There's a coffee machine at my work that is made for an office environment: you put your cup on the little platform, push a button, and it fills your cup with the kind of coffee you selected. The choices are things like coffee, coffee with milk, cafe au lait (no, i haven't figured out what the difference between 'coffee with milk' and 'cafe au lait' is), espresso, choc-espresso, hot chocolate, and so on.
One of the choices is wienercoffee. There is no space between the words 'wiener' and 'coffee'. It took a few days before I was comfortable enough to ask someone about it (he giggled too). Of course, a brief internet search revealed that this is vienna-style coffee, which is essentially whipped cream and coffee.
Anyway, yesterday I was brave enough to try it. And it's delicious. Suspiciously similar to both the coffee with milk and the cafe au lait produced by the machine, but I'm comfortable with that.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Touring Helsinki
this weekend had beautiful weather, and i finally took some photos.
here is the beautiful helsinki cathedral, first at dusk and second in the wonderful sunshine on sunday (see the ice cream truck? ice cream! at church!):
the esplanadi is a beautiful walkway in the touristy area of town.
here is vanha kirkkopuisto, a little park near where i live.
some transport: outside the main bus station in helsinki, a city tram, and a metro train.
i have been going running along the water in the mornings, and i go by a lot of the ferry docks. one of the lines that goes to tallinn (estonia) is called SuperSeaCat.
take a closer look at the logo.
it's a fluffy kitty! not a fish. not a dolphin. not a dog or a member of any other species that likes to swim. what better way to reassure your customers of the seaworthiness of your vessel than to name it after an animal who hates even shallow sinks?
and here's a smurf-related soft drink i got the other day called smurffi. it smurfed my thirst quite well, and i got to keep the smurfy bottle.
here is the beautiful helsinki cathedral, first at dusk and second in the wonderful sunshine on sunday (see the ice cream truck? ice cream! at church!):
the esplanadi is a beautiful walkway in the touristy area of town.
here is vanha kirkkopuisto, a little park near where i live.
some transport: outside the main bus station in helsinki, a city tram, and a metro train.
i have been going running along the water in the mornings, and i go by a lot of the ferry docks. one of the lines that goes to tallinn (estonia) is called SuperSeaCat.
take a closer look at the logo.
it's a fluffy kitty! not a fish. not a dolphin. not a dog or a member of any other species that likes to swim. what better way to reassure your customers of the seaworthiness of your vessel than to name it after an animal who hates even shallow sinks?
and here's a smurf-related soft drink i got the other day called smurffi. it smurfed my thirst quite well, and i got to keep the smurfy bottle.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Raukkauta & Anarkia
Love & Anarchy is the Helsinki film festival, and it took place last week. Here are the entries I got to see:
White Night Wedding directed by Baltasar Kormákur: an Icelandic film about a professor getting married for the second time. It's set on Flatey Island, which is off northern Iceland, and the wedding is on the longest day of the year, so the sun shines brightly the entire night. In Scandinavian style, it's a dark movie, but quite funny.
The King of Ping Pong directed by Jens Jonsson: the setting is a small Swedish town during spring break (snow is *everywhere*), where a fat kid and his skinny little brother deal with life together. I had assumed that it was a dark comedy, and there were definitely a lot of humorous points, but the sadness almost overwhelmed those.
City of Men directed by Paolo Morelli: I had seen City of God and loved it. This is not really a sequel, but the style and themes are similar. It's a wonderful and moving story about two friends who grew up together, fatherless, in the slum, who now find themselves in the middle of a gang war. One is a relatively new father and is trying to be better than his own father was. The other is trying to find a name to put in the 'father' box on his ID.
A Christmas Tale directed by Arnaud Desplechin: a long, emotionally intense and dialogue-heavy film. The Raukkauta & Anarkia site listed the showing as French with English subtitles. Though I have seen some African French-language movies and have had no trouble understanding all the dialogue, my experience with French movies is that I can make out some of the dialogue, but it general the vocabulary exceeds my own Burkina-learned French and the accent, plus the elisions, makes it difficult for me to understand. Unfortunately, the listing was incorrect here: it was in French with Finnish and Swedish subtitles. I went to see it with my coworker Gerald and his wife Laurie. Laurie speaks more Finnish than Gerald and I do, so she was picking up some of the plot. I was picking up most of the plot due to my French skills, but I missed some crucial information. Gerald was simply annoyed. Like I said, it is long (150 minutes) and dialogue-heavy. With the exception of the scene above (as you may imagine, the next couple of frames have this man smacking his nose spectacularly on the pavement), there is little physical comedy to get the viewer through. Anyway, I liked the movie, but wish the experience had involved less work.
Entre Les Murs directed by Laurent Cantet: another French film. It follows the book by François Bégaudeau, a teacher in an ethnically diverse quartier in Paris. Bégaudeau himself plays the role of the teacher and many of the students play versions of themselves. This won the palme d'or at Cannes and apparently is France's official submission for the Foreign Language Oscar this year. Also? It was much easier for me to understand than the above movie. Like A Christmas Tale, it was in French with Finnish and Swedish subtitles. However, Bégaudeau speaks much more clearly than any of the murmuring family members in the other film. Another factor here is that the students were in quatrième (the equivalent of eighth grade), and I taught in a french-language middle school for two years. The eighth-grade-class set of French vocabulary is much more familiar to me than the family-with-multiple-victims-of-leukemia-who-blames-family-members-for-not-being-marrow-donors set of French vocabulary.
The festival was a nice experience. I got to see a few of Helsinki's theaters (among the things I learned: lines for the women's restroom are ridiculously long right before the movie, but not because people are particularly slow -- ladies like movies and there are too few restrooms) and I got to see some enjoyable movies.
White Night Wedding directed by Baltasar Kormákur: an Icelandic film about a professor getting married for the second time. It's set on Flatey Island, which is off northern Iceland, and the wedding is on the longest day of the year, so the sun shines brightly the entire night. In Scandinavian style, it's a dark movie, but quite funny.
The King of Ping Pong directed by Jens Jonsson: the setting is a small Swedish town during spring break (snow is *everywhere*), where a fat kid and his skinny little brother deal with life together. I had assumed that it was a dark comedy, and there were definitely a lot of humorous points, but the sadness almost overwhelmed those.
City of Men directed by Paolo Morelli: I had seen City of God and loved it. This is not really a sequel, but the style and themes are similar. It's a wonderful and moving story about two friends who grew up together, fatherless, in the slum, who now find themselves in the middle of a gang war. One is a relatively new father and is trying to be better than his own father was. The other is trying to find a name to put in the 'father' box on his ID. 
A Christmas Tale directed by Arnaud Desplechin: a long, emotionally intense and dialogue-heavy film. The Raukkauta & Anarkia site listed the showing as French with English subtitles. Though I have seen some African French-language movies and have had no trouble understanding all the dialogue, my experience with French movies is that I can make out some of the dialogue, but it general the vocabulary exceeds my own Burkina-learned French and the accent, plus the elisions, makes it difficult for me to understand. Unfortunately, the listing was incorrect here: it was in French with Finnish and Swedish subtitles. I went to see it with my coworker Gerald and his wife Laurie. Laurie speaks more Finnish than Gerald and I do, so she was picking up some of the plot. I was picking up most of the plot due to my French skills, but I missed some crucial information. Gerald was simply annoyed. Like I said, it is long (150 minutes) and dialogue-heavy. With the exception of the scene above (as you may imagine, the next couple of frames have this man smacking his nose spectacularly on the pavement), there is little physical comedy to get the viewer through. Anyway, I liked the movie, but wish the experience had involved less work.
Entre Les Murs directed by Laurent Cantet: another French film. It follows the book by François Bégaudeau, a teacher in an ethnically diverse quartier in Paris. Bégaudeau himself plays the role of the teacher and many of the students play versions of themselves. This won the palme d'or at Cannes and apparently is France's official submission for the Foreign Language Oscar this year. Also? It was much easier for me to understand than the above movie. Like A Christmas Tale, it was in French with Finnish and Swedish subtitles. However, Bégaudeau speaks much more clearly than any of the murmuring family members in the other film. Another factor here is that the students were in quatrième (the equivalent of eighth grade), and I taught in a french-language middle school for two years. The eighth-grade-class set of French vocabulary is much more familiar to me than the family-with-multiple-victims-of-leukemia-who-blames-family-members-for-not-being-marrow-donors set of French vocabulary.The festival was a nice experience. I got to see a few of Helsinki's theaters (among the things I learned: lines for the women's restroom are ridiculously long right before the movie, but not because people are particularly slow -- ladies like movies and there are too few restrooms) and I got to see some enjoyable movies.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
At the office
i'm finally getting down to work! my 'knowledge transfer' sessions are over, and now i'm a contributing member of the team.
my team has two americans (including myself), a kiwi, two danes, an indian, a few pakistani guys, and a bunch of finns. everyone is nice and most people are a lot of fun. i think they will be moving me soon to sit near others in my specific project, but right now i sit by a small window (which i don't want to give up even though it's a bit colder than other areas of the office). also, i kind of like the company in my current location. in my little area, there are eight of us:
1. me (by the window! with the little bit of sunlight sometimes!)
2. the two danes, vagn and peter: both are a bit older and are quite experienced with teradata and have taken me under their wings. they have high expectations of their colleagues and since i have yet to disappoint them (to my knowledge) they still like me. they have extensive english vocabularies. they also have that wry complain-about-work humor, but it's clear that they both enjoy their work and are good at it.
3. the two pakistani guys, usman and imran: both are also quite friendly, and since they are in the same living situation as i am, we hang out socially. usman is very enthusiastic about the few months he spent in the united states last year, and that was in detroit. in the winter. they are observing ramadan right now, so they don't join us for lunch.
4. the three finns, jaakko, risto and kimmo: all are friendly and helpful. kimmo has assumed the role of my english-finnish dictionary and cultural guide, and he has a good sense of humor. risto is boisterous, but we haven't seen him this week because his wife had a baby last friday. i haven't spent much time with jaakko yet.
sorry, no photos yet. other things:
1. finns eat lunch at 11:00am
2. the only women-only bathroom on my floor smells awful.
3. in the last 24 hours, three people have approached me to ask for directions. i was able to help two of them!
my team has two americans (including myself), a kiwi, two danes, an indian, a few pakistani guys, and a bunch of finns. everyone is nice and most people are a lot of fun. i think they will be moving me soon to sit near others in my specific project, but right now i sit by a small window (which i don't want to give up even though it's a bit colder than other areas of the office). also, i kind of like the company in my current location. in my little area, there are eight of us:
1. me (by the window! with the little bit of sunlight sometimes!)
2. the two danes, vagn and peter: both are a bit older and are quite experienced with teradata and have taken me under their wings. they have high expectations of their colleagues and since i have yet to disappoint them (to my knowledge) they still like me. they have extensive english vocabularies. they also have that wry complain-about-work humor, but it's clear that they both enjoy their work and are good at it.
3. the two pakistani guys, usman and imran: both are also quite friendly, and since they are in the same living situation as i am, we hang out socially. usman is very enthusiastic about the few months he spent in the united states last year, and that was in detroit. in the winter. they are observing ramadan right now, so they don't join us for lunch.
4. the three finns, jaakko, risto and kimmo: all are friendly and helpful. kimmo has assumed the role of my english-finnish dictionary and cultural guide, and he has a good sense of humor. risto is boisterous, but we haven't seen him this week because his wife had a baby last friday. i haven't spent much time with jaakko yet.
sorry, no photos yet. other things:
1. finns eat lunch at 11:00am
2. the only women-only bathroom on my floor smells awful.
3. in the last 24 hours, three people have approached me to ask for directions. i was able to help two of them!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
You can also just raise the pole. You can raise the pole to like twice its original height.
david foster wallace is dead. he was an extraordinarily talented writer and apparently a gifted teacher. his books are challenging yet delightful. i'm sure that as this news creeps across the literary world he will be lauded much more appropriately than i can do here, but i liked these two quotes. the first hints at what makes his work so special, and the second just struck me as funny.
dfw on Infinite Jest, from his 1996 Salon interview:
a comment on the LA Times obit:
dfw on Infinite Jest, from his 1996 Salon interview:
I think it makes at least an in-good-faith attempt to be fun and riveting enough on a page-by-page level so I don't feel like I'm hitting the reader with a mallet, you know, "Hey, here's this really hard impossibly smart thing. Fuck you. See if you can read it." I know books like that and they piss me off.
a comment on the LA Times obit:
A suicide note, running some 300-odd pages and heavily footnoted, was found.
Submitted by: Zarp
11:39 PM PDT, Sep 13, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Suomi!
well, i'm in finland. in finnish, finland is called 'suomi'. where someone got 'finland' from that is beyond me. anyway, it's been about four days now, and i think i've adjusted to the time change (+7 from the east coast, and i was actually on mountain time when i left the u.s.).
it's cold here! it rained the first two days, which was pretty unpleasant, but the last two it's been clear and cold. this morning you could see people's breath as they waited for the tram. nonetheless, i have gone out running twice and enjoyed it.
i take a tram and a bus or a tram and a train or just a bus or just a train to work. the commute is about an hour if i walk to the train station, but i think when winter comes i'll probably stick to the tram. my coworkers are hard-working yet quite cheerful and so far i'm enjoying it.
things i wish i had brought:
several pairs of my shoes (my rain boots, my keen shoes, my new balance classics, etc.)
more casual clothes (people don't dress so fancy at my office and i feel sort of weird in what i have)
a well-fitting black zip-up fleece (this would be good to wear to the office)
a network cable (i had to buy one and shit is pricey for an american)
things i wish i hadn't brought:
my phone (international roaming is ridiculous for a long-term gig)
a couple of my thinner pairs of pants
i'm staying in helsinki, in a hotel set up for long-term stays. here is my bed:
and my bathroom:
and my kitchen:
oh! those of you who were in burkina will understand my delight at finding both Omo and Lotus in the grocery store. the lotus package has an elephant on it, and my finnish isn't good enough (yet?) to understand why. now if only i could get a biiga to do all my labor for me...
it's cold here! it rained the first two days, which was pretty unpleasant, but the last two it's been clear and cold. this morning you could see people's breath as they waited for the tram. nonetheless, i have gone out running twice and enjoyed it.
i take a tram and a bus or a tram and a train or just a bus or just a train to work. the commute is about an hour if i walk to the train station, but i think when winter comes i'll probably stick to the tram. my coworkers are hard-working yet quite cheerful and so far i'm enjoying it.
things i wish i had brought:
several pairs of my shoes (my rain boots, my keen shoes, my new balance classics, etc.)
more casual clothes (people don't dress so fancy at my office and i feel sort of weird in what i have)
a well-fitting black zip-up fleece (this would be good to wear to the office)
a network cable (i had to buy one and shit is pricey for an american)
things i wish i hadn't brought:
my phone (international roaming is ridiculous for a long-term gig)
a couple of my thinner pairs of pants
i'm staying in helsinki, in a hotel set up for long-term stays. here is my bed:
and my bathroom:
and my kitchen:
oh! those of you who were in burkina will understand my delight at finding both Omo and Lotus in the grocery store. the lotus package has an elephant on it, and my finnish isn't good enough (yet?) to understand why. now if only i could get a biiga to do all my labor for me...
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