Running a half-marathon in September - help!

Dear all,

I haven't written in AGES! But - behold! Now I have a genuine, altruistic reason to start blogging again!

Those who know me well (enough) will know that I am slightly insane - this has now been more than confirmed by the fact that I have signed up to do a half marathon in September, namely the Great North Run 2012 - way up North in Newcastle (can't get much further North than that here in Englandia!):
//CLICK here to visit my MS society fundraising page for the Great North Run//

I initially agreed to this to help a friend in need (long story!) - however I realised that if I was to embark on such a strenuous task demanding all my concentration and dedication, I would need a worthy cause. For motivation - and sanity.

I don't think I could have chosen a better cause than the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society. The disease has afflicted several of my close family members, rendering them unable to leave their homes on their own accord due to walking and other difficulties. I will bear this in mind when running - reminding myself that not only do I have the gift of free movement, but I am also able to be running around like a mad woman, say for distances up to 13.1 miles (21 kilometres).

There are two things I have signed up to in light of this charity half marathon.
One: I will raise £300 pounds Sterling for the MS Society
Two: To help me raise this, every weekend I will bake for my colleagues, selling yummy cakes every Monday morning to boost the team morale. My first efforts turned into some lush cranberry and white chocolate muffins - with handpicked, wild cranberries picked in the untouched wilderness of North Finland last year. (PICTURED)

There is a further reason beyond combating the horrible neurological, progressive condition that is MS, that I agreed to do this half marathon: The impending, scary move to London. I have dreaded this day for years, yet I knew it was on its way. And honestly, it arrived way too soon! We have now secured a flat, which takes a lot of the pressure off the logistics. Lots still needs sorting out - watch this space!

Apologies - I digress. Now you must be wondering how moving to London and running a half marathon are linked. The reasoning behind me training (physically and mentally) for the half marathon is to distract me from the move, and focus my energies (and anxieties) to something more concrete and worthwhile. I hope that this rationale will prove itself to be true! Furthermore, the aptly named Great North Run is perfectly timed to coinicide more or less with my moving to London - symbolising me 'giving up the North' in favour of the Southern Fairies.

Lastly: If you have actually made it this far in this rambling piece of text - WELL DONE!! And more importantly - please sponsor me :) Roosa x

Photography - a basic human right?

I'm a big advocate of human rights. And free will. And photography. And respecting people. So I fail to understand why these four things cannot co-exist in a civilized society.

I went to a friend's dance show in Manchester back in April. Behind with me and my friends, my friend's relatives were sitting. They'd travelled all the way from Finland to see her dance in a performance at the Manchester Dance House.

Before the show started, a standard announcement was made: "Please note that no filming or flash photography are allowed during the show".

Flash off. Got it. So, with my chunky, beloved Canon I thus started snapping some flash-less shots of my friend dancing to the wonderfully choreographed piece performed by the Northern Ballet School-ers.

I was so impressed and moved by the visuals and emotion embedded in the dance, that I got a little lost in my snapping...

That is, up until a very stern-looking gentleman came and tapped me on the shoulder from behind. With a less than polite attitude he asked me to stop taking photos, or else he will proceed with taking my camera away from me. This was not so much a request as it was a direct threat.

I was utterly baffled. What a contrast to the ladies on stage dancing in their summerdresses singing happy Mamma Mia excerpts.

It's safe to say that the show was ruined for me from that point onwards.

In the intermission I found this gentleman and demanded an explanation. I would have understood if I had been breaking the rules (video/flash photography), but this was a student production, with proud parents, siblings and friends in the audience. It just didn't make sense. I wasn't allowed to take any photos?

Indeed, the gentleman (I really should stop calling him a gentleman at this point, as it is startlingly clear that this was not an accurate description of this chap) admitted that the announcement should be changed to "All forms of photography are strictly forbidden". For us commoners, this translates as "I don't care how proud you are or how many hundreds of pounds you have paid to come and see your sister/daughter dance, you will not get any photos for the family album, damnit!"

It turned out that the reason why all photography was forbidden, had nothing to do with disturbing the dancers during the show. It had to do with creative copyright. This seemed rather odd, given that this was a school, albeit having put together a professional-standard production.

After years of an exciting love-affair with photography, I am only starting to unravel the world of what is allowed and what isn't. My mother keeps on reminding me to always ask people's permission before posting pictures on the web (or even facebook). Also, thanks to my lovely boyfriend, Amateur Photographer magazine has taught me exactly how to end up with a lawsuit, penalty and/or police affair as a photographer.

On the one hand, I can see why I wouldn't want people posting pictures of me without my permission on the web. However, if someone was taking pictures of me (in a non-stalkery way, of course), I think I would be flattered, rather than offended.

The my photography has always been to get an alternative view on reality, and secondly, to capture beauty, in its many forms. It is safe to say that if someone prevents me from doing this, I get annoyed. I wish all photographers out there good luck in not getting caught in the intertangled web of photography copyright law, and I hope that people can respect the artistic licence that photographers are blessed with.

A bit of superstition for the new year...

Today I saw a black cat crossing the road, and I shuddered to think that this means bad luck - supposedly.

A few seconds later I saw the cat come back. It walked across the road again, but this time back to the side of the road that it had started from in the first place.

So the cat came back. Does this mean that this has reversed the bad luck and I now have good luck? Or has it gone back to neutral? Maybe two crossings means doubly bad luck?

I thought about these possibilities for a long time. As to the right answer, I just couldn't find it.

If anyone has any ideas, please do share!

Oh and of course - happy new year to everyone :) The start to my 2011 was very relaxed with a good friend - thus I'm expecting a year along these same lines - fingers crossed!

Findependence Day?

The 6th of December was the Finnish independence day. Not many people know Finland does or stands for. Yes, there's only 5 million of us, but there's only 500 000 Icelanders (that's a tenth of our population!) and everyone seems to know about them much more than they know about Finland. Why? Here, I am going to put forward a thought that this is all due to the complete inability of the Finnish people to fake a smile.

DISCLAIMER: To my kinsmen, I would like to say in advance that I am deeply, deeply sorry - but someone's gotta say it first.

To explain what led me to this conclusion, I need to go back to the most recent Independence Day celebrations. I was celebrating this glorious day with some friends. The evening before, I had prepared some Christmas Stars (or Christmas tarts) that my boyfriend said resemble more ninja shurikens than actual stars (click the links to decide for yourself!). I had also made a Swede casserole (ironic, isn't it. However this is not made out of Swedish people, but the vegetable and it's a very traditional Christmas dish).

These items travelled with me from Manchester to a little village where I work, and back again. Some people on the train suspected I was carrying a covered bomb around in my armpit, when actually it was just a casserole. I felt all this hassle was however just a minor inconvenience, as this is a great day and needs celebrating.

I got to the party. The theme seemed to be old youtube musicvideos of Finnish pop music. Incidentally, the youtube was in Swedish, as our host was half-Swedish. Grr. They'll soon take over the world just like they took over our country!

We ate (mainly meat and rye bread), we drank (mainly Koskenkorva Vodka), we danced (mainly humppa and letkajenkka) - but there's one thing we didn't do. Talk. If there's one thing you should know about the Finns is that they don't talk. Especially we don't do the 'small' variety. Big talk, we can handle. But small talk, that is just far beyond our scope of ability.

Everyone else had only been in the UK for a maximum of 1-2 years. None was a true Angloveteran like me, I have now been here for more than 5. I tried to talk to three new people according to British rules of smalltalk. Soon I decided to give up. I got nothing back. I had asked several people a bunch of questions, none of which was reciprocated. Later in December I realised this isn't just something restricted to strangers - even my cousins seemed wholly uninterested in actually finding out about me during our family gathering around Christmas.

Finland has some of the smartest people in the world. This is testified by the PISA studies, that show that already at a young age, our kids beat the rest of the world in their mathematical and linguistic skills. After all, we manage to develop some of the best mobile phones in the world - Nokias! (However, when I tell most people that Nokia is from Finland, they normally seem very surprised.)

But what use is having a country full of nerds, when we can't make the most of it, I ask? How do we put these these great minds to use in a wider world, when no-one actually knows what Finland does and stands for?

It is often said that the Finns don't do small talk or promote their products and innovaiton because of a lack of confidence. Sure, we were first under Russia then Sweden then Russia again - but that was a century ago! And if we don't catch up to the rest of the world, we will soon be forgotten.

The bottom line here is that our lack of national confidence comes across as rudeness and arrogance. This is how I felt at the independence party and our family gathering myself. If Finns are unable to show a genuine interest in other people (and by extension, other countries and their businesses), how can we expect anyone to reciprocate this interest in us? The answer is that we can't.

So big up and learn how to fake a smile, is what I would recommend to my fellow kinsmen. It's not only the way to get ahead in this world, its actually vital for survival. This I have learned in England. Networking, that dreaded thing. To the Pommies it comes naturally. They are born with the ability (or then it's hammered into them, which is more correct, I do not know). I myself have had to learn this through conferences, job interviews, mingling events - if you don't network, you don't get ahead. That's exactly the same for my beloved Finland. And if we can't smalltalk, we sure as hell can't network. This will in the worst case lead to Finland remaining the 'odd one out' country in Europe, not really Western enough, not really Eastern enough, that most people have know knowledge of. Thus far I have been asked such questions as "Do Polarbears roam the streets?" and "Finland, isn't that the capital of Sweden?" Yes, I been asked these silly questions before.

Maybe this is why the Govenment is worried about our future and has put forth a new 'branding' motion entitled "A task for Finland". Yes indeed, Finns need the Government to tell us to get some self-esteeem, thats how bad the situation is. The newly released report urges Finns to not only make their country a better (reads: 'friendlier') place to live in, it also recommends ways in which we can secure our position in an international business climate and thereby enhance our economy (yes, Finland was also strongly hit by the recent global recession).

As I usher in 2011, I'm very excited to see what the new year will bring for Finland, and most importantly; whether we are up to the task. I pray in my heart that the answer is 'yes'.

Recycle your clothes and get your money back!

We've all heard of recycling glass, paper, metal and perhaps even plastic. However, you may not have heard that the newest trend in recycling is (drumroll) - t-shirts! Yes, Oxfam has existed for a very long time, essentially recycling clothes, so in this sense this is not anything new. What is new is that you can now return used clothes back to the shop where you bought them from and get some of your money back!

Leading this new revolution is the Norwegian sportswear company Stormberg. The vision behind the idea of getting back a "deposit" upon returning your used clothes (called Panteordning in Norwegian), is of course to reduce waste. On their website, Stormberg explains that these used garments often end up in East Europe, where they start a "new life". This is no doubt very exciting for your old t-shirt - definitely more interesting than sitting in your drawer day in an day out, never seeing the daylight (oh, the cruelty!).

In Scandinavia, a similar Panteordning arrangement already exists for plastic and glass bottles. In your local grocer you pay a deposit for them (10-25p) upon purchase and when you return them empty, a neat machine in the wall gives you this back. This is of course a very humanistic set-up, since collecting empty coke bottles thrown away by lazy spoilt rich kids gives scandi-hobos some purpose to their otherwise empty lives (no pun intended), as well as providing them cash for a daily meal. Brilliant! Brits - I suggest you follow lead.

Mind you, the deposit you get returned for Stormberg's clothes is not a huge amount of money - this deposit is usually around 10% of the value of the piece. Needless to say, this trend will probably never catch onto Primark, where a t-shirt costs around £2!

My mother recently got me one of these recyclable Stormberg-t-shirts. It was bright pink, the colour that particularly attracts bees and wasps, with a yellow text written across the chest: "Pink Different!". I wasn't quite sure where she was going with this but I let out a muffled "thaaannnkkksss...?" just to be safe. Then she went on to explain how it was made of bamboo, rather than cotton - not that I could tell the difference! Apparently, this is another way in which Stormberg is doing their bit for the climate. Bamboo garments are 100% degradable, and their production contributes far less to CO2-emissions, compared to cotton. So far it is considerably more expensive to make clothes out of bamboo compared to cotton (Primark is good testimony to this), which is why this trend is not likely to catch on globally anytime soon. Mind you, it does tick the ever-so-trendy I-do-my-bit-for-the-planet-box, so maybe this will outweigh its high cost. So far, bamboo is particularly popular as a material for sportswear, as well as clothing for the vertically challenged.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the deposit for my t-shirt is 20kr or £2 (see image). I couldn't promise my mother that I'd ever wear it in public - although this would be setting a good example! I think for now I'll keep it safe just in case one day I'm short for bus change.

The circle of life...

... well, of student life.

Today was the official first day of Fresher's Week 2010. The city is yet again in full bloom with bewildered faces and those innocent eyes that are soon to be corrupted by the evils of student life. They seem to prowl the streets in groups, large groups. After all, even the lowest of animals (like fish, for instance) know that there is safety in numbers.

I had to fight the urge to tell them many a wise thing. On the sly, I was curious to spot signs of genuine fear in their eyes - sadly I was unsuccessful. Perhaps they were relieved they weren't in high school hell anymore, or just simply happy to be free from mom and dad's clutches (oh how soon that gloat will pass).

What I wanted to tell them was that university is a test. It's not an easy test. Neither is it a multiple choice test. Most of all it's not a test that you can study for. Nay, but rather, it's a kind of test that you have never taken before. This test called university presents itself with the opportunity to re-invent yourself, to be whatever you always wanted to be (or at least thought you wanted to be).

However, en route to this wonderful fulfilment of finging yourself, one needs to avoid many a temptation. Drugs. Alcoholism. Laziness. Loneliness. Allnighters. But worst of all, one must learn to avoid getting lost in the crowd, where it is safe, and trod one's own route through the forest of life.

This path is beautiful. It's scary. But it's the only on that eventually leads to fulfilment.

To end in a slightly less poetic note, our local milkman said he hadn't seen me for a while. Granted, we had moved 5 minutes down the road so my usual route had been diverted accordingly. I said 'well, I'm not a student anymore'. His reply? 'you still look like one'. Echoing this sad truth, I got ID'd when buying half-price wine in Tesco.



So, what has changed? Not much. Yes, I may be employed and no longer inhabit mice-infested, rotting, safety-hazardous student flats and have instead moved onto greener pastures, literally (see photo). I am still a scared, living-on-a-shoestring teenage girl to the outside world. Apparently.

Roots and Seeds

...and you open your eyes to the realisation that you are done with all the bull***. It isn't attractive in all its glitter and glory anymore. You long for something more substantial. Some thing real. And you accept that you are not just a product of years of independent growing in directions chosen only by yourself, but more than that, you are the yield of your blood, a fruit of your upbringing, the seed that was sown in you years back. A product of domestic soil. It means something. You can't quite figure out what. But that's what really matters. And you're almost ready to give into it. Life. Love.

.. as I finish writing this Sheryl Crow sings "I belong a long way from here". It rings in my ears, "a long way from here". No matter how unconsciously I end up decorating my flat with red and white, it's the unescapable truth.

She continues with that famous slant of Americana in her voice:
"... if it makes you happy.. then why the hell are you so sad?"