More Tags

I have been tagged again by Jay a.k.a. Dat from DatMoney.com. There are actually three different tags for three different things from which people can choose.

The first is the Birthday meme I already did in November so I can skip that.

To the second meme Jay was tagged by Cotojo and here I have to tell seven weird things about me. That is not even hard. I think most things I do seem weird to other people

1. Let’s start from the beginning: I was 2 or 3 years old and my mother tried to take a nap and was singing a lullaby to me. I was not sleepy and at some point I asked my mother: “Are you crazy?”
2. I had a imaginary friend named Kaisa when I was too young to go to school. I obviously had really seen her based on my parents’ descriptions.
3. I was actually very shy when I was younger. I think that I was about 30 until I got rid of that.
4. At 17 when we had a week’s winter vacation I spent it solving Geometry problems
5. I tend to save everything: Old bills I have paid, old lessons I have been listening to, or I have held myself. You never can know when they turn out to be useful, except I don’t have much of a chance to find them any more.
6. I am a candloholic. I buy originally looking candles every time I see on in the shop or the flea market. I of course burn them, too, but at the moment my shopping speed is bigger than the burning speed. I also like candle holders.
7. I collect every Japanese puzzle I see. It can be a book or a magazine, a single puzzle from the daily paper or a puzzler downloaded from some website. I have enough puzzles for the next 3 generations at least. My grand-grand-children are going to think I have been totally nuts. Conceptis makes enough puzzles. I can’t even solve all of their weekly variety in one week and still I must get a new book or a Conceptis magazine by ordering them from abroad

The third tag to Jay is from Julie in which I’m supposed to go through my archives and choose five favorite posts about my family, friends, myself, something I love and lastly, one of my choice.

1. family: Second day in school
2. friends: Reasons to blog
3. myself: What do Puzzles, Finland and Spanish Wine have in common – Conceptis
4. Something I love is definitely the Pic-A-Pix-puzzles and
5. One of my own choice tells about the amazing Internet phenomena in Finland.

And I tag my recent friends who have written their comments on my blog:

Nature Nut /JJ Loch from Nature Shows and Dreams
RennyBA from Renny BA's Terella
pussreboots from Puss Reboots
April from Nature At My Doorstep
itot54joni from which ever blog he chooses
Cyberpunk from CYBERPUNK'S SO-CALLED LIFE

You can answer which ever meme you choose or do the birthday meme, just follow the link above.

My new calendar

I had almost forgotten that I had the Conceptis battleships calendar for this year. I was very delighted when I realized this morning that I can start solving. The calendar has 6 battleships per week and the week starts with easy puzzles The one for the weekend is the hardest. Today is Tuesday and the puzzle was rated very easy. I can sometimes mess up with those also but this solved almost by itself. Now I am anxiously waiting for tomorrow when I can solve the next. I am not sure if I really am a puzzle/day person. I have had to solve other puzzles instead :)

Happy New Year 2008

Bookcrossing

Have you ever heard about Bookcrossing?

It means releasing books in the wild. I heard about this concept in the radio probably 5 years ago and at the time I thought I would never find a free book anywhere. Then suddenly in February this year I found a book in the lobby of the school I am teaching in. I was wondering who had forgotten the book there. I was so excited when I found out a book which was released.

It goes like this. You can register books from your bookshelf to Bookcrossing. Then you get an ID-number for the book and you have to add labels and the ID-number to the book cover. Then you just release it; leave it somewhere for other people to find it and read it. You must also make a journal entry to the Bookcrossing webpage about where and when you released the book.

If you find a book, you go to the webpage, fill in the ID-number of the book and make a journal entry where and when you found it and what are your intentions: are you going to read it or release it again. For this you don’t even have to be a member.

When I found the first book I joined when I reported it found. I read about other books and releases. There were many interesting stories about books which were lost for a long time and then suddenly popped up far away from where they originally were released. By far away I mean the other side of the earth.

I read the book and I took it with me to London. I intended to release it there but all the metro stations and trains were filled with warnings about not leaving anything behind because it was suspected to be a bomb. I again took it with me to Israel but forgot to leave it there. My daughter took it with her and finally left it in Rome. Any entry about anyone finding it has not shown up.

You can also find out where in your neighbourhood you could find books that are released but not reported to be found. My daughter who has already released some books gave me a hint that people leave books under the huge Christmas tree in front of the Dome of Turku. I went to look and I found one :)

I have been thinking to release my own books, too. Frankly I have too many in my bookshelves anyway. I think I’ll do it next summer when I have more time to do all the preparations.