No

Actually, there is nothing right now that I would like to or could write about on this blog.
I haven't made up my mind about removing the blog entirely yet, but it will, at the least, stay cold and unmoving for now.
Should this bother someone/something: I'm sorry, but not too much.

Everything You Ever... what a cliché

So there's been another small break in posting, yes?
Well, the reason, besides time and motivation related problems, is mostly this:

The ideas in my head worth writing about usually are either about science/the humanities, ecological/social issues or "philosophy". The first two or four are something other people are more qualified to write about and all you people out there deserve to read about them from knowledgeable sources, which I mostly am not, not even about linguistics beyond the basics, and most people don't (and shouldn't?) care about linguistics too much. Oh, and the basics of linguistics can be quite boring, even for fans.
Ecological/social issues are so politically "loaded" that I wouldn't be going there without good reason anyway, beside which anything I might have got to say is often quite hard (for me) to put into words, at least in such a way that it would be understood well enough (and on these issues I really don't want to be misunderstood).
The part about difficulty of putting to words is true about philosophy too, just more so, besides which my thoughts about existence etc. might be too easily confused with some kind of nihilism, and it would be really embarrasing if people believed me to be some angsty self-pitying wretch with no life, craving attention, would it not?
(hmm, I do blog, albeit occasionally... oops...)
Well, anyway...
I usually don't even consider writing about art (=music, it being the only kind of (non-literature) art I know anything about, which still is not much), although it is often on my mind, because I feel there is not much to say, except "Go and listen/see/touch/etc. (to)(it) by yourself!".
Literature (here considered separate from other forms of art for various reasons), of course, is somewhat of a different matter, as words are somewhat better suited as a subject of discussion (by words) than, for example, music, but I seem to be one of those jerks who feel that dissecting a text too far makes it loose some of it's magic. So I wont be analyzing poetry on this page too soon (I heard that relieved sigh, sir.), although I might put out some general ideas about writing/things written sometime. Or generally about processes of creation, we'll see.

Somebody might be asking, why I wrote this post (no, the intention was not flaunting with what a pretentious elitist loser I am, although I seem to have done a good job of that, too).
Well:
-I got bored of seeing the same post at the top of my blog all the time (yes, I do visit my own blog from time to time - how boring is that?)
-originally the point was to infrom you, that some real posts might be waiting to be written - with luck their wait should not be too long (it did take quite a lot of words for me to say this :o )
-didn't have anything better to do (still, I do have a life, you know... not listening... not listening)

A kill

Today I had to end a life.

(I would like beg your pardon in advance for the incoherence of the following. It is not something I feel comfortable writing or thinking about, but I have to do this.)

I was walking my dog and she apparently thought tonight a nice evening for some roadside field vole hunting.
Unfortunately(?) she was quite successful.
I was too slow in pulling her back after I noticed her having gotten wind of something _really_ interesting, _really_ interesting things for Tessa (the dog) usually being live animals possessing qualities she appreciates in prey (small size, even smaller teeth, not being a moose/an elk etc.).
Soon enough the terrified screams of some small mammal were audible, and while I then repeatedly tried to pull Tessa back and managed to get her to drop the poor vole, she got it(gender unknown) into her teeth a few more times, and even threw it through the air in a horrific (to me, at least) arc of maybe two meters in height and three in length.
After this I managed to keep Tessa away from her prey, but after trying to get the horridly twitching vole to its feet by pushing it gently with my shoe I soon realized that this was one vole less playing evolution.

The dawning understanding of the situation - suffering vole on the road, the hunter also on the road, and me between them; my dog to be kept away from the vole for various reasons (vole-carried diseases contagious at least to man, maybe also to dog, small bones possibly dangerous to dog intestines although I don't know if Tessa intended to eat the vole or just play with it - dogs are after all a bit like wolf pups that refuse to grow up when they grow up, etc.), but the vole still somehow to be at the least granted as quick and painless a death as possible - came with some underappreciated part of my brain giving a warning cry, something like "Can't you see you're getting hysterical?! Act! Get a grip!".

Feeling like a machine I pushed the vole to the hard dirt beside the road with my foot, and then - I cannot really describe the sound and feeling of crushing skull (and I sure don't want anyone to feel as bad from reading this as I did after the deed, but, for my sake, this has to be written) - a foot stamped down. Something broke under the sole (and somehow, maybe something also broke some distance above the sole).
Punishment for what it was I don't know, but the wretched thing still twitched while that foot pushed it once more, into the grass on the side of the ditch. Another quick crushing movement. But the soil was so soft, so damn soft this time - love, let it still be that the pain had ended by then, for one of us at least.

A few steps the machine still took, it's friend, the probably confused dog at heel, before the world came back, in weak but terrifying waves of a strange nausea. Then we got moving again, some tears trying to form in my eyes - unfortunately my tear ducts have failed to cooperate with the rest of the me trying to cry for many years now.
Questions and doubts followed, ideas like "That was much too easy, it should have hurt more, you bastard!" "Yeah, now you feel bad, but what about the flies and mosquitoes you (mostly) swat like they were nothing?" "I hope I'll never get used to this" "Remember this was neither your nor Tessa's fault" and so on.
What did NOT cross my mind (and please crush ME, if ever it does) were things like "But that was just a vole!" "You did the right thing" or even "Don't feel bad, you did the right thing".

Well, that was that for tonight's "Tour inside Stephu's mind".

If you wonder how I could get so upset from such a small thing, well, go dig out your heart with a Coregonus albula, at least it's you doing it (and you'd probably enjoy the dead fish, too) - this was quite a scary and upsetting experience for me and that is that. If you don't mind killing voles - fine; your world is like that. I do mind - even better; my world is like that. That's the world for you, everyone's right but they're not allowed to tell the others their truth - sad, boohoohoo.

O.K., hysterical raging over and out.

Selling out

Radio silence has been broken for absolutely no reason (except maybe to break it at a time other than planned).
(Myydään halvalla periaatteet, ei kovin kestävät mutta lähes käyttämättömät.)

Uusi uni.

Koska en ole vieläkään ns. herännyt, menen nukkumaan.
Kein niemand kann sagen wie und wann es weitergeht.
Yes, it likes to go on hiatus for an undefined time, it does.
That's allright with me.

Come in peace

The sun is yet again growing and thus I am somewhat late with my wishes for a good beginning for the new year. Well, with the unnatural lifestyle of our time there is yet a week, so prepare, and anyway, the brightening days probably don't bring along a brighter future. Oh and merry Christmas too.

Salutations (Baldur's Gate pronunciation)

Because I am not able to write about the things I have on my mind, you'll have to make do with reading about the things that ought to be on my mind.
Like my confused daily routine (=the lack of any) and the following lack of sleep. Well OK, 4 hours isn't that little, and surely you can take some nights with only 2 without any problems, eh..
Or the exams I've got next week - the real thing for the phonology&morphology exercise course, the grammar exam for Introductory Sumerian and the intermediate exam for my spanish basics... I haven't even had a look at the books for spanish, phonology or morphology, and although I've read the stuff for sumerian, I need tons of practice for that. And I've missed half the spanish lectures (for many reasons, some of them good, like not having had the book which really was needed to get much out of most of the lectures). Well, I'll manage, or even should I not - what is done is done.
Then there of course is the ongoing, insignificant little inconvenience of having no money (as in 0 euros)- no big deal for me, most of the time, only the rest of the world doesn't see it like that :P.
The problem is, sometimes I just don't care. I guess I'm just hoping that if I keep building up this awkward construction of barely solved problems (most of which, with a little more effort or a swifter reaction, would have been solved better, or often avoided altogether), someday I'll push it too far and everything will come crashing down. Sounds crazy, does it? Well, I see it this way: in a situation where I can't solve any problems, I don't have to solve any. Then I can just let things go by their own weight and have a decent night's sleep. I don't feel like I'm really able to cope, so why should I even try? It's just that those bastards, self-esteem, curiosity, others' expectations, my own dreams, and the like keep whipping and urging me on and on and on...