The past month

Finally, an update. About time. Some glimpses:

A sunday in April:

"Yesterday was a good day,
of wandering on sun-kissed city streets,
a man bicycling by, whistling a merry tune,
sun-warmed asphalt and stone walls radiating heat"

A sunday in May, very much similar as above but warmer still, about +20 C and blazing sun. Also a contrasting mood:

"In the metro, a sad sight on this brilliant day - yet, tragically, not an unusual one: two alcoholics, a man and a woman, their features degraded by years (decades?) of alcohol abuse so that they look almost identical, as if they were twins. Ages: impossible to guess. The woman drones on and on about a horse - I get the vague idea that it may be a childhood memory - her words intercepted with frequent expletives."

Quite enjoyable recent developments: my brother and sister-in-law encouraged me to join the list of assistant writers for the University of Helsinki magazine. The people in this list can sign up for journalistic "gigs" - go listen to a seminar or whatever the task might be and write a short news item (of c. 1500 characters) for the magazine. I had my first gig a week ago and enjoyed the experience a lot. My brother gave me a frank review, and it was fun to learn the difference between academic writing and the style of writing required in a publication which popularized science. I've got the next gig this coming week already. Very much looking forward to it! Not only is this enjoyable but it also gives CV merits in freelance writing which I aspire to have. 

Starting from next week I'm going to be otherwise busy, however, as I'm beginning the summer university computer science studies which I plan to complete by the end of this summer.

More upsetting news in the country: the rightwing, "immigration-critical" (that's what they call themselves) populist party PS (True Finns) became the third largest party in April's parliamentary elections, with 19% of the votes. This means they will definitely get in the government. Worst of all, their worst racist was appointed head of the parliamentary committee in charge of immigration issues. This guy has opinions like: an individual's human value should depend on how instrumental he/she is to the society. That's practically fascism. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the news. The only good side in this situation is that the PS don't really have a consistent programme: very typically for populist parties they just promise whatever people want to hear. It's easy to shout out things in the opposition but being in the government is a much more difficult deal.

Ok, a part of the fault lies in the traditional parties' failure to deliver, but I still can't believe 19% of Finns are moronic enough to vote for PS. Not EVERYONE of the party's representatives is a raving racist but a great percentage of the supporters definitely is. And it's another thing I can't believe: why is it so easy to get people to blame the easy targets for their problems? Unemployment? Temp jobs? Economic uncertainty? It MUST be the fault of all those immigrants who come here and steal our jobs!

Some personal success

Oops, and a full month has passed since I last blogged. I've had a lot to do lately and not really anything to blog about. I received some very exciting news the other day however: a new photo sale through the photo bureau - but this time to a Finnish monthly magazine with over 700 000 readers and over 230 000 subscribers. Good as that sounded, I thought it would probably be a small picture not very prominently displayed. Of course I made my way to the closest news stand and had quite a surprise: page 7, FULL page, AND my name clearly displayed! Here is a scan of the page:

The title is 'dizzying sun!' and it's all about the spring sun and light, so I very much like the context where my picture appears. You might even say that the picture is the main thing in the piece, because there's only one other page with comments by four people about the spring.

This is really good news, not only because it's a big magazine but also because it's only one of many in the roster of a big publishing house. Since my name and the photo bureau address are printed in the picture, I'm hoping it will be effective as an advertisment for my work.

New resolve

It's a very long time indeed since I've last updated my blog, but in the meantime I have found new resolve an inspiration: I have decided to go back to studying, Computer Science. I will start with the 25 study points base studies at the open university during the summer. These include the basics of Computer Science, basics of programming and databases and a practice work which involves creating a small piece of software and documenting the process. This will mean at least 40 hours/week - and they actually warn against doing all of it in one summer - but I think it's doable because I am both bright and have good concentration skills. This, with good enough grades, will enable me to apply for a decree at the uni without taking the entrance exam if that seems the right path. I am going to discuss with the Computer Science department study counsellor about the different options. An option might also be self-acquired skills rooted in the base studies, as the computer stuff is about doing rather than theory. We'll see.

Computer Science is something I'm really interested in, as I am a self-confessed computer geek and proud of it. This month, I'm taking part in the employment office's training for doctors (job-finding strategies etc) and today was the first day (two more days in March). Today already gave me lots to think about. The big thing was: they emphasized the importance of concentrating on a main focus and working for it determinedly. So, while I had the Computer Science idea before, this strengthened my resolve. During the day, I also thought about WHAT specifically I am interested in with computers. These include:

-Web and other IT solutions in historical research (e.g. databases).

-Web and other IT solutions for teaching history, the sort that make history interesting and fun for kids, kids like my elder nephew who think history is just a load of stories someone invented about things that happened a long time ago.

-Website stuff/publishing involving photography and writing.

Sense of Snow

Here, a few snow pictures from one of the sunny days we've had recently here.

And here, a little video from sunday:

It's funny how the sun at this time of the year always seems so miraculous, like a rebirth even, even though I logically know that days like this do come every year, eventually.

Nothing new to report on the job front, although I was informed today that the employment office is going to arrange in March a three-day course for their customers who have PhD, on the demands of modern work life, employment strategies and such. It's going to involve not only information but home assignments, group discussions and exercises etc. which all sound useful, so I signed up. Hopefully it will meet the expectations. Otherwise pretty much as before: writing work, photography, T.S. Eliot. Quite many movies too, all not at all incidentally featuring one Mr. Firth. His latest, King's Speech, is a stunning film, not only because of his performance but all the other roles, cinematography and all aspects. One thing I didn't expect was how much humour it has. I was expecting a very straight, even a tragical drama. Firth's previous film, A Single Man by Tom Ford made an equal impression on me. I had missed it originally when it was in theaters but saw it now. Such an acting performance in this one as well. To understand this one need only to see the scene where George receives a phone call that his lover of 16 years has died in a car accident.

Those ardent, long gazes...

I recently borrowed my sister-in-law's DVD box of the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and yesterday got to watching it - the first time since the series was first broadcast in the 90s. Generally speaking I'm not really into romantic films and tv shows, because when the only subject matter is the romance, there needs to be real chemistry between the leading actors. That rarely happens, I find. But I make an exception on this version of Pride and Prejudice - as well as another Jane Austen adaptation, Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen's novels are not just about romance and girls' (and their mothers') marriage aims. They are also wonderful in their gentle humour on the manners and mannerisms of Austen's own time and in their depiction of women's lot in an era, where the only way for a woman to survive was to find a financially secure man to marry. The tv and film adaptations I mentioned capture all this perfectly. As for the romance, the chemistry is definitely there. Me, I'm a sucker for those ardent, long looks and great passions relayed in subtle and outwardly restrained gestures and expressions. And oh yes, Mr. Darcy is indeed most agreeable.

That monday feeling...

On thursday, on my way to my brother's, I was delighted to find that ditch with open water. The white snow and the dark waters made such a visually exciting photographic opportunity in black and white. And: I so love having a camera that does what I want it to do.

***

I have a bit of a monday feeling of there being nothing interesting whatsoever happening. Undoubtedly the miserable weather fits the mood: wind and thick, wet snow coming from the skies. But I'd rather it be something that made it enjoyable to leave the house and make the day more interesting. If only it stopped snowing, at least. A good, long wandering around the city, that's what I'd like. Apparently, it's the sea's fault, all this snow and cloudy skies: most of it is not properly frozen, even close to the shores.

I have made some progress in the job search: so far, three schools have let me know that they'll add me to their lists of persons available for substitute teaching tasks. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that there'll be work: the teachers may not get ill, and let's face it, Latin isn't something that's studied by masses of students outside the universities (and not even there). But at least it's something. Summer job announcements are beginning to be available, so I'm looking into those. I already sent an application for a job at the city archives of the neighbouring town. Secondly, I noticed Summer University accepts applications for teaching tasks. Since their courses include history and Latin, I sent an application. What about gardening work in the city cemeteries? Hm... that's tricky. It can be lovely if the summer is beautiful (Yes! Even though I am not exactly famous for a penchance for physical work!). But what if it rains all the time?

Naturally, I'm also continuously looking for any university and research funding opportunities. There are four research grants to apply for by mid to late February alone. I still haven't heard of the articles but hopefully will not too long from now.

Well, if I don't get any kind of employment, at least it won't be for lack of trying!

A lovely bit of zen, and other things

I had a lovely moment of zen photography today - or rather yesterday, as of the (late) time of writing this. I love it when that happens: when you find a subject that inspires you and there's that concentration. It can be quite meditative.

The zen moment was followed by a visit to my brother's. As usual, a very lovely evening - which ended in a game of Monopoly with my younger nephew. A 6-year-old's rules to any game are somewhat confusing and seem quite random - and usually  are manipulated in the course of the game to always benefit the said 6-year-old. This time, for instance, I ended up in a lot owned by my nephew and was about to pay the rent required by the game rules as is right and proper, when a "guard" in the guise of a wizard appeared and I was told to pay 5 million euros immediately. Oh well, the modern Monopoly - at least this version - uses credit cards rather than cash so it hardly felt like paying.

On the same visit, I borrowed my elder nephew's massage chair - one of those things you can put on e.g. the computer chair. It gives a really good and strong shiatsu massage, so it's going to be a bliss.

I have progressed in my job search plans, in addition to sending two applications for jobs I had looked up earlier, in the way of posting an open application in the city of Helsinki recruitment pages and looking up all the secondary schools which offer Latin courses. My plan is to contact the principals to enquire whether they might accept an open application for substitute teacher tasks and such. Many of them may well get all the necessary persons for any teaching tasks from the department of classical philology of the university and they may even prefer formal teacher qualifications but it's at least worth looking into. Some of the comprehensive schools offer Latin as well, but... run away, run away! The idea of teaching comprehensive school kids going through puberty... *shiver*. In any case, I'm looking into all the options (with the aforementioned exception). I'm what I like to call a realistic optimist: I believe something will turn up eventually - but not necessarily immediately and not if I'm not active in looking for it myself.

I'll end this with a quote, for no other reason than that I love it - although the time of the night that I'm writing is the same as described in the lines.

And under the oppression of the silent fog

The tolling bell

Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried

Groundswell, a time

Older than the time of chronometers, older

Than time counted by anxious worried women

Lying awake, calculating the future,

Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel

And piece together the past and the future,

Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,

The future futureless, before the morning watch

When time stops and time is never ending;

And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,

Clangs

The bell. 

My plans for this year

Well, I did NOT get the position at the University of Oulu. Financially and in terms of the CV it's of course a disappointment, but on the other hand it means I don't have to leave Helsinki. Luckily I have found five other opportunities to apply for at the moment: two museum guide jobs (one full time, one part time), in addition to which I'm going to send an open application to the Helsinki adult education centre for teaching tasks in their Latin courses. Then there are two research grants to apply for until February 15th. The first three I'm writing the applications for this week, the two last mentioned I'm going to wait with, should either of the two articles I'm waiting to hear from be accepted.

My aim is to find SOME form of employment/source of income by April, which is when I'm due for my next control visit to the unemployment office. The money situation is not my main motivator. It's rather the desire to get rid of the control. I became exasperated with it in the past two weeks, having to try and get a hold of the owner of the photo bureau for a receipt for 36,5 euros (prior to taxes) worth of photo sales, in order to send it to the National Insurance Institution. The thing is, if you get unemployment benefits, you have to report any such income that is regarded as work income, however small, and it affects the amount of unemployment benefit they pay. The photo bureau pays photo sales to a photographer in May if the photographer's portion is at least 100 euros, and in December with any sum. Should I in the meantime collect photo sales for at least 200 euros, I can ask for payment anytime. But as it is now, I have to do the maths very carefully, because if any benefit gained from photo sales is eaten up by the reduction in the unemployment benefit, it's not really worth it to ask for payment.

My second goal for this year is to see my photo sales through the photo bureau increase so much that each individual sale will cease to feel special. Last year and the start of this year has shown promising development to that effect: six picture sales so far, four of these appearing in the sales list between November and now. I'm particularly pleased about the latest sale, which was a picture involving some artistic ambition (as opposed to being a basic documentative picture) (LINK). This desire to see the picture sales increase is not about greed or purely about the money only (although that is nice). It's the idea of gaining some income from your creative work and finding that others like your pictures enough to buy them. It's fun to see who have purchased your pictures. So far it has been private individuals, the ministry of environment, a medical journal, an advertising firm and the Helsinki Commission (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission).

I have also since a few months begun to participate in what photo competitions I come across if I happen to have or take pictures that are appropriate for the themes of the competition. It's a good, alternative way to try and get some visibility for your pictures, especially as pictures that might be successful in a photo competition are often different from good, i.e. sellable photo bureau photos.

A picture to make one think

The handwritten sticker, found attached to the glass of a tram stop in central Helsinki, reads: "Go ahead and judge" (or "Judge away"). 

Who put that sticker there and for what purpose? Did someone simply think it a cool sounding phrase without a more profound purpose or was it a comment? If it is a comment, what is it about? 

It could be an anti-anything statement, by someone who thinks it's completely right to judge whatever or whoever he or she doesn't approve. Perhaps it was a supporter of the True Finns party who has what the party likes to call a "critical attitude towards immigration" (in most cases amounting to not much more than 'most immigrants don't need protection, they're just here to take our jobs'). Or maybe a Christian fundamentalist who doesn't approve of gays.

Or, it could be a comment AGAINST judgemental attitudes and prejudice, prejudices about specific things or prejudice in general: prejudicial people can go on all they want, it's all just empty talk that has no power to hurt.

It could also be something personal: someone's anonymous comment about judgemental attitudes he or she had met.

What do you think it's about?

Helsinki - Two January Moods

Saturday, 8 January

Thursday, 6 January

A beautiful thought

Wanted to post, partly just to write it down. In reading T.S. Eliot's letters, I found this thought which I found so beautiful, in a letter that he wrote to his mother on 30 December 1917. This was about a family album of photographs that his brother Henry had taken and sent to him, and he and Vivien had had delightful time looking at the pictures and showing them to friends.

"It gives one a strange feeling that Time is not before and after, but all at once, present and future and all the periods of the past, an album like this." 

Was it partly thoughts like this that came back to Eliot's mind much later in the early 1930's, when he wrote the first lines of Burnt Norton - not so much in the meaning of the lines but how to express them?

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past

Also, in East Coker, there is:

There is a time for the evening under starlight,

A time for the evening under lamplight

(The evening with the photograph album).

I suppose at least a part of the reason why Eliot's thought about the photograph album so delighted me is my own passion for photography.

How to Make an Igloo - the Urban Method

Author: unknown - but may have been the same who elsewhere had written in snow: 'Eat porridge you brave one.' That made me smile :-) 

Even poets need undergarments

So I went and got the two volumes of The Letters of T.S. Eliot at the uni library. They are surprisingly thorough, some 900 pages each. I partly read, partly browsed through the first of them, a revised edition of the original, published in 2009 (I was going to say 'published last year' but we are freshly in 2011 now). It adds 200 pages to the original edition of 1988. Included indeed are several wartime (1st world war) letters of Vivien Eliot to T.S.'s mother, in which she details the state of Tom's woollen undergarments (several are in need of darning), grieves their expensiveness and tells how she all the same has been able to obtain some items of clothing. What the letters reveal is... life, getting on with life. I'm not sure what the editors' intention was with such hefty volumes. Perhaps simply to present things 'as is' rather than to create a particular kind of impression with a more selective publishing of the letters. Of course, in a different sense the volumes are NOT thorough, as Eliot burned a good part of his correspondence, for example of his student years at Harvard.

So far, I don't find the letters particularly relevant to my experience of Eliot's poetry. They neither add to nor take away from it, although they do offer some interesting background to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land (Eliot's nervous breakdown, his correspondence with Ezra Pound regarding the poem's editing). My favourites, I think, are Eliot's letters to his cousing Eleanor Hinkley, in which he at times details his 'great ten reel cinema drama' he says he is working on or relates his impressions of people and surroundings. This in Marburg, Germany, July 1914:

"Here I am, safely out of harm's way, settled in the bosom of the family of the Lutheran Pastor, and the church is right across the street. I have just been to church, and feel as good as gold. This will not be an exciting sumer, but I think a pleasant one, though I hope you will not circulate any gossip about me and the Pastor's daughter. She is named Hannah. In the evening, when we gather about the lamp, and the Herr Pfarrer takes a nap and composes his thoughts, and the ladies sew needlework, then the Frau Pfarrer says 'Ach Hannah, spiel uns ein Stuck Beethoven', ['Oh, Hannah, play us a bit of Beethoven'] and Hannah spiels for 15 minutes. Hannah also sings, and can talk a little French and English (but she hasn't tried it on me). Then we read the paper, and discuss the Balkan Question, and the difference in climate between America and Deutschland. Altogether they are aw'f'ly good people, and we all eat a great deal."

This in London, March 1915:

"Beside Belgians, there is a very pretty Miss Cobb whose mother was a Bostonian (I don't know what her name was); the mother is an odd fluttering person who is evidently looking out for her daughter, and lays compliments very thick (I know this because I have seen her laying them on to other people); she never talks to me for five minutes without bringing out Julia Ward Howe, whom she knew in Boston, and evidently considers a very illustrious person. - A very tiresome person, I should say, for all the anecdotes about her end by making her recite the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' (like Mrs Leo Hunt[er]'s '[Ode to an] Expiring frog) which I always considered pure bombast. But Miss Cobb is very nice. Then there are the Petersens, a mother with three daughters. Unfortunately the beautiful one (really very beautiful indeed) is the younger one, aged sixteen or so; and, as in the Taming of the Shrew, the interests of the elder are consulted first. This is really a very nice girl however; she plays the fiddle and raises white rats, and we have lots in common - at least I shall have to take her punting next term. I should like English girls better if they were not so completely managed by their mothers - but perhaps it is merely that the ones I have met have been rather young."

And this in March 1917 when he started work at Lloyds Bank:

"I share an office with Mr McKnight, who lives in a suburb, cultivates a kitchen garden out of hours, polishes his silk hat with great care when he goes out, and talks about his eldest boy."

So why did I get the volumes of letters as just in the previous post I had professed that biographical details of an artist are not important? Curiosity I suppose. One thing the letters confirm is a thing familiar from most artist biographies: the road of an aspiring artist, one who seeks to make a career as an artist, has always been a rocky one, in all times of history. For several years after their marriage, T.S. and Vivien Eliot were at trouble to make ends meet. Now the general standard of living and the safety network of the welfare state may be better but it's still as difficult to make a name as an artist, even less so to earn enough for a living with one's art.