Ursula.

I have never been a big fan of anything. But when I got to know Ursula K. Le Guin's books, I totally fell in love with her words and worlds. Her books are more than science fiction, her ability to make stories that are so full of meaning and feelings...I'm just deeply in love.

Last year I wrote a letter to her and explained how her books mean so much to me. I just felt like I had to do it, she should know how her books are meaningful to this small person in this small country. And despite being a busy writer, she answered to me :) I understood how it feels like to be a huge fan of something, because when I received the letter, I was so moved!

I'm collecting all of her books. I've found many from the removal shelf from the library and I've ordered some from internet book store. I've read all her books there are in the library. I just feel like I can't get enough of those worlds, where planets circle around each other and beings have no gender. How imagining different worlds teach us about ourselves.

When I was a child, I dreamt about writing. If I'll ever write something in the future, Ursula has shown me the way :)

Future library? Shadows?

My week has been rather busy again. I had one meeting day, one training day, one library car day. I heard interesting things about how we could get young people to use libraries again...In Espoo there's for example game room and game evenings for young people and they're very popular, especially amongst immigrants. That's how I'd love to see library! Things are just changing - young people are not so interested in reading books anymore, so libraries should offer something they're interested in = dvd's and games. I'm sure the change is coming, but it might take a long time until it reaches us here :)

I'm not sure if library car is something we have only in Finland -> They're like busses filled with books and they stop at schools in day time and in small villages in the evenings. I used to visit one when I was a child, because it stopped quite close to our place then. It was very fun to see that still there are some people who are enthusiastic about books, particularly pre-school children ;)

It has been sunny and I took photos of the shades of the trees on different walls. Sometimes I feel that I can see beautiful things everywhere! It's just about the attitude :) And some days I just look at my feet when I'm walking forward and don't see anything special.

I haven't done the dishes in ages. And the ants are taking over the kitchen. Instead of doing anything reasonable, I use my new face cream from Raw Gaia and enjoy the scent, dream about other organic products (luckily pound is very cheap at the moment!) and listen to Spotify at the same time as I read Ursula K. Le Guin's Kahdesti haarautuva puu (originally "The Telling"). I love Ursula. Bye for now.

Early morning's bright sunshine it seems a bit different today...

I love flowers. I bought these yellow tulips yesterday, because I'm starting to feel like spring. It looks so ugly outside, snow is melting, dog shit is smelling, roads are bare and icy...but I like the changing of seasons, although spring is my least favourite time of the year. Change is always good?

We had friends at our place overnight and now it feels a bit empty. It's Sunday evening again and tomorrow is another morning when I need to wake up at 6 o'clock. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but still it feels too early. I've had headache for 2 days now, too much stress before I get to know my place at the library. I'm trying to read books about being a boss and I find them kind of sad...Those books emphasize the fact that bosses shouldn't be friends with employees and I think it's very weird. But after this year I'll be able to say what kind of boss I am and if it's something I should do in the future or not.




I'm such a child -> I still love to walk over the icy parts on the road. Sometimes I get my shoes wet, sometimes not. The sound of breaking ice is just beautiful, kind of hollow, and all the sounds vary a lot. Maybe it's time to start to use rubber boots again :D

I have Spotify. Too bad they don't have enough good dance music, all other favourites can be found from there though :) Dinka, Kent, Moloko, Laika...Sub-Urban Tribe's First spring day! It suddenly came into my mind and this song is still so awesome!

That's all today. I'll sit on the sofa, drink tea and knit before going to sleep. Hope to see sun tomorrow as well as nice customers, friendly faces and cute army boys :D (my bus always stops in Kontioranta! Too bad I'm already so old and they're so young...)

PS. Ski jumping is over! What I'm going to do in the weekends now? And I should start calling to my brother more often because I can't see him on TV ;)

Sitting in different places.

I've been busy and exhausted this week. So many new things! And also lots of sitting. I sit in the bus, in the bus stop, in my room, in all kinds of meetings, in the library car, in loaning and returning, in the restroom...

Things I like -> listening to music while working, being alone in the library, bus trips, Valintatalo in Kontiolahti, my colleagues, kind of freedom.

Things I don't like -> Being home at 21.30, thousands of new things sweeping over me all at once, sales agents, papers piling up on my desk.

But I guess first weeks are always the hardest and after that I get some kind of routines. At least I hope so! This weekend I'll just relax and eat organic apples and of course watch ski jumping, the last jumps of this winter! The sun is shining so brightly, it must be the sign of spring.

Puijo. Cards. Tea.

Puijo Ski Jumping World Cup took place in Puijo on Tuesday. It's my annual tradition to go there and this year was no exception. I love the atmosphere, people shouting and screaming, colourful flags, everything! And my grandparents live right next to the hill, so I always go there and drink tea between rounds ;) Finnish didn't do so well this year and the winner was a big surprise (Takanobu Okabe!). My favourite jumper is Matti Hautamäki, because he looks just like my brother (very rational reason to like some skijumper :D) and he was in same high school and took same classes with me.

After the competition we came to my mother's place, had sauna and played Shanghai (one of my favourite card games!). We also drank tea Liang brought with him :) He was very lucky in the card game - second time ever to play it and already a winner!



This morning I tried a new tea called Matcha. It's green tea powder from Japan and I had never found it from any shop in Finland until now I accidentally bumped in it in Kuopio's market hall. The taste was very strong, but I love strong tasting teas :)

The day was very sunny and I bought some yarn and a calendar from Kuopio before heading in the bus to Joensuu. I spent my time knitting and looking at the white fields. Now I'll just wait for tomorrow morning...First day as a library boss. Scary.

Kuopio.

These are my photos of Kuopio. First from the church, then some from the museums and in the end we visited Kuopio's market hall.






(I took this photo because this trilobite looks exactly like Babylon 5's shadow ships!!!)

5 km.

Today I wanted to save 3 euros and walked to the centre instead of taking a bus. Walkway goes in the middle of the forest and I took my camera with me and took a few photos. It took me 45 minutes to walk 5 kilometres.

Spring is coming, so trees don't have any snow on them anymore and it looks very grey. Also the roads are starting to be bare, but still I saw many crosscountry skiers and the tracks seemed to be in good condition :)



I signed my employment contract today, so it's officially true that I'm going to be working as a leader of the library until the end of this year. I'm most afraid of all kinds of meeting I need to participate...And writing strategies! I don't know anything about that. So I have so many things to learn this year.

Last but not the least, I finally finished my pair of socks! It took me 2 months to knit them both, but it was worth it. The colours are lovely, green and purple :)

Tomorrow I'm heading to Kuopio to watch Skijumping World Cup. I'm going to take Juha and Liang with me, so more tea ceremonies coming!

China in my mind

When I wait for the bus in the bus stop, I always have company -> birds. There's always lots of them flying around, stopping for a while and then flying, landing on some bushes and eating berries and then flying again.

Yesterday was an evening dedicated for China. I invited couple of friends to play Shanghai (one of my favourite card games!) and for my surprise, my chinese friend Liang brought some very special and expensive chinese green tea with him. His parents own teahouse in China and that's why also he knows so much about tea. We even had a true Kung Fu tea ceremony (without all the real "tools") and the taste of the tea was unearthly! The best tea I've ever tried! We drank the tea from small shot glasses, because I didn't have "real" small tea cups. Maybe because of the brilliant taste of tea, I didn't concentrate on playing and I lost all games...



I'm going to be too busy tomorrow, there are so many things I have to do and so many places to visit because I got the job. But before that, I want to wish everyone a good womens day with the photo below -> me between huge boobs! This snow woman can be found from Joensuu :)

Multiculture!

Last Saturday was the farewell party for Yuki. We had invited quite a lot of people and almost everyone came to our place :) The good thing when you invite many people is that people form groups and just talk with each other. There was Shanghai group (photo above), Korean drama group and Fallout 3 group :D The guests came from 10 different countries -> Finland, Poland, USA, Russia, Korea, China, Japan, Nepal, Iran and Vietnam. The person who says that people from different cultures can't get along is totally wrong! We baked Karjalanpiirakka again, I also made laskiaispulla and rye-lingonberry porridge to celebrate the Finnish culture day, which happened to be in the same day.





Thank you Yuki, Minhye, Hyejin, Sejin, Kitak, Anton, Shahram, Daniel, Marko, Teemu, Monika, Barun, Merja, Anh, Liang and Maho for coming! I hope we can have another evening soon :)