when football goes a bit too far

I'm a die-hard football fan, but even I think this is a bit too much... even though it's really, really funny. the miracle of cordoba happened in 1978, when austria beat germany 3-2 in the world cup, much to the surprise of pretty much everyone. a couple of weeks ago, artist massimo furlan reenacted that game, by himself. without a ball. just imitating the movements of one player, goalscoring hero hans krankl. read more about the performance here.

the most scary part? more than 3000 people came to see it.

my new e-mail

[firstname].[lastname]@gmail.com - you should know what to fill in ;)

please start using that one from now on, as my uni e-mail will be discontinued in two weeks.

unity!

Strive with heart and soul in order to bring about union and harmony among the white and the black and prove thereby the unity of the Bahá'í world wherein distinction of colour findeth no place, but where hearts only are considered. Praise be to God, the hearts of the friends are united and linked together, whether they be from the east or the west, from north or from south, whether they be German, French, Japanese, American, and whether they pertain to the white, the black, the red, the yellow or the brown race. Variations of colour, of land and of race are of no importance in the Bahá'í Faith; on the contrary, Bahá'í unity overcometh them all and doeth away with all these fancies and imaginations.

'Abdu'l-Bahá

one of the great benefits of being here is to actually be able to interact with all the people from all over the world. it's not always flawless; different cultures and backgrounds do create different expectations on people and situations, but it works. quite well. and it's beautiful.

observation shot

took this shot last week, from the observation point, looking out at the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh:


I like it. in other news, not a single cloud in the sky today. I like that too.

have you cut your hair?

I got asked that question *three* times yesterday. does it look like I have?

photo idea

we've all seen pictures of people jumping up and everyone being in the air while the photo is taken. those are fun and creative, but there's a bit of a feeling of "been there, seen that" now I think, even though they sometimes do create quite awesome shots.

so what would be a cool thing to do then? I think a wave-looking formation could potentially turn out really well, something along the lines of what is commonly referred to as an audience, or mexican wave:


what do you think, wouldn't that be cool?

edit: I perhaps posted it in a bit of a rush yesterday, so a bit of clarification: I obviously meant to take a wave-like shot of people jumping, so you'd have a few just starting to jump, a few further up in the air, and then at the end people already on their way down. taking a picture of a couple of people doing a mexican wave would indeed be boring and even more so along the lines of "been there, seen that"...

my brother's gone...

my brother's gone. he left early yesterday morning (ie monday night), and arrived home quickly, and I suppose rather safely. unfortunately I wasn't able to spend as much time with him as I would've liked to, which is my own fault, but I think and hope that he enjoyed his time here. it was two weeks that went by rather quickly, and I'm already looking forward to having him here again.

euro 2008 has started, and I've actually been more excited than I thought. and obviously, with a goal like this, how can I not be?



excitedly looking forward to seeing what else we'll see these upcoming 2-3 weeks...

more books!

I thought I'd stopped reading literary novels for a while, but I've recently picked it up again. am more than halfway through a swedish one, men that hate women, and so far I like it. hoping to be able to finish it soon, and then continue...


... with the three other books I got today!

I got the kite runner and a thousand splendid suns, both by khaled hosseini. I've heard some really good things about the kite runner (and I suppose the movie was quite good as well?), so we'll see how it goes.

the other one I got is called in praise of slowness, which deals with the hectic society we live in. I suppose it is sort of a revolt against the stress that we all experience, trying to do everything quickly, and preferrably five things at the same time. we'll see if it's any good or not, I just bought it based on a few reviews here and there.

and we'll also see how long it takes me to finish these books, hopefully not too long!

time for a new e-mail! :(

it came as a heavy blow, the e-mail. my e-mail account with my uni will be closed down in three weeks. it makes sense, as I haven't been studying anything for more than a year, but still unpleasant news. so now I have to start looking for somewhere else to make my default e-mail account. I currently have a hotmail (only used for msn and diverse spam), and two gmails (one for blogging with a half-unserious address, and a proper one). the way things are looking now, I'll probably go over to my gmail, but I'm just looking to see if anyone else has any other suggestions. then I'd probably also have to look into exporting everything over...

in completely unrelated matters, here's a video of some really nice freekicks. maybe something to work on:

it's been a while

things have been a bit busy here as of lately... with my brother and other visitors being here, pilgrims, and a lot of work to take care of there's been little time for much else. right now I tried to plan a few things wih another friend, and it turned out that basically the upcoming two weeks it won't be possible to meet up, which seems kind of weird. whenever one of us is available, the other one is not. and then there of course are a lot of people leaving, all the time...

last week we commemorated the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh, and it was a very special feeling of being out there at 3 am at night, as that was when He passed away. we got the opportunity of going into the room where He passed away, and offer our prayers and supplications there. it was a very nice atmosphere and a spiritual feeling.

between the visit to His room and the commemoration, we went into town to have some food, and also took a few pictures. I think this is the one that turned out best:



in other news, euro 2008 is coming up. it's going to be slightly exciting (not exactly sure which games I'm looking forward to), and a bit of a test of my detachment. in usual cases, I'd pretty much be glued to the tv for every single game, but now I have to decide which ones are important to me, and obviously there'll be classes and other talks as well to think about and prioritize. we'll see how it turns out, but there'll obviously be some games that I will try my very best not to miss - sweden for sure, hopefully I'll be able to see spain, italy and portugal play (they usually play fun and good football), and obviously as we'll get further on in the tournament I'll see more of the games. other than that, we'll see how it goes...