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When a girl...

Found this on Facebook, on somebody's wall. I guess I'm a romantic and really, I'm not at all sure I agree about the basic assumptions and claims the writing makes, but there is a spirit of respect it expresses, which I think is something to learn from.

I reformatted the text to make it more readable but the content is basically the same.

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When a girl is quiet, millions of things are running in her mind.

When a girl is not arguing, she is thinking deeply.
When a girl looks at u with eyes full of questions, she is wondering how long you will be around.
When a girl answers "I'm fine" after a few seconds, she is not at all fine.

When a girl stares at you, she is wondering why you are lying.
When a girl lays on your chest, she is wishing for you to be hers forever.
When a girl wants to see you everyday... she wants to be pampered.
When a girl says "I love you", she means it.
When a girl says "I miss you", no one in this world can miss you more than that.

Life only comes around once make sure u spend it with the right person. Find a guy, who calls you beautiful instead of hot; who calls you back when you hang up on him. Who will stay awake just to watch you sleep.

Wait for the guy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in your sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends. Who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares about you and how lucky he is to have you. Who turns to his friends and says, "That's her!!"

Mon 2007-12-17 00:55 in quotations 2 comments #link

Uplifting

Yesterday, I was in the Christmas Concert of Tampereen Yliopiston Laulajat, the choir of the University of Tampere. I had not really realized before that I like choir music, but these ladies and fellas were just brilliant. I sat quite front, in the third row or so, the acoustics were wonderful. For most part of the hour it lasted I sat there, and just flowed through all these galant feelings expressed by the choir. I don't really have the vocabulary to describe my experience, but suffice to say I loved it.

After the concert I went to KRS's christmas party. Had meaningful conversations with some friends, felt like coming to life again.

Sat 2007-12-15 14:08 in diary No comments #link

Alanis Morissette: Utopia

we'd gather around all in a room fasten our belts engage in dialogue
we'd all slow down rest without guilt not lie without fear disagree sans judgement

we would stay and respond and expand and include and allow and forgive and enjoy and evolve and discern and inquire and accept and admit and divulge and open and reach out and speak up

This is utopia this is my utopia
This is my ideal my end in sight
Utopia this is my utopia
This is my nirvana
My ultimate

we'd open our arms we'd all jump in we'd all coast down into safety nets

we would share and listen and support and welcome be propelled by passion not invest in outcomes we would breathe and be charmed and amused by difference  be gentle and make room for every emotion

we'd provide forums we'd all speak out we'd all be heard we'd all feel seen

we'd rise post-obstacle more defined more grateful we would heal be humbled  and be unstoppable we'd hold close and let go and know when to do which we'd release and disarm and stand up and feel safe

this is utopia this is my utopia
this is my ideal my end in sight
utopia this is my utopia
this is my nirvana
my ultimate

Tue 2007-12-11 11:00 in quotations No comments #link

Million Leaders Mandate

I've been on a local Million Leaders Mandate course since last spring. I regret that I haven't taken it very seriously from the start, it would have been worth a lot more attention. Nevertheless, I have the material and today I returned to one of the worksheets to start working on my learning diaries. What I read today was about attitudes. Simple, practical truths that can really help you examine yourself and stay honest about why you're doing what you're doing, and how. If you can manage to get on such a course, I warmly recommend it. I don't think of myself as a leader of anyone but myself, but this course is about how to grow yourself.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned tonight is as follows. I usually think of attitudes as something that I think about other people, which of course would affect my behaviour. However,  an equally (if not more) important meaning for the word attitude, is what I think about myself and how well I believe I will succeed. Yes, I knew that hope brings strength, but to connect this to the word attitude, to something that I absolutely can control! No, I knew this beforehand, too... anyway, this stirred up some thought in me.

I made the following an A4 sheet I hung on my wall. (Translated to English from Finnish which was originally translated from English. Umm, sorry about that, if you have the original English or have understood it better, do tell me please :)

How you can develop your attitude: 

1. Believe, that what's important is not what happens to you, but what happens in you.
2. Stop blaming something or someone for your attitude.
3. Evaluate your current attitudes.
4. Accept that faith is stronger than fear.
5. Ask God to fill you with his Holy Spirit.
6. Make the motivations, plans and background ideas of your activities clear to yourself. Write them down.
7. Keep track of and document the help received from your trusted person. (translation?)
8. Spend time with the right people.
9. Select a suitable (role) model to follow.
10. Enjoy the nourishment of the truth. Feast on the Bible!

I was also on the Helsinki satellite of the Global Leadership Summit. Rocked! (At the time of writing this the server was not answering behind that link, hope it will.) 

Sun 2007-12-09 02:16 in diary No comments #link

Goin' strong

Once in a while I get these moments, usually inspired by something, when things seem to be in control. This time that something was last weekend at Ystävyyden Majatalo. Had lots of wonderful discussions, though mostly they didn't feel like that at the time.

I would like to share something I thought about only this morning. This was inspired by an article read as a part of my social work minor subject studies. Seeing my life as an ongoing weaving work (not sure about the weaving terminology though) might help me keep it all together in my mind. That is: each bigger whole of my life is a string, and all of those strings together weave, mix together into a (hopefully colourful) blanket that is me.

What is new about this for me is that it helps me see myself as a dynamic, developing whole. Also, keeping a diary has been difficult for me exactly because there was no way of organizing diary entries. Using these strings of the blanket as categories for putting whatever I've experienced one day into the context of my life as a whole, so that afterwards I could see more consistently how everything develops.

The idea isn't strange to GTD, but so far I couldn't really see it together (not that I would have finished the book, though).

The approximate, broad categories I have so far. I've only listed here the subcategories that aren't too specific to me, those that might help to see the purpose of the related main category:

• Working life
• Finding a girl to share my life with / in the future: working to develop a relationship
• Growing as a part of a church community
• Health
  • jogging
  • swimming
  • Pilates
  • eating
• Keeping life organized
  • Cleaning, laundry
  • GTD and other life organizing
• Using my creativity, keeping an eye on any projects where I could get it into better use
• Friends, keeping touch
• Studies
• My own identity
  • Relatioships to people (social thinking in theory)
  • Relationship to God (reflecting on the Bible, theology, prayer etc.)
    

Mon 2007-12-03 10:14 in diary 1 comment #link