Home sweet home November 8, 2007

So I have an apartment in Toronto! It is certainly weird getting email about my future home -and it certainly was a reality check too: the first month’s rent is due in less than a month… However, I am happy that I got the apartment I applied for, a furnished bachelor apartment should do. And it does have a shower, a fridge and a stove, so I need not run around the building naked or eat that fattening university food all the time…

My new address is as from January 1st:

Matleena Taivainen
380 Assiniboine Road
Apt 410
Toronto, Ont.
M3J 1L3
CANADA

Send me letters, will ya?

And if you’re interested, go check out what my new home looks like. It’s the one on the right!

<a href=”http://
Näytä suurempi kartta“>

The sky is crying, too November 8, 2007

It started out as another ordinary day in November. People hurrying to work here in Finland, kids waking up and walking to school, sky looking gloomy and rain pouring down as usual. Little did we know what would happen. It is shocking and hard to understand that a boy would walk into his school and shoot 8 innocent people. It’s even more unreal that this happened here in Finland -here, where everything is safe and sound, here, where we usually listen to news on high school massacres in the States or someplace else. Well, now it hit closer than before.

Somehow this all brings to mind other tragedies; the Konginkangas bus accident, the bombing at Myyrmanni mall, the tsunami in Thailand. Some of these hit close: 4 girls from my school died in the bus accident, a boy from my mother’s class lost his entire family in the tsunami. I also started getting back memories from my own high school years -especially from a tragedy that took place in my school when a girl from our grade committed suicide. I guess Finland is such a small country that when something happens, you eventually know someone or at least someone you know knows someone. I guess all these memories from times long gone come to mind especially because so many young, innocent, life-loving and future-oriented people were killed for no reason. It’s always hard to understand death, but when young people are involved, it’s even tougher.

I hope this surreal but oh-so-real tragedy doesn’t hit any of us any closer than it already has. I also wish to extend all my condolences for the people who lost their child, sister, brother, mother, wife, or friend in the shooting. Let all our prayers be with you all.

When there’s nothing to say November 5, 2007

Last week I bragged about not catcing the flu and wondered why I had been so healthy. Well, I was dead wrong to wonder out loud because a few days after I caught the flu myself. I also started telling my friends stories about how I used to lose my voice as a youngster when suffering from the flu -how I would wind up voiceless for several days, using signs and writing (and whispering, which is strictly forbidden when sick like that) for communication. Wrong again! I haven’t been without a voice for years and now, in the middle of all the work and hurry, I lost my voice.

It’s actually pretty demanding being without a voice. After several attempts to tell people that you cannot speak, you end up having to have to utter something nevertheless. Although I have nothing against being quiet and I do enjoy silence at times, too, this is not fun. It’s hard enough not being able to sing along to my favourite songs, but it’s extremely restrictive being voiceless. There’s so little one can actually do.

I must admit I feel handicapped like this, but I also know this will go away within the next few days and I’ll be able to speak again. And if you think of this in a larger way, it’s nothing compared to people who can never, even if they wanted to, utter a word out loud. In that sense, I’m lucky.

At times like these, I remember how much I love talking and singing. And how much I talk and sing. Maybe some of my friends enjoy the fact that I’m finally quiet for even a little while…