oanja

So, getting my actual graduation papers out of the University is turning out to be much more difficult than it was when I got my bachelors, this time I'm supposed to do a lot more manually, which seems absurd... But anyway slowly but surely it's happening!

Then, I'm moving again... It's not like I've only been living in this apartment for 6 months... augh! I'm always moving! But the rent in the new place is much cheaper, It's a shorter way to my one of our offices and I can take the train to the other one, at least some of the time, so I won't have to drive so much. The driving has turned out to be a real detriment my my life quality. Not only do I feel like I'm wasting a lot of my time, but it's also killing my shoulders. They are so knotted up and sore all the time. Ouch... At least if I take the train I can spend the time reading or watching Youtube videos.

Oh and tumblr seems to be finally going down, so maybe fandom will migrate somewhere else. I added new people on a friending meme, and got all nostalgic about journal style fandom. *sigh*

I don't think I mentioned this in November, but I totally failed out of nano this year. I'm not too mad about it, as I had to write the last bits of my thesis and after that was done I just wanted to take it easy and not think about writing anything. The thesis ended up being like 42k, so that's enough writing for October/november.

I think I should do the Habit pledge on getyourwordsout  next year though, as it seems the 150k a year is way beyond my reach, but maybe I could do better on a challenge where I have to make a habit of writing instead of trying to meet a certain wordcount goal at the end of the year.

I'm desperately writing my thesis as my deadline for turning it in is at the latest the 2nd of November, but hopefully I can do it on Wednesday. I'm pretty much in scramble mode and have given up on trying to actually make it as good as it could be... I mean I don't have any real aspirations about going in for a PHD and I already have a job, so the  motivations just isn't there. I think maybe writing it in English was a bit of a mistake as I'm sure my page count would be higher if I was writing in Finnish. Also I can't give it to mom for proofreading as her English is pretty nonexistent.

If I can finish the freaking thesis in time, it's right into nano... I'm not going to aim for 50k as that would be too much, but I want to do the 'write every day' thing again, as I found it really good for me last year. I think I'm going to continue the urban fantasy book from last year, as I was about 70-75% done when nano ended and I didn't really touch it after that. Then there's my yuletide assignment to do, if my recipient ever actually posts their letter.

Oh and once the thesis is done I'm going to play so many video games and watch more tv shows and movies. I miss not having anything to stress about! I need some time for my brain to wind down. I've been so stressed lately, I notice it a lot at work, I forget stuff and get irritated pretty easily and I've made more mistakes than normal. It sucks.

I went to a nose work course today with Leia and I think it was fun for her, she got to use her nose and brain to figure things out. It's on next sunday again and we're going to do more advanced stuff.

I've gotten into the Buzzfeed fandom, which is pretty weird :D. Especially as there isn't that much fic out there, but the videos are so charming! I guess it's just nice to see some depictions of soft masculinity and male friendships, and the fact that they are pretty cute and it's easy to ship them doesn't hurt. Let's see if this fandom will stick, it would be nice to get a new active fandom now that I've pretty much moved on from hockey rpf

I went to Tampere this past weekend for the UN student meeting thing about sustainable development. It was pretty cool. Also hung out with arilyn9 and sherg I'm kind of super jealous you get to live in one of my favourite cities. *pout*

Yesh, managed to finish one assignment for school. Two to go. Sadly the one I finished was the easiest... bummer. Still I have two days for the small thesis one and then two more days before the essay is due. Totally doable, hopefully *fingers crossed*

This wouldn't be such a problem if I didn't have the strongest urge to start a new fic. I want to write about how Phil and Amanda Kessel swap bodies and how that makes them evaluate their lives. Mostly I just want Amanda to get to play in the NHL and for Phil to pine after Tyler and wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just stay swapped so they could be together. And demand they send Stella to wherever Amanda is training for the Olympics and accidentally start rumors about Amanda and Tyler dating, which would not amuse Amanda, who would end up seeming like the over protective big brother. And for both of them to have body dysmorphia issues because they are cis people.

About real hockey... the Wild have been playing pretty well lately, yay! They have won the last 7 out of 8 games. They have a four game road trip that starts tonight though, so I'm a bit worried. They haven't been great on the road this season. Still let's enjoy the fact that they are second in the Central division right now, only two points behind the Hawks. (and let's ignore how the Avs and Blues have played two games less)

Also there are 8 teams in the West who have as many or more points than the first team in the East. Wow, just wow.

I got new books while I was visiting arilyn9. I just love that one used book store there... This time I got 7 new (to me) books. I'm super excited about my expanding collection of the Culture novels. I don't think I'm missing many anymore. Then, when I got back home I found the books I ordered from bookdepository had finally arrived. Those are the Patrick O'Brian books. The covers are so pretty!
( photo of my books )

Waah~ Yuletide nominations are almost here! :D My first year of nominating something and second year of writing something for it. I'm really glad I did it last year, it was a lot more fun than I would have thought it was.

I think I'm going to nominate hockey movies: Goon, Breakfast With Scot and the Mighty Ducks. :D

They changed the nominations and now two people have to nominate the same thing for it to make it into the fest. I think that will weed out a lot of fandoms and leave the more popular rare fandoms. Some people seem upset about it and I can see why. Especially because there is no way of knowing when a fandom has already passed the two people threshold, so people are going to keep nominating some things, just to make sure they get through and basically waste their nominations... I think it will be interesting to see what kind of fandoms there are going to be this year.

I have a class tomorrow!!! First day of the fall semester. Of course it's about the laws that govern social work. I'm sure it will be super riveting first thing in the morning (from 9.00 to 13.00)

Oh and I watched the recap show from the Euro hockey tour and Finland beat Sweden 5-0. Muah ha ha! :D I wonder how many guys will make the Olympic team from the SM-liiga and KHL, because I think we have really good players in them and they would already be used to the big ice etc. I bet a lot of the D-men will come from the European leagues as we don't have many guys playing in the NHL anyway and the ones that are there aren't that great. And like Komarov and Korpikoski must be pretty high on the list for forwards? Idk, I guess we'll find out later. :D I wonder when they will reveal the jerseys? I hope someone will post about it on tumblr or I might miss it. (I tried to google it, but my google-fu is even worse in Finnish than it is in English...) I hope they won't look like the jersey's the team wore in this tournament, because they looked awful. Unless all teams have made a bet on who can have the worst looking uniforms in these Olympics. I guess that's a possibility. I don't think anyone is going to beat the USA team though. Theirs look so awful.

Oh and Minnesota revealed their new white jerseys today and they look good. :D (the green looks pretty black in some of these, so I wonder what they will look like on TV, but still, I like how they look. If I was rich I would get one.)

Waah, I don't want to see all these wedding photos about Brendon Urie and Sarah. Generally I don't like to know too much about canon relationships when it's about real people. Just makes it simpler to ship things. Also just generally I don't get the whole thing about weddings, or why you would want to post those photos online in the first place. >_<

But the Bruins won! Yay!


Why are hockey jerseys so expensive? And the same goes for t-shirts. How can people afford to have multiple jerseys, how? I bet if you add what shipping would cost I could buy a PS3 (when it's on sale) and I would rather have that than a shirt. Especially because I'm never going to get to see a game live anyway... *pout* But seriously 25 dollars for a t-shirt!!!

also this song would make for a great hockey fanvid imo. (I really like the song in general too and that video is adorable)


I'm at my flat and I have an exam tomorrow... I've almost read all the materials for it, but I dunno, the topic is pretty out of my comfort zone, so we'll see how it goes. (I really need the 8 credits though, so I hope I can pass it.)

I never should have gone to ONTD to look up the entry about Zayn and that video... Day ruiner that one.

But anyway. One more day of work left! \0/ Then I can go back to doing nothing and maybe even writing some fic before school starts up again. :D (I may have signed up to another mpreg big bang... maybe this time I will be able to finish my story. I'd hate to just leave it after spending so much time writing it already. And the fic is only due in February so I'll have plenty of time)

I need to get some school stuff sorted out this week. Grr, why am I so lazy? But yeah once I get back from work I have no interest in doing anything even remotely useful. I blame that.

I was thinking that I should do NaNo this year, except I'd write my thesis instead of fic or original fiction. I think it might actually force me to work on it. But I should start working on it before November, obviously. >_>

Now I'll just go back to reading Samurai Deeper Kyo. I think that should cheer me up a bit. 

What is this new thing where people don't use capital letters in their fic? Why would you do that? Whyyyyyyyyy~

Oh and I bought myself Mass Effect 3 today. \0/ Now I can finish ME2 in peace and not worry if it ends in a cliffhanger or something. (I don't think games ever do? But better safe than sorry. Also finally in the third one I can romance Kaidan!!! Our love is for the ages.)

Also this week keeps up with the trend of me getting good news: I've got a place to live this autumn! The student housing company was super quick. I only e-mailed them this morning and they already sent me an offer. It's miles away from the city center and the university but the rent is cheap and I'll only have to live there for about an year anyway. *shrug* I'm getting really tired of having flatmates though... I'm too old for that shit.

Oh and I'm already planning another exchange year abroad. Don't tell my mom, I have a feeling she'd murder me. (like she has this idea I should actually graduate as soon as possible and get a job? How novel. ^_^;) I want to go to England this time. I need to save up some money (and by that I mean I finally need to take advantage of the student loan system) so I can talk mom into thinking this is a good idea and she won't have to pay for it. (at least this time I could actually study my major while doing the exchange so it wouldn't be a waste, like last time. And it's not like the flights would cost anything compared to what the flights were to Japan. It would be like a thousand euro's cheaper already!)

But what can you do? I just spent ages washing the dishes. (I think every single dish I own was dirty...) and now I need to get packing my stuff. Mom is coming over to help soon and tomorrow is moving day.

I also just managed to beat the deadline for my university thing, so yay for that. Now I have another year to write my thesis and finally graduate. (I'm seriously thinking about applying for a PhD after this is done, because let's be honest, it's not like I'm going to get a job with my degree anyway...)

Also I finally got my desucon tickets. Whew. arilyn9 are you really going to print out that card game from tumblr and bring it? Because that would be awesome =D

It's actually pretty nice here right now, the sun is shining and everything.
The research down at the Archive has been going pretty well too, so can't really complain (well I might once I actually start reading through all the material and find out if anything I photographed is actually usefull to my topic)

I also think I'll actually have time to look through all the materials I might need! That is pretty good, because I was worried that I wouldn't have enough time. I might actually have too much time on my hands, I have no idea what I should do on Sunday when the Archives are closed. >_> I was thinking that it would be a good chance to go see the Avengers again, but that only takes care of a couple hours.

Oh and a funny thing happened today. This old man asked me for directions and I of course didn't know anything helpful... but the funny bit was that he asked me if I was Canadian and when I said I was from Finland he said "Selanne! The hockey player. He's from Finland, right?" which is all kinds of awesome, because you really don't expect old British dudes to know much about hockey. (which made me think about how I'm missing the games and that made me a bit sad, but hopefully I'll get to see a few games once I get back.)

I'm going to try and find a HMV today and see if Sherlock season two bluray has gotten cheap enough that I want to buy it. I'm also thinking that I should buy Downton Abbey dvd's if they don't cost as much here as they do back home.

The hostel where I'm staying in located right next to the train tracks, which was sort of annoying the first night but since then I've gotten used to the noise...

(This was my third visit to London and this was the first time I actually had Fish & Chips! It was pretty good actually, but I thought the mushed peas were a bit odd. And I also got a huge cup of tea here at the Archives. I bet it had close to 4dl of tea... Gotta love it)

Dragon Age: Origins is way too addictive... >_> I'm pretty glad I'm going to mom's house for the weekend, so hopefully I can get something productive done while there.

And then I found out you actually need to get permission to conduct surveys in schools... Now I'm waiting for that. Luckily the new deadline for the finished paper is on the 22nd of May. ^_^;

Then I was thinking that I need to go see the HP sets in London while I'm there. I mean, how awesome would that be???

arilyn9 was here for Easter and it was a lot of fun and geekery. Sorry though for not having a B-day pressie for you. >_< I suck at remembering peoples birthdays.