How to make a Geek.

Adam Savage has a podcast -the Adam Savage Project-  and I find it one of the most inspiring things out there. I browsed back to the first few episodes, and one standing out I think is episode 3, on being a geek dad.

It's amazing listening to geeks, first of all. They're people filled with excitement for whatever they are passionate about, which can be anything. Isn't that cool? In this podcast episode it's all about how to allow your kid to find out what his/her passion is, and to enable him/her to do that wholeheartedly. For Adam, it was crafting, making things out of other things. For his kids, it's music. It's all possible, and it's all equally awesome!

One quote towards the end of the broadcast stood out in particular:

'...enabling your kid to be obsessive, and then allowing them to fail.' 

I find the ideas they pitch here fascinating, and hope I can mirror them some day in the future. It's not easy when, as a kid, you're wanting to learn ballet, only to hear after class that you're not dancing the right way. As mentioned in this podcast, such an attitude makes a kid too self conscious which backfires at a later age. For me it sure did.

I often feel silly and stupid for the things I chose to like as a result of a lot of negative feedback in the early years. I love mushrooms, for instance, and in autumn I like to go out and about collecting them with the mushroom knife, and determine my finds later on. but in the back of my head there's always that voice belittling my hobbies, saying they're dumb, saying I am not doing it right.

Therefore, from now on, I too shall live with the passion of a geek. It's good enough to merely be interested in something, find out about it, make it your own. There is no right or wrong. Working in a fashion-y field made me interesting in sewing, and a week ago I made three pillow cases, and I felt amazing.

Let's hear it for the Geeks!

   

Friday freakout - what topped the scale this week

It's Friday! Time for a healthy dose of reflection upon the events of the week.

Last week HSK exam: went horrible. Don't want to talk about it. if you still make me, I'll talk nothing but Mandarin Chinese with ye for the rest of your days remaining. In a taxi driver's accent. Ye'd be warned.

a preview:

Last Saturday: international Finland day. Lots of dresses. Because i have the short term memories comparable to a goldfish, I forgot how to type 'dress parade' in Finnish into Google, so that gallery is still in draft.

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Aired! But I still haven't seen it becausr the links don't work. I'm patient though. I read a very interesting article on Jezebel, concerning the Angles and their candy consumption. I can only pray that is true, now I have another reason to squeeze myself into the castings for next year. Speaking of candy: 2005! in all their glory

I asked for directions on the modelling forum, and my-oh-my did I hear about it! Dull, one dimensional, non-artistic, boring, un-inspiring slab of junk you are Doris! One fellow made me cry, but it's possible my ladyparts were responsible for that too a little bit cos it's the chocolate time of the month.

So now I'm leaning how to code. #nerdsrule

China's neglected backyard

Hebei province seen from the train looks like China's neglected backyard. I noticed that on one of my last trips for work. 'Work', where getting dressed up as princess Bubblegum means a positive turn of events.

Usually any of the train trips I had to take so far it was foggy (= heavily polluted) and therefore I was unable to look around much. Or, we left ridiculously early (or late) so it was already dark. One time, however, it was squeaky bright. I could see Tianjin and the Tianjin tower from the window of my train, and before that moment I only knew of Tianjin because one of the stations we'd pass was called 'Tianjin West'. Also there were villages, and abandoned factories, and piles of stuff, and peasants toiling in the heat. All by all, it looked like a neglected backyard (a backyard nonetheless).

I must have pictures somewhere that will paint a picture. Once I took as video as we crossed the Yellow River (in fog and haze), other times I'd try to commemorate the view in combination with a can of beer, which is never the same on a Chinese train (I've only boarded high speed trains in China. Don't judge! Train travel is still my favorite way of travel. Czech trains in particular. Go try them!).

I've sipped through quite a few epic cans (because there were a lot of trips *ahem*, not so much because I felt a need to drink my sorrows away, although that was usually the case after the gig). There was a specific type that 'American Troopers'  preferred apparently, and there was a beer from Tibet.

And I always felt obligated to, in the first place, plop myself down into the restaurant car the minute the train would start moving. There are plugs there for my laptop, and without chord the screen goes black after 15 minutes. Also, more often than not, the travel companions weren't always the coziest.

Anyway. Let me see what material I can snort up from the hidden nooks and crannies of both phone, camera and hard drive.

This is either very annoying, or incredibly sad, but please tilt your head a 90 degrees to the right in order to view properly. Weekly quiz: what's the guy in the background saying? Send in your lucky guess before next week, and maybe you're the lucky winner of a fresh batch of uncontaminated Yellow River silt!