Day 16 - Officer's Chair

Do you know how sometimes you intend to write something with a specific angle, and end with a certain point, but get carried away with your memories and end up writing something completely different? Well, it happened to me yesterday...

I had intended to write about how I loved that the Medieval market turned me around, and how it made history come alive to me. However, I got too caught up in memories of anger and frustration to finish my original train of thoughts. I am still full of contempt for most of what higher education entails (at least in my country) - the hypocrisy, rigidness and self-righteousness it reeks of is enough to make any resonable person angry. But enough of that... I can make my point today instead ;)

Do I still hate history? Well the word itself still makes me feel aversion, but, I have to say, I really enjoyed spending that day right in the middle of living history. I loved seeing the knights, vendors and ladies in fancy dresses, not to mention the re-enactments and the shows! Wonderful!

I guess the answer is that I love the non-academic side to history - the side that makes me want to explore and enjoy discovery, rather than force-feeding me facts without context. That's the side of history I hate. Not the subject itself, but rather the practices it is associated with. Here's to making history come alive. If you ever have the chance to take part in an event like this, don't hesitate! It's a wonderful experience :)

/MrsHjort

Day 15 - Great Balls of Fire

I've never been interested in history. It was always the subject I found the most boring in school - it was nothing but "years" and "old names" to me, it never came alive and I never really cared for it. Not that I hated it, it was just... meh...

When I went to the uni I really started to hate history... You see, I had to take "The History of Literature" as a part of my education. Sigh... talk about lost potential! I mean what better way is there to make history come alive than through literature? Sadly, that was far from the case. The shear volume of literary works we had to read was staggering in itself, but that's not what made me hate it - I love reading. No, the thing that made me hate it with a burning passion was that the course was accompanied with a list of (I kid you not) hundreds of authors, publishing dates and book-titles that we had to memorize for the final exam. I've never struggled so much with anything in my life! I passed though, and on my first try too. Thank goodness for that! Can you guess how much I can retain today? The answer is next to nothing. Well done uni, well done...

/MrsHjort

Day 20 - Library

This is part of our little library at home. We actually have one, though it's also our guest room with a hide-a-bed :). Anyway, Mr and I have organized it to our taste with genres and series in mind. Though I don't actually know how these three ended up together. Maybe they're all religion to Mr haha.

Me? I'm a fantasy girl. It started with "Lord of the Rings" way, way back, and I've never stopped since. My favorites? Andrzej Sapowski and George R.R. Martin. They have both managed that great feat of bringing a whole new world to life, with all its nuances and complexity. I love that it's not ever "happily ever after" with them, but rather "anything goes". Never before had I encountered fantasy with a higher sense of reality than many other "finer" works of literature. I've read far too much of that, let me tell you, and I never liked it...

A few year back, I studied "English Literature" at the university, or so it was called, even though the works originated from many different countries. We had to read a lot of "fine" works then. Works like "Disgrace", "Pride and Prejudice" and "Beloved"... I hated them all with a roaring passion! Just as I hate the very concept of "finer" literature. Why should one kind of literature be considered "better" than the other? Just because a it's a different genre? It does not automatically make it more enjoyable to read, and that's what counts. I say "to each his own". Read what you like and to disregard the critics. Everything is subjective anyway :)

What do you enjoy reading?

(And if you enjoy "Pride and Prejudice", that's fine too ;) )

/MrsHjort

Day 19 - Bus Stop

This day has been that kind of day when you ask yourself "what more could possibly go wrong" and then yet another thing does...

First off was the coffee vendor at work. It broke down just in time for breakfast and, since I was in charge of "fika" today, I had to run out to buy coffee for the regular coffee maker. On my way to the store, my boots died! The heel of the left one just came straight off! And totally without warning too! I just took another regular step and crack! Off it went! So, I have been walking on tippy toes with one foot and regularly with my other one all day long.

The death of my boots also meant that I could not do the shot I had planned today - since it involved a bit of walking to get to the right place. So, I had to do the shot after work instead, after a stop by my house to change shoes, and that meant shooting after dark. As I got home, I deiced to try out my brand new one legged camera stand. It turned out to be a bad decision though, because it was so cold it was hard to hold it straight (I was shivering), and all shots ended up more or less blurry. Well, at least I got something in today. But ugh! Some days things are just not meant to be! Maybe I should just go to bed now and be done with it...

Sorry for whining, but it's just been one of those days today

/MrsHjort

Idle Winter Walks

So... it took me a while to do this. I promised to go out shooting a while back, and well, what can I say... Winter break became just that for me. I haven't been that lazy for a long time, which has been really nice! After that I went back to work again, but I fell ill for a week, and let me tell you, I haven't felt that ill for long time either. Then came a really busy week catching up, and now I'm finally ready to write a few lines, which, of course, isn't that hard or time consuming when I think about it.

It's kind of silly really, I mean, I shot these weeks ago but I guess I got the writer's cramp, if there is such a thing. Or maybe that's just an excuse and it's just pure idleness... So here I am, writing a more rambling post then I've done in a long time, about nothing. Haha, I should probably remedy that.

Okay, so about that walk... We live quite colse to a creek. Mr and I have a lot of inside jokes about that creek. you see, it's in the middle of town, but the green area it's in has never been well looked after, or managed in any thought through manner what so ever. Basically, it's more of a swamp than a creek. Anyway, the inside joke is that the reason for the municipality's idleness is that there is some kind of endangered creeper living there, like "the fuzzy legged swamp fly", or "the foul smelling snot beetle". I know, I know, we're pretty nerdy, but hey, why keep on wasting a lovely area like that? It could be a lovely park if they just did something about it.

For comparison, I can tell you that the municipality built a culture center a few years back, even though we already have those, in abundance! In fact, some have even been closed down! This new one cost the tax payers several hundred million crowns to build (not including redevelopments due to bad projections), and it has never even brought any profit (quite the opposite in fact)! Things like that really grinds my gears. Getting the creek cleaned up would have been both less expensive, and it would have made a lot more people happier. But hey, lets let those "flappy winged stink gnats" live in peace.

/MrsHjort