It's July.

We have a visitor. His name is Kassu and the happy owner of him is Tuula, who's living in the building next to us. She went to help her daughter with moving, so we eagerly welcomed Kassu to stay a couple of days with us.

He's already taken over this place by sleeping in every corner of this flat! He also came to wake me up at 5am, 6am, 7am and finally at 8am I woke and gave up. He also escaped once from the balcony, but he's a shy boy and was waiting for us to carry him inside just outside the balcony ;)

I found this book called A Journey in Search of Korea's Beauty by Bae Yong Joon (2010) from huuto.net (Finnish web auction site) and paid only 2,5 euros for it. I found the original price sticker (22,000 won = about 15 euros) from the back cover of the book so I saved quite a lot of money!

The travel book consists of stories, poems and beautiful photos from Korea and Japan at the same time as it provides information about Korean culture and customs. These hot days are perfect for reading this book, marvelling at the pictures while drinking some tea :)

And dreaming about kimchi like this.

Come Play Perfect

It's finally cold here and in the morning, after waiting 20 minutes for the bus outside my fingers were totally frozen. But who cares! Anyway it's much better to have cold outside than never-ending rain and dark clouds hanging above your head. On this kind of days I specially enjoy crispy plants under my shoes and the sound they make when I stomp around. I had plenty of time to do that while I was waiting for the bus again in the afternoon for 20 minutes. Waiting is nice if your mind is full of thoughts and you have crunchy plants near you. (it's all about the attitude)

Today morning was crowded in the mobile library. Imagine a bus completely full of elementary schoolers. Most of them are pushing each other and giggling at sex books. There are 2 long queues and rising voices are demanding us to first make reservations for Simpsons comics, then renew all loans, borrow new books and show where are Goosebumps and Ella books.

So hectic, but so great.

Rest of my day I leafed through books of local school library. So cute old editions of Winnie the Pooh or Robinson Crusoe! Also (too) many religious stories made to look like proper adventure or fairytale books...In my opinion it's not appropriate to have "secretly" religious books in the library for young children to read, especially if the stories are full of preaching against nonbelievers. I just wonder who on earth decided to have those books in the elementary school library in the first place?


Lately I've been enjoying knitting, baking, aerobic, singing, games and sleeping. It's amazing how couple of free days can revive your body and mind completely! Tomorrow I'm going to sleep until 10 and pack my stuff and have a tiny journey.

Bis bald! (gr8 german l33t skillz!)

Why don't you let it happen

We HAD snow. For a winter person like me it felt so good to be surrounded by white snowdrifts and the calming atmosphere that makes you want to light candles.


Now there's rain every day, black evenings and how it all makes you tired! I've been sleeping 12 hours during the weekends and I have no power to do anything efficient/diligent/sensible.

To put some colour in my life and to get me through these black days I bought red rubber boots.

I've always had the passion for jumping in the small water puddles and now I can do it without getting my socks wet. Why people are not using rubber boots more? They're the most practical shoes in rainy times like these.

I've also knitted colourful things like scarfs and dishcloths. I have big plans about knitting a vest, but I don't have time before christmas.


And one thing that gave me energy during these weeks was school children. I was teaching library skills to 12 classes of 7th graders and most of the youngsters were awesome! I rarely feel comfortable with babies or really small children, but when they get older, they start to have their own thoughts and they start asking difficult questions. Is there a better way to challenge often so stale and stable thoughts of older people? (I also read an interesting book about parenting, Tom Hodgkinson's The Idle Parent, which was excellent! Less work, more play!)

6 weeks left of work. 54 days left in my Korea Countdown. Snow has plenty of time to fall before I leave.

More to read!

That's how my working room looked like two months ago. Luckily there's a bit more room these days :)

Today I ordered 4 books about Korea from the cheapest internet bookstore. I'm going to get travel guides and Korean phrase book, so that I can try to remember some of the things I've learned before but which are now completely forgotten.

I love books, except when I'm moving, 2 full bookshelves are not the easiest movable objects. For me books are not just books, they are worlds of information and imagination. I don't know why I feel so strongly about them. It's just that if I could and had time, I'd buy new books every week for myself and stayed home and just read read read read. I wonder when I'd get bored, is it even possible?

Now self-made apple pie (looks so ugly I don't want to take a photo about it!). I'm hungry.

PS. Happy birthday Hejin and Huynjae!

Tired & happy

My beautiful plants! I have one big sunflower growing outside and my new plants inside are kodinonni (happiness of home in English, I don't know the real name :D) and muratti (ivy). They're both so small and beautiful! Also my seeds are becoming plants quite fast, and I thought I was late :) Growing something just gets you back to the basics.

I had 2 visitors last week, Luppa and Tuula. Luppa seems extremely bored and Tuula totally surprised. Both had also other feelings during their stay in Joensuu.



I read two excellent books last week and I want to recommend! Maarit Verronen's Normaalia elämää (normal life) is a collection of short stories (couple of pages each), which make you think about the world and how normal something really is. Maarit Verronen is one of my favourite Finnish writers, her style is minimalistic and you just feel there's something behind the words.

And Ursula...Do I have to say more! Lavinia was once again so special experience that it's hard to put into words. I've studied Latin in high school for 3 years and we talked a lot about cultural history in those classes as well. This was kind of missing part of those classes! We always talked about Greek and Roman heroes (men) and how culture was at that time(basically through the eyes of men). It's easy for me to imagine strong women living there too, but too often they're excluded from the history unless they've been intriguing mothers of imperators or just beautiful.
Anyway, this story filled that gap and I read it on one day...I sat outside in the sun, inside on the sofa, in sauna, in the toilet, in my bed and just read.

Now I have Obama's Dream's from my father waiting to be read during juhannus (midsummer festival), because I don't have any other plans. It's going to be raining and cold anyway, so what's better than staying inside in an empty city and letting your eyes move from row to row...

Last week I had a chance to go to the mobile library for the evening route. There were quite a lot of people (even first time visitors!) waiting for us as we travelled around with the bus. Lots of sand roads, fields, old people, children and sunshine :) The only bad thing was that there isn't a toilet in the bus, so I had to wait until I got home (so many hours!) Too bad I ran out of battery, so I couldn't take more photos of sunny scenes I saw. It's amazing, how it looks just like countryside just 4 km outside of Joensuu!

I've been reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight -series and I'm sure I'm some kind of masochist. I somehow like the irritation the book evokes in me! Poorly written, full of christian values (woman should be at home and cook, get married at 18 and start to have babies after that, but OF COURSE no sex before marriage!!), empty characters (how sad is a girl, who rather dies than lives without his boyfriend and is all the time "not good enough for him"! Or a boy, who is so handsome and godlike, but "protects" (read = stalks) her girlfriend all the time), and forever continuous rain...The fact is though that these are the books teenage girls are so crazy about. Secretly I hope they're reading the book for the same masochistic reasons than I do :D

New (hopefully last!) book of the series (where baby conceiving finally happens and that means lots of bruises and wounds for the girl = that's the way sex should be?) is going to be published this October (in Finnish) and there are already 25 reservations for that book at the library. I don't know what to think, because it's GREAT that young people are reading, in fact it's AWESOME :D But I feel somehow annoyed, because there are so many better books to read, where girls can decide about their life themselves, where boys look normal and no-one is forced to get married or pregnant in the age of 18.

Yesterday a summer journalist (oh! memories!) came to the library to make a story about our summer quiz and "Sun and child"- exhibition. All places are surrounded by yellow suns made by local kindergarden children. This is already second time this year that my face is going to "beautify" the pages of local newspaper :D I'm not so happy to see my face (especially my rosacea cheeks :D) around, but I remember how hard it was to get people accept I needed to take a photo of them, so I don't want to be THE pain in the ass ;)

Ok, it seems like I didn't have anything special to write about, just something that came to my mind. What I've been doing briefly : ordering organic creams and shampoos from Germany (double as cheap as in Finland), also ordering colourful clothes from USA to celebrate the last days of custom in Joensuu, waving goodbye to Jinchul, AEROBIC <3, watching TV brainlessly, buying seeds (I know I'm too late to grow nice plants, but I'll try), reading a lot. I'm going to end my babbling in a photo of Urpo, my brother's cat.

See you!

Är du lycklig nu?

Early morning at the market place, people setting up their stands, so many things to be sold. I'm in the centre already before 7am and I think that's the best time to be there, when it's still calm, only couple of janitors cleaning streets, busdrivers waiting for people to get in, no-one is running.

This week, busy as always. There was one customer at the library, who complained about the small quantity of books in Estonian and said that it must be because "you have so many black people here". Where's the logic? People like that make me angry.

On Wednesday I also missed my connection bus, because the driver in the previous bus didn't let me out...There were 2 teenage girls, who travelled with flawed tickets and when the bus arrived in the centre, there was only 3 of us in the bus and the driver didn't open the doors and was shouting to the girls. I went to tell to the driver that I have to catch a bus and he should open the door for me, but he did nothing! So I had to stay 2 minutes in the bus and missed the next bus.

I guess that all that is unfair in my opinion makes me so pissed off. Life is not fair but it should be!



But small (and bigger) misfortunes are something I forget so fast. What I like to see are all the children coming to the mobile library and borrowing lots of books! In these photos the bus looks quite in order, but after one class everything is a big mess and we barely have time to put all books in their places before the next class arrives. Most borrowed books are of course animal books (especially about dogs, horses and dinosaurs!), comics, fictional horse books and Risto Räppääjä -books. And while the mobile library was moving, I had time to knit my everlasting woollen scarf...


Yesterday Esko was here! He's my favourite astronomer, who brings astronomy closer to normal people, both young and old. His books have been excellent and I like his way of writing, although sometimes I don't agree with him. His main goal, to make us understand how tiny creatures we are here in the universe, but how much we have already done, is very refreshing and I really enjoy his lectures. Also yesterday! Once in a while his jokes were (again) a bit too stereotypical, however his sense of humour is so self-ironical that it compensates everything :D I enjoyed especially the huge naked photos of himself he projected on the screen ;) People applauded heartily for so long time after the lecture that Esko had to say "please stop already, this is not North Korea" :D

Now I'm listening to (both Clark Kent and) Kent and the strong wind blowing outside. Weekends go too fast, I wish I had more time to just be...Maybe I should change the blog's name, too :( I have so many ideas that my mind is overloaded, my time is limited and I don't know if I can put some of them into practice. But it's better to have too many ideas than no ideas at all?

"It's time to go
hold my hand you should know
that the road we follow
ends the day we grow old
'cause there is no life
after you've given in
age can't define what we are deep within

Away from harm here in my arms
safe in my heart, my only, that's what you are"

(Clark Kent : In my arms)

Books books books books books.....

Relaxing holidays are soon over. I should soon get back to ordering books (some interesting ones are being published this fall!) and forget my knittings for a while.

Meteorologists promised sunshine, but I haven't seen any sun. (Hmm, how many suns do we have?). I finished my "Kahdesti haarautuva puu" and that's why I'm still living in different worlds. I can recommend that book for everyone, although I remember enjoying it a bit more in English, maybe because the story was not familiar to me when I read it :) Ursula tells about a woman called Sutty, who explores a world where religion, books, old habits and ancient stories are forbidden. The life of the countryside people is still dependant on those old traditions and the rich culture is something Sutty gets interested in. The story is beautifully written and it really makes you think (which is sadly not so common in books these days).

I also read "Terveyden kiinalainen kirja" by Denis Vinokur this weekend and it was interesting as books about Chinese medicine always is. Chinese medicine (if not using tiger teeth or other ingredients got from rare wild animals) is based on thought about energy called Qi, which should flow around in your body freely. Stress, bad food, weather, too much/too little exercise, so many things can affect the flow of Qi and block it in some places and that causes different diseases. Unlike in Western medicine, diseases are treated by trying to change the way of living, not just taking pills. Food is for example one of the important remedies in Chinese medicine. This book told the basic things I already knew about Chinese medicine, but I guess it would be interesting to read for someone, who doesn't know much about the subject. There were also tips for meditating at home as well as meridian points which can be treated when you have certain illness.
The last book I read this weekend was Tommi Uschanov's Mikä vasemmistoa vaivaa? (What's wrong with the left wing?" and although I'd had that book borrowed from the library for over half a year (!), this weekend I finally grabbed it and started to read. Interesting facts and thought provoking ideas as well as good answers you can use against basic arguments used by politicians these days. Sometimes I really need to find this kind of books, which have something else to say than the normal political jargon where people try to hide the real thoughts inside the thicket of useless words.

I've been one month at the library now and now I know something about the reading habits of people using the library. Most of all, it's good that people read! And boys borrowing Ursula's books and women loaning books about organic gardening make me smile. But the fact is that women read mostly romantic books as well as detective stories, where men are most interested in books about war, both fact and fiction. Children still love Pippi Longstocking (Peppi Pitkätossu in Finnish) and funny Puppe -books by Eric Hill (Spot the Dog in English). Also comics are very popular, especially manga books.

That's all about books!

One thing before going to movies (Visitor!). I don't know if I told about Raw Gaia before, but I've been very satisfied with the products I ordered from there. Jojoba oil makes my flaking skin feel better, when I apply it before going to sleep and MSM Beauty Cream keeps my skin moisturised during the day. Ordering was easy and delivery fast and in addition to these I also bought spirulina powder (the smell is horrible, but it doesn't taste when you mix it with smoothies :D) Too bad there isn't any cure for my rosacea though...And antibiotics are still the last opinion in my mind.

Thank you, goodbye!

Wisely if I can't make it

There is an airport close to us and I've always been dreaming of taking a photo of landing airplane. This plane is not landing, but taking off, all the same for me = I got a nice photo! Last weekend was sunny, springy, and full of new places.






This week I've been busy again and in the evenings I don't feel like writing anything here. I get enough of computers at work! I've been mostly making work shift lists, removing some old books and on Thursday I was in the mobile library (I got corrected that library car is not a proper word for it) and somehow I really like all the school children coming there and they're all so enthusiastic about books! They read the same horse books I used to read when I was in elementary school too :D

One other thing I did in elementary school too was to read a book in sauna. Yesterday I tried that again (when you put sauna on, it's not too hot to read there and slowly the heat surrounds you!) and it was awesome! One part of my ultimate happiness must have been the book I read though (that Ursula K. Le Guin's Kahdesti haarautuva puu, which I started yesterday).

Yes, spring is taking over, although yesterday it was snowing the whole day and the ground is all white here. Next week it will be +10, I don't know how to think about it. Instead of thinking, during this Easter time I'm going to eat mämmi and chocolate eggs and knit. I already finished a few presents from waste yarns and the colours make me happy!



I just found this nice Poem machine, try it! I'd call it hilarious. This is the poem I just made:

This is how it goes

crawl inside your mind
hope for sauna to pour cloudy Morning
Birds foaming
rabbit is frozen cold

Wisely if I can't make it

somebody talkative
sunshine inside you.