Talking just to hear my voice

I've colored my hair, finally! Not even close to as radically as I meant from the beginning, because hairdressers are cowards, but it's something, and I like it. I've also spent a ridiculous amount of time on learning how to get stuff from my PC to my PSP, it's simple enough, I just made it stupidly complicated by not reading the instructions, which I otherwise always yell at people to do. I sternly believe in instructions. Who was it that worked with writing instruction books for electronics? I have a vague memory of that someone I know did... ?

Honestly I don't have anything to say today. I just wanted to update the blog anyway. So...

Things I would talk to you about if you were here:
Financial crisis.
Front page designs.
One-tracked cultures.
Professional dancers.
Short term memory.
Sleep schedule.
Travel conference.
Ireland.
Battery time.
Automated costumer service.

Things I wouldn't talk to you about if you were here:
Things lost.
Travel plans.
Obsessions.
Cherished distance.
Getting lost in the beat.
Charisma.
Bodily frailty.
Passions of the future.

I haden't written a word for three weeks. Two nights ago I wrote two and a half pages by hand, around three at night, then I couldn't keep my eyes open. The urge struck. I've had that itch since then, but I don't sit down and write. Why?

Finland

My interest for knowledge would, if possible to express in physical form, probably look something like the model of time-space that a funny guy in a hood carries around in the DC universe. I can't find any pattern in what I'm interested in. I like parts of history, mathematics, psychology, philosophy, biology, sociopolitics, computer science... yeah, but on the other hand I really hate other areas within the same fields.

What brings about this poinless confession? I sought distraction from a very long time on a train, and found a book on the Soviet invasion of Finland. I'd really like to learn strategics and warfare; real large-scale combat, and I've already studied the Finnish Civil War and have a better overview of WWII than the first, so I thought, why not look intellectual on the train.

Well, the Finnish fought most of that invasion in the scale numbers of roughly 1:10, had severe lack of ammunition most of the time, and equipment that barely passed as cool in WWI. They did however have the wheather on their side, if by that I mean that Finnish people survive -38C and Soviets do not. Specifically since the Soviets for some reason forgot to bring proper coats, even if this was in the middle of December and Global Warming was still hiding in the bushes. They also forgot that most of Finland consists of forests and lakes, which implies that bringing dozens of heavy tanks that completely destroy the small roads and make retreat utterly impossible might not be the best idea. As if that wasn't enough, they also decided that one officer should have no say in where the other officer was, resulting in that they often blocked said small roads for each other with said tanks. Left was for the Finnish army to ski in, hide behind the trees and grant frozen, starving and locked down Russians warming gifts in the form of bullets and morlotov coctails.

Said should be that Soviet learned the lesson for the next war, handing Hitler and his nazis about the same treatment when that time came. Which was only fair, since Hitler swore in his non-agression pact with Stalin to not sell Finland weapons, but then used the ships he sent to fuel Stalin's submarines to ship weapons to Sweden. As if he had no idea what Sweden would do with them.

All the political bullshitting confused me, since I hadn't read such in-depth stuff about WWII before. But I think I have the general pictue: Finland is awesome.

The Tiger's Cave

So...

Pull myself up
Take the step
Move about in the big wide world and
open my eyes until the dry air make them hurt.

And...

Dive into the pond
Stick my head into the tiger's mouth
It doesn't matter if I answer the question right because
its fangs were made of foam.

It's strange, but...

No matter how much I drink
Or if I put a bucketfull by my bed
Only the humid breath of the tiger soothed my eyes and it was
warm from the heat of its lungs.

Feel Good

The one thing that makes everything feel better no matter what:

Laughter.

So, from now on, whenever I'm feeling down, I'll go YouTubing for Korean boybands and Asian gameshows. An irresistable combination.

He's called Ghoul, don't ever call him Nate

Hey!
It's been a lot of seriousness lately, and I think we all need a break. This was meant to just be a character sketch to begin with, so I tried a lot of new techniques that I thought of or picked up from here and there. To begin with I drew the sketch on real paper, scanned it and then drew the outlines again on top of the old ones, because I have yet to figure out how to make scanned imagines good outlines. Gave me the chance to correct some flaws on the original sketch too. Next came the flats. I only heard of flats recently, which should tell you how nooby I am at digital coloring. Google it, or better yet YouTube it, if you don't know what it is. The most genious thing since... I dunno, the start of digital coloring? Made everything insanely much easier and faster, which is why I felt I had time and interest left to make a real background with.

I feel pretty good about myself right now :P But more than anything, I have fallen in love with my tree. That tree, right behind him on that hill. Isn't it the prettiest thing you've ever seen?

An Answer

I feel that my answer on Nightflyer's comment on the previous post became too long to be a comment. I imagined that someone would think what she thought about what I wrote, but decided to post it as it was to let whatever come come. Because when you ask the question, you'll get your answer. Because this is what I wanted to say:

I understand what you want to say, and I agree, mostly. But that everyone can make their own happiness doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it easier on everyone. It doesn't mean we should ignore shit people throw at us, "turn the other cheek". Even if fact is that life deals you cards under the table, you don't just sit down and take it. You stand up and shout. Because whether or not it helps you, whether or not it helps the ones who come after you, it makes you feel better. It gives you the special word for "pride" or "honor", self-respect, that Asia uses, that we here in Sweden have replaced with "lagom".

That I am adopted is an issue in itself. One I will, and am, dealing with. What's done is done. The question whether international adoption should or should not be performed, however, is a completely different issue and on a different level.

What I dealt with the first post was basically my own feelings and the beginning of me connecting to where I am from; because it is true that where I am from does have significance in the choice of where I will go tomorrow. I am also very aware of that I am the one who have cut myself off from my heritage.

The previous post, however, is aimed more at the later issue, an attempt to bring the question into the light. Adoption has always been seen as a good thing, right? I question that. I propose that it might even be bad, and I'm not the only one. I do that counting all information I know at this point, logically, and that my own feelings agree is only another fact that supports this theory. I am a part of my own test-group. Not scientifically viable, but in real life a rather commonly practiced form. I want people to think about whether what Korea practices is adoption or a dandied form of selling humans.

Listening to someone feeling sorry for themselves is quite annoying. I know I do my own bit of whining, but for your information quite a lot of it is venting and/or the author side of me going haywire because strong emotion is the best food for words and letters. I'd say my flaw is to blame stupidity and systems created by stuidity for all my problems instead of dealing with myself, but I do not feel sorry for myself. I have chosen my path; I could have made it easier, but I will not. Neither would I change the fact of my adoption if I could. I never said I'd rather have stayed where I was; I have no idea how life would have been or who I would have been; quite frankly I have never thought about it. Can't change the past. No point in thinking about whether I would want to.

I know you know me better than most. Do you think I would take an opinion because "everyone says so"?

The land of opportunities

I'll actually continue a bit on the last subject, because I've been thinking a lot about it since I wrote. I've read a lot of stuff, Korean language, history, culture - and viewpoints about adoption coming from both Korea and Sweden. It gives me a growing feeling of that I've unknowlingly chosen to ignore a large part of my life.

Here's some facts that can't be denied:
Many adopted Koreans return to live in Korea when they're adults. Many of those never feel at home there either.
Suicide is considerably much more common in people adopted into another etnicity than their born one.
Korea still gives up thousands of children for adoption even as their economy is now well above the average line. Adoption within the borders are very uncommon. They make millions off foreign adoptions every year.
Korean culture still carries the remnants of a time where an unmarried woman could not have a child. Most children up for adoption come from single mothers.
Sweden adopts many more children from Asian countries than others, like Africa.

There is a strong feeling of sitting between chairs, so to speak. For some reason I'm not yet at the point of being angry, or even accusing, of Korea. Maybe because I've recently read about how rough the road has been for her. But she gives many opportunities. I'm slightly less inclined to give Sweden the nice treatment. Have anyone ever informed parents or the people working with adoption about the skyrocketing suicide rates, about the feeling of sitting between chairs? Sure, it's better than leaving children starving on the streets. But kids in Korea are hardly starving on the streets anymore.

I met the other Korean girl I talked about. We just had a night on town, and as if fate intervened we ran into a group of Korean tourists. They were exalted about every little thing we had to say, though the hardly spoke english. Apparantly I have the same name as a famous Korean singer. They asked who we were, where we were from. My friend knew the Korean word for adopted. All the women of the group said "aaaahhh," and tilted their heads. I got the distict feeling they felt sorry for us.

Maybe they should.

Korean

I've been watching the Olympics. No, I won't ramble about sports and stuff. What I will ramble about is nationality and identity. See, these laste six or eight months I've been feeling myself changing a lot on a certain point. Confidence. And within that lies the fact that I've changed attitude to myself being Korean.

Before I've always ignored it. Seriously. As a child I avoided mirrors. When people pointed it out or asked questions I just turned my head off and answered blank statements that I'd learned from listening to mom. I kept myself completely, utterly neutral to the fact and held it at arm's length. It didn't exactly damage me. No one ever made me do it. I just chose to not handle it at all. (Being made easier by the fact that I've been lucky enough to never have encounteder racism.)

This christmas I met an old man who had been everywhere and met everyone and had had four wives. He was always blunt to the point of rudeness. As soon as he saw me he started talking about that I should go to Korea and find my biological parents. I got angry, actually, but he just kept talking about how nice Korea was and how beautiful the women were and how they all spoke english so I wouldn't have a problem speaking to them. (Not true, as I've found out, the english that is.)

But it got my head going, and the more I thought, the more I felt... maybe. Maybe I should. Another guy at school, also unafraid of speaking his mind, had a theory that the bond between mother and child the first few weeks or months are very important, life-defining. I asked him face to face if he thought being adopted disrupted that and he said yes. People around got uncomfortable, but the oddity that struck me when he said it, was that I agreed.

And this week put two more nails in the coffin, so to speak. For one I watched the Olympics, and the nationalism is always as strongest in sports. I got to see more Korean people than I have in my entire life, and somehow as I saw them, something clicked into place. Just the way they looked and moved. This is my people too. And then I talked to another adopted Korean who have found her family and spoken to them over the phone. They don't speak english, but they talk to her anyway, for some reason. And I felt, as I listened to her story, that it could be me.

It is biologically in our blood, isn't it. The feeling when we stand side by side with someone who shares our genes and our faces and look into the mirror, seeing the ghosts of two of ourselves. And people who have lived with that their entire lives, do you understand it? What you get? I didn't. Not until now, when I'm starting to wonder;

Can you ever replace family?

Speaking of the devil

We live in a world we can't control. We pretend. When we were wandering nomads or poor farmers we had no control over the weather. But we pretended, through religion and witchery, through study and lies. Now we face the fact that even the things we ourselves created we cannot control, just as little as parents can control the personality and skills, and future, of their children. We can nudge, we can force, we can pretend. And with science and religion, through psychology and systems we pretend.

We live in a world of constant psychological warfare. Political, religious, philosophical and scientific propaganda. Commercials. Papparazzi, eggshells, even blogs. We nudge, we force, and we pretend to control other people's pretenses. And to some extent, we succeed. But what do we succeed with, really? We bring out weaknessess, the flaws of human nature, into the light and we exploit them. But we are all only human.

Someone I pretend to know said something along the lines of that a weakness is only a weakness if you allow it to be. Doesn't that mean that by exploring and exploiting human weakness, our nature, we weaken ourselves, every singe one of us.

No?

[Insert Approptiate Label]

I saw Batman Gotham Knight, not a bad thing. Like the Animatrix, but Batman. Well, the torrent-comments were filled with people yapping about being fooled to think it was The Dark Knight (awsome movie too, btw) because of the name. It seems it's incredibly hard to tell the word Gotham apart from the word Dark. One of them said "well, it wasn't labeled [Animated]" to excuse his apparent inability to read. (Especially since like a dozen people above him in the comments had already complained and said it was animated.)

Well, well, fine. Internet is crawling with idiots. But then I saw this on another well-known torrent site, and man...


No wonder they put labels like "Do not microwave" on cellphones.

Randomness Presents: One Plus One Is Two

Here's an interesting discussion I had: Types of couples. Which one do you want to be?

The Cute Couple - Bouncy, snuggly and happy are the trademarks of this couple. They fight, but only until one of them starts singing the Bumbibear intro. Probably the couple with largest survival chances. Unless someone kills them for being too cute.

The Clingy Couple - What, that's two people, not one? Really? And they don't die if you separate it... I mean them?

The Frustrating Couple - If you let this friend fall in love you won't see him/her again for the next two weeks, and you'll be happy if he even considers speaking to you and not his partner when the three of you are in the same room. Want to talk to either alone? Forget it.

The Practical Couple - No, hey, we just like the same things and don't drive each other nuts, and the sex isn't too awful, so, you know... we just thought, what the hell. Sadly, this one has pretty high survival chances too.

The Weird Couple - Imagine the two people in the world you think would fit worst together. Now make them lovers. They're defying the laws of nature and you can't stop thinking about it.

The Heartwarming Couple - You know, those two that seem to fit each other perfectly, always keeping an eye out for each other in small, heartwarming ways, making sure everyone else are jealous. Makes you wonder; are they really this perfect all the time?

The Token Couple - For some reason they think their partner is the perfect accessory to carry around. When it's one-sided it's sad, when both play the same game it's just hellishly annoying. And making out in public is just a small part of their reportoire.


Hm... can't come up with any more right now.

Poetry or Rambling? You decide.

This is our lives:

Dividing ourselves between everything there ever was and everything that will be. Chopping our flesh into little pieces and sprinkling it over the drooling jaws of the hungry crowds, knowing it will never be enough. Choosing one child out of ten born from the womb of our blood and feed it knowing the other nine will die. And knowing that whether we feel the pain of their deaths or not they will come back to haunt us until our minds are obliterated and absorbed by the one child that did not die, the one that will survive us and carry our failiures on into the future, the one that will carry even more dust than we have gathered. Ever since the first strike of lightning that gave life to that which was dead we have carried the dust and pain and blood of the nine children.

There comes short moments where nothing of this matters. Moments where our minds are released from our forms and poured into another's. A form where our presence is only drifting and our responsabilities slim, one that will carry his own dust while we borrow his existance in the world and peer out through his eyes, hiding, amazed at how beautiful living can be when looked at from the outside.

This is roleplaying. This is movies, music, books and art. This is games and sports and for some people work. This is murdering and stealing. This is sex, and this is love.

And according to most people, perhaps even me, this is what kills us.

To the tunes of my inner music

Silence in the Nighttime

Let's stay up,
love
Until dawn creeps over your face
Let's stay up,
love
Til I can't seem to think straight
I don't have much to offer you, but I
won't pretend
Let's stay up,
love...

Let's stay up,
love
Til the cold forces us together
Let's stay up,
love
Pretend night will last forever
I won't ask much of you, but I
like to pretend
Let's stay up,
love
Time and time again.

And what the shadows reveal of your face,
my friend
Is more than either of us could take.
All the possibilities of heartbreak and pain,
my friend
Is more than enough for me to
pretend.

Let's stay up,
friend
Until dawn creeps over your face
Let's stay up,
friend,
Til I can't seem to think straight
I 've so much to offer you, but I
will pretend
So let's stay up,
friend
Again and again.

Why we have pets:

From a webcomic called xkcd which I encourage anyone to read who:

• finds math at least remotedly enjoying
• have patience with that not every strip is hilarious
• find bizarre nerdiness more fun than implying that women are somehow lesser beings
• believe in cats, hats and your mom (and your sister)
  

Right, didn't have time this morning, but I just want to point the attention towards the update panel. Finally Kirya is underway after a stupid pause during which I've been doing many things but none of them producing any tangible results. Otherwise there's some stuff going on in my private life, some of them sad, so I'm not sure I'll be blogging quite as regularly for a while. Not that it matters.

I'll probably be holed up here writing, though, to the satsifaction of my peers, since emotional periods mean more dedication to my work. Stay tuned, have fun. I'll see you around.

You Are What You Wear

Time moves fast now when summer vacation is here.

I've been trying to get Spore Creature Creator up and running. As far as I know right now, there is absolutely no reason why it refuses to work. The support I've gotten so far has consisted of "have you updated the latest drivers for your graphics card" which feels like an insult in the scale of a slap to the face, since I've been spending a lot of time now looking up specifics for my video- and soundcards and updating BIOS for my motherboard, restarting my computer something like 16 times. Argh. If they don't answer my mail in another 24 hours, I'll consider myself spit upon, and they'll have hell to come.

For now I'm sketching on all kinds of outfits, trying to figure out how you make an outfit for a guy that oozes goodness and kindness without making him look like a wimp. And how to make a woman a dress that looks cool, but not priestly, yet not as if she was a porn star, and should be imaginably possible to fight in. Checks and balances, it seems. A little boyish here, a little coolness there. A little bare skin here, a little layers there. Puh.

Tomorrow I'm going for a weekend of off-time, roleplaying, deep philosophical discussions and sillyness. Can't wait.

Update at the End of Things

Hope all of you had a good time Thursday-Friday celebrating your new freedom. For some it won't last long, for others longer than they wished.

My brother finished 9th grade. Dunno when all this growing up happened, I sure wasn't there to see it. But it's only fair, I guess. When I turned 20 was the first birthday I actually felt a difference; it felt like I was an adult now, like I was only pretending before. Bro had his first taste of it now, I think, realizing things like that the future is a scary place, that progress is both good and bad, and that just when you start to really get to know people it's time to break up. I think he'll be okay. And he looked smashing in new jeans and a striped shirt. Been ages since I saw him in a shirt.

As for me, I won't have a job this summer. I can only pray I get into school, because I have no second choice. Otherwise my life will be pretty empty, and I can't take sitting by the sidelines another year. It already feels like the world, and the people in it, is moving along without me. This summer, however, will be pretty full anyway. I have some projects I want to finish up before getting busy with important things. Stuff like two novels and a few short stories to polish off, some drawings and illustrations, losing those three kilos I gained this winter, doing Math C unofficially just for the heck of it since I have the book, and so on. And I need to make some time for friends too. I dunno what everyone fill their summers with, but this is good enough for me.

Oh, and for those with free time and a computer; play The Witcher. Wonderful rpg, without the silly "good or evil" choices, but with choices that actually make a difference without being too obvious. I've torn my hair more than once wondering who to assume is the bad guy. And combat can be everything from a pushover to a real challenge, since there are three difficulty levels to choose from.

Tan carefully, buddies!

*playing around with an imaginary stage+microphone*

It may have gone unnoticed, or rather it should have gone unnoticed since I've done absolutely nothing to make anyone notice, but I actually have music to a few texts myself. I don't trust my musical ear, and I don't know any instrument well enough to be able to write it down properly, but it's all stored in my head. No complicated tunes, I assure you. Just a natural effect of me meddling with writings, poems, worlds, languages and mystics. Creating own races with own languages and cultures aren't half as hard as making a half-assed song, but since their culture includes music... you get the point.

This piece, as such, has a tune. Things I write for music tends to have a different rhythm than other poetry, and is less rigid in rhymes as such. Neither is it finished, this is the ending of it. But songs, more than poems, need to come spontaneously and of themselves. As soon as I intellectualise them, they flat-out insta-wise very much die. Anyway, I like it sooo much. I guess I can't really convey why, because you can't hear the music in my head, or the Nickleback-ish rough voice singing it, but bah. Have some imagination. ^_-

What I would give

I would give the world for you
I would kill a thousand men
I would turn out all the stars
and I would light them up again
I would give my life for you

But there is no God
or the Devil would collect
my heart

Hope

I am going to lose you.

All has been said, all has been done
I believed in that you would stay this time
it hurts so much because
I believed in that you would stay this time.

But I am going to lose you
I am going to lose you
I. Am going. To lose. You.

I did all I could do
Nothing I do matters
I gave you time. You used it.
But now?

It is within you
Death is within you
death is within You
And the only way to pluck it out
is to cut up your chest
and break your ribs apart
and tear out your heart

Death is in your heart
and it's eating its way out

I will remember you.
I will always remember you.
And every time I will stand
before the choice to reach for something
that can be lost
I will remember you.

Oh Father who are in Heaven.
Holy is thy name.
Be thy will, as in Heaven
so on Earth.

And we pray.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Oh, and just so you guys know I won't be available on cellphone again until Friday the 6th of June. So if you want something, easiest way to get hold of me is to drop a comment in the blog or mail me. Cuz I'm still at school. But soon no more. ^^