Over

Project over. Three hours in the pub. Feeling better.

Upwards

I had this massive amount of things to do that absolutely needed to be done before our move. I've been despairing over these issues for over a week now. Two days ago I wrote a list which I gave to Dragon who combined with his similar list. I despaired a bit more because the list was really long.

Yesterday I started going over the list. I made a phone call, and cancelled my contact lenses by post order and ordered some extra lenses, and ordered the IDP. I felt a little better. Today I made some more phone calls, I cancelled couple of accounts, moved my savings from my ISA account to my banking account.

I'm looking at the list now, and it's pathetically short. I've really done all I can at this point, and I have only three tasks left - I need to sell my car (which I'm going to do as late as possible), cancel my car insurance (or rather, not renew it when it comes up for renewal next month - but I can only do this three weeks before it comes up!) and cancel my health club membership (which I'm going to do when I go there next time).

Also, the crunch at work is ending today, so things are looking up. I have to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and words on and off the blog, it really makes a difference.

More on driving

I have now parked several times since the little accident, even parallel parking in one go, and I haven't bumped into anything yet. So maybe it'll be ok. Lunchtime I went in to town today to get some passport photos taken - I realised that I need an International Driving Permit (IDP) to drive in Canada, or at least it's recommended I get one... something I probably should have had whilst on holiday there in August. It just reminds me that I'm so used to travelling and living in Europe where I never need any additional permits or documents, that I'm forgetting I'm moving to a country with entirely different rules. Luckily RAC can have it done in couple of days so it's no problem.

Once I get to Canada though I can use the IDP for up to 6 (or 12) months and then I have to get a Canadian driver's license. I'm still hoping that since I've actually passed my test in Finland where cars drive on the right side of the road, I can just get my license exchanged to the Canadian one - otherwise I'll need to go for a driving test. (Weird - it's been 12 years since I took one.)

Timid

I feel timid. I got into my car this morning and I notice I'm actually afraid of driving now. Previously I thought I was an ok driver - ok, I might have even thought I was a good driver - and now I just feel incompetent. Every corner I take, every stop I make, I just don't feel I'm in control, I'm afraid of just losing it again.

I got to work safely, despite the fear. I'm going to go an get an estimate for the repairs this lunch time... Still not sure if it's going to be worth getting the car fixed before selling it (or even if I will have time), but I'm told it's worth getting the estimate anyway so the dealers can't cheat me. Not that I know anything about selling cars or haggling anyway... I want to give up and just want to get rid of the car because now it just reminds me of my stupidity.

Three more days and maybe after the dealine is over I'll feel better.

Later: The body shop is going to send the estimate to me by post. Maybe it just means they couldn't face seeing me crying.

Better (hope so)

Nothing cathastrophic has happened today, so maybe tomorrow I'll leave the house.

In fact, things have been on the rise since last morning - last night we went to see a British indy wrestling promotion IPW:UK's first show Extreame Measures, and had a really nice time, although I was far too tired driving back. Everything went ok though - even got good news from Chu that she had managed to get us tickets for Wrestlemania 21 after all! They are crap seats, but hey, who cares, we're going to Wrestlemania!

Ahem. Today I've been mostly working, which really sucks, but the thought of a couple of months holiday kind of makes it bearable. I'm even hoping I might make it to ashtanga next week.

Wu-Wei 2

Today, a passage in a book caught my attention. It was based on one of the teachings of Kongfuzi, the famed Chinese philosopher:

"Westerners say 'fight fire with fire'. Wu-Wei teaches us to fight fire with water."

I enjoyed that one, and picked up the book and noticed another nugget of truth, yet one that the rulers of the world seem impossible to comprehend. It was advice for the governments:

"Your job is to govern, not to kill"

Is it that difficult to grasp? Looking at the actions of the political elite of today, it seems so.

No title

Just when you think your day can't possibly get worse than the previous one, it does.

When turning to a parking lot I've parked in about million times before, I cut the corner a bit short and bumped the side of my car into a steel post. How nice, just two weeks before selling the car, I manage knock no doubt several hundred pounds off the price. Go me.

I'm going back to bed, and just not going to talk to anyone, ever again. It's best this way.

No no no

Some days just shouldn't happen.

In addition to the cheery morning I had screwing up my banking codes, I've had an argument with a collegue and exchanged insults (and ok, made up too), found bugs with pretty much everything I touch, some of the imagined, some of them not and the deadline is today, and didn't manage to get any Wrestlemania 21 tickets in the presale.

I'm tired and exhausted and grumpy and busy and I want to go home but I can't.

I miss Chu, and Dragon and I want my mom.

Stupid stupid stupid

Damn security.

I needed to arrange pick up of my new credit card on a Saturday from my local branch, so I called my bank's telephone banking number, a routine call. However, I had a complete brain fart and typed my security numbers wrong, twice, and the codes were locked. Fair enough, I appreciate them looking after my money. So I was redirected to a friendly customer service person who needed to ask me some security questions to verify my identity, all fair enough. These are question/answer pairs I originally set up about six years ago when I first got my internet banking access - and damned if I could remember "a memorable word" from that time... so my codes were locked out completely. The only way to reset them now is to go to a branch, or order "a form to be filled out", and then it will take up to ten days to reset the codes...

What annoys me the most is that I now know how I typed the numbers wrong, I know what the real numbers should have been. So I can't really blame my bank, only my own stupidity.

Not that it makes it feel any better.

Tired, but making progress

It's weird - for the previous couple of nights I've not slept enough, and days after too little sleep have been most productive at work for several weeks. I'm really only tired in the morning, but after managing to get to work without falling asleep on the wheel I've managed to lot of good work. Really tired at home though which is unfair for Dragon but this doesn't last for much longer now.

At the same time I've started making a list of things I need to do before I leave - one of them is to figure out what electrical appliances we need to take with us and what kind of voltage converters we need. I came up with this one site that sells different kinds of converters... I guess I need to crawl behind the telly and figure out voltages and amps the TV, VCR and DVD player need to calculate what kind of beast of a converter I need for them. Sucks - this was one of the things I sucked at in school... only good thing is that since current is smaller there it doesn't matter if I get it catastrophically wrong since I can't fry up the devices.

Meanwhile at home Dragon has started to arrange the move with the removals company. For now it looks like we'll fly to Vancouver sometime on the last week of October.

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

We question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question.

As a contrast to Ender's Game, I finished Speaker for the Dead in days (and took me days only because of my current working schedule). This is the real book behind the first story - even Card says in his introduction that the book he really wanted to write was Speaker for the Dead - only it required the context of Ender's Game so he had to write that first. So where Ender's game is two dimensional, Speaker for the Dead comes alive with depth in story and characters, especially Ender and piggies were pretty complete (although I still think he should give up writing children). Where Ender's game was predictable, I didn't have any idea where Speaker for the Dead was going, and I love that.

Although in many ways (maybe all) Ender is a perfect example of a Mary Sue, surprisingly for me he wasn't irritating, in any way. I like his wisdom and his understanding, but still there's enough pain and humility that make him a good character. This book was intelligent and surprisingly emotional as I even cried in the end. And if that's not a sign of a good book, I don't know what is.

Loved it - but it also left the story very open. Henri said that rest of the books in the saga are really not very good - anyone else who's read them want to tell me if they are worth buying?

Fixing things

Tired.

My computer's fan has been making some nasty noises lately, and since it's still under guarantee I'm sending it back to be fixed before it fails. This day and age though it's not possible to be without computer - or goddess forbid, without internet access - so after packaging the new computer to be taken away by a courier I fired up my old computer that's still gathering dust in the corner.

So, I plug all the cables in, and turn it on - and I hear this rrrrrrr-klunk-klunk-klunk sound. Not good, but maybe it's just something weird because it's not bee used for a while.

No operating system found

Oh shit. Maybe it'll go away if I reboot? (Hey, a girl can wish!)

rrrrrrr-klunk-klunk-klunk
No operating system found

Oh fuck. But - all is not lost, I think. It's got two drives and I can still just "quickly" install Windows on to the functioning drive. So open the computer up, detatch the dead hard drive - which was the smaller and older one anyway, and start again.

rrrrrrr-klunk-klunk-klunk

Why is it still making that sound? Windows installation starts up, loading all the drivers takes about five minutes.

No hard disk found, can't continue with the installation.

What? Ok, well, maybe the hard disk needs to be on another buss - change cables around a bit, make sure everything is well attached, start it up again.

rrrrrrr-klunk-klunk-klunk - for fuck's sake, why is it still on?
No hard disk found, can't continue with the installation.

Ok, hm, need to think about this a bit. Check bios settings, everything seems fine. It can't be that both of the hard disks have failed at the same time, that would be just too unfair. But I know - it must be that the smaller drive was the master and the bigger on was a slave: if I just move the jumper so that the large drive is a master it should "just work". However, this is a Dell we're talking about so changing the jumper basically requires me to take out the hard drive - and fiddling with jumpers is bloody annoying anyway, even if it wasn't about midnight already. They are those tiny plastic things on your hard drive that are next to impossible to get out - and once you get them out they usually just fly somewhere and get lost and you never ever have any spare. After a bit of jiggery pokery I managed to get the jumper out and change the drive into a master, plug it in and off the installation goes and the old hard drive stops klunking, too. (Quite proud of myself there - for some this might all seem just too obvious, but I really do this stuff only when I have to - and I was glad that I was able to logically figure out what the problem was and fix it.)

XP installation is actually quite simple and smooth, only took about an hour with all the updates. So I got to bed just before one - and woke up again about five hours later.

Tired.

Start of the end...

Start of Monday morning, and I'm already exhausted. Whether it's because I spent the whole weekend on the computer playing Sims 2, or the fact that the move occupies my mind the rest of my waking time - but probably it's just the fact that weeks of working late are taking their toll. I notice that this time it has taken now considerably less time to reach this mental state of exhaustion than last winter - just shows that although it felt like I had recovered from it, I hadn't, not completely.

I shouldn't complain, not really. I just keep thinking that Dragon - who is now at home enjoying some time off - can't possibly recover in his six or so weeks off work, not from his previous two or three years crunch. Still, It's better than nothing I guess.

It's feeling like start of the end at work... HR today acknowledged my resignation with a nice letter. Our CEO came and talked to me today about my leaving too - he was saying that Vancouver was fantastic city and the only one he would consider living in (he's no city dweller). Our CTO in turn gave me his Vancouver guide books and maps, singing the same praises.Vancouver is fantastic, you'll love it there, it's the most beautiful city in the world.

I'm getting to the stage where I think I have enough information and there is only so much you can take in theory, now I just want to get there and start exploring and settling in.

I hate waiting.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive.

I finished Ender's Game on Friday evening - despite it being good and pretty exiting, it took better part of a month to finish it... I don't know what exactly I was expecting - generally I have an issue with much hyped books (or movies), especially when they are called classics. On the other hand, I do trust Henri's judgement, at least to a degree that I know I will like what he's recommending to me even if I don't agree with him in all regards.

But, Ender's Game. Yes, it's a good book - well written, good storyline. However, first of my issues is with the characters. Most of them are very young children, from six to twelve or so - yes, I know they are exceptional, but there's nothing childish about them. I find the concept of that young children doing and wanting to do things that they do a bit... well, unbelievable, be it killing or world domination. I know this can be argued within the context of the events in the book, but there is no other comparison of normal children (and being halfway in Speaker of the Dead it's starting to seem like all Card's child characters - and he likes to write about childeren - are like that: little adults).

But if we look past the unbelievable characters, there is the story between good and evil. But we are lead to believe that all is not what it seems. It looks like humans are the good guys and buggers are the bad guys - but at the same time we get heavy hints on the evil goverment sensoring things and hiding the truth. I'm sure this was ground breaking in the 70's when to book was written, but thirty years later it's kind of been done many times since then and doesn't come as such a surprise when it turns out that... well, I'm sure that if you belong in the minority that hasn't read this book you can pretty much take a guess anyway.

Maybe some people love this book because they can identify with Ender - for me there were no character like that in this book. (I think adult Valentine might have been, but we don't get to see that.) I liked Ender though - I liked the way he was potrayed: small and young but not weak in mind or morals, and his usage by the military made so much sense. I also like the Battle School - I especially liked the descriptions of Ender's battles and tactics, as I don't think that kind of understainding that Card had for 0 G battles with the problems and advantages comes naturally.

Long story short - in it's unbelievable characters and predictability, it was still a good book and I wouldn't hesitate recommending it to anyone. But as Orava said - Card's no Mievelle.

Sims 2

I think I have an addiction.

Secret of Life

There's a girl who doesn't care
About the clothes she's supposed to wear
Or if the people choose to stare
This could be the secret of life
This could be the secret of life
Secret of life

Quite some time ago I heard on the radio about a curiosity called The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - a bunch of people who believed that there is no song or genre of music that couldn't be played with ukulele. The interviewer didn't really know if these people could be taken seriously or not, despite their vocalist's Kitty Lux's most serious attitude - and to be honest I wasn't sure either. However their cover of Miss Dynamite was left playing in my head, on and off for weeks.

So couple of months ago I got their CD Secret of Life and wow - this could be one of the year's best CDs for me, right after Patience. When Kitty Lux said anything can be played with ukulele, she sure wasn't lying. On this 12 track CD they play ukule versions of everything you can possibly imagine: we have Miss Dynamite representing modern pop, we have Hard to Handle and Wonderful Land for rock, we have You Talk About My Drinking for blues, we have Le Freak for disco, we have Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus for romance, we have Only You for evergreens and we have their original songs Antiphon for more traditional ukulele music and the title song The Secret of Life for something... completely different. (And the sharp eyed amongst you notice that I didn't even list them all...)

It's serious, but it's tongue in cheek. It's entertaining, but not light. It's funny, but impressive.

More reading: BBC's article The Ukulele ... Is It Cool? with soundbites.

Spirit of Man

Since the Athens Olympics I’ve been meaning to write about the athlete that impressed me more than any other. I am talking about Hossain Rezazadeh, nicknamed ‘Hercules of Iran’, the super-heavyweight champion of Olympic Weightlifting. An enormous man-mountain of some 360 pounds (160 kilos), Hossain grew up as a second child in a poor family in the Ardebil region of Iran, the area where the mythical Hercules of Greek legends was once born.

Holder of both world records in weightlifting (clean and jerk as well as snatch) Hossain is probably the strongest man that has ever lived. To give you an idea of his strength, he can lift two adult men above his head in EACH hand. At 26 years of age, the frightening thing is that his best years are still ahead of him.

Always laughing and playing to the crowd he is the only man I know who nods, winks and smiles to the audience while holding the weight of two fridge-freezers above his head. Crowds love him –and not just Iranians. Few athletes have the charisma and charm to break the barriers of nationalism and racism, but Hossain has those qualities in abundance. As he kissed the ground in gratitude after the successful lift that broke the Olympic record, the Athens crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

I often find deeply religious people disturbing and unsettling. Hossain, however, has opposite effect on me though he is a devout muslim. The Hercules of Iran calls on imam Ali before each lift and shouts ‘Allahu Akbar’ when going gets really tough, but this only seems to add to his charm. Even bringing holy Qua’ran to the awards ceremony for some reason did not annoy me, for his child-like delight on winning and genuine love for the people won me over easily.

In a sport plagued by steroid abuse, Hossain stands tall when it comes to moral fibre. Several countries have made him offers of enormous amount of money, including a staggering 20 000$ a week and 10 million $ bonus made by Turkey to switch nationality and compete under Turkish flag. Greeks reportedly offered him 20 million $ to leave Iran and lift for Greece. Amazingly, Hossain turned all the offers down. As impressive as his strength is, I am far more impressed by his ability to resist that temptation –Iran is in no position to offer financial rewards to match that amount of money.

I doubt I would have had the strength to turn down that much money.

LATER: Edited typos. Plus a piece of trivia: Hossain's favourite hobby is eating. :)

Lack of yoga and worries

In addition to all the commotion about moving, I've also been doing long days at the office as we've got a deadline closing up. This unfortunately means I haven't had time to go to yoga classes for several weeks now... I'm working around 10 hours a day, plus driving to work and back which takes me about 2,5 additional hours... when I get home pretty much all I can think of is food and sleep, so I don't practice at home either. Unfortunately I can feel it in my body: neck, back, shoulders all tense up and I wake up all stiff every morning. I also miss my "me time" at the club, going to sauna and just relaxing. I'm finishing work in another three weeks (gasp!), but because of moving and going to Finland I probably won't be able to go to class for at least another month or two, although I will make time to go and see my teachers before I leave.

Which brings me to my next worry. Apparently Canada is pretty big on yoga, and based on some googling on the subject, Vancouver seems to have several yoga studios that teach ashtanga and other styles of yoga. So... it shouldn't be a problem finding a place to go, but as usual I'm worrying about finding a suitable teacher for me. It's not just about finding a good teacher, I believe that there needs to be a chemistry between the student and the teacher, teacher's style needs to be right for the student, and they need to be on the same wave-length for the practice to beneficial. And it's not necessarily something you can tell after one or two lessons, either.

We'll see.

Later: I had pretty much forgotten that Canada is the base of operations for the Taoist Tai Chi Society. There is a strong presence in Vancouver, and I wonder if I'd like to take Tai Chi up again...

Welcome to the Jungle

On Friday we watched Welcome to the Jungle (released as Rundown in Europe). This was a movie I really, really wanted to like - I was expecting lighthearted action romp with silly gags and cool action scenes and yes, I expected to spend a brainless but entertaining hour and a half. Unfortunately it came too soon pretty obvious that it was not going to happen - first thing that bothered me was the fact that The Rock, who had been decent enough actor in the Scorpion King didn't really connect with the character Beck, a nice bad guy that he was playing, and his acting just wasn't too convincing. The plot was very silly, Seann William Scott wasn't funny either although he was meant to be (he was playing a good guy that was bad), and even Christopher Walken didn't manage to achieve his usual level of coolness.

It wasn't all bad - there were some good things about this movie, mainly that it looked really good, cinematography and directing were good and at places innovative, and action scenes worked really well. However, it was not even close to being enough to carry the stupid story. At first I hoped they would have taken more advantage of Rock's comic abilities - but then they did and I immediately regretted wishing it... despite what some people may claim, the best scene of the film was not a baboon (in Amazon? Hello!) humping the Rock. (Even the fangirl me wasn't satisfied as Rock only took his shirt off once, briefly, and didn't have a love interest...)

So if you're searching for something fun and light to watch next time you're at Blockbusters, leave this one on the shelf.

City of Glass

The city that Vancouver most closely resembles, if it can be said to resemble any other at all, is Honolulu, which also has a lot of people squished into a small area bordered by mountains, hyperinflated real estate values, a sense of disconnection from the rest of the world and, not least, a racial and ethnic mix of Natives, Europeans and Asians.

My next batch of books on the subject of Canada and Vancouver arrived today from Amazon. I've been leafing through Douglas Coupland's book City of Glass - Douglas Coupland's Vancouver, a book he wrote because he got tired of explaining the in's and out's of Vancouver to people who came to visit him. It's written in a form of ABC book - words in alphabetical order explained with stories and photos describing them, like Dim Sum, Glass and History... or lack of thereof (which I'm at currently). A truly facinating book and I'm thinking about recommending it in turn to all the people who are planning to visit us (and you know who you are!).

Although I'm still going through moments of panic and joy with the thought of moving, it's mostly excitement now. I'm still worrying about the details of moving all our belongings and settling in once we get there, but Dragon keeps telling me it will be ok. I suspect that D/k will be on the subject of Canada quite a lot too, since that is the upmost thought in my mind, pretty much all the time now. We've started sorting out the timetables, but I suspect we'll be there end of October, beginning of November - till then, it's all nerves from here.

Hummingbird brings news

Creator scratched his chest and rubbed his fingers together and there appeared Hummingbird.
"Fly north, south, east, and west and tell us what you see," said Creator.
"All is well," reported Hummingbird upon his return. "The earth is most beautiful, with water on the west side."

This quote is from the North American Apache creation myth, and I find it most fitting to our current situation. Dragon wrote some time ago about dragons in the Chinese mythology - but it turns out that the native indians of the Vancouver and British Columbia region, the Haida, have a hummingbird as one of their totem animals.

For the Haida, hummingbird - also called Sah Sen - is a symbol of love, beauty and intelligence. It's also believed that seeing a hummingbird before a big event is a good sign for it has the ability to guide people, and hunters ask for it's help before setting out. As you might imagine, I've been reading up on the region quite a lot for the past few weeks, and I find the subject of native inhabitants facinating as I've never lived in a place where people with radically different culture used to live. The Haida story is all too familiar one - they used to live happily on their own until the Europeans came, and the combination of the Europeans diseases and oppressive religion pretty much destroyed Haida people and their culture. Currently there are few thousand Haida left, and UNESCO has named on their remaining villages on the SGaang Gwaii (Anthony Island) a world heritage site.

I'm looking forward to going to Vancouver, and I hope I can return with the same news than the hummingbird in the Apache myth.

Start of autumn

Today seems to be a pretty miserable end to a fantastic weekend - it's not yet even the autumnal equinox, but weather sure gives a good autumn impression.

I'm sure that when you only see your friends few times a year the moments you have together seem that much more special - but having Henri here over the weekend was exceptionally nice. It's not about doing something special - it was about spending time together, sharing moments, joking and just being with likeminded people.

Anyway, last night we took Henri to the tiny Southampton airport to catch a flight to Glasgow - we were on the airport with plenty of time, and kept Henri company before it was time for him to board his plane. Only we found out about ten minutes later when we were already half-way down the motorway that his fligh - like all the other departing flights that evening - had been delayed for two hours. Too bad they didn't bother telling him that when he checked in...

And then I slept really badly because I kept waking up wondering if Henri had managed to get to Glasgow all right - until Dragon checked his mobile and found Henri's text message saying that he had arrived to the hotel just before one. That must have been really sucky - our experiences of being stuck on an airport when really really tired and cold and uncomfortable are still very fresh in my mind.

O Canada

As kolibri explained in her blog entry, we've made our decision to move to Canada, and I really hoped it would have been an easier choice to make. I feel very, very sad, for the job offer made to me in Finland was tremendous.

Out of respect for the Finnish company and the wonerful people who I negotiated with I won't go into details, but be it sufficient to say that I would have loved to have worked with the team and returned to Finland, and the job would have done wonders to my career. Hardest part for me was to call the team leader and give him the bad news. It made me feel like a traitor, even though I realise this is just normal part of careers of many, many people.

I truly hope that I made the right decision.

Still, the nightmare at my current job has now officially ended. No matter what happens, my quality of life should improve a hundredfold. And as I keep telling myself: Canada is not a penal colony. Should things go wrong, I can always come back.

Good life

Well, it's been a wonderful day here in Southsea. We've showed Henri around the two cities - we went to have a look at the beach, followed by some shopping in Cascades where we found some scary sheep and cheap DVDs, and in the spirit of Block-ness we've taken lot of photographs of each other.

In the picture here we're celebrating our decision to move Canada, and we sure appreciated that we were able to share this moment with Henri. Some of you are already aware of the decision that has been bubbling under for a while now, but it was not one to be taken lightly... we had another really good opportunity that Dragon decided to pass by at this point of his career. If it was up to me, I'd like to stay in this country - however that wasn't either of the options... and we both feel that if we didn't take this one to go and live in Canada we would come to regret it.

So... wherever you're raising glasses this evening, wish us luck.

Being a fan

Henri writes (in Finnish) about being a fan. This is a subject very close to my heart, in fact you could say I'm a fan of being a fan. Getting excited about different things is a spice of life - I've always been a fan of something and those things have always been changing throughout my life.

Probably most of all, I'm a sci-fi fan. If it's sci-fi, I find it interesting, and it's easy to get excited about it - I was first introduced to sci-fi by my mom who gave me some Isaac Asimov books to read. Ever since that there was no turning back - first Asimov, then Clarke, Dick, Star Trek, Butler, Red Dwarf, Banks, Farscape, Stargate, Firefly, Morgan... It's something that even after twenty years or so always gets my attention.

There are secondary subjects I'm fan of, too. As you know, I'm a big fan of American and Mexican pro-wrestling, I'm a fan of reading and books, especially detective and crime novels, and I'm a fan of cooking and recepies. To a lesser degree I'm also a fan of games and the fantasy genre, and of comics and movies and music, of animals and nature, and of gadgets and computers and technology.

But the best thing about fandom is that it's a shared pleasure. It's something you share with your friends, you discuss and argue about, it gets you passionate and in it's extreme forms it gets you a bit a bit hysterical and slighly mad - but the more you feel, the more it gives back to you. One of the nicest things about life is to sit down with someone and be enthusiastic and analyse and ponder and discuss your subject to death. All people do this to a degree, and if they're lucky they surround temselves with people who feel similary about the same things. (I don't understand some things some other people get excited about like football or ice hockey or stamps or train spotting - but I believe that as long as people get excited about something they have hope.)

(Note that I don't feel I can say I'm a yoga fan - I find that it is something more... spiritual. Although it's something I get very exited about, it's not a sharing thing - it's a personal thing.)

Busy

Working hard, trying to get my duties done here before Henri comes tomorrow so I can take the weekend off with clear conscience.

Final decision has been made, for good or bad. More about it tomorrow.

Between moments

So after telling everyone about my leaving I went home yesterday and cried a bit. Isn't it so that when you form a relationship you give part of yourself to the other person, you invest in the relationship. I feel like I took those people's investments and now I'm doing a runner.

Dragon tried to console me but he didn't have the words.

Maybe it needs to be a friend who consoles in a situation like this, not a partner. He's too close to my pain, so close that he's too wounded by it to be able to make it better. He just sees this distressed crying little thing that needs to be healed and gets distressed when he can't immediately do it. Chu feels my pain too, but she also knows with certainty that I am strong and that it will pass, and she gets me enthusiastic about the future again. She lists all the great things I'm about to experience and makes me focus on them. We make plans with our heads in the clouds and suddenly I'm looking forward to the change again.

Later on we watch more Mucha Lucha and I cuddle up to Dragon in the bed.

It'll be ok.

Sad

In the midst of all the commotion at work with upcoming demos and deadlines, I handed in my formal resignation today. It's sad - I was expecting it to be a relief in some way, decision has been made, I've made up my mind, I'm moving on. Instead I felt sad and... well, I feel like I'm letting people down. John knew what was coming up so he took it well, of course, my other managers were just horrified. I should take this as a compliment - they value me so much they find the thought of me leaving distressing.

Well, I find it difficult too. Maybe it says something about my industry that this is the first time I've voluntarily resigned - I've been made redundant of all my previous "real jobs". Then leaving has been a resolution to an existing issue, and let's face it, decision is always easier when it's somebody else. Now... it's my decision and if I screw it up it's nobody else's fault but my own. Panic, fear. Did I do the right thing? Did I make the right decision?

Not the first time I've wanted a crystal ball.

Mucha Lucha!

Those who know me are well aware of my fondness of Lucha Libre, mad Mexican show of masked wrestlers whose acrobatic ability is unmatched by western or even Japanese pro-wrestlers.

Now Warner brothers has done a noble deed of bringing a new animated series called Mucha Lucha (Visit the website to create your own masked wrestler.) to our screens. It features the adventures of Ricochet, Bueno Girl and the Flea, young Luchadores-in-training, following the proud traditions of the Code of the Masked Wrestler (Honor, Tradition, Family, Donuts!) as they train to become professional luchadores. However, rest of the show seems to make no more sense than Lucha Libre to the uninitiated, which is very little indeed. In one of the episodes, the three masked Mexican kids are sucked inside Ricochet’s backpack, where they meet a talking action figure, explore a vast wasteland, and fight against a tribe of savage backpacks. And the rest of it made even less sense.

We’ve only seen three episodes thus far, but potential of becoming a fan is there.

Matrix Revolutions

I saw another movie over the weekend too - Matrix Revolutions is a move that I borrowed from Andy because I masochistically wanted to see but not pay for the previledge. However I wasn't quite as enthusiastic as I thought I was, so the movie sat on my shelf for at least couple of months before I plugged up the courage to actually watch it.

And what complete shite it was too. I really liked the original film when it first came out, but I have to admit that the rest of the trilogy has spoiled all the affection I had towards the first movie. I didn't have too much against the second movie - the content was pretty awful but at least it was very cool... and the last one isn't even that. It's trying to be clever and original and mysterious, and just ends up being repugnant... and I fast forwarded the end scene as I just wasn't doing anything for me.

It's a shame. I quite like to consepts behind the Matrix universe, and humans against machines is an age old sci-fi scenario that can be made to work, too. Just a huge shame they ruined the original magic with these sequels.

Chronicles of Riddick

After a nice and extremely hot day we decided to go an cool ourselves in the air-conditioned local cinema. The film I've wanted to see for a while was David Twohy's Chronicles of Riddick. I quite liked the previous film, Pitch Black, and from everything I'd heard about the Chronicles was that it was a solid three star movie - so I was expecting to be entertained, but not to a degree that would work my brain too much.

I always hate it when I'm expecting a good movie and get something else. When the movie started I felt like I was in a wrong cinema altogether - I was expecting a sci-fi action film, and got some weird fantasy flick where the main character only spoke with one-liners and plot made little sense. I was getting really frustrated - but then we got to the good part, the sci-fi movie that I wanted. We have a cool jail break and really, after that things were cool and the rest of the movie was pretty entertaining.

So... yes, I liked it. However, I very much feel like there were two movies trapped in a body of just one. There was the sci-fi action thriller with a really cool hostile planet with a penitentiary and man looking for a woman and a jail break. More than enough material for one movie. Then we had the fantasy movie with Necromongers and Elementals and Furies and plotting, and we have the apocalypse and everything is very dark and gothic and depressing. Combine these two and you have something weird. Entertaining, yes, but weird.

I've never seen Vin Diesel better than when he's playing Riddick - this is obviously the character he feels most comfortable with, and he's even co-produced this movie. Especially in the beginning I think he overdoes the coolness a bit, but settles in when Riddick starts interacting with other characters instead of just running around. I also really liked Karl Urban - last time seen as the fair-headed Eomer, now as a black-haired gothic necromonger warlord - still, he got to do his brooding bit that he does very well. In fact, most of the actors did a really nice job, special effects were cool, soundtrack fitting and action with the pro-wrestling style choreography was pretty sweet.

It's not going to be a classic, but it entertains you for the price of the cinema tickets, and that's exactly what you sometimes need.

Somebody else's problem

I've been listening to the news coming from Russia yesterday and today, and suddenly my own "problems" seem quite small and tame. It's difficult to find words for discribing what I feel - the shock of these people taking children as hostages is just... I'm disgusted. I just can't imagine a situation where theae people, who probably have children of their own, gather around a table and plan this - first of all focusing on taking over a school, and then intentionally planning to torture the children by not allowing them any food or water. I don't say this lightly, but this really is evil - even more so than 9/11.

The other questionable issue is of course the decision of the Russian troops to attack the building. They say that this was after the hostage takers started to kill the children, but it's very difficult to say what exactly happened and why, and we'll probably never know. We do know however that Russian troops are trigger happy when it comes to situations like this - remember the siege of the theatre in Moscow couple of years back that ended pretty much exactly the same way.

And behind all this is president Putin, and his decision to deal with Chechenia with force - and although nothing justifies these kind of actions it's important to understand the causes of these situations. People protest against Bush and his war in Iraq, but Chechenia is probably even worse - and rarely mentioned. France and Germany protest loudly against Bush as he's the top dog and it's easy to hate him - and yet the underdog Putin with his deplorable acts in Chechenia is left alone.

It makes me very sad, and I wish strength for people of Beslan.

Angry thoughts

Those options I wrote about yesterday? Looks like a certain company that was potentially going to offer them is doing decisions for us with their actions. Screw them - this is not a garden party, this is big business.

(This has been an angry outburst that doesn't necessarily reflect Dragon's opinions. And I of course I reserve the right to change mine in case they do decide to stop picking their nose.)

To go or not...

Well, there you have it.

Never in my life have I been in a situation like this, where I'm so completely out of control of my life (and I am a control freak). This is what you get when you marry a man whose line of business is so narrow - they need to take jobs where the jobs are, not where you want to be. Original plan was to move closer to my job - now we're talking about moving to another country, to the other side of the world.

Nothing is granted of course, and I'd like to stress that nothing has been decided - but that's not where my indecision has been coming from. Because at least now we have an offer, we have something concrete - for the past I don't know how many weeks we've had nothing but vague ideas (well, it might be here, or it might be in Canada, or it might be in some other country). Having an option is something real - now I can start planning and think about this rationally: I can make a list of plusses and minuses and weight different issues against each other.

My biggest issue is of course that I quite like my life right now. I have a good and interesting job with a good salary, I like the company, I love the people. I like our flat, I like Southsea, l like my yoga teachers and classes, I like my car. And we're talking about giving up all of those, and - in a way - not trough my choice. It's not completely true of course that I have no choice - I know that if I asked Dragon to pass this (or any other offer) he would do it for me. We were in the same situation over seven years ago when he was working here and I was still in Finland - yes, he would have come to Finland to be with me but it wouln't have been fair from me to ask him to do that. And in the same way now - if he's going to get an offer that would be really good for his career, I don't feel it would be fair from me to ask him to refuse it - his career is going places while my is just starting up. It's possible for me to find a new job where he is, but for him to make a compromise for me would require a much bigger sacrifice.

So, I feel it's out of my hands. And we're still waiting for some other options to open up, so as I said it's not decided. But meanwhile, I need those vibes, people.

Moving and shaking

To put it simply: I've been offered a job in Canada. This might explain my quietness lately and the anxiety Kolibri has been feeling. Should I accept the offer, it means moving far, far away from Finland.

I'll keep you all updated. Wish me wisdom to choose the right thing.

Happy list

In the spirit of happy thoughts and the fact that you must be really tired of my whining, here are some things that bring me happiness at the moment:

• Dreams: had a really lovely dream last night which made waking up that much nicer
• Chu: your best friend is always happy to hear about your exotic dreams
• Henri: gives me a virtual hug because he knows I need it
• Yoga: thought of getting to an ashtanga class tonight
• Weather: illusion that it's still summer although mornings are starting to get cold
• Dragon: just being with him