Tuesday, March 30, 2004
A couple of things dawned on me today:
1, Do you realize that we have lived without a dishwasher and garbage disposal for almost five years now (and we're still married). I simply cannot remember what it is like to have them. This has to stop. So next time you think you've got it bad and you're cleaning up after dinner and it takes all of 5 minutes, remember the little people, will ya?
2, I was a lot stronger a year ago. I guess that's what happens when you go nine months between visits to the gym. Today, at BB Gym, Karoliina and I were the fat people who people smiled at just for showing up ("good for you! don't hurt yourself"). Let me tell you, there were some in shape Finns at the gym today, even the old folks there could whoop my ass. Karoliina almost passed out after spells at the treadmill and trainer. We are now too sore to move.
We were playing this game in Finnish class the other day (I was going to preface this by saying that I have a funny story about my Finnish class, but I am a little concerned that I have gone crazy here and that this story might not seem funny, so I chose not to set expecations) when we were enjoying a rousing game of Junior Alias, where I would pick a card and describe the picture on the card to the other members in the class without saying what the word is. You know, describe a cucumber or a rose without saying what it is, except now the cucumber is kurkku and the rose is ruusu.
Well Marwana, the Austrailain exchange student had to describe carrot and I guessed it, except that I couldn't remember that porkkana is carrot in Finnish, so I racked my brain and remembered that Karoliina's favorite juice is orange-carrot or appelsini-morot and since everyone knows that appelsini is orange I blurted out morot. Well since morot is not porkana and therefore not carrot in Finnish, I confused everyone including the teacher. So I began to describe what I meant only to realize that the juice - and other food products here - is labled in both Swedish and Finnish and I recalled the Swedish word for carrot. And apparently my Swedish pronounciation is so awful that the teacher, who also teaches Swedish could not tell what I was saying. When we all realized what was going on we had a good laugh, just like you did after reading this, right? Right? Riiight.
1, Do you realize that we have lived without a dishwasher and garbage disposal for almost five years now (and we're still married). I simply cannot remember what it is like to have them. This has to stop. So next time you think you've got it bad and you're cleaning up after dinner and it takes all of 5 minutes, remember the little people, will ya?
2, I was a lot stronger a year ago. I guess that's what happens when you go nine months between visits to the gym. Today, at BB Gym, Karoliina and I were the fat people who people smiled at just for showing up ("good for you! don't hurt yourself"). Let me tell you, there were some in shape Finns at the gym today, even the old folks there could whoop my ass. Karoliina almost passed out after spells at the treadmill and trainer. We are now too sore to move.
We were playing this game in Finnish class the other day (I was going to preface this by saying that I have a funny story about my Finnish class, but I am a little concerned that I have gone crazy here and that this story might not seem funny, so I chose not to set expecations) when we were enjoying a rousing game of Junior Alias, where I would pick a card and describe the picture on the card to the other members in the class without saying what the word is. You know, describe a cucumber or a rose without saying what it is, except now the cucumber is kurkku and the rose is ruusu.
Well Marwana, the Austrailain exchange student had to describe carrot and I guessed it, except that I couldn't remember that porkkana is carrot in Finnish, so I racked my brain and remembered that Karoliina's favorite juice is orange-carrot or appelsini-morot and since everyone knows that appelsini is orange I blurted out morot. Well since morot is not porkana and therefore not carrot in Finnish, I confused everyone including the teacher. So I began to describe what I meant only to realize that the juice - and other food products here - is labled in both Swedish and Finnish and I recalled the Swedish word for carrot. And apparently my Swedish pronounciation is so awful that the teacher, who also teaches Swedish could not tell what I was saying. When we all realized what was going on we had a good laugh, just like you did after reading this, right? Right? Riiight.
// posted by Howard @ 11:27 PM 
