Let it snow

Sunday, 24th February, 2008

So we thought it would be really good idea to buy a secondhand freezer. That way we can take advantage of cheaper meat and freeze it and when Kati does some baking it means we don't have to try and eat 12 muffins or a whole blueberry pie in two days! Kati's parents kindly gave us the money for the freezer and her cousin, who has a van, helped us pick it up. All was going well. Except the freezer is really just a large cupboard that doesn't really fit anywhere and has more in common with an oven than a freezer. Yup, it doesn't work. Hopefully we can get our money back!

Lately it feels like lots of things are breaking down. My mp3 player no longer works. My phone can be used as one, but it's not as convenient to use or update as a normal player, and then yesterday the washing machine decided to retain all it's water after washing, so that could be nearing the end of its life as well. D'oh!

We had a couple of really nice student teachers at my school recently. They we both kind and good at what they do, so I had no problems with them taking the lesson rather than the normal teacher. They left a couple of weeks ago, and the whole class went with them for a cup of coffee on their last day, and it was a lot of fun. Now we have new students, only they're not student teachers, they're studying something else, like social economics or something like that. But they manage to talk to us all like we're children, which is really annoying, and the other lesson they took us on a field trip to the pharmacy. For fucks sake, do they really think we don't know how to buy headache pills? Since we've all been in Finland at least three months at this point (I've been here over five months) I'm pretty sure we all know how to buy cough medicine. It's difficult to describe how annoying it was to be there. Thankfully, these students don't teach the Finnish language lessons, only the class that already pisses me off, so it's not the worst thing ever. However, they want to take us to some school on Monday at 11:30am. Now, the class before it doesn't finish until 11:30am, so no one is going to have time to have a break at all that day. So I've decided that I'm just not gonna go to that lesson. I'll just leave after the Finnish class ends! I've not decided on my excuse yet. Maybe my wife will need me, or maybe I have an appointment that would have been during the lunch break, but since we don't have a break, I'll end up missing the lesson. I guess the possibilities are endless!

It's been snowing a lot lately. I've haven't been around this much snow for such a long period of time, ever in my life. We went out for an hour long walk in it today, and it was really coming down. We looked like a couple of snowmen by the time we got home! It was fun though. In the pictures you can see the now frozen lake, covered in several inches of snow. People were skiing and skating on the far end of it. Here's some pictures:

This is how it looked a few months ago

Kati standing in almost the exact same spot today

A little further along

And me standing before the footbridge that crosses the lake

We'll be going to another basketball game tonight, so hopefully our team will win. We've not missed a single home game since we first went to one not long after I moved here. The season is almost over and I think there are only 1 or 2 more home games after tonight. Then our favourite player, Monty Rogers, will no doubt be moving up to the highest division as his stats have been so good this year that loads of teams are interested in him. I know I will miss him next season!

Plugs: Nick, Liza Marie, and Kati.

~Graeme

And as if by magic, February appeared

Sunday, 3rd February, 2008

So it's February already and bloody hell is it snowing here! We had a foot of snow fall a couple of days ago, a load more yesterday and today we have a right snow storm going on. The wind is whipping it up all over the place as well. You have to be careful when you go walking as if you stand in the wrong place you'll sink up to your knees in the white stuff.

They are much better prepared for the winter in this country that we are back home in the UK. It's the law that all cars use special winter tyres this time of year, so they all tend to have studs in them. Unfortunately I don't have studded shoes! So walking can be a little slippery sometimes, especially when the snowplow has been on the path and compacted what it didn't push out the way. It's not too cold though at about -3C but tomorrow or the next day it's expected to drop down to -15C or so. Bit nippy that.

So I'm without my wife for the next few days. Studying tourism means she's had to pop off to Dublin for a little bit. So now I'm all alone for the first time since August. It's not too bad now, but then she only left a few hours ago. I'm sure this evening will feel a little strange, eating and sleeping alone.

So school is still a mixed bag. 12 lessons a week, only 6 of which are Finnish lessons. The rest are made up by pointless computer, integration and cultural lessons. The difference between Finnish and British culture is so small as to be almost none existent, but I still have to listen to someone talk about it for what seems like an eternity. And why do I need to listen to some annoying woman blabber on about how Finnish Immigration Law was changed a few years ago? And it's in Finnish, so I only really understand the little words, and here she is using a load of huge words that you would never use on a day to day basis. And if you don't understand something, instead of trying to explain it, she'll just say the same unknown word over and over again, getting louder each time. God, she's annoying. Thankfully the lady who actually teaches the language is far better. As for the Finnish Immigration Law, well, they joined the EU which means they couldn't really say no to anyone from an EU country. That's as much of the law as I care to know about!

The computer lessons are still a complete waste of my time. The other week we were all handed a sheet of A4 with all the punctuation marks on them. We then had to open Word and copy said list onto the PC. I felt like saying "Are you taking the piss?" And I still had to do it! Even though to anyone it's perfectly obvious that I can type and use a computer, I still have to do all that rudimentary crap. Of course, not everybody knows where they all are, so it's good practice for them, but I've been using computers for as long as I can remember. The guy who 'teaches' the class has only lived in Finland for 10 years as he came from Iran or somewhere close to there. Which means he's probably never even seen anything other than Windows 98 and XP, where as I used 3.1 in school all those years ago and even used them before Windows when school had those ancient BBC computers. It can be very frustrating at times.

Still, at least the language lessons are good, so I'm only wasting half of my time there. Just sometimes I think it would be so much better if instead of sitting typing punctuation marks or listening to the annoying woman, I could just go home, have some lunch and study,and therefore learn something!

On the brighter side of things, me and Kati have started exercising more. We go for our Nordic walks everyday and a few days ago I bought some cheap weights to try and get back into shape a little.

Plugs: Kati, Nick (I can't believe Google hasn't found me. I used to be the most famous Graeme on the net!) and Liza Marie.