It’s the only explanation for why I haven’t blogged since April. Usually summer is my season for blogging because summers are boring and everything is closed and I am forced to be on vacation. The weather might be nice, the best it can get in Finland, but it’s often ruined by feelings of being an utterly useless and inferior human being because I didn’t deserve the vacation. This time though, I haven’t been feeling particularly bad in a long while, thanks to a certain nerd and his cute and cuddly dog. We have successfully cultivated the art of doing nothing much together.

Anyway. I got tagged by a Twitter knitter, Cheekytart (you can follow her here). So I’m basically obligated to blog, but I don’t feel forced at all. I needed something like this: My desire (more sharp than filed steel) did spur me forth,* when given a chance. The tag entails answering to a slew of questions about my personal life, which is fine.

1- What’s your staple meal (ie. what meal do you cook most often when you can’t be bothered to be adventurous) ?

I like to make a chicken wok with vegetables, basmati rice and various spices. I just throw in some courgettes, sweet pepper, black olives, mushrooms, sometimes carrot, and add different curry spices like turmeric, cumin, coriander, cardamom, ginger, chili, cinnamon and clove. You can make endless variations by wokking and you don’t have to consult any recipes, and I love that. It’s hard to go wrong because I’m not so choosy when it comes to tastes in food. The food has to be quite terrible for me not to eat it.

2- What do you want to be when you grow up?

I wonder how you know you are actually all grown up. Right now I would love to find work which involved using my language skills. Translation, proofreading, data entry, developing language-related apps, anything involving writing…

One of my ambitions is to write a dissertation, since I see it as something I have to do or I’ll always wonder what I could have accomplished with it, what I would find out if me and not anybody else looked at the data I am planning to use. I don’t see myself as a researcher for life because I don’t take criticism very well. I prefer an easier life to an ambitious one, since the former seems to entail far less agony and anguish.

Work is important to me because I haven’t had much of it so far in my life and to me it’s one way of defining myself as a person. I just want to feel useful and earn my living myself instead of living off everybody else.

3- What book are you reading at the moment (if any)

Larry Niven’s Ringworld. Someone over at the Mass Effect Social Forums said it was similar to the Mass Effect universe so I gave it a try. I’m almost finished and it is not a bad book. Before that, I read Allen Steele’s Coyote series, a gorgeous, realistic long series on colonizing an exoplanet, and Jack McDevitt‘s Ancient shores, a softer approach to scifi.

4- How do you relax?

I relax by exercising a lot and then eating something tasty with tea, watching tv and knitting, sometimes playing Mass Effect. Exercise is vital to my sanity and to my body’s functionality. Everything else is a plus.

5- What color are the interior walls of your home?

I live in a rental apartment with fugly old wallpapers, they are kind of white but not really, with weird yellowish and bluish stains and some texture. I try not to pay attention to it and I imagine it’s all white.

6- What is your guiltiest pleasure?

I don’t feel guilt over pleasures usually. Because I’m so worth it.

7- What time is bedtime and getting up time?

I like to tuck myself in around 11 pm so I have time to read a bit before sleep. Since I’m not working, I usually get up at 8.30 am unless, well, the circumstances are unusual.

8- How long do you spend reading blogs (per day or per week)?

I don’t read blogs on a daily basis, but I probably read one or two every week. I have spent so little time by the laptop lately, excepting Tweetdeck and email, that I simply haven’t had the time to read anything extra. Besides, my favorites have been taking a hiatus from blogging too, and nothing has been interesting enough to compel me into reading. I barely browse teh internets at all these days unless I’m using dictionaries or some other useful services.

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There, I’ve blogged! This just might have been the longest hiatus I’ve had with blogging so far. I just moved my blog to a new host, Downtownhost, which I so far recommend.

I would like to tag:

Ukkoite, because he probably isn’t man enough to blog about a blog meme, let alone one that asks very personal questions — really, he’s such a sissy he will not dare ;)

SetAsEssential, a Swedish lady whose portrait I’d like to paint one day as soon as she sends me a decent photo of herself. ;)

Baltarstar, because she’s such a sweetheart and writes so well.

*From Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 3, line by Antonio (see here).

I finished my portrait of Amoena ages ago. Last year, in fact.

The painting course starts again this week after the long Christmas break! I haven’t signed up, so I will just waltz back in on Friday morning and hope there’s still room for me. If I don’t still have a job in February, I’ll even pay the bill for rest of semester (50% off for unemployed persons!).

Anyways, I’m very pleased with this painting. I started the course with it and took my time to make sure it actually bore some resemblance to Amoena. Behold and judge for yourself:

(Painting of Amoena…)

Now that I can see them side by side, my suspicions are confirmed: her eyes are slightly off and too small in the painting and her mouth slants the wrong way. But by the time I had fixed the position of the eyes, it was too late to change them, or I might have done irreversible damage. Painting with amateur skills is like that sometimes. Her jaw is also more angular in the painting than it should be, but I think the overall look is similar enough to see who it’s supposed to portray.

(..and Amoena herself.)

The teacher, Tuomo Rosenlund, had an interesting interpretation of my painting. He saw symbolism in my color choices – red implying there’s something evil or devious behind that apparently innocent look on her face. This was highlighted by the way I divided the background into two colors and made the left side lighter and the right side darker red. After having said that, he concluded that painters often unknowingly paint people they know in a way that the view them as persons. In other words, I view Amoena as an apparently innocent but actually devious person?

Yes, she’s pure evil. She likes to knit, crochet and watch reality tv. She even coos about her dog Papu all the time and posts videos of the doggie chewing carrots! That’s evil and devious on so many levels, I’m sure you’ll agree!