End of vacation

Sorry about the lack of updates lately (although it's only my parents that have been complaining, and they've seen me every day), but I've kind of felt no reason, or indeed time, to blog for few days. I've been meeting people and feeling very guilty about not meeting others, I've been panicking about the end of the vacation pretty much since it started. One of my greater strengths is planning ahead and seeing the big picture - but it also works to my disadvantage in situations like this, always having my eye on the next big event (in this case going home).

I've been telling people that our vacation is 10 days - but the truth is that two of those are arrival and departure days: on the arrival day we arrived in the morning and on the departure day we're leaving on the 7 am plane (yay). So that leaves eight - of which two or three was dedicated to relatives, which leaves about five days for random vacationing... divided by around ten people or so that I wanted to see doesn't leave much per person. Chu tells me my friends will understand my situation, but I can't help but to feel that I've let too many people down this time, even my bestest friends. And I hate to think I would have let people down who trust me and count on me.

But few people have promised to visit us in Vancouver soon, and I can't wait to show them my new city. It's been strange being back in Helsinki, people are so different here. It's funny seeing foreigners who speak English and I feel elated, almost like I should go and talk to them to feel more at home. And when did that happen? When did I start feeling like a foreigner in Helsinki? It doesn't feel bad, just odd. Maybe it's because this 13 months has been the longest I've ever been away from Finland - when living in UK we used to come here several times a year. And I used to complain about the three hour flight and cost of the £130 ticket... you don't know a good thing before you lose it.

Cold evening

One of the things that always shock me when I come to Finland in the winter is how cold it is here. And no, it's not cold, not really - we're talking about under -10 C which is actually a very reasonable winter temperature. But still. There was a low point yesterday when we were at my sister's place - and we thought it was so cold: I borrowed wooly socks that were up to my knees, and I was huddling at the table wrapped in a blanket, Dragon had a pair of goose down slippers and an extra sweater. My sister and her boyfriend just laughed as apparently we looked really pitiful.

We played couple of games of Saint Petersburg, a game we infected them with when they visited us last time. Every time I play this game I'm just amazed how good and balanced it is... Harro had read about a theory that Mistress of Ceremonies card is considered broken by some people as apparently if you manage to buy it on the first round you automatically win, and it just happened that we got to test this theory - and in my opinion although getting the card in the first round will help considerably, it does not mean an automatic win. I was actually very happy about this as this is one of my very favourite games.

We also spent some time observing the aquarium - Laura and Harro have two tanks, and one of them is populated with some extremely cute crayfish with a school of extremely cute babies. Apparently they get a bit too hungry if they are put in a tank with fish, but on their own they were even more fascinating.

Beautiful

Getting into the groove

It's getting better - this morning I woke up at six which is only slightly earlier than what I would do at home, and even eating is a bit better now. It's very dark here, even when we eat breakfast at eight it's pitch black dark outside. But it's also very pretty - there's some snow on the ground and some snow coming from the sky... not a lot, but then again I'm not asking for much. And -6 C outside, as far as I'm concerned that's pretty perfect winter weather - a bit colder would be too cold as I've grown soft in the south, and a bit warmer and the snow turns into slush.

And I can't get over how nice the Christmas tree smells.

It's time to start the family & friends & relatives rounds now. First it's the annual family meeting on my dad's side, followed by the evening with friends, and rest of the week seems to be gathering momentum too. Oh well, I knew it wasn't going to be relaxing.

Christmas day

Yay, I'm still awake. I did take an hours nap at some point, but I think it probably did me more bad than good - but I just had to do it anyway.

Apparently my stomach has a very strict internal clock - my sister told me that she had the problem when she came back from Vancouver last summer that for few days she couldn't eat anything during the day because it made her nauseous but could in the night... and now I'm just the same. I can eat a little bit, but it makes me very nauseous - on the other hand I was quite happy to eat when I woke up half past three this morning.

So today has been spent mostly nodding off. I went to the sauna in the morning with my mom (as Dragon was too out of it to even consider it) and I've been following the life of birds at the bird feeder - some beautiful bull finches and other small birds, plus couple of squirrels. My dad has been trying for years now to make the bird feeder squirrel-safe but with little success - this year's invention is a slippery floppy roof, but once it had some snow on it the (bigger) squirrels are quite happy to hang on either to the rope or the ceiling with their back feet and then munch on the nuts and seeds upside-down. The smaller ones like this little fellow in the photo have to do with the seeds on the ground.

Lagging

Despite best efforts, I've been up since half past three. Which is about hour and a half later than what I was fearing, but still... it's going to be a long day.

Christmas

I'm sitting here smelling the Christmas tree and the candles. My stomach is full, I received a ton of great presents and gave away the same, all well received.

Ah, peace. I'm off to bed and I'll try not to wake up before the morning.

Traveling is a pain

I'm sitting at Frankfurt airport when typing this, and it's... I think it's coming to noon here and it's something else in Helsinki, but it's way past my bed-time at home.

I can usually sleep pretty well almost anywhere, but I had problems in the plane this time - partly because I wanted to finish my current audiobook (more on that later), and partly because the plane was full of muslims coming from some kind of convention I believe, and they didn't believe in whispering. I've always loved how arabic sounds, but as shouted across the plane to your friend as if you were on the market while I'm trying to sleep in the middle of it all isn't really what I want to hear. I gave my earplugs to Dragon so at least he could get some sleep.

Europe looks... different. Not sure how - but when I saw a Chinese man wearing a Roots shirts waiting for someone (Roots is like Canadian version of Gap) I felt a sudden sensation of warm familiarness and I felt like hugging him.

Merry Christmas

We're flying to Finland in couple of hours time so I'd like to take this opportunity to wish peaceful Christmas to all our readers.

Plastic Dragon

The fastest movement in the universe is not the speed of light. It is a Vancouverite shop assistant putting your groceries or other shopping into a plastic bag. People like me who like to carry as few plastic bags as possible and do not like to waste precious plastic on 2-minute shopping are almost powerless to stop them, for no matter how fast you try to shout: "No need for plastic bag, please!" It is almost always too late if it is even heard at all as the frenzied retail professional stuffs 2-dollar shopping into twelve plastic bags.

I can hardly be upset with my well-meaning shopkeepers: what they do is pretty much an instinct by now, and just shows how dedicated to service the Canadians are. But I do hope shops like Safeways would adopt bags for life scheme and make plastic bags cost at least few cents. These schemes work in Finland and UK, so they should be fine in Canada, too.

Go Canucks Go

So the Canadian experience is one step closer to completion, and I have now witnessed my first live ice hockey game. We saw Vancouver Canucks play against the Edmonton Oilers at GM Place, and while the home team lost 6-7, we had a good time.

We had nice seats on the fourth row next to the goal, and the game was a lot of fun. I can see why the game is so popular - it's very fast paced and there's always something happening. There were only couple of fights on the ice (both started by Jarkko Ruutu, if I'm not mistaken) and one amongst the audience. The first ones were exciting to the audience - and well, the second one was too but that dampened my spirits a bit. While I can kind of see the glamour in booing the visitor team ("Oilers suck!"), arguments between fans are just stupid... and in this case things got a bit too heated, and even though it was the Canucks fans who were the culprits the crowd was behind them which annoyed me. Both parties were quickly removed though so it didn't have time to get really ugly.

All in all, fun was had, and it was definitely an interesting experience. Those of you who are really interested, I put some photos I took on Flickr.

And oh, I'm on holiday!

Pass!

Yay! I passed my test!

The examiner was really nice - he started out by saying that that he wanted me to pass, and was going to do his utmost to get me drive as good as I possibly can and that he wouldn't trick me. He was generally really helpful - he warned me at one point that I would lose points for grabbing the steering wheel from the inside, so I could improve on it during the test instead of punishing me afterward. We took a long drive, around 45 minutes, and everything just generally went really well. His only remarks where the steering wheel thing, plus the fact that I should do more shoulder checks when turning right... so looks like my driving is pretty much on the right track.

That's a weight off my shoulders. Now I can pick up my old EU drivers license too, and they'll mail me my new license in couple of months.

When is enough enough

I've been so tired today I've been hardly coherent. I was asked to stay late for the fifth day in a row, but today I declined, stating that I have a road test tomorrow. Which I do, although I'm working very hard on trying to forget it - my theory is that if I just stay relaxed everything will be good. So why is it that I still feel like a loser, like I was supposed to do more. Although I did what was asked of me, why do I keep thinking that my colleagues will think worse of me for going home tonight. I told myself that I wouldn't be giving into work this time, that this time I'd keep hold of the things that are important in mind... yet I've been working late for two weeks and not been to yoga because of that.

But two more days and then I'm on holiday. Maybe I'll have more time to think then.

Happy Holidays

I never saw anything bad about "Merry Christmas" before moving here.

Well, although Canadians are not nearly as bad with this as their friends in the south, there are certain PC element to the holidays here. No one has been offended by my well-wishes yet (I think), but one person did point out that they weren't Christian (only partly joking), and at one point I was told (also partly joking, I hope) that I shouldn't be wishing people merry Christmas if I wasn't sure of their affiliations.

I don't believe in God or Jesus, but still we've always celebrated Christmas in my family, and so have all my friends independent of there faiths. If someone wishes me "Merry Christmas" I always took that as someone wanting to wish me well - what could be offensive about that? I never took that to mean that I should be celebrating the birth of Christ. And before Raisa wrote about it (in Finnish) I would have said that in Finland nobody gives a fa-la-laa why you celebrate Christmas.

And in fact if you start nitpicking it, Christmas is originally a pagan holiday anyway, and there were probably people celebrating the Winter Solstice ever since man learned to count. Does that mean we should really be beating two sticks together and lighting fires so that the spring would come back? Over in UK the Archbishop of Canterbury disagrees and most definitely wants to keep Christmas Christian saying that "The truth is they're [our neighbors from other religious traditions] usually much happier with the idea of a Christian festival than with some general excuse to have a good time in midwinter." Right. That's still mild compared to some lunatics that think that the virtual world World of Warcraft should have a Nativity scene.

The thing is - I love Christmas. Personally I don't care what your reason is (as long as you don't force it on me) - I like the tradition that there is one time in a year where you can quiet down, sit down with your family, have a good meal and be nice to each other. I love the sights, smells and sounds of Christmas - the moment after the Christmas dinner is finished and we've lit the candles (real candles in our tree, of course) and sit down quiet. The smell of the real spruce, the candles softly glowing... anticipation of seeing your loved ones' faces when they open the presents you've bought them.

Honestly, what offensive is there about that.

Second lesson

I popped out of work lunchtime to go for another drive with Sean. He'd had his car tuned a bit and it was working beautifully today, and we took a drive around the area where the road test is going to happen. I'm doing pretty well - I think I'm a safe driver and all, but I'm still worried about the little details.

Few things I'm afraid of: firstly speeding - it's not like I've got need for speed, but as most drivers I'm used to driving with the traffic and yes, the clock probably shows a bit over... which is of course a huge no-no in a test, I believe that would be a straight out fail. Normally the speed limit is 50 km/h, but the test area is littered with schools and parks that have a 30 km/h limit, and I'll just have to remember that and that's it. Secondly, I can't get past the idea that red light doesn't mean "don't go" here - it means "don't go except if you want to turn right". I just feel like I'm doing something naughty and dangerous when I drive on the red light, but I'll be expected to do that (anyway) in the test. Third one are the slightly different traffic signs - with this I might be just paranoid as they're mostly not that different, but it's just one more thing to make me a bit nervous.

Oh well, I'll be so busy before the test that I'll probably have no time to worry about it.

More work

Amidst working we have deep philosophical discussions about the nature of man.

Pissed off

Here I am, at work. Great. You've got to love critical releases just before Christmas - developers are under stress to produce completely new features in little time, and we're under pressure to test them within the non-existing time lines. Fine. Still, I'd like to think that we're on the same boat - and it pisses me off immensely that they give us a build that they know doesn't work, and only after we've wasted time finding major issues do they tell us that they knew it wouldn't work but don't worry about it, it'll work tomorrow. A line, of course, that we've heard a million times by now.

And since the deadline is on Monday, it looks very much like I'm spending the weekend here in the office. On the (only) good thing about this is that if/when that happens I'll be able to start my holiday couple days early.

Dragon and the Bears

I have to admit that despite my great fondness of wildlife and nature, I find most of the efforts of the environmental groups inefficient and pointless: quite a few stunts they pull are simply counter-productive: For example, freeing lots of carnivores from Finnish fur farms only serves to unbalance the local ecosystem and to turn the public opinion in Finland against the conservationists. I really doesn’t matter how well-meaning such groups are, if all they achieve is to rally support against conservation and care of the environment.

That’s why it is so refreshing to see a real, working idea for protection of animals like this: In a show of creative and dynamic conservation, he Raincoast Conservation Society spent $1.35 million to buy out Bella Coola Guide Outfitters, which had the exclusive trophy hunting rights in the area known as the Great Bear Rainforest. They plan to of change the focus of the economy there from the trophy-hunting of large carnivores to conservation-based activities such as wildlife-viewing. The group also avoided the classic pitfall of funding their project with taxpayers money which simply causes resentment and bitterness amongst the less fortunate.

Now this idea, for once, might actually work. These guys will have some of my money.

Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card

Why ruin a good momentum... next on my iPod I had the last part of the Ender Wiggin saga (although Card has promised one more book "if he doesn't die first"). Children of the Mind continues seconds after Xenocide, the previous book, and indeed Orson Scott Card has said that logically they are one book in two parts. Where Xenocide constentrated much on Han Qing-jao and Han Fei-tzu, and their discovery of Jane, Children of the Mind concentrates on young Valentine and Peter, Ender's "children of the mind" and their quest to stop both Jane's destruction and the fleet that has come to destroy Lucitania.

And true enough, Children of the Mind is not really a book on it's own right - it wouldn't make much sense to read it without the three previous books, but then again if you've read the previous books it wouldn't make much sense not to read this one. There is more action in this one compared to Xenocide, but Card always leaves room for philosophical discussions which I enjoyed greatly. Everything is tied up so neatly in the end - very satisfying albeit sickly sweet.

However what I though of quaint in Xenocide - the planet of Path were everyone was Chinese and culture was Chinese - was starting to get puerile in Children of the Mind. So I can see that there are some people that might be very traditional and isolationist, even after thousands of years of colonising the galaxy - but no, every single planet we find is occupied by a single culture. Divine Wind, Japanse. Pasifica, Samoan. Of course Lucitania, Portugese. What, people never learn/want to mingle? I don't believe that for a second.

Still I can't deny it - Ender saga is a good one, and I really enjoyed all the books. So much so, in fact, that I think I'll have to move on the the parallel Shadow books just to keep up the regular dose.

Ho ho ho

Myself, Michelle and Gino decided to spread some Christmas spirit, and put up some Christmas decorations up in our cubicle. We planned this last week, and yesterday Michelle went and bought some lights and some shiny red balls that we wanted to hang above on the ceiling. So this morning we started putting everything up - it looked really pretty and all, but the first comment out of pretty much everyones mouth was "save some for us" or "where's our decoration". That was to me quite surprising - we had just casually planned some nice stuff in where we work, and suddenly it turned into a "oh, so we're not in your club, not good enough" competition. It was pretty soon sorted out but it left a strange aftertaste - was I so stupid that I didn't realise this would create some stupid us-them division... honestly I though no one else would even care when Michelle brought the idea up last week. But maybe because the decorations turned out to be so nice, everyone else became jealous. Oh well, we'll know better next year.

Christmas spirits were restored though at the latest in the evening when our manager came around and gave us all gift Visas (prepaid Visa cards) for our Christmas bonus. As a sum it's not of course that much, but as a gesture it was jolly nice.

Scary

Photo loaned from Today is a good day with Creative Commons licence. Flickr has also a group with a pool of photos which are worth a look.

It's weird to think that this happened only about 30 miles away from where we used to live in Bishop's Stortford. I have friends who had to be evacuated, I know people who woke up thinking it was literally the end of the wolrd and that they were going to die. Scary.

Sickie

What's the point of being sick if it happens at your own expense? Very conveniently I've been suffering from a cold the whole weekend, and I'll bet come tomorrow morning I'll be fine again and will be forced to go to work.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Well, that was sweet.

Very faithful to the book, of course. They had found good child actors to play the children, let alone the rest of the cast, and computer animations were good (though not excellent) and costumes and wardrobe (pun intended) were just superb. I have some minor complaints for I'm of course a purist, but I'll concentrate on the good bits here.

Firstly, they had added a bit of a background story for the children which I think worked very well. The movie starts with Germans bombing London and Pevensie children being sent away to the countryside to be safe. Peter, as the eldest, is told to keep the others safe, which of course he takes very seriously as does Susan, and that's a continuous theme throughout the movie. Because of this they have also changed the children's attitude towards the impending war between Aslan's and the Witch's troops - they have actually experienced war and don't want to have anything to do with it (it'll go away, of course). I thought that was a nice touch.

Then there were the beloved characters - Mr. Tumnus was done extremely well, both with the choice of the actor (James McAvoy) and the computer graphics with his faun legs. He looked exactly like you imagined, that you just want to run up to him and hug him and have tea with him and have a delightful chat. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver were great - the computer graphics here weren't that good as they were 100% animation - but the facial expressions together with the fantastic voice actors (Ray Winstone and Dawn French) made you forget all about pretty much instantly. Jadis, the White Witch, had been casted so well with Tilda Swinton - she has that cold and slightly otherworldly look about her. Her wardrobe was a bit bizarre to begin with, but in the end battle she had a full chain-mail gown that was breathtaking. She had also learned a very strange way to move that added to the creepiness of the character.

And then there was of course Aslan. And I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried a little when I saw him for the first time, as I loved him so much as a child. Here the computer graphics were flawless, and Liam Neeson as the voice of Aslan was a good match - there's the gentleness that you need for the character, as well the command. Other notable characters where the gorgeous Patrick Kake as Oreius, the centaur general and the minotaurs on the Witch's side which were done so lifelike I've never seen anything like it. And of course there was the battle scene, which in my mind wipes the floor with anything done in Lord of the Rings, and again I'm not ashamed to admit I cried pretty much all the way through it.

(And in case you want to hear my gripes - they were mainly the size of Jadis - they should have made her a meter taller as she wasn't human, Peter riding a unicorn - you don't ride unicorns, and I can't believe I'm saying this but I wanted to see some blood - in the whole battle there is not a drop of blood to keep the movie PG rated. "Peter, wipe your sword!" - what did he do, drool on it?)

If I hadn't got a little cold (again), I think I would have gone and seen it again already.

Narnia

Hell. Yeah.

First driving lesson

Sean just took me for a spin in his noisy but otherwise swanky car. It started well - I couldn't get the car to start up because I had flooded the engine... but Sean wasn't scared so we continued on and when I remembered how to start the engine properly we did a little drive around on the small streets around South Granville. Took me ten minutes to get used to the car and after that it was ok. Sean has promised me couple of more "lessons" before the test, preferably daylight, so I can get used to the car.

What worries me most are the slightly different rules they have here, with especially speed limits. I for example to the speed limit on the bridge to mean a "recommendation" like the square speed limit signs are in Finland - meaning I would have failed a test, there and then. I need to get back to my "Road Sense" book and go over the rules one more time.

Christmas movies

First it was three years of Lord of the Rings movies being released every Christmas, and now other movie makers have tapped into the audience that wants a magical Christmas. What the movie makers have also finally realised is how to get fans of old established works into the seats - they have started treating the original works with respect. Peter Jackson loved Lord of the Rings - and while we didn't always agree with everything I have to admit he had a vision and achieved what he set out to do. When I was a teenager I loved those books, I read them over and over again.

But even before that, my favourite books in the world were C. S. Lewis' Narnia books. Not only did I read the books million times over, all the games I played with my friends took place in Narnia with talking animals and all. So when I heard that movie was being made I have to admit I was excited - and even more so when I saw the fabulous looking trailer. And now the reviews have come in and critics seem to be unanimous - it's indeed everything it should be. Of course there is a lot of talk about the Christian ideals behind the books - but you see that never bothered me. As a child I had no idea - I didn't know the bible or the stories, nor did I realise the symbols - for me they were just stories. It can be debated what Lewis wanted to achieve with his books - but the truth is that they can be interpreted both ways. Christians of course want to see them as Christian books with stories of Jesus - but you can also see them (as I do) as stories about friendship, love, loyalty and growing up.

Lately Harry Potter movies have taken the some of that audience at Christmas - we saw the latest Potter movie Goblet of Fire last Friday. This is my favourite of the movies so far - it was very long, but very well adapted from the book, they had managed to capture everything essential. I had to go back though and read some chapters of the book the next day, as I guess there was just too much information to fit all in. But that's the thing about genre fans - if you're loyal to the original works and don't fix anything that wasn't broken, the fans will follow you to the ends of the earth. They will come and flock the theaters and they will buy the merchandise, and they will tell all their friends and relatives and make them do the same. And when the DVDs come out they will line up outside the stores to buy them too.

So of course we've got tickets to see the The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe tomorrow. And I can't remember the last time I was so excited about a movie.

Love and marriage

In so many ways Canada and Canadians are close to being Europeans, but then suddenly something comes that reminds me how far we actually are. The biggest difference I've come across is the attitude towards marriage.

It often starts with the question "Did you live together before you got married?". Once I was talking with a friend and I asked if she was planning to move together with her boyfriend of couple of years - and her answer was that she wanted at least a proposal before considering it, as otherwise if she gave in to him that easily he might never want to marry her. Apparently she had friends who moved in with her boyfriend and after that he didn't want to marry her again... It's strange, in Finland or England - can't talk for the rest of the Europe - people usually want to live together to find out if they want to get married (or spend the rest of their lives together) in the first place. It's not even a single person I've had this conversation with, but several women.

I came across it again today at yoga class. There are two new girls in the class that have been coming for couple of months ago now, I call them J-Lo and her friend because the other girl is a spitting image of Jennifer Lopez. Anyway, Jason was commenting today that Erica, one of our teachers, was going to India for few months - when J-Lo's friend immediately squealed "Oh, can be you bring me back a husband!". Now that's not the reaction that one usually gets when talking about India in an ashtanga class. The girls then started giggling and talking about how much they wanted husbands... I felt like I was in a middle of a Jane Austen novel. They are nice girls, but their priorities constantly surprise me.

A friend from work just got back from holiday in Russia and came back as a married woman - apparently she had met her old high school sweetheart and decided to get married. I guess whatever works for you.

Hung up

I had Madonna's new CD Confessions on the Dance Floor (yeah, I'm a long time fan) on my iPod this morning and I had severely restrain myself so I wouldn't start dancing on the street. This CD just might be the best thing Madonna has done, maybe ever. It's almost just like one track, one track flowing from one to another without much transition... all of them make my booty shake.

I finally did something I should have done ages ago but it's been too difficult. You remember I found out back in April that I needed to pass a road test to get my proper drivers licence... well, it has taken me this long to do something about it. I assume I would be legal to drive in Finland without a physical license as I have passed my test there - but Christmas holiday is as good deadline as any to get it finally done.

So. The test has been booked for 20th 8:30 AM and I'm not backing down on it. Luckily Sean (whose blog I finally added to our blogroll, together with Vahtikoira) has promised to help me with it - he's going to let me use his car and will even take me for couple of spins beforehand. I've had a license for, what, 13 years now - but still I'm feeling nervous... why is it. I'm quite confident that I'm a good driver so surely they should see that too.

Clouds

Just my luck - I'm sick as a dog for the only day that I actually have free for weeks on end... but come Monday morning the worst I'm feeling is tiredness... oh well. I should be glad of the little things.

There is also a cloud on my beautiful blue Mac loving sky. My little iBook has gradually been losing the use of it's AirPort card (I think) - first it was sluggish to get the network connection back after waking up (it would take like 5 minutes), then it started dropping it in the middle of a session, and today I haven't been able to get it to connect at all. Right now it's connected via an ethernet cable, so I'm thinking I've narrowed it down to the wireless connection. I'm planning to take it with me to work tomorrow - if I can connect it to the wireless network there, I'd say my router is busted, if not, the AirPort card probably is, in both cases the warranty should sort it out. I hope it's just the card - as if if I need to send the iBook away it's unlikely it'll get back before the holidays (which is in three weeks - eek!).

I have to admit, I'm a bit grumpy about this. I got a Mac because I didn't want to deal with any technology shit - now I'm forced in to a middle of an annoying is-it-or-isn't-it struggle... there's nothing I hate more (professionally and personally) than intermittent technology problems. If it doesn't work I can send it away to be repaired - but if it occasionally works it's next to impossible to debug, let alone convince someone else that it's not working.

To quote Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, "Every OS Sucks" (Thanks Sean!).

Blargh

Party yesterday was pretty good - in fact I don't know if I've ever been to a party as well organized as this one. Everything ran smooth as silk - food was aplenty, first some sushi, then the pasta bar opened, then cakes, fruit and cheese and biscuits. We all got $1000 in chips to play on the tables, roulette, Blackjack and poker - in the end of the evening everyone could buy tickets $500 each that would then be entered into a draw to win prizes. We didn't win anything but fun was had.

Today I've been nursing a start of a cold. First I thought it was just a bit of sniffles but it's almost nine now and I'm still no better, so I think it's an honest cold. Serves me right for running around in strappy sandals in the cold... So Dragon has been playing a game and I've been laying on the sofa, napping and reading a book - Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell that everyone keeps talking about - eating chocolate and drinking tea. I just hope it doesn't last for long.

Sooo gay

I finally managed to get my lazy ass to the hairdressers. I chose the closest one to us that looked fancy, and booked an appointment two days ago. And I don't think I've ever been anywhere as gay before - of course, being in the heart of gay village all the hairdressers were male and quite obviously gay including mine. He is called David, and he was good - still, there's no one like Lulu who I had while living in Bishop's Stortford. David understood though what I've been trying to explain for a while to other hairdressers - condition of my hair, with especially the ends being dry and in bad condition (they've still got colour from years back). Most hairdressers are just shy of cutting too much length off - but he suggested cutting an inch off which was much appreciated. He also wasn't shy of saying that my hair is mousy (instead of the "good base colour" others have used) - and indeed, after year and a half (I think) of not colouring my hair, the colour is back on. I got red low-lights all over and my hair now looks very healthy and shiny (and that inch made such a difference). So I'm quite happy to go back to David when the time comes.

Now, it's time for a nap, and later on it's the company Christmas party. The theme is Las Vegas (baby!) and there will be some company paid gambling of course along with free drinks and prizes. Looking forward to it, actually.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

Between the stories about murdering maniacs I read a piece of wonderful fluff - a book for "young readers" called Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. The book was recommended to me by a friend, and it's a story about four 16 year old girls, best friends, who for the first time ever spend their summer apart. They vow to keep in touch no matter what, and they do this by sharing a pair of jeans - magical traveling pants that against all odds fit all the four girls perfectly.

It's actually a very charming little book - all girls have different personalities and different problems, all very teen age-y but handled in a very nice way. It's a typical coming of age book with trials and tribulations, and in the end everything is (almost) back to normal, everyone just that little bit wiser. Brashares' writing style is easy, funny and witty, I love the way it made me giggle in unexpected places ("Tibby, you are crazy," Carmen said. "Those pants are in love with you. They want you for your body and your mind.").

And that's really all - a bit of a laugh, a bit a sniffle in the end and soon forgotten. Perfect fluff.

Along Came a Spider by James Patterson

Continuing on with James Patterson's books, and I finally managed to read an Alex Cross book. Along Came a Spider is the first one in the series, and is a story about an evil deranged kidnapper who kidnaps two children of hight profile families to make himself famous. Alex Cross is a homicide detective with a Ph.D. in psychology, a real hunk with adorable children and no wife, so no wonder he's seduced by a brilliant beautiful FBI detective Jezzie Flanagan who is also working on the case.

This book, like promised, is much better than 1st to Die - but similar elements bothered me about this one too. I thought the plot was really clever and well built - but the characters were just unbelievable. I like a good romance as much as the next girl, but come on - I want some kind of a build up. Not "I really felt I could talk to her, trust her like I hadn't trusted anyone in a long time" in one conversation - but building the trust and giving the reader some basis to believe that too. In other words: show, don't tell. And on several occasions things like that just happened - just stating in one sentence what the deal was (like how much he loved his kids, but then without a thought or a word would disappear to a romantic holiday with his lover for days on end), almost like Patterson didn't want to go through the trouble of showing what was happening so he just said it instead. It reminds me of what Katri of Kirjailijaelämää wrote some time ago - that it is much easier to let the actors deal with how the situation is conveyed to the audience instead of having to write every little nuance in words - it's like Patterson is writing a screenplay, not a book (and I have to add at this point that I quite enjoyed the film version of 1st to Die what I watched couple of weeks back - it worked much better than the book because of just that).

Another thing that bothered me was the huge deal and the fanfare Patterson makes about Alex being black. It's partly probably because I've been living in Vancouver for a year where race absolutely does not matter, and "mixed couples" are an everyday thing. But the way he wallows in the fact that this black guy had done so well but was so much hindered with all these white folks, and how dating this blond white woman was like the biggest taboo and what was everyone thinking when they saw them... After a while it just started to annoy me - and I'm not saying he's not writing about real issues, I'm just saying that he likes to make a big deal about "minority issues", first it was women in 1st to Die and now it's blacks in this one. I sincerely hope he eases off the issue in the later books... I would just like to deal with people as individuals, not categorized by the race or gender.

Having said all that, I did mostly enjoy the book and I always wanted to know what was happening next. And I am planning to read more in the future - but for now, next genre books I'm getting my hands on are from P.D. James, Minette Walters and Patricia Cornwell who have all new books out for the Christmas market.