Happy Halloween!

Well it's been one crappy week, I've been barely able to function let alone blog.

I don't know why, really - probably some kind of combination of terrible case of PMS and lot of other things piling up, but I was almost in tears most of last week. Since Sunday I've been slowly building up back to the normal life and I feel pretty good today... We celebrated Dragon's birthday on Saturday with our dear friends with a Halloween theme and everyone had made a great effort with their costumes.

Yesterday was Dragon's real birthday, and today was the real Halloween. I used my black cat costume in both occasions which was fun - any excuse to dress up, really. I also tested out my new freaky contact lenses - they are cat's eyes, but I can also be using them with my Orochimaru cosplay for Sakura-con in April. It was fun walking home tonight from yoga, the neighborhood is buzzing with kids dressed up trick or treating, and there are firecrackers and spooky sounds everywhere.

I have a feeling though what has been causing this mental upheaval I've been having... but I'm deliberately avoiding the subject since it's still kind of raw. I've started studying Patanjali's yoga sutras with Padma, and it works almost like (psycho)therapy - it has started stirring up some mud in my mind and I've had to rethink a lot of my thought patterns: it's painful at first, but will be beneficial in the long run. I've also deliberately not written much about those sutra classes because I feel them in so incredibly personal level. I want to share some of it with you though, but at some later date.

For now though, I think I'm back.

Copyrighted Dragon II

Janne wrote an excellent and thought-provoking reply to my previous entry.

As Janne eluded, one of the most obvious ways to ensure that the movies, games, music and TV will be funded in the future is to get the revenue to fund the projects would be to get more advertising involved. However, while I actually think that this would easily generate enough income (I have had a lot of exposure to this lately and believe me, advertising is a way to make Big Bucks), I really don’t like it for many reasons:

The advertisers would quickly gain huge leverage over the content producers –after all, the golden rule is that he who has gold makes the rules! I really wouldn’t like to see TV, Music, Movie and games industry dominated by advertisements any more than it already is. Soon they would start dictating song lyrics for the next Bob Dylan song and the hairstyle of the game heroes, and I would leave the industry at that point.

I think that in the long term it is solutions like Xbox live and the PS3 online functionality that will give us the revenue model of the future: game code itself is going to be free, but the actual content is charged via micro-transactions, or alternatively there is a monthly subscription fee that will allow consumers to play as much as they want, perhaps with different levels of privileges based on how much you are willing to pay.

All this is of course based on the premise that every single game console and PC will be online by default, so that the central server of the content provider would be integral part of playing the game at any time. This way the consumer could do the work of getting the copy of the game himself, and the revenue would come from him buying features and game world consumables and items, or via monthly description. Of course the games industry has to grow considerably for this to happen, or else we’d have to charge something like 120$ a month per subscriber. I think this might be where we end up, though it is further in the future. At that point the antagonism between the industry and P2P sighs would end -P2P would actually become something we actively support.

I don’t know how that will work with music or TV industry though… unless all the iPods of the future are equally connected to the web. People outside Finland rarely like license fees, so universal fee collected from everyone with an iPod or TV would run into heavy resistance in most parts of the world.

Copyrighted Dragon

Back in my home country of Finland a group of 20 young men who were responsible for operating Finreactor P2P web service were convicted in court and ordered to pay well over 500 000 euros (around 700 000+ $) in compensation for the damages of the holders of the IP of the products that were available in their website.

The court rejected the argument from the operators of Finreactor, who claimed they were not liable as media was exchanged directly between users, ruling instead that defendants willfully encouraged copyright infringement, requiring its 10,000 users to maintain a minimum ratio of uploaded to downloaded content to maintain their accounts.

This has sparked a huge discussion in Finland over whether the sentencing was fair and are the Finreactor boys heroes and martyrs or thieves and criminals?

Arguments for both sides are interesting: defenders of Finreactor cite the freedom of information, fighting against the greed of the big companies that control much of the IP of the entertainment industry, and a chance for less-known artists to get exposure and the fact that it was the customers of the Finreactor, not the operators themselves were distributing the copyrighted material.

On the other hand, arguments against are robust: spreading the material without the permission of the IP holders is illegal no matter how you look at it, and even in the case of less well-known artists products it is not very nice in my books to spread their work without any permission.

The whole thing, like so many others boils down to money: do the artists and the companies publishing these works lose any revenue over this or not?

For someone like me who makes a living by producing content, this offers a tough dilemma. I like many of the arguments that P2P advocates have, and yet I also need to make a living. If all the products I’ve done in past 11 years would be available free of charge, I very much doubt I could have ever put any bread on my table. I also believe that Youtube-style snipped videos truly help the popularity of music, games, movies etc, as does the fansubbing of Anime series that I love. Products that you simply cannot buy in the area you live in, I have myself downloaded in the past. Indeed responsible fansites take such torrents down once the product gets licensed in their home country. I always buy these products when I can get them, as long as I enjoyed them at least a little. This my conscience can live with. The trouble is, I think I am part of a tiny minority.

If someone can explain to me how I am supposed to make a living if the worth of my work is 0 (as apparently many people believe since they keep downloading stuff I’ve made even though it is available to them in a shop around the corner) then I might be more inclined to defend these boys. Lots of people cite the examples of rich people in the entertainment and software industry as proof that we, the providers of the content don’t need any more money. For the vast majority of us who make all this music, written words, code and art, situation is not that rosy. We live from pay check to pay check, worry about bills and rent, just like everyone else. Any potential loss of revenue cuts directly into our pay and bonuses in a very real way. It makes it really hard to have noble ideas about the freedom of spreading information. But I do try. As long as it is not the full product that is made available to the consumer for free, I am cool with my stuff appearing on the public domain.

Cultural differences

I was teaching my office class today, and we were doing Prasarita Padottanasana C, when all my Chinese ladies started snickering. I didn't get it but giggles happen, so I continued on with the class. Grace told me what it was afterwards - this reminded my Chinese friends of a punishment pose that is often used in China where you're forced to bend down and your arms pulled back.

Talk about culture shocks - here I was, trying to teach a nice forward bend and a shoulder opener... They weren't offended, but sometimes it's good to get these reminders that some of these poses can have connotations you never even dreamed of.

Dragon Press

Reporters without borders released their yearly rankings for the freedom of press in each country. I have to say I am proud that Finland tops the list! North Korea being at the bottom of the pile. Some interesting quotes:

The United States (53rd) has fallen nine places since last year, after being in 17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.

Freelance journalist and blogger Josh Wolf was imprisoned when he refused to hand over his video archives. Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, who works for the pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, has been held without trial since June 2002 at the US military base at Guantanamo, and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been held by US authorities in Iraq since April this year.

France (35th) slipped five places during the past year, to make a loss of 24 places in five years. The increase in searches of media offices and journalists’ homes is very worrying for media organisations and trade unions. Autumn 2005 was an especially bad time for French journalists, several of whom were physically attacked or threatened during a trade union dispute involving privatisation of the Corsican firm SNCM and during violent demonstrations in French city suburbs in November.

Rising nationalism and the system of exclusive press clubs (kishas) threatened democratic gains in Japan, which fell 14 places to 51st. The newspaper Nihon Keizai was firebombed and several journalists phsyically attacked by far-right activists (uyoku).

Denmark (19th) dropped from joint first place because of serious threats against the authors of the Mohammed cartoons published there in autumn 2005. For the first time in recent years in a country that is very observant of civil liberties, journalists had to have police protection due to threats against them because of their work.

Two countries moved into the Index’s top 20 for the first time. Bolivia (16th) was best-placed among less-developed countries and during the year its journalists enjoyed the same level of freedom as colleagues in Canada or Austria.

Japan surprised me, I never would have expected free press being attacked in that country. Full article is over here. It is well worth your time.

Like riding bicycle

So... I bought myself a sewing machine. I've never had one of my own before, and it's probably been something like ten years since I last used one. Yet, sitting in front of it today was like riding a bicycle, mind didn't remember but the body did. My hands would automatically go where needed, and I was amazed several times when I did something I didn't remember how to do.

I did some sewing while watching Lost - I'm really underwhelmed with the third season so far, and if it doesn't get better in the next few episodes I think I won't bother... there are better things to do and watch than this. Instead of taking charge and taking hold of all the threads, the writers are just letting them lose, and keep adding more in - I mean, time travel was probably one of the last things that they didn't already have.

Galactica seems to be kicking ass and taking names and I greatly enjoyed the two latest episodes - I especially loved Michael Hogan's and Kate Vernon's performances as Saul and Ellen Tigh, they were both incredibly touching. And the scene where Saul meets the admiral again made me cry - usually Edward James Olmos is the dominating actor, but this time he knew just how to play the supporting part and Michael Hogan's portrayal of the frail Saul Tigh was gut-wrenchingly bitter-sweet.

Dragon the Salaryman

This morning was the first time in untold months when I did not wake up completely drained and sleepy. It is a weird feeling… and I am having huge guilt pans for not being at work, even though I know I've earned my break, and I've done my work thisyear. Spurred on by these wierd feelings, I’ve read a lot about the Japanese Salarymen lately, the following note really caught my eye:

All over Japan, in Japanese companies large and small, you will meet salarymen like Tanaka-san, Suzuki-san and Yamaguchi-san. Their collective attitude is what defines today's Japanese business culture and to succeed doing business in Japan, you need to understand their motivation, especially the way they perceive risk, so that you can apply your foreign business culture in a way that is sensitive to theirs. Most of Japan's salarymen exhibit a similar set of qualities that will affect the way you do business with them:

• they are loyal and dedicated to their company,
• if faced with a conflict between company duty and family duty, 99% will do their company duty first
• they are consistent,
• they never criticize their company, coworkers or managers,
• they are reliable,
• they are obsessed with detail,
• they evaluate all options,
• they are conservative,
• they make their decisions in committees ('ringi'),
• if necessary and for the good of their company, they will move mountains to help you,
• they conform

(Extract from Japanse business culture).

I must strive to avoid falling into the Salaryman trap. I don’t think I will do a similar crunch as the last one any time soon. I am going to start spending my vast pool of holidays next year.

I apologize for the lack of roars from the Dragon, and I promise that I will write more now that I have a little bit of energy, but hey, at least my game’s official website is now open!

Challenges

I got the monthly email from Sue's studio yesterday, and she's advertising me in it - I'm starting up some yin yoga classes for her next month. I think the classes I've been teaching at work are really starting to make a difference in my confidence - I'm just looking forward to this next challenge.

I've also finally started a yoga journal. I thought I'd want to keep an electric notebook but it just doesn't work that way - most often the thoughts or pieces of practice that need to be recorded come up in the middle of something completely different and need to be written down as soon as possible. So to have to wait until you get to a computer doesn't work, a real notebook is the best way to write down random yoga thoughts that come to my head.

Like yesterday - I was at Flow expecting to be taught by Jason or Kelly, but they had a substitute teacher called Christine Kelly was testing out. I hate substitute teachers, especially when they are covering for my favourite teachers - I'm so set in my ways and I like the fact that I know what the practice is going to be like that I often find it difficult to adjust to another way of teaching. And Christine was definitely different - she's coming from anusara background - and her flow was completely different. It required some serious readjustment to be able to be open to her teaching - I was really grumpy to begin with, almost like I didn't want to like her because she wasn't Kelly - but sometimes blessings come in disguises. It really is good to challenge yourself, in yoga and in other parts of your life.

Anyway, what I wrote down from her class was "please". She used "please" couple of times in her teaching, like "please come down to your hands and knees" which I found very sweet and pleasant. It also got me thinking about English language differences on the different sides of the Atlantic, how much more polite the language is back in the old country, for example "please" is used quite a lot more. I think that's something I'd like to add to my teaching, too.

Death Note

I've been having an interesting experience lately, studying classical yoga sutras and meditation with an amazing spiritual lady, and at the same time I've been engrossed with a manga about a psychopathic supernatural serial killer. The manga in question is Death Note, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.

Death Note is a story about a super-intelligent boy called Light Yagami who one day finds a Death Note, a notebook dropped by a shinigami (literally Death God). Light finds out that if you write someone's name in the book, that person will die - and immediately sets out on a crusade to kill dangerous criminals. It's a very interesting subject - I think probably pretty much everyone has at one point or another been thinking about what they would do if it would be possible to kill someone without any fear of being caught. What makes Death Note disturbing thought is the way Light approaches this task - just like everyone has probably thought about what they would do in that situation, most people would choose to kill maybe one or two really awful people, you know Hitlers and that sort - whereas Light sets out on a killing spree without even once questioning whether he's doing the right thing. For he thinks he's creating a perfect Utopian world with him as God, and believes that he is indeed righteous.

But soon enough Interpol hires another super-intelligent youngster, a mysterious detective called L to find this serial killer media calls Kira. When L starts closing in on Kira, Light soon realizes that he may have to start killing not only criminals but also the police that are after him - and like everything he does he does this in cold-blood and without a hesitation. However for Light to be able to kill with the Death Note he needs to know what a person looks like as well as their real name, and recluse L not only refuses to show his face but also always works under pseudonyms.

Light is unlike any other protagonist I've ever come across. Sure, he's handsome and intelligent - but he's also completely unemotional and psychopathic with literally no redeeming qualities, yet the reader can't totally put him at fault. On the other hand opposite Light is L, another unemotional and psychopathic boy but this one is dedicated to catching Kira and saving lives instead of destroying them. The intellectual sparring between the two main characters is extremely well written and at times it's so clever takes your breath away - and as you know I'm a total sucker for detective stories.

When I started reading the series I knew that lot of fans had issues with what happens in chapter 58 (in volume 7), and quite a few people think that Death Note from chapter 59 onwards is not worth reading. For myself - I understand what they mean and I too was devastated after chapter 58 - but I think it was also one of the only two logical directions the series could possible go (and I didn't like either of them... this may be better of two evils though). The premise is extremely difficult to handle, and Ohba is a very good writer (in fact so good that it's almost certain that it's not his real name and almost certainly not his first writing job - which would be very fitting indeed for the series) - but it may be impossible to keep the level of writing at such a high level until the end. Obata (of the Hikaru no Go fame) as the illustrator is also doing a superb job, and I especially adore his totally gorgeous cover art.

Still with warts and all, I got a huge intellectual kick out of Death Note and will be reading at least the next volume (number 8) to check out if the series has truly jumped the shark like so many fans claim... I think the series probably jumped around chapter 40 or so, after which there was a little lull - until the action picked up again full speed and rammed head on into a brick wall... but accidents are fascinating too in a morbid way. I think this series is going to be huge in the next few years - the anime of the series has just started showing in Japan, and first of two live action movies is out too. In fact Warner Brothers is rumored to release these live action movies in North America, and have bought the rights to remake them to be better suited for the American audiences - and if done right I think they would be very popular. It's got just the right amount of supernatural and realistic horror and such a compelling universal concept that it's going to be hard to ruin it (possible though... we all know Hollywood). Meanwhile, Viz has published 7 out of 12 volumes in the Shonen Jump Advanced lineup, with the rest to be released I think in the next six months or so.

Club mantra

The only alternative to being someone else, is being yourself.

As said by the performing Yogi Kev at tonight's Elastic Cabaret. I went out with some yogis tonight to see Jesse's band again, and much fun was had.

Rain and yoga

And then there are no colours. Rain is here again, and I get envious looks when I wear my wellies. I know, I know, I'm the envy of all the 2-year olds.

I went to Jesse's level 2 yoga course at Sue's which started today, it's a complete course that's going to last for eight weeks. I took me a long time to get Jesse, but now that I know where he's coming from I think his classes are very useful for me especially as a teacher. His approach is completely different to all the other teachers I've had - he approaches yoga from physical point of view, from using the poses for purely their anatomical and therapeutic aspect. I think for most teachers (and students) poses are not as much tools as the the essence of practice, a ritual and a tradition, like a dance which has beauty in it's own right without having to have a meaning. As a teacher I find Jesse's therapy approach extremely useful, and although I don't necessarily agree with everything he says there is a lot of useful knowledge I've learned from him that I will pass on to my students.

I've been teaching at work for about five months now, and suddenly I notice that I don't have a problem calling myself a teacher anymore. Neat.

Autumn colours

I'm still waiting for that Vancouver rain to start. The fog is here though, clouds have come down from the mountains and you can hardly see the cargo ships on the Bay. Dragon is finally off work, so we went for lunch together, I can't remember last time we did that. In the afternoon I had to go and buy some cakes as I had been watching Antique Bakery, and on my way back I just had to stop at the florist. I had no idea what I was doing but suddenly I was standing in the middle of the shop and the lady was asking if she could help me - I just said I wanted to buy flowers and she made me this autumn coloured bouquet.

Art imitates life

It's not the first time I've had the feeling Scott Adams is hiding somewhere under my desk. As the former associate gambling company next door shut down today, this is pretty much what's been happening this week.

Riding it out

Yesterday the company who owns the company I work for made an announcement that they were considering selling all their US-facing operations before the new anti-gambling law is signed (which will probably happen on Friday). As a publicly traded company they considered that dealing with US customers would be too dangerous for them, and like we assumed the deal was made today and all US operations were sold to a private company for the princely sum of $1, including the company I work for. This is exactly what's going to happen with all on-line gambling companies - as a public company we were always under scrutiny and accountable, as a private company we can do whatever we want. Great work, guys.

I'm kinda amazed how calm I am. Most people around me are very excited or anxious, especially the younger ones who's first job this is - we who have been laid off several times take it more in our stride. This is one of those things that I have no control over so I'm not going to sweat over it - we have no idea how this is going to impact our work. Management of course say we should continue our work as normal, but hey, the management will always say that - after all the stuff I've seen I've learned never to trust what they say. It's not necessarily that they deliberately lie to you (although they might), it's just that it's their job to calm you down and in the end of the day they might not have any power to affect any decisions made.

Me, I'm just riding it out...

Ouran High School Host Club

The boys of the music room three

When I first heard about Ouran High School Host Club (Ouran Koukou Host Club) anime, I decided that even though it was animated by my favourite studio Bones I wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with it. The premise is rich kid's "host club" where the boys entertain the girls for money, and into this club by accident is brought a poor girl who becomes a servant for the boys after breaking a valuable item she can't possibly repay. I was thoroughly disgusted even though I knew series was really popular and was supposed to be really funny.

Haruhi

Then came Anime Evolution and Chu fell in love with the Ouran cosplayers and in the post-con afterglow I downloaded few episodes to make her happy. First episode took me by surprise - although the premise was more or less what I had understood, the characters against my expectations were not mean but completely sweet and sympathetic. Haruhi - the girl - is an asexual, independent and strong character who can stand on her own with the boys, and the boys on the other hand are silly rich kids that are constantly made fun of.

Hunny-sempai and Mori-sempai

Flat-chested Haruhi has had to cut her hair short due to an unfortunate accident and looks like a boy - so to repay her debt to the club she starts work as a host pretending to be a boy. Most of the gags in this truly gender-blending series have to do with gender and misunderstandings due to it in a way that would make Shakespeare proud, and it's very light and indeed very funny. All the boys are very fond of Haruhi, and slowly some of them start to fall in love with her. For the first 15 episodes it was purely a guilty pleasure: we had a good giggle while eating sushi and watching it. Chu had fallen in love with the series by then, but I only liked it and couldn't really watch more than few episodes at the time before getting a sugar overload. All this changed in episode 16 where character development really kicks in. Suddenly it wasn't just a bit of silly fun, but the characters become real and touching and I started caring about them.

Kyoya does what Kyoya knows best - shenanigans at the club room

Plot doesn't really matter in Ouran High School Host Club - as a typical shoujo product it's all about characters and relationships. And due to the subject matter it caters for everyone - the host club has to offer all stereotypical men for it's clientele. There's the host club leader and self-proclaimed "king" Tamaki who's the blond prince type, dark-haired Kyoya as the "shadow king" is the cool and calculating type with glasses, there are incestuous identical twins Hikaru and Kaoru who are the devil types with an added taboo, Mori is the wild type with a big-brother personality and Hunny is the childish shota type and acts as a little brother to Mori. For the ladies watching the series the question of course is - who would you designate to serve you today? For me the answer was from the get go the twins and Mori, and by the middle of the series Mori took a back seat while I swooned over Hikaru and especially Kaoru, but by the end and totally against my initial reaction Kyoya won my heart (OMG Kyoya and Haruhi FTW!!!!11!! LOL).

Sweet Tamaki

So, the fan girl that am, I had to go and buy Bisco Hatori's original manga the series is based on. Anime follows the manga extremely faithfully until the last few episodes - whereas the manga is still ongoing in Japan, Bones animated 26 episodes and the series needed an (open) conclusion to satisfy viewers (and I'm not ashamed to say I cried like a big girl for the last 10 minutes of it). As always, the manga has a lot more material and it just isn't possible to put everything into animation that you can put on a page. Bisco Hatori (not her real name) is an insanely funny mangaka, she has a superb sense of comedy and her few page bonus Ouran stories and tales about her life are some of the funniest manga I've ever read. The series is full of extremely clever word-play and cultural references that are very well handled and explained in the manga, in the anime many of these will just escape you despite Lunar's dedicated fansubbers. If I had to pick a negative I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of Hatori's style of drawing, it's far too big-eyed, frilly and shoujo for my taste - Bones did an excellent job in toning it down a notch. Not to say characters are not big-eyed and frilly in the anime too - especially Haruhi's eyes defy laws of physics - but oh man you should see the manga. Another thing I wish they had done in the manga translation are the honorifics - for example it's just not the same when they don't call the eldest students Hunny and Mori Hunny-sempai and Mori-sempai. if I had to criticize the anime I would say that 26 episodes was maybe not the ideal number - while I loved every single one of them (except maybe the second Zuka club and Haruhi in Wonderland - much better in manga) I think there was a lot of fluff and it would have been more perfect with less episodes. (But I'm not going to answer the "manga or anime" question either, it's just not fair comparing apples to oranges, no matter what fruit you like more.)

Twins cashing in on the forbidden brotherly love

Because of that, and the fact that I've already proclaimed the other Haruhi, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, as the best anime of the year, Ouran High School Host Club must take the well earned second seat in the competition. It's not just for girls either - when Dragon gets stressed he enjoys a little bit of shoujo to make him laugh, and he read the manga and then watched the anime too. If you like well-written light-hearted cute comedy you're bound to like Ouran, and if you like cute boys and relationship fluff you're going to love it. The series is not licensed yet in US (although I'd say it's only a matter of time) so you'll have to get you hands on a fansub, but the first seven volumes of the manga are available from Viz in their Shojo Beat lineup. There are nine volumes out in Japan so far, and as the series is ongoing there is still a lot of Ouran goodness coming my way.

There's so much to this series I don't have time or the space to get in to, and so much I love about it - I can only scratch the surface tiny little bit hoping you'll be tempted.

Monday sci-fi

I love three day weekends (that's stating the obvious). Seems that in two days you don't really have time to do everything you want to - on Saturday I was relaxing after the long week and we went to Laura's in the evening, and on Sunday I was on the phone with Chu for hours and taught the class. So anything else I wanted to get done, like cleaning up or doing laundry tends to be done at the last possible moment and everything else fun - like shopping or even reading - doesn't get done at all. So three day weekends give you time to relax and do something nice too... I'd like to say it was spending quality time with my hubby but when I didn't have commitments he went to work and when he was available I was occupied.

Anyway, one of the things we did manage to do together was watch Galactica's third season opener, and it was like a good kick to the kidneys. Unlike with Lost which also started this week, I have a lot of faith in Galactica's creator Ronald D. Moore - things look really bad but nothing is done for shock value only and I believe everything we see happening right now has a reason. I'm once again amazed by the power of science fiction - that we can actually have constructive discussions about very topical subjects and we're able to look at both sides without feeling guilty. Moore has decided to tackle terrorism as the subject matter, and our heros - "the good guys" - are organizing suicide bombings and sabotages against the elected government that is now collaborating with the cylons. We can actually talk about why people are willing to die for their cause, why they would be willing to sacrifice themselves and innocent civilians - and there are no real answers either. Neither side is completely right or completely wrong, and whatever decisions are made many people will suffer. I especially enjoyed what is happening to Ellen, and for the first time in the series I can actually identify with her and understand her motives - I'm sure if I was in the same situation I would at least be considering what she's doing. But if there's one thing I hate it's what's happening to Starbuck - I've always loved her and I've been so glad that she's a real original and unique female character. And now they are chaining her down and frakking giving her something to nurture - I hate it.

Go with unity

Today I taught my first vinyasa flow yoga class. Sue has asked if I wanted to teach a karma class at her studio - karma classes are free (at her studio anyway) classes where guest teachers get the opportunity to get some teaching experience. Unfortunately - or fortunately - the day was a bit bad as it's Thanksgiving in Canada, the Monday is a holiday and most people will spend tonight with their families eating turkey... so no one came to the class. So I ended up teaching the class to just Sue and her partner Carrie - they wanted to do a class and I wanted to teach.

A bit stumbling with the words, and I forgot a pose from the series I was going to put in, but I'd consider it a success. Sue and Carrie both seemed to really enjoy the class and my dry practice yesterday seemed to have paid off - I didn't even feel too nervous beforehand.

I know yoga.

Svarupe

Padma's class on Wednesday was very interesting. We talked about the third sutra: tada drastuh svarupe avasthanam - then, the seer dwells in his won true splendor (translation by B.K.S. Iyengar). Padma teaches sutras to be a guide to a human mind, and the third sutra is all about that - first sutra states that yoga exists, the second sutra states that the mind is not a problem, and the third sutra states that one can be/is truly established in oneself. Padma talked about all the sanskrit words, svarupe, "true self" being my favourite. Iyengar says: "When the waves of consciousness are stilled and silenced, they can no longer distort the true expression of the soul." No matter what your body is doing, you are present in it - and it's hard to remember stillness when your body and mind are active.

It probably doesn't make much sense written down like this, and that is part of the yoga sutra tradition too - one needs a teacher to learn them. I feel blessed indeed.

And yet

Did I say I was working on my yoga? Well, that's the plan but for two days in a row now I've been the last person to leave the office. Now you might have gathered by now that I'm not one for eagerly working overtime to get some silly kudos lot of people are after. But neither am I work shy - if something needs to be done, it needs to be done and I can roll up my sleeves and get onto it without complaints if need be. Last two evenings have been one of those... Maybe I like QA because it's not too unlike solving a murder mystery - tonight I managed (quite cleverly, in my opinion) to find out the cause to all our problems through logical elimination of different causes (elementary, dear Watson). It would feel a lot better if we hadn't wasted a half a day doing it.

But tomorrow, yoga. Not the asana practice this time, but I'm starting to study Patanjali Sutras with Padma. Can't wait.

Interesting times

Well, it certainly doesn't get boring working for an online gambling company. One week your chairman is arrested, next week court finds that his arrest was pretty much illegal, and this week new law was passed that is aimed to kill online gambling (except horse races - nothing wrong with that, of course). No one really knows how this latest turn of events will affect us, but speculation of course runs rampant. We had an emergency staff meeting where we were told that no one knows what's going to happen, but we should all stay calm... At the same time we have an advisory from the firm not to travel to US - we know feds have some kind of blacklist of people who work in the industry that they will arrest should they wander south of the border, but since the list is secret we have no idea who's on it (unlikely it's me, but I see why they gave the advisory).

People are worried, of course. Lot of people own shares - which plummeted this morning - and lot of people are worried about the insecurity. Some people are polishing up their resumes. Some people will undoubtedly leave. I'm just sitting and smiling... if the very unlikely worst case scenario happens and the company goes under, I will take that as a sign. I've been preparing for a second career for over a year now, and if I got a push like redundancy, I would jump at the chance of becoming a full time yoga teacher.

Not that I think it's likely anytime soon. Next nine months are a waiting period anyway when US government ponders on how on earth are they going to enforce this silly law. I'm gonna sit tight and continue working on my yoga.

Places I used to live

I've been lately thinking about places I used to live in, and how little I have photos of those places. You know, how you see something every day it's not worth photographing, but when you lose it you start wondering what it really looked like. Photos are great memory joggers, and I've been meaning to dig out some old photos for ages and put them up on Flickr. You know, just for my sake.

So in case you're interested, here are some photos of my old haunts. First some photos from Nottingham (taken in October 2004, just before we left to Canada) - we used to live there from 1997 to 2000 but most of that time I didn't even own a camera, let alone waste film on a place I saw every day. Then some photos of Southsea and Portsmouth - we lived there from 2002 to 2004, and moved from there to Vancouver. Most notably have a look at the set of photos there taken from the now demolished Tricorn Centre taken by Mikki when he visited us in March 2004 - it was voted as the ugliest building in Britain, and a great example of Brutalist architecture. In the words of Prince Charles: "You have to give credit to the Luftwaffe - when they destroyed our skyline, they at least replaced it with just rubble."

To my regret, I don't have any photos from Bishop's Stortford where we lived between Nottingham and Southsea - I did have a camera some of the time there, but as it goes with computers I lost most of those photos when my hard drive crashed. I'll have to dig out some paper photos sometime and see if I have anything at all left.