Eclipse Hiding

Nice job, clouds! The one night you should have stayed away. Not that I’d mind getting up before six o’clock, I am a morning person so that’s fine. But come on, do I really have to wait another 33 years till the next chance to see that eclipse? Well, at least I had the chance to feel as if I was taking part in the phenomenon. Standing outside with binoculars, staring at the sky unblinking, almost literally trying to blow the clouds away…

I wouldn’t be half this pissed if the clouds didn’t pull the exact same trick earlier this autumn when the Perseids came.

An Apology

I’ve never felt ashamed about being Finnish. I love my country, I love my language and this tiny spit of land far up in the north is rather dear to me. During the past few weeks something has changed. I’ve seen this country – or its inhabitants, in fact – do things that make me feel sick, ashamed and sad.

I’m not good at talking politics, never have been. Besides, the situation being as it is, there isn’t much left to say: everything worth saying has already been said and simultaneously all kinds of crap worth neither saying nor hearing has unfortunately been said as well. What this is about is, of course, the refugees of the Syrian Civil War (and the refugee crisis in general).

I’m ashamed. I’m deeply, deeply ashamed because of the way we’ve handled things here in Finland. We’re such bullies in the EU… At first people just said disgusting things but now they’re doing disgusting things too. Writing loads of racist crap on the Internet is bad enough and yet the situation is getting worse all the time. In my opinion the saddest thing is that we’re talking about people that have either lost their homes or can no longer stay safe there even if they still have one. Then they come here and face all that hate, all that hostility and prejudice. A few days ago there was an incident with a bus that was taking refugees to a reception center. There was an illegal protest, people gathered together throwing things at the bus, launching fireworks and shouting things that could easily be understood without knowing the language at all. How cruel is that? All those noises, screaming and explosives probably remind the refugees of the things they’re trying to get away from. It’s disgusting. It’s wrong.

Now I’m ashamed.

I’m apologizing. I’m sorry we’ve handled things so badly here. I’m sorry we’re not doing more. I’m sorry our attitude is that of a narrow-minded middle-school bully. I’m sorry we’re so bound to our own perspective it’s all we can see.

Dear Finland. Please, open your eyes. And your mind as well.

Ha! I didn’t panic for nothing! I knew it!

And yet I was kind of hoping for a miracle (the kind of miracle that occurs when everything goes as planned, life is nice and smooth and I don’t constantly find myself messing things up and both causing and experiencing misunderstandings). So, let’s go back to my well-earned, honorable position as both the king and the jester of the mighty and vast realm of chaos, disarray and follies.

(I’d give an explanation for the preceding paragraph if I wasn’t this confused. But it is [mostly] studying-related.)

Anyway, the weekend was nice (for honesty’s sake I probably shouldn’t use the word ‘nice’ since I attended my grandmother’s funeral but that’s not the point here). To be more precise, the night between Saturday and Sunday was nice – or great, in fact. I couldn’t sleep so I went outside (due to the funeral I was on the countryside over the weekend) and enjoyed the magical-looking sky. It was rather cold and the fields were all covered in fog. Earlier I had borrowed an SLR-camera from my uncle and now tried to take pictures of the sky (fair warning: I’m not really a good photographer and I haven’t been using SLRs much before). At least some of the pictures were rather nice.

Such a fair autumn, both days and nights.

Cassiopeia; Andromeda (constellation + galaxy); Pegasus

The Pleiades (a crappy picture but still)

Delphinus

Panic!

Autumn is officially here – and so is the panic. Studying is great, studying is fun and approximately 95 % of the meaningfulness of my life is based on it but it doesn’t mean it´s completely trouble-free. I’m always either thrilled and overly-excited or right about to pack my bags and flee. Quite often I’m both which is rather confusing. At the moment I’m dead sure nothing is going to work this semester and I’ll mess up pretty much everything that possibly can be messed up. Looking forward to that.

Panic.

The word of the week. Or this part of year. Or just my life generally.