2004-01-25

This one time, at band camp...

This weekend was the choir camp in Siuntio, two days of non-stop singing. Well, not quite. But two days of practicing the new stuff for this spring, and lots of fun. A new thing from the last time was a quartet practice, we split out into nearly randomly chosen quartets, practiced a song, and the performed it to the rest of the choir.

I'm finally starting to remember how to read the sheet music, and don't have too much difficulties singing prima vista (given the right starting tone, of course, as I don't have an absolute pitch) any more. And although the spring selection quite significantly consists of christian music and thus not my favourite kind of music, the whole set sounds good, even the never-ending Choralpassion.

2004-01-01

Can you teach an old dog some new tricks?

It is now the year 2004, and the world hasn't changed that much, really. I've decided to write some or even most of the things in my blog in English from now on, in an attempt to have it a bit more understandable to my non-Finnish friends. That's about all the promises I am willing to make for this year, I won't promise to find a cure for cancer or a perfect "alternative" energy source.

So, a short recap of the past year: I started my blog just under a year ago, in late January 2003, mostly whining about the technical problems I had at the time with my internet connection. As soon as I had that sorted out, I tried to renew the design of my web pages, and ran into problems with cascading style-sheets (CSS). In February I took part in the Academic Kyykkä World Championship games, but our team was not victorius, hopefully this year will bring us closer to the gold. The rest of the spring was rather quiet, I started my first batch of mead in April, and later it turned out pretty much OK, no off-tastes, but a tad too little honey.

Early summer consisted pretty much of working, cycling and swimming, I didn't have time to do much else. In July I went to Lapland, the home of lap dancing. No, wait... Well, Lapland anyways. I made a couple of short test hikes, and there's a more than reasonable probability that I will do it again someday, but with more time and a few friends. Climbing (more like walking uphill) to the top of Mount Saana was well worth the effort, even with my camera gear as an extra 15kg of weight. Too bad the clouds were low and plenty, so I didn't get too many good pics from there.

The came the Fall. Almost literally, too. After a good number of years of persuasion I finally gave in, and joined the choir, Wiipurilaisen Osakunnan Laulajat. It has certainly been one of the best decision of the year, I've met plenty of old friends, and host of new ones there. Some have asked if I'm sorry I didn't join earlier, and I have to say that I'm not. Looking back in time, I can't see myself having enough free time to take on a hobby like this, so it's not even an issue for me.

Then it was already December and Yule, and another year came to an end. The New Year's party was a lot of fun, just like they always are. I joined the choir party, and we went to the Senaatintori and sang on the top of the steps of Tuomionkirkko with some other people, probably got filmed on TV for a change, as it was an official event, and we also might have had just a little bit to drink. I did not party till dawn, as the sunrise was after 9 a.m. but I was up well before sunset, and had a short walk in the fresh winter weather, shaking out the cobwebs from my head.

Things I've set myself to do this year:
1) Transfer the server onto a new computer, which already exists
2) Figure out more things to do as time goes by.

I guess that pretty much covers all I have to say right now, so I'll save the rest for the next entry, whenever that might be.