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How to make a Heini

Ingredients:
5 parts competetiveness
3 parts ambition
3 parts ego

Method:
Blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Serve with a slice of lovability and a pinch of salt.

From Go-Quiz.com

The following entry contains heavy sarcasm. It might not communicate itself very clearly but it's there, trust me.

I got hosted!

Wonderful Angelle at Vanillae.De offered to host my page from now on. I just answered her e-mail, but I guess that next week(s) will be full of moving files and getting adjusted. Maybe I'll go wild and design a new layout, who knows? I'll get MySQL! (I'm overly happy and hyperactive now, a destructive combination.) I didn't think anybody would ever answer my add at Pick-Me.Net.

N.B. left on Thursday. Funny, I just can't quite understand it. When she visited our school for the last time everybody were crying and hugging but I didn't feel practically anything. Maybe it'll sink in later, but now I just can't imagine her somewhere in Equador (which is part of patagonia, by the way, got to love that word). On Sunday we had her farewell party in this Japanese restaurant called Kabuki. The food was excellent even though it took us a good part of an hour to understand the menu, and the price was right. Me, V.J. and M.S. gave N.B. this Finland-survival pack for farewell present. It contained Finnish chocolate, Finnish liquoirice, a Finland-scarf, a Moomin-mug and a lollypop with a picture of the Finnish flag on it. We also burned her a cd full of Finnish music from Sibelius to The Rasmus. We thought it would be a nice way to inrtoduce Finnish culture to Ecuadorians.

I'm listening to Maurice Ravel. This is brilliant.

We had our first lab report's due day on Wednesday. As usual, I didn't even start it before Tuesday. However, when I started it I wrote it all without stopping and actually enjoyed it. I had dreaded the whole ordeal of course, so that made me quite amazed. A.K. said I'll be a scientist but I doubt it because I only study Physics SL and no other sciences at all (I've started to wonder why). Anyway, I had fun playing with Exel. Talk about twisted sense of humor...

In only two weeks school has become the centre of my life. I think I'll write my historical investigation about Horatio Nelson. Or the battle of Trafalgar. Or the musketeers. I'm reading the history book, not the one which is about the things we'll have in the final exam but the one about the 19th century. All for fun. Maybe I'll make a true IB someday.

I could have gone to YMCA's youth camp this weekend and see all my friends from the confirmation school but decided against it. Last time I went there I just got pissed (almost) without a reason and spent all my time snapping at people who tried to talk to me - or more accurately snapping at my friends who tried to talk to me and being nice to complete strangers. Way to go. Besides, we're going to play tennis on Sunday with A.K., M.R. and V.J. And I have loads of math homework.

Did I already mention I love school?

The first whole school week has gone. It has been horrible. I can honestly say that isn't my fault; I went there with as positive attitude as one can go to school, but still, somehow I've become more and more desperate as the days have gone by. Maybe it was the gratuate's speech which was held in the IB graduation party on Thursday. The parts "we had to give up our hobbies" and "many of us are feeling regret and all of us have come here with mixed feelings" weren't really encouraging. Or maybe it was our gourp cansellor who told us that "the teachers have tried to make these following two years as easy as they can be for you but trust me, they won't be easy". What I've gotten myself into? During this weekend I have to write a 10-page lab report, read one book and do dozens of math excercises. And on Sunday some of my friends are coming here and we'll make a farewell present for N.B., after what we go out to dine.

And tomorrow I'll have HMD and I really don't know when I'm going to do all those things I'm supposed to.

This has been a week of first times. We had our first patrol meeting on Monday. I actually went there almost willingly but after only few minutes remembered why it's a waste of time. It isn't awarding to hear all these exclamations like "This is stupid!" or "When does this end?" or "I don't like your shirt." when you have spent hours and hours planning an interesting and varying program. It's not like I didn't have any better things to do! And it's definately not like I'm forcing them to come to the meetings at all! The whole ordeal just made me angry. The worst thing is that some of our Scouts were participating enthusiastically and enjoying the things we did, and those couple whiners ruined the whole meeting for them too.

OK, I'm blowing things out of proportion. It hasn't been that bad and some very nice events have also taken place. We went to see The Island with A.K. It was wonderful. Two Ewan McGregors. I needn't say more.

On Wednesday I had my first cello lesson of the autumn, and also my fist cello lesson as an official student of the Conservatorie of Helsinki. It went well, I had actually started practising weeks ago and had something to play to my teacher. When I got home I noticed that the lesson had lasted half an hour longer than it was supposed to, and that never happens when I've not practised and improved, so I guess it wasn't a total failure. On that field at least thing are going well.

Yesterday I went to play tennis with three of my friends, one of whom was V.J., propably the most tennis-crazy person in the world. We have done that a couple of times now. This time, however, we had M.S. with us. She had taken some tennis lessons ages ago and was able to give us some guidelines on how to serve. V.S. said that I catched the basic movements quickly and A.K. commented that I do it quite often. That made me happy :) And it's true: I usually learn the basis easily regardless of the thing in question. Anyway, it was loads of fun and now I actually have a vague idea of what I'm supposed to do (at least when I'm serving).

By the way, it rained again. It's always raining when we go to play tennis. We're cursed!

Today I had to wake up almost four hours earlier than usually. We had an internal assessment-lesson at 8 o'clock and my day wouldn't have started until 11.45. The lesson lasted only 75 minutes after which I had a couple of hours free. So useless and just my luck.

But I'm not camplaining, I've done that enough today. I try listening to some positive music and sleeping - maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.

I got myself a guestbook today.

That's all.

I'm fed up with people who always think negatively.

Mum is in Tampere, but I'm not having a great big party. I went to dad's place after Han Moo Do and he fed me with some potatoes. It was rather nice. Now I'm contemplating whether to watch The Bridge on the River Kwai or go to sleep. Alec Guinness has a wonderful voice but I've already missed the beginning of the movie. I played some cello but just when I was warming up I noticed that it was almost 10:30. Mum has complained to the people living above us about their midnight parties so many times that I didn't dare to risk disturbing any of the neighbours.

I'm going to see The Island with A.K. tomorrow. It has two Ewan McGregors. Victory.

And I forgot to go to my co-worker's farewell parties today. D'oh (that's my Homer Simpson impression). M.R. would kill me, she's saying all the time that we should be more sociable and talk with other people also. I see no point in that.

I tried to post yesterday but diaryland didn't let me sign in for a reason or another.

I was on a brink of a nervous breakdown because I didn't know which subjects I was going to study. I wanted French B and physics but their lessons were at the same time, so on Wednesday I decided to talk with our student counsellor. At first she said it would be ok, but later she asked if I had a back-up plan in case math proved to be too hard and I'd have to drop it to SL-standard level (we have to have three HL-higher level subjects and that's the number I have at the moment, so I can't afford to drop anything). I got all confused and paniced, and Wednesday and Thursday were nightmarish. I just kept running around our school after teachers and student counsellors, trying to persuade them to let me study one of the French courses independantly (which is actually against the IBO's rules), and not really knowing on which lessons I was supposed to be. Luckily all worked out in the end and today the counsellor invited me to her office just to make sure that she hadn't offended me in any way :) I got my way and can study both French B and physics. Victory.

V.J. figured that because I've complained (worried) so much these past few days, I own her at least a week of interruption- and comment-free complaining time (that's not even a word!).

L.H and N.B had their shared farewell party on Wednesday. It was nice, L.H. had baked the whole day and made some very good brownies and muffins'. None of us (that's me, V.J. and M.R.) didn't really talk with either N.B. or L.H. so it was quite strange but we got to know one pre-IB from our school. This pleased N.B. because that's the class in which she'll be when she comes back, and I think she figured that the more communication there is between our classes the less left out she'll feel. L.H. left today and is at the moment in Paris what's quite an odd thought, but N.B. won't leave untill the first of September. We have reserved a table in Kabuki, this fancy japanese restaurant in Helsinki and we're going to take her there before she leaves, so it wasn't a real farewell party for us yet.

So now I've gotten through the first week of school. Still alive. I hope everthing will settle down to normal routines soon because in my mind, I'm still on summer vacation. Now I'll go and look for J. Sinisalo's Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi which is a book we have to read for Finnish. I'm sure I have it somewhere...

I gave up and moved the whole site to the diaryland. Sigh. All the old entries were lost but at least my computer manages to run the site. And I somehow like the url more. Diaryland souns more symphatetic and personal than freewebsitehost. Now I'm slowly working for moving all the pictures to geocities or some other place which allows hotlinking. It might take some time with this slow piece of junk and I hope nobody at the freewebsitehost notices that I only use the place as a database for pictures and deletes my account.

One thing which I forgot to mention yesterday. I got a new phone, Nokia 6101. It's pretty. Now I'll never need children (I think I'll name her Bozo).

The school started. Nothing has changed there but it wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. Our group councellor told us that 'the teacher's have done their best to make our next two years easy, but trus me, they won't be'. Really engouraging. I spied on V.J. and M.R.'s tutor group's meeting. The new PreIB's were over-excited and kept asking when they can make their subject choises for IB. It really made me feel uneasy: I'll start my proper IB tomorrow and haven't made my choises! Oh woe.

Everybody kept going on about the 2nd year-dance (the traditional Finnish 'the old's dance'), how they didn't have a partner yet and how they had spent half of the summer looking for the perfect dress. They were shocked to hear that I wasn't going to attend. Too much trouble I say, and too expensive. I've never been a princess-like person anyway.

The school starts tomorrow. The summer has again flew past in a blink of an eye and it feels like it was just yesterday when the holidays began. The last three weeks in work didn't help; now I can't quite remember how it felt to be on vacation. I'm all tense and sore and the semester hasn't even started properly yet! Woe me... I'm too much influenced by Marvin the Robot.

Yeah, we went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with M.R. today. I was pleasantly surprised, the movie managed to be quite funny at times. The opening song of the dolphins was hilarious and the missile turned to a whale got to my list of... well, I don't know, favourite things. I planned to make him my spiritual advisor and write my extended essay about his ideas.

Freewebsitehost.net has gone crazy. They apparently have made a new design/html-editor which is overly complicated and crashes my poor old computer all the time. And it has turned all my apostrophes to some weird signs. Thanks to it and my lack of energy I won't start playing with css and in stead of that settle for updating every single page by hand. And that takes more time which means less updates. Woe. I'll set the css-thing straight at the same time when I redo that introduction part there in the right corner. Which propably means never. Oh woe.

My social life is in crisis, well, at least a sort of. M.R. and V.J. are complaining that we should get sociable and try to get to know our classmates. I disagree, mainly because I'm too introvert (and lazy), but also because I feel I allready know them well enough to decide that I don't wan't to hang with them outside school. Sounds a bit arrogant, yes, but that's me, feel free to hate. I know would if I was somebody else. Anyway, we had a long and loud conversation about this in the Esplanadi park today and only afterwards realized that around twelve people sitting nearby were forced to listen to our problems.

That's not all. I've been invited to two farewell parties this week. On Wednesday N.B. and L.H., my two classmates have a shared party because they both are leaving for exchange, N.B. to Equador and L.H. to France. On Saturday one of my fellow workers is having her party. She's going to go to study in the University of Mikkeli (well, actually it's a department of the University of Helsinki which is situated in Mikkeli, but anyway...) I have no idea what I'm going to give any of them as their going-away present, or if I'm supposed to give one at all. And I have a bad feeling about the secong party because I'll probably know only one or two people there and the rest will be at least two years my senior.

This is why I dislike social situations so much. You never know how you're supposed to behave.

I finally managed to gather enough energy to go out and see the women's marathon yesterday. All of the marathon and walking routes went right past our house so it would have been pathetic if I hadn't gone to see a single one of them. Yesterday I was a little hesitant but now I'm glad I went: the atmosphere was great even though it was only the second lap or something. It's true what the papers have been writing: the crowd must have been the best part of these Championships. We Finns are a one big sports-loving nation :) It would've been great to be in the arena when that Finnish long jumper placed third, the Finns must have gone crazy then. My dad had the opportunity to get us tickets but he figured that I don't care about sports, which is essentially true, and I've been so loud about it that I can't be mad to him.

The Championships ended and it's kind of sad. I have to say goodbye to the cool helicopters flying around all the time, and to the fireworks which could be seen from my window. But it also means that I can say goodbye to the huge masses (at least in Finnish standards) of tourists. The centrum was full of people today, and it didn't help that the schools will start tomorrow and all students were out there buing themselves new pencases and books and clothes. It's funny, by the way, how the weather changed immediately after the Championships ended. Yesterday it was raining cats and dogs, and today the sun was shining and it was warm and nice.

Call me crazy but I've started to read one of our history book two weeks early. I figured that if I already knew something about the subject we'll be studying it would be easier for me at least for few months. And the book is quite interesting, so far I've read about the political situation in Austria in the mid 18th century and the French Revolution. I didn't know anything about them previously, so I guess it has been worth it. In my heart I'm a true ressu! (That's my school, Ressun lukio. The student's of our school are commonly known as bookworms, know-it-alls and perfectionists. And above all, elitists. We do have the highest average, after all.)

Star Wars Fact of the Day: They speak Finnish in the Phantom Menace, they really do! Listen carefully just after the first lap of podracing: Watto yells "Kiitos" and Sebulba answers "Ole hyvä". The latter part is open for debate, because he laughs menacingly at the same time and it isn't that clear. The translation is "Thank you" and "You're welcome".

The Happiest Moment of My Work Days: Our stock manager couldn't come up with a movie question which didn't have anything to do with Quentin Tarantino (I haven't seen Kill Bill, unfortunately) that I couldn't answer. Ha. I showed him, but some of my other co-workers somehow got the idea that I'm a bit nerdy. I wonder why?