Five Good Things This Week

Last week I had three goals for this week and I am proud to say I accomplished all three!

1. I started back at the gym. I hit a tough spot after my horse died last March and got heavy enough that it was starting to affect the way I was walking and it was taking a real toll on me mentally and physically. I lost about twenty-five pounds over the summer, but have put about ten back on because of the realities of student life. I'm finally in a place where I'm feeling motivated enough to get healthy. I'm using an app, which I have to use via Internet because it's still in Beta phase for Windows Phone, called HeiaHeia. It tracks your exercise, has tons of different exercises and sports to chose from, and you can set goals for yourself, not necessarily weight goals but also how many times or hours you want to exercise. I set up a three month program that will start on Monday. I will undoubtedly not be able to follow it as closely some weeks because school will get in the way, but like I said, I'm the most motivated I've ever been to do this and I plan on sticking to it.

2. I finally got some ice skates! All Canadians are birthed from the icy shores of Lake Ontario with hockey skates strapped to their feet and a stick in hand, right? Maybe I'm exaggerating, but my family is a hockey playing family. My dad played for the Ontario Hockey League, and subsequently lost his upper front teeth, and my brother played on an all star team. I have skated since I was three and played hockey collectively for about five years, as well as figuring skating for about four years. I was never that great at either, hockey is the only time I've ever broken a bone, but I am a good skater and I really enjoy it. 
          Finland is wonderful for the fact that ice skating is part of school for kids. In Tampere, there are rinks set up virtually everywhere and I can only think of one that costs money to use. I told my dad this and how I was probably going to rent skates to go once or twice, and he ended up sending me money at Christmas to buy some skates for myself. I fully intended to buy some while I was in Helsinki over Christmas so I could go skating with my mum, but the thought of lugging them plus everything else back to Tampere made me decide against it. This week I finally got to the Intersport at Koskikeskus and got a pair of Easton's for less than sixty euros (yay for sales!). I even got the chance to go skating on Friday at the massive rink by my university (think the size of two football (soccer) fields) and I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day. I'm going to be going skating there as my treat for the week since Fridays are supposed to be about an hour and a half of cardio. I hate cardio; running is no fun, stationary bikes hurt my knees, treadmills are like running purgatory and there are only so many times I can put up with an elliptical. Not only am I going to enjoy doing laps on ice skates, it's going to help immensely with my roller skating and will build up my endurance so that I can skate to and from school with ease come spring time and clean sidewalks. I've also convinced a few of my friends to pick up some skates so we can all have something fun today together!

My new friends. Designed in Canada....made in China

3. I went to a concert Friday night. Everyone knows I love music a lot and it was a large part of why I fell in love with Finland and decided to come live and study here. Hell, music is why I'm in a Master's program! I've missed out on a few concerts since August because of lack of funds, but sometimes it pays to spend a bit of money when you get to hear some good music. JP Leppäluoto was randomly performing at Jack the Rooster, a very nice if not expensive bar, and while I appreciate his voice, I'm not super into the stuff he's done nor have I ever really kept up with what he's done. I have seen him perform at Raskasta Joulua (a yearly series of concerts with Finnish metal musicians performing Christmas songs. It's possibly the best thing ever), and was impressed with that enough to give him a try on Friday night since my flatmate and another friend were going anyways. He managed to start almost a whole hour behind schedule, but the place was packed considering it was not promoted very much. He performed some good covers of mostly 90s songs, but I wanted to get home early and was basically out the door as he started singing Rebel Yell. Other than having to get very sassy with three guys getting all up on my friends and I, and there being an obscene amount of people wearing plaid that night, myself included, it was a fun night spent with good friends.

If you have no clue who I'm talking about, JP used to sing in this band, Poisonblack. While he is a very good singer and I'm sure I would have been into them when I was younger, it's not really my thing anymore. 

4. I got a lot of school work done yesterday. I'm almost done my first research proposal even thought the due date got moved from today to March 9^th. With the new due date and being almost done, I can do a properly literature review now. 

5. I had my second walk on a frozen Näsijärvi today. I went out on Näsijärvi, one of the two big lakes that sorta straddles Tampere, when it was frozen back in March 2012 but didn't get too far out. Today some friends and I walked from Särkänniemi, the amusement park, out to the tiny island that has a light house on it and to the shore near Finlayson. I guessing it was about 3km in all, but I'm not sure. There were a ridiculous amount of people doing all sorts of things like walking, skating (there is a specific path you can use to skate across the whole lake), biking (which was weird and a lot of people were doing it), cross country skiing, ice sailing, kiteboarding, and even dogsledding. Clearly Finns know how to deal with winter. After walking we went to the Pyynikki kahvila that is in Keskustori for munkki and coffee. A Sunday well spent!

Tiny light house. More photos on my Flickr and Instagram

Looking towards Särkänniemi. More photos on my Flickr and Instagram

All in all, this week was a good week! I accomplished some goals, got some entertainment, and got outside. Next week I want to do well with my new training program, get ice skating at least twice, and get my research proposal done.

Here's to being positive!

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You never have to wear sunglasses past September here

I think one of the main stereotypes for Finland is that it's dark and cold. As much as stereotypes can be a bit annoying and untrue sometimes, like in Canada we do not put maple syrup on everything, they can be very true for as many times as they are untrue, I have proof via my international friends that Canadians, myself included, do say some words funny. When I told my Study Abroad Advisor at the university I did my Bachelour's Degree at, she immediately told me, “you know it gets really dark there, right? You'll have to deal with that. The last person that went there had to come home early because of it” and all I wanted to say back was “I know it's not the same but we are in Canada and it does the same here, not so extreme, but it's not like we live in Brazil.”. What Im trying to get at here is that it does get dark and cold here; the Finns even have a word for these “polar nights”, kaamos, so you know it's a big topic here.

As much as I hate to bring this up because it's annoying when that's all someone knows or talks about concerning Finland, but, it's something that has been on my mind lately, and definitely a topic among people I go to school with. Once October hits, it basically rains all the time here. I like rain, don't get me wrong, but when everything is damp almost 24/7 it kinda bums you out and makes going outside quite a chore sometimes. Luckily, October was busy for me and is actually one of my favourite months (read: I went to Helsinki and it has Halloween), but now that it's November, and it's getting dark around 4pm, I'm definitely noticing a change in things, mainly everyone is a bit grumpier. The Finnish word for November, marraskuu, translates to death moon so that basically sums November up for me. When I lived in Helsinki I don't think I noticed the change as much even though I didn't have nearly as busy a life, both social and academic, as I do now. I think I didn't notice it that much because the city lights brightened things up and I lived pretty close to the city centre/I was in the centre a lot because that's where school was. But now that I'm in Tampere, I don't live nearly as close to the city centre, it's a smaller city so that means less lights, and I'm not in the city centre as much because school isn't right downtown. I need to start going to the city centre more often because that means that I get away from being at school all the time; a change of scenery is a really good thing. I don't know if it's to help combat the darkness, but, Tampere does this cool thing in the winter months where they put lights up along the main street, Hämeenkatu, and some of the side streets. I don't think they can really be deemed Christmas/holiday lights since they are put up and turned on at the end of October and some of them are in no way Christmas themed, unless Tweety Bird and tulips are Christmasy. Either way, it's really nice when you come out of the tunnel that leads from Tammela (the area my university is in) to Hämeenkatu and as soon as you get out of the tunnel, BAM, pretty lights to fight the darkness!

Photo by me, lilacviking, Tampere, Finland. December, 2011.

Im just realizing now that this is a very Finnish picture. Marimekko advert and Lonkero advert in one shot. Photo by me, lilacviking, Tampere, Finland. December 2011. 

It's easier to deal with the darkness when there's snow on the ground. As much of a pain in the ass snow can be, it really is better than a winter with no snow. The snow really brightens everything up when the natural or artificial light reflects off of it and don't even get me started on sunny, clear days in the winter when it' just so crispy outside. I'd much rather have that than endless rain, I guess that means I shouldn't move to the UK. I'm not really bothered by snow or winter that much, it actually makes me feel closer to home *waves tiny Canadian flag*. I basically grew up on a ski hill north of Toronto because my brother and I were ski racers. Every weekend from when I was 3 till I was 14 was spent on the ski hill and my brother is a director of ski racing in British Columbia; snow is not an issue for us, but even I have a hard time with the short days and long nights. But I know it's really hard for a lot of foreigners to adjust to kaamos; it's enough of an issue that it gets brought up numerous times during orientation and we get lots of emails about sessions dealing with it for international students. They've got a few “light rooms” at the universities here, which are rooms with UV lights that you can go and sit in for 30 minutes to get your daily vitamin D dose, and there are countless activities happening to encourage people to go outside for something other than school. There's this mood disorder called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) that really shows it's face during this time, my Mum's got it and it really affects her. This is one thing you've gotta be careful about in the winter time because it can be more serious than just having the ”winter blues”. My way to combat against the gross feeling between nice autumn weather and nice winter weather is to do something. It can be mighty hard to actually make yourself get out of your comfy bed, get dressed and actually go outside for no other reason than to get outside, but it's something that is completely necessary unless you want to become a grumpy hermit. Plan stuff with friends, it doesn't have to be anything more than going for a drink or a big group walk, go for a walk by yourself, go to the movies, SOMETHING. A good thing about kaamos is that you can see the Northern Lights, revontulet in Finnish, better! Hopefully I can catch some this winter and get pictures! If you think it's annoying your friends, ask anyway cause I'm sure they are feeling the same way. If it's really gross weather, i.e. it's rainy like crazy and really cold, have some friends over and bake a cake. There is a reason that people always comment on Finns being depressed (which I think is a required question or comment when interviewing Finnish bands), as much as it is over-exaggerated, because it is something that even the locals have issues with, and, a lot of Finns will tell you to drink because there's nothing else to do during kaamos (yay for more stereotypes!), but maybe you should stay away from falling into that statistic.

Even though it does get dark and cold here, don't let that dissuade you from coming to this lovely country. I know I rage when Finland is featured on travel shows, which is not often at all, and they go to Finland during the worst months and all they talk about is how depressing the country is; “well yea, it's depressing because you are from California and you are there in the middle of January.”. If you want to come here, even if you've never seen snow before but really want to, come in the summer. I like to think that the reward for dealing with the long nights in the winter are the long days in summer months. Like I've said before, I haven't been in Finland for a full summer before, and won't be here for the summer solstice, Juhannus, this year either, but it's so nice at the end of May when it's almost 10pm and it's only just dusk. There's a saying that's something along the lines of ”you don't get flowers without going through some shit”; Finland's shit is kaamos and the flowers are the long summer days.