Dem photes ain't workn'

So I took a peep at this ole rag again today and noticed that most of the photos no longer work. Posibly because most of them are linked to a friend's facebook, possibly not. Either way I can't be bothered to fix it since aproximately one Carl actually looks at this thing. HI CARL!

Combatting the Poo Brain

More than one post in a month! I must have come down with a brain fever!

As I said in my previous post, I feel to be suffering from the poo brain, an affliction where in my brain does basically nothing and my facial expression is similar to the posted picture of everyone's second favourite Batman (because lets face it, those two movies with George Clooney as Batman are pretty fantastic). In light of this, lately I have been trying to work my brain muscle in some way or another and you know what? I feel like writing could be a fun thing so here I go on another rambling gallivant through my cranial spaces in search of some sort of coherent thought. Oddly enough I'd like to say a quick little thanks to Team Petootz and one C. Doom-Hammer for providing enough thought provoking blog material between the three of them to actually motivate me to do something, which is something teachers have been trying to do for close to 20 years. Good on 'em.

Otherwise, let try and unclog some of this poo from my brain. One would think that starting a project would be a good way to do such a thing and being a manual labour kinda guy that would generally entail making something. Sadly in my current circumstances I can't do that because I have no access to tools and I'm moving in less than 2 weeks so I'd like as little stuff as possible (but I'd still really like to try may hand at some blacksmithing) so that leaves me with trying to pump the old mind muscle with some other endeavors such as the ramble you're reading (or at least skimming), drawing and attempting to learn Finnish whilst skateboarding.  Now writing is pretty self explanatory, what with this blog being the form it's taking and all that jazz so I shan't go into that and I'm guessing a majority of my readership (do I even have a readership or am I just writing to no one?) already know that I have spent 4+ years doing drawing as part of my industrial design education so I feel I'd really just be telling you junk you already know there as well. Which leaves me with the interesting field of learning Finnish and skateboarding at the same time.

Now I should probably point out that this isn't some hilarious concept for learning a difficult Finno-Uralic language with enough variations for each word to make your head spin. Mercy me no, not at all. I just happen to have made friends with a local group of skateboarders and curiously enough they tend to speak to each other in Finnish swapping to English when something important comes up. As a result I don't have much to do while they're talking (other than skateboarding) but listen to them and try and figure out what's going on and the result of that is me slowly gaining an understanding of this rather mind boggling language. I certainly wouldn't understand a full conversation and I certainly can't say much but I have been very proud to confuse the hell out of various Finnish people by commenting on conversations that they had assumed I wouldn't understand. So far I can only really do this while talking about skateboards and a few other basic subjects but hey, that's a start.

Now one would think it would make logical sense to take this chance to listen to Finnish all the time by supplementing it with some book learning and you'd be right. However that's not how I roll, preferring instead to piece together an understanding of the language through reading whatever I can get my hands on (I've become quite good at deciphering fast food menus) and asking questions because sadly I'm not a guy that can be trusted to study on his own. Which is something I should really work on because I'm probably missing out on a whole range of educational benefits. But I am really finding that in the last month or two that I have been hanging with these cool cats, my understanding of the language has drastically improved. It probably has a lot to do with Finnish borrowing a lot of words from English when it comes to skateboards but whatever. I find it quite irritating that in all my months prior to meeting these guys, I had made very little head way with my linguistics simply because Finns are so accepting of the fact that their language is so god damned difficult. When they meet someone for the first time they'll talk to you in Finnish and the second you don't react they automatically switch to English and it's very hard to get them to change back, thus throwing away any chance you had to practice your Finnish. I have literally had Finnish people tell me to not bother learning Finnish because its too hard if you're not raised with it and everyone speaks English anyway. Which is a shame because its a pretty cool language with a lot of letters that most folks can't pronounce. Here's an example for you from my favourite internet famous Finn.

P.S. Some of the controls for this blog are in Finnish, how neat is that!

Gettn' the Poo Brain

Lately I've felt that my head don't work quite proper no more. I find my self mis-spelling things (not really a big deal), typing words with random letters in them or just plain typing a completely different word to the one I intended. I find my self spending hours doing not much more that flicking between two different web pages, seeing if either of them has updated while I was looking at the other. I think the technical term for this is "Poo Brain". Please see the attached video for a detailed description.

I think it is possible that 9 months of living a life of comfort and leisure in Finland may have made my brain space into naught but a mush used to process nothing more than "what should I have for dinner?", "what TV show or movie should I watch?" and occasionally "what do I want to drink?". I think it may be a lack of intellectual stimulation that may have bought around the rather severe case of the Poo Brain that I am now suffering. I can tell you, its not so great. I think the best way to combat this would be to craft something. I am strongly considering taking some sort of knife making course when I return to the land of Australia. That'd be cool. I think the best possible career path would be that of a blacksmith. Think about it, working all day in a forge hammering steel and in the evening I'd be the one that the local tavern would call to settle ruckuses due to my burly strength attained behind the anvil. I can't really imagine any real conceivable down side to that. Just think, I could make armor!

"KORKOKENKÄKUKKAMEKKOSUOHIIHTO 2012" an excercise report

This is a post at the request of one C. Doomantle and is a study of the video KORKOKENKÄKUKKAMEKKOSUOHIIHTO 2012 and the quality of workout achieved by such an activity. There is also a smaller report as to whether this sport is as fun to do as it is to watch that will be addressed in a different article.

Korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto 2012 or "high-heels-flower-dress-cross-country-skiing" is a video depicting the act of several Finnish ladies taking part in an event where they race across marsh land in the Pudasjärvi region of Finland on modified skis, whilst wearing summer dresses with flower prints on them. This paper will endeavor to analyze the  benefits and level of physical activity created by taking part in the activity.

Despite minor differences in the equipment used, it would stand to reason that many of the health benefits found in cross-country skiing would also be found in korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto. These health benefits are many for cross-country skiing offering a workout that works a majority of the muscles in the body, burns calories quickly, increases cardio-vascular fitness and due to its low impact nature provides a good base to build strong joints. A majority of these benefits could easily be applied to the activity depicted in the video above to a lesser extent than that of traditional cross country skiing. Many of the same muscles would still be worked during this activity as they would be in cross-country skiing. That is except for the lower legs. Due to the nature of the skis using high heeled shoes rather than traditional ski bindings that allow for free movement of the heels, more emphasis is placed on the calf muscles and many of those in the posterior chain of the individuals taking part, thusly giving them a fine set of pins and some nice butts to boot. Calorie burning is a field that it would be said that  korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto is not as effective as traditional cross-country skiing for two reasons. Firstly the activity of korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto is not as vigorous as that of cross-country skiing due to participants having to move slowly in order to negotiate the difficult marsh land terrain (this would however create a stronger workout for the muscles being utilized). Secondly the temperature in which the athletes are working plays a roll in the amount of calories burnt, one simply burns more calories in a cold environment that they do in a warm one, so simply because of the fact that this activity takes place in summer it can be said that less calories are burnt. Similar points can also be made in relation to the aerobic nature of the activity as well. The low impact nature of traditional cross country skiing along with the sustained high heart rate it creates allows the participant to keep their heart and lungs working at a consistent rate for an extended period. However in the case of  korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto this is not as evident. As previously mentioned the slower nature of this activity puts more strain on the muscles and as a result they will fatigue faster and as a result a sustained cardio work out is harder to achive. This in-ability to keep a sustained low impact workout also has an effect on the joint health promoted by cross-country skiing as the joints, which while still be moved to a full range of motion, may have un-necessary stresses placed upon them that could prove detrimental to their health due to skis becoming stuck in the mud and other such mishaps.

In closing one could conclude that there is a decent workout to be had whilst partaking in  korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto but in doing so one would want to pay great attention to what is going on in front of you.

A just funkn' around

Fresh picked flavour capsules

So home time is peeping its luminous head over the horizon and soon I shall journey far to the south to the place from whence I came. Its kind of a cool thing, but its also a bit lame at the same time. I've become accustomed to life here, what with the unlimited access to high speed broadband in my flat, the conveniently close stores and what not and now that the sun sets again watching TV at night has become a great old thing and don't even get me started on the blueberries. Oh those sweet little balls of flavour... you just pop out into the woods for an hour and you come back with all the berries you could need to create a healthy and flavoursome breakfast. Its pretty great. But coming home also has the upside of having some people to hang out with again. Most of my friends left this little place back in june and since I returned from my holidays I've been quite the shut in. So that's pretty swell.

There is however a lot of messin' about involved in shooting back to the home land and that is mostly concerned with getting all my junk home. It would seem that I have acquired far more stuff than I had thought while I was here and getting it all back is proving to be an expensive exercise as I have spent almost 150 euro on postage so far and there is more to come. I am getting good at packing boxes though. I sometimes wish I was strong enough to just throw all my belongings back to Australia but I don't think that will be happening anytime soon.

I don't really have anything interesting to say here I just felt like having a bit of a ramble. Oh did you know I went to the Czech republic and waited in a bunch of lines? I also made friends with some Danish dudes. That was a swell time. I sure hope a cat rubs its self on you at some point in the future. Cats are nice. I like cats, do you?

Oh yeah, this old thing

Not that I think anyone really reads my non-proof read, poorly spelled and punctuated mindless rants but I figured just in case I'd give the low down on what's been going down in the old Finland. The answer to that is not really that much for the last week or so. Prior to that though I have been on several super cool skate trips which have seen me heading into the lappish wilderness and going down some big hills quite fast on a skateboard. It was quite the surreal experience as we did a majority of our skating between the hours of 6pm and 5am because there are no cars and the sun doesn't set. There were several times where we would have to stop in the middle of a run because a family of reindeer would run over the road, get scared and then start running in every direction and falling over which made things interesting. I even got to do some driving which was interesting considering that everything about it was the opposite to what I'm used to. All in all those were some swell times that can be viewed in this here video.

The cabin in question

A week or so after that I had the pleasure to visit my good friend Sampo and his family at their summer cabin in southern Finland. This has been something on my to do list since I first came to Finland and I must say it did not disappoint. The basic idea of a summer cabin in Finland is that it is a somewhat basic house that you go to during the summer to have a relaxing time without all the hassles of modern living. They are usually in a  lovely and picturesque location next to a lake or the ocean or some such. Many of them don't have electricity or running wanter, however the one I was at had electricity and bore water (you couldn't drink it but it was good for washing things and the like. It is also common for them to have a composting toilet rather than a flushing one and oddly enough they don't really smell and they have a nice little window in the side so you can observe the wilderness while you take care of your business. And of course there is a lovely wood fired sauna. Basically what we got up to at the cabin was help out with some yard work, play lots of games (Mölkky is a game worth investigating), eat well, have sauna (which involves and invigorating jump into the sea), picking berries and mushrooms and go traveling around the area in a boat (Once we even took the boat to the store). All in all a most relaxing time indeed.

But now that that exciting stuff has happened I've mostly been hanging out in Rovaniemi. I fixed up a bike the other day that I hope to sell it and I created a delicious egg custard type bake thing using some blueberries I picked in the forest near my house (which is delicious). I have also become a favorite snack stop for the local mosquito population which kinda sucks.

Also you should look at this http://teddytourslapland.com/catalog/etusivu.php

In the summer time...

So after the merriment of traveling around various parts of Europe (namely Estonia, Lativia for a few hours, Germany and Ireland) I have arrived back in sleepy old Rovaniemi. It was certainly nice to get back here after spending something like a month and a half sharing a room with someone every night, sleeping with ear plugs in and occasionally sleeping in some very uncomfortable beds. The internet access was nice too. I do however miss the lovely people I was staying with for a majority of the time. I'll say this about the Irish, they are VERY welcoming and do quite like to feed people when the come to visit. I was feel quite awkward a lot of the time as I was being fussed over and practically waited on and having things paid for for me. You should go to Ireland because its cool. You should also seriously consider going to Estonia too, because Estonia is a jewel in the Baltic that too few have seen. For more details on my lovely adventures feel free to stalk my facebook.

Now that I'm back in Finland I have resolved to try and lose a bunch of the fat and laziness that I gained in Ireland from living the good life. As a result I'm getting really good at making omlettes and I now make a real nice chilli. This week has been all sun and I was recently put in contact with the local longboarding community and thusly I have spent the last few days skateboarding, losing skin and generally having a merry old time. I can see my self almost being good at it by the end of the month. Sadly though, this town is the most uninspiring and depressing place to try and train parkour which has lead me to not do it much, which is a real shame because I love doing that silly leaping about and all that. So the net result of summer up here looks like it will be I get good at longboarding but worse at parkour. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

In other news I'll be jetting down to a friend's summer island later in the month where I will be having sauna and lounging around on a beach like a casual gent. I'll report back in that later.

A semester of things

Alright so I'm just gunna start off and say that Finland is pretty swell and in general I've been having a great time running a muck about the place. I've seen and done some pretty fantastic things here along with meeting some genuinely excellent chaps and chapettes. I've also received the odd letter or two from some of my most stalwart friends back home which is just lovely.

Its a bit odd right now, as a write this I'm looking out my window where just over a month ago there was still a large amount of snow covering everything, now the place is a luscious green marvel of a place and I feel somewhat like I should be an extra on the set for lord of the rings. And if I go back to January, when I arrived, the contrast is even greater. When I got here there were around 3-4 hours of light a day, -20 was a pretty normal temperature, and there was a good half a meter to a meter of snow on everything. Now its bright and sunny until about 10:30 in the evening and even after that it only gets a bit dim. there is no total darkness anymore. Which is creepy as shit.

I'm going on a trip to Dublin tomorrow night which sort of signifies the end of this semester. Every exchange student here is going home except for 2 Brazilian guys (and one of them is a master's student so he doesn't count) which has prompted some reminiscing on my be half. A lot of these memories are quite arbitrary ones of going out to bars and night clubs and getting wasted but there are also some genuinely swell ones which would cause a ventricle to burst were you to experience them all in one go. I can't be bothered to write all the things I've done so I'll just bash out some photos stolen from my friends since from what I hear, a picture is worth a thousand words.

The river when I arrived

On really cold days the one part of the river that wasn't fully frozen gave off lots of steam

Those thar northern lights

Makan' handy craft portraits of our selves

Casually walking into a night club in nothing but a bathrobe, boxers and shoes.

Havn' a pint 'o cream on Paddy's day

Dressed and acting like pirates on a cruise across the Baltic

Soakin' up dem Swedish rays

I wasn't present for this event, but it sums up Finland fairly well

Shootn' ice at trees from a tall tower

Painting the Union Jack onto a guy before heading out to a night club

Taking part in the May day Celebrations. See here and here.

Enjoyin' dem great out doors and finding a BIG pile of sawdust concealing a pile of snow

More 'o dem outsides

If we'd been loungin' like lizards on this rock two months ago, we'd probably be dead.

So yeah, those give no real idea at all what I've been up but you kinda get the gist of it. I kinda went to uni for a bit too but that's all depressing and I don't like it at all, so that can go get bent.

Love and kisses.

Finland. Its a place with things to do.

Beat that birch

So there seems to be a bunch of things that you have to do while you're in Finland and I'm happy to say that over my two trips here I think I've done almost all of them.

1. Sauna. You think sauna is all about towels and a gentle relaxing time right? Well, you're kinda right. The saunas we have back home are nowhere near hot enough. Here its considered cold if its anywhere under 90 degrees Celsius which is a bit different to the 70 degree ones back home. So firstly its god damn hot. Secondly, unlike at home, its a naked fest for all concerned and those caught waring pants are often scorned for such behavior. Then theres the masochistic acts that are often done together with sauna. Namely vihta and snow diving. Snow diving is pretty self explanatory, you run from the sauna to the snow and jump in. Naked. Its great, trust me. Vihta is a bunch of birch branches tied together that you use whip your self and generally cover the sauna in leaves. Its great, trust me.

Easily more interesting than reindeer

2. See a reindeer. Yeah, its an animal that lives here. They're pretty swell but I prefer squirrels.

3. See santa. Yeah he lives here apparently. I met him one time.

4. Get drunk on vodka. Honestly actual vodka is hard to get here because a) they tax alcohol a lot here and b) they have really high standards when it comes to vodka. Absolute is treated as rubbish here. But yeah, I've done it.

5. Walk over a frozen river/lake. It gets cold enough here that in mid winter, when the ice is thick enough, they open up pathways across the frozen river to foot traffic and snow mobiles to use. Its a pretty odd experience when you're casually walking over the middle of one of the biggest rivers in Finland. I'm usually scared that it'll break and I'll sink to a watery grave.

6. Swim in afore mentioned river/lake. Some person thought it would be a good idea to cut a hole in the ice and swim in the freezing water underneath. Lord knows why, that shit's cold yo. When I do it, the second I get in the water I wonder what the hell I'm doing.

The lights above the neighbor's house

7. Northern lights. This is actually something worth seeing. Tonight I was enchanted by the dancing green and red lights in the sky over the apartments I live in. I didn't even notice that it was about -15 even though I was only wearing my gym clothes. I recommend seeing them to anyone. Its like watching the dreams of a whimsical child spill across the sky.

And thus concludes my list of things that most people think you should do here. Yup.

Happy friend day to all

I don't like Valentine's day. And not for the usual reasons that people have like single people being jealous of happy couples and the like. My beef is with the notion that you have to have a special day to show someone how much you love them. What the dicks is up with that? If you love someone you should make sure they know it all the time, not one day a year cooked up to sell cards loosely based on the story of a saint.

Friends together are strong

Enter The Finnish translation of Valentine's day: Ystavanpaiva. Literally translated it means "Friend Day". Now to be honest I have no idea what Finn's do on friend day as I have spent most of it locked in my flat avoiding reading a design research book and listening to Immortal and generally not talking to people at all. BUT what I would like to think this day is about up this neck o' the woods (do woods have necks?) is a celebration of friendship, something most seem to take for granted that doesn't seem to be celebrated unless you're really drunk. Friendship is great. I like it, you like it. Lets celebrate it. Grab a friend, grab a mutually shared interest and celebrate the fact that you enjoy being around certain people more than others.

Most of my dear friends aren't in this country, but I sure wish they were. Happy friend day friends.

I walked on a river today

The river is so frozen now its safe to walk over to the uni on it. I did that today. Yup.

Mina en puhu suomea. Anteeksi.

Finland, its a place that I am. Its cold and until recently it was dark. But its pretty swell. And hence forth I shall start rambling in no particular order about nothing in particular.

Getting here: Getting here involved sleeping in some uncomfortable places (cars, floors, planes, trains), being quite close to people I have never met for extended periods of time, sitting for pretty much 12 hours straight and having a reaaaall hard time trying to find a good cappuccino in Amsterdam airport. Oh and they edited all the best parts of Goldeneye out on the in-flight movie selection, I mean why did they get rid of the toilet scene? So getting here was a pain in the ass and I don't plan on doing any intercontinental travel again any time in the next few months.

Drinking: My casual alcohol consumption has sky rocketed over the last two weeks. From maybe one night out a month to several nights out on the piss per week. Why just this Monday night I was at a party. And for some reason there was a child there. Apparently he shows up at heaps of parties. There is more than one night club in this town but for some reason, so far I have only been in one. Now I normally don't like night clubs, but this one has the ok from me because they played some Jimmy Hendrix for me and my friend last night. I don't think mooseheads would do that. Oh and mooseheads isn't full of cute Europeans.

Recreation: This place is great for the old recreation. I have a gym in my basement, a ski slope a 20 minute walk away and hiking is 5 minutes away. Last night I went rock climbing for a mere 5 Euro which was grand. I'm yet to go ice skating, but I hear its marvelous, and free. I don't think I've been so constantly physically active for a while.

Food: The uni will give me a massive meal for less than 2.50 which is amazing. Shame I'm never there at the right times. Other than that I'm getting pretty good at making shit up with a meager selection of ingredients. Yesterday I made ANZAC biscuits too which was swell.

Exchange students: They're fun to hang out with. I just pop over to their building and there's always some sort of fun happening. I wandered into a French flat last night and ended up as a member of the "Buffalo Club" which is a super cool exciting thing to be a part of apparently. Mostly I just hang out with the Irish though. They're great fun.

Straya day: Yup its not a thing here, but I'm gunna cook up some sausages anyway. Happy Straya day!