The truth is out there
I can stop spreading lies now, the truth has been revealed: Finland is lame.
Posted 14:46

Happened so far
I should learn not to leave anything to the last minute. It is the surest guarantee that something will go wrong. I got sick again during the last week and had to forget about a number of things I wanted to do before departure.

I got more and more excited about going to Finland as the week went on, but a curious thing happened as my plane was finally speeding off the runway. I actually felt really sad and reluctant to go. It felt like a big mistake. I've never felt that way before. No matter where I've been and how much fun I've had there, I've always been glad to return regardless.

I started to get giddy when boarding the plane at Brussels airport. All of a sudden everybody around me was speaking in finnish. I felt like pointing at them and exclaiming 'Hey, you're from Finland!'. Brussels and the surrounding areas in the dark were a breathtaking sight from the air. All the pearls of light sprawling endlessly in every direction were really beautiful.

My first thought about seeing Finland from the air was exhileration over the amount of snow there was everywhere. It's an incredible feeling for me to be actually excited about snow. I'm used to regarding snow as the undesired side effect of winter, one which I hope will soon melt away to make way for summer. Now I can actually take joy in it, because I know that in two weeks, in all likelihood, I won't see snow again until perhaps November. Currently it's about -13C outside, but I just think it's great.

I have very mixed feelings about being in Finland. It feels like I have been gone ages and yet nothing here has changed. I might as well not been in England the past three months. I slipped right into my old life. Seeing my mother and friends was no big deal - felt like I had just seen them a few days ago anyhow. The language has been the greatest source of wonder for me. Somehow my brains cannot get over the fact that every single person here does speak finnish. I got so used to the cacophony of languages and different cultures around me. In Finland everybody is the same.

All my days are quite packed with something to do. I've been to the doctor and taking antibiotics now. I've had my car repaired. All kinds of things to buy and deal with. Last night I dreamt about my job in England. I don't know yet how I will feel about leaving back there next week.
Posted 13:11

In Finland
Back in the land of my birth. I wrote an update earlier today, but blogger was so clogged that I could not post it. It's on another computer right now so will be left for later. Until then...

Remember this view from last summer? It now looks like this.
Posted 19:38

Ran out of things to write about
I've been sick the past few days, off from work (unpaid, hmph) and just taken it easy. It's amazing how well I can spend time just playing a computer game, reading a book and watching TV.

My mother appears to be busy planning a minute to minute schedule of all the things we're going to be doing while I'm in Finland. She even suggested that I should just stay at her place the whole time. While I am by no means a highly social person I do still have a couple of friends I would like to see as well... Sometimes I really cannot understand my mother. When I told her that I am coming for a visit her first reaction was elated, because it meant that she could go to Lapland for the whole time and I'd be there to take care of the animals instead. I don't particularly long to see my mother, but I admit to being a bit hurt that she considered going somewhere else and not seeing me at all during the whole visit. Now that her own travelplans fell short due to work she seems intent on spending every single day with me. It's hard to know what to think.

I managed to find a place for my chinchillas. I went in search of some Finnish chinchilla websites/newsgroups, left a message in one of them and somebody offered to take care of my critters. Of course this person is a total stranger to me and there are no guarantees that they won't just eat my chinchillas the moment I turn my back, but if all she said of herself and her place are true, then my chinchillas should be well looked after. I hope and pray for it to be true.

I have decided to drive my car back to England. First a ship from Finland to Germany, drive to Holland where I'll spend a night and then a ferry from Holland to England. It'll be quite an adventure! I can't wait!
Posted 17:04

TTT - Spoilers
I'm off to see the Two Towers for the second time in a few hours. I haven't read a single review, diary, magazine or anywhere, on the movie yet, but here's some of my thoughts about the movie. Overall it was great and I truly enjoyed it, but there were a few things, which bugged me:

• It's a very strange movie in the sense that it really has no beginning and no end. It's basically a short clip of a much larger film and thus left me a bit unsatisfied. The Fellowship had a good beginning and some attempts at an ending of sorts, but the TTT left me much more frustrated at not being able to see more.
  
• I don't like how much the future events are already being displayed. I didn't like that old, dead Aragorn the King was shown already or the fact that the elves are leaving Middle-Earth is already brought so much into the picture. I feel it is taking away a lot from the ending of Return of the King.
  
• Faramir wasn't really portrayed fairly. In the book he is faced with the ring, manages to see its evil and is able to let Frodo go right then and there, but in the movie he ends up being corrupted at first and doing various kinds of non-bookish things before letting Frodo go. I suppose Jackson didn't want Faramir to end up looking almost like a clone of Aragorn.
  
• No flashback scenes of Boromir. Bad, bad, bad.
  
• Poor Gimli. Proud Dwarf warrior reduced to a stumbling fool.
  
• The special effects seemed a bit poorer in this one. There were quite a few instances where things just looked fake.

I was moved to tears many times though... the scenes with Arwen and Elrond, Arwen and Aragorn, Theoden mourning for the loss of his son, 300 men and young boys gathering to fight against impossible odds... It's a great movie and even with the changes to the books worthy of the Lord of the Rings title. I just feel like it really cannot be appreciated to its fullest until all three of the movies are out, on DVD and one can sit down and watch all of it in one go. That'll be a great day!
Posted 18:16

It's me again
There's snow here! It started snowing two days ago, yesterday snowed even more and now much of it is still lingering around. I hadn't realized that I had actually missed snow until now. Over here snow isn't burdened with the horrible realization that one will have to endure it for the next 9 months, but rather it's a rare exception and can thus be enjoyed to the fullest. It's made everything look so beautiful! I find it rather interesting that the moment I decided to visit Finland and was thinking of how nice it'll be to see snow there that it starts to snow here and they say this current colder weather is coming from Scandinavia.

I'm getting really excited about going to Finland. I just can't wait! Part of me fears though that I'll like being there too much and don't want to return back to England. I'll have to nonetheless - I'm leaving all of my belongings behind, but I hope when I come back I'll be excited to return and not just doing it, because I have no other choice.

My search for a new job hasn't started yet. I'm still in the phase of considering how best to write my CV, which I suppose is mostly just an excuse. I do want a new job, but I hate the process of finding one. I have absolutely no idea what I would like to do for a living nor what I am qualified to do, so it makes everything that much harder. I know I could learn a lot of things and I am willing to start from the bottom if there is the prospect of rising higher eventually, but at the same time I don't want to spend years proving myself. I'm getting too old for that. At my current job I see daily what the managers do, I think I'd be good at that job and I'd probably even enjoy it, but there does not seem to be any chance of ever getting promoted. There are a lot of capable employees at the company who have been doing the same low-level job for years. It seems that either you get educated in the correct field and apply directly to become a manager or you are stuck forever where you are.
Posted 17:46

The New Year
Jorggy had it quite right in the previous entry's comment that I do seem to go through a lot of mood changes here. In a way I suppose that is a good thing - better to have a roller-coaster than numbingly unaltering days all the time. I just hate how much I allow myself to be influenced by certain things, such as my roommate or my job situation. Today is another stupid example of how easily I let my emotions change. I was feeling perfectly fine earlier, up until the point where I read another one of my mother's e-mails, one in which she mentioned that she is getting tired of taking care of the chinchillas and just what exactly are my plans concerning them. Suddenly I am filled with anxiety and uncertainty about my future here. My mother, as nice and friendly as she may be at times, also possesses the ability to be absolutely selfish at other times. Not that I can really blame her. The chinchillas are certainly my responsibility and I cannot just expect somebody else to take care of them forever, even if she is my mother. My mother is one of those people who, if I do not come up with a solution quickly, might just dump the chinchillas out in the cold and have no problems in letting them die just to prove her point to me. Trust me, I am not exaggerating or kidding. That woman has a whole Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde thing going on. So now, instead of looking forward to seeing The Two Towers finally in two hours, I worry.

I sound so much like a broken record, but I just really don't know what to do. I want to stay, but is it possible? When I go and visit Finland in a few weeks should I bring the chinchillas here with me? I have no place where to put them right now though. What if I end up staying only for a couple months more... the whole process of moving the critters about and stressing them to no end, isn't worth it. Can chinchillas even go into airplanes? What about a 4 day car trip instead? The couple of friends that I have in Finland don't want the furballs. I e-mailed a couple of people from some Finnish Chinchilla Association if they would be willing or know somebody capable, for a price, to look after the chinchillas. Hopefully I'll get some answer from them.

I feel sorry for this blog. I pop in once a week and write all the same stuff over and over again. It's what keeps going on around in my head though. I do manage to do other things as well, but they don't quite seem worth writing about. I've met some people, I went out with my co-workers and all that, but it's my future here which keeps bugging me though.
Posted 20:06