My life, my thoughts, my experiences
The beautiful, small town by the Lake Saimaa which was my home for the summer. The three months working there were absolutely amazing and very teaching experience. I won’t forget the people, the place or the time I spent there.
… Amazing how sunny it has been when I’ve taken the photos! Must have been one of the few days!
Since January 2008 I’ve been working in Arbonaut Ltd. For the past weeks I’ve been doing forest inventory based on airbone laser scanning. I have to admit, I’ve really enjoyed it. The task itself but also Arbonaut as a working place. Although for the past few days there’s been more swearing words coming behind my desk than before. 
The work load at the moment is kinda huge and piling on my shoulders. Not that I’m really complaining because the work situation is tight for foresters in Finland and I can really do the job that I enjoy. Days are getting longer all the time (10 h is pretty normal…) as I’m trying to avoid the situation I had at the end of March: Deadline on the last day of March and the whole inventory undone two days before. 
And I’m not keen on having the same situation again
Although I’ve really enjoyed working in Arbonaut, I will leave in the end of May. I was offered a summer job at Stora Enso in Ruokolahti. It was a tough call but I have to take a chance and go and see what it is like to work there. It was my goal when I started to study forestry. Since the years went by, the goal and interests changed but I’m still interested in seeing what’s the work is like. Besides, I will be guiding the international visitors which is a really nice plus.
The studies are still unfinised and on hold. And they will be until next fall. My personal deadline will hold, though. I will graduate before I turn 25 years old so I have around 11 months time. So, I think I will return to Joensuu in the fall to finish up my studies then. It’s impossible to do it now because of all the work. But I don’t mind. The work experience is really valuable.
So that’s what is going on in my life. Work and sleeping, a little bit of exercise in between. I won’t give up on that now that I’ve finally go a spirit to do some!
One of the Tv-channels in Finland started a new programme in the beginning of this year. There one very popular Finnish musician, Timo Rautiainen, started too look for people older than 70 years old to form a choir which would sing rock. All started out quite bad, because most of the elder people didn’t find rock that pleasant music to sing. It was too loud, too ugly lyrics and so on.
But in the end Mr. Rautiainen found 18 open-minded 70+ rock singers. Their concert in The Alexander Theatre in Helsinki was sold out in a half an hour. The concert was shown on Tv recently and I must admit, I really loved it! All of them had such a great passion. And they were all enjoying it as much as the audience. It was really touching to see some of the relatives so touched while they watched their parents or grandparents singing the legends of Finnish rock.
The best performance by far, was Mr. Eero Sinikannel’s singing of “Taivas lyö tulta” (orginally performed by Teräsbetoni which actually is representing Finland in Eurovision Song Contest 2008). He beat the original version hundred to nil. Amazing singing and attitude on stage. And take a look at the choir, the faces and air guitars are fantastic. So, once again a prove that Finns are a heavy metal nation… from babies to elderly.
Jari and me made a small trip to see FIS World Cup of nordic combined and ski jumping on Saturday, 1st of March. I was so excited to see a live competition and to see Janne Ahonen jump in the Finnish team. Too bad our day consisted of standing outside and waiting for the wind to calm down. Both of the competitions were cancelled in the end because of unstable wind conditions. So we saw no jumps, apart from the motorbikes that were there to do crazy jumps and entertain the viewers. Well, better luck next year… with the conditions and that Janne will still be jumping
My first time in Salpausselkä, Lahti. Behind me is the HS 135 hill.
The forestry students are known of being keen on sports. So no wonder that 3 forestry students came up with an idea to organize a skiing “competition” where a team had to be on a skiing track for 12 hours. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? What makes it more crazy was for me to participate in it after no skiing in 10 years!
So, my friend singed up a team which consisted of our coursemates from forestry course 22. After long begging and fighting against the flue we were able to get 8 eager skiers on track. To make my participation even more painfull for me, I took the turn to start at 8 am. But it wasn’t that bad after all. I skied the whole 1.5 hours without breaks slowly but surely. (I actually didn’t know that you were allowed to stop, e.g. to drink…) My goal was to ski 6 laps (one lap was 1.6 Km) but I did 9! So, a little over 14 Km!! Oh my God! I have never skied that long in a row!
Our team skied 99 laps… Altogether 1942 Km were skied during that day. Amazing… and on a 1.6 Km long track… 
There were two guys who skied the whole 12 hours… Wow. I have really a lot of respect to them. Not only because they skied 12 hours but they managed to do it on a short track! The fastest and slowest lap were also recorded. Two biology students spent 58 minutes in a one lap… :O And the fastest then was around 4.25 minutes… Quite a difference. The fastest lap was skied by one of the guys who skied the whole time… After 8 hours of skiing. Quite well, isn’t it?
Anyway, the day was really fun and hopefully this will a new tradition every winter. And hopefully we’ll have snow to do this in the future…
This is what the team vk22 looked like on the track. And the exchange was like in a real competition…
Contestants warming up by the fire and having some sausages
In last May in Greece, it was a bomb. A huge bomb. Lordi representing Finland went straight to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest and became the first contestant ever who won the semifinal as well as final. And made the all time score record as well. Gotta admit, it was a good moment. I was watching the show through Internet in my room in the dormitory of CUA in Prague. It really felt good and no matter what anyone says, I felt proud to be a Finn on that evening.
Tonight we selected the representative to the final in Helsinki. Wow, I never thought I’d say that out loud: Eurovision Song Contest Final in Helsinki. Anyway, the winner is namesake of me Hanna. She was the winner of the first Idols competition a few years ago and has become one of the top artists in Finland. Her music style is rockish. I think she has a very good voice and she’s beatiful as well as good performer. Nothing like Lordi, though, Lordi was one of a kind. But I think Hanna and her song “Leave me alone” has a change to do well. I’m not expecting or even hoping a win because that would lead our nationla broadcasting company to a bankrupt… But a good performance and place within 10 best. Am I hoping too much? Nah, don’t think so.. We’ll see in May…
Check out the song, you’ll find it in YouTube, for instance..
Complaints about warm winter area totally forgotten. Last night the temperature dropped below -30C even in the southern Finland. Brrr… Cars aren’t working, trains are late, people are suffering because breathing outside is difficult and the use of electricity has peaked big time. You think we’d be used to this but no… same complaints everytime when it’s really cold. They claim that these kind of winter days will become more rare in the future due to climate change. So no complaints, just enjoy the coldness! I’ll try to bare that in mind tomorrow morning when I’m walking to the uni dressed like Michellin man…
Ps. The thesis is nearly ready. I know, it should have been weeks ago but now I really got a boost to write it. Fixing it for grading will be another thing…
It’s the darkest time of the year. And the reason why it is even more darker here is the lack of snow. It’s December and no snow anywhere!! It all mealt away in a second. Was the winter already? I certainly hope not. It would be terribble: no skiing, no skating, no snow war… no fun.
It’s soon Christmas and the end of the year 2006. It’s also the deadline of 
my thesis. I know I will be late but not a lot. If nothing totally surprising comes up… And it usually comes, just before everything’s ready. The work has been interesting and at the same time stressing, tiring even devostating at times when nothing works out. And I’ve been thinking whether I’ve been even ready to do the thesis. I don’t know. Sometimes it feels that the three and half years have gone by and I haven’t learned a thing. How can I make the thesis which should show all the skills I’ve gained? But still, I’m working on it..
I’ve also been thinking of the future lately. I haven’t got much studies left.. what then? I have absolutely no idea! My mom always says that the faith will decide what my destiny will be. It’ll come.. I don’t even know what I’d like to do.. and is the forestry really my thing? This year I’ve felt strongerly that this is my thing than ever before. But still I’m not sure. What if I made the wrong choice some years ago? Why didn’t I apply for medical school.. or to study pharmacy. The two fields I desired.. what made me come to study forestry? I still don’t know.. but still hope to figure it out someday in case I’ll stay in this field.
Another topic of thinking: friends. The Christmas time is the time when I and my highschool
friends will be back in our hometown and again it’s time to meet. Since we graduated and left elsewhere to study, the meetings haven’t been the same. This is quite obvious.. people change, grow up. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the high school days… just to enjoy the careless atmosphere for a while. Not that I have anything against the people I’ve met during my years at the uni. They are magnificent as well. Too bad you sometimes get to know some features about the person you’ve thought as your good friend and you don’t like the features. It’s not nice because all the good moments you’ve spent will be set in the shadows of the bad thoughts. And if it gets further enough, your friendship will never be the same, if there will be any friendship left.. That’s always sad.. :/
Okay, enough thinking in the middle of the darkness.. I bet the snow would light my mind again.. I’ll be back before the year is over… to remember all the memories of this great year 2006.
I came across Postcrossing through a magazine a short while ago and immediatly I went to the website and signed in. I thought this was something I’d like to try out. Postcrossing is a service that allows people to send normal postcards via mail to random places around the world. So it also means that you can receive a postcard somewhere around the world. So far 315689 postcards have been sent! That’s quite a lot. And according to the webpages around 30000 postcards are travelling around the world.
The funny thing is that the country that has the most participants is Finland! There are more than from other countries and that makes a lot when compared to the population. So anyone participating outside Finland will definitely get a card from here.
I’ve sent my first postcards already. My very first when to California, USA and it has already been received. So now I’m waiting to receive my first. I’ll promise to tell you as soon as it gets here… Meanwhile take a look at the webpage (www.postcrossing.com) , you might get interested as well!
I wish I had been wise enough to take my camera with me when I went to my parents this weekend. Not that we haven’t got snow in Joensuu as well, we do and lots compared to that it is early November. But it was something totally different in Ristiina: there were a lot of snow everywhere. The trees looked absolutely amazing! And on Saturday, the temperature dropped to – 20C so it felt even more like a real winter.
It’s been quite ashtonising to get a real winter in early November. Last year the permanent snow came sometimes around December. Now it came quickly, too. Two days and there were snow everywhere. And it didn’t make life easy, it never does. Lots of car crashes, cars stuck in snow especially in the south. :/ People are never fully prepared although we live in a country were we get snow every year.. And most of the problems (or should I say all..) are in the south. Well, there are more people and more cars but I still have to say that it’s also the attitude, carelesness.
I don’t know whether this is the permanent snow yet. It gets warmer again, starting tomorrow. There’s over half a meter snow here so it would take some time to mealt. But we’ll see.. As long as there will be white Christimas, I’m happy.
