Tuesday, December 16, 2003
The past few days have been uneventful, and with a little break coming up, this suits me just fine. I am still trying to figure out how to post pictures to this journal, but this website is giving me some trouble. I've been thinking about trying to create my own webpage. It can't be that hard, can it? I just think that this reading experience, and the writing, would be more flavorful if there were some pictures to go along with it. I'll pick up a how-to for dummies over the break and start reading up on it.
Speaking of reading, I really need to get into gear with preparing for these lectures. February is creeping closer everyday and I still need to plan something. I have an idea in my head, but I need to flesh that idea out so that I can talk about it for at least 90 minutes, and with 7 more session after that, I need to be able to BS for 720 minutes. I know what you saying, that's a lot of minutes.
And now speaking of the break, it will be nice to get away from here for a little while. It will be nice see some good friends and family and to watch The Return of the King at a real movie theatre, maybe watch it twice. Joensuu has been better than I could have imagined, but it is still a small town in the middle of nowhere that has no restaurants to speak of - save an Indian food place that is decent, and by decent I mean pretty good, oh, and a pasta place for lunch that isn't too shabby - only has two movie screens - although they are building a multi-plex with 3 screens - and the grocery stores don't have peanut butter, applesauce or fresh spinach. And the salmon is so fresh it needs to be de-scaled before cooking and de-scalling a salmon is tedious and messy, but it sure does taste good.
When we get back, I am slightly frightened at how busy I will be. The boys and I will be playing basketball every Monday and Wednesday. I will be teaching on Saturdays and then once during the week come Mid-Feb. I have Finnish class on Wednesday's before b-ball and then I still have my job to work. I do think that this is a wise course of action to take because it should distract me from the snow dunes and wind freeze that is about to come. By the time my schedule eases up, I will be relaxing at the summer house waiting for the first batch of visitors.
Speaking of visitors, we are to have our first guests in January, for a couple of days. Kelly Grove's cousin Laura and her boyfriend Aron are making their way from Kiev to Joensuu, where Aron will lecture on sound for the polytechnic (which is the school that K works for and also the same entity which helps to support the Film Commission). I'm dying to see their faces when they arrive. It is sort of the same feeling I had when I was excited to see the faces of our guests from Finland when they came to NY and would take the A train from JFK to Park Slope. Is it wrong to get pleasure from someone else's shock? Who cares, I will anyway.
I'm going to bed now. Oh, I have to bitch about something. Sure the service they provide is necessary and the job they perform is thankless and tedious, but those bastards who clear the roads and make them ok to drive and bike on start doing their job at 4:30 in the morning. And the sound that the shovel makes as it scrapes the asphalt is like hearing someone scratch a chalkboard, except louder and at 4:30 in the freakin morning! In Brooklyn, if someone was doing anything that loud at 4:30 in the morning, people would be screaming and someone might even get hurt.
Speaking of getting hurt, remind me never to celebrate anything by shooting hundreds of bullets into the air. The fact that this is a common tradition held by regular members of society is absolutely insane. Unconfirmed reports from one town - I'm sorry I don't remember more details and I can't believe this doesn't get more news coverage - was that 8 people were killed and more than 80 injured from "celebratory gunfire". Has education slipped slow low in some parts of the world that people forget that what goes up must come down?
Hey honey, we're free, no one's going to come and hurt us anymore. Get my gun, will ya? I'm so happy I want everyone to know it. No, not the hand gun, the Kalishnikov. I'm really happy today. Sounds like the NRA has a highly effective global lobby.
Speaking of reading, I really need to get into gear with preparing for these lectures. February is creeping closer everyday and I still need to plan something. I have an idea in my head, but I need to flesh that idea out so that I can talk about it for at least 90 minutes, and with 7 more session after that, I need to be able to BS for 720 minutes. I know what you saying, that's a lot of minutes.
And now speaking of the break, it will be nice to get away from here for a little while. It will be nice see some good friends and family and to watch The Return of the King at a real movie theatre, maybe watch it twice. Joensuu has been better than I could have imagined, but it is still a small town in the middle of nowhere that has no restaurants to speak of - save an Indian food place that is decent, and by decent I mean pretty good, oh, and a pasta place for lunch that isn't too shabby - only has two movie screens - although they are building a multi-plex with 3 screens - and the grocery stores don't have peanut butter, applesauce or fresh spinach. And the salmon is so fresh it needs to be de-scaled before cooking and de-scalling a salmon is tedious and messy, but it sure does taste good.
When we get back, I am slightly frightened at how busy I will be. The boys and I will be playing basketball every Monday and Wednesday. I will be teaching on Saturdays and then once during the week come Mid-Feb. I have Finnish class on Wednesday's before b-ball and then I still have my job to work. I do think that this is a wise course of action to take because it should distract me from the snow dunes and wind freeze that is about to come. By the time my schedule eases up, I will be relaxing at the summer house waiting for the first batch of visitors.
Speaking of visitors, we are to have our first guests in January, for a couple of days. Kelly Grove's cousin Laura and her boyfriend Aron are making their way from Kiev to Joensuu, where Aron will lecture on sound for the polytechnic (which is the school that K works for and also the same entity which helps to support the Film Commission). I'm dying to see their faces when they arrive. It is sort of the same feeling I had when I was excited to see the faces of our guests from Finland when they came to NY and would take the A train from JFK to Park Slope. Is it wrong to get pleasure from someone else's shock? Who cares, I will anyway.
I'm going to bed now. Oh, I have to bitch about something. Sure the service they provide is necessary and the job they perform is thankless and tedious, but those bastards who clear the roads and make them ok to drive and bike on start doing their job at 4:30 in the morning. And the sound that the shovel makes as it scrapes the asphalt is like hearing someone scratch a chalkboard, except louder and at 4:30 in the freakin morning! In Brooklyn, if someone was doing anything that loud at 4:30 in the morning, people would be screaming and someone might even get hurt.
Speaking of getting hurt, remind me never to celebrate anything by shooting hundreds of bullets into the air. The fact that this is a common tradition held by regular members of society is absolutely insane. Unconfirmed reports from one town - I'm sorry I don't remember more details and I can't believe this doesn't get more news coverage - was that 8 people were killed and more than 80 injured from "celebratory gunfire". Has education slipped slow low in some parts of the world that people forget that what goes up must come down?
Hey honey, we're free, no one's going to come and hurt us anymore. Get my gun, will ya? I'm so happy I want everyone to know it. No, not the hand gun, the Kalishnikov. I'm really happy today. Sounds like the NRA has a highly effective global lobby.
// posted by Howard @ 11:32 PM 
