It's been how long?

Time to revive this. Maybe. Just found several old drafts. What to do with them. Hmm. But first to backup my Jaiku history before Google shuts everything down on January 15th. Thanks to Duncan for coming up with the scripts here.

Brrr

what a forecast!

Coldness, Darkness, and Remembrance

21/12 - possibly the darkest day in 372 years? It is the first time since 1638 that a lunar eclipse has fallen on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. I spent most of the day in London Heathrow airport pondering the fate of my flight home (to Finland), as the Heathrow airport was in chaos, having to shut down the previous days due to too much snow (by British standards), and canceling about half the flights on the day I was supposed to fly back. Thanks to Finnair however, with the Finnish pilots and staff probably thinking "pffft, this little bit of snow? Are you kidding me??", the flights from Helsinki to London operated as planned (albeit with some delays), so I could get on the returning flight from London to Helsinki on those aircrafts. Although on my way from Finland to Taipei at the start of the trip, the Finnair strike almost cost me my trip. Ahh, the joys and trials of travels... I won't exchange them for anything else, but perhaps an occasional first class seat would be nice, though I've been upgraded gratis to biz class couple of times before (talking about long-haul, as it doesn't make a big difference on short-haul or domestic flights). Hmm, my travel tales can probably fill books, and a whole volume just on airports and flights. But who will read them? Lol... sometimes even I find myself rambling on too much as I re-read some of my blog posts. And I digress again. So yes, I got back to Tampere in the wee hours of the morning on the 22nd, briefly feeling the chill of -22C that welcomed me home.

22/12 - slightly jet-lagged, but not as bad as after the Dallas trip in October. First order of things was to confirm the redundancy status of my job thanks to the Symbian reorg. Even though I heard the news over the weekend in Taiwan (via a phone call while visiting Karen), it somehow didn't seem so real then. There's not much details yet (when's my last day? what kind of "package" will we get?) but it was a pre-notice for those of us affected so we can start looking for new opportunities, either internally or externally. While I felt bad for my situation, I actually felt worse for my manager P. She has, for about a year now, taken over my ex-manager S's job in addition to her own when S went on extended sick leave. Double the responsibilities, double the workload, and all I see from her are hard work and dedication. Yet this. She's probably going to be super busy all the way up till our last day, whenever it is. P has been with Nokia for 14 years, and contributed so much. Helped me a lot too. And now she has to deal with this while still helping those of us who are impacted. My heart goes out to her.

About my ex-manager S, the second piece of news I received in Taiwan was that of him passing away. He fainted at work one day and they found a tumor in his brain. He had an operation and it went well, with good prognosis. We were even told he'd be back at work after summer holidays. But things took a turn for the worse, and... anyway we had a memorial for him at work on this day. What's it with the Finns and not displaying emotions?!! I wasn't all that close to S and still, I wanted to bawl my eyes out. (But fought hard to control myself as I didn't want to be the only one crying.) He was so young... and so full of life. Sailing, skydiving, orienteering; he was indeed very active and lived life to the fullest. The timing of S's death and my job loss really forces things into perspective: I can always find a new job, but this is the end for him. S, while you haven't been my manager for a long time, I'll always remember you. Rest in peace.

23/12 - possibly the coldest day this winter thus far (can't imagine what Jan/Feb holds). Well at least the days are starting to get longer and brighter. Walked to work in -26C

This morning at -26C

The sun's not quite awake yet

The secret is taking a really hot shower just before leaving. I managed to still feel warm upon reaching work. Although walking back home in the evening will be another story. I think the high temperature today is -25C and low tonight will be -29C. Too bad we won't break -30C. Yet.

Mr. Nobody

Nothing too exciting over the remainder of the weekend. Did two large loads of laundry yesterday, attempted to clean the apartment but only got the dishes done, and daydreamed ... well, mostly thinking about the movie I watched the previous week with Jessica. A movie about making choices - Mr. Nobody.

Choices. There are probably several distinct turning points in our lives when we are faced with major decisions that affect our lives drastically. How do we go about making the "right" choice when the outcome is so hard to predict? Then again, if we knew exactly how each choice will turn out, would that make it easier to decide? This movie explores the idea of choice (and even "not choosing", which I think is still a choice) with interesting references to the butterfly effect (just a small, seemingly minor choice/action/deviation can lead to unexpectedly different result), the big bang/crunch theory and even string theory. In other words, awesome movie for a geek like me who happens to be pondering choices in her life too.

The side effect from the above exercise was that I spent quite a few hours googling / wikipeding / reading up and refreshing my mind with the theories of Quantum mechanics, parallel universes, etc. etc. Now I'm reminded as to why I didn't pursue theoretical physics. As much as I am interested/intrigued by all these, just some "light reading" on a weekend is enough to make my head spin and feel 10x as big (as if it's not big enough already).

But back to the movie. So this Mr. Nemo Nobody recounts the 3 lives he seems to have lived, each resulting from a different choice/decision. I won't give away too much of the plot here, except to say that the interweaving between the different realities/lives is very well executed. Both cinematographically (is that a word?) and musically effective. And overall very thought-provoking, a big plus in my book, for I'll remember this movie much longer than some big-bang-boom blockbuster. I'll definitely revisit it sometime. The only thing I didn't really like was how he arrived with his choice of the life with the Asian wife, and how disinterested he was in her and their kids and even his own life in that alternative timeline. You don't know what you're missing dude! Well of course it wasn't her fault or anything but more due to the events leading up to that decision. Still, a somewhat stereotypical play - boring asian, neurotic blonde, leaving the brunette to be pretty much his "true" love.

Another side track... I didn't really notice this before, but Jared Leto is hot! Oooh those eyes. A couple years ago someone mentioned that Jaakko (guy I used to date) looks like him. I don't quite see the resemblance, nonetheless both of them are extremely cute :) Toby Regbo as young Nemo looks yummy too; and he'll be portraying the teenage Dumbledore in the next Harry Potter film. More eye candy, yay!

Crushed

Boo. There's a ring. He's taken. Now I need to find another target for my infatuation.

That was the realization from earlier on today. No, I'm not crushed by my crush. I haven't gone in that deep yet :P The crush was actually a diversion for me. I realized that I haven't properly dealt with the raw emotions from my recent break-up. I thought I was "handling it well". I thought wrong.

It wasn't even that long a relationship. What was it, 6 months? And with us living in different countries we didn't get to see each other that often either. But if you know me, you'd know that there's no loving "just a little" for me. Once I'm committed to a relationship, I'd give it my all. I can't hold back, I don't know how.

I should have pulled in the reins much earlier. The warning signs were there, including some that reminded me of my ex-husband. Then again, nobody is perfect. So second chance, third chance... No more. I made a promise to myself when I got divorced that I will not let someone else treat me like that again. I broke that promise. Now it's time to fix it.

Except it still hurts. The reins were still pulled too late. Getting busy helped - traveling, best friend's wedding, hanging out with friends, work issues, orchestra (filled with cute musicians), volunteering for Meego community, Finnish lessons... - up to a point. I even fooled myself into thinking I'm ok, that I can have a crush on someone else already. When that didn't work out (see first paragraph), what did I do? Listen to sappy love songs during the ride back from the Kouvola concert. Big mistake. Or maybe not... well I mean I have to deal with these emotions sooner or later, although in a bus with 40 other people was probably not the best time and place to do it.

Anyway, I'm still waiting for the tears to fall (as I had to hold them back just now). Hopefully I'll feel better then, coz I'm definitely not feeling good now. I want to believe that I deserve better, but it seems all the good guys are already taken (esp those around my age). Then again what does that say about me, since I'm also "left on the shelf", so to speak?

Received an sms from a friend just now, saying he misses the smiling and happy Carol. I miss her too. I don't like this Carol with the fake smile. How can I help bring her back?

For now the more pressing question is: who shall I have a crush on next? (another diversion wouldn't hurt, right? right?)

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Update (30 minutes later): writing is cathartic indeed. Maybe even more effective than tears. I feel somewhat better already.

Dark November - revisited

Well, ok, yet another post about the weather. But at least this time with some pics :) We've had quite a bit of snow over the past couple of days (mostly in the evenings/overnight), at least more than I remember for the month of November. Plus still seeing a bit of sun in the morning, so the initial one-third of November hasn't been too dark yet. Although this can quickly change...

Anyway, enough words. Onto the pics. First one from two nights ago:

Car on life support

Next one from yesterday on my way to work - I even needed sunglasses!

Sunny and -3C. Pretty blanket of fresh snow. If only every winter's day is like this!

Lastly, here's one from my way home just now from the city center. The snow was coming down pretty hard, and sideways, thus hitting my face giving me a free facial. My footprints on fresh snow:

Dark November

First thought that came to my mind when I stepped out of the office yesterday: wow, it's dark. Partly due to the end of daylight savings time over the weekend which reduced daylight in the afternoon by an hour. Another part is of course the rapid shortening of days towards the winter solstice. So while now there's still light for my morning walks to work, in a week or so (definitely less than 2), my weekdays will be sans daylight. (The precious few hours of daylight will be spent in the office, and now without a window view at my new desk.)

Thus this morning's sunny walk to work will be treasured for a while. Even at -4C, it felt warmer than yesterday's cloudy and windy +8C morning. Well, ok, probably my thicker jacket helped too. Although the days will be shorter next month, there's usually (hopefully) more snow in December, that can help brighten things up a bit. Which is why November is generally considered the dreariest month in the northern hemisphere, and things like NaNoWriMo happens.

I've thought about NaNoWriMo-ing for the past couple of years but never got started. Will I start this year? Hehe, probably not. I plan to blog more though, now that I've kinda resumed blogging. The posts on here before today are imported from Google Buzz from around July when I decided to try blogging again. It wasn't really successful, but my excuse is that Google Buzz isn't optimized for blogging. Now with Blogger I should have no excuse. :P

I'll be uploading more pics too... still have stuff from earlier this year and last year (and even before that) which I have to sort and upload. "Have to"? More like "want to". To share with family and friends, and even for my own viewing pleasure. I find that I'll look at the photos more when they are on Facebook or Ovi Share, rather than just sitting on my hard disk.

November is also TASO month. I'll be busy with rehearsals and performances. We have three concerts coming up within the next few weeks: in Kouvola (13.11), Jämsä (28.11), and Tampere (1.12). Should be lots of fun :)

With words, pictures and music to fill my days, November doesn't seem too dreary after all.

Test

wonder what I should use this blog for...

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edit 30/10/2010: Perhaps I should stop thinking and just start blogging. But first I'd like to import some posts from Google Buzz. Can't seem to find an easy way to do it aside from cut and paste...

Let's talk about the weather

(And my lunch).

So we've been having this heat wave in Finland, first time this bad in the last 50 years or something. That's all people can talk about nowadays, how hot it is, what records we're breaking, some people loving it and others hating it... for me who've spent more than 10 years each in Singapore and Dallas, you'd think I'd be able to handle the heat. But not having air-conditioning in my apartment makes staying at home unbearable, and sleeping at night even worse. I actually can't wait to get to work the past few mornings (nice and cool in the office)

Dark clouds

Today around 12:30, while I was deciding when to go for lunch, I noticed that someone had dimmed the lights. No, wait, it wasn't the indoor lights, it was happening outside! I looked out the window and in a span of a few minutes the whole sky was covered with dark clouds, blocking the sun and dialing its luminosity waaaay down. Hmm, I better hurry up then, I thought. Due to the summer holidays, the cafeteria in my building is closed and I have to cross the quadrangle to another building for lunch. Just as I was about to head out, however, torrential rain happened. Grrr. Instead of a 2 minute walk I had to spend 10 minutes in the indoor maze that linked the buildings together. Well, at least I was dry.

Lunch purchased. Salmon wok chop suey with noodles. Seconds after my butt hit the chair and me reaching for my fork, the fire alarm went off. No kidding. WTF?? I want to eat my lunch!! At first the few of us in the cafeteria kinda looked at one another wondering what to do next, then the security (or fire marshals) came and shooed us out, saying we had to leave. We stepped out into the pouring rain and had to dash across to another building to seek shelter (no time to go through the indoor maze). I was drenched and pissed. After about 10 minutes we were let back into the cafeteria building. I'm still not sure whether there was a real fire, but one thing's for sure: my Salmon wok chop suey with noodles had gotten cold! Sob!

Yes, it's nice to have a temporary relief from the heat, but the whole timing with lunch and fire alarm was horrible. Just my luck. But check out the temperature graph (screenshot from fmi.fi), you can see a whole 10 degree drop from the rain! Although it's quickly climbing back up now...

Temperature drop