Nothing beautiful is useless.

Happy Birthday brother!

One Moon, One Star

13½
+10

Colors

So last night was Club Colors. And what a great night it was, Orkidea, Kunnari and Paul van Dyk. Sadly no lasers (i really love those lasers :D) though since it was a normal club locale and not a big hall like last time i attended one of their events. Never really listened to van Dyk before and i realized iv been missing out on something great.

Anyhow, the night was so great that even the police decided to keep our party spirits up on the way home and gave us not one, but two, light shows. Well yeah, since everything was in order and not even the passengers were drunk (not with the prices they had, and with the amount of sweating), they just wished us a good trip. The second time though our driver, Popper, couldn't resists to point out to the officer that they already had checked if everything was as it should be.

But yeah, it was a great night with great tunes, great beats and great waves.

Earlier in the day i went to see Tangled, the latest Disney animation, together with Jonna and some of her friends, also my friends from the theater group for that matter, and all agreed that it was a great movie. Actually it was the first 3D movie i've seen and i was pretty amazed how cool it looked. Well, now i know to trust the kids in my class as well as my babysis when they tell me some movie is worth seeing. ~__^

Now on towards a good day!
This is how weekends should be.

Shiro

So, a long week behind me, yet still some work left to do. The weekend gives some space to breathe for a few moments fortunately.

The good news are that the bank called me to tell that all is still fine and that i also got the first payment done, the one that is needed as a safety to assure i wont back out of the deal. I couldn't have done it without my grandpa and grandma so i owe them my thanks. As things look now, 12th next month i get my keys.

Unfortunately things feel a bit bleak. Its not over yet but its certainly not a good thing that i didn't yet get accepted for my post next year at work. Despite that my boss tried her best, and i strongly believe she did, the others decided they have to stay on lookout for more workforce. This comes with a risk for me so i wasn't all too cheery today, especially not since i've put a lot of effort in during this week. And even if i know it is not how things are, i just feel like someone, or something, doesn't appreciate the effort. Well, i will continue to give my best, to the end. And i will keep the job. Deo Volente!

I can't put to words how happy i am for the fact that i have gotten to work with the job i have. So instead, some pics from along the week, some of which the students took themselves on a lesson i decided to take it a bit easier during as half the class was missing. Oh, and a student of mine amazed the whole class with hidden singing skills. I never though a kid could have a voice that powerful. After a short and even more so spontaneous performance the kid ran to the blackboard and wrote some lyrics down while everyone was still baffled and amazed. Maybe that is his ticket in life. =D

For arts today i decided that since the moon has been passing close to earth we'd make a theme out of it. I closed the curtains, played a slide show with pictures of the moon and put some Shpongle playing in the background. We got some incredible drawings and in the afternoon i was inspired enough to finish my own piece too. I named it Shiro, white.

"For me this is the loveliest and
saddest landscape in the world."

Fact

When the mind is blank and there is nothing, i feel serene. I feel true.

Those little plans that never go quite right

Yeah, so here i am again, at the end of one chapter, the beginning of another one. Feels like life is just rolling on with its own humongous weight. As if i started something that now just keeps on going on and on.

Later today me and Jonna vent back to see the place where the apartment is and celebrated with a pair of chocolate sundays. I couldn't resist taking some pictures. So here we go.

The right side balcony on the top floor is mine.
And it faces the afternoon sun. :D


This is the front side,
or the entrance side of the building

The apartment is pretty damn great. It goes trough the whole building so there's windows on both sides. The interior is newly renovated and consists of a newly renovated kitchen and bathroom (that has floor heating), a roomy bedroom and a really open living room with one of the short side walls covered in a wallpaper with a theme that makes it look like some sort of silverish plant was growing all over the wall. The floors are really damn good looking too and consist of dark wooden laminate in the living room and bedroom, and stone floors in the entrance hall and kitchen.

I had my moments of chaos and panic while the decision was to be made and i can be thankful i got the advice of my parents and perhaps even more so the advice and support of my grand parents to lean onto. To be honest, it was my grandmas opinion that i should buy it that really pulled the decision trough.

So yeah, other than that iv played one of the most interesting games (one of those games you play live, gotta write about it at some point). Been bathing sauna with some friends, heard an interesting story from Tokyo there among other things. Spent a great Friday evening with my girl. And learned that my babysis' who just turned eleven has grown to become damn talented at drawing. The only bad thing with the pace the weekend has been rolling on at is that i didn't get to talk to my brother properly.

Well. Bring on the next week. I still have plenty to do.

GREATO!

So here came the call, this time it got trough. The arrangements for the payment were good for the seller and tomorrow I'll contact my bank and schedule a time and day for the transactions to happen. This needs to be celebrated!

YA-HA!

Whoop!

So, I'm a homeowner starting mid next month.

A myriad of thoughts. I'm happy, and I'm afraid to loose the apartment to possible others who might put in an offer that is higher. Sitting on the edge of the chair to hear from the seller. Just a second ago i missed a call from someone due to shitty connection and i really hope it wasn't the call from them.

So, I'll become a homeowner.

Deo Volente!

Da Da Dam, Da Da Dam..

So today was ice fishing. Weather could not have been better. Sunny, yet cold enough for the snow to support walking. And despite that i messed up and forgot a test, that my students were supposed to have, at home and despite that i spent all morning thinking about things greater than life, it was a good day. Had to take a power nap on my desk after everyone else left though before i could continue on anything else.

After i was done at work I checked out an apartment. Big piece of crap. No really, it was big, spacy and good but it was a total dump. Such a waste since the place looked really pretty (a view down to a lake) and the yards were big.

Later on i spent some time singing and playing guitar together with some of the folks at the church (whatever its called I'll just refer to them as the folks at the church even though close to none of them go to church too frequently, nor do i, which actually is a bit of a pity). Its all part of the planning that we do for the summer camps for the youngsters.

The evening i closed with writing clean a test for tomorrow and mailing myself a fail safe of said test as well as the test that i messed up with today. And then a few matches of MOW with good friends.

Still the best part was seeing my girl feeling a bit better again.

Movie film, short

What a day.

So today we continued the filming of the short film, starring me as a serial killer for hire who eventually ends up hired to kill his own girlfriend. The whole thing turned out far creepier and more violent than I had thought at first. Also, ketchup mixed with tomato sauce combined with a bit of water turned out to be awesome looking blood. I guess pictures can talk for themselves. Not for the feint of heart though. =D

One of the weirder angles used in the movie

Filming the angle above


Cooking the blood


Did i mention our dear director, Sussi,
loves odd camera angles.


Yupp, she looks dead alright


Im pretty proud about how authentic
I got the stab wound to look like

After the filming, on the way home, I ended up driving myself down into snow. It was actually pretty simple and I once again got to feel stupid as hell for a moment. You see, I was simply evading for our neighbor who apparently refused to reverse and make space, and as I did this I had to drive on the bank of the road. Turned out, where I stopped the car, there no longer was ground under the snow, but a ditch that was invisible and so when I pressed the gas the car just slumped into the snow. >_<

Great! Well, a quick call to my dad and both him and my grandpa rushed to the rescue. After a while of digging and trying to pull the car up with another small car we gave up and I ran to fetch our neighbor who luckily had bought an old pickup truck just the day before. Talk about lucky coincidence (not to mention that it was the wife of said neighbor who got me there in the first place).

Once Jonna had gotten all the ketchup out of her hair and stopped looking like a walking corpse we enjoyed some dinner and agreed that the day had been weird as hell.

Slow movement

Iv never really figured why there needs to be a separate movement for people to identify themselves with in order to be able to take it easy sometimes. Is it so difficult to take it slow sometimes these days? Not for me it ain't. Maybe I'm lucky in that respect.

Today I decided I was too content with things to be even in the tiniest bit of rush. Yesterday I had to hurry from A to B much enough so today I start with skipping the first thing I had on my schedule altogether. Instead I sit down with a cup of coffee and dream myself away to last night, a wonderful night, and I realize how simple and small the things we truly need in life are. These things have the power to stop time and make space disappear, if only for a while. 3 9!

Yesterday i had to end the day with my class by having to be slightly upset at them. I always hate to end a week like that and do my best to avoid it, however, sometimes its unavoidable. The good thing is, kids don't dwell on bad things too long. Today when i logged onto the notorious wastebin (facebook), i noticed that a student had poked me there. I decided to poke back. I have told the kids that i wont accept them as friends on facebook as long as I am a teacher in the school they go to (not to mention that most of them should not by any means have facebook). This particular kid who sent me a poke this time happens to be one of the kids who always acts tough and loudly declares that he would never add a teacher as his friend on facebook, and still every now and then he asks me, when the other kids cant hear, if I've logged in there in a while. And every time he asks that I know that it means that he sent me a poke again despite the fact that I had to explain to him that i cannot accept him as a friend there. I think that this little, tiny, seemingly useless gesture actually matters more to him than I might understand.

In other news. Japan. My older brother happens to be there. Yet, even if i worry for him a bit, and follow the news about the reactor meltdown threats closely, im certain he will be fine. Cockroaches survived all the earlier nuclear disasters, so im certain he will survive this one. I tells ya, that's one hell of a guy, and one to be proud of. He's seen a Typhoon, walked on snakes in a sugarcane field, been right next door to an earthquake (even if it didn't hit his home) and now he's going to survive a nuclear disaster that might turn historical. Later, when things are fine again, I will be proud to say that my brother was there.

Good night, and good luck Japan!
Tokunoshima, be survivor!

The Miser

So, tonight, i saw something great!

The Miser, by Moliére.

I would have tonnes to tell about it. But instead i go to bed as content, even though slightly worried for my love who is far from home. Because a good evening will lead tomorrow into a good day.

I dislike

Drivers that drive 60 km/h when the road is fit for 80 km/h.
Drivers that drive 60 km/h when there's pedestrians and shitty visibility.
Drivers that drive 60 km/h no matter what the hell is going on around them.

We read about people who smash head on into other cars while driving by someone else.
We read about careless people who got hit by cars.
Everyday there's people who clog the right lane of a highway when people try to get onto it while there's tons of space on the left hand lane to swap to.
And i get a feeling the monkeys mentioned above are the ones at fault.

Why doesn't anyone speak of them?
Well I'll tell ya.

It's these same mongrels who write those angry letters to the newspapers and keep telling that everyone else is a shitty driver, that no one knows the traffic rules and that this country is a degenerate in traffic behavior. These people have the time to sit and drive 60 km/h mid lane no matter if there's people who are in an hurry, or even worse, an ambulance that has to get by. Only people like these would take the time and interest to write to a newspaper. And its only people who are careless enough not to mind pedestrians who can be so moronic as to always claim everyone else is at fault.

One thing that I salute the continental Europe for is smarter drivers. Or so they claim to have.

Take nothing for granted

Yesterday I did, in my carelessness, a small mistake that made had me thinking over a few things again and made me realize that passion can be dangerous as hell. To be passionate about something means usually that you give the most, the best and everything for a sole cause or to a sole person. It is good. But what if it becomes too much? To loose something usually ain't no big deal, but to loose something that you have a great passion for can be devastating, more so if you yourself are the one at fault.

Lately I've stopped fearing the worst about everything and every day. But there is a fear that remains, and I guess it always will. It is the fear of loosing the things i dedicate myself to.

Lesson learned. I promise.

And as a side note id like to mention that keeping thirty children quiet and occupied can be quite the task when they all have to fit in a room for 20. I do start to realize where the grounds for the horror stories form the schools in the 70's come. Its near impossible to keep good order. Well, i managed trough it, my nerves might not have, but the kids and the classroom did.

Now wont someone soon tell me if i get to keep my job next year!

Lesson learned

Hah! So there it goes. The apartment i was thinking about just got sold, right under my nose. Damn.

Well... that gives me some more time to think so not entirely bad. I just can't stop thinking about how perfect the location was when thinking about studying and just generally living. Ah, there will be more, just gotta keep my eyes open. I also learned a valuable lesson here.

When you see a hundred on a table, grab it and run.
- Merven Matti

To be or not to be, a home owner, is the question

So i was checking out an apartment again. This time, it actually seemed pretty great. It's a tiny nudge on the expensive side for me but it actually comes down to how to sort my economy more than anything else. The apartment is really roomy and is situated in a corner so that it gets an additional window and so light was plentiful. There wasn't really anything to complain about it apart from that the building is fairly old and looks pretty crappy from the outside. The inside however was newly fixed and looked great.

It's also a really short walk away from train and buss-stations as well as the local supermarkets so the real need for a car does disappear. Its a good thing, if it ever gets economically tight, or if i want to rent the apartment to someone.

The only thing im truly iffy about is the fact whether i should wait and see more. However, i trust my grandma on things like these and according to her the apartment just might be worth buying.

I have to destroy the workout bench for a bit, or ill end up destroying my brain with neat images of a cool place that i even do own. Well own, together with the bank, like it always goes.

On a side note, work was great. Outdoor day all morning meant i got to toss away the role of ordering the kids around for a while and could just for full just enjoy the cloudy but bright day and the laughter and the smiles.

QFT

Remember this, all of you

QFT

You might recognize this.

"Many people see walking on water or in thin air as miracles. But it is walking on earth, that is the true miracle."
- Ramon Kurewa

(Yeah i know its some Asian guy who said it sometime,
but for all i care its Ramons words)

Que horas son, Mi corazón

When you don't have time to sit down to jot your thoughts onto paper or into the cyberspace of interwebs you can be damn sure you've at least gotten things done and that usually means things are good. So as the old finish saying goes, "a psalm is as good as it's short".

Been discussing leadership and role models.
Been destroying a workout machine.
Been watching a good movie.
Been promoting my dads political views.
Been part of producing a short film.
Been checking and discussing apartments.
Been dining at a restaurant.

I realized there lies a deeper meaning behind the words that old good Lektor once blarted out. Well, at least for me, there now does. Because more than ever before, i have been thinking about my future. And that, together with the ones i love.

Guess I'll end up playing golf when i retire after all.
What goes around, comes around.

QFT

"IF YOU WANT TO MAKE GOD LAUGH JUST TELL HIM YOUR PLANS FOR FUTURE."
- Nicolic "Lektor" Dragan

Home

Today i heard a song among songs. A song for all the people who dared. The ones who dared to believe, the ones who dared to live, the ones who dared to hold onto values that are fading in the society today. Among all the slightly dubious songs in the play tonight this particular one struck straight into me when i heard it, possibly for the sole reason that it was the only serious one in they sang. Be as it may, i felt a feeling of pride. I was proud to sit there next to my friends and with my arms around my girl, sitting there right among the people who's children i am given the honor and responsibility to guide every day on their starting steps on the path of life.

My brother traveled to the others side of the world, after years of waiting, he found his home there. He is a man of great luck.
I traveled to the other side of the world, years after i returned, i realized home was right next door all the time. I am a man of great luck.

I guess happiness is the feeling that you feel while peacefully carving yourself your own place in the world. A place called home.

The truth is found in oat porridge
- An old porridge commercial

Speed of Light

So the first week of the spring term behind me i look back at what is beginning. (Can you write something like this?!?)

It's actually quite surprising that it's Friday already, i was only starting to get things rolling at work when it suddenly hit me that it's weekend. Spring is coming, with new challenges to tackle, and it's doing it fast.

It might still be winter more or less but the school is already planning the next year at full speed. And this is where the fright hit me. What if i wont be able to keep my job the next year. For me, during the fall that passed, work has been life, far more than it was last year when i worked as a school room assistant. As i am only employed for a year at a time there is always a risk that someone else with the proper papers, education and experience snatch it from me. However, rumor has it that with the school becoming bigger and bigger there might be a need for even more workforce. I hope this becomes my slice of luck if nothing else. I really am not ready to move forward from there yet, not just yet, since it feels i have only started my work and that i owe the kids at least that much.

Looking back at the week as well as the winter and fall I also noticed how much I have learned. The school taught me more than I ever learned in school. Ironic, huh? It's really a profession for Jacks of all trades and since I'm clearly a master of none I'm getting a strong feeling that this is where I belong.

The weekend should prove to be a good one despite Jonna being ill. We're going to see some great local theater performance tonight with some good friends and are supposed to start filming a short film sometime too. Why is it that i always get the role of the slightly of beat ones? ~__^

Oh, and i realized that when kids don't know what to do you should give them pencils, crayons, watercolors, big sheets of paper and hide all clocks. Quite frankly, it works marvels on grown ups too.

QFT Blargh

Hahaa! Sunshine. Finally.

Spent a all moments i could outdoors this afternoon. Did some skiing with the kids who thought it was a great deal of fun to see me speed downhill, the way they did. What they found even more funny was when i slipped and smacked myself into the snow, like they did. :D As i plowed trough the snow and sat in the sunlight i caught myself thinking about how great it would be to live a life out there. Slightly off all the maps but still within reasonable distance. Maybe i have to consider the possibility of keeping the car while studying. After all, i have to do that too sometime.

Other than that, been emptying my camera so i could get some photos to my friends who are already planning a second trip to Tahko, or Thako as it got renamed to by accident.

Paycheck in. Bills paid.
Life's good on a day like today.

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."
- Dinah Craik or Mary Ann Evans (or George Elliot), who care really, its good anyway.

Passage

1 Cor. 13:13