Two first things about me
I got tagged over on deviantART (http://sisterz0r.deviantart.com/) to do the "ten things about me"-meme, and it's very slow going for me to write these, so here's the first two things I've written, reposting them here for the reading pleasure of who ever might be interested ^_^
[And I warn you, this really is very long and rambly. I mean, really. But I did try to write about something artistic here and there. And as you can see, it contains extremely embarrasing old pictures that I've made. I guess that's why I added a link to my dA-gallery, to prove that I've advanced at least a little since then, heh.]
"Savann", made by little me in MS Paint. Sadly I don't have any idea when I made this.
But it was a while ago :-D
The First Thing:
Right now there's a huge, elephant-grey couch in the middle of the livingroom of the apartment I share with two other girls. We brought it in from the cold a few hours ago, as it had been left by someone who was moving out. Perfectly functional. It doesn't fit anywhere in our apartment though. But I needed to have it, just in case I might SOMEHOW manage to find a place for it.
This is how most of the furniture we have has been gathered. I can't resist a piece of perfectly usable furniture that someone has thrown away. I go crazy at second-hand stores. Old pretty things fascinate me. Books with pretty covers and pretty insides are a weakness of mine. I can spend an entire weekend staring at one of our rooms, intently focused on trying to figure out the most awesome way to place all the really random, sometimes very ugly, furniture in a way that will create something that resembles a cosy space. And I take great pride in a good result.
And it crosses my mind that: if I had a collection of things that all match eachother perfectly no matter what I do with them, I would lose interest. The joy lies in the creation of something unexpectedly great out of many equally unlikely and unexpected things. If you think like this in general, then life is full of an endless amount of possible combinations of very unrelated things that could turn out to be awesome. But I don't know if I think like that normally. Or perhaps I do, when I remember to.
[addendum: Ha! We just took it out. Finally! It's weird how much space we have. Roomate Erla came up with the brilliant term "space-appreciation". I so totally appreciate the space more now.]
The Second Thing:
Since my way of approaching this meme is to blurt out random things about myself and what is going on right now, I'll continue with the trend and blabber on about something strange for the second one as well. And the thing that's perhaps closest at hand is my tendency to procrastinate with some kind of creative activity. Like writing a journal post while I should be writing a one-pager about some buddhist organisation in Finland. But that might be a bit obvious.
So instead, I'll write this: When I was little, I was the most enthusiastic follower of nature-documentaries, and I horded pretty books about animals and nature (and still do if I have the money). Looking at my bookcase now in my apartment, I have 10 books on nature/animals. The rest is at my parents' place, because I just don't have room for more here. Mammals was of course the main attraction, but birds also have their charm. And flowers of course, but that came a little later. I never was much for reptiles or insects. But fish could be fun. Sub-Saharan Africa, with the savannahs (especially Serengeti) and rainforests, and wetlands (like the Okavango delta) had/has a special place in my heart. And I'm proud to say that my knowledge of different climates/places/habitats was and is quite extensive, and I knew the names of most every mammal, and I can still recognize animals that most people've never heard of. I used to pour over the books for hours and hours.
And I had this CD-ROM by Windows Home called "Dangerous Creatures", concerning endangered species. From this CD I learned to respect the morena eel and the barracuda (barracudas most often travel in huge schools, but even a lone barracuda can be quite dangerous). Of course, it was a very popularised (dare I say: americanised) depiction, but it was like candy for me when I was young. And now I got really inspired to dig out that CD again. Heh! I actually have it in my shelf here as well.
Researching animals and nature was my hobby when I was young, and using the pictures from my books as reference, I'd draw a lot of animals, very badly :lol: One of my favorite things to watch is still BBC's series "Planet Earth". It's super pretty, so I guess I haven't changed much. I can still get stuck looking through illustrated encyclopedias of animal life.
What I realise, of course, is that by objectifying "nature" and "animals" in this way -- like they were something outside of everyday life, some curious little detail about the world -- it might make me sound quite shallow. But my interest in the subject is dual: nature and animals has a clear aestetic appeal to me, I get a lot of inspiration for the imagery of nature documentaries; but I am (and was already when quite young) very much aware of myself as a part of the natural world, even here far up in the North where biodiversity almost seems to be shunned by people. But I guess I can't get away from my very rooted opinion; that nature is just so insanely EPIC. But I guess that's alright, it's not the worst opinion one can have.