Susie’s Thoughts

Today has been one of those days… This morning I discovered that I had missed a class I was supposed to attend Tuesday evening. I hadn’t seen the email I got earlier about a change in the schedule. I was angry about it because it means I have a lot of reading to do tonight and prepare for an on-line workshop for tomorrow morning and I have no clue at all what I’m supposed to do in the workshop.

My mother called and told me she was bringing me some moose meat. It’s hunting season and since my mother owns some land she gets a piece of the meat every year because she allows the hunters to hunt on her land. Me and my kids are the only one’s in the family eating moose meat. I was in a hurry, had some things to do before leaving for work so I grabbed a set of keys and went out to get the meat. When I was hurrying back in again I realized I had grabbed the wrong set of keys… I had locked myself out of my apartment and I was home alone with the dogs.

We’ve got a couple of noisy dogs that easily get stressed when something unexpected happens, and when they are stressed they bark. The dogs are smart too so they knew I was standing on the outside unable to get in and they figured they would be locked inside the apartment for the rest of their lives and I would be outside with the meat and they were panicking.

I didn’t have my mobile phone with me, usually a Finn always carries his/her Nokia, but I had left my phone on the kitchen table. The good thing for me is that there is a really nice elderly gentleman living in the same building and since he’s retired he’s home at daytime. I knocked on his door and was able to call for someone to come and open my door.

I did manage to get to work in time, but I don’t think I was a good teacher today. And I have yet to prepare the Economics workshop for tomorrow, having no clue of what I’m supposed to do. I guess I have to improvise something, that wouldn’t be the first time…

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I’ve been really busy these past days and I’ve got myself to blame. I’m teaching image editing and a couple of years ago I created a virtual Photoshop/GIMP course in Finnish. We have study programs in Finnish, Swedish and English at my school and at a weak moment I promised to translate my course to Swedish and English, so that more students could participate. I thought it wouldn’t be that much work translating my flash presentations, and it wouldn’t have been if I wouldn’t had lost one of my backup CD’s. I need the original files to be able to translate only the instructions, and the original files are gone. I have to recreate the instructions from scratch and that is more work than I thought.

It isn’t always that easy to use three different languages daily. Sometimes I teach the same course in all three languages and it has happened that I have walked into a classroom and started teaching in the wrong language. My Swedish speaking students understand both English and Finnish, so me using the wrong language is usually not a problem. If I start using English with the Finnish students it’s usually not a problem either, but Swedish might be. The students just tell me to switch to Finnish and we can continue with the class. International students are sometimes a problem though. Most of them don’t understand Finnish or Swedish and they are too polite to tell me they don’t understand me. I have to figure out myself what I’m doing wrong when I look at their confused faces.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though! I booked the tickets to Florida the other day. Me and my youngest daughter will spend almost three weeks in Florida during Christmas break. That’s something we’re both excited over.

A new version of Gimp has finally been released. I have been able to use python plug-ins on MS Windows by installing the following software in the order listed below. These should be the latest versions of the software and they work on two of my Windows XP computers. There are no guarantees thought that they work on yours and I have no clue on how they work on any other Windows version than XP.

http://downloads.activestate.com/ActivePython/windows/2.5/ActivePython-2.5.1.1-win32-x86.msi

ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/pycairo/1.2/pycairo-1.2.6-1.win32-py2.5.exe

ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/pygobject/2.12/pygobject-2.12.3-1.win32-py2.5.exe

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binaries/win32/pygtk/2.10/pygtk-2.10.6-1.win32-py2.5.exe

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/numpy/numpy-1.0.3.1.win32-py2.5.exe?modtime=1187637892&big_mirror=0

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gimp-win/gtk%2B-2.10.13-setup.exe

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gimp-win/gimp-2.4.0-rc3-i586-setup.exe?modtime=1190592348&big_mirror=0

This tutorial shows how to change the pixels per inch and the print size of an image.

Gimp tutorial

A short tutorial on how to use the Perspective tool in Gimp.

Gimp tutorial

This is a tutorial on how to resize and crop an image in the GIMP.

Gimp tutorial

I know I said I wouldn’t blog this weekend, but today daylight saving time ended and we moved from summer to winter time giving us one more hour for one day. I’m going to use that hour for blogging. I wonder if I have a life of not???

I did hop over to AntiBarbie’s site last night and did the Color Crayon test. I’m a blue crayon… I love blue, I almost always manage to get some blue in my paintings, doesn’t matter how much, but one small spot of blue will usually do it.

You Are a Blue Crayon

Your world is colored in calm, understated, deep colors. You are a loyal person, and the truest friend anyone could hope to find. On the inside, you tend to be emotional and even a bit moody. However, you know that people depend on you. So you put on a strong front.Your color wheel opposite is orange. Orange people may be opinionated, but you feel they lack the depth to truly understand what they’re saying.

What Color Crayon Are You?

I guess in a way that this is quite accurate. I’m a Cancer and even though I don’t fully believe in horoscopes there are bits and pieces in it that fit on me. I am emotional and moody inside, I can even be mushy at times, but I tend to put up a tough and strong front because that’s what’s expected from me. I admire emotional people because they allow themselves to show what they feel, but yet I wouldn’t want to share my life with a person who’s all about emotions without common sense. There has to be a good balance between emotions and good practical common sense. It’s OK to have your head in the clouds, but keep your feet well grounded on the earth and you will be fine.

I was a silly little girl with dreams at the age of 17 and I guess I’m still a silly little girl with dreams at the age of 45. The difference is that I know which part of the dreams are there to fill a void caused by previous experiences and which is there because it’s something I have learned I need to be happy. And happiness comes from being able to make your dreams come true, even though it might take some time and even though at times it seems the path you’ve chosen is a crooked path.

I have written about the others, but not the first one… the one I’ve chosen to forget. I have to leave my blog for the weekend, have too much work I’ve neglected, and since I’ve written to get closure on my other relationships, I guess I have to get closure on this one too.

I was 16 when we met and he was 5 years older. The only man older than me that I ever dated, all the other one’s have been my age or younger. My parents didn’t approve of him, he was a sailor and they thought his lifestyle wasn’t good for me. I guess they were right even though I couldn’t see it then.

He was my first boyfriend and I was a romantic, silly, little girl. I had a dream of one true love and I didn’t understand that you can’t fit a dream on any person, you have to find the person who fits the dream. He never saw me as the person I am, he wanted me to be something he had in his head, something only he could understand. He is the reason my thoughts are my own because he tried to deny me them. If you try to deny a woman her thoughts, you make sure she will stick to them and never change her mind. If you give her the time to figure out things on her own, she might eventually come around and admit you are right.

I never wanted to be the ruler of the house, but neither did I want him to be that. Yet, every day he tried to show his power until I wasn’t sure I existed anymore. I gave him ten years, but one morning I took a close look at myself in the mirror and noticed that I was still there, I did exist, I had my own thoughts and my own mind. From that day on I slept on the coach until I got my own home.

It’s funny how time changes the way we see things, time changes the way we see people. It’s in the little things we do to each other, the little things we say.

I saw my last boyfriend today, the one I moved in with after selling my house. I was never deeply in love with him, he was more like a friend I had warm feelings for. At that time I thought it was a good thing, I didn’t want to be truly, madly, deeply in love again. He had gone through a couple of bad divorces and I had too, so I thought we would understand each other.

People warned me about him, they told me he was trouble. I didn’t listen because I had known him since we were teenagers and I wasn’t afraid of trouble. He was more trouble than I thought. I knew he liked his beer, but he had managed to hide how much. I knew he had been a member of a gang, I didn’t know he was still connected. He was the main caretaker of his sons from a previous marriage, so I thought he had settled down.

We dated for a year before I and my kids moved in with him and his kids. During the time we dated he managed to hide that he drank almost every day… or maybe I didn’t want to see it. It took me a couple of weeks to realize he had severe alcohol problems. It took me another couple of weeks to realize that he was still connected with the gang and he was proud of his best friend getting in and out from prison for drug dealing.

I was never afraid of him, he is a big man, and even though I’m short I was bigger than him. I wasn’t even afraid of him when he picked his magnum and started shooting frogs in his back yard. Strength is not in your body, strength is in your mind.

After the frog incident I got my own place and I haven’t seen him until today. He is still the same, he’s married again, got one more kid, but still drinks, he’s still immature and I suspect he still shoots frogs in his back yard.

The lesson learned is to have an open mind when you connect with people, but look at the small things they do and say. What you see might not be who they actually are, so wait and listen, take notice of what they say and also what they leave unsaid. Look at what they do, who they interact with and who they admire. And never be afraid of those that are bigger than you, be careful, but not afraid, you might have a stronger mind. Be afraid though, if you are a frog…

Photoshop Out-of-Bounds tutorial (opens up in new window)