The last time I updated my journal here was on 2009. 2009! It's been bothering me a while now, and today I actually got myself to write. Also, there are cool journal skins to use. Wow.

A lot has changed in almost three years. I'm now a science writer and illustrator that could, with only a bit of exaggeration, call oneself a "professional". That is, I'm actually getting a sizable portion of a living from this. I'm almost done with my university degree and currently working on my master's thesis, so I can also call myself almost a biologist. Cool. I still don't feel like an adult.

In addition to my DA gallery, I have started two moderately popular blogs, though it's not much use to most of you, as they're both in Finnish. My science blog Erään planeetan ihmeitä (translated roughly to "Wonders of a planet" can be found here: [link] and a blog about house plants and biology of plants called Viidakkokirjeet ("Jungle letters") is here: [link]

It's finally spring in Finland, and I'm slowly snapping out of the yearly winter torpor. I'm obviously a tropical creature, completely unsuited to this climate. Especially annoyingly I get progressively worse skin problems as the winter continues, month after another. July is usually the only time of the year when I actually enjoy the weather, though it's tolerable when day temperatures rise above 12 C, which is about now.

Oh, yes. I also had something informative to tell you. Recently I have disabled the download of full-sized images for most of my art, and started adding my name to the lower corner of new deviations. There's also a specific Creative Commons license in many of them. I'm not particularly fond of stopping people from using my art, but I have run into a couple of websites that had stolen my art without crediting me. It didn't bother me that much when they were amateur sites not making any money out of it, but... When io9 actually censored my comments and ingored my emails about getting the credit of my Anurognathus right (here: [link]), I decided to do something about it.

Also, people at io9 are knowingly art thieves. I thought that's something that should be said out loud. So they seem to be at Primeval Wiki also, since the message I sent about art theft in February has been still ignored: [link]

Still, I'm kind of flattered that people actually want to steal something I've made.

I wish everyone a warm and sunny spring. I'm going to celebrate vappu (May Day, that is) today.