We are having a heatwave at the moment and in order to have something else to do than sit at home eating ice cream and sweating I planned a movie night with my friends Heidi and Kristiina.
Since I was going to meet them at a cafe before the movie I thought to go city centre a bit earlier and see the Repin art exhibition in our National gallery before meeting them. I had to queue for about 15 minutes bc I didn’t want to buy the ticket beforehand as we have a thing called The Museum card here (you pay an annual fee and get to see as many museums as you like, to cover the annual fee you must visit about four exhibitions). I only took couple of photos of my fave paintings and walked through the exhibition in 30 minutes.
At the cafe we shared our latest news like that I got through my exams with flying colours (I was quite certain I had failed) and then we went to see Cruella. It was very good. I had expected something else so it was a very nice surprise. Of course great actors, i. e. Mark Strong 😎, and both female lead Emmas’ among others and the costumes, music and charming doggies. All in all a very good movie! Go see it it you can. We had great time and enjoyed greatly our first movie after November.
That was my artsy Friday. I had good time 🙂
Today we’ve had hottest day this summer, +31c degrees in shadow. Hubby has been driving me to swim in the sea and so far the blue-green algae is not yet bothering us. It’s been wonderful. As the beach doesn’t have boxes to lock one’s things into while swimming Hubby has been watching my stuff as he doesn’t like to swim in the ocean here 🙂
Today was my last day at work before summer leave and boy is it needed!
Last week we had a tad of drama at home as youngest son was about to leave for Lapland for his confirmation hiking camp and his best friend said he won’t come on Monday. They were due to leave on Tuesday morning at 6am. On Tuesday morning I go to wake youngest son and he says he’s been thinking all night that he won’t go since BFF can’t attend and I say that it’s not an option anymore, that now he just has to jump so off he goes. I was a bit worried I must say but today he came back and he’s had so much fun and made new friends and the hills were awesome and so on. So I was glad I pushed him to go. They also had awesome weather so he is quite sun tanned now.
Also last week at work we notice the clockwork machine is odd.. It’s been counting our hours wrong all WINTER (since last August) and only now someone realized it. Then we get an e-mail, it says I have about 200 hours of time uncounted! Geez I was a bit worried. Then my bosses say they are trying to find the error in the system with HR and I e-mail my workplace steward who is very concerned and with her support the bosses and HR do the clearing a bit more speedily. Today we receive a message that due to a mistake made last summer (when our contracts were updated after a two-year agreement done by the employer and the trade unions) mine and my colleagues hours were updated by wrong contract so we need to go through all of the dates since August. Luckily that can be done after summer holidays.
Yesterday I got my braces off! I’m quite glad of the result and today I had a consultation with my own dentist Kai so we can plan what to do next. Some of my crowns are a bit worn out and the plan was to change them but Kai said he’ll need to replace about five crowns and my corner teeth need some work done too. So the project getting my occlusion fixed continues.
My studies are finally about to finish, the final exam is on next Monday. I’m glad I did the essays in good time and now I have four and a ½ days to read three thick books in English about freedom of speech and social media. Yay. I’m so done.
Some piccies underneath, mostly from my garden. Hope you enjoy.
Also a suitable song by Lenny Kravitz since I have five days til summer. Boy I miss live music, Lenny was awesome ❤
Yeah! Me and my friend Mareetta did a Sunday trip to a nearby city called Lahti today. We left at 10 am and I just got home an hour or so ago. We had fun day.
First we visited a second hand store and then an outlet shop of an Finnish brand where I found one nice t-shirt and a light skort (skirt and shorts combination I really like, awesome for i.e. bicycling). Then we drove to the city and had a nice dinner at a local restaurant and afterwards we did some light shopping at a department store next door. From there we drove to a shopping mall a bit further since they had a lovely waffle cafe. After that we were about to drive home but decided to take a turn at the lakeside in the city next to the famous ski jumping hills. You may have heard of a Finnish ski jumper Matti Nykänen, these were his home grounds.
Since it’s been a holiday week again (a day off on Thursday) the motorway was so packed with people coming home from the summer houses that we decided to drive back via the old highway and it was nice. We watched the local houses and farms and enjoyed the scenery.
Dinner at Amarillo
View of the ski jumping hills from the city centre
Waffles
Ski jumping hills near the lake shore
Vesijärvi (=Water lake.. yes that’s it’s name)
Bug
On other news; I’ve enrolled to my last Communications Science course which is a bout the freedom of speech and it’s okay I guess but so much writing. I need to write a paper of the lectures after I’ve listened to them and also I must read five books, of two of them I need to write a paper of and three will be questioned in an exam. Whoo boy. I think I took a too large bite with this one. Well, at least the summer holidays will be appreciated.
Last Tuesday I was getting my braces tightened again and the dentist said I’ll get them off on mid-June right before my summer holidays. On my last day at work (the next Wednesday after I’ve got the braces off) I’ll meet with my own dentist and we’ll plan what to do next. I hope I’ll get everything fixed during the summer, it’d be wonderful. The money I saved during this pandemic by not travelling will be put to good use.
Youngest son is going to his confirmation camp on early June, it’s a hike in Lapland. He wasn’t very happy when I said he needs to go but it seems he’s adapting to the thought. His best friend is coming to the same camp so it’s alright. On Friday I took him to shop all the necessary stuff, i.e shell jacket and trousers, woollen set of underwear etc. I think he was most happy of the new Marttiini knife he’ll need there.
I guess this is all for now so have a nice Sunday evening and awesome next week! Here is Sirius sleeping.
At least I hope so. Today we are getting more snow but it should melt next week as the temperatures rise over 0 C degrees. On Wednesday it’d be as high as +5 C degrees already.
I’ve been working at my ’own’ job and continued at the packed lunch distribution. On top of that I’m now supervising matriculation exam students at my old high school. It’s been 32 years from my own exams and the school has undergone some serious renovations some years ago when it changed from middle grades and high school to just high school but the main part was familiar so I found places easily.
I was there last Tuesday and I’m going there again on next Tuesday and Thursday and then Monday. There were over hundred participants on the exams and we have to check their laptops and packed lunches for notes and then walk with them to the bathroom breaks and back to the exams room so they don’t get to sneak on their phones or something. The whole thing reminded me and my colleague of an airport; first the check out and security and then the lavatory queue, it was funny.
I still haven’t gotten my grade from the Organizational communications exam I took part last week. The book was quite a hard read and very USA centered which made it a bit difficult and tedious at some times. We had also a group paper to deliver and it took a bit of effort but we had a good group and it turned out good.
I’ve also knitted, I’m in the first sleeve of another Riddari sweater and from one other sweater I need to fix the collar. I also did some more masks to use with my woollen cap and some for hubby when he goes to the grocery shop.
Since I’ve mainly been a couch potato after work I’m adding the fandom fun Michele and Rachel already did.
1.Your favourite John and why:
Porter. Because he is loyal to the end (like me).
2. Your favorite Richard action movieand why:
Captain America. I may have a crush on Chris Evans too *blushes*
3.Your favourite pairing of Richard and ____
Oh dear, this a hard one.. but I’ll go for Martin Freeman and his perfect Bilbo. Their roles as Thorin and Bilbo complement each other and you get the feeling there’d be something more than friendship you know. And it makes me so sad in the Five armies when Thorin dies. It’s just heart breaking (which is why I didn’t put that on the pic).
4. Richards best trait is his ________
Well, I don’t know him but he seems to be kind and considerate and that’s always charming.
5. What one question would you ask Richard about his roles up to now?
I truly hope we don’t need to start a campaign for his roles to die always like the campaign Save Sean Bean had. Do we?
6. If Richard ask you to dinner and where to eat what type of restaurant would you take him to?
If he came here I’d probably take him to one of our Finnish cuisine restaurants. More likely I’d cook him some nice salmon for dinner and blueberry pie as dessert.
7. What song comes to mind to describe his acting career?
I think the lyrics match well 🙂
8. What board game wouldyou play with Richard during another lockdown ?
I’m not so into board games so I think we’d play cards, a version of Rum or the Spanish Canasta.
9. What two fandom items would you give to Richard as tokens of appreciation?
Umm.. none? I don’t think he’d like them. For some reason I think he’d be embarrassed. Instead I’d knit him a pair of socks. Oh but I did that already, do they count? 😀
10. Complete this sentence: “Richard you are the ________ to my __________.
Chocolate to my ice cream. Is that too racy?
Congrats! You made it to the end! Have a piece of cake 😀
As most Europeans I too follow the Eurovision Song Contest, at least half-heartedly. I used to watch them as a kid since there wasn’t so many music programmes in TV but then I had many years I didn’t watch the contest at all. After Lordi brought Finland our first and only win in the ESC I’ve had just a cursory glance at the songs we’ve sent to the contest. The main reason being that I don’t like most Finnish contemporary music nor musicians.
Finns love heavy metal, it’s said we have the most metal bands per capita in the world. I just recently read an article in which the studies said that metal music lowers the blood pressure and calms nerves. When I had more migraines I noticed that listening to heavy metal (especially Rammstein) helped the pain so I can believe the results.
This year I listened to the finalists (at least half of them) and I had some hopes for the winning song although I never thought it’d grab the most votes being hard metal. But it did! And now we are sending Blind Channel to the ESC. Here you can read more about the contest from last night.
Here underneath is the participating song, I quite liked it since I love Linkin Park. Under that it is a compilation of the songs Finland has sent to the contest over years which is quite funny imo.
Onto other news; I’m having next week off since it’s the school’s winter holiday and we have only so much work to do atm, we are trying to stretch even the most menial tasks for days. My gig at the packed lunch bags distribution is also finished now as the high schools and vocational schools are going back to studying in-situ with safety regards on place (just half of the students in class per day, others teleworking at home). We’ll see how that goes, our PM Sanna Marin wasn’t happy about the Helsinki Metropolitan area mayors’ decision.
So I’m going to study and have some free time too. My Communication Sciences studies are going well but there’s only so many hours in a day and during working week the weekends get really short really fast.
And to end in heavy metal here is a trailer to a Finnish comedy about a heavy metal band. It was hilarious.
We’ve got more snow and now the weather getting colder again, next week temperatures should drop down to -12C degrees. I don’t mind, I’ll rather take the rain in snow than in water during winter time, and the cat goes out anyway whatever there rains. Actually she really loves the snow, she plays in it and hunts the snowflakes too.
I’ve been helping at the teleworking students lunchpack sharing on couple of Mondays now and it continues next months too. The students are both from college and vocational school and there’s four schools they can drop by and get their lunches for a week. I’ve had a lovely group of people to work with, two are from my own workplace and one is a former colleague from the City Library, we have great humor too so the days go by quickly even if there’s all kinds of mixups and mess to clear up. For example on the first Monday the students name lists were not in alphabetical order but on the order they had enrolled to the service. It cased some serious queueing which is not very nice atm.
At work we’ve been doing some serious digital jumps again with teaching our teachers how to use Google Meet an such. We’ve also digitized some materials for the teachers so they can keep their lessons from home more easier and then there’s all the online-meetings.. Some days my ears are sore of the earbuds and eyes from too much screen time.
On this week some of my friends had their birthdays. On Wednesday I had dinner my friend M with who we saw Uncle Vanya in London last year. Since we haven’t met since November I gave her now the lovely wooden Christmas decorations made by Rachel and her SO and bought from the RA-fandom Christmas auction. She loved them and was very happy to receive them.
Yesterday I met two of my friends in Ekberg’s, one the eldest cafes in Helsinki, which is very classy and has delicious cakes. I bought some cakes home too since Juhana, middlest son, came home from the AirForce for the week and youngest one, Jimi, Has his birthday on Feb 8th and today we had Jarno, eldest son, on dinner too so it was small birthday party for Jimi like this.
The school cafeteria
Lemon meringue in Ekberg’s
Richard a year ago
I’ve been watching McLeod’s Daughters and now I’m halfway through 3rd season. It’s nice to watch something easy while knitting and I’m eagerly waiting to get on 4th season so I’ll see Deano soon. I’m also watching WandaVision from Disney+, it’s very interesting. Earlier this month I watched Midnight Sky, the new film by George Clooney and wasted two hours of my life for such a crap. It was horrible. I also watched one Finnish Detective series called Ivalo (Arctic Circle) and almost strained my eye muscles while rolling them too hard, it had so many twists that it’d have easily filled three seasons.
My Riddari sweater is coming along nicely, I’m already on the yoke.
Well, tomorrow I need to concentrate on my studies at the Open Uni, I’m now doing Organizational communications course and it includes video lessons, a homework and a book exam of one very thick book. Aargh. Not to mention I’m reading some very good detective stories which doesn’t make it easier to start reading for the exams.
Oh! I bought an activity bracelet just to keep an eye on my steps and so far it’s been nice. I have also lost some weight as a consequence. Not bad.
Last entry I wrote was a week ago. Well, it sure feels like it was a decade ago.
On Sunday we had eldest son over for dinner. He invited himself to celebrate the Finland’s independence day with us and it was nice. It was quite like I’ve wanted them to do when they grow up and move out. So we had nice dinner, then I cut his hair and then he and hubby went to sauna. meanwhile I cut youngest one’s hair and the he went to sauna and hubby drove eldest home while I went to sauna. It was nice and quiet celebration as we like. By tradition we lit two candles on the windowsill at 6pm, that tradition dates back to the Finnish civil war; the candles indicated a safe house for the White side.
The beginning of this week has been a blur. I’ve been to work every day and yesterday evening I had my first Communication sciences exam in the Open Uni since 2016 when I left them since I had depression, I only managed to do two courses back then so I’m hoping to get the rest of the basic courses done now. I’m planning to continue studying the deepening courses next fall but we’ll see. This exam was a book-based thingy, I had four books to read about political communications and it was interesting and the exam wasn’t too bad. My goal is just to get through the exam so nothing major.
Tomorrow we have an five hour meeting and I’m doing it from home, I took both my work phone and laptop home. The first part is of the things concerning the organization and the rest of the time we have anti-racism lecture. I find it interesting. We already had discrimination lectures earlier this fall and they were good too, they make you think about hidden behavior and organizational discrimination. I’m planning to go out for a walk with the meeting in my phone since it’s on Teams app so I get to enjoy a bit of daylight outing at the same time too.
An afternoon sundown from the library window
The ice rink opposite my work, pic taken from the teacher’s break room.
Middlest son is doing his final (graduation) exams in English tomorrow and as usual I think I’m more stressed out than him, it was the same when eldest son had his exams, I hardly slept. Next week middlest one has Biology and then the rest are due on Spring.
The exams last 6 hours and now they are all done by computer. At my time we wrote everything by hand and in Finnish language you had to write the essay perfectly with a ballpoint pen and no corrections and it was horrible. I think I wrote it three times until I got it done without writing anything wrong.
The students have snacks with them and middlest one just did sandwiches ready. He also has some chocolate and juice and water. Nowadays you have to cover all texts in the packages in case you’ll get an advantage of i.e. a Swedish word so now we have a grey juice package in the fridge because he used duct tape 🙂
I’m having a meeting at work tomorrow which is kind of interesting since our new headmaster is a good guy and he keeps the meetings on point. On other work-related news I’ll get to put up our (the library and literacy teachers) blog here in WordPress as soon as we’ll get all the details through. It’s sort of like trying to get a snake into a gun barrel since there’s so much details as it’ll be under the City guidelines which can be a headache.
I’ve been knitting my cardi but had to have a break of it since I needed to buy buttons and I’ve been re-knitting a shawl. That means I unravel a shawl I knitted last spring because it wasn’t what I had in mind. I’ve been watching Sleepy hollow’s fourth season while knitting since I didn’t want the series to end but now it’s not the same anymore so I decided to finish it. I’ve also watched a French series Black spot which was really good, a sort of magical thingy.
Nokisuu 