Course Discussion: Snooping Bosses

This is a blog post concerning the content of this article for my participation of a course in English at Karlstad University.

My first impressions from this article are heavily weighted since I studied Information Security this summer. Since companies are responsible for what their employees say and do, if not in court then still in the eye of the public, especially in such branches as security or medicine, obviously they must keep an eye on what these people do. Monitoring e-mail or web use shouldn’t be a foreign and scary concept; it’s no more unnatural than that your big brother keeps an eye on you to keep you from stealing apples because he knows he’ll get the blame.

We live in a society with constantly increasing access to information. Radio, TV, Internet and cell phones. It would be very naïve to think that we can reach all this information without simultaneously letting it reach us. Connecting to the Internet doesn’t just mean that you can access it, but also that it can access you. Similarly, not only can the employer access the employee’s blog, but the other way around.

The issue here isn’t privacy, I think. Things like mailing sensitive information or uploading stupid drunk pictures clearly associating to the company logo are obviously harmful to the company and should be monitored and punished.

The issue instead might be, ironically, information. Someone not informed of what information is sensitive might very well mail it. Someone not thinking of that millions can access his photobucket album might not consider the harm in publishing the pictures there. But does that make it ok? The Information Security course taught me that the company has a legal responsibility to inform employees of things like these, but it is very vague to what degree. Handing out papers is enough in most cases, and then it’s on the employee if he hasn’t read it. How often do we dismiss bureaucratic papers, like license agreements, because “they’re so boring” or “they all say the same thing”? And how many of those papers could we reasonably be expected to read?

And the issue is even more difficult. Should an employee get to call in sick when he isn’t, once in a while? How often is once in a while? Would you respect a boss who lets it go every time? Or just once? Is it too harsh to never give a warning, but just fire the person? These aren’t exact sciences with exact answers; it’s judgment, morals, respect and responsibility. Should your co-worker tell your spouse that you're cheating? Does it matter if he discovers it by accidentally walking into a room, or accidentally opening your e-mail? The same old things, with new technology.

The one thing I do know is that it scares me to let people see and know my weaknesses, and that’s, to me, what privacy is very much about. The freedom of doing stupid things without anyone pointing and telling you how stupid it was. An instinct to keep secret the things that could harm us. And instincts, are they outdated remnants of an uninformed past, or the very core of being human?

I wonder though... I imagine privacy means different things if you ask an American, a Swede and a Japanese.

Skillz

Hey, we begin with boring information, feel free to skip ahead:

something's up with my blog, or my internet, or my computer, or a combination of all three, because sometimes when I open the page it decides to take 5 minutes of chewing before it agrees to recognize that I'm pressing a button. (With the funny effect that the first time it happened I clicked the "comments" link a few dozen times because I thought my mouse was out of batteries, so that after those 5 minutes I got thirty-something new firefox windows in a second and a half and firefox crashed along with various other parts of my poor old 'puter. ) Anyway, thus blogging has become somewhat more of a hassle than it was before, and hence the regularity of posts may vary.

Then moving on to what I actually wanted to say:

Culture day in town last saturday, missed most of it because, well, dunno. But I did see some short movies, old ones that they show as a taste for the movie festival (film festival?) in october. Really made me want to see the new ones then. I loved most of them, and liked the rest. Thus I'm linking three of them I found on YouTube, belgian all three I think. (Belgian is such an absurd and fascinating language to anyone knowing/studying any of english, french, danish or german... like a mutant child of all four.) Don't read the comments before you've watched the movies, because spoilers really spoil at least the second and third, imo.

FLATLIFE
The Bloody Olive
Gridlock

Hard to pick a favorite really :P I am in favor of the last one. What do you guys think?

Edit: I got really uncertain if it's Belgian or the Netherlands or... whatever. I'm not going to change the post anyway. I'll have to live with the humiliation ;)

Dissidia - First Impression

Well, this was a promised post, so here it is. I've played Dissidia for approximately 3-4 hours in one sitting (exactly as long as my psp battery lasts me :P) and I have to say I'm impressed. It's not just a fighting game, it has a load of smaller features, and it seems well worth playing again and again.

To begin with: Chaos vs Cosmos, a concept as old as storytelling is probably. Both sides gathered some warriors and the balance was... well, balanced. Then the chaos side did something odd and things went out of shape, and well, I dunno if I'll get a better explanation down the road but Cosmos went poof and now the ten heroes have to save the day. The story is kind of vague, but I realized it could really be seen as if all the final fantasy games were their own world's version of Chaos vs Cosmos and that they all ended exactly simultaneously at the point where Dissidia begins, in a sort of dimension-spanning timeline. Deep shit.

Centerpiece: This is a fanservice game, there is absolutely zero doubt about that. There's dozens and dozens of references to different ff games and characters and items and summons and... yada yada yada. The more ff games you've played, the more you'll like Dissidia, but that's not to say that someone not interested in ff would get nothing from it.

On to the fleshy part: The gameplay is actually very good. There's tons of equipment and bonuses and shit all around, but when it comes down to one-on-one on the battlefield it really feels as if it's you, the player, that makes the biggest differece; your skills and how well you know to use all that crap you've gathered. It also pays a lot to take a step back, think, and be a bit tactical about when to strike, and not just charge straight in. But! and here's the beauty of it, that also varies a bit between characters. Some make better for charging, some should rather stop and think. There is a real difference between how they play. Cloud has some fast, small attacks to keep enemies busy and then a few real close-range nukes to take them down quickly. Cecil is harder to handle and deals less damage but has more ranged attacks and a few tricks up his sleeve. Terra and Ultimecia are spellcasters. There's also several modes and lots of reasons to play stages over again to collect better stuff, but not in the sense of grinding. In story mode the heroes have a story each, and I've played two so far and liked the way they've built individual storylines too.

And of course the most important: Characters. But what do I need to say, it's Square. If it's one thing Square knows how to do, it's to make excellent jrpg characters. They've done an very nice job bringing characters from NES games into modern technology and graphics.

Final points: Music from the ff games, excellent, and the voiceovers are agreeable. Although... Cecil, from ff IV, who I liked in that game, has for some reason earned the voiceactor of ultimate emo that made the emo Prince of Persia... which ruined some. I also discovered that in contrast to the other, older characters (or from older games and more fantasy settings), Cloud's sometimes drawling american accent suddenly seemed very appropriate.

Complaints: mainly towards Cecil so far. Aside from emo-actor no1, there's also the strange fact that because he's an jrpg hero his Dark Knight armor has to be skin-tight and ugly instead of the massive impressice Dark Knight armor his evil brother sports. Strange. Because the hero line-up might have benefited from not being quite that effeminate... especially since they outfitted Bartz like a teenage gay escort. And why the hell did you steal fashion tips from Cloud's Advent Children outfit, Squall? As if broody lonewolf 1 and 2 needed to look like each other too... Anyway, gameplay-wise, not much.

I think that's it...

Yes, and also: I love that chocobo! <3

Fanfiction

I just realized the new look makes it kind of look like a fanfiction site...

"He climbed down the cellar stairs and peeked into the darkness. Behind some crates he found the sword, just where his mother's letter had said it would be. It was truly enormous. Impressive, despite the rust and the smell of mold and dust. No normal man would be able to lift it. And these days there was no Mako energy, and the Lifestream had settled back beneath the earth's surface. It all felt like a legend where he stood, the sword so large only half of the blade fit inside the beam of his flashlight.
But if it was a legend, then he was the son of that legend, and with the rising problems he had a legacy to live up to and bring the kind of rescue only legends could produce. Trembling slightly he set the flashlight aside on a crate and gripped the handle of the Buster Sword. This would never work."

Aaanyway. I respect FF7 too much to produce this kind of crap :) I remember I made an attempt long ago, choosing like this to write about their children, because it's damned hard to take someone else's character and try to keep to their personality. But I came to the same conclusion then as I will always adhere to: that FF7 is above all this >.<

So no. This is not a fanfiction site.

I actually take it a step further; I adopt the Lifestream as a model, a representation, of what I actually believe in and present it as my religion. (Yes, I've made FF7 my religion... in a sense.) Thus the Lifestream chronicles is the history of the world, and this blog my perception of it.

This post got a lot longer than I meant... but it was a lot of fun to write :)

Schoolstuff

I'm studying a distance course this term that will require me to blog thrice about subjects brought up, in english since it's an english course. After a tad of consideration I've decided to not start a new blog only for this purpose, but to post those here, which means I'll also channel my teacher and class this direction, for better and worse. I'll name and tag these posts as "EFT reflections" and other stuff, so it'll be clear which are for school and not. Of course anyone's still welcome to comment on them.

Public letter to Disney

Dear Disney.

I apologize for all the crap I've spewed on you for sucking in comparison to Squaresoft, being sexist pigs with no imagination, being hopeless at making games and being solely focused on making money rather than produce good stories, and a number of other failures.

In respect of the chokehold you now have on my childhood idols and standards of heroism, I will not make violent, vulgar, exaggerated threats, nor ironic, bitter and bitchy jokes. I lay down my sword and my spear at your feet and I kneel in horror at the damage you could do to my fragile inner child. I will beg. That you in aquiring Marvel, and all that it stands for, do not make it into the regular mainstream, mindless, kiddy crap you usually produce in the name of income. That you do not stand in the way of what could be great, violent, gory movies of characters that are indeed great, violent and gory. That you do not reduce such imminent figures as Thor or Wolverine or Deadpool to the shallow pastell-colored idiots that frequent your productions.

I beg of those at Marvel to not give in to such attempts at brainwashing, should this my humble request be denied.

Together with the giants of Marvel we are standing at the threshold to a dawning new age, and it is you, Disney, who will decide whether it will be an age of conquest and glory or a heart-tearing, pathetic disaster.

I await your answer with greatest humility.

// Not a fan of yours, but clearly of Marvel

Deeper

Without darkness there would be no light.

I paint my walls black, I pull down the blinds. Speak to the demons inside my head, but I see no light, I find no light. Maybe there is no light. I never wanted it anyway, I forget why I was looking for it in the first place. I let the darkness gulp me down and I slide down its throat, spreading my palms and my fingers against its silky flesh. I wish I could keep my eyes open and let it crawl in through my pupils and settle against the back of my eye sockets, but I can't. And when I let myself relax, when my eyelids fall, then I see it.

Darkness, light. Like seeing two sides of the same coin at the same time through some twisted trick of fate, it only flickers by an instant but that instant is enough for darkness to cough me back up and I break the surface gasping for air. My blood and bones shiver with fear, having stared into the abyss and let the light shoot up through them, into them. Let us never do that again, they conspire around me, let us let up the blinds and never speak of this again. I do, but I know the story. My blood and my bones both have only patience that lasts until their cells have been exchanged and a new bustling generation perk up at my simple nudge. The old are gone, but I remain. I have the most exciting thing, I tell them, that I want to show you. If you only paint the walls black and pull down the blinds. And off we go again, for me to catch another glimpse of night eternal and get another chance at letting it gauge my eyes out and replace them with its own. For blood and bones to once again be pierced by light and live another generation fearing that which lives beyond darkness. Both asking ourselves the last and vital question;

like that which we fear and seek, would we survive without each other?

Dissidia - does that mean anything btw?

The new PSP game Dissidia: Final Fantasy from Square-Enix is something as awkward as a Square-Enix fighting game starring characters from Final Fantasy, the key word in awkward being fighting game. Considering that Enix is a pure rpg company and the first thing that comes to mind in terms of fighting and Square is The Bouncer and Ehrgeiz, hardly any technical knockouts, I looked at this game as pure marketing fluff that might amuse FF fans but mostly just abuse the fame.

However, now it's been released in Japan and the US, and it's getting pretty decent reveiws. Especially as a fighting game with an actual story (can always rely on Square for that) no matter how haphazard one would expect a game combining twelve different sets of characters would be stitched together. It also appears Square has learned from more action oriented games such as Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core and the fighting is both easy to pick up and with some depth for those who like to learn timing and supercombos. I also get the impression the fighting is very intense, with a lot of things happening at once. I'm hoping for battles in the spirit of the Sephiroth battle in Kingdom Hearts II; fast, difficult, all over the place, but quite obviously within reach of victory with a little bit of effort and skill, and of course with the burning determination to beat the bastard dead.

The final word remains to be said; the game is released Sept 4 in Europe, and I will return then with the verdict. Do expect that I might be a bit more inclined to hail it to the skies then; having Cloud visibly present does tend to put me in a very agreeable mood.

Hooray

I've written more lately than you might think. Sadly there's no updates to Kirya yet, and The Island still needs that inspired rewrite that I'll give it someday, I promise. What I've been doing lately instead is to just write. Sit down with no pressure, no purpose, and no aspirations and just write what comes naturally. If the story makes no sense or it all seems unlikely, it doesn't matter. I've removed all outside pressures of "how should a good book be written" or "this sells" or "the reader must understand what's going on" and all that crap. Sure, that's important, when writing as a skill or a job. But just writing, this wonderous thing that I discovered as a child and that allows me access to a world beyond this, it doesn't need all that. Just writing, which is what I really love and not the make-sense-commercial-writing.

Since I've gotten stuck with several of my serious projects because of those things, because all the formalities robbed me of the passion, I decided I'd start over. So yes. Lately I've been writing random shit, sometimes what just comes to mind like a diary, sometimes stories from a random thought or a dream I had and just let them develop as they will, with barely any editing, often writing the whole thing in one sitting without rereading anything until I've finished. Most of all; they don't have a deliberate point or moral to them.

Vanity, that I've already uploaded, was halfway such a thing. Not quite as pure, and definitively not refined enough in my opinion. But I finished one today that could possibly survive as a text even outside the protective love of my computer. So I'm uploading it. It's also in swedish, for a change. 6 pages, called Vandraren (for now at least). Do let me know what you think. I say that all the time, but no one ever does XD I'll just keep trying.

Sancrified Ground

I visited the church here a few days ago... or more, it was a while, but I've been thinking to write about it a while, I just forgot, but almost every night I've thought, tomorrow I'll write it down.

It's not about the church per se. Churches are churches, no matter what religion or how big or where in the world. I have one solid idea, or opinion, or thought about churches, so they're all the same in that way. So I don't have a lot to say about the church.

But they have corpses in there. Remains. In sealed coffins on display for so many years. Hundreds of years. It was strange to me, because my faith says that the dead return to the Lifestream and move on, and it was odd, near absurd, to have the bodies of men and women dead hundreds of years ago still here. There was no good or bad to it. Just strangeness. Like watching a man turning himself inside out. Not obscene or facinating or gross. Strange.

And in one of those "rooms", I walked in and around the coffin, and this thought came pounding through in that way I really honestly only read about before. Otherwise I'm all too often aware of how I myself form the thoughts and then present them to myself, but this one was unprovoked. It just came, like someone else speaking. I was wearing my cap, and the thought said, "Take off your hat in the presence of a king!" Exactly those words. In english too.

I debated it for a second or two, because kings are really just men, and if the king cared, so what, and if he actually has some power because he was king, he's still dead, and if he still retains some kind of influence, he probably understands that it's just the modern ways to keep the cap on... and so on. A second or two. And then I took off my cap.

And now when I try to write something that makes sense about it, I keep coming back to; forget it. Thers is no need to explain. And also how representative of my personality the whole thing is.

I wouldn't recognize my mother if she walked past me on the street...

I had a mental breakdown a day or two ago because I watched one of those tv-shows where they find people for other people who have lost them. They helped a taiwanese guy adopted to sweden find his birthmother. Those shows are really tear-tweaking and I tend to avoid them. But it was decent, and they found her of course, and whatever. Then, when it ended, I realized that the guy had had a picture. Someone had given him a picture of his mother when they sent him off to Sweden. And my head started raving about why the fuck didn't I have a picture, who the hell sends a kid off to the other side of the world without one single line back to their home?

Why didn't they give me a picture?

But I think it's healthy. This is the first time I'm really, really angry at the whole thing; the country, my parents, the people working these things both there and in sweden, even in part my adoptive parents. I think being angry is good. Because I should be. It's the first time I'm thinking; I was damned well worth a picture. I'm damned well worth to be really, really angry.

A Home At The End Of The World

I slept badly tonight, think it had something to do with the overwhelming feeling I got just before going to bed... I was watching Korean gameshows again, getting absorbed like usual beyond the world, and when I turned the computer off the world came crashing down on me. These people and this culture and this country... it's not mine. It'll never be mine. I can go there and I can talk to them, and I could meet them. In the realm of inconceivable improbabilities that are still possible, I could actually marry that cute guy in that boyband and move over there and have children and raise them in their native surroundings. But the country would never really be mine, and, for some reason, the feeling I got was that the guy would never relly be mine either. That world is like a different dimension hidden within the bend of light; I can know it, learn it, but never actually be there. I could see it and interact with it but when I reach out and try to touch it my hand would just move right through. It wasn't the kind of heart-stopping fear or pain or sadness that it should be, when I think about it, just some kind of huge, gigantic realization that sank down on my shoulders like a rock sinking in deep water. When I went to bed I tried to think of other things, resorting to WoW tactics eventually, but when I fell asleep I slept badly and dreamt strange dreams.

I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling desperately low on oxygen and got up and opened the door. And I don't quite remember what I dreamt, but I had strong emotions left from it. I remember I thought as I got back into bed, that if I had one wish, and it counted as one wish, I would wish to become that cute guy's perfect match and live happily with him ever after.

Someone closed my door this morning. It was out of consideration, to let me sleep, but it woke me up and hazed from sleep I thought angrily that their damned kindness would suffocate me in my bed. Then I ignored it. And I had dreamt something strange again, something about saving children from something and almost succeeding but not quite, and I remembered what I'd thought about the wish and got angry with myself. I'm a grown, independant, modern woman with goals and aspirations, and right there being able to wish for infinite money or success for my writings or happiness and health for my friends and relatives... I wished, selfishly, sheepishly, for a guy I don't know and can't speak to and have only ever seen the fancy media-made-up side of.

I could blame the tiredness and the realization and all that. It could be that what I'm really wishing for is a home, or belonging somewhere, or a simple and predetermined fate. But I wonder.

Funeral Day

There was a funeral today for someone I somewhat knew. And it's odd, because there's a lot of people I know better than him, but there's also many among them that I wouldn't care this much about on the day of their funeral.

If attention and honors and all that on a funeral day really do earn you kudos in God's big book, then he should have lots. So I'm writing this because while you read it, you did think about him although you don't know who he is, and maybe that earned him at least a little extra kudos.

Peaceful Return to the Lifestream, old man.

Unorthodox and politically incorrect dating ad.

Information:
Race: Korean. Class: Undetermined. Guild: Flying Horse on Fire. Time Played: 21 years. Current Hearthstone in: Sweden. High scores in Int and Wits, low Str. Not involved in any organized events or religions. Teetotaller. Flaws: Lazy, sometimes Self-Righteous. Favored skills: Computer, Language (any), Empathy. Unfavored skills: Socialize, Athletics.

LF:
Local Arena Team 2v2, requiring long term committment. Team members will be expected to join the guild; casual guild with no more than 2-3 events/week, be nice or you will be kicked. No power leveling. No cheating (unless you're good enough to get away with it).
Equipment: no req, but set bonuses add to final score.
System requirements: minimum 12 Int, 12 Wits, 10 Cha. Skill points in Computers, Animal Ken, and Empathy much appreciated, as well as Language (Swedish)/Language (English) or equivalent. A few skill points in Socialize and Streetwise could be good to complement the team. Anyone focusing on a physical build are welcome but should know that this is not the general focus of the team, nor the guild.
Talents: Maxed Honor and Respect. Any points in Sexism results in immediate disqualification (no, calling it a joke will not make it ok).

Personal Message:
Hai. Seeking someone to be my evil lair and base of operations. Neither sanity nor sex are required to fill the spot, as long as your insanity does not resort to violece to animals. Will not provide weapons of mass destruction; bring your own. No churches or villas or anything of the horrid sort, only an oath to break each other out of jail if one of us would sink as low as to get caught. You'll have to get along with my minions; can't get rid of them even if I for some stupid reason would want to. (They will claim to not be my minions, btw, but you'll know them by how we all sometimes get together to coordinate our secret plans.) For my evil image and self-respect you cannot be more than 20cm taller than me or you'll need surgery.

Tips:
Blondes get a +1 on Charisma checks, afro-american people a -1.

Application information:
Running interviews and hiring.

Philosophical corner 3

I have decided to make this a reoccuring event in my blogging; the philosophical corner-assignments I mean. (As always the most recent language I have heard to the instance of me writing affects the language used; in this case the clinical language of Dr. Brennan. I take great pleasure in observing this linguistic adaptation that does not appear to affect my spoken language at quite the same rate as it does my written. I take slightly less pleasure in the fact that this sometimes makes my longer-stretching writings appear the patchwork of several distinct schitzophrenic personalities; I work hard on preventing this.)

So.
Assignment:
* You discover the secret basement of a highly influential and credited doctor (or some other likely profession). The person in question is conducting highly advanced medical experiments on people, quite a far distance outside the safe ring of law-abiding research. They are as immoral as they are painful to the subjects. You know neither the researcher or the subjects personally. The reseracher can provide proof that the result he receives can be the solution to a great problem; say the cure for AIDS, and that it cannot be done any other way. (The term "proof" is to be considered as not beyond doubt, but very, very nearly so, for whatever unrealistic reason.) The researcher can also provide proof of that there is a method of erasing the subjects memories after the research is done, so that none of the traumatic experiences will remain; they will go about their lives as if nothing happened.

Will you:
A) Leave it as it is; this is none of your business.
B) Allow it to continue, but demand to be kept "in the loop" to observe that things actually happen as the researcher says it will.
B) Alert the police.
C) Demand something in return of letting the researcher continue; be it money, credit for the cure of AIDS or whatever else.
D) Leave it as it is; clearly a foolproof cure for AIDS is worth a few people wether they remember or not.
E) Demand the researcher quit and release the subjects but do not alert the authorities; maybe this brilliant mind could think of a different way to do this.
F) Offer to take the subject's place; you would at least be a willing sacrifice for the cure.

Please answer before reading the following.





Would it make a difference to your answer if one or several of these statements were true:
*A close friend or relative of yours is carrying the HIV virus.
*The cure is not for AIDS but for a special resistant infectious virus currently spreading worldwide, like the plague.
*The subject group are children.
*You know the researcher well; a friend or relative.
*A friend or relative of yours is in the subject group.
*You work in law enforcement.

The point with philosophy, as far as I see it, is to understand the world by understanding yourself. Be honest with yourself. Eh, and also, philosophy needs to be discussed, because it's all about perspective and sometimes we tend to get stuck in one unless shoved around a bit by others. That is part why I'm doing these corners! Awesome, huh? ^^

Mini-Games Recommendation

Some of you might remember that little strategy game I played over Midsummer, with win95 graphics, capturing land to build bigger guys to murder the little guys. It's called Slay, and I found the page containing it and some other awesome games concerned more with gameplay than graphics made by the same guy. Seeing as I could easily imagine paying $5 for Slay, I bought the pack of 13 games for $30. But there's also demos of all of them, including the Slay one I played all Midsummer. Here's the link:



I've tried Rats before and it's hilarious and awesome. I'll try the others now and let you know, but I think with names like Football-o-saurus and Mother of All Battles, it's rather promising :) These are great for filling those twenty minutes before catching the bus, or waiting for food to be cooked, or for those not quite as serious as to put down three hours a day on WoW :P Easy, fun and demanding absolutely nothing from your computer other than that it possesses a screen, mouse and keyboard. So enjoy!

Kick me

I went back to my parents' place for summer thinking it could be a new beginning of sorts. I haven't been writing much. Since I decided to take school seriously enough to not fail the courses, and began playing Left4Dead with not just the intention of having fun but also to become good at it, alongside trying to keep up with cooking, cleaning and general chores, my days filled up rather well. On top of that trying to be social once in a while, and for intellectual golden stars reading books at open moments like when visiting the bathroom. And then accidentally stumbling upon an excellent PSP game called Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness did not help. Do I have too high expectations on what to manage day-to-day?

Okay, so going home was going to give me a new start. Away from Left4Dead, and not having to do all those chores anymore, as well as having a valid reason for being very unsocial, left me with no pressure and a perfect opportunity. What did I do with that opportunity? I started playing WoW.

Cue ironic laughter.

I bet Shakespeare didn't have to deal with those distractions. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot for a writing career. Money, time, cooked food, social life, even love life. But apparently, my gaming needs tops all of that. And behind all this I can't help but feel that I'm stalling. I'm making all these excuses to not write. "I should cook more seriously." "I haven't visited my friends in a while." "I have time to play one more round." "I should be outside to get a tan."

Writing used to be the core of my life, the time when I felt best about myself. It didn't change. Did I make it change? Did I fall into the trap of leading a "normal" life and lose that magical link to the other worlds? No. Not yet in any case. But I need to stop. I need to leave this "normal" crap. I need to sit down and write, no excuses. Because in the end I think I'd rather die poor and alone, then never channel these worlds where they won't die with me.

One thing I know for sure; I can't have both. Maybe it's time to make a priority list and stick to it.

Philosophical corner 82

Let me activate my students; here's an Assignment:
Define yourself with as few words as possible so that at any point in history and at any point in the universe one could single you out as an individual. No need for extra words, like, if you identify as "Swedish person" I will assume that "human lifeform" is included. Once you've boiled yourself down, look at it from a different angle. If you identified yourself from nationality and religion, for example, could you identify yourself in some other way like interests or internet nicknames or whatever. Is there more than one finite definition of "you"?

Assignment two, building on Assignment one:
What would you want on your gravestone? Would your family name be enough? Would you want your professional title or your home town added? Would you be satisfied if your spouse had his/her whole name but you were added to the stone as "his/her spouse *first name*"? Would you want a quote from the bible or otherwise? Would you want to be buried with anything?

The Value of Communication

On the note that the moment I step inside the doors of my childhood home, I become the witness of the always ongoing, pointless battles between my brother and my parents, that seem to stem from both side's complete inability to understand and respect each other, and grows ridiculously worse at their other complete inability; to communicate with one another in a sensible manner. I would blame this mostly on my father and brother, which makes sad connotations to gender, but I know that my own literacy is only a flaky illusion; when it comes to serious and heartfelt matters, I become just as stumped for words as my father.

Can I estimate how much people actually say what they're thinking, on a grand scale average? Not much. How many times of these would they even be able to put words on what they're actually thinking? Half maybe? Meaning a lot of times, people wouldn't be able to say what they're thinking because they don't know how. Why?

Communication is the solution of all things. Not just exchanging words, because that in itself is pointless and often more harmful to the cause than helpful. But exchanging ideas, thoughts and emotions, through all means of communication from a slight change in a small muscle above your eye to yelling at the top of your lungs. Those we communicate best with; those that understand us best, become the people we like to surround ourselves with. This leads me to another thought:

Once you have all the facts, you can make a solution. Communicating means providing everyone with all the facts so that they together can work out a solution. Making peace with someone won't work until he admits why he's mad at you, making love to someone won't work until you've show who you are.

I won't butt in too much in the conflict here at home. A mediator might possibly have helped them, but I'm not a mediator, I'm a daughter and a sister. It's not as bad as it might sound, I will add, but I'm endlessly frustrated by the pointlessness in their endless fighting about every single thing. I hate conflicts because they're like that moment when you step into the water the first time a warm summer; it's too cold but it will get better. Some people just get stuck in that first moment, and that makes me sad.

News and Previews

Dunno what this is, or where it came from, but if someone does make a game from it, I think I'd like it.

Also, another thing to distract me from studying; BlankIt (a webcomic). Great art and not too much text, so quick to read and fun. And not that I'm a pedantic browser of the gigantic webcomic world, but I haven't really seen anything like it this far. And have you noticed that reading the comments for webcomics are as fun (and somethimes more fun) than reading the comic in itself? Not this one though. Despite the infinite lolness of internet voyeurs, the comic does manage to one-up it most of the time.

Between my mail (that is my starting page), Loverboy's comment, the Nightflyer's dream, Athela's recollections, and my roomie chasing a thieving cat around the apartment, I have completely forgotten what deep wisdoms I was going to share with you when I opened my browser. Yay.

My mail also told me that the universe has set its sight on teaching me that effort and outcome are completely unrelated, which I would have thought a stupid lesson, but if that's the way the world really is... With other words, I got a VG on my Grammar test. I should be happy, but deep down a big churning "what!?!" distracted me from the joy and celebration.

And don't forget, tomorrow's Mother's Day!

Artificial Intelligence

There are so many things I wonder that begin something like this:

I wonder what people would do if X happened,
or
I wonder if it would be possible to make people do X if you did X,
or
I wonder if Love's school politics would actually work on kids,

and many more like it. But human experiments, aside from being a tad bit difficult to organize without time, money and say, expertise, are highly immoral and make people upset. And I see the sense of this.

But! If we actually manage to create artificial intelligence on the same level as the human mind, then we can do all these experiments and finally find out what...

... wait.

Dammit.

The Single Mind

Late night, friends just left after a friend-intense day. Been feeling tired and uninspired and uninspiring this week. It's been the kind of week when one goes around with the intense feeling of that something should somehow be different, and a vague idea of that that something is oneself. Maybe it's chemical imbalance, hormones, weather, maybe my star is in perfect alignment with the moon or my totem animal has had an accident in bed.

Yet I don't want to sleep. Bad times like these I'm always most reluctant to go to bed, and I don't sleep as well when I do. Maybe, like a parent having lost his child in the forest, I cannot go to rest before I find that something that is missing. I wonder if not getting immersed in something, forgetting everything and being able to stop staying on my toes, might give me back the strenght I need to search properly. But that gets harder with every year, month and day I gain. Like a clock ticking down towards a time when there will be no sleep. Or maybe eternal sleep.

I hear soft music coming from somewhere far away, and my first thought is that it's the chanting of an Imam.

Swenglish

I will always remember the time my mother tried to tell our guests from the Netherlands that it was carrot cake she was offering them. (Very tasty carrot cake.) She thought long and hard and then declared it "parrot cake".

In that spirit, I found these other funny quotes from when swedes have found the wrong words.

And I remember I read recently somewhere; What do you think a swede means when he says; "There are a lot of easter-lilies in my rabbit"?




... and the cat just climbed my shoulder (like a parrot) and is licking my hair fevrently... -_-

"Dear Diary"

I should start a diary.

Every entry would begin; "This is what I would tell you today."

I would write it in a way so that I kept the recipient in mind, as if it was a conversation, or a monologue.

And who are "you"? One and many. Known and unknown. Named and unnamed. Flesh and concept. One day I imagine you might become one, and known, and named. But maybe not. For now, you're all these things, and more.

"You" are what makes me not alone.

Thank you.

The felt knowledge

I want to know the world.

See, the only way to understand people is to know them, slowly, over time. Seeing them in different situations, learning when they lie so that you can get to the truth. Peeling off one layer at a time until you one day realize that in any given situation you can predict, no, you can feel what this person would do. And then the deed is done. You know someone.

Normal social situations are stressful because I have no whish, no desire whatsoever to reduce people to what they seem in such shallow come-togethers. In these situations they are merely part of the decor, obstacles that I interact with with the same enthusiasm as I interact with a toaster. Not until I know I will meet them often or have met them often, do I translate them into humans and begin breaking them down into what they really are.

I can't know everyone. I wish I could, I wish I had the time and energy to meet and know and break down and understand every single human; it is fascinating, and an exhilirating pleasure to realize that I have reached the goal with even just one. And also always a disappointment because the objects of my fascination never seem to understand the greatness of it. But it is great. And it's impossible. So I pick them carefully, like choosing the right book from the library, and some are chosen for me. And the rest I have to leave as decor, as toasters.

Such a waste of humanity and me.

Scuttling

I seem to be making a habit of not blogging, but it's as if time is disappearing. Generally, also, truth is that time is disappearing. According to our concept of time as a linear path, I have statistically now put 25% behind me, at the very least. My life expectancy can be seen as slightly on the good side of neutral, since I don't smoke or drink and keep a reasonable weight, but there are things I could do to increase the odds, like excercise more and stop abusing salt.

And I'm just a student. Once I get a job, more time will disappear. A partner, a bigger place, maybe a pet, a kid... where's the time for all this? Other things would have to go. Games. Maybe writing. Visiting faraway people. I would buy shit wherever it's closest, because it's more important to save time than money, but with money one can save time. There's never enough of either.

Feeling like I have an abundance of time is maybe the biggest luxury. No stress, nothing poking at you, no sense of wasting time that you could have done something better with.

Where am I going with this? Well, that's just the question. Where am I going? What's waiting for me down the end of that path, and is it really worth all this scuttling about?

An Answer

I read ShadowWolf's last post and was going to write a comment, but the comment grew into more of a kind of blogpost of its own, and I realized it was something I wanted to share not just with ShadowWolf, but my friends, and most importantly I think, the entire world. So there, exhibitionism ahoy, sorry SW. This is what I wanted to say about what you wrote:

Logical people like you and me, we feel that when we do something haphazardly or badly, the world would notice and punish us. This is how our brains are programmed; this is what makes sense. But the world doesn't. I've been so frustrated so many times because I've fucked up, I've been lazy, I've done wrong, and absolutely nothing happens. On the contrary, because we have some skills we consider basic and completely bland but that in all honesty not all people have, we are often praised for things when we would in fact deserve to be reprimanded. And this fucks with our heads, be sure that it does. It turns our worlds upside down, and gives a feeling of, what now? If it's this easy, then why try? If no one can appreciate the difference between something thrown together overnight and something I've put my soul in, then why do it?

Several people have addressed this before. I've read texts about it written by teachers, psychologists and the occational layman like me. We expect the world to give us the feedback we need. But those of us who do well, whether just above average or true geniuses, are expected to take care of ourselves. At least here in Sweden. And some do. Some manage to give themselves the motivation, or they find that some things are worth doing for the pleasure of doing it right. For me, that is writing fiction. I could spend my life writing a single text, simply for the pleasure of doing it perfectly. Sadly, that doesn't apply to anything else in my life, and thus, I've always been sleeping and cheating and lazying my way through school. No one's punished me, but of course it has consequences, like bad studying skills and difficulties motivating myself with anything, as well as a very unclear sense of what I actually want or not, since I never had to work for anything. But anyone who's read psychology knows that that kind of slow-acting consequences score very low on the scale of feedback that actually teach us behavior.

Some people know how to handle us. There are other us:es in grown up teacher-version out there. I have a strong resentment towards them when I meet them, because they actually force me to make an effort, but in the end it is good for me. The times I don't just roll over and give up as soon as an obstacle appears, even if I know I could get over it. But I wish there were more, and I wish I'd met them sooner, and I wish someone had spoken to me about this when I was younger.

My advice is as simple as it is difficult; confront the teacher. Question why it is good, admit you put no effort in it, ask if that shows. And if he says it doesn't ask why. By asking you show you actually want to know and am prepared for critizism. And it might be a wake-up call for him to keep a keener eye on you. But it's hard, because it means making an effort to make others expect more, and for me at least, that's willing suicide according to my inner instincts. No more lazying.

The second reason to do that is that, like a friend told me, sometimes we think things about ourselves that we subconsiously project onto the surroundings. I believe people always see my limp very clearly. I believe people think I'm too fat, and I believe people think I dress badly, and I believe people think I speak too low and unclear. If you pick out the "people think" part, you might have the actual truth. I don't know. But sometimes, we believe something so strongly that we're convinced everyone else thinks the same. So confront him, tell him you want the critizism, question how he thinks you could possibly grow as a writer if people hold back on you. Tell him you're not shy and fragile. Show him what you expect of him. If he can live up to it, he might. If he can't, well, there's a lot of teachers that can't, which is sad, but has to be lived with.

All this, because we expect or want people to understand us. Someone told me when I was writing instruction pamphlets; assume people are idiots and spell it out. Idiots are nice and gullible and frustrating as hell, but they can be educated. And if they're still doing it wrong after you've explained everything clearly, then they're not idiots; they're ignorant. Which is like being an idiot without the nice and gullible.

Update xxyy

Been a while, huh. My life lately has been food, Team Fortress 2 and the fascinating Left4Dead. I seem to have forgotten this blog, which is odd, don't think I've ever done that before.

Today is sunny sunny. I'll try for a tan this year, but I say that every year. Sunbathing is so very very boring, and the sun is so very very warm and uncomfortable. It's the same with the sun as with relationships, alcohol and a lot of other things. I don't actually like it or want it, but some part of me that belongs to the great hive-mind of humanity does want it and like it because it thinks it's supposed to. So there's some kind of drive to go after it, although I know I'll be disappointed.

I'm dieting. Bad stuff. I'll go through with it because I've said I would go through with it, and once I've done that, no matter if I lost any weight or not, I'll have a huge bag of chips. What dieting is good for, however, is erasing any shard of guilt or shame for shoving candy down my throat, because being without it has me realizing that yes, it is worth it.

But I'll try making diet-ok orange mousse tomorrow, and maybe that'll put a stop to my unproportionate cravings for Euroshopper chips.

A Simple Joy

One of my interests that rarely comes into play anymore is that of reading; books I mean then, because I read comics all the time, and I think we would need a different word for that. Because it's different from reading, yet on the same value level. Anyway. Books is another of the subjects where I rarely say anything; like with boys, and my writing, and also schoolwork, which often makes the sharing of such things difficult. Communication is rather a necessity of sharing, sadly. I think I choose not to speak because sometimes more information is less good. Sometimes sharing things with words break them. So I bide my time looking for a better way, sometimes it shows up.

I'm just filling out this blogpost to be of reasonable length. What I wanted to write here was:

Lee Child - the Jack Reacher novels.

Simple as that. I could write a 5-page essay about why or how or what, but I think you understand.

The Alphabet Song

Time to break form and do something silly. I get sudden inspiration during some of my walks, sometimes for the best poems ever, sometimes things I forget soon afterwards, and sometimes... sometimes things like these come to me without any effort... :P

The Alphabet Song
A is for Anarchy,
B it is for Blood,
C is for Carrie White,
D the Devil's hood.
E is for Extacy,
F is Famine's breath,
G stands for Griseliness,
and H's the last in Death.

I is for Eye sore,
oh, I got that wrong
J is for Jabberwook,
oh, what a silly song.

K's first in Killing spree,
L's a Lamia,
M is the Madman's dream,
of Necrophilia.
O is for Opium,
P is Pedophile,
Q has gone out of town,
in R for Reaver style.

S is for Cyanide,
oh, I got that wrong,
T is for Terrorist,
oh, what a silly song.

U is the Underworld,
V for Vatican,
W is so very Wrong,
and X is all that's banned.

Y is for Why, why why,
oh, I got that wrong,
Z is for inbred Zwine,
it's time to end this song.

The Butterfly of Troy

I've had lots of thoughts to blog about, but without even a hint of easy access to a computer those get lost in the vastness of space and time.

Watched Troy last night. It's not quite as painful as watching Tristram and Isolde was but that moment when Hector walks out to meet Achilles, or the moment when Paris says "Father, burn it!" about the Greek's wooden horse, it still cuts to my bones. Because I'm a person who likes to fix things. And to watch others' mistakes, to know the humongous consequences of those mistakes, pains me.

In the case of Troy they mostly make those mistakes because of honor or because of religion (except selfish Achilles, who does them of stupidity), and then they're easier to bear. In Romeo and Juliet they make them because of youth and love, and it makes me disgusted with them. In Tristram and Isolde they make them at the wicked twist of chance, because of the tiniest circumstances and the goodwill of some, selfishness of others. Because of humanity and nature, you could say. So I watched until the pain got too great and I turned it off. I had to. My mind was imploding of sadness, and of fear for those tiny, tiny circumstances being the founding ground of life-altering decisions. The flapping of butterfly wings in Africa, that becomes the storm here.

I see these butterflies, and at times, the pain of their consequences becomes too great for one mind to handle. So I close my eyes. But the butterflies keep flapping whether I see them or not... and they're lucky to not have the brain tissue to care about the responsibility.

Picking up on K

Watched the documentary about dog breeding that Kristin has linked. And let me tell you. If The Sims didn't convince you, this is actual, real life proof that humans, on no level, should ever be given the powers of the gods. That show-version of German Shepherd isn't a German Shepherd, it's a real, man-made mutant freak of nature, and it has to suffer from it. And give me a gun and let me shoot the bitch that thinks putting down healthy puppies because they miss the right fur mutation on their backs is perfectly sensible. Mutations are mutations for a reason; they have no evolutionary advantage so they never become the standard. Until we start fucking with them and produce animals who by all rights should all be put down at birth out of compassion. No. Give me a working dog or a mix.

I saw the awesomest dog, on that note. Head shape and tail like a (healthy) shepherd or a spitz, (sharp, I mean) but size like a Saint Bernhard. And white. I wonder what it was? It looked very fluffy and cozy. If those are mixes or sensible animals I would want one. Although it would probably fill up an apartment real good :P

"You can become an archangel or a serial killer without anyone noticing, but everyone will tell if you're missing a button."

-E.M.Remarque (not perfectly quoted, but I don't remember)

Art; the extension of Faith

Dance. Like ripples of water through the emotions of the human body. Like expressing the universe with the flickering of a wrist, with the tilt of a shoulder. The language of the body perfected into the language of music, and ultimately, to the beat of a universal heart, the heart of the world.

This is the one thing I cannot express in words. No matter how poetic I try to be, or how accurate, or however well it can have you understand what I mean, this is the one thing I cannot, never, reproduce. Quite litterally. For with my leg I will never dance. And is it the forbidden fruit that sweeps my mind away, or the passion, the immersion, the ability to close your eyes and let your body drift on the ocean of existance or be tossed between the waves of chaos, that makes my eyes tear at the thought alone?

Dance. An embodiment of the concept I call beauty. An expression, an art, but most of all a path to the insides of your soul and the discovery that it is no more separate from the universe than a molecule of air is from the air itself. The world does not matter. Not the one you see or feel through your eyes or your ears or your skin. What matters is the flow, the beat. The beating of the heart of what some would call God, but that I have no word for.

There are no words.

Shun, I summon you!

You can now get your Spore Creatures as figurines, and however silly and however disappointing that game was, I feel a slight tug at my heart at the thought of getting a tiny Shun to guard my desktop.

I wonder what having a figurine done costs, generally? Wouldn't it be awesome to make the roleplaying characters one has played for a while? Or make them before starting, so they can be used as "tabletops" for those annoying situations where it matters if you stand to the right or the left of the shooter. If I was filthy rich, this is one of those ridiculous, environmental-destroying things I would do, I imagine.

I also read an interview with a scientist, who, shockingly, unveiled that scientists do not believe Spore to be very scientifically correct, while on the other hand horribly fundamental catholics have been known to protest against it (not to be confused with the impressive amount of intelligent fundamental catholics who don't believe a stupid, fluffy game to be insult enough to their religion to raise their voices). What surprised me, however, was how the interview revealed that EA actually had made claims before its realease with hopes that it would be a "tool among the scientific community". What? The lady scientist said that the prototypes that had been released earlier were much more likely to ever be used in a serious setting.

So like many, many others, I wonder; what the hell happened to this game? Halfway towards a groundbreaking, mindblowing game about evolution, about the very cornerstones of intelligent life, Maxis suddenly decided, screw this, let's make this based on five-year-olds, yet illogical and boring enough to make sure no five-year-olds ever play it. The question on everybody's lips is (or were, when they released it, I'm just slow) when did they turn into Microsoft?

Shhhhh!

Ah, secrets secrets. I have one. No surprise there, we all have secrets, but what I mean is, I have a specific secret that I will tell you about later, but can't now. I'm all for secrets, because they make life that much more interesting, and I hate ruining secrets because that wastes a lot of work and ruins a potentially awesome moment. But how difficult it is to keep secrets. I just want to wave my arms around and bounce and tell everyone, no matter how unrelated a person and how little they care. Because a secret is really only fun at the very moment it's revealed. Like the huge plot twist of a role playing game; that's what I'm working towards the whole time. And I try to make my writings unpredictable just for that feeling I'm hoping to achieve when the monster reveals its true form and intent. To see people suddenly discovering THE SECRET, that's one of my greatest pleasures of life. It's a feeling I love, when things fall into place and I can see, so obviously I want to share it.

You realize this rant is all about me trying to ease the feeling of wanting to wave my arms around and bounce and tell everyone around that secret I'm having right now, right? Don't worry, in some weeks it will all become clear. It's no big deal. It's just that it's a SECRET! :)

Cycle of life

I'm in some sort of period where I get loads of ideas for new creative stuff, like drawings and writings and stories of all kinds. But nothing gets done. I've been wondering for a long time if my circles actually follow the calendar, as in my female calendar of monthly pain; if not only my body but my mind and my creativity is governed by this highly unwanted touch of biology. It's humbling, maybe, to in this way be reminded that I am also, only, human. But hell's balls how bloody fucking frustrating it is!

Report from the frontline

I'm in one of those periods where I feel like a normal person. When school is okay, I get things done, I clean my house and cook real food and go to the bank like a responsible adult. While it feels awesome and I actually function, it also feels a bit like walking around in a dream, in someone else's perfect life somehow. Is this how it is to be normal, I think? Is this how people live their lives? And I waver on this line, between thinking too much and just going on.

I waver between kicking myself down again into death and darkness and depression where I can wallow in the fruits of creativity, where nothing gets done and I hate the world and postpone any kind of contact with it but there is so much more to it. Or between taking another breath, stand up, and do the dishes and go on being a normal person in a normal world filled with normal people. Always on the edge, always fighting to know what is right, what is home, what is me. I stare up at the clouds and waver between sky and heaven. And here I am, balancing on the spider silk line between ignorance and despair, squinting my eyes trying to take it all in and protect myself at the same time.

Is there a way I can be both corporate queen and goddess? Must I choose between the depths of my mind and the plains of society?

And love? Love keeps me in line and tips me over in favor of the normal world and the normal people. A safety hatch or a prison? One I stay in voluntarily, regardless, no matter if it hurts. Because who can ever be sure that there will be another high if I let this one go?

Rememberance

I realized it's been almost a year since he returned and that I still do miss him. I can still feel his smell if I try, and there has been times, especially when I'm back home, when I catch the glimpse of something white and spin around, only to remember it's impossible, or when I wake up and hear a sound I misinterpret as his steps and expect him to come into bed with me. And yet, it isn't just my imagination, is it? Even if things return to the Lifestream, they never completely disappear, do they? Maybe he thinks of me, at the same time as I think of him, and somehow we create a link for just the shadow of a moment. His soul is being poured out into new living things as I write this, maybe somewhere in them there is something of him that reverberates through space and reaches me? No. Not maybe. I know there is. And I know as long as I remember him he will be around. So I tell him I'm sorry I couldn't save him. And I promise him I will remember him as long as I live. And I hope he knew all this long before I had any need to say it. No. I know he did.

A small hole

I thought I had most of Kirya planned in my head when I started writing it, not uncommon when I'm writing longer stuff. At the end of chapter 18, however, I realized that I, like Shemhazai, was without direction, and that I was dangerously close to losing that link to Kirya herself that I'd fought through 17 chapters to build. She's a very difficult character for me to hold on to. I realized that where I'd thought I had a small hole in my planning, easy to fill, I had a gap the size of Australia. But despair not. It took a while to work up the courage, and then I dedicated every moment my brain wasn't occupied for two days to stitch something together. That's how it feels, like picking up pieces, maybe like pieces of a map that someone's cut up to fit in envelopes then sent to me in the wrong order. I have to stitch them together, and then I look at the map and go wow, this is awesome. So then, making an uncut, unstitched copy of the map, I wrote chapter 19, which funnily enough you won't get to see until I've written 20 and 21. The side effect is that this story is getting longer and longer, but also that I finally feel I've pinned Kirya down to who she really is. So have faith that there is a plan, and it is coming along nicely, and, wow, it is awesome.

Somewhat out of synch then, I post ch16-18. I didn't post them before because before my fantastic stitching, I was convinced they were crap. That's usually my sign that I need to think about where to go next. And, well... I hope this plot still intrigues you. Let me know what you think of the new twists and turns... if they are twists and turns.

What do you think I think of you?

Was walking back from the store with a Coke (I'm still keeping to my three-day rule, it's even been five days since I bought the last one) when I thought, what do people think when they see me? I mean, just as a curious thought, how do they preceive me? Because I felt awesome, walking in half-dark with my fake leather jacket, perfect hair, Coke in one hand and the other in my pocket.

I mean, if they think at all, what do they think? This is hard. Thinking like other people is hard. As a writer of course I can fabulate, but privately I have no idea. Cripple? Because it's really obvious I limp, especially when I'm carrying something in my hand like that. I don't think I dress agressively enough for anyone to think dyke. And I think they can see I'm a girl at first glance, if nothing else they will assume I am from size. Corporate bitch because I'm carrying a Coke? Fashion disaster because I don't dress like the 60% of this town that wear black or the 90% that wear cloth coats (yes they overlap, a lot). Ah, and also foreigner, or more probably, Asian? Because in Sweden, people tend to be divided in those two categories for some reason. Or maybe that's just me.

"What I think isn't as fun to analyze as what you think I think of you."

Also an observation related to my store visit; the trend of my head-turners seems to navigate towards broad-shouldered guys, short according to scandinavian standards, probably crew-cut, who looks very serious but are quick to laugh. Those of you who have seen my father, shut up. I know. I can't fight every stereotype.

The Birth of a Short Lived Poem

I lost a thought.

It happens. I was walking back from a test, it had gone better than I thought (which isn't saying much since I expected to fail completely) and most of all, no more tests for weeks and weeks and no studying to do for a whole weekend. It had been cold, but just as I stepped outside the door the sun went up, the whole glistening snow and imaginary birds singing, you know the story. Life was good to me for half an hour. So I had a thought.

I get thoughts when I do nothing, and am alone. Mostly it manifests when I walk, since walking is painfully boring, and I prefer to walk alone so I can keep my own pace and pretend I'm somewhere else so I won't notice how boring walking is, and also when I know exactly where I'm walking so I don't have to pay attention. Also when I'm walking in remote places where there aren't much people who can see me, because I need to "talk" to myself, move my lips at least to focus my thoughts into words.

Thus I walked home this shiny morning and I had a thought. A long, intricate thought, focused through a beautifully crafted rhyming poem. A thought that connected me to the rest of the world, to the sky, the snow and the reflecting surfaces of polished cars, to the morning light and the smoke and fumes. It was a simple poem, but a thought spun of the finest of threads in the hands of the most skilled goddess of fate.

I've lost the thought. It happens. It doesn't matter. A week, a month, a year from now I'll be walking alone down a road in the morning light, and I'll have another thought. Maybe the same thought. And while I wait for that, I guess I'll just keep myself busy.

Life through the Lens of a Sofa

I just went from having no sofa to having seven to choose from, all with their pros and cons, not two of them looking the slightest alike -_- Picking furniture for a new apartment is hard in itself, but doing it without having seen the apartment and together with a person who simultaneously has to separete her stuff from her ex's stuff is exhausting. Who knew the science of a comfortable, functionable and preferably not horribly ugly and clashing sofa was so complicated? This one has a nice color, the other has space for two people to sleep in, another is fashionable and a real bargain, and that one fits a lot of people into little space. Insert person with severe problems with decision making (= me) and voilá, you have... I don't know, it's so pathetic it's hardly amusing either.

It's kind of funny how I spend as much energy angsting over which sofa to pick, when I don't have to pay for it myself and probably won't keep it more than a couple of years, as I do on making life-altering decisions like, hey, let's move to Uppsala and study this on random. More, even.

I also have no time whatsoever to study for my test, since I'm busy angsting over sofa, among other things. Also because I have a decent internet and computer for the first time in a month. Rather distracting. Maybe I have an hour or so right now, which is why I'm blogging >_< Okay, off I go.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Without further ado I must admit this day won't turn out as I thought, since all couples in my vicnity turned out a bit more boring than I expected, for various reasons. Anyway, I feel like celebrating this day anyway by ordering in food or something.

For some reason I turn much more friendly towards relationship-related holidays when I'm not in a relationship, possibly because of the reduced pressure. Imagine all couples out there now with expectations for today, and angst because of either not wanting or really wanting to please their partner in whatever area they have chosen. It's not really that thought that calms me, I'm not that sadistic, it's mostly the thought that there are happy couples out there and they seem to do fine that keep me happy. They deserve to be celebrated for managing what seems to be so difficult these days - keeping it together. I by no means think being single is inferior, I somewhat plan to stay that way the rest of my life. I only mean that managing a relationship is an accomplishment and should be recongized.

This weekend I'm going to look at the apartment I'll have from the 1st of Mars. I'll share it with two really cute black-and-white cats. Oh, and also a woman. She seems nice too.

In other news: I found one actor each for my two favorite tv-shows in the movie Serenity; one from Bones and one from Numb3rs. Funnily, both died. Err... don't want to ruin the movie for you, but they did.

Valentine's

Saturday is Valentine's Day.

Means everyone else will be busy.

Means I might get the apartment ALL TO MYSELF ALL DAY!

Valentine should have a candy cane for coming up with this great day.

Darling

I wonder
what is it like to be you?
To see the world from your eyes
To breathe the air through your lungs
To smile at me with your lips

To see the wretched thoughts of your minds?

I wonder
why is it that I love you?
When your eyes twist my form
When your lungs steal my air
When I cannot tell if you grin behind your smiles

When I hate you until I suffocate

I wonder
humanity
Do you know what I am
Do you see what I see
Do you know what I see at all

Do you hate me too?

Humanity, darling
it would never have worked between us
so please don't love me
it just complicates things.

What I've Done

I wrote some shit last night. Might put it up later once I've eyed through it for spelling and stuff. I'm just telling you this because a) I've felt so goddamned uninspired the last week (although I have written some more on Kirya, it just hasn't felt very exciting) and b) I have a lot of things I want to write on this blog and most of all drawings I have in my head that I want to do and put up, but since my computer is faaaar away back home and I'm stuck with crappy touch-pads (sorry, friends' computers, but you suck) I'm here rambling about nothing again.

Through some roleplaying my thoughts were led onto the subject of beauty again. That's what I've written about, basically. And although what I wrote should scare me, and should say to me I need to change my attitude to stay a human being, it doesn't. Some things in life are worth dying for, just like some are worth killing for. Not many would agree with that beauty is one of those things, at least not at first thought. But it would be kind of boring if everyone in the world were the same, no? I'm just adding variety to life :) and maybe to death.

Cheers.

A few cats and a dog

I did one of those career tests again. It told me I should be a forensic scientist; a live CSI member. That would be awesome, I did consider it long ago, but it takes a lifetime to get there, and I'm not really that patient.

Looking at it, there's a whole load of things I do the same thing with. I would love to be a forensic scientist but i would hate the road to getting there. I would love to be a dancer, or a machine technician, or a psychiatrist, and a lot of other things. I really believe I would like it. But the roads there are so intimidating. Most of all, the whole "protocol" about it bothers me. How I have to study one exact thing in exactly the way everyone says and write essays containing exactly what other people think they should and stuff like that. It bothers me so much, that most things I never get started on, and those I do get started on I fail because I can't focus. Being a writer is easy, in that sense. You do what you do and see if it works. With other things I have to do it the way others say I should. Some protocol is necessary, of course. But it's not the protocol of the subject but rather that of the studies that hinders me.

I dream sometimes of becoming one of those hermits living in the forest, surviving on what they can make themselves. Absolutely free and separated from the claims and rules of society. Alone to make their own mistakes. Responsible for their own life only. I'd have a few cats and maybe a dog, and it wouldn't matter if it was sunday or monday because vegetables grow on both days and the deers don't care. Is it possible? Would I be happy? I think, and this scares me, yes. I would. But something, most likely my own cowardice, keeps me from trying. Or is it the spirit of the pack that whispers in my ears and warns me from the path of no return? To turn your back on society is the crime society cannot bear, is that not so?

Nature vs Nurture

Woke up in a horrible mood today. Wonder how those things work, those days that you've somehow decided for one emotion from waking up to going to bed, for no apparant reason. It's like laughing to make yourself happy or acting scared to become scared.

There's a manga/anime called Death Note. Awesome. Anyway, in part of it the main character makes sure he loses memory of everything he's done that far in the story, so that he can lie believably and not get caught. But the point of his plan is that he will regain his memory later on. He doesn't know that will happen. He doesn't even know if he'll still want the same things. But he has such faith in himself, he goes through with it.

These two things connect as follows: if you can manipulate so well your own emotions, and yourself, if it is so easy to change yourself, how easy wouldn't it be for others to change you? I wonder all this often, yet at the same time I have the feeling of that it's not true; that you, that I, would still remain no matter what. I believe in DNA, not environment. I believe in self, regardless of circumstances. "I" am as much a fluid concept as it is absolutely set in stone. The world exists to me only because I believe in it. And you can take the world from me, but I will still remain.

My virtue will be Faith.

The universe and me

The universe have spoken.
Faith is my answer.
No thing is weaker than a heart never broken,
but no thing is stronger than belief never tested.
And when all else have proven me wrong
I will still believe
Not that I can do everything
Not that I can do anything
but that I will remain
And that that is enough.
I am the single item
the single person
the one true entity and belief.
I am my own god, for
Without me
there would be no I
And I will remain.

Floating thoughts of a counsciousless mind

Last post from home. Tomorrow is Uppsala, and fear and angst and death. And also possibly my wonderful new future. I am dead tired. I hope I didn't do a "person without any sense of social sense" and didn't let people know I'm coming to Uppsala... when I think about it, which I haven't until now, I'm suddenly not sure. My head's been full of said fear and angst and death lately. Sincere apologies. And also math tests. I did it this morning, had to get up half past six, which is why... y'know. Rest of the day was spent packing, and pondering how I'm going to learn to do eye make-up that doesn't look like crap. And also realizing because I wore a hat right after showering that my hair had decided to look exactly like the hair of one of those Korean boyband singers I've been pestering people about, during one of his less hot hair periods, so I spent an hour dressing up in my most boyish clothes and dancing to his songs. Haha. If I had gotten proper sleep I would never have told you this. I wonder if I can make my hair do that again? Probably not. Then I angsted some more over why my suitcase won't hold more clothes. And other things. But I have made a pretty necklace now. It also looks exactly like one said boyband singer wears at one time, but that one was actually more accidental and less freaky fan stalker. Sorry. Ranting. Sleep now.

Le Gasp

Okay, so I wrote a long segment about how silly I am to care about this, but really, what I want to say is:

That guy Tobias from Swedish Let's Dance, I rambled about him long ago, and how handsome and awesome he is and all that, well this year he's dancing with the blonde bitch from the Idol jury. Does anyone understand what I'm saying here? Gah!

Ah. Felt good to vent that with you guys. Gah! There, done.

Beauty is really the thing that can wipe away all those ideas about being calm, cool and sensible that I otherwise harbor.

Don Don Don

Does anyone else have trouble with paying with Visa cards online? Cuz these last days it hasn't worked anywhere for me. And for some reason I can't understand I won't get the money back for the monitor I tried to buy that was sold out until february... which means I'm suddenly and inexplicably broke!?! This sucks.

<--- (new Kirya chapter)

The Writing of a Poem

I close my eyes
I cleanse my mind
I turn inside
and I listen.
I feel it now
the voice inside
speaks not in words
but in essence.
And I write -

Drifting
Swiveling
Hovering
Fingers
Frictionless
A Devil's Breath
above my skin
Enclosing
Yet opening
Lifting me
To see
Storm
center around
Me

.
.
.

Question: Better with or without the "intro"?

Hint Hint

Calendaring was fun in its own way, but I'm also glad to be back to posting normally.

Hm, I'm just thinking... how do you hint something to someone who doesn't take hints? Doesn't life get pretty de-layered without hints? Say, for example that I would DM some story in which the characters have the free choice of choosing, say, A or B. If I blatantly make someone say "A is better" then hint-less people would choose A, nee? Or if I let two people blatantly say one each is better, it comes down to which person they like better. On the other hand, small things subterfuged into the story and into scenes here and there would guide hint-taking players to consider the choice carefully... so that they can discover the truth on their own, not having someone tell them how it comes together. How is this accomplished, really? Because I refuse to have people *say* all important information in a game. Then it feels like all it's about is talking to, alternatively mind-raping, the right person. I guess that works if it's ass-hat hard to talk and/or mind-rape people, but it's not. In a game, the main thing players tend to do is talk and mind-rape people as much as is playably possible. So... what do you guys think? You like having info told to you? Or how are you supposed to discover things?

I hope people understand what I'm trying to say here...

Oh, and also, I'm going to get rid of that banner because it's annoying the hell out of me that I suitably put it up with the first calendar post, but not taking it down with the last... Yes, I'm anal about it. It's just, ps is fucking with me and it's 4 o'clock in the morning. G'night.

An Advent Tale XXIV

Up to them stepped a man in uniform, and the impressiveness of his charisma was only matched by the width of his chest and the whiteness of his teeth. He saluted them with a friendly smile and looked them over.

“Well, I can tell we have a winner right here,” he said and reached out and shook hands with Julian. “Congratulations!”

“What?” Julian said, blinded by all the attention and this sudden change of events.

“Ah, excuse my manners,” the man said. “I am Derek, I am in charge of public relations. And safety. And finances. Oh, hello Leigh.” He shook the human’s hand as well. Leigh still looked grumpy and went off to climb a building to get his mind off his defeat.

“Wait, what? In charge of what?” Kati wanted to know.

“Ah, let me explain. The Lancea Sanctum will be pushing a political campaign in the area, and we thought we needed a local to speak for us while we’re off elsewhere. My boss, wise as he is, knows that it’s the woman behind the man that counts. So we agreed that the couple with the strongest woman coming to our Christmas Party would take charge in this region.”

“See?” muttered Benji.

“In charge of the region?” Julian said.

“This guy’s so fresh he can’t tie his shoes,” Kati said. “And don’t think you can just waltz in here like that, the Invictus…”

“Obviously he’s the most suitable man,” Derek declared and went on to shake Sam’s hand. “It can’t be doubted! Ah, well, I am needed elsewhere. Please enjoy the party; we will sort the paperwork out tomorrow. Tonight is Christmas, after all!”

And he was gone.

It was silent for another ten minutes. Then the star atop the tree released Ray from its magical spell, and he yawned and stretched and looked around if anyone else was bored.

“Hey guys, look, presents!”

An Advent Tale XXIII

“We will stop you, one way or another,” Kati said. “Think you can defeat us all?”

“We’ll take down your evil plan!” Aiden declared.

“I think,” Ray added.

But Julian, at seeing the couple and at the damage he’d taken, suddenly remembered what had happened, how Leigh had come around and sent him off. He struggled to get on his feet and Kati helped him up. “It doesn’t matter what you do!” he yelled. “You’ll have to kill me to keep me away from Sam!”

At which Sam jerked up. “What?” she said and turned to Leigh. “You told me he left.”

Leigh wet his lips and smiled disarmingly. “Did I? I meant, he left when I told him to.”

“You beat me up!” Julian protested. “Said you’d kill us both if I didn’t get lost!”

“Well, he’s obviously too weak for you,” Leigh told Sam. “I’ve shown you what we could do with the place. Come on, let’s continue. Don’t mind these people.”

Sam stared at him. “Forget it,” she said. When he tried to stop her from going she simply lifted him by his stylish coat and told him if he ever laid hands on Julian again, or any of Julian’s friends, she would send him back to his boss in one-pound boxes.

And once that was out of the way, she returned to Julian, who was overridden with joy at seeing her and immediately recovered.

Seeing as Leigh had met his match he had no desire to fight them. He came with them back through the tunnels and up from the hatch under the Christmas tree. Where our heroes discovered that today was Christmas day, which they had, with all the excitement, forgotten. The tree was lit up with the most amazing lights and the star at the top mesmerized Ray for a whole fifteen minutes.

Outside also waited a whole crew of vampires, setting up a stage and testing microphones. None of them seemed to notice them coming up.

Kati didn’t recognize any of them as Invictus. She grabbed one of them and asked, “What is going on here?”

A voice cut through the crowd; “Let me answer that!”

An Advent Tale XXII

Julian sped up when he heard voices. It did sound like the guy was giving Sam a tour, and Sam was listening and talking back. Good. Then at least she wasn’t hurt.

He came rushing just as the guy was telling her about the composition of earth that gave it its orange color, and the guy flickered his wrist and a dozen throwing stars came flying at Julian. He didn’t even stop talking meanwhile. Sam was a bit distracted, though, as Julian cried out in pain and stumbled to the ground.

The others caught up with them but were slowed down by the ease with which the guy had defeated Julian. Ray and Aiden hurried up and pulled Julian away some, and began plucking stars out of him.

“Now what is this?” the guy demanded. He was of middle length, dressed with stylish ease and with nothing but peach fuzz on his head.

“Leigh!” Benji shouted, stepping out and pointing with one dirty glove. “It’s not over yet! I have…” And he grabbed Melody’s arm to pull her up front with him, but she was quite finished with pretending and finally got to elbow him again.

“Release that girl now!” Aiden yelled.

“What?” Leigh said. “What are you talking about, release? She can go if she wants.” He turned towards Sam and held out a hand, showing her she could do as she liked. She hesitated.

Aiden, Kati and Melody tried to attack him when he wasn’t expecting it, but like with all good fighters he didn’t really have a time when he didn’t expect it. Even Ray who had snuck up invisible was struck back. They were all repelled again and again, and the chances for our heroes seemed slim.

An Advent Tale XXI

Further down the road they stopped seeing any people. The tunnel grew wider into the size of a subway and weak light came from somewhere. This was simply a transport tunnel to get to other towns; they even saw one or two cars. Melody and Aiden took the front, since they were the ones who could take a first blow. Benji insisted he could, but no one was really sure if he could or if he just thought he could, so he walked in the back with Julian, Kati and Ray.

The tunnel walls were soggy here, the brown earth was almost orange and rocks littered their path; once or twice one fell from the roof. A weak sound was reaching them; echoes of someone in pain. The tunnels caught the sounds and amplified them, bouncing agony at them.

Soon they came upon the wounded. A werewolf, a young male who seemed to be in pretty bad shape. A skinny girl dressed in black was next to him, trying to get him on his feet.

“This is Elaine’s best?” Kati said.

“You’re from Elaine?” the guy on the ground groaned.

Kati nodded.

“The guy is further down. We ran, and he didn’t really follow. He’s showing a girl around, as if it’s some tour or something.”

“Sam!” Julian shouted and ran off.

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Kati sighed and followed him.

“Thanks,” Aiden yelled back at the two young ones before the whole group took off.

“Be careful,” the skinny girl called to them.

An Advent Tale XX

Kati said they had to go back through the tunnels and take another way at the hub where they’d gotten separated, to get to where Elaine thought the guy would come from. Aiden really had no idea where they were anymore, so he just followed. It took some more walking before they were back, and this time they came out from one of the tunnels pretty high up, able to look down on everyone passing through below them. There weren’t a lot of people going about. But just as they were about to go down and continue, Aiden caught sight of a group of four. The person up front wasn’t anyone he knew, but the other three were familiar faces.

“Geronimo!” he yelled and jumped down right at them.

It seemed they had prepared a bit better for being attacked this time, because when he landed among them they didn’t run away. Instead Ray went invisible, Melody unfolded claws, and Julian hid behind her back.

Before anyone else had time to react, the guy Aiden didn’t know walked up to him and smacked his shoulder. “Nice!” he commented. “That sounded really fierce, man!” Then held out his hand. “Benji.”

They spent some time telling each other what had happened while they were separated, as well as warn Aiden that the next time he did that he’d get a pair of claws through his stomach. Then they extended that warning to Benji just to be sure.

And so they went on, stronger in numbers, south to confront Sam’s kidnapper.