well gee...

i forgot i had this here now didn't i?
not much exciting has happened to post?
that would be a lie though
i will start updating you for your many readers soon (lolz, i kid right?)

my new and improved faith in humanity meter!

well, mostly just new...

as some of you know (maybe does anyone actually read this babble?), my faith in humanity waxes and wanes as different things come to life in the world and in my personal happenings. so i decided to try and capture it in a handy dandy fundraiser style thermometer. Things like George W Bush, evil Babylonian soul stealing demons and bed bugs bring it down while things like meeting awesome people, discovering Finnish radio and kittens bring it up.

it would be lower but when i was biking home yesterday, i past 2 Finnish kids... about 10 years old or so. The first one said "HEEEI" as he rode past, the second put out his arm and yelled "highfive!" so i did... and it made me happy for the world.

get the picture?
so here we are now, between "nothing woodglue cant fix" and "you're kidding... right?"
will update as needed



so... since last posting, the world has turned and I've kept observing.

yesterday, I made it to the Alko down the hill. Decided to sample some of the Finnish-like drinks that had come up in conversation during class. So i got 2 small bottles of GIN LONG DRINK (its what it calls itself). was fun. ended up playing cards and drinking games downstairs with Devan, Beer (thai), Jiag (chinese) and She-Jung (korean) (omgomgomg i'm so sorry, i know i killed names D:)... learned some kick ass Chinese card games that i will hang on to for a long while.

I finally got around to watching the VP & Tuesday debate, my friends, and let me tell you. Dontchaknow, it was just so goshdern distressin' and most halarious in some parts. Best part of the VP debate: the times Joe Z-snapped Palin and was like "bitch pleasse... dat aint it, you got it all wrong ho"... just in a much more polished and socially acceptable manner.

Having been a de facto explainer of the American electorial process and in such getting diffrent people's opinions about the whole thing i've aquired a new lense to watch the process through. It is even more nonsensical now... didn't think that was possible. -shrug-

best i can figure, the worst possible parts to either possible presidency:
MCCAIN:
-more fear mongering and divided, fanatical, false nationalism... danger will robinson
-republican women wearing their hair like sarah palin (so goshdern 50s)
OBAMA:
-foxnews kicking into slander overdrive
-the thought of "obama? yo mamma" jokes sweeping the nation makes me feel a little uncomfortable

not going to lie, my last bit of on the fenceness has dissolved, he may not be the guy i wanted as a first choice but he's who his party ran and i've deemed him the lesser or two evils and the smarter of two political dolts. yea...going to have to go with Obama i guess. My one fear with him is that he's the flip of W: liberal, carismatic, an adoring public but inneffectual. we'll see how this all pans out... if he wins. which according to baseball statisticians he very well might. I just... I can't find McCain anymore... 8 years ago i could have, but we all saw what happened there.

I also got around to (finally) buying a cheap handset to go with my prepaid SIM card. is a supersexy little cheapo Nokia that could own the face of my US phone... in fact it might *become* my US phone when i get home. ALSO! it has a radio in it!!! I was going to buy one of those so it saves me that expense... the stations around here rock hardcore... the variety is nice to say the least. Rocking out to the motown/soul/old R&B/disco/jazz channel. kicks ass.

my absentee should be coming soon... and more of my classes are starting next week, yay!

will explain later...

my new system
it involves thermometers

insomnia be my guide

so
sleep has become weird... i'm not on US time... i'm not on finland time
i'm somewhere in between
has inspired some neat "artsy" things but has made doing anything interesting
every night i go to sleep, i wake up at 4am, on the dot

trying to sync it by an ingenious plan:
stay up all night saturday, then all day sunday, then go to sleep at a reasonable hour sunday evening

sounds good... if it doesn't kill me

The Quest for the Perfect Pizza
so they have tons of pizza places around here... i've been sampling, trying to find the best

alan's: a block to the right of my complex
pretty tasty, a bit sketch, reassonably priced... used canned mushrooms though D:
good for close...
4/5 stars

koti: in the LOTR valley across from the KKK citymarket
eh, was ok..... kinda thin on the crust, a bit pricey... close but...
2/5 stars

pizzeria maria: in city centre
really amazing, and cheap for a huge pizza... never had friend onion rings on a pizza before but damn they were good, will go back
5/5 stars best yet

i think lenka is pissed at me because i missed a small dust bunny in one of the corners of the kitchen. i don't really care though, to lax to care about that nonsense.

though she does amuse me... the more i get to know her the less i find redeemable about her... she's showing herself to be quite spiteful and most unforgiving... and not too bright... the one thing that gets to me more than anythign else is that she treats us like petulant children.

last night, a bag of shrimp fell out of the freezer, i heard it and went to the kitchen. while rearranging the contents of the freezer, she got home. "let me do that" pushes out the way.
"ok lenka...", i turned and started washing a few dishes... she turned to me, my carton of ice cream and hers in either hand. mine is sweet tasty toffee, hers is banana toffee. dead serious and most worried over the issue she asked me "however will we tell them apart????"
i stared at her "well, yours is in a yellow box, says in bold letters "BANANI-TOFFEE" on it and has a picture of a banana... we'll manage" she still looked lost.... so i showed her mine was opened, she got the picture.

she has trang so scared i asked her(trang) a question yesterday and she said she thought i was going to be mad at her for something when i had first started talking.

crazy. lenka said she wanted to make this comfortable as student housing but has doled out rules that only fit herself.

my adaptation continues... finnish history course started last week, think it will be good besides the papers from hell i have to write for it. dear god i might have to use annotation D: i've never been good at that.

my own nation worries me

sometimes i worry for the standing of my home country
sometimes i wonder if it can make it in the world
sometimes i wish more were less emotional in their opinions
my greatest fear is overabundance of artificial dangerous fanatical patriotism

CCR rocks the house

i think lenka and trang have made their peace. which is good for all of us i must say.
we'll see, the building sauna is open saturday and they've both extended an invitation for me to accompany them. should be fun even though KOAS housing restricts international students to swimsuits as a rule of their saunas.... won't be the full experience but i'm sure i'll manage

as i'm sure anyone reading this has heard, there was a shooting at a college near tempre. wasn't here... though i've gotten quite a few calls
quite sad really but we live in a violent world.
i bet individuals can help make up for the tragidies institutions and other individuals inflict... just a thought

saturday partyday

i met up with my host family at about 13, we went out to their lot on the lake and did some work on their new sauna... (there are 6 million finns worldwide, 5.2 million in Finland and .5 million vacation homes/corteges/on the lake saunas) of course a picnic with tasty grilled peppers followed. quite a nice day. Pauliina drove me back to my flat. is quite lovely out there though. i got to taste some ligon berries straight from the forest floor.

later on Devan rang me up with an invitation to do what Devan does best, meet up with people and head to the bars in city center. i joined up and off we went barhopping. from the chic to the metal to the imitation pub we made the rounds. i kept well under my limit as i always do when i know i have to walk in excess of 4 kilometers home. Devan however, got wasted.

he was demanding food and whatnot around 1.30 so i offered o break from the group and walk with him home so that he didn't get hit by a car or anything. he lives in the same building as me so it works out fine.
that was by far the longest walk i have ever had, but quite an adventure in and of itself.
Devan is a sociable person to begin with and even more when he's drunk. we talked to maybe 20 Finns including a hippi/goth couple, EVERYONE in the line at the all night burger kiosk, a few trees on the uni campus, a guy on a bike he stopped to ask for a light, a fellow uni student from Helsinki and several others who avoided him.
Ellie and Margot (the Austrian girls) encountered us on their walk home and joined me in trying to divert his attentions from other people. at some point we stopped and moved aside for a bike to pass. lo and behold, it was the some of our party (namely Christan the cultured Swiss guy and the German girl whose name escapes me at the moment) who we had left at the bar long hence. eventually (at 3.30 am) we made it back to the flats.

a good night, got to meet new people and found a super nice pint glass and a silk scarf on side the road on the walk home....

i'm coming into my surroundings... getting the hang of this walking everywhere thing

Lenka is mad at Trang saying she didn't clean well enough as it was her week to clean according to Lenka's timetable. and even though she hasn't *been* here all week (she has a second appartment from the bug thing she raised hell about (which she says would be a national scandal int he Czech republic and wants housing to write her a formal letter of apology)) she expects us to live by her law. i get the idea behind it, trying to bring order to the situation but none of us had say in it. the only reason she asked me about it is because she didnt know the english for some words. she says i should be mad too since i have so much work on my hands now. quite frankly i don't care, her obsessive, controlling and racist remarks are starting to get under my skin.
would it be too much to ask for a peaceful living situation?
all in all a good weekend though.