20.000 views under the sea

This is not going to be a really big post. And its amazing to see less than a year in here 20.000 views.

I have been sick for the past 5 days with loads of fever and spent them in bed. Apart from today. Today i had a presentation at university in the environmental assessment course. For you interested in that, an environmental assessment is an activity/process that is used to determine the impact of projects or phenomena on the ecosystem/human health and they offer solutions, methods to minimize or prevent them.

I felt the need to write about what happened today. I had 39 fever and i made a colossal effort to stay awake all night and complete my presentation. I presented about the Great Barrier Reef and the effects of dredging and the politics behind this in the Australian government.

I was there sitting for 3 hours with burning eyes waiting patiently for my turn. We were around 10 people in the room plus the supervising professor, Henrik. He is pretty young, cool and helpful.

I spend hours in the presentation. I really did. When i hear the word presentation i expect some visual material, at least in academia. Or something innovative that will keep me interested or that i will be able to absorb the information.

So we were stuffed in a microscope room for presentations. The computer had issues working as well. Definitely not a great start! Moving on Erika starts first. I like how she is not only pretty but also very intelligent. She pays attention, she has always questions to ask and she has a vibrant and colorful personality too. I was a bit nervous because i did not know if i picked the correct structure for my topic. So she reassured me that i was in the right path after she finished.

The problems started after that. Another girl spoke for 3-4 minutes when the presentation should be around 15. She had around 8 slides when i had 22 so i started to worry again. Then another one showed up and she had only one picture with a few information and she went on to talk about her project for 10 minutes. It is very hard to retain all the information and make constructive criticism just like this.

Then another one from my group came on. She had an interesting project on wind mill parks in northern Sweden and the Sami people are protesting. And then she says she has no presentation. She pulls out a chunk of papers and starts reading from them. I frankly do not remember almost anything. And that makes me sad because i really liked the topic and i really like the Sami people.

Then my turn comes. I do great considering my condition. But when you are up there and you look at everyone, you are like a teacher. You see every detail going around. And i could not take my eyes off someone in the far back who was sleeping or trying to keep his eyes open every 10 seconds.

Most of the presentations had great topics and some came with good presenters too. But i felt really offended by the other occurrences. In the effort i put to make one and others didn't at least. I don't know maybe that's me. Maybe i do not expect this in a masters level program. Oh well.

Lastly i might make a review on the Dumb and Dumber To movie one day. It's is unreal. You should watch it in 24 monthly doses because i just close it every 5 minutes. Its unbelievably bad.

That's it for now. Goodnight Sweden

Dancing with the wolves ft. Hit it like you mean it

Waking up casually at 3:30 meant that i would be finally on time for my flight. But the next time i opened my eyes the clock said 4:06. That made things very complicated because:

A) i hadn’t made my suitcase and

B) i had to get the bus at 4:24

I got off the bed like a springboard and made my suitcase in the speed of light. That means that i forgot things like my home assignments, my head hat and my gloves. A really bad thing to forget when you go to the arctic circle. Thankfully i got a present from my little arctic fox that keeps my hands warm for now.

I picked up the presents i bought for the whole family and dashed towards the bus stop. The bus arrived one minute later and i was already exhausted with my heart racing from pain and excitement, while i was surprised i didn’t slide and fall from the slippery grounds of Uppsala.

We made it to the central station and luckily the bus left 10 minutes early so i skipped sitting out in the cold. I played some clash of clans and watch some more avengers scenes to kill some time until Terminal 5 of Arlanda Airport.

I casually printed my boarding pass as usual, bought some kanelbullar and a redbull to keep me awake and waited for time to pass once more. I had only a handbag so passing through the xrays was fast. From that point nothing of interest happened until Helsinki. I actually even had a fantastic flight and i was sitting alone for once which allowed me to stretch my legs and rest.

I managed not to get lost for once in Terminal 2 of Helsinki Airport and there i was with AF (short for arctic fox for convetnience) riding shotgun on the way to Espoo. Nobody was at home so we just fooled around, unwrapped presents and rested. I was a bit anxious since the parents didn’t speak english but i was certain that we would have a good time, understand each other and they would like me.

We decided we should go and deliver the christmas presents to AF’s godson. There we met Nadya and her two little kids, Michael and Gabbi. She was from Moldova so i surprised her speaking Russian while her dog, a wienner from hell tried to bite my fingers. We exchanged stories and she told me how she met Tero and she moved to Finland. We had a great time, though the cartoons that kids watch these days scare me. Especially that one with pacman was disturbing.

We went to a training facility where we waited for Kamilla (AF’s little sister) to finish school and drop her off at driving school. In the meantime we abused the toilet facilities there and we watched a man losing half the part of his motorcycle from a bump in the road. I rode shotgun again and we were on our way home.

We actually met her mother in the supermarket by pure chance and we regrouped at home being greeted by a frenzied and happy Ippu. I carried the bags in and we had small talk and were joined by Kamilla.

Joulu Koira - Christmas Dog

We had food and then we were joined by AF’s father who i absolutely adore. He is just mental in a great way. Always smiling and happy, expressive and social and always trying to crack a nice joke. His english is limited but the way he shoots words like ¨beer¨to me and their timing made it such a joy.

In friday we woke up like lazy bums and went for a spin in helsinki to walk around the city, visit some local food stores and markets, devour a focaccio and take photos with complete strangers. We also had to use Nokia’s fantastic gps system to guide us in the city and lead us out from a dead end in a rich neighbourhood.

We were expecting the other sister, Christa and her boyfriend Teemu along with their two dogs around 4, but they said they would be late as his Audi decided to die after the boat from Estonia arrived. Apparently they drove for 2 hours with no brakes and just the handbrake.

Mayhem endured when they arrived. It was like a stampede. We were overtaken by Ippu, a Belgian shepherd (vicky) and a malinua (kava) running around like lunatics while we brought 20.000 bags from their car, only to have to put them back in the minibus her father brought 5 minutes later. Absolutely mental.

We had booked seats in the cinema to see the 3rd Hobbit movie, but before that we went for shopping therapy, bought a bathing suit (because in the arctic circle it makes sense to go swimming), make up and we had a heart attack from the prices of some items. The movie itself was ok, but way, way too long. That’s Peter Jackson for you folks, if he could make a movie out of Bilbo Baggins redecorating his house i am sure he would make it into a 3part movie.

It was around 11pm and we had to sleep soon as the 14 hour trip to the cold north started around 3 am. I could not sleep and i went to the bathroom only to be greeted by a mob of angry dogs barking to me like i was an intruder. Embarrassed for waking up everyone i went fast and slept. At 3 the door opened and suddenly 3 dogs ran on my bed on my head and every possible place and went away after 2 seconds. The horror i tell you! I asked AF when i should wake her up and she replied casually ïn one week¨. She had no recollection of that after.

We entered a huge white VW Caravelle. In the front dad and mom, in the second row Christa, Kamilla and Teemu and in the last one me, AF and Ippu with a mixture of bags candies and coke. The other two dogs were in the back in a special cage with tons of luggage. The race to the arctic circle and the cold north was about to start...

Goodnight Arctic circle. And a sneak peak of what is coming...

The winter storm..