Otsikko

Ha, OK, this is weird because everything that I'm not physically typing on this page right now is in Finnish.

Because I'm in Finland.

But I am not here to talk to you about that, not today. I'll probably wind up creating a separate blog for all that noise (I'm taking notes in the Moleskine Sra. Hubka got me as a parting gift).

I'm here to talk to you about OctoSquid. I won't give you any more details, but suffice it to say this paragraph appears within:

"When we first saw it, I was really delighted because it was new and alive," said Jan War, operations manager at NELHA. "I've never seen anything like that."

Clool!

London(town)

All right. Here's a quicky write-up of London:

Seems like an all right place.

I'm way jet lagged and I've been sorta dead for most of the visit here. The British Museum is Awesome in both senses of that word. London is a lively city with at least as many tourists as locals. At least in the touristy spots I was at for my five or whatever hours here.

I had real Shephard's Pie and a Pint. I tried to convince a (cute French) girl she should by an ancient sumerian helmet. She said she would. I walked around. Everyone here smokes. Everyone has some sort of an accent.

I'm sitting in a Cyber Café/ Camera Shop right now, sucking down some pretty sweet Hot Chocolate and trying to steel myself for the trip back to Heathrow and then on over to Stockholm. I'm going to sleep like Rip Van Winkle tonight. If you don't hear from me for 20 years, why the fuck didn't you start looking sooner? Also, I'll be at the Ibis Stockholm Arlanda Airport.

Also, London has had no fog, except my own mental one, but it has had the longest single Sunshower I've ever witnessed.

All right, I'd best be off.

To fly!

Whoa

So, since I'll totally be in Europe I think I'll be in a mailing mood. If'n you want a missive (or several, depending on how I feel about you) leave me a message in one of the various ways you can (comments, emails, IMs etc.) with your addy and I'll be sure to mail a postcard or something.

A fish? Who knows?

Yes! Good. Do it. Give me things to write and do while I'm gone. I'll talk about adventures and make stuff up about Europeans. Or it could probably totally also be fact. I won't ever tell. You'll have to decide for yourself.

Also, the Optomoetrist said my eyes would be fine with contacts today but for some reason my eye got all red and puffed out a lot. But now it's fine. I think it was done with the contact and dried out with a terrible quickness.

EDIT: How many of my posts are titled "Whoa"?

2X EDIT: I've got this Tom Waits song stuck in my head. Well, it's not a Tom Waits song, but it's his version. It's good. But you don't get to know what it is because I can't remember the title. Probably something about "Going out to meet my lord" or something.

3X the EDIT: Looks like I've made three posts called "Whoa."

Alright

This is it. The morning of my great adventure. I'm feelin' OK. I was up too late, I think, but that's par for me. I'm always up too late. I'm packed (more or less) and it's a pretty light load. I've got travel plans, I've got tickets. Hell, I've even got some money to kick around whilst abroad.

Today's leg of the journey will take me toward VA. I intend to kick it up "old school" with the VA cronies for a couple days before hopping on a plane and jumping the pond. I'll have a day in London before I board another plane and my grandmother meets me in Stockholm. After a week of hanging out with her I'm Paris bound. I arrive in Paris on the 10th and don't have any specific plans after that except that I have to make it to Seville (Spain, for those who don't know) by the 31st. Preferably by the 29th.

Eurotrip, here comes me.

Beta

So, I guess google's Russian/English translator really still is in BETA. For example.

Not that "really bitch place" shouldn't join the lexicon. Nor that I could do much better.

June 20th

The school year is over. I'm glad I'm not going back, there was too much misery in the job. Which kinda sucks, I still really like working with young'uns. Seeing progress in their Spanish was delightful. I really loved all my kids, too.

I can't say the same for all my students. Some of my loved kids were completely terrible at being students.

Alas. In the future I think better classroom management would significantly lessen the misery. Also, all of the bullshit in the job, the grading, the meetings, the paperwork, all of it. I can see this being a really great job in about ten years when my life is mor settled.

That was another problem. I'm too young to be doing this right now. I want to get out, run around and be a crazy idiot. I want to meet tons of people. I want to travel and live more spontaneously. I don't want to be tied down to a job that I'm not happy with. I'm not ready for that part of the American Dream.

Plus, running into students at parties is totally, totally lame.

So, here's to summer. I'm going down to VA in a week and from there I'll be trekkin' over to Europe to tool about for a month. Then I'm moving in with Nick Poulin (yes, Pedro, Elvira, et al. that's Zack Poulin's older brother), Jeremy Griffin and Matt Bassett. Maybe there's only one "t" in "Bassett." In fact, I think that's exactly the case.

Then I need to get me a job! Hopefully writing or newswork or something.

Anyway, that's the update for now.

Heartening News

I can't remember the exact bill that did it, if I had to guess I'd say it was the Patriot Act, but one of the laws of the land gives the president power to declare anyone, absolutely any citizen standing, an "Enemy Combatant." If you are declared as such all the normal rules of prisoner care are tossed to the wayside. Perhaps most disturbingly the fact that you can be held indefinitely without having any idea why. The arresting officials have no legal obligation to inform a "suspect" why, exactly, s/he is being held.

the courts have shot that motherfucker down.

This is excellent news. We've still got legs to stand on. We're still being heard. Hopefully this act won't turn everyone complacent and we'll still be vigilant, responsible and informed citizens.

All right, sleep time.

Hey! All right!

Looks like I can post on my Blog with Safari again! Oh frabjous day, callooh, callay!

Expect more posts later. I have no thoughts right now except that the end of the school year is bittersweet (mostly because I want out but it's the easiest part lessonplan-wise) and it's too warm in my room, so I'm going to put on shorts.

Yes.

Open Source Living

This is a bit of an unfocused ramble. I just saw a bOINGbOING link (forgive the lack of a direct URL, school forbids the site and I saw it through google.reader's proxy) that mentioned this upcoming weekend in Toronto is going to be "OpenCity." People will wander and exchange ideas etc. It's an "unconference." No doubt this is a direct result of things that the internet has afforded people, contributions from across a diverse field of interests, suggestions from outsiders, anonymity in posting comments etc. I'm not sure exactly how OpenCity works, but I image that the goal is to be as much like an internet forum as possible. A wiki, if you will. People are going to form a community and be together while maintaining some level of distance, I guess.

It seems like an interesting idea. The best solutions are the ones that are created by a group of people with a varied field of reference and different interests. It is because of different perspectives etc. that great solutions arise. New viewpoints unite with trained professionalism to create some wonderful innovations.

So here's my question, will the open freedom of the internet further manifest itself on society? Will events such as OpenCity continue to be a fringe group, outsider activity or will it come in and sweep the norm? I'm kind of hoping it does. I feel like a Webocracy would have some nice benefits. I'll admit I lean a little toward Socialism, so I'm excited that a Webocracy would most certainly provide some fantastic services for The People. On the other hand, the competitive edge of trying to make your service the one people use will ensure better products for all.

So, if this trend catches on, and I'll make this my formal prediction that it will, you can bet I'll be grinning about it.

Forget Web 2.0. Let's gear up for Life 2.0.

EDIT: OpenCity Toronter Lizink

Assisted Suicide

I'm going to start off by saying this: I'm all for it.

That said, there's some issues with it. I certainly don't feel like I could be a... um... euthanizer. And there's some gray area about the wishes of the soon to be deceased in cases of the-somewhat-comatose but by and large, let people control their lives. If you're rational and conscious and dying horribly, why not take that final step yourself? That way your lose ends will for sure be taken care of by you. And it is impossible, or at least improbable, for some terminally-ill-yet-coherent patients to do the deed themselves. Step right up, then, and hire yourself someone to do it for you.

That's the main reason why (for a while, at least) I didn't understand the uproar about Dr. Kevorkian. He seems like a decent enough guy just helping people out one final time.

But I think I get it a little bit now. A lot of the anger and resentment comes from hurt on the families of the "victim." Or of people who have been in similar boats. Death is that final goodbye and it is hard to accept that someone would want it. That all the uncertainty and darkness of death could seem better than all the loveliness of life. If life's lost its luster, though, death's dark door looms decidedly more pleasantly on the horizon.

Suicide is, however, fairly selfish. It takes into account only what's in your best interest without considering the effects it might have on others. The people who rally out against Kevorkian are the same who have been wounded or could see themselves being wounded by someone ending it all.

Or maybe it's by those who are jealous of the courage they must have. Those who embrace the unknown and step out into the darkness necessarily have some guts backing up their decisions. I can't even imagine it. Is it nothing? Is it like falling asleep? Are there dreams you're always forgetting?

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit. Kevorkian has done good work and while I'm sad he won't continue it (part of his parole) I'm glad he'll still be able to speak to it. It's a travesty that he lost eight years of his life for something as noble as granting someone their one last wish.