Have you ever had one of those days where you just want to revert back to childhood and pull the “I am taking my ball and going home!” kind of temper tantrums? Well, I have those lately. I think most of it comes from my geographical location and language challenges. I really do speak Finnish pretty well at this point (taking the National Proficiency Exam in April), and am comfortable in my new flat. It is beginning to feel like home when I go there. I guess my temper tantrum is a result of many factors at this point. Partially it comes from the very long and cold winter here in Finland. Okay to be fair, it really didn’t get THAT cold until January (right at my birthday btw). The temperature plummeted to -25 degrees Celsius, which is -13F and with the wind it was -38C which is -36.5F. It stayed that way for 2 weeks…warmed up enough to snow..And then plummeted again. All the news agencies in the States commented on how cold it was in Moscow…well it was cold as heck here too folks. It is slowly beginning to feel, now, like spring just might come again at some point. I know it will, but I am just tired of the winter and whiney about wanting weather which doesn’t require a scarf, gloves, thermal underwear, and where the sun shines for more than 8 hours. Now, I am not really complaining about Finland per-se, but just the winter right now. I really am actually happy living here. Mostly. Here is where the geography comes in. My best friend (Mira doesn’t count in this evaluation), lives 10,000 miles away and I miss her. Period. I miss my Sug. I miss hanging out and laughing so hard I can’t breathe. I miss a good G&T as made by Sug… I know that the distance doesn’t change that we are best buds…but I just wish I could ring her up and pop over and just hang… The 10 hour time difference and airfare costs kind of prohibit that happening easily and without planning. See, it is uncommon here in Finland for people to just pop over. Happens all the time in the States….but it is my experience here that people plan everything before going out…the spontaneity is just missing from the whole thing. So SUG, when you read this: I miss you. Suga for you.
Right…language. Now, I speak Finnish pretty well (as my friends will attest). I can get along in daily life in Finnish, I can go shopping, I can work and have meetings in Finnish (building contractors are excluded from this at this point due to not really ever having learned the words for that kind of trade specific communication)…but sometimes I just want to not have to translate every frickin newspaper and newscast into English in my head. I am getting to the point where I don’t have to (slowly) and “tuoli” means the thing I sit on and I don’t have to think “chair” first. The concept “tuoli” now exists in my head as the thing I sit on. (No SUG..what you are thinking of, in regards to the 49 Things, Now 50 due to Duane’s FABULOUS addition… is “pepu”…okay that is the cute word for it…the technical word is “perse”). Isn’t that what language really is anyway? Concepts put into a verbal and written form of communication? The first time I thought in Finnish was scary as hell… I have dreamed in Finnish at this point too…but when the chips are down and I am frustrated or need to argue I still switch in to the comfort language of English. I now am preparing for the National Proficiency Exam so I can apply for Finnish Citizenship. I need to pass that before I can apply. Additional stress that makes me want to stomp my feet and demand milk and cookies before naptime and a big recess break!
The point of all of this? I am whiney and bitchy and need a vacation. Preferably to an English speaking country….Oh and did I mention my Mother AND my redneck Sister are coming to visit in May?..For a frickin WEEK?!?! I love my mom,….but in small doses please! I now have to find stuff for them to do and figure out how I am going to entertain them doing things that don’t involve alcohol (Mom is a friend of Bill’s) or a bar. This is going to be tough for me as I frequently make the drunken phone call/text message to Sug, K, Sarah..etc… Heaven (if there is one) help me.
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6 comments:
Dude,heaven is right above your head. Or if you want to be mushy about it, heaven for you is sharing a life with Mira. Even the hellish parts.
And it be would supergreat if people would just pop by to hang out but they don't and that's dumb. I'd love that too. Like when you are a kid, you just bicycle over to your mates and say wanna play and if they can't, you'd just go over someone elses house. Try that now and people will say that no, let's have coffee next week, now I can't, the house is so messy. I don't mind people coming over with two minutes notice, I just so rarely am home... because I'm having coffee with someone who booked three weeks in advance.
Dude..I am so not complaining about being here in THAT sense. I am happier than I have ever been..and Mira has a lot to do with that. I know how lucky I am.
I so miss the simple "hey, I was in the neighborhood" kind of thing... I hate that we have to book in advance as adults..that is poopy
Yeah, I know what you meant, just pointing the obvious existence of heaven... ;)
You know you are always welcome to show up behind my door, I don't care if my house is a mess or I have nothing else to offer but lukewarm tapwater. Apparently I missed that part of becoming an adult and caring about such things.
I must have frozen my brains at some point, I've been wondering why everyone has complained about the coldness this winter and I thought that no, it was freezing only for a couple of days. Well, to think two weeks as a couple of days is slightly wrong...
But gotta love Finland where the joke "it has been a good summer, not much snow" is something everyone get. Even if we really don't have snow here during summer. (Except I remember one year when I was a kid and our neighbours had a pile of snow in the shady side of the house until the middle of june. We made a snowman of it.)
Oh Dude, I haven't been keeping up, been moving and all. SUGA FOR YOU! You need a big G&T, A hug and some SO CA sunshine.
I feel your pain about the language. Being in a foreign country (France) myself at the moment I get what you're going through.
I speak and understand French very well and have no problems in my day-to day life. But by the end of every week I always feel very tired and do not want to have to think about avery other sentence and ponder on expressions and phrases.
Whenever I am on Skype with my boyfriend who is in Finland I talk out of the sheer pleasure to be able to speak without putting any thought into it.
Being away from home really makes you appreciate little things like this.
Well, yes. See now why all of us inbred Finns here first of all;
- think you all people from warm climates moving here are somewhat weird (or downright mad), as we don't like the goddamn titfreezing winters either! (I'd want to hibernate). So we want to know "why are you here" so as to know if we need to call the men in white coats immediately or the blue coats later on inlthe evening...
- ask you all "when are you going to leave" with a substrata of purple green envy for the fact that you can just bugger off to a shade under the palm trees where the only place you see ice is in a pina colada glass, while we have to stay here shovelling the goddamn snow - making the best out of our misery saying it needs the "sisu" to cope with the life here and only the losers leave - to get rich, and then come back with their shiney volvos and the envy, did I mention purple green, of those left behind to shovel the snow gets a few shades darker...
Now for the Finnish test I thnik you shouldn't worry. Except its 'peppu' or in slangi 'peba', a.k.a. hanuri, ahteri, perä, perberi, pylly... So getting off the motorcycle seat one would say "Mulla on hanuri puutunut", and wanting space in a pub "siirrä ahterias", and then telling "suomen kielikoe oli ihan pyllystä"... In English its all boring "my ass is numb", "move your ass" and "the Finnish language test was from ass"... what a wonderfully complex language... ;)
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