Ascension Day (Another Finnish holiday)

Arrrrrrrrgggggh: Two weeks left!



Next topic.

It was a Ascension day, which makes me think of flying off the runway and into the sky. My dictionary says that it means "the ascent of Christ into heaven on the fortieth day after the Resurrection" (Oxford). For me, it means the local grocery store is closed and I can't buy food. This country sure takes its holidays seriously. I watched "Mr. Nobody," started on an essay about my experience in Finland (which should fit in less than two pages), and then left with Al, a Catelonian friend, to Finlayson for a live band performance. We met up with Uz and ate at this awesome Nepalese restaurant.

In the evening, we were invited to a university film club get-together with some food, drinks and movies. There were 15 of us sitting comfortably around one apartment, some on the couch, others on the floor and on chairs. At first, they were watching an ice hockey match between the US and Finland. (Incidentally, I wore red, white and blue.) Finland won, breaking the tie in the last minute. It was a pretty mellow atmosphere, very nice people. Wish I had met them before. We ate some deserts: cookies, ice cream, candies and homemade black current sweets. Besides Al and Uz, I spoke mostly with a girl from Ukraine, who would like to begin studying in Finland from September. She asked me about the cafes I liked most in Finland, and I told her with certainty: Telakka and 931. Then we watched two documentaries: "White Diamond" and part of "Pumping Iron." When I get back to Eugene, I'd like to find a student film club or begin something similar!

Well, gotta cut this post short. Need to rest up for tomorrow's adventures...

P.S.: This Tuesday, I met the same older gentleman I met along my favorite trail last week. He was chatting with two woman, one of whom was thrilled to speak English for the first time in years. She showed me her Nordic skiis and how to walk with them. I told them how this city reminds me of Eugene.

Turning the page: spring

I woke up to the sound of the lawnmower. Better than my alarm I suppose, which sounds exactly like a fire alarm, and has me jumping out of bed in less than two seconds.

For some reason, I'm never thrilled about the sounds of spring, Maybe it's the pollen, but I get this underlying feeling of boredom and frustration.

Winter was so quiet and cold, and everybody tried to conserve their energy by not doing or saying anything. I compensated by pretending it was spring and finding ways to enjoy such a dark season. In spring, I don't really need to do anything to make the world louder or more colorful. There's more commotion: cars are louder, people talk more, mowing of the lawn, moving around. I guess in Hawaii, this is pretty much a year round thing. So my strange feelings might have more to with the anticipation of finishing a long academic year and nearing summer.

I read these three good young-adult fiction books that my American friend lent me: "An Abundance of Katherines," "Looking for Alaska," and "Absolutely Normal Chaos." I remembered, at 12 years old, lying on a futon in my family's house in Manoa Valley, reading a book while eating a plum. I loved to eat fruit every time I read. Now that I think of it, even in college, my dad would often bring me a platter of fruit while I studied. Yummy. Anyway, if someone in the university saw me reading young-adult fiction, especially a book whose main character is 13, I'd get strange looks. It reminds me of turning 8. All my friends were reading novels, and I still wanted to read picture books, but I stopped borrowing picture books from the library because I was embarrassed.

Poor young me! How could my thinking be so off base? I'm an aspiring documentarian -- what better preparation for visual narrative than pictures books? And as for young adult fiction: I love how simple it is to describe a range of human experiences, from friendship to internal problems to family to love to realizations to loss to death. Also, I think my maturity and tolerance level can at times be quite teenish... In detective fiction and post-colonial literature classes, I was constantly analyzing while reading. Looking for symbolism, as well as gender, ethnicity and class matters. Analyzing, critiquing, questioning. The stories were not read as stories, but as windows into a different time and context.

When I began reading "An Abundance of Katherines," it took a while for me to stop analyzing and thinking, and just enjoy (as my Israeli Cinema professor told us: "You're not supposed to be entertained by these movies. Think of them as homework assignments. You need to be actively participating." Sometimes, when the workload gets to worky, pleasure can come from passivity or openness to a story.

(Uh oh, I just saw a Facebook post that a friend posted: "The Six Enemies of Greatness (And Happiness)," which are: Availability, Ignorance, Committees, Comfort, Momentum and Passivity.)

Something about Sauna

It was hard to study with my window open: wide blue sky with few wispy clouds, trees becoming fuller and greener, cool breeze, but temperature at a nice 11 degrees celcius.

In the afternoon, I went to the sauna with Albert, his Finnish friend K, and her couchsurfer from Madrid. It was sooooo relaxing and refreshing. One woman said something to me in Finnish, and I said, "Minä en puhu suomea" (I don't speak Finnish) and she said "Puhut suomea!" (You speak Finnish!) and one man said "If you don't speak Finnish, don't say anything." I didn't know if it was a joke, but everybody laughed so I laughed and made an awkward joke. I admitted to the woman next to me, "Minä voin puhua vähän suomea," (I can speak a little Finnish), though I wasn't entirely sure if that was accurate. The woman laughed and said "Kyllä." She started saying more things in Finnish. It was fun, but I wondered why it was the last month of my exchange when I met someone who didn't speak English.

We went into the cold lake several times, but I could only stay in for a few seconds each time. At one point we decided to lie on the rocks like starfish.

K told me about her travel experiences in Germany (actually she lived in Hanover, where my grandfather is from) and translation work, and about how wonderful couchsurfing has been. I remembered the interesting couchsurfer I met in Stockholm, who showed me around the city. That night, I stayed with a different surfers house, and it was great! I had dinner there, a nice couch to sleep on, and the next day I was taken to the ship that would take me back to Tampere. I'm not advertising couchsurfing -- in fact, I know people who have had strange experiences, but most stories have been good; great actually.

K's couchsurfer, Pablo, told me that after traveling so much, he realizes that it has become sort of a "doom" for him. He advised me to stop traveling after 35, though I think it was more of a warning. He had a very sincere, non-condescending way of speaking, a lot like my friend Tania, who has about a million nationalities. Once you become 50, Pablo told me, it's harder to settle down. "All the women are married or are too young." The only thing to do is to keep traveling. Plus, everybody keeps asking him where he's going to next, expecting him to always have a next destination. I asked if he encountered many travelers who thought like him. "Not really," he said, pausing to think. "I think regular travelers I met have been kind of weird. Like they don't have social skills, even though you would think they would." Pablo said that when you travel a lot you become more of a relativist, "And that is not good," he added, lightheartedly. He said that even if your opinions or thoughts are wrong -- which most are anyway -- they are better than not having them. "And skeptical, you become too skeptical. And nobody wants to be around somebody like that." Now Pablo admires people who are so sure about things.

"But now I feel rootless," Pablo said. "I don't belong in Finland. I don't think I ever will. I lived in Poland for two years, and I liked it there but I don't think I could belong there too. I'm from Spain, but now I don't belong to Spain. Everywhere I am, there is always something better in another country." Gosh, I think Pablo is a 50-year-old male version of me.

We came back home, had dinner, and now I'm stuck on my chair again, working on this essay. To be honest, I'm pretty burnt out with the essays.

My dad would like more explanation about Finnish sauna culture, so I'll have to post something more soon. Hopefully along with pictures and audio!

Sleepless, rainy friday night

It's pouring outside. I mean buckets and buckets of water are falling from the sky. All of a sudden, Tampere is humid and wet like Eugene, and I sort of miss Eugene. I miss evening drives to Sweet Life with Maiko in that old, tiny blue car. I miss long hours in the journalism building with dozens of other hurried students. I miss people and going to the coast and seeing movies at the Bijou.

Usually I'm hesitant to use those two words because missing is just a lonely room full of portraits anyway. I'll never fully be a part of them again and my interpretation of them will continue to change. It wasn't the people or the context or the place; it was the perfect harmony of it all.

My friend says that I have a lot of "impossible wishes," like wishing I could have ice cream when the shops are closed and wishing I could make a brilliant film in one day and wishing I could see a Grateful Dead concert. But I think most people have these wishes.

By the way, I just noticed that Finland has so many strange fruit juice combinations. For example, a popular brand called juissi has the following flavors: "Pineapple-orange, Strawberry, Lemon-lime, Mixed (apple, green grape and raspberry), Fruit (grapefruit, pineapple, passion fruit, pear and apple), Pear, Blueberry-raspberry, Red Energy and Green Energy" (from wikipedia page). Well, those are strange to me at least. In America, I think I only had apple, orange, grapefruit and cranberry. In Finland, it's completely normal to have a glass of strawberry juice.

Getting to sleep is difficult, and I wonder if it's because my oh so stable life as an exchange student in Finland is approaching its end, and the outside world seems so foreign and scary. You would think that after Hawaii to Spain, Spain to Hawaii, Hawaii to Oregon, Oregon to Finland, that this would be something I'm used to. I always hear that the more experiences we have (whatever that means!) and the more adversity we encounter, the more prepared we are for the future. But with every challenging and uncomfortable experience, I realize that we can never be totally prepared for the experiences that lie ahead. What has helped me more is figuring out my passion and drive and identifying some concrete steps that could lead me to a fulfilling career and lifestyle. Just as important as preparation and new experience is the understanding of our nature, and our way of dealing with difficult situations. Maybe new and adverse experiences will help, but maybe they won't.

I just lost my train of thought and am feeling very sleepy. Goodnight!