Ok, the 1st of february.
A few days ago we had a helluva snowfall. Followed by equally much rain. It's really, actually february and we've had no winter. Ok, so last "summer" was a rainy bitch of 3 months too, but last winter I remember this time of year giving me a regular -25 C. I remember it well because Sami gave me thermo-pants so that I wouldn't accidentally freeze solid while prancing around in my oh so warm jeans. Didn't help much that I tried to explain that while I didn't have time to practice Ice Swimming, this was my way of doing it while walking to the university.
It's nice not to have to break a lot of bones (knock on wood) because of all the ice hidden under the snow, and it's nice to not have to spend 20 minutes to dig your car out from under all the snow, only to discover that you've accidentally been toiling away, helping the neighbour while your van is the one on the left.
But I miss the snow. The cold is manageable, I've had 24 years worth of practice. Snow lights up the environment and because we don't have any, the dark months seem even darker.
But there's lots of time to write on my master's thesis. I've noticed that I've gotten to a second question-period in my life. The first one being at about 3 years old when Mom&Dad had to answer a lot of "Why do you do that"s. While I'm trying to get a grip on the PhD-students life around here, the interviews raise a lot of questions. For instance, why, if the contract stipulates that you should have 2/3 of your work time at the university dedicated to working on your PhD research, is it made impossible for most of them because they have to teach so much? It was never included in my interviews, but I know that a lot of the doctoral students eventually take some prescription medication to handle the pressure and all the stress of publication, research etc. Why is it so widely accepted that the job is so tought that it's only natural to cave in and start anti-depressants? How can it be "standard procedure" to break down under the workload?
Those, and a lot of other questions concerning other areas of life have started to boggle my mind, and a very few of them have answers. I'd like to fix everything I question, and can't understand why noone else has already fixed it.
Difficult, difficult.
But I'm approximately halfway through! It might not be the thesis of the year, but just passing is good enough for me. I can't wait to work full time (and actually have vacations) !
No matter what my previous, current or future dental surgeons can't fix while I'm fully taking advantage of our national health-care system at 22 euros a pop (or for free or 4,50 euros for a specialist at the student health-center), I'm good.
I'm really well off.
It could be so much worse .
Bad things happen. Louis Vuitton is coming to town.
And to make matters worse, our former Cultural Minister blogged about how wonderful it was that you could finally "buy yourself richness". I think she wanted to indicate the social status of a Louis Vuitton bag because as you probably are a ware of: they cost like mad.
I complain about a lot of things, but Louis Vuitton and Burberry really get my panties in a knot. They are Ugly. I get that they might be excellent to put things in (and at that price, should be) and are one of the oldest manufacturers of luggage-related bags, but what's up with the LV:s? And the poo coloring? And finally, what's up with the poo colored LV bag with the cherries? Gastro-intestinal dysfunction-baggie?
I have to ask, and will appreciate an answer since I feel strongly that a LV-representative is reading my blog: did they just have a meeting where they bet each other they'd make the ugliest bag ever and it would still sell because it's a Louis Vuitton?
"I bet I can make it..... poo brown!"
"Aww.. no man!"
"Yeah, trust me. And to top it off, I'll throw in some..... cherries! Poo brown and cherries, are you game?"
"It's on!"
"But I am slapping th LV:s on there too, because you know none of these would sell without them."
"Deal! And the loser has to buy lunch."
I get the point where people think you are rich if you can, like Jessica Simpson, buy a dog-carrier just so your dog might poop in an LV. Or a burberry scarf for 100e (I kid you not) to show off that daddy you have a little extra cash. Personally I'm a Fendi girl, but I doubt I'd buy anything from them if their store ever landed in Helsinki. I would never buy anything from LV no matter what it stands for because I think they're ugly, I could get me a rip-off and noone would notice, and I highly doubt anything that has had Gorbatschov as a face for a recent ad campaign wants to attract a bunch of young girls as buyers.
People are hoping Louis Vuitton is going to help drag Helsinki on to the map. Ok, we have Nokia, we have a lot of impressing elechtrotechnicals, lots of bio-chemicals on the way, but a fashion capital we are not. Mr. Blackwell laughed his ass off when he was asked to judge the best dressing finns. There really aren't any. We are improving, yes, but as a fashion nation we are still not far from the fashion smashion that is Amy Winehouse. Louis Vuitton opening one shop in the hood is not enough to jumpstart the little town of about 500 000 people in the "we'd never travel there, they have knives!"-parts of the world a capital of anything.
Finally, even if you can buy Rich, you just can't buy style.
"What are you doing over there?"
"A co-worker of mine is force-feeding me candy while I'm talking to you. I need one of my hands to holf the phone and the other to muffle the sounds from the guys so I can hear you."
"Oh. It's good though, because you're starting to be a bit lightweight."
"Hah! That's tough coming from someone who has to be weighed on a letter scale."
He is starting to get really good at this. And I can tell you guys, I was wrong. It wasn't a marathon he is secretly training to. It's a triathlon . I think I'm marrying Clark Kent.
Wow. Not a wink of sleep all night.
No wait, I must've slept a few winks because my head hurts even more than yesterday, so I must've clenched my jaw while sleeping.
Luckily, I received a letter on friday, stating that Dr, Törnwall will see me on the 15th of february. God I hope she isn't a woman.
Not anything against women in general, but I've become a bit of a misogynist with dental surgeons. The last consulting female doctor told me it was nothing, because there clearly weren't any bones sticking out of my ear. Nothing can be wrong. And even if you are experiencing some minor discomfort, remember that jaws usually are a lot less painful than dislocated knees, for instance. To which I bitterly replied that I had yet to eat with my knees.
(and turned out she was wrooooong. It was something, the bones were not far from sticking out and it was apparently a lot more painful than knees. Around here it takes quite a lot for doctors to admit "yeah, we maybe should've operated about a year - 1 1/2 years ago. Our bad,")
The weight being back to 58, it'll be interesting to see if Dr. Törnwall thinks it's nothing. I know I shouldn't have all these "what the hell do you think You can do?"-opinions before I've even met the person. For all I know, Dr. Törnwall might come up with a morphine pump something really good.
And if not, well, at least I'll be in killer shape come bikini-season.
One of my favourite phrases is "wandering through the halls of academia". I don't know why. I suppose it embodies all the pompousness and unattainability of academic education, and kind of brings it all up to an accurate level of snob.
I still like it.
Right now, however, I am far from wandering through the halls of academia. I'm more like the 2-toothed cousin from the country, stumbling inside the halls of academia suffering from a terrible hangover due to moonshine and am now standing in the corner of the halls of academia, picking my nose. I have 15 pages of serious academic text due this sunday. I'm working tomorrow and will spend a fair amount of sunday driving home to Mom & Dad. This all basically means I'm screwed I might have to put in a bit of effort in the whole matter. I guess I'll make it happen, miraculos things happen under pressure. Like diamonds. And avalanches and cave-ins. But mostly diamonds.
And here I am, blogging away while I should be reading "the joys and cursings of ph.d studies" by Kivinen et al.. Now, we might not all know how to spell "nucular" but let's all get together now and spell: v-o-x-a-h-o-l-i-c.
"Did you see me? I did 45 kg!"
"Yeah honey, I was right behind you, that was really awesome."
"How much did you bench?"
"125"
"...Oh. Well. It's not 45 kg's, but great job I guess!"
"Thanks babe."
So there it is. The target weight of 50 kg is not far away. And I guess Sami is a bundle of testosterone doing ok too. He is however going mad. It seems all the men in my life are pretty much suffering from the same illness . Because here's what happened yesterday. And today for that matter.
"Ok so I'm off to work now. What've you got planned for your great day off?"
"How cold is it?"
"-3. Windy."
"I think I'll go jogging."
The same thing happened today. Except for the "windy" being more
accurately described as "Blizzardy". I sense a marathon coming next
summer but I think he won't decide for sure until he has jogged enough
in the cold, ice and general nastiness. Because there's just no way
people would spend this much time jogging on ice and all that other
white crap just for shits and giggles.
Men. Go figure.
Drug time, children!
I have heard the following sentence one too many times:
"medicines that help me quit smoking should be free of charge, it's a disease, you know?!"
It's not.
No matter if you started at age 7 (!) like my future father in-law, or at age 70, nobody else inhaled it for you. You could've quit whenever you put your mind to it, or at the very least, when you were old enough to realize that maybe you should. I know that according to studies nicotine is more addictive than heroine, but I don't really believe it. Because the even newer studies show that so is caffeine. I also know that people with a certain type of genetics are more prone to have an addictive setting in them to begin with, and others don't. That being said, I would like to argue my case why it ain't a disease:
1) You did it to yourself. Very few drug addicts for instance inject themselves in the beginning. Of course even fewer start out by injecting heroin or buprenorphine, which means they all inhaled,snorted, swallowed or whatever something else themselves before. That doesn't clear you.
2) You have access to help. Most drug addicts don't. The nicotine is there, it's not expensive, and you can get even more effective stuff through the doctors.
3) It's expensive? The costliest drugs to help you quit smoking cost less than a pack of cigarrettes a day. And they're meant for people who smoke considerably more, so you're actually saving money. Plus, you only use them for about 6 months. And to compare again to the drug abusers to whom heavy smokers like to compare their addictions: smoking won't cost you your home, relationships or job.
4) Withdrawal's a bitch. Yes, but you might not accidentally die from it like a heavy buprenorphine/heroin user.
I'm not saying people who are trying to quit smoking are losers because they started, not at all. And I'm not saying you're a pussy for whining about withdrawal and the addiction isn't really that bad. Obviously it is, otherwise all the smokers would quit. And apparently we've got it worse since we just learned last year that Thousandlakez was an arena for illegal substance testing in during the 90's. We had unsuspectingly smoked cigarrettes with more tar and nicotine than any law allowed. It's hard, it's rough and it's not always possible.
But don't go comparing yourself to people who might have done it to themselves at first, too, but are really suffering from a disease, and simply cannot get on their feet without society's help. You.Don't.Have.It.That.Bad. And at the very least, don't do this comparing in front of the various people that call themselves health care experts. It's like winning the special olympics: no matter if you win or loose, you're still a retard. (yes, I know, I'm an insensitive prick but I'm very strongly trying to illustrate a point, so let it pass this once, okay?)
In my eyes, it's the equivalent of me comparing myself to a diabetic suffering from severe hypoglycemia every time I get cranky because I'm hungry.
Okay. As the headline suggests, but as always, it'll mostly be me, myself and I because of peoples need to not have their face posted. I will get hell for a few of the pics anyway, I think. Roughly one a month, con explanations!
In January, I blew phone-photo kisses to my darling boyfriend who was out of the country. I know, too gross. And veeeeery kitschy. But alas, I did.
In february, we participated in the Finnish Ice Swimming championships. The boys had been Ice Swimming the entire fall, but once they tried to enter, they found out that a team had to have at least one woman. Because I am at the very least at least one woman, I was asked to join the team. It's really easy to say yes in a warm car in january, with the latest Ice Swimming-escapades a decade back, so here I am, finding myself in -20 degrees and a lot of wind, taking one for the team. We came in third. The team was called "the frozen rocks" (go figure), but due to my nagging, the next time I participate, it'll be "the frozen rocks and tubes".
In March, I was totally zen.
In April, we had massages. We also had missed weddings, bachelors degrees and head operations, but the choice was between this pic and one where my head is as swollen as most halloween pumpkins. Not a hard pick, this one.
On the 1st of may, we celebrate May Day. As in most countries, it's a day that celebrates labor, but it's gone off to be a big fat student party. On the 30th of April, all of Thousandlakez gets wasted. Here I am on the 1st, at lunch with my parents.
The hat is a graduation hat. All the finnish high school graduates ave one, and this one time a year you're supposed to whip it out and air it like you wanna share it.
In June it's time for big fat high school graduations with happy happy celebrations. He looks like he has gone through all sorts of wrong, and me there, with the teeth look like a bunny on prozac.
In july, we got and painted our gorgeous flat. Sami must've loved the overalls because there are no pictures to find where I can see my face. Just overalls, overalls, overalls.
In august, big fat moving time! I still can't believe we fit all that crap in here. We might not be big on the Feng Shui-thing, but we sure as hell can fit shit in closets!
Because we only had one camera, and it was in Ecuador in september, this is the second picture from august. From Thailand, enjoying one of the best breakfasts ever! Might be the morning Sami proposed but I can't remember. Koh Samet was just a 12-day continuum of bliss and I recommend it to anyone.
On the last of october Sami came home. On the 1st of november I gave him big, badly lit, staged-looking morning kisses in the kitchen.
Sorry for showing you guys my back, but this is the only christmas picture where there are no other people. Not much to say other than I'm a huge fan of x-mas and would celebrate it all month long.
That wraps up the year with sumt'n sumt'n from every month. More or less interesting but I wanted to try this out!
