Long time no see

It's been almost a month since my last post, but I see no reason to write if I have nothing to base it on, and this November has probably been the least eventful since forever. I haven't been hibernating either, though. I've been organizing my upcoming trip to Finland, and making other plans for December, so it looks like fun times ahead.

I've also gained some fame among my friends for being the pancake lady. I've been making pancakes of all shapes and sizes for years now, but never as much as recently. I've made big portions at least twice a week, making sure that my family is well fed. Not much was eaten here last month, besides pancakes, of course. But I didn't hear anyone complain, and I still make them very often.

While doing stuff, it's always fun to put on some music. No need to mention that my selection isn't very variable. Since the painful split of Nightwish and Anette, I've been listening more to Anette's songs outside Nightwish. She's currently working on a solo album and I'm really looking forward to it. She has published two demo recordings she has made and if the whole album will be on the same level, I'll definitely buy it. She has received a lot of hate, especially when she joined Nightwish. I don't think she deserves it, because she's always done a great job and she has a beautiful voice. Here's two songs that show it really well -

She always seems so happy an positive. I really hope that whoever will be chosen to replace her, is at least on the same level. I'm not going to say much about Floor Jansen, since she isn't exactly my vision of the perfect frontwoman. Maybe my opinion will change if I'm lucky enough to make it to their gig in Tampere in June.

About live shows ... Tarja Turunen, the first singer of Nightwish, is coming to Tallinn in May. I haven't seen her live yet. I'd like to see her, mostly for the experience, but also because it's kind of a must-see for a Nightwish fan. If I'm also lucky enough to see Nightwish again on this tour, I can say that I've seen all the singers live. Seeing Tarja with Nightwish would be too much to ask for since I was 9 when she left, but this concert will be great, especially since, according to the advertisements, songs of Nightwish  will be performed. They also mentioned Queen, and that's a bonus too. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it.

What else is there.. well, my school has an annual tradition of "Knight tournaments ". A couple is selected from every high school class to represent them. The girl gets to be in the jury as the men compete in various ways to get the attention of the ladies and impress them. It happened again last Friday. For a long time it was unsure who was going for our class. For men, we only had one candidate - Uku, a nice kind of guy who plays violin. For a long time I was the main candidate too, but later it was decided that Jane would go instead. I wasn't affected at all by the decision - it wasn't a big thing for me, plus Jane is really nice. During the tournament we saw a lot more colorful couples - 10b was represented by two men, one of them dressed as a girl and some of the Knight candidates had been celebrating Movember.

This year the knights had to introduce themselves using some given words, then they had two minutes to impress everyone doing whatever it took, then the candidates had to recognize their ladies blindfolded by touching their feet and of course the classics - fencing. While the jury went to decide the winner, the stage was open for a bit. Then the audience was asked if anyone wants to try fencing, me and Kristiina took the bait and I won. The whole event was great entertainment for the audience, since some of the men turned out to be great comedians. When I asked Jane if she had fun, she said it was horrible. To each his own, I guess.
I can't remember exactly who won, I just know it was someone from 12th grade, and that the victory went to the same class third year in a row. If I get my hands on any pictures, I might share them, but for now I wouldn't count on it.

The same evening there was an open stage evening at my old school. It's the only event in my old school where I've always been present. The last one was in spring and it was a lot of fun. The friends I left behind in my old school were performing too, and they did great. One thing I also like about it is that there's no competition at all. Sure, there's a jury and awards but no one really participates for that - people take it as an opportunity to perform with something they're good at and like to do. Before the event I was feeling awkward knowing that I'll have to go to my old school again. Time had made all bad memories feel worse. I called all my old friends to arrange a meeting, and even though they were all too busy because of rehearsals, I was feeling much more confident knowing that people were waiting for me. I didn't want to end up all alone just like I was when I studied there. Luckily that didn't happen. I was always with either Tristan or Maria and Sandra. I also met some of my old classmates. In some cases it felt a bit awkward when people I never really spoke to came to hug me, but I had a nice conversation with some others and I was happy to find out that not much has changed. I noticed that everyone who remembered me was very surprised to see me there. In the end it was an all positive experience.
After the performances they played some party games in which I didn't participate just because I didn't feel like it. Then there was supposed to be something like an afterparty, but unlike last time it wasn't really organized, so most people left. I wasn't there most of the time either - the hall was nearly empty, the music was pretty bad and a little bit too loud. Despite that, we somehow managed to stay till the end. After the party was over, Maria was picked up and me, Sandra and Tristan ended up walking through the old town, just like last time. When we finally made it to the bus station, me and Tristan took a bus home. Tristan sent me all the way to my place and then left. It was a fun evening out with friends, and it made me think a bit more of my old school. I'll probably be attending again when another similar event happens.

..And before I forget, I feel like I must share a very thrilling event from a chemistry lesson at school. The teacher was showing us the common sodium in water experiment. According to my chemistry book, the reaction causes no harm, the worst that can happen is that the hydrogen released during the reaction lights on fire. I know that well, since I saw the same experiment in my old school a few years ago. So we watched the teacher cut a small piece of sodium, small enough to be perfectly safe, and then she put it in a bowl of water. Everything looked perfectly ok. The little piece of metal buzzed around for a while, just like it was supposed to. I even thought it was going to stop for a bit when it slowed down. But then suddenly it sped up a lot, lit on fire, and a few seconds later exploded. The class was extremely thrilled, though it was a very lucky accident. Burning pieces flew in about 1 meter radius, and that's about how far the teacher and the closest students were. The worst that happened was a big cloud of smoke that triggered the fire alarm. The rest of the lesson didn't work out too well, because we had people coming in and asking what's up, and the class couldn't calm down. It's a pity that no one filmed it.

Not long ago, Samuli drew a picture of the fun weekend we had a bit over a month ago; the one I mentioned in the "Everything" post.    His Facebook page

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, when my school will celebrate the independence day of Finland, which is actually on the 6th of December. I don't know what will happen there, I just know I'll be reading some kind of poem in Finnish. I believe it's no big news that Christmas is coming and I'm also quite happy about everything that goes with it - shopping, Christmas parties and so on. Unfortunately my small family doesn't have any big Christmas traditions. How about you, what do you usually do for Christmas?