Politikoinnin viimeiset asteet.

Olen suoraan sanoen nyt siinä vaiheessa opiskeluissani että kohta 90 % pakollisista kursseista on tehty. Tämä antaa tiettyjä vapauksia vaikka toisaalta samojen aineiden lukeminen jatkuukin vaan "valinnaisten" kurssien nimellä. Kuitenkin muutamia aineita poistuu kokonaan odottamaan kirjoitetuksi tulemista.

Yhdeksi näistä aineista on nyt muodostumassa äidinkieli viimeisen kurssin muodossa. Minulla on nyt kuitenkin käynyt varsin vittumaisesti sillä viime keväisen "farssin" johdosta koskien erästä äidinkielenkurssia sain tutustua erääseen todella rasittavaan vanhaan ämmään opettajana. Kuten monissa muissakin kouluissa - näyttää nyt siltä että äidinkielen loppuarvosana tulee olemaan puhtaasti opettajakohtainen. Tämä vituttaa minua suuresti sillä olen nk. "suunnitelmatalouden" piirissä monissakin opinnoissani. Tarkoittaen sitä että suunnittelen tarkkaan jo valmiiksi ja ennestään opettajavalinnoilla että mikä tulee olemaan numeroni kyseisestä aineesta ja toteutan sen sitten normaalisti.

Balanssi pääsee läikkymään ylitse aika ikävästi kun eteen astuu sama opettaja kun viime kevään katastrofissa. Täten minulla ei ole takuita että saan sen numeron minkä olen suunnitellut jo aikaisemmin. Vihaan kovinkin paljon kouluja missä esim. äidinkielen arvosanat ovat puhtaasti opettajakohtaisia. Näyttää että minun laitokseni muodostuu nyt sellaiseksi kaikesta huolimatta.

Viimeinen oljenkorsi olisi tietenkin sitten keväällä osallistua äidinkielen tenttiin. Kuitenkin se vaikuttaa hieman arveluttavalta sikäli etten haluaisi kuormittaa jo valmiiksi (epäilemättä) kiireistä aikataulua. Ja tentit ovat aina vaikeampia ja saattavat sisältää vaikka mitä. En toisaalta haluaisi poistua sellaisella loppuarvosanallakaan joka ei ollut se minkä halusin. Mutta tämäkään tilanne ei ole mitenkään sellainen jonka haluaisin jatkuvan.

Kiroan tällä hetkellä tuota ämmää alimpaan helvettiin. Jotenkin on taas tyypillistä että paska valuu alaspäin ja vieläpä minun niskaani tuon saman vanhan osa-aikaiseläkkeellä olevan 30 - luvun reliikin muodossa. Olen oikeastaan onnistunut ennustumaan aika numeron tarkasti kaikki loppuarvosanani mutta näyttää siltä että kuten aina , "kohtalo puuttuu peliin". Sekin vituttaa. Niinkuin yleensä. Pahinta asiassa on ehkäpä se etten voi itse toteuttaa minkäänlaista kostotoimenpidettä kyseisestä loppuarvosanasta. Olen siinä asiassa kovinkin suorasukainen. Haluan antaa aina jonkinlaisen vastauksen näissä asioissa. Kuitenkin minun oppilaitoksessani tuo on paljolti yhdentekevää sillä mikään ei johtaisi mihinkään vaikka mitä keksisin. Se turhauttaa.

Tällä hetkellä ei ole muutakaan mahdollisuutta kun hoitaa tehtävänsä tuossa kurssissa niinkuin aina ennenkin. Tosin varsinaisen viimeisen kurssinumeron jälkeen voin kommentoida asiasta lisää.

29.8.2005

This was a pretty normal day again.

Although I did manage to score seventeen or eighteen points (I can't remember the exact amount) out of the Swedish listening comprehension tests today. That was certainly an oddity and I am a bit amazed of it too.

Now , those are the sorts of results I would at worst score from some really poorly done English tests of the same nature. And I mean listening comprehension tests. The one we listened was from a matriculation examination listening comprehension test from the year 1995. It wasn't all that hard despite the fact that it was in Swedish. Although I must admit that I had to resort to choose some of the answers at random. But only some of them. Luckily.

There was this one part of the test where we had to make out the general message behind a guy's letter to some magazine about his wife hitting him. It was all in Swedish and after the recording we had to answer the question - or rather pick up the correct answer from given alternatives. The guy spoke in Swedish. He really sounded quite terrified and scared of his wife. I smiled for some odd reason and did feel strong compassion for that dude and his problem. Afterall his wife was hitting him and he didn't like pain at all. "Sniff.. Sniff.. Please don't hurt me" , he cried.

He sounded like an OK guy who had just made a wrong choice in women. While I wrote down the answer on the sheet of paper I silently constructed an answer for him in my mind. He sounded like a small guy who needed help. I decided to advice him to knock the bitch with a large wooden plank or maybe a hammer.

Then the thought hit me. It was a fake recording and acting of the best kind. I felt a bit embarrased for it since I was already hyped up to send him an answer back labeled "hit that bitch with a freakin' baseball-bat if he touches you again , brother !". Luckily the bells rang and it was time for recess. I quickly returned the paper and rushed out laughing.

Pakollinen Suomenkielinen varoitus--

Siitä onkin aikaa kun on tullut puhuttua ihan oikealla äidinkielellään tässäkin bloginpahasessa.

Syynä siihen miksi viime aikoina tuhtia tavaraa on kirjoiteltu enemmän pelkästään nk. "toisella kotimaisella" on johtunut täysin ja ainoastaan opiskelupoliittisista syistä. Tämä päätös tulee myös jatkumaan tämän postauksen jälkeen. Mutta ihan nyt tiedotukseksi kaikille haluaisin sanoa että 23.9.2005 jälkeen tullaan palaamaan takaisin Suomenkieleen määräämättömäksi ajaksi. Sillä aikaa saatte kuulla Englantia ihan niin paljon kun hermonne kestävät - tai eivät sitten kestä.

Successes in the gastronomic field of operations.

Looks like the time for miracles is not over yet. I recieved eight comments for my last blog ! Can you believe it ? Well , that's what happened and I'm quite content. This is the first time it actually happened and even though they are just mostly spam consisting of various commercial annoucements and "please visit my blog" - messages.

I can't promise I'll visit all of your sites soon since I'm a very busy man. Or at least that's what I'd like to you to believe. But thank you for having the time to bother me as much as you could. Comments - even if they're 100 % spam - are always so very welcome. I don't want to feel lonely and unappreciated , you know.

Anyway, the day was pretty normal. And I'll tell you that one of those army-issue "Jaeger-kitchens" I talked about yesterday and prepared food with are excellent. It takes a small space , uses cheap flammable liquids as fuel and you are able to make all sorts of foods with it. It's perfect for someone like me. Who needs an electric stove when you can have all of that with the price of just around 10 - 20 Euros ? Buy one for yourself , now ! Now now now !

That thing is definitely going to come with me once I move out of this place. It's just so suitable for a future (I hope) university student such as myself who'll have a small apartment the size of a rabbit cage. And even if I couldn't get to the university at the first try I'll still need to eat ! And that Jaeger-kitchen will be just what I need. Unless my girlfriend will buy me a stove and produce food for me on it (or then I will buy one under pressure) . I'm pretty sure that's what she's going to do too since she won't - most likely - not agree on living with me and an army-issue Jaeger-kitchen. I think I'm going to have to get a micro-wave too then.

We have four of these huge apple-trees in our yard here. Under one of the trees there's a grave for a cat that met it's untimely death right in front of me , unfortunately. During the late summer months and early autumn apples start to appear on the trees. The best ones in my opinion are green. The greener the apple the better. Thus you can guess what my taste in apples "looks like".

We rarely bother picking the apples from the trees. I would assume that now or quite soon anyway would be the time to pick them up since many of the farmers close to us have started their annual harvesting season in the fields. I saw them working in the fields today from the window of the bus I travelled home in. Sometimes when I walk in the yard I pick up the greenest apple I can find from the yard and munch at it while walking around. Our apples are alot more sweet than the one you can find from the grocery stores. I can't say that they taste better but all in all they are not full blown failures either. And to tell you the truth all of the houses close to us have apple-trees in their yards. It's actually funny that way. Our neighbors in the south have a couple of apple-trees whereas the ones in the north have just one little tree that has undoubtebly been a part of the apple trees from our yard once. I believe that we have the largest amount of them. But we always let them grow wild. No-one bothers to harvest the apples anymore. They just sit there in those trees with that delicious green color on them and then fall to the ground during autumn. It's quite sad since we could probably pick them up and then make apple-juice out of them at a nearby grocery store. But my folks don't bother. And neither do I , it seems.

You ain't seen nothing yet... Oh baby baby baby..

Years ago I used to think that autumn was the best time of the year. I used to like rain and the darkening nights.

Now I've grown to dislike them. For some reason autumn doesnt't seem like the best time of the year anymore. Whenever there's autumn it's bound to be cold soon. Snow. Snowfall and cold days. The winter almost seems endless in the country. I hate it.

I must admit usually - and more or less statistically - I've had more good days whenever it rains than when it's a sunny day. Somehow rain is relaxing. Not to mention how everything just seems so much more peaceful then. Perhaps my view of rain is alot different from other people's views , I'll even admit it. But you know , it doesn't really matter at all either. I'd like to keep the rain but switch my preferred time of the year from autumn to summer. Since summer - I've understood now - is alot better in every way. The nights are not dim but full of light. And the forests actually smell like forests. During winter everything smells like nothing no matter how hard you try. It's a bit confusing. But not so during the summers where the whol outdoors seem much more alive. Have you seen it ? Felt it ? Like I said , I hate the winter.

Anyway , my life's normal for a change. My last class of Finnish literature has been infiltrated by a pair of people from my own municipality. Now normally people from my municipality are few in that school even though they are neighbouring municipalities. But somehow these two men have managed to get to my school. And the funniest thing is that I can't remember them being in that school before. I would have recognised them earlier.

It's quite eerie to say the least. I can remember them quite clearly since they were in the same upper level ( 7th , 8th , 9th grades) of my elementary school several years ago. It's eerie - as I said - to look them in the face and quietly think to yourself "I can remember who they are but they surely cannot know how I am". I sometimes chuckle to myself on the thought. Now , these two gentlemen are several centimetres shorter than I am and I've now concluded that the reason they are in my school must be since they must in a student transaction - program from the so-called "commerce school" (I can't remember/don't know the exact term for it) in the same town. Afterall I think I can remember seeing them getting on the same bus bound for home from the bus-stop situated close to this school they go to. Now they must be roughly of the same age as I am too.

The reason why I picked the high school from the neighbouring municipality instead of the one in my own was anonymosity. Although I must admit that a certain rather distant relative was in the same school at the time but he graduated last summer. I wanted no-one to know me "that well" despite the fact that I did know several people from the little city that I was going to go to school into. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted to "wipe the slate clean". I managed to do it but now seeing these two men walking around the halls makes me wonder. "What goes around comes around" as they say , or perhaps it's "what you leave behind will appear in front of you sooner or later".

These two haven't done anything to me , mind you. But it feels uncomfortable to see them. I am sorry to admit it but it truly does. In any case I'll be very happy once the last course of Finnish literature will be done and over with in a few weeks. Then I can relax and hopefully never again run into those two men again. I don't like seeing relics from my past anymore. Not in a place like the one I am in now.

But let's move on to more pleasant subjects.

I was pretty bored last night and feeling lazy. I didn't feel like cooking food like normal people do on a stove with a regular pan. Being a rather tired of a young man that I am I decided to cook myself some noodles along with little meatballs in an army issue collapsable cooking stove. They call them "Jaeger-kitchens" here. I decided from the moment the idea came to my head that when my parents arrived at home they would not - under any circumstances - hear of my little gastronomic adventure.

The whole "Jaeger-kitchen" consists of just three very simple pieces. The mess tin where you will place the food along with water , a black "holder" that has a small opening under it where you will place the actual "cooker" and an opening large enough for the mess tin to fit above. Then you will pour something flammable in the form of a liquid inside the cooker. A preffered substance is something that burns long and doesn't emit toxic fumes that would slowly kill you while you're just sitting there making some food. I used a special liquid used to light outdoor grills. I've found out that it works reasonably well although I'm sure there are much better ones suited for the job than the one I use. Once the initial phase was over I used a match to light the cooker and afterwards placed the mess ting above the black holder. The open flame then started to boil the water inside the mess tin. Now that was the moment when I threw in the noodles and the meatballs.

Then I put on some Deep purple and lay down for a while. Just listening to music. The TV was showing a ghost-movie with Nicole Kidman in it. She had apparently used some sort of black magic to bring her deceased husband that had died from the second world war back to life. Then she shot some ghosts with a big-ass shotgun but it seems like she didn't know that they couldn't die from bullets. Stupid bitch. Everybody knows you'd need these weird paranormal laser guns like the Ghostbusters have in order to trap the ghosts , of course ! Exactlymondo ! You know , I think the plot of that movie was the lamest since that mediocre sequel to "from dusk till dawn" where the vampires , like , rob a bank and kill Mexican police with assault rifles.

While the food was brewing in the stove while I layed around in the floor I wondered if the army really had anything new to teach me anymore. Since you know , I've run up hills , made shelters , dug holes , been yelled at for sloppy work , I've cooked food in a mess tin several times , slept in a tent and in a sleeping bag and finally I can even do CPR if needed. To some degree I was even content with my experiences.

Then my food was apparently ready. I went upstairs and fetched a big spoon. Then I started to eat the contents inside the mess tin. And , boy oh boy , they were good alright. I couldn't remember how good it was to eat out of a mess tin like that. It had truly been ages. But you know , somehow , it was never a problem for me. I learned pretty quick too. After I had eaten I went upstairs and cleaned the mess tin and poured the rest of the liquid out of the cooker. My parents haven't been at home for over a week now. They're holed up in that little retreat of theirs in the bay of Sipoo which is not too far from here. Looks like one of them had actually stopped by the house when I was at school and left a small stash of Euro notes on my table. laying under it was a small piece of paper which read with small letters; "don't forget to go to the grocery store".

So I went there too. I took my bike from the extremely messy garage and hopped on it and pedaled to the small shop about a kilometre away. Thank god there's even a small shop near here. I remembered that there was a large stash of laundry stashed on one of the corners of my room. They needed cleanin' and fast. Somehow , though , doing laundry wasn't too high on my list either since I had plenty of clothes left anyway.

Once inside I wasn't really that sure on what to buy. I knew the freezer had some fish-sticks inside but I wasn't too keen on preparing them today. That made me think of my girlfriend who always cooks some fine food. I wish she could've made the choices of what to buy from the shop that day since I was sure as hell very disorientated. Anyway I quietly placed all sorts of stuff I thought I needed inside the small red basket that I picked up from a small pile of them opposite the door. I also saw a pretty peculiar looking man inside the shop. He didn't look like a local at all. He sure was no local farmer , school-boy or a middle-aged fisherman. I think he was full-blown Swedish. As in , a Swede from Sweden. I remember seeing men like him several weeks back in my vacation. He sure was an odd sight in the middle of all that country living attitude. He was so trendy.

After concluding my shopping I pedaled back home and strangely enough started to hum that "come on bring the noise" - song from the band called twisted sister. I think I haven't seen anything quite as horrible as the lead-singer of the band since Marilyn Manson. He sure is an ugly son of a gun but I bet he was the bomb during the 80's. Afterall , and the way I see it , everyone dressed like that back those days. But he nevertheless is a scary son o'bitch. But apparently I found his songs quite entertaining and hummed at that bad-ass song for a while. I almost felt like doing the "air guitar" - maneuvre but luckily my brains were awake enough to warn me not to - afterall , I was driving a fucking bike ! You know , it's quite funny , but 80's music has always held a special place in my heart. My mom always tells me that the 80's were the best days of her life. And afterall , I was born in those days. Too bad I can't remember too much about it since I was too young but I can only imagine how "cool" (and that's sarcasm right there, people) it must've been. But the music is cool. And Miami vice is cool. Along with "back to the future" - movies. Oh , and MacGayver.

It's night now. The nights are so dark here. It's almost like someone would have pulled a gigantic veil in front of the moon and decided that the people around these parts are not allowed to have any peeks at the moon at all. Luckily this area has street-lamps or else it would be like suicide to try to sneak over there during the night.

Well, that was my day in 22.8. 2005. A date that won't live in infamy since nothing too special happened. Tomorrow might be an interesting day since my girlfriend has threatened to dye her hair blond ! Oh my goodness ! This well be very interesting !

So let's wait.

Good night.

All day and all of the night I dream about.. Work.

So , good news ! My mild flu is almost gone.

Right now the only thing that I do is occasionally blow my nose , sneeze and spit this ugly green slime out of my pretty and undoubtebly masculine throat. So I'm all good physically. Although I'm a bit tired.

My days in school are pretty long. And to tell you the truth it really confuses me. You've got dozens of essays , term papers , mild homework , grammar etc. on your "to do" - list. You also have to wake up at 7 o'clock in the morning in order to get to school at eight. I can't remember when was the last time I actually had the distinct pleasure to wake up at 7:30 and tell myself that I feel refreshed. Last morning the first thing that came into my mind after wondering about my girlfriend was that "Phew , I do feel tired".

My days are long indeed. From eight o'clock in the morning to three or four o'clock in the afternoon (and sometimes my tuesdays extend all the way from 8 AM to 7 PM) . Sleep deprivation is quite common to me. Especially in the few days following the exam-week. The student guidance councellor told me that I shouldn't have chosen so many courses. Yesterday I picked two more courses despite her wishes. This leaves me with very little time on almost any of the so-called "extra-curricular activities" that the rest of you normal people have. My weekends are usually centered on sleeping late and just laying around. I don't have the energy to do much else , I'm afraid.

They say that capricorns are workaholics. You know , that might just be true in my case.

Anyway , my girlfriend bought herself a motorcycle. It's a pretty cool looking vehicle and she got it "relatively cheap" too. I hope it'll be worth every dime to her as well.

Anyway , I think I'll go to sleep now since I'm really really tired.

Have a nice day out there, people.

Rain on my parade - Friday.

No-one bothered to buy the two sets of Swedish army webbings that I placed on the internet-auction. Somehow I'm not too surprised.

Perhaps I'll lower their prices slightly and put them on sale again tomorrow. I'm still hoping for some kid with loaded pockets to pick up them up for his own little airsoft - adventures.

Anyway , I went to school today too. Nothing too special over there besides long hours , hallways , crowds of people , coffee and hard studying. We had an hour of photography in the arts class. This time we tried to get our cameras working. The schematic that the teacher put on the blackboard didn't quite match our quite modern , but despite film-operated cameras.

We're not allowed to have digital cameras for this course , unfortunately. But then again that makes perfect sense because we are supposed to learn - for an example - on how to work in the dark-room and actually make something out of the picture negatives.

There was some sort of a concert in the Porvoo market too. They had some Finnish rappers on stage and this Finnish band called "Apulanta" was supposed to appear. I don't really like them since their stuff is in Finnish and in my opinion heavy metal and all music styles relating to it and sung in Finnish are just horrible. My girlfriend seems to dig them to some extent , though.

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.

Time is running out.. But the sun is shining.

Got three days worth of a holiday left.

It starts to feel like one of those "extended weekends" where you also get Friday free for one reason or the other. I've managed to develop a pretty decent sleep rhythm again so I won't be that shocked when I have to get up at seven o'clock again every damn morning for school. And since I'm one of the third year students now , it pretty much means that during the test-weeks most of the tests will begin at eight instead of nine like they used to. Thank god we've got the test weeks at the end of each period in the upper secondary school and not mixed all over the place like in the 7th , 8th and 9th grades. I probably couldn't hack them anymore and I've always thought that those sorts of irregular test - days have always been very confusing. Thank god they won't be coming back anymore.

Nobody has bothered to buy the Swedish army webbing's from the internet auction either. I've got a sinking feeling about the deal too. Perhaps I'm asking too much for them ? But come on , I'd need some profit out of them and just a cheap transaction-price like I got the last time I fiddled with the internet auctions (and in it I was selling a bunch of playstation games and it turned out horrible). I do dare to say it , but in about six days nobody's going to buy em'. Well , I'll try it out a second time.

The sun is shining for once and I walked to the mailbox outside. I looked inside and found a brand new issue of the Finnish "Softaaja" - magazine. The magazine is a fairly new publication for the people who play airsoft and I've been a subscriber of it for a few months now. The quality of the articles and reviews are acceptable and pretty good , but so far the magazine has offered very little in the way of anything new. Although , what you have to ask from yourself is if that's even something that they've aimed to do in the first place.

I also got a DVD-R/DVD-RW/CD/CD-R/CD-RW - drive. It's a real pain in the ass to try and install since I can't remember how to correctly fuck around with the cables inside the computer to somehow adjust the "master/slave" - settings for the drive(s). Since you know , right now windows won't recognise the drive despite the fact that power to the drive is clearly connected since it opens up and all. I remember having the same troubles about a year ago when I changed my regular CD-drive to another one. That time I managed to adjust the master/slave - settings in the computer to a successful finish. But now , I can't remember how to do it again. Hopefully I'll succeed in it soon enough.

My girlfriend also lost one of her cats today (thank god she's got alot of them since if that would be her only one then it could surely mean the end of the world , I know from experience). I don't know which one did she lose but nevertheless I'm very sorry about it.

Buy buy buy , sell sell sell.

It's still raining and the early autumn seems to have started.

On related news all of southern-Finland along with the western parts of the country have been ravaged with a huge storm. Some people are dead , trees have fallen into buildings and general disorder has been experienced in some parts of the country. Yesterday we had a complete black-out of a medium-sized suburban area near here. Our lights were out for about an hour too.

The biggest story right now is a commercial chopper that crashed into the sea yesterday in mysterious conditions while moving passengers from the port of Helsinki to the Estonian capital of Tallinn. Twelve people are dead. Two of them were Americans and the rest were Finnish and Estonian business exec's. I've heard about a dozen conspiracy/sabotage/terrorism - stories and claims about the incident today. Although I'll have to admit that the whole accident was pretty damn surprising. Choppers haven't crashed like that before here. I'd say that if the chopper wasn't downed by clever Al-Qaeda sabotage conducted in the port of Helsinki by Osama Bin Laden himself , then the weather must've had something to do with it.

On the "not-so-related-news" front I decided to sell some stuff in a Finnish internet auction site. It's just a pair of old Swedish army webbings that have laying around for some time. Hopefully some kid might buy em' soon enough since I'd really need money. And fast.

Finally , since I more or less re-discovered the wonderful world of internet-auctioning , I've decided to get rid of some more stuff. But this time , it'll be purely normal clothing that has also been laying around my room "way too long".

Homecoming's suck.

Yeah , exactly what the title tells you.

I got back home yesterday from a certain trip with my girlfriend. We had a great time once again but when I got to Helsinki things fell back.

It rained and a thunder-storm shortly followed. I cursed at my luck. Like I would've thought about packing an umbrella with me. Anyway , my parental unit wasn't interested on driving all the way to Helsinki in order to pick me up since it seemed that our lovely home-municipality of Sipoo was experiencing a rather nasty thunderstorm of it's own.

When I got to that new bus-station in Helsinki I found out that there weren't any busses leaving to my direction for a while but I really wanted to go home real fast (of course I could've just waited) . I went to the subway station nearby in order to get to the outskirts of Helsinki where you can actually get to a bus that goes to Porvoo (which is situated real close where I live). I've must've been in a subway about seven times and five of them were when I was around 10 , so my knowledge of the Helsinki railway-network was "somewhat" lacking. I managed to get to the right railway-car on my second try , thank god.

To tell you the truth , I felt a bit uneasy in that railway-car with all of those people around due to that unfortunate incident in it about a year ago. What "incident" am I talking about , you ask ? Well , a man best to be described with the words "a fucking nutcase" entered the subway-car with an axe and hit a fellow passenger with it in the head. Needless to say , the victim died.

Luckily , no "axe-men" entered the subway to punish me for not paying the ticket fee. So I got as far as "Itäkeskus" with the subway and then got out. In there , I walked to a small bus-stop in the drizzling rain and started to wait for the bus. For some odd reason the bus-stop was situated in front of a two-cent "watering hole" - of a restaurant for the worst bunch , I'm afraid. All sorts of drunken people seemed to be bursting in and out of the establishment. One "cowboy" - dressed gentleman even decided to piss on the front steps while the music of "Irwin Goodman" was playing in the background.

Then another "classic" turn of events erupted.

A weird, shaggy-looking old lady turned up from around the corner with a push-cart full of all sorts of bags. My facial expression developed into a scowl upon seeing that the old lady was also drunk and was equipped with a cell-phone that she was currently talking into. I understood that I had stumbled (or perhaps she had stumbled upon me ?) upon a classic "bag-lady". This specific bag-lady started to push her cart around in a circle and at the same time she was mumbling something into her cellphone. I listened to her for about 20 minutes when a middle-aged couple turned up to the bus-stop. The lady politely asked me how much was the time. As I told her , the man opened up a bottle of beer and started to drink it down.

They started to argue and the guy asked the woman something along the lines; "what ? What's the matter ? Can't I drink a bottle of beer ?"

Then the bus arrived and the rain just intensified. I just sat to the bench and let out a giant sigh.

To be or not to be.. (a.k.a. "what to write ?")

Well , what can I say , this is my last day here.

I was pretty wasted due to excess sleep depravation last night so I ended up sleeping on the couch with my clothes on. I woke up about 25 minutes ago and I'm still yawning.

I haven't done much since. The Simpsons was on a few moments ago and I watched it for a while. It was a good episode about how Homer got a gun and started acting all crazy thus losing Marge and the kids for awhile. But hey , the episode had a gun in it. That's always a plus.

So what's happening to me ? Well , nothing much. I'm actually alot more tired emotionally and physically now than I was when I got here. I don't know the reason for that , but I would assume that it's a pretty universal thing to people of my age. Afterall , I remember a certain teacher back in my school who stated a year ago that he had actually found the students alot more tired after the vacation than before. "Abso-fucking-lutely". He hit the point there.

I'm going to pack all my stuff today as well. It's just mainly a few knives , a pistol and clothes. So nothing too big to worry about. Although I'll still have that Japanese "Maneki Neko" - cat to worry about. And once again , I'll make sure that there's nothing easily breakable in the bags either.

You know , I think I could use a few more hours of sleep right. Then I'll write some more , but now I need a shave.

Bargaining chips (part 2)..

It's 06:40 AM (local time) here and I just woke up.

It seems that CW - under intoxication - has been 'almost' genuinely interested of the differences between French and Finnish military clothing. I would normally find it quite unusual , but when he told us that he was drunk then it no longer seemed that unusual. Afterall , I've heard of cases where a pure , born and bred man was persuaded to become interested of other men while intoxicated. Apparently he woke up the next morning with a carrot sticking up from his ass.

Anyway , I don't have much to say just yet. And I even decided to write something. Damn. Alright then.

I guess I'll just tell about the differences in the uniforms then. So , without further "ado" , let's start:

This is the Finnish M/91 BDU as worn by the commander of the Finnish defence forces , admiral Juhani Kaskeala. It was adopted around the early 1990's. You can see the differences in the actual camouflage pattern in the whole BDU - suit when compared to the French one , obviously. The French one is also meant as a battle garment only whereas the Finnish M/91 currently acts as the uniform for leave etc. duties as well for the FDF personnel and conscripts. The M/91 BDU's and the cloth it is made out of are manufactured with a special "IR-resistant" - coating that is supposedly supposed to 'render the user of the suit less likely to be picked up by infra-red sensors'. Of course this question is surely "in doubt". However , this feature along with an additional fire resistant coating makes it a very expensive piece of clothing.

I believe the M/91 will cost you around 145 - 155 Euros since they are available as new only. Of course I am willing to predict that it's price will continually start to drop in the following years since the Finnish defence forces have just adopted a new pattern that will replace the old M/62 and M/91 patterns in theory. The new M/05 pattern is a small , digital - style camouflage - pattern that will undoubtebly be better than the older patterns since it's pattern is composed of small digital-style print that has proven to be more effective in the outdoors than your normal , conventional patterns.

All in all , this is a pretty interesting time to do your conscription service in the FDF right now since there are high chances of getting a newer M/05 - BDU to be tested.

Bargaining chips.

Today's been a pretty shitty experience. I'm not interested on writing anything too deep or divine today. So , I'll just tell you how my collection of camouflage uniforms got yet another much sought-after article.

We had heard of a small shop located in the nearby blocks surrounding the railway-station in this city. This particulat shop was supposed to be selling all sorts of military/army/out-doors etc. surplus products and so on. Naturally my eyes gleamed with greed upon hearing this. Naturally I also assumed that they wouldn't be willing to take too high prices of the items they were selling down there.

We went to the shop at around 16:42 PM (local time) and saw these small racks of camouflage clothing outside the shop. It featured all sorts of clothing articles , although many of them were laying there with these really rediculous price-tags attached to them. And by rediculous , I mean they were way too over-priced. We browsed around the racks for awhile and found something of interest in the form of a camouflaged jacket , as you can see over there in that picture.

So the shopkeeper turned up and he spoke French. In broken Swedish and English he told us to come inside his shop and take a better look at his products. We did that since we still needed matching trousers in the same pattern as the jacket was in. Inside the shop there was indeed quite a collection of various military equipment located in boxes , racks and tables. I was in freakin' Nirvana until we started looking at the price-tags that had amazingly high prices. I laughed out loud of the various stuff that this funny little French guy thought he could sell us for nothing at all. Unfortunately most of the trousers in the French "CCE" - pattern were quite small , but I took the biggest ones I could find from the small table. I knew that the trousers would do for now , but in a few months time they would undoubtebly be way too little for me. Luckily I know of a shop that sells the right sized ones in the internet for around 8.50 in English pounds (so it's not too steep).

Then the shop-keeper came to us again and suggested that we go upstairs to the second floor where we was supposedly supposed to have more military clothing articles. Purely out of interest we ventured upstairs and found a medium-sized room with mostly European and Swedish military clothing. It seemed that this guy really wanted to rob us from our last pennies , but luckily I was not interested in anything else he had to sell for us. There was even a really badly worn M-65 - styled jacket there with a camouflage pattern on it.. And this guy wanted 800 crowns for it.

So we went downstairs and I noticed these various Swedish military clothing articles hanging on various racks. There was a green "hold-all bag" for leave hanging in there.. And this French dude had the guts to ask 300 crowns for it when I had bought one for 20 a year ago ! I almost started to laugh.

As we were paying for the French BDU the guy started talking to me in English. He looked at me for a while and told me that he had sold over twelve of these "CCE" - sets during this week for various people. He told me that it was a very popular clothing article. And that it probably was , since the closest place I knew one could get a hold of this stuff was in England.

Then he had a look at me and suddenly blurted out , "say , are you one of those airsoft-people ?"

I nodded and told him I was. I also asked him how he had reached such an exact conclusion. He started to smile at me and made funny notions with his hands while telling me "I could tell that by look at your body and your overall image". I wasn't too comfortable of his words , but I just nodded and he gave me my BDU. We left the shop shortly afterwards and vowed never to come back again since the shopkeeper told us that he wasn't going to receive another patch of the French CCE - sets anymore.

Anyway , let's talk about the camouflage pattern you can see in this picture. It's a French army "CCE" - patterned BDU. The name "CCE" stands for "camouflagé centré Europé" which basically means "Central-European camouflage". Thus it's been designed for the Central parts of Europe.

Now this thing started to replace the old olive green fatigues in the whole of French armed forces at around 1992. So , it's a fairly new pattern overall.


Anyway , that was it.. Now I'll have to go since I have a relationship to save , thank you.

Sight-seeing.

It's monday now in Finland when I'll be writing this. By now the last five days of my vacation here in Sweden have started.

There's a few more in's and out's I have to work out before I'll go home but everything's going to be pretty much the same , I bet. Anyway , I ventured out into the city last weekend and took a few very convinient shots of the local harbor and it's sights. And just so it happened , the Finnish band "Hanoi Rocks" had a concert of some sort nearby. We could hear most of the stuff , although I'm not a big fan of the apparent "Glam rock" that they seem to play. We were just there to take a few pictures , that's all.

Anyway , the harbor had three ships from the Swedish navy docked along with a submarine. The smallest boat , which was apparently a patrol craft of some sort was pretty much the only one that was available for access for free. The submarine and the bigger destroyer cost around 75 crowns to get into , and I wasn't too interested on paying up such amounts of money for something so trivial. My uncle told me that a few years ago all of the vessels were available for access without a fee.

I just took a few shots and quietly decided that I wasn't exactly the sort of a man who would like to do his conscription service aboard a boat. I honestly think that my life would grow very boring there along with the fact that being stuck on a boat with just a small group of dudes might actually bring about alot of internal conflicts. Plus , I want to get to my girlfriend's bed for goodnight's sleep every weekend/leave as well , mind you. So "being at sea" doesn't really seem like something for me to do either. It just makes me wonder what sorts of dudes might like to spend several weeks out in the sea with nothing else staring back at them from the windows beside sea...and.. an occasional isle.. or the seagulls. Thank god I've never been that fond of the navy.

So , after we had taken the pics , we pretty much ventured back into the city since the whole experience was done and.. done.