Dear Diary II

Oh dear, the hostess Amy sent a picture of me and Mr. Sherlock Holmes from that jolly party of theirs. What an interesting and handsome man Mr. Holmes is!

Must have been Holmes's chilling mystery stories that messed up my hair. From now on I never go anywhere without my hairdresser!

Yours,
Di

Just a perfect day

The recipe for a perfect day is ever changing. Sometimes the perfectdayness is reached with a good book, a glass (or more) of red wine, mood-pleasing music, pair of woollen socks and a blanket; other times outdoor activities with friends followed by a beer and a burger is the magic combination.

Obviously culinary pleasures combined with mental and/or physical activities are some sort of corner stones, but basically anything can be in the recipe; pretty flowers in a ditch, a person walking on the street and smiling happily by him/herself, a powerful storm (when experienced safely).

The food + activities -theme seems to dominate my November-29-2009 -perfectdayrecipe:
1 sunny Sunday morning
1 marvelous breakfast (rye bread, smoked ham & turkey breast, lettuce, tomato, boiled eggs, 1 liter of tea) with my habibi
1 1/2 hours in the pool and the sauna
1 bowl of pasta with shrimp sauce garnished with parsley
1 slice of apple crumble and a giant mug of tea
3 hours of French homework
7 times thinking of having a nap after the next French exercise
1 glass of red wine and five crackers with goat cheese
10 times Just A Perfect Day in a row to celebrate the perfectness of the day

Feel free to copy the recipe and mix the ingredients in any order you wish or remove/add ingredients. Have a great Perfect Day!

Dear Diary

What a great Saturday I had! My dear friends Elton John and Amy Winehouse had a jolly party on Saturday evening, and for sure it was much more fun than watching dead boring cricket games or hunters chasing poor foxes.

I enjoyed my time at the party immensely, there were so many interesting people; for example the bad-tempered TV-chef Gordon Ramsey (who wasn't so bad-tempered after all), Sherlock Holmes (who wasn't very effective in solving a mystery when Amy lost her camera), Charlie Chaplin (poor man, he looks so sad most of the time), gloomy Oasis-brothers, Bridget Jones (whose bunny outfit would be good for Easter too) and some young singer girl, her name escaped from me. Oh dear, she created a little bit of a drama, and was arrested by a handsome police man who happened to be in the party too. Also the hostess Amy got herself into trouble with the police, but a glass of punch à la Elton John made everyone happy again.


I was wearing an evening gown from 2004; since no one from the party had seen it before they didn't know that I was actually wearing it for the third time already! Unfortunately a lot of the pictures taken during the evening were blurred, as Sherlock Holmes had shaky hands.

One little disappointment was the group of four guards in the party. I nicely asked them to perform the change of guards for me, but they resisted for hours and hours. I believe they finally did perform some sort of change of guards, but their choreography was somewhat unusual. Oh well, I guess they thought I've seen enough of the official change of guards in all sorts of official events.

But all in all, what a great evening it was indeed.

Yours,
Di

Public speaking :)

Great improvement in one week! Yesterday I was at another occasion saying another seven sentences, and this time it went well, even very well compared to last week's tomato-red-disaster. The crowd was much bigger than last week, about 100 people and I had to speak on a microphone, but I felt soooo much more relaxed. Probably because during the past couple of months I had so many nightmares about yesterday's event that when it finally was happening in real life, I was just relieved. So, the key how to be calm for that 45 seconds in front of the audience is obviously to panic extensively beforehand... hmmm... I wonder which one is a better option after all - peace of mind for weeks and 45 seconds redness or panic for weeks and 45 seconds calmness??

Autumn colours

We've had stunning autumn days lately, blue sky, nice +4 and sunshine. No snow yet, but probably soon... and "it'll be a lot of snow this year, since the squirrels are building their nests on the top parts of the trees", said a Santa Claus looking Norwegian-Canadian man in the sauna of the public pool.


Pretty trees along the canal, on my way to work. In a couple of months the canal will be transformed into Skateway - the world's largest ice rink.


A bench in Gatineau park looks a lot like a bench in Pyynikki, Tampere. (Gatineau park is actually in Quebec side, that's the park where we go to swim in the summer.)

Multilingual, but not bilingual - yet

Finnish, Swedish and German are not in demand in Canada. If I had studied French and for example Spanish, my multilingualism would be in a totally different level. I would be bilingual with the official languages (English and French) and Spanish would be a great addition. Oh well, how could I have known 20 years ago - or even four years ago - that I will end up in Canada?

But it's never too late to learn. I hope. And that's why I've started French this autumn. I've always disliked French, and even when I had a French roommate in Austria for a year, in Toronto for a half a year and in Ottawa for couple of months, I never really wanted to learn the language. So far my French conversation skills have been limited to couple of bad words and "une paguette, s'il vous plait". I never understood how anyone is able to make sense of a language, where words might have 8 letters, but only half of them will be pronounced. Like "merci beaucoup" which is pronounced "merci boku" and not letter by letter, which I would prefer; "merci beaucoup". Not very graceful.

But now my "merci boku" is becoming more graceful, thanks to the French classes. Three hours a week I sit with other eager French learners and repeat after the teacher "a quelle heure alles-vouz au travail?" - "a kel öör alle-vu o travaij?" - "what time do you go to work?". To my surprise, Finnish has actually proven to be helpful when learning French, since Finnish has ö-sound in it. Couple of other students struggle with the sound a lot and when the teacher says "öööö", the students answer "oooo". Each week "öööö" -"oooo" - "öööö" -"oooo" - "öööö" -"oooo" dialogue goes on for a little while.

Another three hours a week I spend with an online program. Unfortunately the ears of the program are pickier than ears of another human being, and I constantly struggle with words like 21 (vingt et un), yellow (jeune) and tiny words like "le", "je" or "au". When the computer says "I don't understand you" for the 20th time in a row I jump to the next word and mumble my first French sentence to the computer: "Ta gueule!" - "Shut up!"

Public speaking p****le

Aaargh. If I have to say about seven sentences to a group of less than 20 people, can't I do it without stumbling in my words and being nervous like hell? Obviously not, as was proven yesterday. Of course I had prepared my seven sentences well and practiced them over and over again, but nevertheless, the nervousness hit me last minute. And most likely I was blushing too. Oh well. Maybe next time it will be easier. (Although I've been repeating that sentence for the past x number of years, and seems like every time the next time is still not much better.)