Eurovision Drama: Fowl Play?

Tuomo writes: Remember how a couple of days ago I brought up the topic of Eurovision drama? This is what I mean with it: the Irish entry for 2008 will be sung by a puppet! Dustin the Turkey, a popular Irish telvision puppet to be more precise, will be perferoming the song Irelande Douze Points, a reference to the maximum amount of points (12, or douze in French) any participating country can give to the song it deems the best (12 to the best, then 10, 8, 7...1).



I mean puh-lease: this is the country that won three years in a row and then one more time for good measure in the 1990s... And now a turkey?! An féidir leat é a chreidiúint?! :-)

BTW the gentleman, the host of the show on RTÉ, we get to see briefly in the beginning of the clip is quite a dish ;-)

First Week on Weight Watchers

Tuomo writes: This may have been my least successful first week on WeightWatchers: I made some bad decisions, like have a bran muffin as a snack without realizing that by definition muffins are little balls of butter. Consequently I lost “only” 2.8 pounds (a hair over 1 kg), but that’s better than nothing, right? And 2.8 pounds closer to my 10% goal of 195 pounds!

But I came to discover the joys of popcorn as a high-fiber snack: one McDonalds hamburger (note no cheese!) and a cup of grapes and popcorn – only 8 points! Then I also drank a lot of water, and walked for at least ten minutes on three days. Two personal achievements to be continued this coming week. I’ll also try to go to the gym at least once, for a 20 minute cardio. Maybe some pushups, too…

As I’ve come to discover on many occasions, Canada is not the United States. This past week has highlighted another aspect in the differences: shopping for low-fat or low-sodium products. On several occasions I came to realize in frustration that WW recipes calling for a low-sodium this or low-fat that are rendered extra challenging on this side of the US-Canadian border. To add insult to injury, it can’t be a coincidence that I “always” have to reach for the skim milk container at Starbucks behind all the other containers!

Walking the Pounds Away

Tuomo writes: I thought I'd write a word or two on my first couple of days on Weight Watchers.

I've decided to focus this week on two things: drinking more water and maybe taking baby steps at walking as a form of exercise. I have this bad habit of drinking Diet Coke almost all the time. I mean, for instance if I have to pay for my beverage (like on campus), I'd rather pay for a Diet Coke than a bottle of water. So I've made a serious effort of drinking water whenever I usually grab for a bottle of soda. In fact yesterday (on campus!) I had a bottle of water with my tuna sandwich. I did relapse though when I had a (one!) slice of veggie pizza as my pre-Finnish class meal...

As for walking I walked around Landsdowne Park Shopping Centre on Monday - outside; I may be over forty, but I ain't no mall walker yet :-) It took me a bit over ten minutes, and damn if I didn't start feeling a bit sweaty! I get home a bit earlier today, so I'll have to make an effort of getting to work a bit earlier so that I can do my walk around the mall before that.

As for meeting my daily allowance of 33 points per day, I think I've gone a point or two over on each day. Fortunately I have 35 "spare" points to spread out over the week...

Now onto something more important: is Kosovo's declaration of independence going to ruin teh Eurovision Song Contest held this May in Belgrad? As always, there's drama in the air this time of the year, and now thanks to the Internet, the drama just gets more intense. Now what drama are you talking about, I hear you ask. Well, things like who'se going to represent [name of a country], was there a candidate that could've been better, what language is the song going to be sung in, and what is s/he going to wear. So this year all this drama may be more upstaged by politics than by the usual questions on (lack of) esthetics when some participating countries may have recognised Kosovo's independence by then. Let's keep our eyes peeled as the season unfolds...

This Used to Be My Playground

Tuomo writes: Dave and I finally caught up woth our new year's resolution and (re) joined Weight Watchers. We had had all kinds of things to do on previous Saturday mornings, making attending a meeting more or less impossible. Furthermore, there was the issue of settling down and making an effort of cooking home and/or commiting ourselves to a change in lifestyle, something that WW is all about: it's not a diet - it's a lifestyle.

Not that I was very disappointed, but I weighed 216.4lbs (97.8kgs), about 15 pounds more than what I weighed in February 2007. That's pretty hefty even though I weighted a couple of pounds more when I joined WW for the first time... I look at myself in the mirror and I'm not very happy with what I see. Last year this time of the year (before we had to make the big decision to move to Canada), I had these grandiose plans that by the end of May I'd weigh around 195lbs and that by the end of the summer 185-190lbs, meaning that I'd fit in my stylish 34" jeans and look fabulous while vacationing in Rehoboth Beach, DE. Kissan kikkarat, or "cat's turds" as we say quite explicitly in Finnish - my weight went to the exact opposite direction!

In many ways it felt frustrating joining WW again and having to deal with the whole spiel that you have to listen to at the end of the first meeting: portion control, making wise decisions, exercising, yadda yadda yadda. However, I liked our presenter Wendy. I gather it had been her first time the week before, so she was a bit nervous. I kinda liked her topic too: moving and exercising not because we have to but because we like to. She made us think about what it was like as kids and what we did to move around. True, as kids we didn't run around and play games outdoors because we had to but because we could. I was also thrilled to learn that Canadians (Americans too?) have a game called kick the can, or the equivalent of purkkis; though I used to play the game of ten sticks on a board, the concept is exactly the same.

We'd play this and other games in what is today known as Pikkuhuopalahti. Until the early 1990s it used to be a waste area, and in my family we used to refer to the area as Sorsalampi, or Duck Pond because there was this dirty shallow pond where ducks would swim around and quack eagerly for pieces of bread. In terms of land formation it was ideal for all kinds of activities such as treasure hunting - not that we ever found anything, but every summer we tried our luck. We would also try building all kinds of tree houses or huts from sticks and other material we could get our hands on; usually by the end of the day though we'd be sick of the idea and would give up the idea!

I left for France to study in the fall of 1990. When I came back in early summer 1991, the area had gone through a tremendous change. No longer an area of waste land, it had become Pikkuhuopalahti, an area full of brand new family friendly houses in pastel colours and quirky architectural details. The duck pond was still there though it had moved a bit and it was in much better condition; the ducks were still there quacking away and relying on the kindness of passer-bys. One of the tram lines had also been extended to Pikkuhuopalahti, allowing me to get to the university by tram almost door to door with only one change of trams; if I planned it right I'd be able to get from home to the tram station in 1 minute 50 seconds, a feat that these days would only cause an aneurism. Riding on the tram through Pikkuhuopalahti, I couldn't help humming Madonna's song This Used to Be My Play Ground - or if I was on a more cynical mood that I was on a ride through Toon Town!

In this context, I was positively surprised a couple of days ago when I came across a music video on YouTube about Pikkuhuopalahti. It's the debut release by a new (at least to me...) singer called Pariisin Kevät "Spring in Paris," and the song is about the trials and tribulations of living in the suburbs like Pikkuhuopalahti. Interestingly, according to the singer the houses of Pikkuhuoplahti are like boxes of cookies, a metaphor not far removed from my thoughts of Toon Town!

My initial reaction to this song was that it was a bit too strange for me, but fortunately I decided to listen to it again. This time I thought that I liked it... And now I like it a lot!

OK back to Weight Watchers and connecting with my inner child (or something). I actually looked forward to babysitting Mika on Sunday. Originally the idea was to pick him up after his afternoon nap at 1pm and then take him to Stanley Park for him to run around and allow him tto be a two-year-old. Unfortunately he didn't go for his afternoon nap until 1, or moments before we got over to Tuukka and Joy's. We agreed to go run some errands and return around 2:30, but when we returned, Mika was still (!) asleep. Eventually he did wake up, and he was glad to see his favourite uncles waiting for him. We took him to the playground across the street where we spent almost an hour watching him run around and making sure he didn't get hurt in any of the swings or jungle gyms. In this respect, I got to do exactly what Wendy had recommened we do. right now my legs are tired and my cheecks feel a bit rosy form the combination of fresh air and exposure to sunshine...

In many ways I now feel like I had been a kid again running around the waste land called Sorsalampi hunting for treasures or planning for the next site and structure of a hut to play in, all energised and full of positive thoughts. Maybe this time I'll reach my goal weight - and keep it off by thinking of Pikkuhuopalahti.

Oldies but Goldies

Tuomo writes: One cannot write about the high school experience in Finland and the penkkarit tradition without saying a word or two about the Vanhojentanssi, or the Oldies' Ball. At least not moi.

The day after the graduates-to-be have left on the truck, the next year's graduates become the oldest ones in the high school. No more Abis and their haughty looks and attitudes: you're the cat's meow now! And this of course calls for a celebration.

This celebration is called the Oldies' Ball when guys dress up in a tail coat or a tux and gals don an evening gown. Some girls actually spend a lot of time and effort (not to mention money) on the perfect coiffe and the perfect dress; the boys usually just focus on renting a tux, maybe geting a hair cut - and showing up sober. The theme is always fin de siècle which is reflected in the selection of music and dances; in addition to the "mandatory" standards, the Oldies usually also get to choose one song which they dance to. Then after several weeks of practice (which, much to the dismay of the boys, usually interferes with the outdoor hockey season), the whole school and the Oldies' parents get together in the school gym or whatever space is best suited for this noble event and watch the Oldies perform their dances. On that day, they are oh so old, so wise, so noble...

The following clip is, in my opinion, a fine example of what the Balls are like: very formal, yet a boatload of fun - though it can occasionally get quite crowded on the floor. Note that in my Oldies Ball we had a tape recorder play the music - not a live band like in this clip!



The song that my class chose as "our dance" (the Wienerwaltz) was to the tune of this song, the theme to The Amazing Adventures of Nils Holgerson, a popular children's show (!) at that time. This one is in Dutch; ours was the intrumental version (duh!):



What about others: what was your Oldies' dance?

If my memory doesn't fail me, my Oldies' Ball fell on a Valentine's Day. I brought up this coincidence on several occasions well before the Big Day. I mean, I thought it would've been so romantic and stuff to have the Ball and combine elements of romance in one day. But as I allued to yesterday, what can you do when you're surrounded by amateurs and idiots... It wasn't until ten years or so later that the Finnish Red Cross launched ystävänpäivä, or Friend's Day to fall on February 14th so that my blatherings would've made a difference among my class mates...

Nevertheless, I still remember that day 24 years ago with fond memories (Bagel Alert!). The gay boy in me had an absolutely fabulous day with everybody looking so beautiful, so handsome. And all that dancing... and (ahem) the attention I got from the girls. On several occasions, the girls' gym teacher had chosen me to dance with her to demonstrate the steps and moves. Ulla, my partner, was so glad that I was able to lead, and she actually revealed that a lot of the girls were a bit jealous of her. By the end of the night (can you hear I could've danced aaaall night?), my dance card had been literally shred to pieces! Never before had I received such positive attention from the girls, an important thing for anyone at that age, gay or straight...

Some weather-related trivia (global warming anybody?) that sheds more insight to what a geek I was... December 1983 (oops, the secret is out!) was not cold enough to freeze the school's sportsfield, so we couldn't play any hockey during gym classes before the holidays. When we got back to school in January, the weather was perfect for outdoors hockey, but (un)fortunately we had to use gym classes to practice the dances for the Ball. Then after the week-long holiday after the Ball, the temperature had risen again, making outdoor hockey impossible. The following year, my Abi year, when we had gym classes only till the holidays, yet again the weather was not suited for outdoor hockey...

Man, was I ever happy about these unfortunate weather patterns - not that I ever got to (or dared) share this joy with anybody at the time :-)

Hyvää ystävänpäivää!

Tuomo kirjoittaa: Hyvää ystävänpäivää teille kaikille (you know who you are!) Minulla on teitä kaikkia kovasti ikävä (Davella kans)!

Abi Male Spiritus

Tuomo scrīpsit: Here's another Bagel Moment (well, sorta): penkkarit. I just happened to be browsing some Finnish news websites when I came across some articles and video clips on how the penkkarit had gone peacefully under sunny but freezing conditions. Sigh... I can't believe it's been 23 years to the day since I took part in my own penkkarit. Oh the days when I was 18, still young and fresh - while now I'm barely and.

So what on earth is penkkarit?!?

In Finland, the year high school students, or Abiturienttis (or Abis for short) graduate, the regular coursework ends for them around mid-February, usually coinciding with the beginning og the week-long Winter Break (formerly also known as the Ski Holiday). From then on, the intensive 5-7 week preparation for the ylioppilaskirjoitukset, or matriculation exams starts; these exams are important because the results affect your chances of entering college in potentially crucial ways. In fact, right before everything comes to an end, the graduates in spe will have taken the listening comprehension exams in all the languages they will be tested on in a couple of weeks - usually at least in English and Swedish or Finnish.

However, now is the time to celebrate the end of 12 years of having had to rot in classrooms (only to realise that there was a reason why our teachers had been so presistant about the relevance of hypothenuses, stamens, and moles in our young lives). On this day, the Abis, or the graduates-to-be get on trucks that have been decorated with posters that have all kinds of funny slogans, usually acronyms or puns based on the word Abi. The year I graduated (you do the math!), we thought we were so cool to have come across the Latin phrase Abi male spiritus "Go away evil spirit." Oh it is so true: the youth is so wasted on the young :-)

As an aside, to provide some insight to what a language geek I was (already) in high school, I would have complained (probably up to this day) about how Cabirrean is not a word of English and therefore should not be used. Not even in the sense of a pun...! :-)

Then the trucks from all the high schools in town gather at a starting point from where they drive through the main streets, one after the other, and the Abis make a lot of noise and throw candy at passers-by. And everybody gets nice rosy cheecks from the cold air :-)

I remember my year that I was particularly POed about how my English listening comprehension test had gone. I think I barely got a 20 out of 30, which I thought was horrendous considering that I had gone to the English School of Helsinki for grades 1-9 and that English was my strongest language. Although the Board of Education always tries to find ways to make the English tests challenging for former exchange students and the kind, that year the passages and the questions seemed unusually difficult; even the time given to answer the questions seemed clearly shorter than previously. In fact, the one and only in my graduating class to get the perfect score had never gotten 30/30! And my then-best friend Mikko, who was bilingual and who never got anything below 28/30 in English, scored "only" 27/30...

On the actual penkkarit day, to demonstrate how upset I was, I made this vest out of a black hefty bag on which I wrote in English, "I'm a perfect 10. How many did you guess right on the listening comprehension test?" Much to my dismay, nobody got the joke! I had to explain the "joke" to almost everyone - so much for quality education in English in Finnish high schools in those days! (Or was I such a geek that it didn't matter to the others...?)

Just like today, the day 23 years ago was bright and sunny... and -20C! Once the truck started to move, I unfortunately had to take the hefty bag vest off. Later on in life, I experimented some more on using hefty bags as clothing and came to the same conclusion as on that cold day: plastic does not keep cold away (or allow sweat to evaporate...)! Therefore not many people got to see my chosen words of wisdom, and those who did probably never understood what it was all about. To quote my friend Pekka: I was surrounded by amateurs and idiots!

At any rate, I couldn't help feeling quite nostalgic when I watched a clip on Iltalehti on how the the graduates-to-be celebrated their penkkarit (who - mind you - weren't even born when I graduated - AAAAGH!!!). So young, so full of hope and aspiration... My only consolation right now is that 23 years down the road, they'll be just as nostalgic! :-)

It's (Still) Friday Night - and the Bedroom and Living Room Sets Arrived!

Tuomo writes: Earlier today, Dave calls me and tells that our bedroom and living room sets, undelivered as I mentioned a couple of days ago, would be delivered tonight between 6 and 10PM. I won't believe that until I see it, I thought...

Well, lo and behold, our door bell rings a little after 9PM, and the delivery guys are there with our furniture. Half an hour later, after some minor repositioning the bed more precisely between the windows and turning the coffee table around 180 degrees, our home is starting to look perfect!

Well, almost... we still have two rugs from La-Z-Boy to be delivered (to our living room area).

For the time being though, I think I'm going to mix myself the tiniest of cocktails - another example of a collocation in our household :-)

Friday Night - Time for Turkish Delight

Tuomo yazıyor: After last night’s posting, I’ve been a bit in a Turkish mood. In fact, when I think about my whole collection of CDs, I think that right after music in English and Finnish (duh!), Turkish may be the next runner up. Or at least give music in French its run for the money.

I guess I’ve always been interested in Turkish music. It must’ve all started with my obsession with Eurovision and with Turkey being in the same league as Finland with the entries, i.e. among the bottom three or so (note to self: more on this in a later posting). Turkey would submit these entries that were up-tempo yet somehow exotic and appealing. If it hadn’t been to Turkey, Finland would have guaranteed the last place in the Eurovision Song Competition :-) Nevertheless, almost invariably I loved the Turkish entries, and I loved listening to that language that is so different from other “mainstream” European languages, thinking that this is what Finnish must come across as…

Then there was that trip to Turkey I mentioned in my last posting: that’s when music by artists such as Sezen Aksu, Barış Manço, and M.F.Ö. became sort of household names – at least to me. But this was the time before the Internet… Thanks to Pekka and Timo, on Dave and my trip to Luxembourg in 1999, we came across a new Turkish artist: Tarkan.

I think I have every single album Tarkan has ever released, and although Dave is understandably particular about music other than in English, even Dave likes him. According to Wikipedia, Tarkan has released an album in English, which I have to admit it, unfortunately does not quite sound right. Maybe it’s the mystique of a language you don’t quite understand or something, but his lyrics in English just sound flat, in a dime-a-dozen kinda way.

My two cents on this: Tarkan, bence sen daha iyi Türkçe şarkı söylüyorsun! :-)

It’s hard for me to say which of his songs is my favourite. For instance. I love working out to the sounds of Gülümse Kaderine (Devrim Remix) from his album Dudu. And then there’s Şıkıdım (Hepsi senin mi?) or Bu gece. But for the newbie, his worldwide debut hit Şımarık “The Spoiled One” (a k a The Kiss Kiss Song) makes a good starting point. Enjoy – but don’t ask me what the lyrics mean ‘cuz I don’t have a clue! Simply enjoy, and let your hips take control! :-)



One more thing: Tarkan, ne zaman Vancouver’e sahneye çıkmak için geleceksin? :-)

On Idioms, Collocations - and Being Insanely Jealous

Tuomo yazıyor: Here’s something I’ve been meaning to write about for quite some time. And it forces me to digress temporarily in the field of linguistics… But don’t worry, it’ll all lead to a Bagel Moment, I promise! :-)

In linguistics, a collocation is a group of words that inherently belong together. For example we make decisions but do dishes - the words make and do cannot be used interchageably, i.e. make collocates with decision and dishes collocates with do. Collocations should not be confused with idioms, or groups of words where the meaning is not a sum of the parts, for example to have a green thumb (why only a thumb?) or to kick the bucket (why not a pail?). You can't understand these expression only by understanding the words green and thumb or kick and bucket.

The way Dave and I speak English on a regular basis contains a lot of collocations that are basically hyperboles, or exaggerations. For example, we don’t just refer to bees as crazy; no, we have to refer to them as deranged bees. In the same way, we can't just be jealous: we have to say that we're insanely jealous (this collocation was inspired by the time when I bought an iPod before Dave did, and Dave was insanely jealous for months).

Now to the Bagel Moment. Right before the holidays, I got an e-mail from Pekka and Timo where they told me about their trip to Istanbul, Turkey right after new year, and that obviously made me insanely jealous. The two of them lead a life full of fabulous activities such as singing in a choir, taking music and language classes (not just French in France but also evenign classes in Turkish and Lëtzebuergesch, the third local language with French and German!). On top of that, this adorable couple has time to take care of their house and keep it immaculate and plant potatoes and stuff – and all that in the most organized way. More reasons than one to be insanely jealous :-)

I wrote about Pekka some time ago, on how a song had led me to one of those Bagel Moments. The two of them have been very close friends in my life even though our paths don't cross often enough these days. I’m on this side of the Atlantic, and they live in Luxembourg, meaning that whenever I go to Finland, it’s not guaranteed that I get to see them there.

Now let me say a couple of words on Timo. We were introduced on our first semester in college at a potluck. Somehow we hadn’t met before, but we had been assigned to be in charge of the dessert. Not that we ever got into a fight, but we had some severe differences on how moist a cake should be. To make use of some hyperboles again, Timo prefers his cake to “crunch in the teeth” whereas I clarly prefer mine to “swim off the plate.” As a result, our cake got over-moistened and literally slid off the plate - not that I complained! So, it was a weird yet wonderful start to a beautiful friendship…

Later on in the years, we traveled by train to Turkey, which on its own is worth a posting of its own. Such train trips (Interrail anybody?) are notorious for driving lifelong friends apart to the extent that they never speak to each other. I guess in our case though, this did not happen because right after that I went to Toulouse to study, and Timo went to Thessaloniki.

Inspired by this trip (can it really be that it's been more than 15 years?!) and driven by my insane jealousy, I would like to dedicate the next clip to Timo: Şinanay by Sezen Aksu (sorry about the quality of the clip – or is it intentional?). This song always reminds me of our trip from Helsinki all the way to Istanbul...



Arkadaşlarım, I do hope you had an iyi yolculuk! Insanely jealously though :-)

Long Time, No... Write!

Tuomo writes: It's been almost a month since my last post, and a lot has happened in course of the past month. There have also been a lot of requests for more photos, but for the time being the answer is no...

The vac/security guy eventually did show up and did his thing. And it only took him the whole day; he even had to have a colleague come over help him in the afternoon to get everything done in course of one day. Ironically, i was there the whole day, but I haven't been too keen about using the alarm. Dave on the other hand has been more diligent about using it - but he has also set it off inadvertently a couple of times. On one occasion, he was delayed turning it off so much that they actually called from the securty agency to check if everything was OK. In other words, now we know for sure that the security system works! :-) The central vacuum cleaner also works...!

The painter also came over and painted parts of the living room area Acapulco Aqua and one of the walls in the master bedroom Westover Hills. We had very different initial reactions to the Acapulco Aqua. I had had the benefit of seeing the results in broad day light, whereas Dave didn't see them until sundown. So when Dave home, he looked around for a while and (in his subtle ways) went, "BLUE!" He went on for days and days wondering if he really liked the color, and he would ask visitors for their opinion. About week later he finally started to calm down and declared that he did like the colour - but only after changing some lamps, which admitttedly had a positive effect.

We also moved the rest of our belongings the second weekend of January, i.e. one weekend earlier than planned. Our landlady had asked if we could be out by the 25th, which meant that we had to spend one weekend moving the stuff over into the garage and then the following cleaning up. I finally managed to move the last cardboard boxes indoors, but that means that there are piles of "stuff" all over the place. My goal the next couple of days is to get my office in shape, and perhaps get started with organising my "collection" of cross-stitch floss (dear God, you have no idea how many colours I have!!!). But I think that I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel...

Now the only fly in the ointment is if only we could get our master bedroom set delivered...! Our plan to sleep in the guest bedroom in the basement was supposed to be only temporary, nothing more than for ten days. However, it's been now more than a month, and there's still no info on when we're actually going to have our bed delivered. We made the mistake of deciding to have everything (i.e. the bed and the coffee table set for the living room) delivered at the same time. Now there's been a delay of some kind with the tables, meaning that our bedroom set is languishing and gathering dust in some godforsaken storage room while our tables are being made. Sleeping downstairs has been otherwise OK, except that all our clothes are upstairs as are the food and water bowls for the kitties and their litter box. In other words, we have to haul our fat asses all the way up to the top floor if we forget to bring our clothes down for the next day with us before going to bed or if we forget to take care of Teddy's and Ellie's needs while we're still upstairs working in our offices.

Which reminds me, I MUST go clean their litter box right after this because I forgot to do it this morning...

So that's what's been going on since mid-January. Oh and my toe, the one that initially turned flourescent green, is still intact...! :-)