Trouble, trouble, trouble

Sadly I haven't really enjoyed my week off as there's been so much drama and trouble. It seems like there's something every single day. The main thing has been that one member of my household has developed a habit of stealing food and alcohol. A couple of days ago the culprit burst into tears and confessed all. We had suspected her anyway, as she was the only person who didn't seem remotely concerned by all this, but still, it's created a lot of tension. She's made it worse for herself by, so far, failing to replace the many items she has stolen from everyone else, being unable to give any explanation for her behaviour, despite claiming that she can't stop thinking about what she's done, and generally causing a lot of hurt by lying to our faces, and leading others to become suspicious and think badly of each other.
Aside from that there's been arguments, a car crash, unpleasant blog comments, and more unwanted contact from my ex boyfriend. So this week just gets better and better. I wish I was working so I at least had a distraction.
Today I'm feeling quite miserable; all this is getting a bit too much. I'm trying to stay optimistic that it will all blow over soon. I've got a few things to look forward to, for example my birthday next weekend, hopefully getting a new tattoo before the month is out, and a trip to Tampere, and I just hope that these things won't get ruined by further problems. Right now I'd like to get far away from here and just forget what is going on. I haven't had such an unpleasant week in a while.

Dear critic(s)

So I've noticed this week there suddenly seems to be an influx of comments intended to put me/what I have to say down, and generally needlessly complain. They're all anonymous, and I expect they are coming from only one person who has taken an irrational dislike to this blog, but of course I can't say for sure. Some of them I have just deleted as I have nothing to say in response, some I have left as I had something to say in reply.
What I will say generally is this: if you disagree with something I have written, and wish to make that point in a civil, dignified manner, please do so. If, however, you wish to comment in a sneering, critical tone, please don't bother. I'll either delete what you have to say, or tell you exactly where you can go.
What I write here concerns my opinions, observations, and experiences. At times I may say something incorrect, or write something as a result of misinformation. I have never claimed that this is absolutely 100% accurate. It's one thing to point out something I probably don't know, tell me more about something I mention, or to make a helpful correction, but it's quite another to intentionally write something insulting, or knowingly word your comment in a way that inevitably comes off as insulting. Personal attacks are also ridiculous.
I don't know who has been writing these comments, and frankly, I don't really care. If you are the kind of person with nothing better to do than attack strangers on the internet, you are far beneath me, and will certainly not succeed in upsetting me. If you find what I write so distasteful or unpleasant that you can't just let it go, you might find it easier to stop reading it. Because I'm going to write whatever I want, regardless of how you feel about it.

Well, now I've cleared that one up, we can hopefully all move on to nicer things.

Happy 6 months anniversary!

Wow. I came to Finland six months ago today. What an exciting, surprising, traumatic, and beautiful six months it's been. It feels so strange, in all this time I've spent only five days in England, and so much has happened and changed.
Six months ago I was unhappy. I'd been ill for several months, and I was in a bad relationship. I came here out of love, and a naive hope that a change of scenery would do us good and save the relationship. It actually had a very different effect. It made me realise the one thing that everyone else already knew - that it wasn't worth saving. My desire to take advantage of new opportunities here, and to not be held back, pushed me to become independent again. So much good has come out of this experience, but if nothing else, that is something to be grateful for. I'm very happy now. I feel like I'm back to being the person I was, and always should have been.
That's obviously the most significant change to my life, but there are others too. I've been living in a new culture for all this time, and that's what has made me happiest. I appreciate my own country more now, and can see it's good points, whereas before I was desperate to get away. I've had to keep an open mind about a lot of things, and I think this kind of experience is very valuable.
I've also met lots of lovely new friends, and I'm sure there are still more to come. I've been given so much kindness and support here, and I'm very lucky to have met a lot of trustworthy, decent people. I wasn't sure how I'd make friends in this place, but I haven't done too badly.
I've found a city that I really like. I think Turku is beautiful, I have a wonderful home here, and I'm so glad that circumstances lead me here, because I doubt I ever would have come here independently. It's quieter than London, but I think I needed that, and much less intimidating than going to a larger foreign city. There's still plenty to keep me occupied, so I think I've hit the right balance for now.
My knowledge of the Finnish language has vastly developed, even if it's still far from fluent. It's a complicated language which takes a long time to master, so I'm quite satisfied with what I've learned so far. When I came here I knew two or three words, now I can have a simple conversation, and say some more complicated sentences. I've learned a lot since coming here.
Six months ago this blog was non-existent. Now it has many readers, a few fans on Facebook, it's allowed me to meet new people, and it keeps growing. It was planned as a way to let my friends in England know what I was up to, but it's become so much bigger than that now. It's been a big surprise.
I've thought about things, and the circumstances in which I came here were all wrong, but I don't think it matters because now things are wonderful. Sometimes I'm sad that I'm not graduating with my friends this summer, and worry that I'll be lonely when I go home, but when I think of all the positive parts of this period of time I'm so glad I'm here, and I think it was worth it. It was an unplanned and plain stupid decision, but it's turned out so well. Sometimes there's a lot to be said for stupidity.

The amazing exploits of a very drunk man

On Saturday night I was standing by the window having a cigarette, and I could see a very drunk man outside. He was trying to climb over a wire fence, but kept slipping on the pile of snow next to it. He started to climb up the fence but then fell straight into the snow. Every time he tried to get up he just slipped again and ended up on the floor.
Eventually he managed to balance on the snow, but was struggling to climb up the fence. When he eventually did get to the top he did some kind of backflip over it - at one point he was holding onto it with his legs straight up in the air! He flipped over and immediately fell down onto the other side of the fence. Then he started stumbling towards one of the buildings, walked straight past the steps to the doorway, and fell over again. He was crawling around on the floor, and just lying on the ground for a little while.
After a while a woman came out of the building and shouted at him. She waited for a bit then went back inside. A little while later the guy crawled back round to the steps and went up them and inside. And the whole time he was only wearing a t-shirt...

Turku 2011

I finally watched the opening thingy for Turku becoming the culture capital. Suski cleverly recorded it off the tv, which was a good thing because we took too long getting ready and missed the whole thing.
After seeing it I'm actually quite glad we didn't have to stand in the cold watching that, because it was quite boring. At one point they were playing the theme tune of BBC News for some reason...and there was a lot of random music and a really bad song about Turku.
For song reason the show was based around a British group of acrobats! In the end credits the names of the people who wrote and performed the show were very clearly not Finnish names. They sounded suspiciously English to me. I think that's a shame, and such a wasted opportunity to show what's good about Finland and what Finnish people can do, and surely that's part of the point of being the capital of culture? As the show wasn't great maybe some Finnish people would have done a better job.
It was all a bit disappointing. The fireworks were quite nice, and Tarja Halonen had a very nice red hat on, but apart from that it wasn't very good. I hope that for the rest of the year there'll be a bit more emphasis on Finnish-ness. Silly Finland.

I suck at going to language classes

I've enrolled on a language course. I should have started tonight. The place where I thought the class was really wasn't it. After wandering around feeling very confused and useless for a while, and being directed to the information desk, which very helpfully shut at 3pm, 5 hours before everything else, I found a sign with the correct information for my class. Seeing as the address meant nothing to me I guess tonight is a write-off. It's quite stupid that of the three classes for this course, only one is in that place, which I believe to be their main building, but they didn't think it was worth mentioning where the other classes were.
The classes are every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; they started this week and now I'm really scared that when I do get there everyone else will be jibjabbing away in amazing Finnish, whilst I sit there saying "Minä olen Englantilainen" over and over again and banging my head against the wall. There's apparently a textbook I need too - maybe if I buy it at the weekend and read the whole thing before Monday I'll stand a fighting chance.
So right now the työväenopisto is not my favourite thing. Not only for completely failing to mention at any time where this class is but for the fact all their correspondence to me and their website is in Finnish. If I understood all of that I wouldn't have signed up for "Finnish for Foreigners" would I? Wankers.

Social security part 2 and cool supermarkets

Today we took another stab at getting a social security number. We walked to the police station, and were told we need to go to Maistraati. (A registry office basically.) Not cool, since that's on the corner of market square, two minutes away, rather than 20 minutes away like the police station.
We went back and went to this place, which bizaarely is in a department store, along with a wedding room and the office of the Brazilian consulate. Where's the sense?
However, I filled in my paperwork there, showed them my passport and work contract, and got approved! Woop! But as things can never go 100% right in this country the computer system wasn't working and I have to go back on Thursday so they can process my application and generate a number.
I think the only practical thing I have left to deal with is registering to pay tax. And deal with my boss seemingly forgetting I'm alive - Suski asked him about my work hours yesterday and he'd said he'd call me to ask me to work today and give me the rest of my hours - still haven't heard anything! Not that I mind getting a day off but I'd like to earn some money. I suspect someone brought in some really nice stamps to sell and he got distracted. I'll call him eventually. Just not today, fuck off am I going to work in the cold now.

When Emma and I went to S-Market earlier to get some lunch I noticed the deli counter for the first time. Most English supermarkets have one, but this was an off the scale, food porn deli counter. They have regular stuff like burgers, pastries, salads etc but they have stuff like mashed potato, macaroni cheese, other pasta dishes, pizza, and you just have to heat it all up when you get home. I had a very exciting feta cheese and olive burger and some couscous salad. It's not the cheapest part of the shop, but they had so much stuff. Much nicer than the slightly soggy and greasy samosas and onion bhajis I always bought in Sainsburys in Canterbury.

Amendment

Yesterday I wrote about Little Britannia, and claimed that the price of two bottles of Lucozade and a packet of crisps was 16 euros, and therefore a complete shocker. I would now like to clarify that the 16 euros on the till was change from 20 euros, making the prices reasonable, and me a moron.
This was clarified to me on Facebook by the genius man who opened the shop, and although the cost is still a little higher than the regular British prices, it's hardly unreasonable considering the import costs and the fact that food prices generally are higher in this country. So if anyone was put off by the prices, it was my mistake and had nothing to do with the actual shop.

Today the snow has gone completely bezerk, and even Jussi was saying he'd never seen anything like it. Overnight it went from nothing except ice and sludge to about 10cm depth, and it continued to snow until about an hour ago...

Silly Finland

So the building we live in, which has at least 72 flats in it, has a little laundry room with a single machine, which I am required to book a time to use. I have hardly any clean clothes, and the earliest slot was for tomorrow afternoon. Does anyone else think this is a bit stupid? I assumed the laundry room would be like the one in Gubbay Hall, for those of you who were "lucky" enough to have lived there. But oh no. The laundry room is in a bizarre underground labyrinth, much of which is without lighting. Not happy.
Also, near the laundry room is a very strange place, where any tenants can put old furniture/ornaments etc that they don't want, and other tenants are free to take the items there. There wasn't actually any good stuff, but it's apparently quite common in blocks of flats.
I've also finally got a Finnish sim card. However, the network is having technical difficulties activating new sim cards, so I'm still waiting for that to work. I understand that random people are reading this, so I won't be putting the number on here, but my friends will be able to find it on Facebook when it starts to work and I know what my number is.
Also our internet contract is due to finish any moment now, as we've been using Jussi's friend's contract. Jussi arranged our own today, but it won't be installed until the 17th, so hopefully I can get an iPhone app to continue writing, should my sim card decide to work. But if I briefly disappear, rest assured that I'm still alive and well.