kyrasantae | Entries tagged with food

Like my old friend Nick, I have far too many essay/post ideas floating about in my head and not enough motivation or imperative to write them. (I suspect that he at least keeps a pile of drafts lying around, though. I don't.) I need to focus. I also need to write; there's a cathartic effect releasing these thoughts into text so I don't have to keep them in my head anymore. It's like thought-overload or something.

Here are some of those random post ideas:
* Things from teacher training that really ought to be in training for prospective profs
* The call of the ~~sea~~ forest: My outdoors(wo)man tendencies since childhood
* Why it should have been obvious all along that scholarship is my calling - it was just a question of which field, and even that in hindsight seems obvious
* When good self-esteem/image/pride causes shame
* A diary of the good fight: Notes on teaching (you've actually already seen some of this; I hope to post the rest once the dedicatee of these papers has had a chance to read the 13-page manuscript)
* The return of Hug-a-Finn

I know that my lack of regular updates and the personal nature of my writing tends to lead to a lot of questions asked and not enough of them answered. So please post below what you want to know more about, be it any of those topics above or something else, and I will do my best to respond.

I bought like 2.5 pounds of Cadbury Mini-Eggs in bulk today. They were like $4-something per pound. It wouldn't be wise for me to eat them all. Will probably leave some out for the roommates.

My internet has been flaking out so badly for the last couple of days that I think it's a sign I'm supposed to go meditate or pray or just be with myself.

I keep thinking it's already Thursday night.

Current Mood: distracted

This statement confused some players in my Guild Wars guild, but I didn't see the point in explaining further to what amounted to a group of total strangers.

And now, a children's story or something.

* * *
I still get a lot of questions about this photo, in this order:

1. "What is that you're eating?" Ice cream.
2. "What flavour is it?" Nougat.
3. "Was it any good?" Of course.*

___________________
*It was Finnish.

  This is that brick of ice cream.

  The brick contains 1L.
  I don't think they come standard in any other size.

  The chunk I'm eating in the photo is about a 4cm chunk off of it.

Here in North America, bricks of ice cream come in supersize.
(Just as most things do in America, compared to Europe.)

This brick contains 1.89L. It's our only ice cream brick size,
as far as I know.
If the above was a regular brick, this is a retaining wall brick.

Growing up I've always wondered:
"What's the point of that cardboard lip across the front?
It looks a lot like a cake box from the bakery,
but with the lip glued down."

We'd stand the brick up on end.
We'd undo the flaps on one side
and spoon out the ice cream.

  But I've learned my lesson.
  This is how Johanna showed me to open
  the box of nougat ice cream in Finland. (As you saw above.)

  It's more practical with the smaller box though,
  because the cross-section is smaller and a spoon fits less well.

  Now you too can cut out large slabs of ice cream!
  (I recommend storing the open box in a bag in the freezer.)

  It's been a long time since I've eaten supermarket ice cream.
  I've kind of forgotten how terrible it is...
  especially when it hasn't chilled until it's as hard as a brick.

The End ;-)

Current Mood: disappointed
Current Music: Sakari Kuosmanen & Veeti Kallio - Orpojen Joulu

I'm holding off on the Final FAILCLASS post until I receive my grade for the course. That way, it'll truly be the last word on it (that's why it's called "Final"?). Here's what you can be looking forward to reading about:
* ~~Reflection~~Research essays
* Kris is not amused!
* Staring contest: Me versus the exam

I mean, I honestly don't know how many people and who even reads this blog. Does anyone even care? LJ rolled out a stats feature today, but I haven't figured out what all of the numbers mean. The numbers seem bigger than I would have expected them to be.

I don't know what's going on with the postal service. I shipped a small parcel by sea 10.11 to Finland, and while I understand that it may take a little while yet to arrive (and may not get there for Christmas), I don't understand why a Christmas card + letter I posted on the same date hasn't gotten there yet, when letters are delivered by air by default. A card I posted to the Netherlands 30.11 got there 6.12, so...

And apparently a DVD that Timo sent me in August never showed up, either...

Also waiting anxiously for the gift from the BGG Secret Santa event. In the past I've had the BGGSS parcel show up while I'm away for Christmas, but this year my Secret Santa has decided to remain completely silent and not let me know if/when something is on its way.

Johanna says that she's also sent me something from Finland and that the postal clerk had said it should take approximately three weeks and get here by Christmas. I hope it appears while I'm gone (I'm going home on Saturday and will be back shortly after New Year's.).

I'm also in the BGG Christmas Card Exchange and I sent out five cards, so I'm supposed to get at least five back. Two showed up on the same day last week and I haven't gotten any more since.

It's like every day is an anticlimax: I walk out to the mailboxes every morning around 11 and it's empty or there's some bills or stupid political leaflets (most everybody has the 'no flyers or junk mail' sticker so we don't get the advertising stuff, but apparently that doesn't seem to apply to politics). A different person delivers the parcels, so I sit around in the early afternoon waiting for the door buzzer to ring, and it doesn't.

Finally, a news flash:
Finlandia-brand cheese is Finnish. The lady at the deli counter at Italian Centre Shop was really confused when I asked for some of that Finlandia Swiss cheese. Geez. Turns out they have it labelled (on their menu too!) as "Norwegian cheese." What?!

First, a better-looking pastry:

I made some notes on my computer regarding Week 14!!

Opening the period on Tuesday was our teacher coming around the classroom asking people what kinds of questions they wanted on the exam.

She also let us do the instructor evaluation forms, but I was soooo tired (I didn't sleep the night before since I was writing an essay) that I didn't really write much - I wrote down my boilerplate "less controversy stuff, more different viewpoints" blab. David writes a lot on his comment form, so I hope that takes care of it.

Then there was some video clip about -- you guessed it -- racism in children's books and impressionable little kids or something; a backdrop to some mother talking about that with the whole "sob story" kind of voice and intonation. I don't see a sob story here, sorry.

There was a little bit of talk about corporate sponsorship and product placement in schools (esp. in the US -- anyone who's read No Logo should be familiar with this kind of stuff -- our reading was from it). Watched the beginning bit of some documentary on the same.

On Thursday, me and the teacher met at the crosswalk...so of course she asks me what I thought of the class. I'm not allowed to say too much because instructors don't see their evaluation comments until after exams are written and submitted. I said that my exams are kind of weird, I have the hardest ones first and the easiest last...and that her exam is right in the middle, so I hope it'll be kinda of medium difficulty.

The truth is that, in my opinion, I have five exams alternating between really hard and maybe a little easier. But this one really is in the middle.

So the exam will be a mix of definition, short-, and long-answer questions. This is what you get when you ask everybody what they want, because everybody has different preferences. To be honest I can't really make a case here for any one type of question over another.

She hands out a one-page summary (a "final-term review"_[sic]) of the important questions and terminology from the second half of the term. "Proletarianization" is, sadly, not on this paper. She says that all we need to know is the stuff on this page and the (much more expansive) "middle-term"_[sic] review handout from October. She realizes that we never finished going through the "middle-term" handout, and asks if we want to discuss that one or this one.

Of course we do this newer one. Out comes the chart paper and the pens, and breaking into small groups. She stops our presentations at one point to read us some quotations from the reading we had about critical discourse analysis. By having them highlighted on the PDF and putting that on the projector. She does this because she says that the student presenter didn't pick up on the points that she wanted us to pick up. I'm too busy fidgeting to really note down what the quotations were.

Anyway, she hadn't finished grading the papers still, because she needs to take a second look-through to make sure they're all marked fairly relative to each other in terms of "depth of analysis." There's that phrase again. I don't know about you, but I'm just kind of worried that it doesn't really apply well to my essay. She asks if we'd prefer to pick up the papers outside her office or to have the comments and grades emailed to us. People prefer email, though I think regulations don't allow grades to be sent out through email, and I like having that kind of stuff on paper. Why do I have to be so old-fashioned? I let her know my preference and supposedly she'll notify me when I can go get my paper from her. (Edit: Just got an email from her to the class -- sounds like she's going to email my grade to me just like everybody else. Oh well.)

I've got a lot of catch-up reading to do, especially with the articles in electronic format -- I don't want to print them off because they're really long, and it's hard to read every word when it's on a screen.

<sarcasm> Well aren't you looking forward to my wrap-up installment after Thursday's exam? </sarcasm>

I'm starting to find that "Finnish bully" is less irritating, more-or-less equally entertaining, but no less offending to my morality when he's sober (though I suppose that condition doesn't happen often in my vicinity). (If I had to use only one word to describe him, it'd still have to be irresponsible.) That said, I think I'm going certifiably insane because for some inexplicable reason I still want to totally kick his a$$ (or stab him?) even though it'd be totally stupid and suicidal (given his size and other unrelated factors, not to mention the thought of the recklessness of running around outside in -25°C weather in a sweater).

Current Music: Tenhi - Sydänvalkea

First, some pastry:

Sneak preview of what I'm making for Friday's party. Hey, I know. I put the fillings in upside-down. I'll fix that next time.

This week (13) in FAILCLASS:

Our teacher reveals that she's from Harbin, China, and shows us a bunch of photos of the Russian-/colonial-style buildings there, saying something about how much we can learn from other cultures. She used to teach at the Harbin University of Science and Technology and apparently her husband thinks that Sleemans Honey Brown is the closest in taste he's found to Harbin beer. Um, okay.
Fun Wikipedia fact: Harbin is a diplomatic sister city with both Edmonton and Rovaniemi, among other places. THE MORE YOU KNOW.
There were a couple of slides on things that "Confucius say..."
I don't remember the context, but somewhere in Thursday's lesson she said "relatively definite." That doesn't even make sense.
She wants us to tell her what kinds of questions we should have on the exam. I have no easy suggestions.
Tuesday was about "contemporary issues in education" but it turned into a discussion mostly on technology in classrooms.
Thursday there was no student presentation, so we had to endure another lecture on different ideologies of diversity education (argh.) -- the different levels of scale being the individual (diversity development), the classroom/group (multicultural education), and the institution (anti-racism education). Personally, I'm all about the individual. Anything more involves guilt-tripping reluctant individuals into "playing the game" and a huge risk of fostering superficial understandings of culture. I have nothing more to say to this but x_x.

Recently there's been a lot of... structural creaking sounds from upstairs, like a heavy table moving along a linoleum floor. It goes like GGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNH! or *squeak*RRRRRRRRRRRRGH! I don't think it's actually a table moving along a floor, but it's really annoying nonetheless.

I have said more about the Finnish Bully in other, private places, and I don't wish to repeat the details here. My feelings about him are a bit ... ambivalent. (And "complicated," as Jari said.)

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: Canto Finlandia - Lumi teki enkelin eteisee

There hasn't been clean water in the plumbing at work since Thursday, so there's lots of extra jugs of water by the water coolers so that they have clean water to make coffee with, and bottles of hand sanitizer gel in the bathrooms. I don't like that stuff; it smells annoying.

I woke up on Friday morning in such a horrible mood that I didn't eat or drink anything until sundown, when I got to my parents. There were lots of chicken and rice at work but I had the resolve not to touch it. Surprisingly enough I was able to take the fasting quite well and didn't really feel anything. I don't know if was just the particular circumstances, or if it's a tolerance that I've developed through the last few years. It's both a product of lethargic/depressive episodes and a (circumlocutory) way of coping with the same - by keeping tabs on how hungry (or not) I am over the course of the hours, I distract myself from thinking about what's depressing me.

There was still no clean water at work today. We're more or less done *beep*ing the long answer booklets for the high school exams, and they are all in the process of being graded. So we're *beep*ing the machine-scored bubble sheets for those exams now. Most exam papers have name stickers on them for the student who wrote in that booklet, and these are usually applied by the teachers or the student him/herself at the time of writing. The stickers have the barcode that I *beep*. They're kind of really cheap laser-printed, but they should go on okay as long as you don't screw up and try to peel it off or curl the sticker, or the print all cracks off.

And most people are able to put the stickers on properly. No issues there.

Except that this year, the printer for those stickers really really sucked, and a whole lot of stickers have a sliver of the barcode cut off, so that they can't be scanned. What happens when these appear in the packets of exam papers is that we *beep* everything else that can be, and separate the screwed up ones, sending them back to the previous step in the assembly line. This is the "registration" section - the people who make up stickers for students who registered for the exams at the time of writing rather than at the beginning of the course. They have dedicated label printers and so their barcodes actually turn out properly, 100% of the time. And since a packet cannot proceed down the "assembly line" until everything in it has been *beep*ed (scanned), Registration was overwhelmed with massively massive stacks of exams requiring replacement labels and Scanning was sitting around with packets of exams - in some which more than half of the papers could not be scanned - waiting for said replacement labels.

The net result of this is that I wasn't terribly busy today but a number of other people were. Registration stayed late today to catch up with those stupid labels.

It was cooler and raining this morning and through lunch, and it was a bit cold in the office, so I wore a sweater to work, but right when I left work in the evening it was sunny and so I really really super warm in my sweater and felt like I was going to melt into a little puddle of sweat. Eeew.

Wrists hurt quite a bit on Friday, but not much today (not enough that I needed to bandage), despite them hurting significantly over the weekend also.

Current Mood: crappy
Current Music: Tenhi - Kausienranta

[08:02:42] <kyrasantae> ugh
[08:03:10] <kyrasantae> sorry i'm still completely exhausted and very very tired (not ill anymore, thankfully) so i'm going to crawl back into bed
[08:05:35] <kyrasantae> this must be the hangover part
[08:05:39] <kyrasantae> :P
[08:06:04] <kyrasantae> i hope it wasn't because of what i ate last night, because i took a lot of the leftovers home...
[08:40:20] <sihv> aww :(
[08:40:27] <kyrasantae> heh
[08:40:32] <kyrasantae> well i guess there's a bit of humour in that
[08:40:40] <sihv> mm
[08:40:52] <sihv> canadian juhannus hangover :þ
[08:41:06] <kyrasantae> *snrk*
[08:41:13] <kyrasantae> there was zero alcohol involved in this :P

By this time of morning it was bright enough outside that I had to make a blindfold with a bandanna in order to make a feeble attempt to fall asleep. I'm just still really tired from the 3-plus-a-bit hours of sleep Friday night.

I'm also still thinking over that email - and I won't divulge any more about it - I'm not quite sure with what proportions of skepticism and trust I should regard it. At times I wish so much to be loved (especially by my people) that I know it could cloud my better judgment - but I have to overcome these habits of fear and paranoia and mistrust of the world that have so long been part of my upbringing and my life.

The last week or so has been very warm, and I've been suffering quite a bit from heat-related fatigue. ~25°C and sunny isn't seriously insufferable, but I think it's the geography of the apartment that leads to absolutely no draught coming through the windows and a lot of sunlight (my window faces south). Humidity was up and down, skies going back and forth between overcast and clear, trying to rain but failing to, and then, even so, just random 5-minute showers.

It is noticeably warmer in my room than the rest of the apartment, and there were a few days when my flatmates actually borrowed an air conditioner from someone for the living room. There were nights when I needed a wet towel around my neck before I could sleep, laying on top of my blanket with only my underwear on. I absolutely had to tie a high ponytail in my hair to keep it away from my neck during the day.

My flatmate has a digital clock/thermometer in her room, and I asked her today what it had been saying. "It was 32°C in my room" at some times, she said. Currently it is 16°C outside, but it feels stuffy and much warmer in here. Too warm, too warm.

My father phoned me last night, wondering what I've been up to and why I don't come visit home. Unfortunately, I've signed a contract for a placement from the job agency and I'm still waiting for the call to tell me when I get to start working (it should be this week). It's for just ~3 weeks and I've promised that I'd go home for a few weeks once I finished this contract. But that's why I can't go home right now, even though I really really want to.

I've been frequenting the piano a lot more lately, whether it's the pieces of junk in the corner of the Education building or the one at the "FrASK house". I've found that I have the concentration again to really try to learn a piece properly ("Winter Wind" by Jon Schmidt) and it seems to make my wrists feel better... until I'm on the computer again, which is when the braces and bandages go right back on.

There are friends to visit here, Bible studies at the "FrASK house" and people to talk with every weekend, but this weather sucks so much and there's no routines or commitments right now. The last time I spent the summer here was after second-year, not motivated to go to my 1-hour-every-other-day class. I don't remember how I ate and what I ate back then, but at least I occupied my time with vanity and dreams of pride. But here, now, the last two weeks have been so completely numbing that, yes, - and I almost hesitate to say it but I know that I shouldn't hesitate - I want to go home. The other home. Not the one I keep talking about, but the other one.

The drunk email included a bidding to go back to Finland next summer (I don't know if I could; my sister wants to go to Japan with her best friend next summer - she convocates next year - and it would just be too devastating for my parents to be completely ditched by both their children at the same time for vacation). There are many new people there whom I'd like to meet now, and new things I'd like to try - but I as much as I would like to return to that beautiful world and that beautiful life, and everything that makes sense to me (except the language), I am not in need of dreaming of the future right now - I am in need of things to do in the present.

I smell my flatmates' cooking (they're Mainland Chinese) every night and I think of how much I miss my mom's cooking. I hear them talking in Mandarin all the time, and right now I would rather be where people regularly speak a language that I understand. I want to be in a room where I don't feel like I'm melting when it's hot outside. I want to be at a real piano with real keys with a real bench so I can sit properly and practice with my wrists at the proper height so that I don't hurt myself more - and where I can play for hours and hours without feeling like I'm trespassing and worrying about not playing well enough (this is why I don't go into the Fine Arts building and sneak into the rooms in the Music department) - and maybe with that I can turn these hands back into what they were two months before.

This is how I feel homesick right now.

Current Music: Tenhi - Viimeiseen

( A few big pictures in this post )

Items assembled

Current Music: Kotiteollisuus - Varjonkukka

The rest of the apartment is kinda messy and contains mostly stuff which is not mine, so I didn't take photos. If my estimate isn't completely wrong, this room is about half a metre longer than the room I had in my first year, and it makes a BIG difference for the claustrophobia and stuff. It kind of sucked trying to remember how I had arranged some of my things five years ago, though, and I'm forced to do it differently here anyway.

The Venetian blinds were broken so I got a cheap bedsheet and pinned it up over the window. Hey, whatever works. I don't mind that it lets in a bit of light because it kind of reminds me of Finnish summers (and I slept perfectly fine then), and it makes sure that my stuff doesn't get sun-bleached from direct sunlight. Besides, the more light comes into my room, the more likely I'll be able to wake up in time to get to work.

You can't see it in the photos, but since there wasn't a convenient way to put my Finnish dictionary in my closet-shrine (I admit that my entire room is slightly shrine-like), it's on my desk next to my computer. 'Cuz it comes in handy sometimes, and I'm too lazy to walk to the closet every time I wanted to look for something super-quickly (opening my browser takes longer, even).

Anyway, I'm super tired and super hungry. Definitely need to feed myself and go to bed. I'm kind of happy that I can cook on the stove again without getting antsy. I don't think I've used a stove for the last four months, or maybe longer (well okay, I cooked on the stove once at my parents' house during Easter weekend. That doesn't count).

I also had some trouble putting up things on my wall so that they are straight. I don't know if it was just because I was that tired.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: Maija Vilkkumaa - Ei saa surettaa

Sorry about the crappy photos, they're from my phone :)

I just took a not-very-quick bus trip to IKEA just to check out the way to get to work next week. After some $1 breakfast - eggs, hash browns, sausages (okay, $2, because bacon is an extra dollar) - I went straight to the food market because that's the best part of the store. Well, the other parts are great too, but it's not like I have any immediate need for furniture (nor for food).

Oh yeah, the IKEA restaurant serves beer and wine. Just FYI. :P

I bought a few choice things, each of which reminds me of a story.

	Cloudberry Jam ($4.99) 18.5.2008 - Right after I dropped off my suitcase, Matthieu took me to the grocery store behind the student apartments. I said I needed at least some breakfast food, and I got some bread and some jam. Looking at the jam shelf, I remember choosing between strawberry, lingonberry, and cloudberry jam. Strawberry is nothing special, lingonberry I was 100% sure I'd be able to get in Canada somehow (at IKEA, where else?). So I got the cloudberry jam, which cost twice as much as the other two. Still does here. In fact, it's nearly the same numbers (4,65€), just different currency. It's still made in Sweden either way.
	Kopparberg Cider ($1.49) Non-alcoholic, of course, given the law here. But when Johanna and I were in Tampere (31.5.2008), we ran into the market inside the Anttila store five minutes before it closed, to grab a couple of cans of (alcoholic) Kopparberg cider to enjoy at Näsinpuisto. I put the can into my bag as we were going to the park, and so when it came time to open it, it fizzed and got all over my hands. After I bought this can at IKEA, I also put it into my bag...the same one. At least I didn't drink it right away, or it would have probably done the same.
	Marabou Daim Roll 2-pack ($2.49) Okay, so this item doesn't remind me directly of my experiences in Finland. But "Hyzteria" sent me a bar of Marabou nougat around Christmas, and it sat on my desk for a few months before I ate it. Also, her boyfriend "Huijari" sent me a Daim bar, but I ate that a lot sooner. [12:07:28] <kyrasantae> i am disappointed in this package of marabou! [12:07:38] <kyrasantae> it lacks finnish labelling! ... [12:25:40] <kyrasantae> i'm not disappointed anymore [12:25:49] <kyrasantae> the inside packaging has finnish labelling :D The rolls of chocolate inside have the original Nordic labels (kein Englisch!). The outside foil wrap is an export label, I guess.

Current Music: Timo Rautiainen - Lumi / Meille Niin Rakas

Jos pyydät, tulen kyllä vastaan / sinun kanssasi kulkemaan / sitä pitkää, yksinäistä matkaa…
En lähde vierestäsi pois.
[If you ask, I will come walk that long, lonely journey with you / I won't leave your side]

Late Wednesday night/Thursday morning UF post:

I worked for six hours straight on my 'Random Practical Guide to Jyväskylä', putting the finishing touches on and completing the 20-page project six months in the making (though most of it was written in the last month). At the beginning of this month I was on a roll and so I made a promise that I'd have it finished by the end of the month, but the tragedy of my uncle's passing right after I made that promise threw me off track a bit and I had to catch up.

I was obligated to return some sort of review/report on the practical arrangements (and supposedly a bit about my feelings [and favourite experiences, etc.]) of my expedition to Finland, but I couldn't fill out the simple forms they gave me without having a guilty conscience about the trivialization of the whole thing, so I chose to do a much more involved project. I left out my feelings and reflections of the place; I didn't feel that they would be relevant for most students who might be considering going there, so I kept my report to the practical and mundane stuff as much as possible, with some discussion of the typical Finnish personality qualities and practical customs/how-things-work.

Even though you'd expect me to be relieved that it's done and over with (it's been stressing me out for the last little while), I actually feel a little bit sad that it's done. I don't know why. Maybe it's because this report is supposed to be my last "official" on-the-record word on something that was so... ~~grand~~ ~~amazing~~ incredible that finite words cannot do it justice.

I've so far shown it to a couple of Finns, a Swede, and some Canadians, and it seems to have been quite well-received. The authority for whose purpose it was written seemed to be happy about it, since, apparently, more people are interested in the program this year.¹

All of which is a good thing, because I was just really really worried about the embarrassment it would cause if I made any seriously incorrect remarks. I tried to err on the conservative side, so that following my potentially incorrect word would not break any legal/social boundaries. Many of the things I write about are those things that were not immediately obvious to me and had to ask or be shown or have explained what it is or what to do.

I tell Finns about why I'm a bit reluctant to show them my guide, but Finns have such a curious perversion toward wanting to know what others think of them that they really really want to see it, so I let them...

But I also know how much Canadians like to say nice things in order to not cause offence or hurt feelings, and so I often have to take their remarks with a grain of salt. I know it sounds cynical of me and too critical of myself, but the more I realize that I'm a lot like my late uncle, the more I can't allow courtesy compliments to inflate my ego like he did.

=====

In other news, Jose and two of his friends, Sarah, and I randomly decided to go for waffles and sausages (well okay that was just me and Sarah, and pity they weren't Finnish sausages) after ~~Scandalous~~ ~~Scandinavian~~ Nordic Club get-together last night, and we wanted to take Sarah's car, so we had to walk to her house.

There's been snow on the ground for a long time now, and it snowed a bit over the week, but yesterday it was really warm AND it was so warm in the afternoon that it RAINED. When the wetness froze up in the evening, IT WAS WORSE THAN CHRISTMAS IN VANCOUVER because people actually normally shovel the snow off their walks and thus entire paths were ice. This morning I look across the street and see people carefully sliding along the sidewalk.

__________
¹ Yeah, at the promotion event in October I think a couple of people mentioned that they were interested because it was the country of NW >_<

Now with raisins¹ and putting the dough in a warm oven to encourage yeast to rise :)

They're a little bit squishable and actually really tasty :D

_____
¹ I don't know if this counts as cheating but it's something I vaguely remember seeing in a photo I looked at for probably only half a second.

Current Mood: silly

( Cut for irrational addiction )

Current Music: Marja Mattlar - Lintu

Compared to the European imports shop in Calgary, the local one around here totally sucks except that this one has more fresh German-style sausages.

It doesn't have as much Finnish stuff, but it does cost a bit less. Uh, the mustard does, at least. I don't remember the prices for the other stuff in Calgary off-hand. They didn't have any Finnish coffee, or chocolate :(

But at least now I know where to get my mustard when I need more of it :)

Here are some notes:
* Turun sinappia (125g): $3.69
* Tyrkisk peber (180g): $5.09
* Salmiakki (Halva brand, 250g): $5.39
Of course they have Panda liquorice and Finn Crisp and Fazer crispbread but aside from the Fazer crispbread the other two are readily available at other shops. (Note: The Fazer company that makes crispbread is different from the Fazer company that makes chocolates and candy.)

I may or may not have mentioned back in April that I came across a second-hand book store that had a couple of old Finnish books lying around. One was a book about some sort of Finnish history and the other was a book with scenic photos. The latter book has text in Finnish, Swedish, German, and English, so although I couldn't bring myself to buy it in April, I felt like I could now, and maybe learn something (linguistically) from the texts :)

It's pretty old, © 1977. It appears to have been a gift from a Finnish family visit: on the inside, it says, "Family Ross W. Wein / with many thanks for the beatiful_[sic] memories / Merry Christmas 1983 / Kimmo + family".

In other news, the Nobel Peace Prize went to a Finn this year :)

Current Mood: annoyed

Again there's a fancy letterhead-looking sheet of A4 paper in a fancy letterhead-looking envelope with some other sheets of regular A4 paper with words printed on them.

The fancy letterhead-looking sheet doesn't have the squiggle signature this time because there's a new person in the position to sign it now. It's a certificate of my finished Finnishness (ahahahahaha bad pun), or rather, an official letter stating that I did these courses and that these other sheets of paper are my official transcript of my grades. With the official blue ink stamps and such. Simple. Practical. Efficient.

Finnish courses are graded on a scale of 0-5 with 5 being the best and a 0 being a fail - I knew I had a 5 in crash-course-in-Finnish since I had found a completely Finnish-language email to that effect in my temporary jyu email account. And I put forth such an admirable effort in the intro-to-interculturalness-type-stuff class that I'm not surprised that I got a 5 in that too. I only got a 4 in omg-zzz-let's-see-what-Nils-is-up-to-instead class, but somehow I get the feeling that few people got a 5 in it, given how boring it was and how it was really BS in our essays.

Yeah, that's the only excitement in an otherwise crappy day, in which the zipper on my pencil bag broke, I did the wrong page in my book for German homework, and an elevator door closed on me, causing me to spill my entire lunch (which I had *just* bought 5 minutes ago) on the floor¹.

kyrasantae: and woo i have 10 random european credits.²

gemigemi: :) I noticed

kyrasantae: ...

kyrasantae: RANDOM, I TELL YOU!!

__________
¹ Which really doesn't seem so bad anymore once you realize that a typical take-out meal in Finland costs around 6-7€. That's nothing compared to $5.50 for this wasted lunch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the taxes. It's such a strange (and unfounded) feeling of affluence after coming back.
² That's only 1/18 of a bachelor's degree. Gosh, they make it look so easy.

Current Mood: satisfied

Bibbeliskäs ("chick cheese") [German Wikipedia] is a South German food that I first encountered when Matthieu (he's from Strasbourg, so he's had exposure to South German culture) made it in Finland. It's sort of a thick cheese sauce. I'm currently eating it spread on bread, but it goes well with anything, really. You can even eat it straight if you want. It's ideal for onion lovers.

Naturally, there are a few tricks up my sleeve.

( Illustrated... food )

Current Music: Viikate - Vuoden synkin juhla

Yesterday, I bought a large slab of chocolate because having a large slab of chocolate reminds me of

gemigemi. It's not Fazer, though, and I can't keep it in the fridge like he does because it's too hard for me to chew when I've left it in there.

Current Location: Calgary

I'm not much of a cook.

I'm definitely not a baker either, since I have a strange fear of items-which-are-hot, especially ovens. My sister normally does the baking here, and she's really good at it. Fortunately she works during the week so I can have some time to myself in the kitchen without anyone bothering me (I hate being heckled when I'm trying to learn by experience).

So here's some mildly cinnamon buns (there's actually 9 of them; two sheets). I think they're slightly undercooked, but oh well. Won't kill ya. I hesitate to call them (mutilated korvapuusti) pulla because I didn't eat any in Finland and thus I don't know what they normally taste like and I was being creative with the rolling anyway.

In other news:

(09:26:19) kyrasantae: mä luulen juovani amerikkalaista kahvia >_< 
                       suomalainen kahvi on lopussa :(

(I've already written about the economics of acquiring more.)

Current Location: Calgary

I heard that some of my friends might be coming into town on the weekend, so I rushed work on the food pages so that I'd have something to show them. They're a little sloppy, but oh well.

Pretty much all of the really important pages are already done anyway; I think the way-too-many-photos-of-sauna-stuff is the only essential section missing.

Current Location: Calgary

Obligatory scrapbook progress photos will come in a little moment, but right now, allow me to make a comment about Danish Esrom cheese: IT STINKS. It stinks up my fridge.

I don't understand the problem people have with the smell of durian. In fact, I ate some today. I suppose that since we get frozen durian over here because it has to come overseas, the smell is a bit milder. But really, durian is not the gold standard for stinky foods. I've also had stinky tofu. That's not the gold standard either.

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kyrasantae

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rakkauden ja epätoivon laulu

a song of love and despair

Entries tagged with food

Surveying the readership

"...but I live like I'm Finnish."

Going Postal

Penultimate fever

THE MORE YOU KNOW

Restless (work update)

Canadian Juhannus hangover

Day 3.3 Illustrated edition

Back to Basics?

Things that I bought at IKEA, which remind me of Finland

Curious Perversions

kyrasantae and the Quest for the Perfect Pulla (Sight Unseen)

Candy-sniffing

Moar mustard!!

Numbers by Post

How to Make Bibbeliskäs (...in Canada)

Chocolate

Epic bake

Foods

The Cheese Stinks Alone