Simply saving here my old profile, most applicable to this blog, though no longer really any true description of me.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Saving
Simply saving here my old profile, most applicable to this blog, though no longer really any true description of me.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
New blog? What?
Well, not a blog. Or rather: not a blog with a website, but a website with a blog. What do you think? Cool? Why? What? Who?
Yes, it's me. You might still find traces of a travelling mathematician. Ten points if you do.
Yes, it's me. You might still find traces of a travelling mathematician. Ten points if you do.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Back? Or not?
This might be Saara starting to write again or it might be Saara using this blog to promote arbitrary other stuff. I'm not sure which one is the one writing now but here's a website.
Yes, bellydance in Finland. My navel is on the front page.
Väre is Finnish and means something like shimmy, which is a bellydance movement – a shimmying kind. But it can also mean the ripples on the water. Or the chills you get watching a great performance.
Yes, bellydance in Finland. My navel is on the front page.
Väre is Finnish and means something like shimmy, which is a bellydance movement – a shimmying kind. But it can also mean the ripples on the water. Or the chills you get watching a great performance.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
View North
What? She's posting again? Yeah, yeah, yeah... There's an explanation: No pilates tonight. The class was canceled. The teacher is sick. So here's your picture:
This is the view North from the upstairs staircase window. Probably taken sometime before Christmas. Our next door neighbor towards North is a bit to the right in the picture: if you look closely you can see a yellowish hue in the right hand side. The red house is the neighbor after that. It's a big beautiful house on a cliff, with a mansard roof and a majestic look. But our little house is just as cosy and we don't need to sand 30 icy steps to our front door during winter. Only five.
Speaking of the ice. It was glorious on the window that day. It transformed the garden into a soft milky dream and just below the sun made it glow and sparkle in millions of funny shapes and there was just this tiny crack that you could see quite clearly through.
The ice is pretty but it's also evidence of bad ventilation in the bathroom. All fixed now. We have a light switch and we have a switch to turn on the mechanical exhaust. Just like in America. Totally awesome!
This is the view North from the upstairs staircase window. Probably taken sometime before Christmas. Our next door neighbor towards North is a bit to the right in the picture: if you look closely you can see a yellowish hue in the right hand side. The red house is the neighbor after that. It's a big beautiful house on a cliff, with a mansard roof and a majestic look. But our little house is just as cosy and we don't need to sand 30 icy steps to our front door during winter. Only five.
Speaking of the ice. It was glorious on the window that day. It transformed the garden into a soft milky dream and just below the sun made it glow and sparkle in millions of funny shapes and there was just this tiny crack that you could see quite clearly through.
The ice is pretty but it's also evidence of bad ventilation in the bathroom. All fixed now. We have a light switch and we have a switch to turn on the mechanical exhaust. Just like in America. Totally awesome!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Snow Cat
So why haven't I posted anything in such a long time? Well, the truth is that I haven't had any news worth writing about. But the snow cat is worth writing about. Or rather, it's worth a picture.
This last week has been beautiful and sunny with rapidly melting snow and a strong promise of spring. But yesterday I woke up to a silent snowfall which made me instantly happy as it never fails to do. Today however, the snow is already melting again and the cat has lost first it's tail, then the head and now finally it's back.
Luckily I took pictures yesterday to share with you and remind me of the wonders of snow even after it's all melted away. How about the past months then? Did I panic? Did I get everything packed? Did I take any pictures to share later? Was I truthful earlier when I said I told you the truth? Shall you find out later? Nobody knows, but the Snow Cat's here to stay. And if it snows a little more, I can always make a new creature from the two leg pillars still standing.
As always, the Snow Cat from left and from right and from back and from front here.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Packing Now, Panicking Later
So we are moving just 11 days from now. I'm packing. There's still no electricity, no heating, no water, not even a toilet seat. Somebody pointed out to me that there's no use for a toilet seat if you don't have any water. But I've thought this through, trust me. You see, one could fetch water from the garden tap, which is working. At least I think it is.
We are happy it's getting colder as the porch will provide a great fridge and we are planning to buy a mikrowave. The eight months of dust do worry me though. The vacuum uses electricity, you understand. And the cats do worry me. They are ment for pillow imitating and purring, not as renovation hazards or dust redistributers.
But there is one thing I've learned this fall. We all know it and I've known it too for a long long time, I've been told it hundreds of times and I've said it hundreds of times more but I was never able to truly live by it before. To take only one worry at the time. If you feel your life is spiralling out of your hands, that your worries are drowning you, that you simply can't handle it anymore, I have a suggestion you can't pass: Acquire a house to renovate, the older the better, the worse the shape the better. Prefarably wooden. Prefarably with memories. And I promise you, you will finally be able to live one day at the time.
Yes, we are moving in 11 days from now, we don't have electricity, heating or water, not even a toilet set, and I'm not panicking. There is still plenty of time for that next week.
We are happy it's getting colder as the porch will provide a great fridge and we are planning to buy a mikrowave. The eight months of dust do worry me though. The vacuum uses electricity, you understand. And the cats do worry me. They are ment for pillow imitating and purring, not as renovation hazards or dust redistributers.
But there is one thing I've learned this fall. We all know it and I've known it too for a long long time, I've been told it hundreds of times and I've said it hundreds of times more but I was never able to truly live by it before. To take only one worry at the time. If you feel your life is spiralling out of your hands, that your worries are drowning you, that you simply can't handle it anymore, I have a suggestion you can't pass: Acquire a house to renovate, the older the better, the worse the shape the better. Prefarably wooden. Prefarably with memories. And I promise you, you will finally be able to live one day at the time.
Yes, we are moving in 11 days from now, we don't have electricity, heating or water, not even a toilet set, and I'm not panicking. There is still plenty of time for that next week.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Legacy
It was a basement restaurant and I walked the white steps down from the street. It had been raining the whole day and I was happy to get inside from the wet darkness. I was a bit early as you can imagine but there were already some people bustling about and I slowly chose a table from the far end of the room. They had coffee and pastries. The room was small and softly lit and the walls were decorated appropriately in the spirit of Kalevala.
Once it started the meeting did feel like a community. I am using the word very consciously. We are living in history. I know that a member can be discharged from the cooperative by a simple decision of the administrative board. And that this in effect means that you lose your property. No quarreling about.
I observed the discourse from my sofa. Most of the members present had beards and everyone who spoke did so with steady confidence. I was surprised to be able to follow everything that was being said without effort. I rather think that I knew quite a lot of it already. Of the construction details that is, not of their history. My vocabulary has already changed and I felt homey and affirmed by the discussion.
On the way home I remembered an evening at my grandparents'. Mikko had to leave for the cooperative meeting. I was bummed that he had to go, but I couldn't say anything as I somehow saw in his face the importance, the necessity and the dignity of his mission. I don't know if he ever spoke there with the steady confidence but I know that he must have sat in the same room with some of the same people I'd hear speaking today. I also don't know if he liked going to the meeting, probably he would have rather stayed home with his granddaugher. But I know that he did go and that he did everything right, just like grandfathers and grandmothers do. And I know that he would have shaken his head in worry and his brows would have furrowed in his ever-present anxiety over me but that he would have known what to do now, too. Just like grandfathers and grandmothers do.
As I walked home to the home that is almost not home anymore as the move date is getting closer and closer I was crying and for the first time I really felt the weight of legacy on my shoulders. Enough so that I am now able to realize that however clichéd it sounds, it really is a thing that feels in your shoulders. And it feels quite lonely. With this house it is just me now. I have to be the one who knows what to do, just like I do. And just tonight I miss my grandfather.
Once it started the meeting did feel like a community. I am using the word very consciously. We are living in history. I know that a member can be discharged from the cooperative by a simple decision of the administrative board. And that this in effect means that you lose your property. No quarreling about.
I observed the discourse from my sofa. Most of the members present had beards and everyone who spoke did so with steady confidence. I was surprised to be able to follow everything that was being said without effort. I rather think that I knew quite a lot of it already. Of the construction details that is, not of their history. My vocabulary has already changed and I felt homey and affirmed by the discussion.
On the way home I remembered an evening at my grandparents'. Mikko had to leave for the cooperative meeting. I was bummed that he had to go, but I couldn't say anything as I somehow saw in his face the importance, the necessity and the dignity of his mission. I don't know if he ever spoke there with the steady confidence but I know that he must have sat in the same room with some of the same people I'd hear speaking today. I also don't know if he liked going to the meeting, probably he would have rather stayed home with his granddaugher. But I know that he did go and that he did everything right, just like grandfathers and grandmothers do. And I know that he would have shaken his head in worry and his brows would have furrowed in his ever-present anxiety over me but that he would have known what to do now, too. Just like grandfathers and grandmothers do.
As I walked home to the home that is almost not home anymore as the move date is getting closer and closer I was crying and for the first time I really felt the weight of legacy on my shoulders. Enough so that I am now able to realize that however clichéd it sounds, it really is a thing that feels in your shoulders. And it feels quite lonely. With this house it is just me now. I have to be the one who knows what to do, just like I do. And just tonight I miss my grandfather.
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