Sormus, koti-ikävä, epäluotettavuus, jne
Jan. 4th, 2009 01:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyrasantae
I've been away for the last couple of weeks - 20-hour bus rides and endless snow and alternating iciness and sogginess, and old houses that creak, leak, and are at a Leaning Tower of Pisa -angle. The total "too stupid, sometimes naïve"1 of some of my relatives driving me into resigned silence most of the time.
I managed to get a lot of exercise while I was in Vancouver (since cars were having so much trouble so we bussed and walked a lot - great for getting annoying but handicapped relatives off your back). Also, being snowed in meant that we ate at home a lot more than usual there, so I think this must be the first time that I actually lost weight there instead of gaining it.
Also some modest seasonal loot, like a much-needed new jacket and a new watch; a board game; soap; the long-awaited package with Finnish candy, tea, and the DVD of my current most <3 movie (I already made a region-free copy of it for my viewing convenience); and some money with which so far I've placed an order for a silver ring.
I currently wear a silver toe ring on my right pinky finger (they're the only things readily available that's small enough for my finger) - so it's open on the back and sometimes gets caught on things. Since it's the pinky of my writing hand, it's supposed to be reminiscent of the engineers' steel ring, and its "brokenness" represents to me the state of being unfinished.
But now I'm finishing a general science degree, and it's never really felt to me like an actual milestone in my educational career (since I'm going on to other things more relevant to a future teaching career), so I felt that it didn't justify buying one of those fancy engraved grad rings (I have one from high school). So instead I'm completing the circle with a new ring for my pinky finger to replace the old. It's a plain half-rounded silver band, with no decoration. I could have had it now, but my hands are so small that it needs to be adjusted to a size 3½ and I have to pay and wait for that. All in all, it's still less than a quarter of the price of one of those gaudy grad rings.
But being so far away from a computer for two weeks did something weird to me. Coming back I expected to be relieved and happy that I could chat with my friends again, but upon resuming my Finnish chat-room lurking, I felt a bit confused and hesitant, apprehensive and slightly awkward. Somehow, suddenly seeing so much of the language again only made it feel kind of dry to me, and I found myself asking myself, "so what's so special about all this? What's the big deal about Finland anyway?"
Well, of course gazing upon a wall of foreign words is nothing special. It's the people behind them who bring the words to life when you actually have conversations with them. It's the Finnish people I missed most. Everything else I miss follows in consequence.
There can be no great faith without doubt.
I've been meaning to have finished writing my Random Practical Guide for future students going to Finland ages ago but I really haven't made significant progress on the parts containing info that the original questionnaire forms would have wanted. All the other practical information I don't find so hard to say. Just the stuff that they want. I think it's because it is more directly about my experiences and is meant to be a sort of promotional material.
But I don't want to try to sell it to anybody. It's none of my business where you want to go on exchange and I don't want to pressure you into making a particular choice. My writing so far is more along the lines of "So you've decided to go to Finland. Here's what I think you need to know and expect in order to make the most sense of the different surroundings and to prevent from being completely confused." Logistics are important to me; I want to see that things will proceed smoothly with few hassles, and I want to encourage "making sense of different surroundings" rather than just accepting and/or judging them.
Even so, there is so much I could possibly say, even just on Finnish customs like guestbooks and bachelor/bachelorette parties and how supermarkets are different than ours, that I could never finish writing as new things either come to mind or I learn them. It's this learning, the new discoveries, that help to confirm my fragile faith. There's always something more that I find absolutely makes sense or absolutely reflects the way the imaginary world inside my mind works.
__________
1 This phrase was allegedly said (in English) by President Hu Jintao of China at some press conference to a group of Hong Kong journalists after he was irritated by their "stupid" questions. It's become a bit of a Chinese political sound-bite.
I managed to get a lot of exercise while I was in Vancouver (since cars were having so much trouble so we bussed and walked a lot - great for getting annoying but handicapped relatives off your back). Also, being snowed in meant that we ate at home a lot more than usual there, so I think this must be the first time that I actually lost weight there instead of gaining it.
Also some modest seasonal loot, like a much-needed new jacket and a new watch; a board game; soap; the long-awaited package with Finnish candy, tea, and the DVD of my current most <3 movie (I already made a region-free copy of it for my viewing convenience); and some money with which so far I've placed an order for a silver ring.
I currently wear a silver toe ring on my right pinky finger (they're the only things readily available that's small enough for my finger) - so it's open on the back and sometimes gets caught on things. Since it's the pinky of my writing hand, it's supposed to be reminiscent of the engineers' steel ring, and its "brokenness" represents to me the state of being unfinished.
But now I'm finishing a general science degree, and it's never really felt to me like an actual milestone in my educational career (since I'm going on to other things more relevant to a future teaching career), so I felt that it didn't justify buying one of those fancy engraved grad rings (I have one from high school). So instead I'm completing the circle with a new ring for my pinky finger to replace the old. It's a plain half-rounded silver band, with no decoration. I could have had it now, but my hands are so small that it needs to be adjusted to a size 3½ and I have to pay and wait for that. All in all, it's still less than a quarter of the price of one of those gaudy grad rings.
But being so far away from a computer for two weeks did something weird to me. Coming back I expected to be relieved and happy that I could chat with my friends again, but upon resuming my Finnish chat-room lurking, I felt a bit confused and hesitant, apprehensive and slightly awkward. Somehow, suddenly seeing so much of the language again only made it feel kind of dry to me, and I found myself asking myself, "so what's so special about all this? What's the big deal about Finland anyway?"
Well, of course gazing upon a wall of foreign words is nothing special. It's the people behind them who bring the words to life when you actually have conversations with them. It's the Finnish people I missed most. Everything else I miss follows in consequence.
There can be no great faith without doubt.
I've been meaning to have finished writing my Random Practical Guide for future students going to Finland ages ago but I really haven't made significant progress on the parts containing info that the original questionnaire forms would have wanted. All the other practical information I don't find so hard to say. Just the stuff that they want. I think it's because it is more directly about my experiences and is meant to be a sort of promotional material.
But I don't want to try to sell it to anybody. It's none of my business where you want to go on exchange and I don't want to pressure you into making a particular choice. My writing so far is more along the lines of "So you've decided to go to Finland. Here's what I think you need to know and expect in order to make the most sense of the different surroundings and to prevent from being completely confused." Logistics are important to me; I want to see that things will proceed smoothly with few hassles, and I want to encourage "making sense of different surroundings" rather than just accepting and/or judging them.
Even so, there is so much I could possibly say, even just on Finnish customs like guestbooks and bachelor/bachelorette parties and how supermarkets are different than ours, that I could never finish writing as new things either come to mind or I learn them. It's this learning, the new discoveries, that help to confirm my fragile faith. There's always something more that I find absolutely makes sense or absolutely reflects the way the imaginary world inside my mind works.
__________
1 This phrase was allegedly said (in English) by President Hu Jintao of China at some press conference to a group of Hong Kong journalists after he was irritated by their "stupid" questions. It's become a bit of a Chinese political sound-bite.
