WANT A PREVIEW IN SPACE DO YOU HEAR ME! AND AN OOPS-BUTTON TOO!

October 14th, 2007

This was written to the original Windows Live Space Blog, and is about Windows Live Spaces too!

As I am in speed so here is more. Space is filled with all kinds of things - press this, accept this, deny that - but there is not any change to preview what I am doing. I press a button by mistake and realize it firs when I have done it and then there is no OOOOOPS-button and the offensive messsage - style, I won't accept your inquiry, go away - has already gone. I need that preview because I don't want to offend people; and I want that ooops-button too! WANT!

Problems in the net

My blog in Windows Live Spaces has obviously been speaking Finnish to each and every one without me knowing about it. I heard it today as one of my friends would have liked to read my latest script about Fred Vargas but could not. On the other side of the globe, she did not know which one of those Finnish-speaking buttons to press! If it has been speaking Finnish to all so why hasn't anyone said a word before? I asked another friend of mine to check and he was kind enough to do so so now I know. Like my msn: it was only one of my friends who was persistent in that it did not work - others i believe just tried and thought whatever since it did not work and gave up. What people! But perhaps it was only this one who was sure I would not leave a contact unreplied and in his case it is also true.

So THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE INTERFERED ACTIVELY WITH THESE PROBLEMS! Chat engines can translate announcements... my friend in England writes "Lunch" in his engine and I get "Lounaalla" (the same in Finnish) in mine under his name and I am sure he does not type it in Finnish... anyway, big Microsoft cannot do the translating or changing of language of the viewed page (even the settings) according to where it is viewed although it would be completely possible! What is even more ridiculous is that obviously I can't change the language. The instructions tell to change the language of the Internet Explorer browser. The problem is that I don't use it, I use Firefox. And it is in English. And even though I change to Internet Explorer and do as instructed it does not change the language anyway. So Microsoft should be rewarded with the prize of promoting Finnish language I suppose... Just think of it: free Gmail allows you to change languages yourself, and it is even easy.... Microsoft does not.... and it is neither free nor easy.... I have the feeling that the computing geniuses sit somewhere else than in Microsoft's planning offices.... (wonder if I get even more problems when passing on text like this????????)

Fred Vargas

Finished two of Fred Vargas', a French author's books. These were called Kuriton mies nurin (L'Homme á l'envers, published in French 1999), and Sinisten ympyröiden mies (L'Homme aux cercles bleus, published in French 1996). It is interesting that first about 10 years after they were published in France, they have been translated into Finnish.

I got fascinated with Fred Vargas when I read one of his other books, also sort of a detective story like these two are too. I got fascinated because I am a humanist and in his books, problems are solved - not technologically, not with cold brain, not with massive police force, but with humanistic knowledge about culture and cultural history, and with humanistic intelligence. What also fascinates me is how Vargas uses myths related to faith; how he uses the Bible and names and occasions and people from the Bible to tell more than he actually tells verbally. This bondage with the faith-cultural heritage is something he uses I think very well and in an enjoyable way. Like in L'Homme á l'envers: there is the "virgin" (who also displays as Eve) - the shephard - like Jesus Christ, knowing what is going on and saving people in the last moment.... he is like an observer otherwise, almost an old, mythological one that is drawn from place to place by the other company...... anyway, much like how people these days take faith, and Jesus Christ too. They are drawn with us, turned to when in trouble, and then almost forgotten - but always there. And then there is that investigator, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, whose entire name is a mixture of biblical names and contexts: Jean- Baptiste (John the Baptizer - he even likes isolation in the "desert" like the John in the Bible did) Adamsberg (the mountain of Adam) - so there he goes to the beginning of humanity......... I feel that in Vargas' books, there are two stories: one is the one told in the text, and another one is the one hidden in the text, maybe even more enjoyable than the eventual story. Then there is always something enjoyably irrational; like here, an adoptive child somewhere from Africa, telling incredible stories that he has mostly finds out himself - that have no beginning and no end and no sense either and that some people take as such and some get annoyed of when listening tot hem but no one really cares except I think if they were missing. And anyway he is performing tasks that no one else could do. It is such a wonderful combination... like the discourse is too, and the conversations between people. It feels as though the way to the goal would actually be more important than the goal.

Sophisticated might I think be the word to describe Vargas' way of writing. And it is enjoyable.

I recommend - with the restriction that it is not ordinary crime novels but something that might need a humanistic attitude to be enjoyed. Someone who looks after "action" will perhaps be disappointed.

9:19

Happy Aid / Eid!

October 12th, 2007

To whom it may concern:

Happy Aid / Eid !

Back to work of course!

October 10th, 2007

I am back to work again of course. I won't let such rascals jump on my nose, frighten me and keep me away from work. I have always thought I am serving people, the society when working here... and I shall be doing that... no matter how bad I feel now. Those rascals won't control me. In the end, democracy and society is going to control them! If someone is going to shoot me for doing my duty here in life so I would not be the first - and so what.

Anyway today I have got such wonderful expressions of support, care and worry that it is making me cry...

There are people here who really love me and who have come to show it...

My goodness... God bless them all...

Next day

October 10th, 2007

There was such a number of ambulances coming and going yesterday that it seemed there had been a mass slaughtery due to the shootingin a near-by house to my office, where many of my colleagues work. But it was not that bad - most of them were to a car accident - that, too, caused by a drug misuser just like the shooting.

I am cold all over like I felt cold at night too... I cry or if I don't, at least I try not to... I am not in balance at all... still... I am not going to postpone anything for that. Problems only cumulate with undone work that remains undone. But I also feel completely out of strength somehow. So it is just to collect myself and go to work although late today because I will have a meeting this evening and all night and all morning I have been telling myself that I won't change anything for that shooting... and I usually go to work later if I have meeting in the evening. I have realized I cannot concentrate there anymore like I should if I first have an over-length working day behind myself and then try to manage the meeting still...

I try so very much to reason and to assure to myself that I know everything that is happening in me, that I understand it all... so I think I just try to hide it somehow... how it really feels. I feel there is a huge loneliness in me that nothing can ease. I can't stand the thought that a colleague of mine has had that gunman in his room... in the middle of his working day... it feels just as if he'd been in my room... with what I don't mean to underestimate how he may feel now, he must feel really awful and I may have no idea of it. And in an odd way - I even feel I have no RIGHT to feel shocked, or to be in shock because I was not threatened personally. Someone else was. But to me it feels as a collective: one municipal worker is like another one, so it is just coincidence who it is... and we have talked about it in my working place even before ... if someone comes to the house and wants to shoot someone, it is either me or my secretary he realizes first. The first rooms you usually pass, you don't notice them... by my room you start to hesitate, and if not there, then you stop by my secretary's room to ask for a way...

Once we had an insane woman in the house late in the evening. First I thought I was there alone with her, and she was talking and behaving oddly, and I thought she might have a knife or something in her bag... then two other employees turned out, and then two of us were trying to find a way to get her out of there and one was keeping her occupied by talking and talking and talking.... which I had been doing since she came in - let through the locked doors by someone who left late... we phoned several places... we dared not call the police because she said she won't go with them... we dared not call ambulance because she said she would not go with them either... so we did a lot of phoning and finally found her son who promised to come and collect her... except that she was convinced that her son was dead... anyway he took her away finally but afterwards I was thinking that we have none whatsoever training for such situations... or any situations... all I did was - I used my instinct and normal sense... and that time it worked, together with brain work to find a way out, get her away. So up till now, it has not been so bad. But it seems to be getting wilder all the time.

Goes on and on

October 8th, 2007

The wonderful thing about blogs is that I may write what I do, think and feel, and in case I would be absent for someone it is possible that here my news are to be seen anyway - but no one ever has to read this. So it is not my responsibility, it is the reader's - whether one wants to know or not. Because I don't tell all miserabilities in e-mails - e-mails are my responsibility somehow.

Was to lab today. I have been postponing and postponing it... because I don't want to know the results. I thought this little harmless painful disaster of a disorder (rheuma) would not kill me. I thought it was not life-threatening. Now anyway my doctor suspects it is causing severe things here and there in my body... I know I live with it all the time but I don't want to think about it. And odd or not, it has felt that as long as I don't have the tests taken, I don't have to think about it.

Now anyway I had them taken and all right.... it has not been any good day - all the miserabilities this disorder can cause but then - I was shopping after work and when I came out .... what I saw was nearest awful for my condition - a landscape completely darkened by thick rain clouds - and heavy rain just about starting... suddenly I decided not to die just yet! That is a joke of course - but anyway it is incredible how most awful things can make you feel good. Get some psych-something to explain it, I can't - to me it is just funny and very handy.

I was asked what I will do with all that time now that I have finished the "big" (haha) writing work. What time? Looking at this week's schedule.... where is the Time? So... all goes its usual way, I rush from one thing to another... and somehow, in a strange way, even feel good about it. Don't have to think or explain to anyone so much about how I am or how I feel.

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Rainy Sunday

October 7th, 2007

Sunday, raining. I am not my best when it is like this... I have had the stiffness and aches mostly away... I feel when they are coming back and know to add medication then... but there is nothing really to help with how I feel, mentally, and that is the most awful thing about it. For that, there seems to be no cure. I feel sad about things, bad about some old joking or teasing or whatever... suddenly I feel unhappy about things that are gone or things that are perfectly normal... I am like oversensitive to everything, my reactions are exaggerated and I know that they are but I can't change it. It changes with the weather then.

It has been a good day... I have got things done... the entire week-end has been a good one actually. I have been active at home, cleaning, sewing performance clothes for DD who was performing in some senior citizens' happening today... I have been baking and cooking... and washing loadwise of laundry... reading one of Fred Vargas' book (novel) - a good one like they all are... that is, I have tried to keep myself active and not to think so much of how I feel, and I have tried to do things I love, in order to feel better.... but it is really so that nothing ever helps when I feel like this. And I hate to be so helpless with that because I am not mentally ill or unbalanced... it is incredible that a rheumatic disease really works like this! Even though the pain and ache is excluded - I'd have it but for once the medication is able to keep it away. And I still FEEL so bad although everything is all right and well... Sometimes when the pain cannot be excluded, when I live with it for days, or weeks, or months, and it gets intolerable at times... then I can understand I can start feeling depressed. I know I just ought to accept this - it is part of me and part of the disease and I can't help it... so why feel bad even of feeling bad? - Here you see. I AM impossible.

I think I will go back to Vargas.

I was organizing the shower gels, shampoos, conditioners and whatever in the sauna washing room. It appeared that there was hardly any shampoo at all but that there were tens of conditioners so I need not purchase another one before Christmas! But I must get more shampoo at once.

I am also Christmas cleaning, so to say... already... I mean throwing unwanted, broken etc. things out of the house. I enjoy it. I enjoy creating SPACE in this MESS which I hate. But I am such a perfectionist that if I let it rule I never do anything because I cannot get it done well enough. So before I get anything done I have to fight with myself and dump that perfectionism and tell myself that whatever I do.... WHATEVER.... how little, how short a time, how imperfect ever - it is always better than not to do anything at all. And now I start seeing the results. Much has to be done still (says the perfectionist) but a lot has been done too. It has been good time for the mess to cumulate since children were at home during the summer holidays and we were both working and I was even rather busy all summer so... we did not do so much at home, and children set up a mess. And when there is enough of the mess, you stop seeing it. I never get used to it, I always hate it and it deplores me of my energy but I stop seeing it. Now I have started to see and started to do something to it too. Rome was not built in one day and here this organizing is an ever-ongoing process but it is delighting to see it works.

I may not write to you when I don't feel I am well but I still love you. I just don't want to bother you because there is not so much anyone can do - so I even use the "invisible" mode in chat so that no one would feel obliged to contact just because I am there.

I even know it spunds odd but it is how I feel in this state. The happy thing about it is that is goes by.

Writing texts

October 1st, 2007

I am happy because I got the texts done - it cost one day (yesterday) when I was intolerable to all that had to do with me.... apologies.... because half day I was unable to do anything, achy as I don't know what, recovering from the previous days' wonderful tour to Häme... I can recommend every place we visited but about that later... anyway, I got the texts done and in spite of that we in the team changed almost every Ulvila -word to something else like we, us, our, town, citizen and so on... the texts were gernerally accepted. The greatest surprise to me was when I counted the letters and spaces between them, which was essential for the lay-out. I had a model text, just whatever text put into the layout. I counted the marks of two of the lines of it. Then I wrote, without counting. Then, today at work I counted all the texts. What a surprise: they were very very close to the model text, all of them. Just like that! I am somehow skilled in something, or then i have a good instinct.... and in some cases, I am pretty satisfief to what I have achieved!

Now the technician wants surely to close the house and go home and I must let him. I don't want to stay here alone when it is dark and it has been so restless in teh surroundings lately; it is safer to go now when the house is still occupied by someone else, male, too.

Writing

September 28th, 2007

Have been writing short, 14-line texts. I feel so incredibly exhausted that I cannot believe it is true and comes out of writing. And when I write I doubt all the time: do I really say something essential, is this bare nonsense and filling of space that I am doing or does this carry longer ... carry some substance... does it tell anything to anyone... am I telling things that everyone knows... is what is clear to me clear to everyone else... is every word I use the best possible one... do I use worn-out expressions... the exact length of the texts, and those innumeerous questions that cross my mind all the time when writing and weighing every word... what else could I be but incredibly exhausted. And I am not even finished with it yet. What a combination: a most challenging writing work and haste... only this day - already turned till evening - and Sunday to accomplish it all... tomorrow, there will be other tasks - work again, but this time traveling.

Holiday!

September 26th, 2007

Wonderful!

Got holiday lists for coming winter. Incredible - I have 4 weeks of holiday left! I really postponed and postponed my holiday after my colleague died and all was in a chaos at work and of course personally too - and now it seems that in the end I never took out those holidays then. I forgot.

But now they are there and I am so happy! Just to decide when to take them out! Wonderful! I had forgot I have holidays ahead...

Gardener on vacation!

Autumn in the garden Oct 15 2007

Writing ahead

September 26th, 2007

Writing ahead

First thing in the office after swinging round out in town first for half a day - I get a phone call from a photographer who wants to know in which state my texts are. We are making a calendar together, and have a team there to make it with us too. Means that he has done the photographing and I am doing the writing and the others are doing the criticizing. I laugh at him and tell him it is not Monday yet. We have a short discussion and I know he is a bit annoyed but it does not come out loud so ... the fact is just that I have been occupied with all kinds of idiotic things like sitting in meetings that would have been possible to keep without me... wasting time doing paper work that I consider not necessary but that has dead lines in municipal governing... mostly this but then also much else, things that come and go. I need no inspiration to write so I can do it all right but I need some sort of ability to concentrate and honestly, at work I don't have it. People rush in and out of the room and whenever someone entries, I stop what I am doing and concentrate on the one that has come. Phones ring... I may speak in one phone, have a couple of clients waiting, another phone might ring - and then it would turn out that the client who has been waiting over all the phone calls and the other clients has come to a wrong place... I like this though but do some creative writing work to be published... in this market place or whatever of an office ... no way really.... The entire thought makes me laugh. I don't feel stressy about it but I see others are starting to feel stressy and now I have got to keep them in good humour... really I have the feeling that I am the clown of the circus - and why not...

What keeps me going is the colours. All through my driving to and from work I am able to enjoy the incredibly energizing colours of the trees now as they have turned red, yellow, brown, orange and everything in between. I cannot really describe it but it feels really good. What I admire most is that all those innumerous variants of colours go together. What an artist, the One who has created all that! And how thoughtful... to let us have all that fireworking of colours before we sink into sunless darkness and coldness covered with white snow all over! Winter looks so beautiful too. But colours are few and even those few are dumped by the darkness that is always present if not always complete.

There have been unwanted intruders in one of "our" houses last night. I mean those houses that I am in charge of, at work. The house is rent to a theatre company. Our art school had had intruders too. Both are situated quite in the centrum but a bit away from people's eyes anyway.

Had an interesting discussion about civil wars last night. Especially the Finnish one. And now someone is whistling International in the café - can't be true really!

Flare

December 13th, 2007

Having a flare. Those with FMS know what I am talking about. Incredible pain and ache all over - seemingly not to be eased by any kind of pain killers. Took a coctail of them - all prescription meds - at 4 a.m. and thought it would get me going by the morning but it did not - I see no difference which means that either they do not hit the point - or then the intensity of the pain has increased all the time.

For some time - a couple of days - I had sort of an "aura" telling this would be coming, but it was so unlike the usual brain fog that I could not interpret it. I knew and felt something was wrong with me but I did not know what it was. Usually that brain fog lasts for a short time, a couple of hours max, and then comes the flare, and during the brain fog I can't find words, can't communicate properly, may forget simpliest things - but when the pain comes, the fog goes. Now it was different: I felt I was like a string that was about to split off, or break. A friend of mine said he saw I was angry or really nervous. I was. And it lasted for DAYS! Then I felt the tension went to muscles... though stiff muscles are just part of the flare. And now at night came the intensive pain. I had to give up. I did not go to work today. I was happy I had no appointments for today. Couldn't start the car... Can't hold a key in my hands, not to talk about driving - all know that driving of mine: 1 hour+ to work, another+ back...

How after 12 years with this disorder, it still can surprise me!

Not a dull life ----- ?

Flu

September 1st, 2007

I have got flu.

About flu, I love the Finnish author Veikko Huovinen's novel "Lentsu", in which he humoristically describes the itinerary of a flu virus and its passing from one person to another. I think I'll read it. I will need something to keep in a good mood. I hate flus.

I hate flus but they seem to be inevitable. As soon as the weather changes from warm summery to chilly autumn weather , as soon as the schools start and all pupils gather together to exchange all kinds of germs - as soon the flu is there. We have three exchangers out there so we are sure to collect everything there is.

First it was our youngest daughter. It always gets problematic with her because she has diabetes and all infections make the diabetic state worse and need careful attention. So now it is us parents who have flu. And yet the show must go on: all meals and snacks are needed, shopping has to be done, laundry has to be washed, children have their dance classes and art classes and whatever to attend and then there are extra events that need attention.

I hate flu, and therefore I try to find the light side of it, the enjoyable part. I have lost my heart to the Mediterranean . I have been there innumerous times during years - first alone, then with family, who also have become great Mediterranean-enthusiasts. I have been blessed with some good friends from the area too. And I have got receipe for "Mediterranean cure" for flu which I can enjoy while suffering the disaster up here in the north. It includes onion, garlic, fresh tomatoes, oranges - and olive oil of course. Use as you like. But a lot of it! And all day! What wonderful orders! It all makes sense - there are vitamins, acids, folic acids, flavonoids - who knows what that is useful every time, and not just when you have flu. But it works as a true comfort for me in this miserability that I can enjoy something Mediterranean that tastes good and gets the thoughts to something warm and enjoyable.

Unfortunately, that is not all. I have asthma, and flu means added medication. This time I will start right away and not wait till asthma gets worse. It is said that if not treated, flu takes the entire 14 days to get off; while if you treat it, you can have it off in two weeks. Doesn't work for me, though, either of them!
For me it takes first those 14 days or two weeks, and then the struggle with asthma which will take at least one month, often more. So I hate flu.

I hate flu. So now tell me I only get it for my negative attitude... anyway, what is lovely and positive is Veikko Huovinen's "Lentsu" and Mediterranean cure - together with the domestic one, which is honey and most of all blackcurrant juice. Added with modern chemical medication all that comes with asthma ... so I really feel like fully occupied with the flu - and almost a professional - treating it with diabetes, or with asthma...

By the way, "Lentsu" is a folkloristic, traditional name to flu. So expressive that it is enjoyable!

It was a dark and stormy night

August 17th, 2007

It was a dark and stormy night...

.... like you start the worst novel in the world, according to some professional association. But so it was. I have started to paint windows this summer, once it was fine weather- but since we have tens of windows, and they are old-fashioned, wooden ones in our old house - and we want to restore them, as well as the house - it takes a lot of time and I did not have that time then, to finish the project. Then it has been raining, or we have been away from home - always something. Now that I am finally on holiday, I would have time but the weather has been so rainy and also so humid for long already that all the wooden frames of the windows have been absorbing humidity from the air and cannot be painted right now. So while enjoying the romantic atmosphere of the stormy and dark nights we are hoping for dry weather to get at least the south-facing windows painted this summer. If only they'd dry some first!

The other day, India celebrated her 60th anniversary. I have always been interested in India - first because at school I had a pen pal there - it was a habit that time. I still know this person and we keep in touch. And now also our daughters mail to each other, which especially delights us both. Our friendship has been going on for more than 30 years. It would be nice to meet in reality sometimes too. Maybe when our children get a bit older we can travel so far! - When studying, one summer I had no job and no money either but did not want to bother my family with that and lived with a very narrow budget. Then I saw an announcement in a newspaper - Indian Kathakali Dance Theatre would perform in a near-by town. Had the feeling that I must see it, once it comes so near. I had just enough money for the bus ticket so off I went - and it was really worth it. I then made the other of my two final research works in the university about the Indian Kathakali Dance Theatre. So inspired I was!

I wonder how often it is so that our interest towards something - culture, hobby, habit, faith, country, whatever - arises from people we meet. Yesterday I met someone, from a foreign country, and he asked me if I spoke his native language. (Worldwide, it is not spoken much outside his country). I said I was sorry I did not, but then I think a devil went into me and I asked whether he spoke my native tongue (we are a smaller nation, true..). So quess what he answered? "Of course not." Perhaps he meant that practically no foreigner can speak our language (worldwide, it is true again, but I am astonished by how many actually can anyway). So maybe it is better to stay polite about not knowing some language than take it for granted. Or suppose others take it for granted.

Read an article about Bible translators. Had never come to think about it but there was an interesting point. A translator said that when you translate a novel you have your freedom, to a certain extend. But when you translate the Bible, you have to be exact. You cannot write "a little bit that way". And that means you have to know both languages really well - and also the world of the Bible. And not enough with that: even though you know tha languages, you can still make fatal mistakes if you don't know the culture.

There is a delicious description about these misunderstandings in Barbara Kingsolver's novel "The Poisonwood Bible", which tells about an American missionary worker family in Congo before WW2. It is fictionary but really good. After having read that, I had to start studying the history of colonialism in Central Africa. Had before studied just India and knew some (very little) about North Africa. Will try to list some books if I succeed, after having finished this.

10:39

School start

August 14th, 2007

It has been and will be a busy day today. It is almost noon and all morning it feels I have been assisting others: combing the hairs of the girls, asking innumerous questions about what everything children have in their back bags, making sure the child diabetic of the family has her meters, all other equipment and written instructions together with phone numbers with her - and that all have their cell phones (how did the world go round without them?) with batteries loaded and set to no noice making mode... then, helped a friend with paper work... had the gymnasium-starter's time schedule added to our web calendars... done some company paper work (still one file missing....), assisted a colleague in the office by chat (practical!) etc... etc...

The first child is already back from school. I am still in pajamas, have not yet had any lunch, and feel in need of a shower. Have to go downstairs now and start to find out what studies in gymnasium are like nowadays. Lesson 1 for Mom!

This is family life in our house and I love it.

Signed in (in Windows Live Spaces, that is)

August 13th, 2007

Signed in just the other day when invited by my friend Sargun in Turkey. Hi there! Luckily, I am on holiday and have time for things like this... enjoyable, and once started, maybe fun and useful too? Will try to find time to post short notes or longer philosophings from time to time.

Schools will start tomorrow, so we have been occupied with equipping our children with what we think - and they say - they will need. Basic education (grades 1 to 9) is free in Finland, and two of our three children are still on basic education, but there are extras... but it is what we are for, what we are working for. Our son is starting the gymansium and it is long ago we have been in gymnasium ourselves so we have lots to learn too... everything has changed.