18.8.2005

School started several days ago. I don't have too much to say about it besides that it's business as usual.

The special art course on photography was pretty wacky to start with. Since , first of all , they had to boot 19 people from the course on the first day. Luckily , I wasn't in them since I'm a third year student now and therefore have immunity in these sorts of matters. So they couldn't touch me. Ha-ha.

But several others got booted out by the orders of the art-course teacher. She then decided to do a lottery on the remaining second - year students on who were to stay and who were to leave. She asked all of the remaining students without the "immunity" - card (A.k.a. "get-out-of-the-jail-for-free - card") to write their names on these little white pieces of paper. Then she folded the papers and asked me - of all people - to pull them out of a small basket that she had placed them in earlier. She asked to take out five folded papers. I chuckled and started to pull the papers out of the basket one-by-one.

The results were clear. Some nice people got booted out and for that I'm very sorry since I know how hard it is to try and pull just a few lousy courses together with maximum amounts of work included in them.

I also had the chance to go to Helsinki last tuesday. I actually went there to buy some study materials and ended up buying some additional books , a pair of camouflage trousers and some really cheap candy too. Normally I wouldn't buy candy and god knows when was the last time I had eaten a bigger amount of it but I decided to buy it since it was considerably cheap. If I ever go to Helsinki again in the distant future I'll definitely visit that shop. Everything in it actually cost just a Euro. So it was very cheap , alright.

Anyway , the shop included all sorts of other stuff as well. And everything inside cost just a Euro. Although most of it was mainly trinkets and second-quality stuff it had some pretty interesting stuff included in it's stores too. First of all , they were selling these weird Japanese signs inside written in really horrible "Engrish" (yes , it's called "Engrish"). Some of them tried to warn you not to smoke inside with large texts proclaiming something along the lines that "NOT SMOKE HERE" and the other one warned people not to enter the area that the specific sign was attached to with a funny text that said; "YOU NOT CROSS THIS AREA".

Then they also had a cool door-mat with the text "Welcome - Get out" - imprinted on it. I actually considered on buying something as humorous as that but didn't feel like it in the end.

As for the books that I bought. I would say that I got most of the stuff off pretty cheap. I bought the Finnish translations of Joseph Conrad's books "Heart of darkness" and "Nostromo" (Now I can see where the two ships from the Alien - movie got their names from - this book !) along with a book from Noam Chomsky. I also got the "Tuntematon sotilas" , which is like one of the cornerstones of the Finnish post-WWII literature. The author of "Tuntematon sotilas" (translates into "the unknown soldier") is Väinö Linna who is still very popular even today despite his passing away.

I've read this book twice before - and it's usually nominated as a book that ' every Finn should have on his or her bookshelf'. I have to agree. It's a good book with intense realism in it's story about a fictional group of men fighting in the Finnish continuation war of 1941 to 1944. This is supposed to be a book that can easily be passed from one generation to another - or "from father to son" - as they say. I have to agree on it , as well. I hope I can pass that one down to my children too one day. Although , passing the book down to your daughter is as good of an idea as it would be to pass it down to a son. They'll both learn from it , I hope. And if they do not , let's hope they'll at least enjoy reading it.

My last literature course is about Finnish authors and literature too. I carefully planned my steps and now I can honestly say that I have a presentation along with an essay to do about Väinö Linna and his life along with his books. It's not a bad assignment at all since , to tell you the truth , I actually did it once before. I also did it when I was in the 9th grade. I'm hoping to get away with just one more huge Väinö Linna - presentation and essay on this last course. And if I could fool that old bag of a teacher too then it would suit me just fine.

There was also another interesting little book in the store. It was a crime-related paper-back called "the New York - trilogy". I browsed around in for a while and found it interesting. I might just buy it if I see it in the stores around here.

Well , I'll write some more when I have the time. Now I'll have to go and get a shower.