Concerning Winter

On Monday I attended a very fascinating lecture about winter. We had a guest lecturer from Montréal – and he specializes in the images of north, winter and arctic! I had very high expectations and I’m glad to say they were exceeded. I was thrilled about the topic and the new points of view professor Chartier introduced. He discussed winter and nordicity as cultural, social and aesthetic phenomena instead of merely defining them as something climate-related. What struck me the most was the way Chartier talked about winter as something we adapt to, something exceptional, something that disturbs our routines and everyday life – especially since winter and north are often defined by people to whom they seem exotic.

There’s one particular thing about the presentation that keeps bothering me: winter is seen as an inconvenience, something socially and practically troublesome. From my perspective it’s always been the other way around. Summer is the time of year I need to adapt to, winter and autumn feel normal and natural to me. I do like all of our four seasons but the cold ones suit me best. The only inconvenience I see is the excessive effort I must put my poor car through when it’s -25C° and the road both looks and feels like a glacier.

Be it as it may, I’m really enjoying this time of year and looking forward to the long dark of polar night.

P.S. The lecture made me think about Svalbard and the wonderful trip there last year. Man, it was great...

Pride and Shame

Today, 5.2., is dedicated to Finland’s national poet J.L. Runeberg, the man behind The Tales of Ensing Stål (Fänrik Ståls sägner, originally written in Swedish) which also includes the poem that became our national anthem. Even though our Swedish-speaking minority is very small Swedish is our second official language and I’m really glad that the great talent of our Finland-Swedish authors and poets is yet praised and treasured. I’m proud to have such artist in our country and celebrating their work is gladdening. That being said, I woke up this morning ready to be all cheesy and sentimental about Finnish literature and poetry for the next 24 hours.

Then, regrettably, I turned on my laptop.

And saw this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3426685/Nazi-daggers-SS-hats-hangman-s-noose-night-patrol-Soldiers-Odin-neo-Nazi-led-vigilantes-vowing-Europe-s-women-safe-migrant-sex-attacks.html

I almost feel like I have no right to say this, but please, if there’s someone non-Finnish out there reading this, this is not how we are. Most of us find behavior like this repulsive and unjustified. Members of such groups are using the current news stream – or whirlpool, more likely – to justify violence, prejudice and xenophobia – racism, even. These people are self-righteous and intolerant, unable to see the deep immorality rising from the incongruity of their so-called values and actions. In the end mere hate is what’s been achieved. Don’t we have enough of that already?

I kind of lost my festive spirit.

Someone made an ice-thingy, it’s at the market place in Tampere. It’s beautiful – all ice is in my eyes, though.

P.S. I started this rambling by praising one of our poets. An important part of Runeberg’s Day is eating tarts (or pies, I’m not quite sure how to call them – they are sweet pastries with almond, rum and raspberry jam) named after him. The story is that the recipe was devised by his wife Fredrika. The tarts are very nice but I’m boycotting them nonetheless – Fredrika Runeberg was a wonderful writer herself, excelling in writing historical novels and it annoys me that all people can think of when hearing her name are those damn tarts.

As long as there’s snow even this city has its moments.

"The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day..."

… if only it would have stayed a little longer.

Now, tell me who was it that took away my beautiful winter; who was it that turned frost into water; who dimmed my bright and clear sky? I’d like my frost back, please. I’m not ready for spring yet. It’s January and this simply will not do. Do I have to go back to Svalbard where they have proper winter?

Although, I’m sure my car is relieved.

It's possible I've posted some of these pictures before, they're old ones. In that case, sorry for spamming.

Pointless pondering and a lament for not-yet-fallen snow

For quite a while I’ve been wondering whether I should write in Finnish or in English. Naturally making ridiculous grammatical mistakes is far less likely in my native language but on the other hand I definitely need an excuse to use English more. Do I speak English? Yes. Do I read books in English? Of course. Do I hear it every day? Yes, I do. Do I write in English? Not that much, unfortunately. Most of my courses require reading books and articles in English but all the essays and homework are done in Finnish. Perhaps this is something I should change.

As much as I hate making mistakes I think it’s time to swallow my pride and give it a shot. The good thing is that very few people read my texts which means the chances of misunderstandings are correspondingly few. Generally I suck at mathematics (and when I say I suck it means I suck majorly) but this kind of calculation I can comprehend. However, my main reason to choose English (for now, at least) is that I love it as a language – not just because I find British, especially Scottish, culture extremely fascinating or because some of this world’s greatest blessings (such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Jane Austen) come from Britain. I love English, the intonation, the rhythm of speech and the phonetics of it in general. My love is so unconditional that I’m willing to ignore even the incomprehensibly haphazard phrasal verbs and other logic-defying structures. All right, slight irony may be included in the last sentence but please keep in mind that it is nothing but a sign of deep affection.

Enough with the metatext.

I saw the sun today. In fact it was out there for at least three hours which is a miracle in December. I wouldn’t mind the darkness and polar night at all if we had some snow (which we should by now). Snow makes everything seem soft, dream-like even, and I love the blueness of moonlit, snowy landscapes. That’s what northern winter is supposed to be like, not just wet and windy as it is now. On the other hand even though I love all our four seasons autumn is the one I love most so I shouldn’t complain.

Metatextual rambling and weather… Well that’s interesting for sure.