Hanging around chez Malla and Veikko, my two theologian friends. I am no longer sure if there are anything but secular elements in my thinking any longer, and still I feel no conflict between us. Who is denying what?

Yesterday, Don Johnson Big Band (and at times also the guy who was beatboxin’) was awesome at Ihmistulva, I enjoyed jumping around a lot.

Also otherwise, yesterday was pretty relaxing. Met Tapio during daytime, bought a couple of ciders, had time to just enjoy my own company and feel that I am stronger by myself than I used to be.

University courses have started, and now life consists of balancing my schedule between the courses and my thesis.

I miss mystery, I miss diving together into where everything is unsure, I miss connection without condition. Why can’t people be more free? Why can’t they let go of prejudice? (Of course then you would ask, whether I have.)

After returning to Finland time has just passed, it seems. My work with Moodle, the thesis about Moodle, and the relationship with Minna have filled my mind. At the moment I am in a flu, so that makes it easier to stop and to look around me. I miss several of my friends, and hope they do not think I have abandoned them since I have not had strength to keep in touch. :)

I mostly have the experience in life that if I just concentrate, I can master pretty much anything I am motivated to take on. But I seem to exhaust myself so easily. Life offers too many challenges. Some I accept because of interest; some because of a sense of duty. Over time I have learned to understand my fears and that work continues.

But at the moment, freedom seems distant. Feeling somehow old. Work with Moodle is finding a balance in all of its challenges, and once I get out of this flu I will again find it inspiring. Still, I feel I need to broaden my horizons again. To find an entirely new perspective (how many can there be?). To make myself more involved in real life, whatever that will mean this time around.

To reach out for the God, who I still hope is looking for me, for my strength to hold on to him is pretty marginal at this point.

I am enjoying life with Minna. Mostly, she understands my weaknesses well and I think it goes both ways. We find it easy to spend relaxed time together, while facing difficulties rather directly. It seems balanced, and genuine.

But where is this headed?

The last night in Metz.

I’ve been inviting people to see me during the last week for several occasions, and despite me trying to organize things, everybody came tonight. The surprise was great – I would have been stressed about it had I known beforehand. The party ended just minutes ago, and I feel I had nothing to do with organizing it. Vincent brought chairs, some drank tea, some vodka, some wine, some beer, but nobody seemed too drunk at any time (some pistachio shells flew around the room during the night though). I offered everything I had in the cabinets (pistachios, sunflower seeds, eggs, soup, …) and people brought their own stuff. Lukas made omelettes. Some French people joined in at one point of the evening.

They gave me a book with photos and writings and drawings from everybody as a gift, and I feel like I have gotten way much more attention than I ever could have deserved. I feel too glad about it all to be cynical, it was beautiful. They made me sad for the fact that I am leaving so soon. :) There was quite a mess here but people cleaned up before they left and told me they’re coming again at eight in the morning to help me clean up! (The cleaner lady will organize an inspection at ten in the morning.) Wow.

Tomorrow to Poland, at around 17 hours.

It feels really spring-like in Metz, already. So finally I feel like it was worth it to come to northern France also because of the weather (the autumn was pretty bad). The flu is doing good to me, too. Slowing me down when I don’t have the guts to do it by myself.

Otherwise: thesis writing, talking with Minna and other friends online, preparing for my trip to Paris with Eeva this weekend.

I am slightly bothered about Facebook taking over my blog; status updates and all the social interaction engages me so much nowadays that actually writing even just a bit longer posts seems irrelevant. I’ve already expressed it all in IM discussions and status updates, so blogging feels like repetition. Maybe I should just start using this blog for something more substantial than my personal whining, since that seems to have a better arena in Facebook nowadays.

On the other hand, Facebook does it by great social UI design, so maybe I will just be happy. I still hope very much that an open platform that does it even better will supercede them soon.

During being in my current flu, I have learnt to use Twitter better (by adding the friends of friends who seemed the most interesting) and it actually seems some use at the moment.

Also, I took Flock into use today and the integrated experience actually seems pretty nice. I am blogging this from Flock. The UI does not seem to allow setting a category for the posting though so I will have to go to wordpress to fix the language category for this, after all. I’ll take that back: the Flock editor asks for the category after pressing Publish. I still have to check which categories I have used from my blog page, though, since I cannot remember all the categories this might fit into.

At times the flock UI is very cluttered and as my screen is only 1024 pixels wide, adding a sidebar to that makes many modern sites scroll. I actually think that is the fault of modern web design and not that of Flock.

Topic for #väsyneet: TODELLA hämmentävää!!! ->  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

Jag tycker så också!

Fool’s Garden: Suzy <3

En ollu tajunnu, että sille on viteo tehty, biisistä oon pitäny pidempäänki. Muitakin kyseisen porukan videoita nautin ilolla sieltä.

Eile oltii Mauden, Mathilden ja Christophin kanssa “metal-keikalla”. Minusta tuo oli kyllä kovin poprokkia tai korkeintaan hardrokkia metalliksi (aiheen asiantuntijat korjatkoon). Löysin siellä esiintyvän Mypolluxin Coffre à Souhaits -biisin etukäteen, joten päätin mennä mukaan ilmaiskeikalle – mistään kovemmasta metalista tuskin olisin nauttinut. Lopulta toinen bändi, jonka nimeä en ole vielä vaivautunut selvittämään, oli parempi.

Ajattelin ottaa tulevan viikon GTD:n ja de Mellon syventämiseen, nyt kun sain yhden ranskan aineen kirjoitettua niin ei paina sekään.

Totuudesta ei voi puhua, voi puhua vain totuuden esteistä on usein mystikkojen, ja myös de Mellon, suusta kuultu lause. Eipä sillä kai sinänsä väliä, mutta en ole ihan varma, olenko sen kanssa samaa mieltä. Onko kaikki viisaus sitten totuuden esteistä puhumista, tai olivatko Jeesuksen sanat vain sitä, tai onko humanistinen ymmärrys tai insinöörien sitä? Ehkä halveksun staattisia faktoja vähän liikaakin, enkä vaivaudu muistamaan paljon mitään mikä ei tunnu oleelliselta, elämässä kiinni olevalta.

Silti koen tämän vapauttavana: en ole vangittu etsimään mitään staattista totuutta ja voin suhtautua entistä vähemmän vakavasti liian varmoin julistuksin uskostaan puhuvien ajatuksiin. Silti: Elämä on dynaamista, ja juuri siinä vaikkapa Jeesuksen sanat kaikessa elämänmakuisuudessaan ovat edelleen relevantteja? Pysyä uskollisena Jumalalle, jota ei ymmärrä, taantumatta yksisilmäisyyteen…

Parisuhteet on jänniä asioita. Pysyttelen vielä kaukana, koen entistä enemmän, että ehkä juuri se ajattelun vapaus, epävarmuus, tila jota palavasti kaipaan ja jota yritän jaella ympärilleni, on minussa myös vaikein asia. (Jos tämä, epävarmuus, on eksyksissä oloa, niin olenpahan sitten todella syvästi – minusta kumminkin näyttää enemmänkin siltä, että tämä on mitä erilaisimpiin eksymisiin itsensä väkisin sitomisen välttämistä.)

Ja pelkään jotenkin, että kaikki on sekavaa kaikissa parisuhteissa, mutta ehkä olen vain sattunut kokemaan sitä tähänastisissa liikaa. Ei se ole minussa, se on ollut välillämme. Sekoittumista se on ainakin paljon: jos olen liian lähellä toista, on haaste pitää myös omasta, erillisestä identiteetistä kiinni. Kommunikaatiotaidot, kielitaidot, yhteensopivuus ja erikseen vielä parisuhdetaidot, äh äh äh, parisuhdeliike-elämää.

En ymmärrä lojaalisuutta, joten miten voisin sitoutua? Silti käytännössä koen sitoutuvani ihmisiin. Ja ainakin teoriassa: jään tähän, koska tässä on hyvä, ja (jos tunnen itseni) mitä pidemmäksi jään, sitä varmemmalta näyttää, että olen tässä siihen asti, kunnes kuolet tai kuolen. En ymmärrä lupauksia, koska ne eivät tuo mitään todellista turvaa: mistä minä kuitenkaan tiedän, minkälainen ihminen olen kymmenen vuoden kuluttua, tai mihin minua kutsutaan, ja mistä sinä voit sitä myöskään tietää? Vai merkitsisikö lupauksesi pysyä kanssani sitä, että jätät elämättä, jos se on ristiriidassa lähellä olemisen kanssa? En minä sellaista halua pyytää.

Ja nautiskelen vielä Danielin kirjoitusten seassa olevasta Suvaitsevaisuudesta (PDF 253 kt).

Taking my little brother to school today morning, I found it funny that I was unsure whether to identify with the kids in the yard – my little brother’s friends and the others – or with the teachers there, who I then realized, were pretty much the same physical age as me. And in that moment, I greatly enjoyed allowing myself to stick with roles of the kids, and thinking that if those teachers were not on duty, they could join us, too.

Also, even before that, as we entered the yard, I first saw the other kids in roles, in which I saw other pupils, when I was in comprehensive school myself. But then, I was not a pupil anymore now. I was something everybody else in the yard probably considered an adult. I seemed to have power over the kids, some sort of a strange respect, though it seemed to me I was not at all sure they were not wiser than me, in all their living in the moment.

Kids assume being subordinate to adults, since in practical life, adults often can handle things better. (Too bad if the adults a kid identifies with are not healthy.) But kids are better at being happy and unassuming, only occasionally being interrupted by their parents or by other adults. To grow up successfully is to remain without worry, although life around you becomes more challenging, and possibly more boring and more scary?

To be an adult is to stand straight up and not shiver when others talk to you, and to show who you are – convincing other adults you are something “more” than a kid now. This is how you get things that adults appreciate.

I organized most my papers today so I know pretty much what I am taking with me. For once, Coldplay’s music matches my mood.

The contrast is somehow very strong at the moment: I am strong but I am so weak.

During the past months, I have further and further learned how to keep hold of myself, how to avoid bending too much and making too many compromises. Still, I am so often a leaf that just shivers. I am hoping this will keep me honest, at least. Any time I try to identify with something seemingly too strong, I just get lost, since it is not real. I need to be strong in weakness. But whose weakness, whose strength is that?

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

I quote this even though it seems I am distant from the weakness (or the boasting) Paul is talking about. I have gone far from the context of faith again myself, but still reading the Bible felt good now that chatting with Minna got me browsing around.