New toy, oh yes

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. The cheapo DVD player that I got after the old expensive one died about year and a half ago has gone to meet it's maker too. Year and a half - not an awful lot of time for a piece of electronics, but then again I pretty much expected something of this sort so it doesn't exactly make me angry. Slightly annoyed, yes, but it just means I get to buy a new toy.

Funny thing (to me anyway) is that on this side of the Atlantic, multi-region DVD players are almost unheard of. In fact, most Americans are shocked when they hear that DVDs have regions and that they wouldn't be able to play European DVDs even if they wanted (and they mostly don't). So finding one is not as trivial as one might think - mostly because multi-region capability is not advertised.

I'm picking up a new one probably tomorrow from Futureshop, it's LG LDA-530 and it's both multi-region (capable) and plays DivX too. Our current main DVD player (the lovely Sony HDD DVR) is of course region 1 only, but I've come to accept that two DVD players seems to be the only way to achieve everything we need. And playing DivX is very very handy and it's probably the most used feature on the old dead player and was a must when selecting the new one. I'll let you know how I get on.

Bad day

Ah well, there are these too. It's not really worth getting into, except you know how sometimes just annoying/depressing/stupid things all happen at the same time? And you just gotta tough it out.

Back

And we're back in rainy Vancouver (despite the weather warnings, it didn't rain at all in Seattle).

For quite a long time I gave up planning anything for weekends, as something at work would always come up for Dragon... but now since we've been living pretty normal weekends-free life for about six months, I started planning again. I'd love to do something on the weekends, I'd love to experience something new - we're in a new continent and there's so much so see here and I started looking forward to it.

And then, like a slap in the face, on Friday Dragon got a call saying that he needed to be at work on Sunday. I can't believe it, so many months without any extra work, and then on the one weekend when we've planned something they strike back. Almost like saying to me "you may think he's yours, but look, we tell him to jump and that's what he does". So instead of spending the Sunday taking easy and touristing around Seattle, we had to wake up at some god-forsaken time and head home early so we could be here for his meeting. Sometimes I despair. Honestly, sometimes it's so hard. I love to plan and I love to dream, and that's when disappointments hit you the worse.

Sleepy in Seattle

(Heh, ain't I funny. I bet they've never heard that one before.)

Anyway, long day from early morning in Vancouver to late evening in Seattle. We met Max Barry though and he was pretty awesome. He was just as funny as his books, and a really nice guy - it was an honor to meet him. I really need to get to bed now, so I'll leave you with some photos.

Tripping

After reading Company last week I was reading Max Barry's blog when I discovered that he is on a book tour this week, and will be in Seattle tomorrow. So though occurred that it would be quite simple to drive down there for the weekend, check out the city and attend the reading in the evening... we figured it would be fun so that's what we're doing.

I just picked up the rental car so we can leave early-ish tomorrow morning. Here's my tip for renting a car - do it last minute. Especially with smaller rental places have fairly small fleet of cars, and if you book late (I booked the car this morning) and choose a small model, they most often have run out of small cars by the time you get there and have to upgrade your car into a bigger one. So I'm paying rental for a mid-sized car, but got myself an electric blue PT Cruiser! I'm so ready to hit the road.

There's hope yet

Last night was surreal.

Abir had invited us to a local pub to celebrate the Scottish Robbie Burns day, there was going to be a live band and generally merriment - so we went. Firstly, it was an Irish pub. When we came in there were already lots of happy people and music playing (apparently we had just missed An Ode to Haggis), and naturally lot of men in kilts. Only not all of them Scottish, there were quite a few Irish kilts and outfits too, with plain colours and shamrocks. And the band was playing mostly Irish music.

First I just couldn't believe my eyes - everyone was mixing and matching the two cultures freely, and enjoying themselves immensely while doing it. Most people present of course didn't know the difference, and I don't claim to be an expert of this matter either. But in UK, this would have been a riot and a bloodbath - assuming of course that you would have gotten the people under the same roof in the first place. So initially I was just flabbergasted that they would dare to do this, but soon it changed to enjoyment and happiness - the band was really good. They had also some highland dancers, and a young boy who played the bagpipe - most amazing bagpipe performance I've ever seen: he was mixing in some (old school good) Metallica there between the traditional tunes, just fabulous.

The thing is, I always thought it was a good thing how in UK everyone had their own strong national identities. How they were proud as peacocks for being Welsh or Scottish or Irish, how I thought it was good to have strong connections with your roots. However the only thing that creates in the long run is Us and Them mentality, segregation and animosity, and just makes generally getting along a lot more difficult.

So maybe the only hope really is the new land, where people really can start over again. Where all cultures can be embraced and celebrated and shared - not used as weapons and excuses for personal insecurities. These people were there to have a good time - some of them had Scottish roots but most of them not, all were ready to experience and accept everything given. Young children, teens, thirty-somethings, middle-agers and the pensioners: dancing and clapping and singing. I'll take this any day to protest marches and guns and violence and armed police on the streets and bloodshed.

There's a limit to what I can take in in one night though. By the time they started celebrating Australia day (which is today) and singing Tie me kangaroo down and Waltzing Mathilda it was most definitely time to go home.

Too little of the good thing

Sometimes you have to lose something to really value it. And it's not like I didn't value yoga before - just that taking a break for Christmas (and the jet-lag, and the cold, and the food poisoning) affected me more than I could have predicted. I was nervous, irritated (just ask Dragon) and had trouble sleeping (and I never have trouble sleeping). And most of all, I missed the practice, missed how it made me feel.

But hopefully all my misfortunes are now behind me (my toothache hasn't gotten worse, and I'm grateful for that). Last night I went to Jason's advanced class, and looks like a lot of other regulars have got back to their routine too as there were lots of us oldies in the class I haven't seen in ages. I also had the first outing for my new Lululemon eco mat to replace my old faithful that has started to peel - these new mats are not only biodegradable but they have a textured surface which makes them stickier than your average stickie. I still need to figure out how to dispose my old PVC biohazard... I asked Kristin who promised to find out. And I give full thumbs up for my new mat - some people who sweat more than me say that it's still not sticky enough, but it seems pretty perfect for me (albeit it still smells a bit funny).

Anyway, the practice. A bit more intimate today because the class was smaller, probably due to the elections, but some really good energy in the room. I felt strong again and there was no pain in my wrist, breath was good and it was just a really good practice. I've been thinking about balancing poses a lot lately - mainly because I suck at them. It's been something I've been expecting to become better in time, but there seems to be very little, if any, progress with them. I'm not quite sure why that is - is it lack of concentration or core strength? I'm continuing to work with both.

Company by Max Barry

At Zephyr Holdings, no one has ever seen the CEO. The beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else, but does no apparent work. One of the sales reps uses relationship books as sales manuals, and another is on the warpath because somebody stole his donut.

This book made me giggle even though I hadn't read it yet. And it made me giggle when I was reading it, for sure. I remember when I was reading Max Barry's previous book Jennifer Government I was wondering if he was able to pull off his writing style for the whole book (which he was) so with this book I was wondering if he was going to be able pull off another one like that. And yes, he is. Company is very well written with laugh-out-loud dialog and (dare I say it?) realistic, likable characters. I really took liking to the main character Jones, and generally too the characters are much nicer than in JG, and the evil assholes like John Nike are blissfully absent.

Company is familiar to anyone who reads Dilbert (except I don't think Scott Adams would be capable of writing anything this good that goes on for over 300 pages), and in the same way anyone who's ever worked in an office, really. It's hilarious and it makes you want to read bits out loud and laugh, but at the same time it's scary and painful in it's familiarity. Since the crucial plot twist actually happens really early in the book, I can't really say more about that - but that quote should really be enough to wet your appetite if it's your type of book.

Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card

Continuing on with Ender, now I'm on the the parallel Shadow saga that tells the stories of Bean and other children in Ender's legendary Dragon army. Even more than that, Ender's Shadow is actually a parallel book to Ender's Game - the events take place roughly at the same time roughly in the same place but it's a story of Bean, one of Ender's friends from Battle School.

And Bean's story is most definitely worth telling, and in many ways this book is better than Ender's Game: Card is now a much more mature writer and the despite the familiarity of the events it's an entirely different book to the Game. In fact, for some reason this book had a huge effect on me: I never knew how much I loved the character of Ender before in this book Bean starts to pick him apart. As said, this book follows the story of Bean, the supernaturally intelligent small kid from the streets of Rotterdam. Bean sees the events from a very different perspective: where Ender is a natural and he instinctively does the right thing, Bean analyses everything rationally and jumps into logical conclusions. But unlike every other kid in Battle School, Bean doesn't love Ender: he's jealous and suspicious of him, until it becomes clear that Ender is needed more than he is. But even then, Bean is the only one with his superior intelligence who spots Ender's mistakes and fixes them for him... and this is perhaps the thing that was affecting me so badly. Even though before Ender's perfectness annoyed me, it was even more terrible in this book to realize that Ender wasn't perfect after all - what a mind-fuck. Just an outstanding book.

So after listening to the book I was about to run out to the rain and immediately go and buy the rest of the Shadow saga, when I listened to the epilogue Card had on the audiobook. He actually says he believes the audiobook is the best format for his books - in his opinion it's the perfect immersion media where the reader can concentrate on the content even better than when reading the book from an actual book. Whether it's the best media is I guess up to the individual reader/listener but I can say this: the audiobook implementations by Audio Renaissance of Card's books have been superb, the narrators are absolutely fantastic. So what the hell, why not - I'll get the rest of them as audiobooks too... can't really go wrong with them.

Otherwise good

Other than the budding toothache, it's been a nice day. I got an appointment with my own dentist for 1st of February, so I hope I can hang in there until that (she only works two days a week - I want her job) - otherwise I'll have to go for an emergency appointment.

We went out to the Honorary Consulate again to vote - this time there was a lot more people. We bumped into a Finnish girl who was from Toronto and working there in a Finnish newspaper and she wanted to interview us as expatriates who still vote. She seemed really nice so I invited her and her friend to join us - we were having lunch with Timo, my new Finnish colleague, and his wife Sirpa and their one-year old daughter Ella. We had a very nice lunch in a very nice Thai restaurant, talked a lot about living abroad and Canadians and I found it just really great. I don't really miss Finns, but still talking to these people in my native language, hearing their thoughts and about their life was something very reassuring.

Afterwards Timo and Sirpa continued on with their Saturday and Emma (the reporter girl) expressed an interest in buying some shoes - and you don't need to ask me twice. We took her to Vancouver's own John Fluevog store on Granville who were having a "Renew your soul for up to 60%" sale and while there I just had to buy a pair renew my soul too (Urban Angel - Whitney) - honestly best fitting pair of shoes I've had in ages. Now only if it stopped raining for a while I could actually use them.

Rest of the day I've been spending on the sofa reading Max Barry's latest masterpiece Company. It's one of those books that would be a helluva lot funnier if it wasn't so damn close to reality. If you loved his previous book Jennifer Government, you should get this book no doubt... just check out the first chapter if you don't believe me.

Great

Oh, somewhere somebody's laughing. Jet-lag, cold and food poisoning are obviously not enough for me, as this morning I woke up with a toothache.

Nothing much

I'm sure you've heard enough about my bodily functions by now, so I'll just quickly say that I was feeling a bit better today so I went to work. Not hundred percent, I only managed to a little bit of bread and a banana today, but I'm getting there.

Earlier this month Vancouver was hoping for a new record... a record for rain. We'd had 27 days of consecutive rain, and only needed one more day to beat 53-year old record - and of course on the 28th day it didn't rain. It also didn't rain today, so I took the opportunity and walked home from work - it's also getting noticeably lighter out, so it even light outside. And it just reminded me on how lucky I am, the beach with the mountains is just breathtakingly beautiful. It's still bloody cold though, my ears and my butt were freezing by the time I got home. And while I say cold, I do realize the record cold weather Finland and Russia have been enduring and will have to tell you that my bloody cold nowadays means about +5 C with a moderate wind... anyway, it felt cold.

Anyway, at home I wrapped myself in blankets and decided to spend some quality time with my TV. I finally watched Trekkies that my friends have been talking about for ages, and I quite enjoyed it - maybe not as much as I should have had. Maybe it's one of those things that you always think you do better than anyone else, yes I'm a fan but surely I don't look like that to other people? Someone who especially stuck in my mind was Gabriel C. Koerner (possibly because he reminds me of people I know), the 14-year old geek whose collection and convention trip forms big part of the movie - so I googled him and found out what he had been up to since. He ended up doing something he seemed to love in Trekkies - nowadays he's earning a living doing 3D art and visual effects for movies and TV, he even received a nomination for 2003 Visual Effects Society Award Nominee for Outstanding Models & Miniatures in a Television for our very own Battlestar Galactica mini-series. I just love happy endings.

Weird Dragon

OK, I have to pick up kolibri's gauntlet and list my five weird habits as per the rules of the meme. Drum roll please:

1. I strongly dislike wearing shirts. I don't know if it is my Carribean genes, but I hate wearing shirts. They chafe and irritate my skin. Thus when you meet me you will notice that I keep tugging the collars of my shirts, and I wear really light ones made of super-soft materials. But at home I get rid of them if at all able.

2. I quote the holy bible. This is not that unusual of course, except I am a hard-core skeptic. There is just lots of cool stuff in that book to quote, even if I am not that keen on the overall moral message.

3. I will memorize incredibly long passages of my favourite books. To achieve this, I will compulsively re-read my favourite books until I know them by heart. This unsettles kolibri a lot. Dune is especially bad case, but there are dozens of others.

4. I talk to the weights in the gym. I tell 100 kg that it weights only 20 kg. If I repeat it often enough it makes the weights feel lighter.

5. I cannot sleep when I am designing a new game. I have to systematically tire myself out first with books, excercise, movies and other games. Otherwise I will stay awake going through the detailed design of the game throughout the night, without being able to sleep for a moment.

I will not torture others with this. Meme seems to have gone through the blogistan already.

For fraks sake

Just when I've recovered from the cold, I find myself with a mild-ish food poisoning. I say mild, as in I was vomiting only for couple of hours (instead of all night)... but suffice to say I've felt like shit today. Fortunately at some point I managed to get hold of my my knight in shining armor, my darling husband who left work early to bring me some food. Apparently after a food poising the worst thing you can eat is something sugary (so no wonder a handful of frozen raspberries made me even sicker), but one should drink a lot of water and eat white bread... and of course we were all out. Not that I feel like eating, I actually feel like hanging myself as food poisoning is pretty much the worst thing I can happen to me, an emetophobic (maybe even worse thing would be a food poisoning while traveling, maybe in a plane).

Angry, scared and sick. Wonderful.

Weird facts about me

Outi hits me with a meme... I need to identify five weird habits I have, and then pass the buck to five other people. Like her, I had to think about this for a while - is it that I'm not that weird (right!) or that I'm so used to my weird habits that I don't know what's "normal" anymore. In any case, here are some facts some people might find weird about me.

1. Like chickens, when I'm in a stressful situation I become very tired, start yawning, and if I'm at home I'll often fall asleep. This can be a bit embarrassing, especially if I'm doing something important, like giving a presentation or in an interview.
2. I sometimes make excuses that I have to do something important at home, like take care of paperwork or laundry, and leave early from work or skip hobbies - only to come home and watch TV. Not that I do this on purpose, I just come home and feel tired and park my ass on the sofa. And feel really guilty afterward.
3. I have a strict towel regime. We have twelve towels, which I've (mentally) grouped into three sets of four, of which only one set can be in use at a time. It pisses me off to no end that Dragon takes fresh towels when they are not in rotation because it ruins my plans. I try not to complain about this (too much) and I've tried not to care, but the truth is I still get very irritated by it.
4. I love routine. Nothing gives me more feeling of security than knowing what happens on what days, knowing it will be the same week after week. That's why I love regular TV-shows for example - the anchor me down the routine. Doing certain things on certain days, always planning everything days in advance and I actually don't like surprises.
5. One of the worst things that I'm afraid of is disappointing people that know me. For example, I don't like receiving gifts that much - I'm always afraid I'll disappoint the giver if I don't like the gift. I'm sometimes afraid of speaking up because I'm afraid I'll break some kind of illusion people have of me as an intelligent witty individual.

I would like to know weird habits that Henri, Janne, Sean and Woja have, and I'd also like to know what weird habits Dragon is willing to share with the world.

Amerikkalainen tyttö by Monika Fagerholm

Amerikkalainen tyttö (The American Girl) is first of Monika Fagerholm's books I've read, and it was given to me as a Christmas present by my mom. Well, my mom advertised it to me as a mystery novel (and that's a good way to sell a book me), so I picked it up on Sunday while recovering from my cold expecting something entertaining and light.

Well, it wasn't either. No, that's not quite right - it was entertaining as in it kept my interest and it was captivating, but it wasn't pleasant. Fagerholm writes very well, especially about women and their relationships, but everyone is so unhappy. It's a story about death - it starts out by telling how Eddie, the American girl dies in a small town, followed by her boyfriend who commits a suicide. Two girls set about finding out what really happened and if Eddie committed a suicide or if she was murdered - and they do find something as other one of the girls commits a suicide herself couple of years afterwards. All this is told in the first couple of chapters, and then the story starts all over and fleshes out the events and the characters.

There are hardly no normal people in this book, they are all weird, and why wouldn't they be, they all come from bizarre circumstances. Yet what strikes a cord with me are the girls and the women (men are just... non-expectional), describing them, their emotions and feelings is what Fagerholm does best. There's something magical about two teenage girls' friendship that she captures just right - intense love and feeling of incompleteness without the other.

I understand Fagerholm has been writing this book for seven years, and that this is only the first half of a whole book. I don't quite understand why though - this is a book on it's own right, it tells a complete story with a start, middle and ending that clears up all the questions set in the beginning. In the end new characters are introduced almost as an epilogue but with the words "to be continued" - if it ever will, we'll see.

Dragon and the clouds of war

War drums are beating loudly in the Middle-East once again, and this time it is Iran that is targeted by the Western powers. The set-up is deceptively simple: Iran says it is pursuing peaceful nuclear energy, while the West suspects that Iran wants to get into the nuclear armament race. US and its allies want Iran to give up the nuclear program, and are calling UN Security Council together to discuss it. This follows the build-up to Iraq war pretty closely, and one might think the end result will be the same.

Except Iran is not Iraq, and this is not 2002.

Iran is located in mountainous region where heavy tanks are of little use. While the Iranian army would of course be crushed by US military might, the resistance in this forbidding place would be much stiffer, with Russian-made Sunburst missiles and suicide squads.

And then there is the oil. Iran is the second-largest oil producer in OPEC.

While Iran does not supply oil to US directly, the world’s oil supply is incredibly tight, so losing the Iranian oil would easily push the crude barrel to the catastrophic 100$+ and lead to worldwide economic collapse, as there is no spare capacity to replace the four million barrels of oil Iran produces. In addition, Iran has made huge oil deals with China recently, and the oil-hungry Sleeping Dragon is unlikely to let their vital energy to slip to US companies without protest. With the world’s utter dependence and addiction to oil, the war could herald the beginning of the long-prophesized energy wars. We have no transportation, medicine, agriculture, plastics, clothing or modern weaponry without cheap oil. China knows this full well and is unlikely to give up its dreams of global dominance without fight.

But all this might not matter, for US is lead by the most war-like of all its presidents, who believes he is on a mission from God. This has allowed him to rake up more foreign debt than all the other presidents combined, most of it being owed to China. Looking at Bush’s track record, it is hard to imagine that he would let this opportunity to launch another war to slip by. And what about the Iranians? They have backed themselves into corner. They have nothing to lose, and their leaders are at least as fanatical as Bush is.

On one side are the mad Mullahs of Iran. On the other side is Rapture Christian Bush…

Help!

Pieni ja kiero

It's a saying I use with my friends, meaning small and twisted, especially when talking about the world - but somehow it sounds better in Finnish.

And just to prove this, following happened at work. Pris was referring a friend's resume to our company, and was asking me to help her to pronounce her friend's surname... who just happened to be Finnish. So I read his resume - and he had worked in a company few of my friends have worked for, so I texed Chu to find out if she knew this guy... And true enough, they'd been to University together, and she knew him from work too. And now this guy lives in Vancouver, and today started working in the same company than I do.

I mean, what exactly are the odds of that happening? Maybe I should start playing lotto.

Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

I got Amy Tan's Bonesetter's Daughter for my iPod for the Christmas trip, for all those hours in the plane when I was going to be too tired to read but too awake to sleep (audiobooks are the best thing for this - and Joan Chen is a wonderful narrator for this book). Only later my mom reminded me that I actually own the book already, but had lent it to my mom and then forgotten about it... Never mind, it's a good book anyway.

Amy Tan writes pretty much about one thing - difficult relationships between Chinese mother and her American-born daughter, and that's what Bonesetter's Daughter is about too. Her writing is very formulaic, but she writes very well and her books are always interesting, so it doesn't really matter. This story is about Ruth and her difficult Chinese mother LuLing who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and how the daughter finds her mother's memoirs and learns to know her mother in a different light.

This might be my favourite of Amy Tan's books, but I think that it affects me especially well at this point in my life instead of few years back. Ruth's desperation with her strange mother, with LuLing losing herself in her illness and Ruth's struggle to understand her mother are all so beautifully and touchingly described. The story opens up layer by layer as we learn about the person LuLing has been, and so much more heartbreaking it is to see what she has become. Tan also writes very touchingly about the gap between the mother and daughter, yet at the same time it's quite clear that it's the only way that's possible for these to people to live, that the differences between them are two great, and too much has been said and done. How two very different people can both love each other, and yet hurt each other.

So, a wonderful touching book. Mix of light relationship fluff, historical intrigue and adventure, and real touching issues.

Better

I tried to take it easy yesterday, but as we had invited friends over, I had to help Dragon out with tidying the apartment and preparing everything. Evening was a success and five minutes after the guests had left I was fast asleep. For the first time in days I slept without waking up a single time, and this morning I actually feel almost human.

Another sickie

This is one nasty cold. It doesn't feel that bad at ones, but then it just completely decks you if you try to do anything. I break a sweat when I go to the bathroom, and emptying the dishwasher completely exhausts me. So I've been sleeping and watching TV. And that ends my report from the cold-landia. Back to you.

Giving up

So I ignored my mom's good advice (and my sister's) and went to work today. Only to feel so miserable that I left before ten and now I'm off to bed.

Life ain't easy

As with Dragon, this cold doesn't really hit you head on. It kind of circles around you and pokes you with a sharp stick... so basically I'm feeling fairly miserable but not quite sick enough to justify a sickie. My nose is blocked and I feel like my head is wrapped in cotton, but that's about it. In addition my shoulders are so sore from Monday's yoga I can't lift my arms properly, or hug Dragon, or hook my bra without cringing from pain. And now in the evening I'm starting to experience some sinus pains - I don't like to use nasal decongestants as for me they just seem to increase the pain.

I'm just hoping tomorrow I'll be either properly sick or properly well. I imagine either will happen and I'll have to go to work again.

Half a yoga

After waking up at 5 am and going to work by 7 am yesterday, I was home at five. I wasn't feeling to bad, so I decided it would be a perfect time to get to a yoga class - maybe the jet-lag and the problems with sleeping would disappear with a good practice. So I packed my bag and went... it was really nice to see all the familiar faces, hugging and kissing everyone and hearing the latest news.

Practice was rocking: the breath was like a dream, I was feeling strong, sweating beautifully... until about mid-way when I suddenly started feeling very weak and ill. Dragon has been ill with cold for about four days and even took a sickie yesterday, so I was sure I was getting what he's having. I went to child's pose, keeping the breath, joined the class at Hanumanasana, did a few vinyasas, put my jumper on, did couple of forward bends... but I still wasn't feeling any better so I just spent rest of the class in Savasana breathing deeply. As my teachers keep saying: "As long as you're breathing, you're still doing yoga".

And in many ways breathing is what I've missed the most about yoga. Breathing was one of my true discoveries last year, or the importance of it. I now know that if I'm feeling anxious, I'm not breathing properly - I'm not saying I can prevent a panic attack by breathing (but it certainly helps quite a bit) - but also breathing properly makes me feel better in any situation. When feeling tired or sluggish, when I have a bad posture on the computer, breathing deeply helps.

After class Jason told me not to worry about it. I went home and ate a bit, and went to bed. And slept like a baby, a normal nights sleep, waking up at a normal time. Yep, yoga can cure anything. (Except the common cold. I think I'm definitely having Dragon's cold now.)

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

I'm trying to keep up with the past year's most talked about books, and in fantasy genre it's definitely been Susanna Clarke's curiously named first novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. First of all, this is a heavy book - not only physically (and it is huge, as big paperback it's too heavy to read in bed) - it's also quite heavy in the language it uses with long and frequent footnotes breaking up the narrative. It's also a book one needs to read with thought and for hours at a time, I think I would have given up if I hadn't had two whole days to read it when I was sick before Christmas. Having said all that, I think it was definitely worth the effort in the end, it's an original book with a unique way of telling a story. Clarke has managed to create a book that is difficult to define in many ways, but she can stay true to her style till right in the end which is not by any means a small feat.

The story takes place in Napoleonic times England (and Europe) when magicians have resigned to researching magic instead of performing it, as since the disappearance of Raven King magic has slowly stopped working. In this setting a magician called Mr. Norrell rises out who can actually perform real magic and who quickly becomes the center of all attention in London high society as the only magician in the country, until he takes one Jonathan Strange as his pupil. There are two concurrent plots that are loosely connected but in the end it's difficult to say which one is the main plot and which the side one - or maybe those definitions don't hold for this book either.

It's in many ways a very clever book and it's no wonder it's got everyone huffing and puffing about it. I'd say the attention is certainly warranted, with the disclaimer that the style is not for everyone. The literary references are unfortunately lost to me, but as a Jane Austen -fan I can certainly enjoy the authentic writing style, etiquette and characters. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book - but it might be worth reading it a bit in the book shop/library before committing to it.

Still lagging

I'm starting to get annoyed with this stupid jet-lag. Another promising day went to the dogs - we woke up around five which meant I was ready to be hang dry by five in the afternoon. So I dozed off while watching TV few times... well, I just woke up, really. And now I should go back to bed and be ready to work tomorrow... right.

Duties

Despite Dragon's impending cold, we got out this morning to do our (moral) duties as Finnish citizens - we went to vote in the Presidential elections at Honorary Consulate of Finland. It's a small place, only one room in an office shared with (I would guess) Honorary Consulate of Sweden. The office is in a big office building that was obviously closed on a Saturday, but after trying to open the front door, an elderly guard that had been sitting in the lobby came to the door and asked if we were there to vote - to which we replied "yes", to which he said "No siinä tapauksessa tervetuloa!" and let us in.

Funny thing is, we went to vote in the London Embassy several times, and there were always lot of people there - but never any interaction. It was just like in Finland, Finns came there to do their duty and that was it and there was no reason to smile or say anything to anyone else as it wasn't their business anyway. There weren't many people here, but the atmosphere was completely different - a man was leaving when we came in who warmly greeted us, and we also politely greeted the lady who was voting just before us. The Honorary Vice Consul herself who was taking our votes merrily chatted with us and thanked us for coming. And there was nothing forced about it, it all seemed very natural. What is it - the different culture he that has rubbed off to people? In any case, I quite like it.

We might have done some shopping too, but Vancouver was being it's rainy self so we came home instead... I had also planned to go to the beach to take some photos afterwards (my new camera actually captures the essence of the clouds here, they are like nowhere else) but it was far to wet for that and I have a sneaking suspicion my glamorous assistant wasn't in the mood for standing in the rain holding an umbrella for me. So instead we spent the day watching the rest of Studio Julmahuvi and Mennen Tullen. I have to say that I actually preferred Mennen Tullen - I'm a sucker for detective drama (which, despite being comedy, Mennen Tullen was), but also because Studio Julmahuvi suffers a bit from the bane of all sketch series: repetition. Not as much as many others, but still. Mennen Tullen was much more complete and compact - fantastic story and good implementation.

I love my new camera

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

The fictional "autobiography" Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden has been much debated - praised by some for it's authenticity and tact, and hated by some because of it's inaccuracies. I have to say I really enjoyed it, as a beautiful love story - and I was inspired to check Amazon for actual geisha biographies which I'll probably order once I get though the pile of books I got as a Christmas present. Before that, I don't really know which parts of the story are fact and which are fiction - the dramatic love story quite obviously with it's slightly anti-climatic ending was... well, unrealistic, but there are times when it doesn't matter. The story is about a young girl who gets sold into slavery, into an okiya where she trains as a geisha. There is, of course, a man Sayuri falls in love with and, of course, love is forbidden in this world and she struggles through thick and thin to achieve her goal.

I though the book was beautifully and sensitively written, and it sure does sound authentic - there was a lot of detail that was clearly well researched. The story was gripping with some epic sense of good versus evil with good triumphing and some unrequited love - and I was just in a mood for a story like this. For someone looking for some relatively light well written fiction this book comes highly recommended.

In between

Yesterday I was comfortably nowhere, but today I'm in between.

We got to bed around 1 am last night, I woke up again at 3 am, but managed to get back to sleep and didn't wake up until 6 am. Which is pretty much when I normally wake up, so I got up and have been up ever since. I'm quite surprised how easy this has been for me - last time it was so horrible but now it's been literally one day of jet-lag. Dragon isn't as lucky - he's so tired he almost fell asleep on his feet while we were at Abir's celebrating Laura's birthday.

It's amazing how much time it takes to tidy up the apartment, and how little time it takes to mess it up again. So I've been unpacking and doing laundry, but it has been hindered a bit by the arrival of a new toy. I don't feel like going to bed at all, but I really really must. Work tomorrow.

Home sweet...

It's good to be back home.

Today we've been jet-lagging - I woke up at 2 am, got back to sleep at 5 am and woke up again at 11 am (I'm also ashamed to say we took a nap - something I couldn't do on this holiday, and what is a holiday without a nap!?!). And I'm not quite sure where the rest of the day went - I've been watching some documentaries on TV and in the evening we watched some Studio Hulmahuvi on DVD... we went outside in the evening but it was raining so we quickly came home.

I'm stiff all over - yesterday's travel went pretty much as well as one could hope for, but it still wasn't fun. The ten hour flight from Europe is really awful: we got seats next to an exit which seemed like an excellent place, but it was also very cold and drafty so it was difficult to get a position that was both comfortable and warm. I slept quite a lot - I watched half of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but when I became sleepy I didn't see any reason to stay awake (is it worth watching again?). The worst bit came when I dreamt that we had arrived home, only to wake up and realize there were still several hours left, now that was a disappointment.

On Vancouver airport we cleared the passport checks quickly - Canadians are sensible people - and I left Dragon to watch for our luggage while I went to get a trolley. Now before we were together Dragon was stopped at customs all the time (there's something about him that rings the bells with custom officials), but since we started traveling together we never got stopped. And while I was getting the trolley, a customs official had spotted Dragon in his granny killer boots and over-sized leather jacket and was asking him questions, so I had to run back to assure the official of his respectability. The guy asked us questions about where we were, where we worked and although he seemed satisfied he scribbled some mysterious characters on our customs card and then wished us "welcome back".

Just what we didn't need - if we were now stopped at customs and had to open up our suitcases and explain everything in there, we'd be here for hours. There was also a sniffer dog in the hangar - he expressed a mild interest towards our salmiakki bag but continued on, a lady close by had something more interesting: the dog sniffed her bag for a long time and then sat down next to it looking really proud, and got a treat from his handler, and the lady got mysterious characters on her customs card too. We had to wait for my suitcase for a long time, I was already starting to hope that it wouldn't arrive and we'd have one less bad to check at the customs, but it finally did and we left for the gates. Very matter of factly I handed the card over to the official who smiled and waved us along! Relief! Content-wise I think we would have been OK as I don't think we went over any limits, but it would have been painful otherwise.

And I'd just like to say that I love my bed. The sheets are soft and it firm and soft in just right quantities. I think I have a date with it, just now.

Dragon has landed

Back home once more. Now I just need to stay awake until the evening. If I yawn any more I fear I will dislocate my jaws.

Bye

Stupid time to wake up, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. ETA in Vancouver in about 18 hours.