HB COLD

This blog has been good to me on a lot of levels, especially with regards to my writing. Whenever I have been faced with a task of writing something, anything, I look back on my blog for experience, until now. Having to write academically is night and day to writing for this here thing and for you there folks. I had to try my darndest to keep my little observations out of the essays. The observations are good and appropriate here, but not so when discussing the role of theatre in society. Or maybe they are appropriate there as well. It could just be the fact that I have been absolutely in the weeds since returning from Texas and am not thinking straight. I just finished two essays and have to completely rewrite my Film Finland project plan before next Tuesday and catch up on all the Finnish lessons I missed, as well as read a book on marketing before next week. I don't know about you, but a marketing book is not my idea of a good read.

Well, at least the essays are out of the way. They are certainly nothing to write home about - even though that is precisely what I am doing here - but at least they are done and in the books. One less weed to chop I guess. Being in the weeds was a lot easier when I was a waiter, because I knew it wouldn't last too long. These here weeds are a little bit thicker and require a lot more time and energy to chop.

I may be a little slow with my posts, but I'll catch up eventually.

hb crazy busy

Well it's high time I cleaned the house and now I have an excuse to do so. Yesterday marked a new era in our lives, the webcam conversation. While talking with Jen yesterday she asked to see the house and I realized that if I move my big head away from the cam, that indeed she can see the house. Well, at least our big room. And of course we weren't prepared to have guests so the house was a mess. I either need to create a life-like backdrop of a clean and spacious apartment, or I need to make sure that the real apartment is clean enough for guests, be they real or virtual. Great, one more thing I gotta do now.

My latest and last column for the Joensuu University Newspaper.

I normally spend my time writing about what’s pissing me off here in J-town. I don’t know if it’s pissing you off, but for whatever reason it’s pissing me off. Whether it’s the way people in this town drive like a chicken with its head cut off; or the way that J-town locals choose to ride their bikes through the forest on the wrong side of the path without a light; or the way that the grocery stores sell products that have gone bad or push the ones that are about to go bad to the front so that unsuspecting customers will buy them; or the fact that out of the one-thousand or so people who watch the Kataja basketball team, I am the only one who yells obscenities; or maybe it has something to do with the fact that on Friday and Saturday nights I see the same cars drive the same streets with the same kids inside them all night long. What are they looking for? Why can’t they decide on a place to go and go there? Do they really think that something is going to change in the few minutes it takes to cruise the entire town? Instead, this time I think I am going to share with you some of the things about J-town that make me smile. Okay, let me think…

To start things off, I like the feeling I get when I arrive at the Joensuu airport even when it’s snowing and miserable. There is just something very satisfying about getting off of the only plane in town. Sure, sometimes the plane is a little too small for my liking and the trip is a little too bumpy for my stomach and the snack a little too chocolaty, the coffee a little too bitter and the seat a little too cramped, but at least it’s not too long. That’s something good isn’t it?

I like the fact that damn near everyone I have met in J-town is in a band, or at least was in a band at one time in their lives, and I mean everyone. I also like the fact that I can have a conversation with a couple of locals about music and in the next minute I am getting advise on what to do in the event that a male goat attacks me. And immediately after that I can learn the best way to cook 10 kilos of lamb, just in case I have avoided the deadly man-goat and find myself in a situation where I have one hundred guests to feed and have nothing to serve but lamb.

I like it when my neighbours leave their clothes out to dry for any and everyone to see. I like it when they leave their clothes out to dry even when it is raining and snowing. I like it when they beat their rugs early in the morning on Saturdays when I am trying to sleep of the previous night’s adventure at Jokela. Well, come to think of it I don’t like that too much.

I like to go to the Giggling Marlin on a Friday night and watch as J-town locals climb on top of the tables and dance and sing and puke and fall all over themselves. I like going to Kimmelli on a Saturday night to watch the mating rituals of J-town’s older generation. I like going to the movies and freezing my ass off while watching whatever movie we’ve been fortunate enough to get here in J-town.

I like the fact that no matter what is going on in the world, J-town is a pretty safe place to live. No earthquakes, no hurricanes, no terrorism, just a whole bunch of cold weather and lots and lots of mosquitoes. I like the fact that my friends here in J-town are kind and giving and that they don’t mind it when I complain, as I have been known to do. I also like the fact that I get the opportunity to voice my complaints monthly in this here newspaper. I’m not too pleased with the picture of me in the paper, but I’ll take what I can get.

Welcome back to Joensuu and welcome back to winter. On Saturday it was almost ninety degrees in Texas and today, through the snowy trails on the way to work, it was twenty. Seventy degrees in four days is a rude awakening. Normally the gradual decrease in temperature is easy to take, because it is gradual. Not this time. This time it was sudden and painful and right now I am wishing that I decided to wear my long underwear along with my jeans and ski-pants. I give the slight tan I burned in Texas a life span of two days.

On to better things, it's getting real and grey these days. Well at least I have a whole lot of things to do to keep myself busy. Like going to the gym every day in order to burn of all the enchiladas and migas I consumed. This vacation was like an all you can eat buffet jammed into 8 days, since the first day was nothing but fasting.

Last night I was at the craziest, most chaotic and directionless Rosh Hashana service that I have ever been to in my life and I could not stop smiling throughout the very brief yet meandering service. I walked in to the synagogue ten minutes early and found the place full, about 300 people - men on the floor level and women on the top. (I reallized after speaking with Dad last night, that I told him exaggerated numbers. What can I say, it was the wine talking and there was a lot of wine to talk about.)

When I arrived the place was buzzing, everyone was talking to one another and no one was paying attention to the man, who was not the rabbi, giving a speech in Finnish and in English about the present state of affairs in Israel. Then the man stepped down and the cantor began to sing - with no microphone - but the place never stopped buzzing. Everyone kept talking to each other and the cantor kept singing and occassionally bursts of prayer would surface here and there and then loud shushes would pop up and throughout the whole thing, the cantor kept on canting. Finally, less than an hour later, with no sermon, no speeches, no nothing, everyone wished one another shana tova, grabbed their children who were running wild throughout the temple and left. And then there was the after party.

I made my way to an area of Helsinki that I had never been before and chose a direction to walk and when I reached a group of police I knew I chose the right way. The Israeli ambassador Shemi Tzur was attending and security needed to be in place. The ambassador was in Joensuu the day before for the film festival and now, like me was in Helsinki for the holiday. The dinner had Israeli wine and lots of it. We went over the symbols on the dinner table - apples, leeks, fish, pumpkin, beets, beans, 12 in all, all prepared in some fashion or another so 12 appetizers and then we had soup and then dinner was served. I was attending the dinner with an Israeli filmmaker Moshe who we had invited to Joensuu to the festival. His second cousing lives in Helsinki and was helping to plan the dinner. We stayed out until well past my bedtime discussing this and that and since I have no school today I decided to close down the place with these folks. I decided not to go to the synagogue today as I was told that the service in the morning is longer, hotter and more chaotic than the one I attended last night. But however crazy it was, it was a lot of fun.