So I needed a means to relax while I'm off work and not on the computer...

...I finally bought myself my first very own sewing machine since I moved out of my mother's house. Which was about time, since I'm 25 already.

I can make clothes. I admit I am a bit rusty, but I can construct just about anything from simple everyday wear to period clothing (which I've been told I should make for sale... I'll consider it some day, probably to kill time some day when I'm pregnant or at home with my kids, but that is years in the future).

I decided it's time to get my routine back up by starting easily. So what did I come up with?

Traditional plush toys!

And to add to something... I'm also going to at some point construct a tutorial for how to wrap pretty gifts, since I actually got one request for such... But that's going to take a bit of time. I'm trying to get my projects off the ground in a way that enables me to actually finish something I started before getting on with the next one. Right now, the something is going to be one plush bunny-wabbit for my godchild Anton (he's 15 months old now and loves animals) and a Waldorf-inspired doll with a bit of a wardrobe for my niece Taika (her name means Enchantment in Finnish, how cool is that?! )

And I promised myself I'd save money somewhere. That means one less Latte a week at a coffee shop downtown, and making my own lunches to office shifts at work more often than not. That means homemade salmon and chevre croissants with a salad and lentil soup for tomorrow... Costs less than your average microwave meal.

Feedback on my madness and if it's a good or bad or worse idea is welcome in comments

I saw an article about Mary Donaldson, who is these days called Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, and wouldn't have thought much of it, but then I spotted the comments after that blog. They threw me, if not into a fury, at least into a state of wanting to rant.

[link]

Considering what duties come along with marrying into royalty, Mary's done a great job and seems to have found a balance after a few anorexia scares. I grew up to know the things she is being taught and coached in by heart, but that world is not something I heartily adopt.

Yes, I am as at home in a trench as having tea with the Queen, but that is not my point here. I feel more comfortable in that trench than in a palace. Same as I am more at home masquerading as a stablehand than being the lady being helped onto the horse or digging around in a garden to grow my own food rather than get it carried in front of me by a waiter from the kitchen where a chef is attending to my needs.

Actually, what really seems to differentiate those born into nobility from those who are married into the family in my circles is that the married in relatives try to adopt a romanticised ideal, while we who have lived in the world our lives, be it my 25 or my great grandmother's 89 years in life, see things differently. You can very well find a Dame or a Baroness digging happily around in her own country house's garden or cooking something small for the guests to enjoy, while still being considered perfectly stylish in rubber boots and a weather-hardy coat. Weather where I grew up is frightful, and you can't prance around the countryside in a ball-gown and tiara.

Those commenting to that fashion blog with hostility might be a little wry of the fact someone else snatched a prince. Would you be willing to give up your own pursuits to become a public figure whose main purpose in life is to provide your husband with an heir, preferably a whole gaggle of kids, pursuing and sponsoring charities, opening museum exhibits and doing so without ruffling your hair or breaking a sweat, with distant coolness and poise? It takes a lifetime of practice for most of the people who do it. Your body and womb becomes property of the state, and everything you do out of the ordinary royal routines is splattered across tabloids with pictures.

My guess is, after reading that through with thought, especially if you are still entertaining hopes of a shining career elsewhere, you choose to stick to your old life.

I was raised to become a "breeding mare" to nobility in Europe, even in this time and day, a few sirs were even presented to me as suitable candidates since I was about 12! My bloodline is ancient, and several names pop up in history books even today. The families don't exactly advertise it, but ladies of pedigree are still expected to behave like good wives and education in things like art is more acceptable than pursuing a business degree, since you're expected to marry into families of (old) money and titles and enter a life of idle pursuits of art and charity, while your husband is the main breadwinner, even if his stock holdings are more than enough to provide you with interest to fund your fashion sense.

And though I've dated my fair share of sirs with a varying configuration of yachts and summer villas, it's just not worth it to me. And publicity when you don't want it... Even if the reason was magazines being interested in the female Marine and not the lady. I chose to rebel, which at the same time efficiently will exclude me from most wills in the family. So everything I have now is earned with my own labour.

Took me years, but I am now happily getting engaged to a regular, down-to-earth guy I love. And since in the Americas, people's reactions to hearing a mention of a title have been pretty much "oh, you're royalty?", I have very strictly started just referring to myself with a down-to-earth nickname in stead of the more unusual name, which is traditionally that of royalty. I can't shake my accent that speaks of a private education in multiple languages, but on a new continent I can forge a new life without being labelled as Daddy's Little Rich Girl as I've been for my entire life back home in Europe.

The women who end up marrying into positions such as Mary are under massive stress to behave according to a certain set of principles, are expected to not make fools out of themselves in front of the press, and if something is wrong with them, for example if stress is gnawing away at their sanity, they can't openly put their hands up and state they quit. The threshold for seeking help in such a public position is higher than for the little pop divas with their drug abuse problems.

In a time of the 24 hour clock, it is sometimes ridiculously hard if not nigh impossible to relax. I have both work and studies, and my skills at multitasking have greatly diminished. I lack the energy to focus on my old hobbies or on my spiritual life and sometimes, I am convinced I am not the only one, I just feel the brunt of it, as I am and always have been a very emotional person, giving every venture I undertake all I have, energy, time and sometimes, it seems like a part of my soul is woven into projects.

The stress sweeps over me, making me feel as if there's nothing left that I can do to keep my sanity, and then, I see my darling familiar, a son of a crook and scoundrel of a 20lbs tomcat who made a litter with a tiny pedigree cat laying on his back in a sunny spot on the floor and all worries wash away.

There are plenty of things we should learn from cats and other animals we live with. They are caring, and protect us from the little demons of stress and worry. With a dog, you can't stay in bed, crying, you need to get up, get dressed and go out with the pooch when he needs to go.

My Ronnie looks so adorable when he's asleep or chasing a fly around the home. He knows of no worries and keeps telling me everything is going to be alright when I feel like sulking.

And unlike most Americans think, black cats are not cursed. They are good, friendly souls with a little bit of the wisdom of the magical world in their eyes. They can see things we can't, and that makes it possible for them to drive the boggins and pookas created by our stress, worries, fears and depression away.

Thank you for being in my life, Ron the Cat.

I've been semi-following a discussion on if smart people are getting smarter on an online forum I frequent, and too much popped into my head to allow myself to post it out there with a good conscience. I'm gonna ramble about intelligence...

I haven't noticed if someone has brought the concept of collective intelligence and it's effect on how we perceive information up yet, so if I am repeating something someone has already mentioned, please forgive me for it.

One thing that can seemingly affect the increase in IQ for mankind are the new means with which the collective knowledge of a society is stored and it's accessibility. Earlier libraries were owned by the privileged elite with better educational opportunities, these days anyone with a head on their shoulders and the desire to learn can get their hands on books, magazines, television, and internet to mention the common ones, whether it be library or bookstore.

The kinds of intelligence are varying. Based on a researcher who spoke a few years back at a MENSA meeting, they actually claim, that a person's intelligence starts off as active, and with age, as one studies and learns more, becomes a crystallised, solid specialised knowledge of usually a relatively narrow subject matter, which will decrease the portion of brain capacity dedicated to learning. It's not as simple as that, but it's the easiest way to explain it briefly...

When a specialist in his or her respective branch is asked to solve a problem, he has the brain crunching power of one individual, but the solid knowledge of often decades of study into the field. However the same results can also be attained by a team of students barely familiar with the subject when starting.

Why? Because they can split up and research the amount of literature one person can research several times over in the same time.

Because they can use modern communications tools to compile that information, and they can brief each other on their progress and act as a form of a control group for each other, to see they really are making progress, and bounce ideas off of each other.

That's one of the main points of a two or so hour lecture, so please excuse the briefness of it. The lecturer is not a big fan of societies like MENSA, which only accepts members who score in the top percentiles of the population in standardised IQ tests. Based on my observations their member forum's activity, they can still act petty and argumentative (with the added element of being too focused on whatever happens to be on their minds at any given moment for them to notice no-one's interested in the molecular structure of some or other neurotransmitter miracledrug and whatnot...), though :/

I have to agree on the fact that the intelligent individuals seem to be "smarter" than the previous generation, but on the other hand, information is easily available, and not all educational facilities have the time or resources to actually bother cross-referencing essays and other academic student work with existing material for outright verbatim plagiarism to just lazy stupid copying of unverified data.

Television is a massive distraction. I have two teenage brothers, who haven't really ever bothered to read a book for their own amusement. It's always been schoolwork, and even then grudgingly, because I didn't give them the synopsis in the name of their own good. Both have a diagnosis of dyslexia, but they have never bothered reading or writing for fun. My good friend and classmate was severely dyslexic and made it through school with better grades than I did and read as much as or even more than I did. Sometimes it feels as if the diagnoses are a little too easily given these days, when the reasons are as simple as laziness and being too easily distracted by television, computers and the games console(s)...

...which can lead to others labelling people as "stupid". The 15 year old brother is highly intelligent and could grasp the basic concepts of some college level math at age seven (he "helped" me with my homework because he thought it was fun), but didn't like reading books. He also hasn't lost a game of chess to an adult since he was nine.

His high mathematical and logical IQ still doesn't prevent him from thinking it's a good idea to fire an airsoft gun at his Marines Reserve SWAT sister, or that it'd actually be a good thing to think before acting. Intelligent, but definitely thick when it comes to self-preservation instinct

The biggest changes have perhaps been in the availability of information, and how some individuals handle it. The old way of teaching, that is still prevalent in many places, that is very much based on the notion that the more one memorises by heart, the more they know the subject to me seems to be almost alien.

In my equivalent of senior high, we for example had the antique Greek method of dialogue (originally meaning conversation, discussion derives from Latin and can refer to a more argumentative conversation and we all probably know what lecture means...) between us students and the teacher, who was also the headmaster, sitting by a round table in a library in stead of a classroom. Discussing what we knew, volunteering to research new information ourselves, having the whole problem based approach to assignments and being required to bother with research by ourselves and having to list our literary (we didn't hang out online much back then) sources led us to approaching problems outside school in a similar fashion.

In work life you aren't handed a book and being told to memorise it by heart every day or week or month. You are handed a problem and you need to solve it. The easiest way isn't to memorise your 60GB worth of literature that you've got stacked up in a library, but to figure out a system for you to easily have access to that information when you need it, and how to get it fast when it's needed. You rarely have exams in your work life where you can't have any material with you to writing your test, if someone calls you with a problem, you're highly likely to look the answer up for them from a folder, book, an email or a website.

That ability to have a form of a flexible intelligence where you in stead of memorising everything memorise where you have stored the required information and how to access it efficiently is to me a form of honed intelligence as well, that few mention and even fewer take advantage of.

I read the journal of and decided I'll give some input to this whole mess... If you want to know my thoughts on this year's winner, ask me about if I think Obama is the right man for his new job or not at the end of year 2012...

Before that, I'll just go with a steady "no comment", since some policies of both the Republican AND Democrat parties are just alien to me.

I don't agree with all the ideas for tax increases for people who can't afford it (namely small business owners and entrepreneurs) in the name of increased welfare.

A more sustainable option would be to tweak legislation and taxation to encourage small businesses to grow (not necessarily lowered taxes, but i.e. making the costs to hire and train a new employer at least partially tax deductible) - hence making them viable employers for more people - and legislation changes to ensure the increasing of minimum wage levels, so low income citizens don't have to work two or three jobs to be able to afford necessary living costs (this would include at least to some extent healthcare, it's after all something that should be a universal human right).

This would end up benefiting a nation as a whole by decreasing for example burnout and some stress related health issues (working full time AND studying is tough enough, add kids to the mix and single parenting, and you've got the situation of many young women today [ Where did sexual education go? Why don't you say "The bible condemns premarital sex, but since you're teenagers, if you're going to have sex, use a condom" in stead of trying to shut up about the whole thing?! No wonder teenage pregnancies are up. They don't know what they're doing. ] ), not to mention the best bit, with more tax payers pulling in a decent-ish income from even minimum wage jobs, the overall tax income to the government should in fact increase over time.

If Obama can pull off a long term improvement in the global economy with his big plans and promises by utilising another means (or any means for that matter), I'll give him my full support. But only after he's proven himself. Being a non-US citizen, I can't really say I had any say in the election

I won't say I'd have been any happier about McCain winning, either...

What I've been spamming a forum online I frequent with, has been a simple question:

If the electoral votes were in stead of the current system where a mega-state like California's 55 electoral votes all go to the guy with most votes in that state, however small the margin, divided proportionately based on popular votes, would that give third party candidates at least a theoretical chance on federal level at challenging the two currently dominant parties in a presidential race?

What is interesting is that Americans (pardon me, US citizens, Canadians are after all nice people, who just happen to live next door to the other folks) have even failed to grasp the idea of having more than two parties pinned against each other. To them, it's red or blue, black or white, Democrat or Republican, Us or Them... the list goes on.

It's a dirty game I as a foreigner have had to follow through the past months, observing from the outside as both sides have been competing against each other, trying to smear each other's reputation, so the people won't at least vote for the other guy (or this year to some extent, girl). Being a citizen of a state with multiple parties even in the government, I can even name a good six or seven of the parties and at least remember a sketchy outline of their policies, I have mentally adapted to thinking there can be three or four dominant parties that represent a slightly differing facets of the same precious stone that is our government.

Why wouldn't the United States try to change without always trying to make everyone who thinks a bit outside their box look like the worst enemy? (this mostly referring to the Obama supporters in another forum online. I wasn't cheering with them, since I don't know much anything about what sort of a president the winner is going to be once he actually moves into the White House. They labelled me as a Republican. Which is interesting, since I've got no say in US politics except the pure awe at what a media show it is, and how few people really knew anything about what the candidates' plans really are)

Last but not least. I feel a little bad about Hillary and Sarah, the two ladies involved in this year's election. The Republican loss seems to have been pinned on her.

I suspect that the thought of seeing a female that close to becoming president scared every old fart in politics, since we females are notorious for not making good leaders, right?

Tell that to Elizabeth I, Catharine the Great or Queen Victoria. Or in more modern times, though opinions about her vary, Margaret Thatcher did a fairly decent job, didn't she? To name a modern western nation, Finland has an incumbent female president. Tarja Halonen is currently serving her second six year term and her approval ratings are higher than her male predecessor's, if I'm not entirely mistaken.

Think before you judge, and I'd say, wait the four years, or at least the first three of Obama's first presidency and then decide if he made as good a president as he promised to be. He might surprise us all positively.

And a purely personal opinion to finish this whole rant off: The video online about school children singing about Obama is mighty frightening. Were I a parent of the children on that video, I'd have decided to change to another school or homeschool my offspring after that. Teaching your children healthy life values is one thing, using them to convey a political message before they understand what they're doing for the adults they look up to as the authority, be it family or teacher is by my sense of morale WRONG.