.

But it is just possible that there may be beauty in simplicity.

I love this phase of the research, when things are slowly starting to make some sense. I remember loving it when I was finishing the master's thesis and the licentiate thesis.

I'm not sure whether it means that I am cut out to be a researcher though. If it always means years of agony for a few months of clarity, then it isn't for me.

I'll go back to it now. And then later today I'll start writing fiction. After I've gone out for a walk, since for a change the sun is actually shining.

work, work, work

This has been a very work oriented day. I have worked and surfed the net always occasionally. Gone out for a walk so the cleaning lady could do her work. Worked and surfed some more and that has been it.

It's still been quite a positive day, since I managed to get quite a lot written. One or two quite sensible things too. I have to read through my dissertation very soon and start chopping off bits and pieces that are completely irrelevant. There are plenty of those, but I'm hopefully starting to have enough pages that the bloody thing will tolerate some heavy pruning.

Maybe I'll start tomorrow.

This makes me wonder, whether such an irrational and illogical thing as astrology might have a thing or two going for it. At one point today during my net surfing - as I was feeling just a touch more bored than usual - I checked an astrological site, which is a bit more serious than 99 % of those things. This won't even pretend to tell you that your love life is doing well today and you will win the lottery tomorrow; it's more about long term tendencies in your life based on actual astrological study - whatever that is supposed to be.

This one claimed that because of the movements of dear old Saturn, I am entering into a 2½ years period of order, discipline, determination and hard work - or some such thing. Now astrology of course has no change of working, except if you take it as a self-fulfilling prophecy. I will enter a period of discipline and hard work if I choose to believe that that is what I should do and therefore make it happen.

This is the same site that told me to have courage and make an important decision in the February of 2005, which was also pretty much the last time that I checked the site. Well, I may have been there twice since that, but no more. That decision however turned out to be a good one, so maybe I should actually try and develop some discipline. It did promise more confidence as a long-term reward. That doesn't sound bad.

It also said something about the benefits of soul searching and making important lifestyle decisions. I'll just go think about those now.

First week is over

Atelierfrankfurt had open days today, so I went to see some modern art. They had very diverse pieces of art there, from video installations to graphics, from photography to more conventional paintings. Some very nice things and some that didn't do anything for me. It's a place where young artists work, so they had also provided an opportunity to take a look at the artists' workrooms - or should one call them studios. If one had been minded to, one could have also talked to some of the artists. I didn't.




After that experience I did some walking around in Frankfurt. There is this Green belt - Der Grüngürtel - that goes around the center of the city. I walked around for over an hour and managed to cover most of the area. I came from the direction of the Hauptbahnhof where the Atelier was and ended at the Main river. It's a very beautiful walk and I wouldn't mind doing it again some day soon.





From the river one could see the downtown with the skyscrapers. According to Wikipedia Frankfurt is one of only four cities in the entire Europe that has a greater number of big skyscrapers. I found that a bit surprising, but I suppose it's true. And understandable. Those thingies don't really fit just everywhere.





The river was beautiful. There were swans. There was a guy jogging, who looked really a lot like this actor who is in all the German detective series - usually playing the bad guy. Could have been him for all I know. There was this crazy American or British fellow who threw a ball into the river for his dog to catch. The dog jumped in in a heartbeat from a relatively high bank and really seemed to struggle against the current. The poor thing had to swim quite a way to get back to land. Looked awfully dangerous, I tell you.





Eventually I got back to the city centre. I saw some of the famous landmarks and walked slowly towards my U-Bahn station. I didn't feel like going home just yet, so I went to get the movie program for the week. I sat for a while near Hauptwache - that's the station - and watched the people running past. There was this event today for raising money for AIDS-work. People were asked to run for five kilometers around the city and there were different sort of activities going on around the Alte Oper. I ran into them while I was on my Grüngürtel-tour and managed to catch a piece of the musical entertainment. It's a lively city this one, Frankfurt is.

Forgot the titel, but all fixed now

I found my way to IKEA today. It required a bit of extra effort, since a section of U2 was under reparation and I needed to first find and then walk to the bus stop a station too early. That turned out to be quite easy though, since all the U-Bahn and the bus stations have really good maps.

The driver of the U-Bahn even came to help me, when I was checking the map to find the right bus stop. He was really friendly and took the bother of checking the U-Bahn announcements, because he thought that I should have gotten off already at the previous station. There are announcements, you see, both on the U-Bahns and buses as to which lines you can change to. He was wrong about the bus, but that was still terribly sweet of him. In the end he advised me to take the bus they had arranged to take the passengers to the next station, but I decided to find the bus that went directly to the IKEA anyway. Which, as said, turned out to be very easy because of those maps.

I got some stuff to make the room look cosier. Candles, flowers, a pillow, a blanket - all the usual decorative girly items. I do appreciate the aesthetic viewpoints of life and like beautiful things around me. Beauty – I suppose goes without saying – is naturally a very subjective matter.

After decorating the room I checked what was going on in Frankfurt today and went to see a small street festival here nearby. There was music and food and street vendors and lots of people. I walked around a bit, listened to the music, did some shopping and came home. It wasn’t a breathtaking experience, but quite nice still. What is very nice though is how fast you can get from here where I live to the city. I had no problem going out twice today, which is something I would never do home.

Yep, but now I need to go and eat. I’m getting really hungry.

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Currently listening to: Don Huonot – Pieniä sieviä sieniä

Weekend approaching

Damn, almost forgot to write today. I was checking how to get to IKEA and the internet is such a time-thief.

Yesterday I was having a bad day, so I just didn't feel like writing. I basically got nothing done. I ended up reading a boring and badly written article and despaired already because of that. I had a meeting with the director of the institute and I was worried about that beforehand, since meeting new people always makes me nervous. He turned out to be really nice and patient though and we had an actual discussion in German, which made me happy for awhile. The other highlight of the day was reading Paolo Coelho's "Veronica Decides to Die". It was sad and a bit scary book. Few people realise so well as Coelho how scary and hopeless life can sometimes be. But in the end it made a bad day a whole lot better and confirmed my decision to decide what I want out of life. Also made me decide to read everyone of Coelho's other books I can get my hands on.

Today was work wise a good day. I also went to the local bank and now have a German account. In addition I fiddled with the Finnish account and if everything went well, I now have a ticket for an Eisbrecher concert. That band, you know, which is second on my list of favourite bands just after Rammstein. The concert takes place in late October and is the only gig they have during the time that I'm here. So I couldn't be too picky about the location, which is not Frankfurt, but Augsburg. That should be a nice, old town though, with more to see than just Eisbrecher. Hehe, I'm doing some traveling for Halloween.

Saw a nice cemetery today

It feels like I had been here already for far longer than three days. There's been something new every day, so the conception of time changes too.

Today I went to the University with J for lunch. There's no cafe or diner at the institute, so the people who work here need to go someplace else to eat or alternatively bring their own lunch. I of course can use my own little kitchen.

One needs to take the U-Bahn to the university, but it was still closer than I remembered. We went there to eat once or twice also that time when I was here for the summer course - in 2003 if I remember correctly. It was good to have a Finnish-speaking guide, because each and every university cafe is different and it always takes awhile to figure out their policies.

I also met one of the researchers here, who obviously didn't think much of my German. He switched into English after just one sentence. He seemed really nice though and introduced himself only by his first name, which is something that I really appreciated. Means that one can "duzen" and doesn't need to use the polite You.

I realise it's a German habit and correct and polite and all that, but it seems somehow so hierarchical. I tend to cringe when people in Finnish use the polite you, too. Some sales people do that. Especially if one is wearing something bit more formal. I guess that is one of the reasons why I don't like it actually. If I go to a store wearing jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt, I don't get the polite you. Do the same in high heels and a blazer, and they pretty much always address you formally. There is something fishy about that.

Post 2

I did promise a second post today, didn't I? This won't become a habit though. Even if there isn't a TV and I have to get a life to cope with that.

Today's work related activities went quite well - I've transcribed, I've written and I've read. I've had a minor revelation about the importance of the temporal context in the dissertation...

Yep, and then when I thought I had worked enough and the room was getting too small, I headed out. The U-Bahn station is almost directly outside the institute and it doesn't take that long to the city center either - something like 10 to 15 minutes. I did buy a Monatskarte, so I have to use it too. Wouldn't want to waste my money.

The cultural portion of today's activities consists of seeing one church (St. Katharinenkirche) from the inside and the Alte Oper and Frankfurter Börse from the outside. I've also discovered one beautiful park more and come to the conclusion that this is really a very green city. I also went shopping - bought a couple of novels to improve my German and a new CD. It's called Emigrate: the solo-album of a guitarist of this relatively well known German band. You can all guess which one.

Luckily I only had something like 30 euros with me when I went shopping. Otherwise I would have come home with much more than just that one CD. I think I've mentioned it before, but the Germans make the best music in the world by a long shot. I found a local Saturn, you see, and there was this amazing section of Metal/Dark wave/Electronica. There were all these wonderful bands and the CD's cost generally less than in Finland. I have to watch myself or I'll end up spending hundreds of euros there.

................................

Currently listening to: Emigrate - New York City

Started work

I’m feeling very positive about this German experience today. Especially work wise. My identity as a researcher – which was already lying on its deathbed during this summer – is rapidly recovering. Lawyer I am not, but a researcher I may still want to be. I’ve discovered some nice books – all thanks to P of course. I have that little thingy of Schröder’s in my hands right now and already after one and a half pages I’m feeling terribly motivated again. He’s writing about Justice (Gerechtigkeit), you see. And I think I’ve mentioned before that law as such doesn’t do terribly much for me – that it was justice that lured me into the law faculty in the first place.

Now I have to go and see what Schröder actually wants to say and whether that opens up any new horizons so within the immediate endeavour.

I'll probably get back to you still this evening. I figured out a way to go around this "banning blogger in the rooms" -thingy, you see. I'm assuming that the ban is there for security reasons (to stop viruses from these popular sites etc) and so I just plugged the modem into my own laptop and the whole world is open to me again. I should probably go and ask if it is okay to do that. Or maybe I'll just try to get through that insanely technical "what you cannot do with your computer" paper and if they don't directly say it's verboten....

Frankfurt

Haha, ich bin hier. Mein ”deutsches Erlebnis” hat begonnen (angefangen ? ; losgegangen ??) und ich sollte eigentlich auf Deutsch schreiben, nicht wahr? Um die Sprache zu lernen und alles das. Aber, aber...ich glaube nicht, dass das passieren wird, nicht in der unmittelbaren Zukunft!

Aber ich bin hier. Wer hätte das gedacht?

That’s one of my favourite sentences in German. Wer hätte das gedacht? „Who would have thought of that.“ It sounds beautiful. Which may have to do something with the fact that the singer of my second favourite band (Eisbrecher / old Megaherz) has been known to have said that sentence a couple of times and he has one lovely voice.

But anyway, I am here. The first day is almost over. The flight was okay, a bit late, but otherwise fine. Finding the institute wasn’t a huge problem – just a bit sweaty, since I of course didn’t want to part with my money to the degree of taking a cab. So I dragged the 30 kilos through S-Bahns and U-Bahns. It was raining too.

I got to the institute and was shown to my room, which is not too bad at all. There’s a little kitchen, a bathroom and the actual room, which is maybe around 25 square meters with a bed, a small dining table, a desk with a computer, a shelf for the books and a cupboard for the clothes. No TV though, which means that one has to come up with alternative ways of spending the evenings. There is however plenty of free floorspace, but I haven’t found out yet what they think of guests staying over.

Anyway, after a couple of hours of unpacking and relaxing I was given lots of papers to sign and a short tour of the instute. All in German, I am happy to say. It went better than I had feared. I understood almost everything and I actually managed to say a thing or two – even if I also did a lot of nodding with „Okay, gut, genau“ -type of commentary. But Frau Z was just happy that I spoke German at all – insisting that her English was not at all good – and Herr G actually complimented me on my German. Which was really terribly nice of him, even if not very accurate.

But I think the language thing may be okay. I was reading the Frankfurter Allgemeine in the plane and could actually understand most of the articles that I read without bigger problems. Speaking is still a problem, because my grammar sucks and my vocabulary is very limited, but on the other hand I still seem to be able to communicate – even if people have to finish my sentences for me. Thus far they seem quite willing to do it too. Maybe it’s because the Germans seem to like Finns. Everytime I do the „ich komme aus Finnland“ -thing, they get a big smile on their face and repeat happily „aus Finnland?!“ Plus at the institute there is the added advantage that lots of people here are on very good terms with my „Doktormutter“ so they seem pre-disposed towards liking me too. And I of course like anybody who likes me, so that might make things easier.

After all the bureaucratic stuff I went for the first of hopefully many walks. There is quite a big park that starts directly from the institute and follows a small river. There’s some sort of smallish bird reservoir on the other side and plenty of very lovely looking places for a person to sit down with a book. Looked altogether very promising. I also found a store and discovered that at least food is cheaper here than in Finland. Germany also seems to be one of those countries, where you can get wine for less than 2 euros from the grocery stores. So I’ve celebrated my birthday with a nice mozzarella salad, a glass of white wine and some of the chocolate I got as a present yesterday. The other present is waiting for me and I think I will go and keep Paolo Coelho company now. Thanks by the way for the party yesterday and Ä for taking me to the airport. All very nice!

Now I’m going to go and see if I can still get into the library to post this. I have a computer with an internet connection in my room, but the good people of the institute have seen fit to ban certain sites. Like blogger, myspace and youtube for instance. Schade.

Saturday

The house looks like a mess. I've started the packing, but have mostly only succeeded in throwing out half of my clothes. Which pleases me to no end, since I have far too many clothes. And now luckily quite a number less of those, which I never use anyway.

I also have a new pair of shoes. I like walking and I'm planning to get to know one or two parts of Frankfurt by taking nice long walks there. It seems that in addition to the river there are lots of very beautiful parks and other natury-type areas around. I'm very much looking forward to that. It also pleases me that in Frankfurt it is as warm in September as here in August, as warm in October as here in September and so on. Some sunshine to look forward to!

What I find less pleasing are the types of shoes that are sold to women. I wanted something that would look nice, be comfortable to walk in and would not cost the world. So I went looking for something like sneaker type of walking shoes. And what do I find? All women's shoes of that type are either white, red, ultra silvery or have very strange pink lines all over. In a word they are pretty damn princessy. If one wants plain, simple, black-greyish, yet fairly elegant walking shoes one is in trouble. Unless....da-daa... one goes to check men's shoes. They make so much more beautiful shoes for men. I've noticed that before, but have not drawn the proper conclusions before today. Which is that if they make more beautiful shoes for men, BUY men's shoes! Which is what I ended up doing.

We have then also switched to Digi-TV today. The analogical side still functions too, since I live in a cable household. There were still differences though: the digi insisted on giving the radio channels to me instead of TV and a number of new channels had appeared. Channels, which are not supposed to be free, so I'm wondering what that is all about.

The summer is over

The summer is over and it's only three days until my plane takes off. Frankfurt - here I come.

In honour of the forthcoming three months and some three weeks in Germany I've decided to resurrect my blog. One remembers things so much better when one has marked something down, don't you think? At least I do. I think I've mentioned it before, but I have an appallingly bad memory when it comes to past occurrences - and all sorts of things in general, actually.

It's much nicer when one remembers things that have happened, instead of some years being just more or less total blanks. People mention things that have taken place and then the memory of them sometimes comes back to you, but so actively I can't remember them. Like today someone brought up a trip to Lapland we took a few years back and it took me a few seconds to dig up the memory of that. I remember the trip now, but some of it gets mixed up with another one that took place around the same time and partially in the company of the same people. And there are so many details that I can't remember at all. The thing with the memory is that if you can't remember things, it's almost as if they haven't happened at all.

I wish to remember Frankfurt. I wish to remember this summer too. There were some great moments. I loved painting the summer cottage, I loved that one evening sitting in the swing when everything was beautiful enough to cry for, I loved last Sunday evening in Kaipiainen with candles burning, music playing and a fire in the fireplace. You know, the wonderful, stress free moments when all the demands of the world seem very far away.

This has been a good week too. Monday to the movies and out to dinner with the girls, Tuesday and Wednesday to Vaasa and yesterday to see S and her new baby - and today the farewell party at work (thank you btw to everyone who came and for the beautiful present) and then sitting two hours at the hairdressers, which was very relaxing. Now I have a weekend of packing and cleaning up to look forward to, since I haven't even begun.

I should also practice my German. It's still viel zu schlecht and I'm a bit worried about it. More than a bit actually. I'm a touch perfectionistic about languages and would really prefer to use them only if I know them well. I suppose that goes for everything actually. But I think I've said that before too.

Life and literature

It’s been ages again, since I’ve been here last. The spring has gone so fast.

I’m sitting at work, even though it is Sunday. I needed to get some documents printed out and finally finish the seminar paper for next Tuesday. Most of the seminar participants should have arrived in Finland by now and we are going to have the opening dinner in couple of hours. And a cruise tomorrow night. That’ll be quite fun – hopefully and with the weather allowing – since I’ve actually never properly seen Helsinki from the sea. Ferry trips to Suomenlinna – or Stockholm and Tallinn – just do not count.

So a few more days and then I’m going to head to the lake and the garden for a couple of days. I hope the weather continues warm, because I want to do some digging and lawn mowing and reading in the sun. I am looking forward to that.

I need to come back to town for a couple more weeks after that, but after Midsummer I’m so out of here. I think I’m going to vacation for most of July and August. Technically, you see, I’m not getting paid for those two months, so I don’t feel too tempted to work either. I’m really not that obsessed about work. No, no sirree.

I was going to work my butt off this year, but things have been postponed again. I was appointed to the office of the assistant in legal history, you see, which means that there will be bread and butter on my table for the next five years. So I will head to Frankfurt in September for the rest of the year and then come back and spend the beginning of next year still on the dissertation.

Even though I haven’t worked my butt off, I have still been quite productive. I have written almost as much as in the previous five years altogether. I’ve taken a literature class, which was basically for fun, but turned out to be helpful work wise as well. Now I finally have some idea as to what deconstruction, post-structuralism and the linguistic turn are all about. It was really good to participate once again in a course, where things are taught from the beginning and where one can ask elementary questions without feeling dumb. I discovered an active participant in myself and realised once more that one can’t produce innovative things unless one is really interested in the subject matter.

Yep, that course was good. Especially the last part that had to do with literary theories. And also writing the prose paper. The teacher really liked it, you see, and that hasn’t happened in a while. It reminded me of the time long ago, when I was an exchange student in the States. I had this course on Greco-Roman Civilisation – with the best teacher in the world, Pam Brown – and I remember writing an analysis on some ancient story about Odysseus’ bow, which name or author I can’t anymore recall. But I will probably forever remember Pam Brown telling me that what I had written was exactly what she had hoped that others would produce too.

I loved that course – and her Latin class, which I took as well. It was quite enough to make me hundred percent certain that history was what I wanted to do too. But of course I didn’t – for all the wrong reasons. Now I have been thinking about that again – the course, analysing that story, analysing the book for this current literature class and all those literary theories. Because Pam Brown’s class wasn’t really so much about history as it was about literature. Because I’m not sure anymore that history is ultimately meaningful either. Because maybe it is literature after all – and perhaps music – which is the answer. The way to discover the undiscoverable. Speak of that which cannot be spoken about. Touch the universe and the fears, which rule us.

Yep, yep, something to think about.

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Currently listening to: Treibhaus - Unsterblich