Belated post about my weekend up north

As I mentioned before, I spent the weekend before the last in my hometown, as every year, for a local festival. It was a mostly nice extended weekend. I don't know much I care to write about it, so instead I'll just post a picture roll this time. As you can see, I brought miss Cat with me. These were among the things we did or experienced:

The things you find

Last night I decided it was time to clean out the drain under my tub.

Nevermind the dirt. Move along people - nothing to see here...

The only way to do this is through a small opening in the tiles (behind the metal lid in the picture. This turned out to be the best hiding place EVER for a little cat - this is why miss cat is in the picture). For some reason, this time I stretched my arm in to also feel around under the tub, only to find a hard object that said "klonk!"...

Chateau du Bathroom

...and turned out to be an age-old, empty bottle of Bordeaux! Cork still inside.

"Taatusti alkuperäistä Bordeaux-viiniä/ Garanterat äkta Bordeaux"

I wonder how old it could be, and what made it end up under the tub. (student hiding his drinking habit from conservative parents?)

Also, I'm considering writing a message to put in the bottle before returning it to its home under my tub. You know, just in case someone else was to find it years from now.

Last post before Christmas

 I can't get that tomorrow is Christmas eve! Most of December has just flown past... But I'm not too stressed about it all this year. I've finished what I could, except for one hand-made gft and cleaning my flat, but I'll do that tonight. I had my last day of work yesterday, bought the last gift today, and tomorrow morning I'm catching the early train up north - a bit later than usual, but I had no choice as I'll be bringing miss Cat along again and there were no more places (for the both of us) in the pet compartment on any earlier train. But that's ok, I'll be home by lunchtime.

 Christmas will be celebrated in the now traditional order, with family on Christmas eve and with friends on Christmas day. Looking forward to both! Don't know too much about New Year's yet, but looks like it will be spent here in Turku.

Not too much more to report. See you on the other side! And Merry Christmas!

Monday post, on karate

Invisible cat is invisible.

I'm quite tired after a weekend of very little rest. The karate course was demanding but good, I did learn and that's the most important thing. The foot wasn't too much of a problem, it bothered me the most while we did kata, and we didn't do that a lot. It will be interesting to see what we'll be doing here in Turku on regular practice after this. Of course, in a couple of weeks we'll have the beginners course, but until that.

At the moment, I'm trying to get things together for the Fresher's fair this Thursday. We'll have a table there just as every year, with info on the beginners course, pics and videos, and I've asked the organisers about demo space too. They didn't promise anything, but would see if they could find us some floorspace for doing demos, which would be very cool. It's quite hard to explain karate using only you own words and the occasional picture. I'm not sure yet whether I'll be attending myself, but hope to know soon. Anyway, it's usually lots of fun, and has been mentioned often when new members have been asked where or how they heard about us.

And how does the picture above (yes, it's my cat Mirjam.) relate to all of this, you ask? That was how I felt on Sunday when retuning home after a  full and intensive weekend of training.

Not yet completely stressed out about Christmas

After a good Christmas (practice &) party yesterday, I've spent today being absolutely useless. Nope, no hangover, just unmotivated and dreamy. Got absolutely nothing done. On the other hand, I've really enjoyed having a weekend off work! I didn't even have to miss the exercise, as yesterday's christmas party came with no less than six hours of karate practice! The practice was both interesting and inspiring - I'll have new things to work on for ordinary practice, many new things. I have started to look at options for the travel back "home" for Christmas. The holidays are getting closer and I should have booked my tickets already, but I'm traditionally late with that every year. This time (again) I blame it on not yet knowing what to do with the cat. If I don't find someone to feed or house Mirjam (the cat) I'll have to shorten my visit again, like last year. I'd love to stay for a bit longer though, and I have considered travelling with her too (most trains do have pet compartments) but I think that could get a bit messy, especially now that there's no car. Tomorrow I'll give the real world a new try. I already have a list of Things To Do - the same thing this time every year, I guess. You try to get as many things as possible done before the holidays believing that if you do, you'll be able to relax and enjoy your time spent with family and old friends instead of rushing thru it "like last year". Only problem is: it never works! At least not for me. A day or two before Christmas I'll stay up later than late to desperately try and (for once) finish everything... and always failing at doing so. And a couple of days later I'll be back in Turku stressed and tired, quite possibly hung over and hardly having enjoyed more than the occational minute of it all. "Same procedure as every year".

on music and being tired..?

I came here tonight to finish a job application I started earlier, start on a course diary and things like that. But now I'm just sleepy, and haven't hardly even started yet. Slept bad again last night, for no particular reason as usual. One strange thing I've noticed is that my cat seems to react on my bad sleeping. If (or rather when) I having serious problems sleeping she will start scratching at the door, again and again. and this, of course, makes me even more nervous.

Anyway, the course diary is for a really interesting course I'm taking right now - Music, Power and Violence. It's in musicology so it obviously has little to nothing to do with my own area but it feels good to do something only out of interest too. The lecturer is very good and inspiring, so it's a pleasure to listen, but it's also kind of on my mind all of the time now - for example sitting here listening to music in my headphones just a slight bit to loud I'm of course pondering this need to shut out the real world (while still physically being in it) and instead building this own one with the help of the music in my ears...

Vappu is coming up this Saturday, and it bothers me that i still don't know of any program for the night. Except for the late night of course, will traditionally be visiting Kåren then. I'm still looking forward to it a bit but obviously not as much as past years.

Have to stop now. Need sleep.

Sleeepy

I came here (computer class, university.) to finish the things I had planed to do earlier today. In the early afternoon, when I was here last, the biggest issue was that I simply couldn't concentrate on anything with so many people around me. Now, instead, I am far too sleepy to get anything done. Another example of great planning.

For the most part a good day, though. It started off with a short field trip (with the ethnologists) to a nearby old mansion - now museum. It was a nice visit though cold. It was interesting to move around in a closed-off museal environment, bit of a "behind the scenes" experience.

After managing to stay awake all through one of those less necessary lectures - but instead failing at using the computer class - I decided instead to go for a long walk in the sun and then get things done at home (which I did.). The walk did good! One step closer to returning to my running routine, perhaps?

I also ordered tickets to Tallinn! I'll be going there this weekend after all, to attend my first ever Black& brown course. Yikes! I'm a bit worried considering my health, or rather my lack of recovery after the last course... But decided to play stupid and just go! Hah! And for the most part I'm just excited.

Things To Do tomorrow:
- Finish at least a couple of the job applications. Having started is not good enough.
- Buy kitty litter - the usual brand! My futile try to change to the more environmentally-friendly wood-based brand was not appreciated. At all. I got no less than two blankets pissed on. OK. Point taken. You win, you little bastard princess.
- Study for exam next week. Had forgot all about it!
- Send thousands of emails before the weekend, as I will quite possibly have no internet before Sunday evening.

And practice in the evening! Hope the walk helped soften me up at least a bit!

Pissed on - pissed off

This morning I had the alarm set for 8:30. I was just going to snooze once... ...when I smelled it. Urine. Oh joy. Little miss Cat had obviously peed in my bed, while I was still in it. Just great. So the snoozing was called off quite quickly, or rather substituted by doing laundry. What a fucked up start on the day... Pissed off and pissed on at the same time. Well, my mood is a bit better now, after breakfast. I'm not a nice person pre-breakfast. And, to try look at the bright side of things - at least I got up on time, which means I've been active for a couple of hours already. But still. She (ms. Cat) never seizes to surprise me.

No one here.Just us plants.No kittehs...

Should get back to work now. Not only do I have quite a bit of bureaucracy to handle today, but should also really try to finish the updated questionnaire needed for my thesis. It's already late. I can't believe it's Thursday already, where did this week disappear to?!

veckans pausfågel

Snaaart (imorgon? ok!) ska jag uppdatera igen. Pausprogram att njuta av tills dess: Madam Mirjam som spelar död. Voila!