| And while we're at it, how about a break featuring mini!Gali? You can only see mini!Gali's head but it counts! Talking about myself in the third person, well that's one way of starting off a Saturday morning! (see, these posts get scheduled less than a day in advance, that's how unprepared I am for life... to say that at one point last summer I had almost 40 posts in the queue.)  |
It's almost the end of the year and I haven't posted any mini!Gali since February! I had a mushroom omelette the other day... so have a photo featuring mini!Gali and mushrooms. Thank you, thank you, I know you have never seen a better transition in your life.  |
| Hey, did you know that I started about one of those 365 Days projects on January 1st and so far have not missed a single day but all the photos are still on the memory cards inside my cameras? I'm going to have so much catching up to do one of these days… … but I'm taking a break from "serious" online blogging stuff for a bit for more fangirly/less serious stuff because it gives me a break from normal life. By "serious" blogging I mean "LiveJournal" because this place has grown up with me in the last 10 years. 10 years. That's the longest thing I've ever kept up. 10 freaken years have been documented here. I actually missed my LJ's birthday, it was on the 16th of January. Over 5500 entries. Right. And by "fangirly/less serious stuff" I mean "you'll find me on my main tumblr and on my side-tumblrs, which are rather scary places that probably do not reflect at all that I am an adult." It's ok though, it all gives me breaks in adult life. Speaking of adult life, for those who did not know it, I am defending my PhD thesis next Monday. Obviously if you're in the Helsinki area, please feel free to drop by at noon. To celebrate all that, let's have some mini!Gali.  The fact that I used to have much lighter hair naturally reminds me I have to get those roots taken care of sooner than later. But hey, small steps at a time. It took me just two trips to the local Alepa to remember that I was almost out of toilet paper. Small steps. |
I tend to find the randomest and best things ever at the recycling center! Look who got these puppies (for a whooping 20 cents each)!  I now have four postcards from the 70s with good old Lenin... and a few others from that era from different parts of the USSR. I have yet to send out a single of those Lenin postcards, there is just something so nostalgic about them that I shall probably hoard them up until I have to move out of Finland. Maybe they remind me of my favourite photo of myself from the good old days... |
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That's actually the only photo I have put up in my whole flat, I have a wall covered in postcards but no other photos. But really, it just doesn't get better than that... mini!Gali, Saint Nicholas and a portrait of Lenin in the background. And I do believe the dress was hand-sewn. Bedazzled before bedazzling was cool. |
| Please gather around as I tell you the brilliant ways the connections in my brain work! This morning, as it was still cold and there were still patches of ice on the ground, I went for a run. With a proper amount of peanut butter and cheese the night before for a long run (it seems that I have finally found what my body needed in unsweetened peanut butter because clearly I need to load up on fat the night before but too much cheese is a bad idea, as seen last weekend), I set out in -4C a bit after 8am. Somewhere after a full circle of Seurasaari and on towards Otaniemi, it finally registered that it was too light for that time of day. Then I calculated, today is the Sunday closest to my birthday and that means it's Marseille-Cassis weekend and that means that we switched clocks! Every single thing I use to check the time automatically switches the time in my flat and now it's done without even informing me (unlike in ye olden days of pop ups asking me if I was sure that we had switched over to winter time). I think only my cameras still have the old time and I never bother with that. I don't even own a mechanical wrist watch! I don't own any wrist watches for that matter... I feel like I'm failing Douglas Adams on some level. And, thus, it is clear that I am a slave to modern machines. And now it's dark outside at 4:30pm. Oh, I suppose I should be happy with a 7:30am sunrise except that I'm already at work by then and soon that sunrise will be 9am in any case. We're down to under 9 hours of daylight. Every year I am surprised at how fast it goes. I really am like one of those people on the telly that act all surprised when it snows a shitton in winter in the mountains, "oh, this is crazy, can you believe it, snow in winter, around here!" Back to the running though, -4C which warmed up to around -2C... quite different conditions from the Marseille-Cassis stuff but maybe we can say that my Sunday half-marathon ran around Töölö bay was a bit equivalent to climbing those 10km and going down the other 10 in 15C weather? Certainly, there was no dip in the sea afterwards but you can't have everything. I really should run that race again eventually, I like to think that I am much stronger mentally and can take on much more pain these days than four or five years ago. And for shits and giggles - mini!Gali and some running.  |
| It's one of those days today. As in one of those days. As it has managed to piss me off about fifteen times and it's not even 8am yet! It started last night when I got a flat on my way home, I didn't feel like changing the tube on the road so I just walked my bike home. It turned out that I had no more spare tubes left and the bike shop down the street closes at 5pm and it was after 5pm. So I settled for using one of the fancy patches I have to fix tubes, except it's all "fancy" and therefore not like the old school sand paper/cement glue/patch stuff... no... it's a self-adhesive patch. I put it on and thought that was that. Except that the patch was absolutely no good and this morning the tube was flat again. Therefore I decided just to run to work, which was rather blah because I need a truck load of dried fruit and/or cheese the night before to run properly and that turned out not to be the case of last night. The final blow came when I realised that I forgot to bring a bra to change into (but at least I remembered everything else) and therefore will have to hang out in my sports bra all day long. So... world, eff you too. At least for today. But we can't end this on a shitty note. So here is mini!Gali on a bike.  And well, at the end of the day, probably there are people out there who don't get to ride their bikes or run or walk to work and are stuck in traffic and their days are most likely worse than mine. I mean, I take many things for granted, and that often includes cycling, but teaching a kid how to ride a bike is certainly one of the best things one can do for him or her. |
| There are fun things in life and then there are some that are not so fun. Last week one of those not so fun things that happened, my grandma passed away. Death is one of those things I try not to think about because worrying about death is worrying about something that is inevitable and even the best of us will go one day. Sure, there are people out there who hypothesise that my generation or the 90s-2000s babies generation will live for hundreds of years, but I hope that only happens when someone figures out how to live without getting sick/ageing and how not to have to work for up until about three years before you die. Can you imagine having to work for hundreds of years? Possibly doing the same job for all those years? That's enough to drive one insane. But I digress. The event made me think a bit and look at my relationship to my inner feelings and I've come to some very startling, for me, conclusions. First of all, the one that shocked me most was that I felt no inclination to go to the funeral. I was fine with flying in and being there in general, but actually just the idea of going to the funeral (and worse, seeing the body) made me very uncomfortable. The main reason being that currently my last memory of my grandma is that of my last visit and I didn't want it to be replaced by a memory associated with her dead body. It's not the first time I notice that I try to avoid associating bad memories with events or people and if I do have memories like that, I usually start feeling very uncomfortable when asked to bring them back up. The second thing that felt rather strange was the fact that in the end what upset me most wasn't the death itself, it was the fact that people I cherish a lot were suffering because of it. Perhaps trying to put everything into perspective and trying to be rational and practical about everything is my way of dealing with things. Rereading the whole thing above makes me think that I sound a bit cold-hearted. Oh well, as I said, that's probably how I try to keep everything together. I actually tried finding a photo or two of my grandma to post, I know must have some in the old scanned folder or maybe in the blackhole known as "photo-archives" (photos go there after being on the harddrive for more than a year and then are never heard of again, it's a scary place I rarely venture into)... but I can't find any right now... so here is a funky photo of mini!me (it seems I haven't posted anything under that tag in over a year!) |
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In the category "on se couchera moins bête ce soir" we have today's story thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small} has_ka with whom I happen to share first names and a bit of history!Today we are celebrating our name day! So if you're a Галина, Галя, Галинка, Галюня, Галюся, Halya, Gali, Halyna, Galyna, Galina or some other variation, today's your day. Or rather it's either today or on the 10th of March, depending on which tradition you follow (so it says here along with the other possible date of April 29th [or 16th]). Now, everyone go "awwww" over mini!Gali. *cuddles mini!self*  Happy name day to you too, mini!Gali. |
| Dear body, You're pretty awesome and all of that but this headache is so horrible that even mini!Gali does not approve.  No really, this is bordering on a migraine here. And by "migraine" I mean my head is killing me so much that I almost feel like throwing up. Aspirin, caffeine, food, a walk outside, stretching, shoulder/neck relaxation have not worked so far. This is so uncool that I might declare Thursdays as the day of the devil, last week's stomach bug started on a Thursday too, after all. |
| Hello world, current!Gali has fun things such as reports and articles with deadlines to do. Fun times. Who has end-of-project meetings on Friday afternoons with things due then anyway? So here is mini!Gali. Mini!Gali did not have to worry about such things... she also swore that she'd never go into research.  |
| In the land of WTF, I present the Hello Kitty "Fill in the blanks" Psychological Test. Made in 2002. With terrible grammar. And extremely small resolution. After having answered that the beetle would rather go back into the forest than eat (must be somehow a psychological question related to Kafka) and that the bright red/green mushroom is poisonous and not the brown one (I think that tested my early childhood mushroom gathering trauma), I got that I have "a fair stress level". In Hello Kitty world that means (and I quote): "One of the reasons for this is your conscious awareness to release your stress before letting it get worst. However when you come across many troubles at the same time, you might unable to handle it. There comes the problem. For this type you better enjoy the green and wood. As long as you are in the natural environment, you will be peaceful to resolve any problems." Thank you, Hello Kitty, for providing such insight into my being. I'm off into "the green and wood" now. And by "the green and wood" I mean "off to work some more on my little simulations but the colours of the graphs are mainly yellow, orange and green, kind of like green and wood." Well, that was fun. Anyone tried to understand what the questions meant and get a good result? Possibly we can all go hang out "in the natural environment" to "be peaceful to resolve any problems." All this was brought to you by mini!Gali. Although, thankfully, at the time I had no idea who or what the heck Hello Kitty was... I had other friends to play with.  Now I also notice that I had what appears to be slightly curly or wavy hair. Ah, how we change. |
| La vie est un long fleuve tranquille, part 239547395430. Uneventful river... starting the day with trying to find sulfamic and citric acid in databases but they're too common or not with enough impacts to be included in those databases. Meanwhile, in the land of mini!Gali, life was also an uneventful river. Most of the time. Mini!Gali sure had perfected the "why are you taking a photo again?" look... if only she knew that in a few decades she'd be asked the same question. |
 (No really, wasn't I awesome back then? The wonders that twenty years can do...) |
Mini!Gali was super duper excited about mountains... and current!Gali still gets super excited about mountains!  Yep, tomorrow my current!Gali face will match mini!Gali's face in that photo. Ah... been a while since mini!Gali was last seen, hasn't it? I had given up scanning all those rolls of film for a while. PS: Santa, you know how I said I wanted a sparkly pony for Christmas? Can I also have a kpop arch-nemesis? I've been talking about wanting one for ages (for example here)... and I really think that by now I deserve one. It doesn't have to be Bi/Rain. At this point I'll take about anyone! I have no clue why I just remembered that now but once in a while I just get this urge to have a dance-off and I have no kpop arch-nemesis to challenge. |
Dear peeps, I've noticed some new peeps adding me to their flist and some even said they wanted postcards (hint, hint, hint: everyone wants postcards, go sign up) and that makes my day, week, month, year! You know what would make me even happier? If everyone left a mini-intro comment because it's just much better writing postcards to people who have introduced themselves. Don't know what to write? How about your name (or nickname or something), where you're from, who is your favourite PowerRanger (or ninja turtle or telletubby), what's your opinion chocolate, etc. All comments are screened so don't worry about others finding out stuff! The name part is especially important. Or nickname. I mean, if I'm going to write a postcard it's better to make it more personal than the usual "hey there, so here is a shot of .... hope everything is good on your end". If I were to write a postcard to our first lady I'd write "My dear Cartlitta d'amour, why don't you film anymore of those awesome washing machine ads?" (yes, I learnt the other day that in the 80s she made some awesome ads). Maybe I should propose bribes. Here are some pretty flowers from the garden for those who like pretty things:  ( and some mini!Gali awesomeness under the cut ) How about some opinionated opinions? I can't think of anything good right now... how about "Green was the best PowerRanger, end of story". And finally a random fact... yesterday morning the fountain at Place de la Liberté in Toulon was dyed in acid yellowish-greenish. I still can't find out who did it but that's kind of cool. I hope they also put soap bubbles to make it foam. BTW, for those who asked where they can send me postcards (♥ ♥ ♥), the info is here, it's always up-to-date. If you get an "access denied" thing, I need to add you to the flist but I can only do that if you promise that you're not a creeper! |
The problem with going through old photos is that eventually you fall on the not-so-amazing ones where you're a very awkward teenager. I was the definition of one, I think from around the age of about 11 till I was through with school (lycée, most of prépa and a bit of the first year of école) I was the most awkward teenager you could imagine. So that's why I doubt there will be little reminiscing on awkward-teenager!Gali, she just was not as awesome as mini!Gali and current!Gali. But by all the three-hour-long-old-slide-watching gods, mini!Gali had adventures! For some reason I didn't really remember all these adventures my parents took us on but we went places! Here mini!Gali brightly shares with everyone some statue somewhere. |
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If she had known about getting postcards from random parts of the world, she'd have loved it, just as current!Gali does and just as I know you do. And as current!Gali is going on an adventure to Paris (merci la centralisation!) next week and goes on tiny adventures to Toulon almost every day and owes some peeps long overdue "you've just moved!!!1!!eleventeen!!!" cards, it's postcard time! No option for postcards from Marseille because I'm not going to any touristy parts of the city with postcards any time soon. [Poll #1644304] (obviously if you're not on LJ and can't fill in polls, you can send me your address to the email in the sidebar or any other email of mine you should have) |
Mini!Gali rocked those damned Barbie sunglasses and looked bad-ass posing in front of some marine show at MarineLand.  Current!Gali is wondering if they actually have someone doing environmental evaluations of army tanks and if so how does one get that job. If they don't, they should. They should also train those tank drivers to drive "while thinking more about the environment"*... hey, apparently that's the new fad during driving lessons and driving a tank counts as driving. * that environmental driving involves "sous régime" all the time (no idea what that is in English, never learnt to drive in English, basically when the engine is underused and you're going up a gear even though the engine does not provide enough power yet) and then you have no engine brake and therefore it's much easier to lose control. But who cares, you're thinking about the environment! Yay greenwashing! |
Nope, still not old. Woke up this morning and nothing was hurting (and that's apparently how you know you're not old). The sky is blue (at least till tomorrow), the trains are running (mostly) and there is cake (homemade cheesecake made by my mum) in the fridge for tonight. Yep, life is good. And I'm wearing my "procrastinators: leaders of tomorrow" shirt just to make my point about my life philosophy.  Is anyone tired of mini!Gali because I am not. Well at one point mini!Gali had contemplated what she would be like in the year 2000, it seemed so far away! She'd be 15 in the year 2000! She'd be already in lycée and would be *this* close to being a very responsible adult. It all seemed so scary and she expected life to be so different. I wish I could post about a third of all the photos I scanned and comment on all of them, they're epic. That would take forever though... I guess that's why old-family-slides nights happen live and are not typed up. |
True story: mini!Gali would always say that there are a lot of things she wants to do when she gets older but the one thing she doesn't want to do is research. Current!Gali is still slightly amused by that. Mini!Gali wanted to be a lawyer or a coroner. That was way before all those NCIS and CSI shows made being a coroner sexy... Mini!Gali had her reasons, you can make mistakes when you're a doctor and hurt people, there are fewer risks of hurting dead people. |
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Above is mini!Gali carefully studying the snow (or the stick). Clearly my experimenter habits were already set then... or so current!Gali likes to pretend. Once again I can't remember when this was, fifteen or sixteen years ago. |
Hello, I'm Gali, I have an ego that's larger than most planets and I'll be a year older tomorrow. So here is baby!me from around 1994 or 1995.  Sheep and goats are nice and all but not when they're as tall as you and come in large packs. Ah. I'm still absolutely in love with that film scanner and the fact that my parents have kept tons of old negatives. PS: the rest of today will be known as "let's spam with tons of mini!Gali" day. Mini!Gali was awesome, as awesome as current!Gali is, and therefore deserves lots of love. |
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timeasmymeasure
