ziggy

The sad news has arrived that Ziggy, my canine friend, has passed away. Although I haven't seen him for years and I knew that he was getting old, this news came as a shock. He gave me u n c o n d i t i o n a l friendship like no other. I hold him dear. Rest in peace, my little friend!

world food crisis 2008

In solidarity with the people that suffer from the FOOD CRISIS 2008 I have decided to decrease my meat consumption. I wish to do something. Indulging myself on a resource-wasting product while 2 4 0 0 0 people starve to death each day doesn't feel right.

1 8 0 0 0 children each day every damn day ! And we stand by and watch. That makes us a very very primitive people. And we think we're so sophisticated. I think we can create a better world than this... A world with equal opportunity for everybody...

turku

Checked out wether or not Turku is a nice place to live. The city is famous for it's castle, which was beautiful but closed (???) .

bv ii

One reason why I returned so suddenly from Umeå was that I could join Maija's family on a stay in Buena Vista for a few days. Maija's brother and his girlfriend (Jaakko and Tuulia) came aswell. ...and that is a somewhat rare occasion. It was very nice to hang out with them! They turned out to be quite into Boonanza. Which made Maija a very happy girl.

It were lazy days. It is against my religion but we slept in every day. We cruized to two nearby towns and had ice cream. We had sauna every day and swam in the lake several times a day. We went to the beach in Vääksy (one of the nearby towns). And the barbecue was in use.... :-)

Finished an abandoned project [going for the eurasian pygmy owl or Syberian flying squirrel, but an ordinary sparrow will do. :-) ]







Jaakko had two hours of fun with the lawn mower

name day

I never really got the point of name days. Somebody (guess some pope) decides "We're gonna have name days", marks them on a calendar, and people start celebrating their name days. Finns go crazy over it. It is a big thing here. But, now it comes, I found out the freaky fact that my name day is on September 11............ What the f#*k?!

u m e å . . .

Yep, back in Helsinki...

It is a bit like fleeing, but hey, considering the circumstances it was the right decision. Umeå is like a ghost town in summer. And being there alone is like... being alone in a ghost town... I was staying in a little room facing a blind wall, on the back of the student union building. (Even Tommy who has been member of the student union for 6-7 years had heard about the room but never actually seen it!). No phone, no computer. A bit too much of an overdose of loneliness... Besides, it is not very handy to be looking for a job when everybody is on a holiday. Really, everybody was 'out of office'...

So, yesterday I took the ferry to Vaasa and the train to Helsinki.

It was a 'mistake' to go to Umeå at this moment, I could have known that the situation would be like this (although it was much worse than I could have imagined). Making a mistake, though, is a great opportunity to learn. I chose this, I chose to take this step whatever the outcome might be. So, I chose this experience this opportunity to grow, and I learned from it. I like to look at it in this way. I took a big step going to Umeå and I can be proud of having found the courage to do that. I was there for a few days, drew my conclusions and made a new decision based on them, and can be proud of making a difficult but wise decision.

It were a few tough days. Oh, I faced so many deep and dark feelings. Emotions I have to say. Physical expressions of thoughts, tricks of the mind. It was hard to be confronted with a panicking mind. It was like a cat climbing up the curtains in a veterinary clinic. Creepy! That is the most important reason why this experience was in fact a success: It reminded me that I have to meditate. I know that is the only way to find peace, looking for it inside. Still I allow myself to get sucked in to the drama all the time. This was emphasized by passages in Conversations with God Book 2 which I am reading. They happened to pop up at exactly the right moment. (Those things happen all the time, so that they are getting hard to ignore!)

In other ways this was a good experience. The problem with this moving to Sweden was that the decision is based on old knowledge, I hadn't been in Sweden for two years. Of course I always enjoyed being in Sweden and it hasn't been of my mind since I ever set foot on Swedish soil, but how should I know if that was still valid for me when I hadn't been there in such a long time. So, I got to taste a bit of Sweden again, of the life in Sweden.

Then I met some great friends in Umeå. I don't mean to claim their friendship, but I just experienced them like friends. Sussanne & Falko, Jocke & Karin, and Tommy were so very nice on open. That was just great. Jocke & Karin took me with them to pick cloudberries and invited me over for dinner. Jocke loaned me his guitar. Susanne & Falko offered me to live in their apartment in August. Falko imediately gave me keys to a bike when I visited them. Tommy helped me out with Jocke's guitar when I left. :-) It is just very nice to realized that there are some great people around in Umeå.

The old man on the boat... The are no buses going anymore from the ferry to Vaasa. So you have to arrange a taxi at the bar on the ferry. You can then share the taxi and the costs. I was discussing it with the staff and there was nobody to share a taxi with. The guy started suggesting that I could walk (40 minutes, 30 kg). And then al of a sudden this old guy popped up out of nowhere and said "I'll give you a ride, just come with me when we arrive". Nothing more, just that, it was settled. So beautiful, so perfectly simple. These are those moments I mean. It can hardly be a coincidence that this old man pops up at exactly the right moment on a 4-hour boat trip. And typically it was an old man.... I don't know....

seek, and you will find

I have been checking adds, calling and emailing people, . . . Of course I've ran into the usual obstacles, but people are offering me to lend me their apartments, offering me to rent me their apartments for a reduced price, contacting their contacts for me, offering to recommend me or to be a reference, allowing me to use their address as a temporary mail address, ... I am scared as hell, sure, but yesterday I chose not to identify with my fear, to enjoy this, to enjoy living my fucking dream. And when I took that step back, I realized how fortunate I am. And I look up to the sky and know Who to thank for it..... Just this whole thing of feeling grateful, of being able to feel grateful, to have all the reason to be grateful, to feel gratefulness towards these people, is just great.... Halălūyāh! :-)

flow

Maija got accepted at the university... Shit happening here.....

hel-ume

Crazy! I have -subconsciously- tried to pospone this. It was way to convenient to be here in Helsinki/Finland. But now I did it. Booked a flight to Sweden. To Umeå more precisely. I actually wanted to go to Sundsvall, but this is the easiest and most obvious thing to do. Maija has applied for courses in Umeå and we're waiting for an answer... Guus will be there... IKSU is waiting for me.... The swimming pool is waiting for me.... ICA Maxi is waiting for me.... I know some very nice people that are living there.... I know my way around.... I know the way to the barbecue places at Nydala lake....

Boyakasha!

bv

+ Sauron's legions +

Back in Hell-sinki. Spent a week in Maija´s summerhouse. A weird mix of hard work and chilling-out. It is quite a mess there, a lot of unfinished projects, piles of fire wood waiting to be processed, .... I tried to clean up some stuff and get rid of some of the piles of fire wood. It was sometimes a bit too hot for hard labor in dust and dirt. When it would get to hot, you could jump in the lake.

Chill ingredients: grilling, fire, sauna, swimming in the lake, view over the lake, books, grandpa on the veranda, doggy sniffing around, nice food, sunshine, breeze, lover, forest, birds, easy chair, guitar, chocolate, . . .