think of a headline, think of a headline... meh, this one's about work and the weekend, and it includes a quote, OK?

Fed up with my job again. Doing those extra rounds in June didn't pay as much extra as I expected. Not by far. Even though it was a lot of extra work. I'm also tired of having such a hard time even trying to calculate what I'll make the next month. Which is rarely enough anyway.

It was very naive shortsighted of me to decide for a trip to Britain this summer too, but it can't be cancelled now. And secretly I'm glad, but this also means that almost everything goes to Britain-and-Bills. (No less with the expensive phone bills I receive after the update to a phone I can use to access the internet.....) Now I've been forced to shorten this weekend's trip to my hometown, as the train tickets are too expensive. VR (the Finnish national railways) have raised the ticket prices again, so now the price of a return trip - with one cat - to my hometown ends up at around 80 euros, or possibly even more. And that's with a student discount. I will be missing out on one reunion, but luckily not all. Still feel bad for not being there.

There are good things, too. I still have this trip, this small break from everything to look forward to. It did feel good to return the work keys. And I've had offers of car rides, and been able to take up one of them - tomorrow. Did not find anyone to care for miss Cat, though, so she'll be coming along. I so hope she'll... well, not sure if you should ever use the word "behave" when talking about a cat, but let's just say I hope she won't be a complete pain in the @#%* - at least not all the way! Keeping fingers crossed.

...oh, almost forgot the quote:

About blogging and self-promotion

Lately, I've been pondering what to do with my other blog, the "art blog" as I think it's been referred to here. It was once created to be a place for me to post and update about my own artwork (and, on the side, about inspiring work of other artists) but it's obviously not being used for that. Too actively, that is. I've been wanting to post pictures from my sketchbook for quite a while now, but this seems just to turn into one more of those things I find myself not going... And recently, I haven't posted much else, either. Yesterday, I tried to give the blog a little fix-up, but to be honest, I'm still not sure if it's for the better or worse. It is more reader-friendly (and viewer-friendly) now, with the bigger text and all, but, on the downside, this almost makes me nervous to post - about my own work, that is.

But after doing a test-post, and liking the new looks of the blog as well as the overall picture quality, I've decided to give the blog one more chance. And to motivate myself to keep posting, I immediately shared the post on G+. Let's see how long it lasts this time.

Listening to: Testament! \m/

My cat is not spoiled

disgusting "head"-end of now former cat toy

tiny craft project

Yay! New prey!

I do confess: miss Cat only "plays" with them to be nice, when she wants to be scratched or fed, or just needs the attention.

Aura river photographic expedition

One thing you can chose to do (for free!) if you, as I actually complained about in the last post, have too much time off, is to go on your own photographic expedition. I decided to do this yesterday, and  went for a long walk with the simple plan of snapping pictures of anything nice or interesting that comes my way. As a route I chose to go along the Aura river, on both sides. I had planned for this to be an early-morning walk, but lost track of time and found myself out walking in the blazing mid-day sunshine in close to 30 degrees heat. It was still fun - nice to walk around acting like a tourist in your own town!

Posted some of the photos on google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/107842808026424646494/posts

(Quite often I've posted pics here on the blog and the a link here on my google page but I'll just do it the other way around this time)

me complaining about my job and listening to great music

I'm tired of my job again. I only work a couple of days every week, but this just makes it more frustrating. Right now, in the summer, I'd have the time to do so much more, and I also know that I function better when I'm active enough. Of course, this gives me the chance to spend more of my time doing things that actually feel rewarding for me to do, and I am doing that - I focus on my health, my art, I train, I write... - but I would still want to work more.

Of course, I also dream about simply finding a new job, a different one, one that relates ever so slightly to my area of knowledge. Or something where I could earn more. I'll keep looking.

This month I will take only one day off my normal work schedule, for the Jakobs dagar- weekend in two weeks, when I'll be revisiting my hometown again, as every year. This year I can specially look forward to one more reunion with the girls (we did this last year and hope to turn it into a tradition!) on Thursday and of course the Party Of The Year on Saturday.

...and midst my complaining, I found this on the zenhabits blog: http://zenhabits.net/discomfort-ruin/
-an article on learning to cope with your discomfort. Great timing again.

Listening to: Electric six, David Bowie (Hunky Dory!)

Update on training

I've found my way back to karate practice again - or at least attended two sessions in a row. It's been quite hard for me to follow this summer's practice schedule, as the sessions are so early, especially the Wednesday tends to clash with my work hours. But right now we are having some difficulties with cancelled sessions, meaning we have instead practised in the park on times suitable for as many as possible - ironically making it easier for yours truly to attend. From now on, the Wednesday sessions will probably be easier to attend too, as I'm, starting tomorrow, no longer doing the double round.

Doing your karate training outdoors does include some small challenges, like having to adjust to weather changes or training on uneven ground instead of a good hardwood floor. But this is where you really get some use for those hard foot soles earned from seven years of karate practice.

This summer I've also started to work out at home, with small weights. I can't say too much about the progress yet, but I'm sure its good for me. I hope it will work as a good balance to my running on the side of karate training. In this, I'm focusing mostly on torso, especially upper back muscles, but also arms. I try do some kind of training or exercise every day (and yes, I count my job as exercise, too),  except for the occasional Sunday.

quote of the day

Perfect stranger

This morning I woke up from a dream of you. It felt so strange. I haven't seen you in ages and, honestly, hadn't even thought about you in weeks but there you were. Nothing in particular happened in the dream, it was just the two of us being silly and ridiculously happy together. And waking up from that alone in a filthy flat to a normal workday just felt so drab. Especially as I could still, as I normally never do, remember the dream in such exact detail.

I don't consider myself as very superstitious. Still, you just showing up like that, by surprise and uninvited, made med think of you. I hope everything is OK with you, and that your day got off to a better start than mine. And I hope you didn't dream of me too. Just wanted to say that.

Medieval market 2013

End of last week, it was the annual Medeval Turku happening and, once again, I just had to visit  the "medieval market". Took a whole bunch of pictures, here are some of them.

soap

Turku painters' guild

fish "since 1350"

icons

insanity certificates