Once again it's Christmas and New Year is on it's way. I decided to make a little card for all my friends and people around the world.

Merry Christmas everyone! Merii kurisumasu!(sorry, won't show Japanese characters) Feliz Navidad! God Jul! Frohe Weihnachten! Hyvää Joulua! Sheng Dan Kuai Le! (Nor Chinese.. )

I'm alive and kicking. School began on friday and since then we've had tests every day, not counting in the sunday which is (fortunately) free. I have a 6 day school week on monday's 9:20 - ~16:05 and on other days till around half past two except on saturdays when we have only till noon.. 12:35 or so.

I'm on class 8 which directly sort of tells me my Japanese skill level. (or might not as I'm probably slightly lower than the class I'm on). The classes go from 10 to 1, 1st being the most advanced students and 10 being the absolute beginners. I'm just on the verge of intermediate Japanese, but I can barely speak it so communication in Japanese isn't doing too well.

As you guys and girls can probably imagine 6 day school week and tests every day are quite demanding, so I cannot reply as much as I could.. I'm sorry about that. I'll try to.. but I think I'm spending the next 6-7 hours with my homework and learning vocabulary and stuff so don't get the hopes up too much. : (

Anyway, those who wish to see some photos and a video (moth video) from my trip so far (latest ones from the Sunday's welcome party aren't there) can go and check out my Finnish blog in http://rezorrand.livejournal.com Enjoy!

See you all soon-ish! I've been sleeping bit little lately so I have to try to get to sleep earlier.

A! And I had my first earthquake yesterday when I was carrying my laundry back to my room through a dark corridor. Suddenly all the windows just started shaking and it felt like a heavy train passed by (nearest train track is over half a kilometer away).

I finally found my way to Tokai university male dormitory--????--, sorry it took so long to actually write anything, I've been in a bit of a trouble because I don't have any kind of username to the school network yet, so I have to use my friend's credentials.

Anyways, the trip went quite well and without any bigger problems. However most of my "blog" has been written in Finnish and it's in my laptop upstairs so I can't transfer it here yet. You can except a better version around at the end of this month when I get them.

It's been fun so far, with nothing to do and recovering from jetlag, but the real stuff doesn't begin until next week, this week there's only guidance and such to go through and Japanese level test to determine how good I'm in Japanese.

But.. so far, pictures shall wait, be patient. I'll try to keep you guys updated. ?????

.. and as soon as it had settled down, it had to return to it's home from this short excursion as longer, more adventurous journey was ahead of him.

So, I have now officially moved away from my apartment in Turku (I moved the stuff away already last week and returned the key on Friday), but I didn't get to write about it until now. Things have been going rather fast paced recently and few things have settled down and new have arisen.

Well, good news is that my glasses are ready. Then we managed to find a nice apartment with affordable prices (for the three of us going to exchange) and finally I got my letter of eligibility last week so I can get the Visa. I'm off to get it next monday as my Friday will be somewhat busy with finding a present for my friend for her housewarming party, I'll also look into an ISIC card although I've heard it's not much of a use anyway.. got to consider it.

Other than that, chilling and preparing mentally for the half a year time. I think I'm pretty well in schedule with most of the things and I'm still not having many butterflies in my stomach, more likely some larvae only..

Sigh.. I'd want to write something, or draw something. I'm just too lazy to do something that requires long concentration period. :P Maybe I should just drink more coffee so I'd be more awake and energetic.

It's been raining quite heavily in the past days, it also means that the past days' temperature levels have dropped quite some. However, I was quite surprised today, finding out that there was frost on the ground. I knew it would be quite cool so I put on long-sleeved polo (good against wind blowing on your throat) and a wind resistant jacket. However I didn't anticipate that my breath would be visible and as I flashed by the roadside with my bike, I noticed that the grass had very familiar slightly whiteish texture to it.

However, I usually see that in late fall or early spring. Not in August. I suppose it's the sign of fall and autumn arriving. I won't be around to see it though, at least in Finland.

The autumn in Japan and Finland should be somewhat similar, but because Japan is further south, I believe there are some differences. Let's hope reggie.net (where I found some photos of Japan's autumn) doesn't disallow hotlinking.. Anyway, some comparison.

Japan

Finland

While in Finland the colors aren't as vibrant and lively, there's a certain melancholy in the air. Of course credits to the pictures go to the respective owners in luontokuva.org and whoever took the pictures.





One particular feature in Finnish fall is also the fog and clouds. Especially at the coast. Rains often whip the land as well, although when it's sunny it can be really pretty. In the following link, there are some photos of autumn in fog. I didn't dare to hotlink them here as there are so many of them and cluttering this blog entry with them would be meaningless.

http://www.mit.jyu.fi/tjlahton/2004/sumu/

Fall is a great time for berry and mushroom picking as well. Sometimes it's just great to walk in to the forest with a few buckets and pick the berries until you have 10 liters of them and you can spend them any way you want, making a porridge, jam, juice, soup, pie, etc. While you might think picking up 10 liters of berries might be an arduous task in itself, in fact Swedes (once again) have come up with and ingenious device, a berry picker.



With it it's quite simple task to just sweep the ground with it and the berries easily detach while leaving the plants themselves intact and mostly undamaged. Some cleaning up afterwards should be done. as it sometimes gathers some dead leaves and other unwanted stuff. So some awareness might be needed. ;)


No.. that's not my hand. In fact none of the pictures are my own.

Currently I have my last week going on at the work and there are still so many things to do. Yesterday I was choosing new glasses, I thought of something new instead of the traditional style.. I'm starting to think it wasn't such a good idea now, but the common reaction is more important, we'll see.

Today's the time for some vaccinations and probably dropping by a friend to see Bioshock ( home, here ) It's really quite phenomenal, do check out the trailer:



In case you didn't know, some of the Bioshock's creators are from the legendary Looking Glass Studios that has classic titles such as Thief : The Dark Project, Thief II : The Metal Age, System Shock and even co-operated in creating the System Shock II. All of which are my favorite games thanks to their superior immersion and quality when compared to 95% of the games in the industry. Even Terra Nova : Strike Force Centauri and the revolutionary (at their time) Ultima Underworld I and II have been developed by them. It's no wonder Bioshock has received some really high scored reviews all around.

If you haven't tried any of the fore-mentioned titles, I suggest you do, particularly the Thief series. Even my sister (who's no gamer, actually she's quite an anti-gamer) has declared them her favorite games.

Sorry for all the "advertising", I just wish others could experience them as well. They're way beyond any boring GTA series or first person shooters. (I'd say even Halflife 1 & 2 and *gulp* Halo series).

Well I'm off now. : ) While you're here and if you have 7 minutes freetime, check the pure awesomeness of Bioshock's actual gameplay:

    At work, it's raining outside. My cubicle is right next to this opaque plastic thing that let's through daylight, but you can't actually see through. Whenever it's raining, the drops make this pleasant and relaxing sound while hitting the cover. I sort of like rain, not when I'm in a bad situation and not prepared though, but when I can keep dry and just listen and/or watch the nature getting a shower.

Comforting.

Only thing troubling me is, how do I get home without getting wet when I leave? I'm on a bike and it's around 15-20 minute ride. Sigh.. Guess I'll just have to hope it ends by the time I have to leave.

In other perspective work has been going quite well today and we managed to get quite a few things working and I'm going to have to demonstrate the software I've done so far. Wish me luck that the stuff doesn't fall on me!

With such, have a great day!

Koska luultavasti innostuit havaitessasi Suomenkielisen blogimerkinnän ja klikkasit itsesi tänne niin avasin uuden blogin Livejournaliin. Osoitteeseen:
http://rezorrand.livejournal.com/

Siellä raapustelen vain Suomeksi, ihan näin vaihteen vuoksi. ;) En takaa tosin mitään säännöllistä kirjoittelua.

English speaking:
There's nothing to see here, carry on.

Whee, well. I was just stating I began a Finnish blog in the above address. Not much to do there unless you can read Finnish. Worry not however, I will be keeping my bloggings here as infrequent as they have always been. I don't guarantee any frequentness to the Finnish side either.

Just a short note that I'm fixing my good old Athlon XP 2800+ for my parents to use as video editing machine so I can't be writing blogs (like this) or messages as I'm trying to move my "stuff" to safety (500GB of safety goodness..) and after that I'm reinstalling everything.. taking off a few HD's and rewire the biggest ones for them to use.

Try to stay alive, especially you, yes I mean You. I'll do my best on trying to respond you when I get the first real pause. It's 6:10am now and I've been moving my stuff for nearly 11h now, might take another 12 hours. Yeah, ok, close the jaw there is a Lot of stuff.. some of them have travelled with me for like 10 years now, there are just some things I wouldn't want to leave behind. : )

Ah.. got a response from an old friend. Warms the heart really.

Got to go now. I want to sleep at some point.. I'll try to write soon..

EDIT: Mood...

EDIT: Oh yeah, found the book you recommended Indigo, read few pages, no time now, but is rather intriguing.

First.. today's been raining for the whole day. Not that I'm generally against rain, but usually I am when I have to bike to work. I got quite wet, but not soaking, which is a good thing. However.. As I noticed ~20 minutes ago.. I forgot my wallet home. Meaning no food until in the evening. I guess I'll just have to sip green tea and eat chocolate chip cookies.. I know.. I know it's not the healthiest diet, but what can I do.

Anyways.. Apparently sometime during 2005 there was an interesting internet meme going on about Garfield which I had no idea of. Or probably had, but never really looked on it. So I thought I'd share some of the better (not probably best since there are billions of them) bits of this mania.

(all the pics were originally posted on the forum so credits go to the makers and of course the original drawer Jim Davis)

 

It seems to have originated in truthandbeautybombs.com and one has to agree, it makes thousand times more sense and is much more fun than the original strips.

Jon Arbuckle is a lonely man. With only his cat to talk with. If the strips are only looked from his point of view then this whole illusion of dialogue is dispelled and his true nature is revealed.

He's mad.

He's sad.

And deranged poor fella. Not to even mention how Garfield.. now that we can't tell what he's thinking about, doesn't make him look to be any saner though.

However.. that's not all that there is to this meme. Someone found out that Garfield makes just as much sense with it's panels randomized.

Clever isn't it? Some professor in a university found this out and made Garfield Randomizer. However as he received a "cease and desist" letter he released the source code, so someone took it up and made a new one. (have fun)

However.. eventually this meme started to get some quite disturbing sides and evolved into some of the more absurd variations.

"There couldn't be anymore into this" you may think, but sadly there is. The meme had spread to other webcomics as well with varying success. I'm too lazy to give examples, but I suggest you take a look at the originating thread. There you can also find the variations and other interesting turns this phenomenom took in it's history back in 2005-2006.

I hope you enjoyed this trip to history and will check out any possible future insights to this wonderful world of meme's.