Sneeze your way to nirvana

Tonight at the meditation class my ladies were dumbfounded to hear that I am, in fact, a computer geek. Apparently I give out the aura of a serene yoga teacher...

Can I have the victory music, please?

The Finnish Chinese Urban Legend

You know, when I was a kid back in Finland, I was told that in Chinese culture dropping food on the table cloth was considered a compliment to the chef. I can't remember who told me that, but I think it came from several sources, possibly from school, and was one of those amusing anecdotes about "how people around the world have funny customs". I haven't thought of that story in years, but while having dim sum today for lunch with my Chinese friends and Christine was embarrassed when she dropped some hoi-sin sauce on the table I remembered it again. So I asked about it from her, and the blank stare on her face must have resembled the look on my face when people ask me about the Finnish delicacy of reindeer noses. Then someone around the table suggested that it's probably something they tell white people, although they'd never heard of it personally. Yeah, sounds about right.

I was feeling pretty white anyway - there were six of us, with me and Gino being the only white people, and having Don speaking in Cantonese with the waiter ordering us dim sum made me smile. We just nodded and ate everything that was put in front of us, drinking pu-er tea. Henry is constantly praising me for my use of chopsticks which makes me happy, he asked me how I learned to use them and I always say that my mom taught me when I was a kid - must be pretty much the same how Chinese kids learn it too. But I apparently hold them right, and ok I couldn't get one particularly slippery ball of shrimp dumpling out of the steamer because it was slightly stuck... but the Chinese themselves are actually not that much better with them either in situations like that. I always wondered how I could improve my technique, but it may not be an issue after all.

Food was absolutely gorgeous, of course. That deep fried spicy squid is to die for.

No shutdown

It was definitely not a shutdown day yesterday - I promised to help Padma with her computer, so she was over at our place in the afternoon and we backed up her data after which I proceeded in reinstalling Windows and later all her software. In between we went to see 300 with Laura and Chris which had it's moments but although it should have affected me more, for some reason it left me pretty indifferent. Perhaps because it had too many mutants in it, damn you Zack Snyder.

This morning I was on the phone with Chu for five hours, she has been away so we had some catching up to do. It was sunny, I was lying on the floor looking at the clouds and eagles circling above and listening to her voice - can't think of much better way to spend a Sunday.

Then I continued to work on my Re-l cosplay which is looking like it's actually going to be finished before the con (one weekend left), and then Padma came over again to check on her computer. Now it was her turn to lay on the floor and look at the clouds while I was configuring her email and installing Norton and updates for her. We talked about everything possible, Japan (she lived there for few years before Himalayas) and living in different cultures, family and friends, and even yoga...

Altogether a very successful weekend, in many ways.

1 to 10

First 10 days under my belt in the 365 project, and I'm feeling fine! More than fine, actually, I'm really loving the challenge. I like the challenge of taking a photo of something different every day, I like the challenge of trying to convey something of my life to you guys. I hope I'm capturing at least a bit of it... just 355 days to go!

Spring shopping

Note to self, silly girl: if there are no prices in the window, it's too expensive. And while you're at it, remember that Southern Granville is a place for boutiques, not for casual shopping.

Today really felt like first day of the spring, it was still a bit cold but sun was shining very brightly. We've got two weekends left before Sakura-con, so all the preparations should be on near the finishing line... which they kind of are. I've been looking for some bits and pieces for my costumes: Tsunade is pretty much finished (for the first time in my life my bosom feels... inadequate, compared to hers so I got some extra padding), but Re-l needs more work. Oh Re-l, how I've come to hate you - not only do her clothes seem to be pretty much sprayed on her as they don't have any seams, but I've also so far redone every single piece for her in fits of desperation and rage. Yeah, I've got work to do.

Happy Monday

I'm back to work. And it's business as usual, I write my code, we laugh a lot. The latest craze is to tease poor Christine who keeps forgetting to lock her computer when she goes away - so the guys keep sending silly emails to the team in her name.

When I'm changing busses on Davie, a man reeking of pot wishes me happy Monday. It could be worse.

Sickie

Blargh, I have a cold. I've spent two days at home, feeling fairly functional but miserable. Sleeping, reading, watching Princess Tutu, little sewing.

Journey continues

Tonight at the sutra class we all talked about what yoga is to us personally, and I ended up talking about my whole history and what has happened to me in the past year... and ended up putting it into words unlike I've used before. While walking home with Nadine I said that Padma has changed my life and she said that I had done it, Padma had just suggested a direction. It's like she showed me the door when I didn't even know I was in a house.

I want to write it down here too, but you'll have to wait just a little bit longer.

My first life, in pictures

Sharp amongst you have by now noticed something new on the right (if you're reading this through the web site that is... if you're a feeder here's the link for you). Yes, it's my new 365 project - for the next 365 days I'll be taking a photo a day, a way to document a year in my life in Vancouver. I'll try to upload a photo a day too although sometimes there might be some delay and I'll have to upload several at a time - in any case the newest photo will always show up there.

As always, the photos will be found in Flickr.

My second life

And for once I'm not talking about yoga!

Yes, I had to check out the hype and log into Second Life.

First impressions - it's not much and it's quite a lot. It's really what you make it, not a lot is happening but if you like exploring and tinkering and building it can be all you want. I can easily see why it's called "Second Life" - it's very easy to get lost in it and before you know two hours have gone past... Partly because I'm running it on my Mac, on my little laptop which is pushing it to the limit... but I'm slowly moving away from all Windows software - if everything goes like I want, Apple will release Panther this month and then I'll replace our desktop PC with a nice new iMac... so I wanted to check out the Mac version of the SL client.

But partly because I don't find the interface particularly intuitive - it's surprising how much I have to use the help to figure out how to do things. Like today, I was at Yoe's house and I was trying to figure out how to leave a notecard in her mailbox. Clicking the mailbox seemed like an obvious thing to do, but left-clicking it didn't do anything. Right-clicking it brought up a menu but there was no "leave note" option. Clicking myself for an action didn't have anything about messages either. No, I have to go to my inventory, create and save a note, then open up my friend list, then open up Yoe's profile and drag and drop the note into her inventory. Well, that's what the help tells you to do, but look, this seems just stupid. Or maybe I am.

And the help isn't intuitive either - the help inside SL doesn't have a search box, and the web help doesn't give you any useful results if you type something into the search box and press enter... No, you have to choose "search SL with Google" from the dropdown menu before you start getting any good results. It makes me feel thoroughly n00b.

So it takes a lot of time... I've given myself permission to do one thing a day, otherwise I'll just end up spending all my home time in front of a computer.

Cherry blossom season

It's pouring down for the second day, but it's getting warmer and cherry trees are starting to blossom. Which is almost a shame, as if this weather continues they'll be all washed away before we get the chance to enjoy them. The amazing fragrant smell is there though, even when it's chucking down.

Shopping

We went out to vote in the Finnish Parliament Elections today, the Honorary Consulate is starting to be quite a familiar place. Apparently the day had been really busy, Finns in Vancouver are apparently pretty patriotic.

After that I went and did some clothes shopping. All of my current jeans are pretty much falling off me after the weight I've lost - in retrospect I can say this has been happening over a longer period than I thought. I'm now the same size I was when I was 18... I've gone down one size - kinda weird to be the "coveted" size 0. Maybe this will make me feel a bit better about my body - the unshapely baggy pants have bothered me for a while, it's so obvious then that I'm not wearing clothes that fit me at all. Which makes me dislike my body even more, which means I don't want to take care of it - now in my fitting nice new jeans and chakis I feel pretty again.

And I feel ok, too. After all those "oh my god, what's happened to you?" comments, last week I got two "you've lost weight, you look great - what's your secret?" (they are not that happy to hear that it's "stop eating") so hopefully it means that I look healthier too. I can't tell anymore.

100-Year Old Dragon

I want to be like this guy when I hit 100 years of age:

Britain's oldest employee fends off a gang of muggers.

Floating

I had a (possibly life changing) revelation at last night's sutra class.

Tonight I was teaching only two people, but it was a very good class. One of the students was one of the our teachers and she said some really nice things about my teaching which made me float home. That, and the fact that I'm listening to my latest purchases from Magantune.com - wonderful Suzanne Teng and her flute... I've got three copies of Enchanted Wind and Miles Beyond to give out so email me if you're interested.

Lent and other thoughts

At work I sit between two Catholics, who both have given something up for Lent. The other one gave up dessert and is suffering for it amidst a birthday season, and the other one after long speculation and some prodding gave up snacks between meals which is also proving very difficult. It's fascinating to observe something like first hand - so far Lent has been familiar to me only because of that episode of Father Ted where Ted, Jack and Dougal decide to give up smoking, drinking and roller-blading respectively ("What? Priests? Don't tell me I'm still on that feckin' island!" - Father Jack after being sober for the first time in years).

That's one of the things I love about Vancouver (I know, I keep going on about it, but I really do) - diversity. It's funny to think of Catholicism as "exotic" but I've never really known any religious people before, and although these people are good Catholics they never impose their views on anyone (I've never even heard them mention God, I don't think). In fact, I'm pretty exotic just because I'm from Europe - we have surprisingly few Europeans at my company: there's me and Timo from Finland, one guy who's from Macedonia and one from Serbia and few Brits but that's about it. There are plenty of people that identify as Europeans who might even carry European passports, but since they've been born in Canada very few Europeans would classify them as such.

This evening I've spent with tuning my wig while Dragon has started work with WonderFlex, the wondrous plastic-like material that when heated can be shaped into anything - in his case headgear, hand protectors and shoulder pads.

Obsessed, but having fun

I would like to say something interesting or profound, but nothing comes to mind.

...

Our house is a mess. My sewing is all over the place even though I try very much to keep it in one corner, but bits of thread and fabric dust and lint just gets everywhere. First it was just the box of fabrics and another one for threads and other accessories, then it was the ironing board, now it's my spanking new dress form - this hobby just keeps on getting more and more bloated. But it's so much fun. I love tinkering, I love making things, I love planning them, choosing fabrics, designing patterns, and seeing the finished thing ready (not necessarily in that order).

Today while sewing I've been listening to Orson Scott Card's latest book, Empire... and what I've long been afraid of has finally happened - he's let his personal political and religious opinions seep into his fictional work (he's a Republican and a Mormon). And when I say "seep", I mean "flood". Empire so far seems be to utter trash and propaganda... I think where I finally resigned was when (apparently Democratic) mechas attacked New York just when the two main characters, patriotic special ops officers on pilgrimage to Ground Zero were visiting Manhattan - now I'm just hanging on because of morbid curiosity as I want to see how bad it can possibly get. My only consolation is that it's not as bad as Eragon - that one was so bad I couldn't finish it, even as an audiobook.

Like a bat out of hell

Meat Loaf once told me that he made "Bat out of Hell" so that he could get more sex. I told him: "Meat - I was conceived from Bat out of Hell!"

Comment from Marion Raven (who sings the "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" on Bat out of Hell III with Meat Loaf) before the Meat Loaf concert tonight. And boy does his age show - and I don't mean him, although he's a bit gray, and hobbled around on the stage with a bad posture (it's the yoga teacher in me), he was marvelous with that incredible voice and dry sense of humour. But the age of the audience - the average age must have been close to 50. And it looked like the last time they had been out was when previous Bat out of Hell was in the charts 12 years ago - they were drinking beer like there was no tomorrow and swaying about like drunken elephants. And it was also the first rock concert I've ever been with a break in the middle... just that all the geriatrics needed to go and empty their bladders or something.

But enough about the audience... Meat Loaf rocks, and that's what really mattered. It was a good concert, with most of the favourites, "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth" was particularly funny with Meat Loaf making the audience sing and then picking on a guy in the audience who supposedly wasn't singing along ("You wanna take me on? Are you fucking kidding me?"), and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" was pretty priceless with one of the vocalist girls. "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" was incredibly emotional, and "I'd Lie for You (And That's the Truth)" was just beautiful.

Great fun.