Readopting the name I was born with = Jaurola

After several years of dreading the effort, I am now taking the plunge…..

There are two nice ways to pronounce my name Jaurola….. the French and the Finnish way. First is something like ‘Jorola’ [French way] or ‘Yaurola’ [Finnish], emphasis on first syllable. Gosh I started to try and do this in phonetic language – that is complicated to create….gave up for now. Need a phonetic language muse.

Why change my name? Why now? I know it is a bit strange as I’ve already heard from some people….

When I got married I believed the advice of a work colleague that it is best to have the same name as your child = change to your husband’s name, to avoid confusion at day care etc. So I changed my name from Jaurola to Purcell. It was a very practical decision at the time.

I thought about a hyphenated name but I was having enough trouble with first name – one last name on the phone. Imagine this, Dominique Jaurola-Purcell. That is a lot to spell. In fact I thought that as we were looking to make Australia home it would be easier cause I would not have to spell Purcell, everyone would get it, ha ha, not so.

When my father died my need to change my name back to Jaurola became stronger than it had been before. So now, 7 years after his departure, I’ve done it. I am officially Jaurola in Australia and France and I await the results of the Finnish ‘jury’.

Next I’ll have to get into action with several banks, post office, passports [French one done], driver’s licenses, ID cards, work, etc. It is interesting that in France you do not in fact change your name, you keep your maiden name and your passport may say ‘epouse Purcell’ = married to Purcell. In Finland the rules changed around 1986. Had I married before that date the name change would have only required my notification, but it was after that date I had to go through a full name change process, including payment.

…and BTW husband is supportive…:-)

Far virtual worlds

yeah ok, it took me a long time to get avatarized on 2nd life

Now I’ve got my very own ‘girl next door’ figure on second life. First place I had to go to was the popular French dance, sand, romance, music island. While I was learning to walk, sit, fly and do all those sorts of beginner things it was good to be surrounded by the relaxing environment.

I am fascinated by the potential of 2nd life for many kinds of subworlds and cultures that evolve in it. It is a brilliant learning, testing, expanding oneself, sharing sort of place.

I look forward to the evolving business models, behavioral models, interaction models and so on. Perhaps, as life goes, it is the first life as it seems that people communicate more freely in it than in real world.

Play! A video game symphony

Evolving game scene and Sydney Opera House Concert Hall audience

The symphony last night was my son’s choice. He saw one ad for Play! A video game symphony and immediately put in his wish to go hear it. I was more than happy to oblige and it was a night out before he is off to a holiday in Finland for a few weeks.

As we entered the Sydney Opera House it was immediately obvious that something different was happening. The crowd was younger and naturally much hipper than anything that happens during the usual nights at the Opera.

The performance was interactive in that there were screens showing the classics Sonic, Mario, Final Fantasy, Halo, World of Warcraft, Castlemania, Silent Hill and some newer ones like Blue Dragon, while the Sydney Symphony Orchestra played the music. Some of the composers were also featured live or on video during the event, mostly from Japan.

It was fascinating to watch the progress of classics like Mario going from a tiny tamagotchi like figure to a high end graphics image and the new games looking like modern Greek style heros. Similarly the music jumped – suddenly for me – from a computer ping sound to a full on orchestra piece. I almost missed the sounds I remember from when my son, who is now 14, played these games when he was about three years old. While the audience was mostly young, it seemed that the games world had grown up in many ways.

My son like many others got into an excited applause when World of Warcraft was announced. I tried it once and with my son assistance my ‘priestess’ character got to level two quickly but then he had to get rid of mum’s character to make space for a new one of this own.

Compensating for distance or distancing from compensation

Living next door to childhood home or on the other side of the world?

This is not a new dilemma but one that is immensely personal. I live about 15000km away from the country I was born in and lived in until I started stints of living overseas when I was 16.

I have no great yearn for my home country, Finland, other than for my close family and a few friends, whom I see elsewhere. Oh and ofcourse salmiakki and a sauna by the lake, a good day in the summer, blueberries in the woods, gooseberries, peas, …….

Rootlessness is a topic which interests me and as I’ve spoken with many people on it and read articles on the topic. Everyone has a story to tell. We all have made a choice to live close, relatively far away or really far away from our home country, our close family, our childhood friends, loved ones. We make these choices for all kinds of reasons. The consequences of the choices are varied and fascinating to listen to.

We have a family friend who never left the home he was born in and raised his own family in the same house. Yet his work was always international. I have friends who either want to go back to their home country, or their husband’s home country or who have no interest what so ever. They say that we yearn for our home country when we get older. Hmmm, perhaps, but this does not sound like a rule from what I am hearing.

This topic keeps popping up for me….will get back later