Easter Break - Finland

April 5

Thursday, I did not have class and Julie, a French girl who I met on the Lapland trip had invited people to go to Turku with her and her friends. I said yes, and so I got up early to meet them at the city-center at 8. I think it’s the earliest I’ve ever gotten up in Finland. After I got off the bus, and as I was walking towards the meeting point I ran into Nanda and Fleur (I REALLY like her name) they were going to class so we just said hi and kept going. I got to the car rental place and waited about 5 minutes until Julie and her friends arrived. They were both from France and so I told them it would be great to speak in French because that way I could practice. We rented a Peugeot 107, the smallest car I have ever been in but it was pretty ok for 4 people.  Patric and Camille sat in the front, Julie and I in the back. The drive there was about 90 minutes, and I slept for most of it, I made sure to tell Julie that she should wake me up if I started snoring. We got to Turku, parked the car and went to the Turku castle, it was pretty small and cute but it was worth the visit. It was built in the 1200’s so it’s pretty old. They’re tried to do interesting stuff with some of the rooms but the result is…cute. There is one room where they have a collection of toys from a lot of different eras, that’s kind of nice. There is another room in which they have some fake treasure, and a stuffed wolf and some creepy music playing. There is another room that’s pretty museum-like; there are a lot of objects belonging to the people who lived in the castle at different points. The shoes they had were surprisingly thin. As in they were­ long enough to be real shoes, but they only like 4-5 cms wide. After the castle we bought some bread, muffins juice and other stuff. Julie’s friends had brought some ham and other “charcuterie” from France, and so we had a very French semi-picnic right outside the Turku cathedral. It was probably -4 or -3 degrees…you know…whatev’s. We tried to go in the cathedral but they were having mass…freaking religion getting in the way of me seeing cathedrals.

Then we got in the car again and drove 10-15 mins to Naantali, a town that is known to be very sunny. It was…pretty sunny but still cold :D. We went in circles for a while until we found the fishing pole. We walked about 10 meters into the ocean, which was frozen. We kept throwing big rocks to make sure the ice would hold us. Then we got to the port, the frenchies had some coffee and I had a strawberry slush, I know…it was really cold, but I was thirsty and it was delicious. We got back in the car and drove back to Helsinki. Of course I fell asleep in the car again, but only for like 15 minutes I think, and when I woke up they were playing guess the…person/thing/object/idea. So I joined them after they finished the round. I had to guess Julie’s person by asking yes/no questions, you can keep asking as long as you get positive answers, but as soon as you get a “no” your turn is over. After a little bit I was the first to guess Tintin was Julie’s person, then Camille guessed Daffy Duck was mine, Patric guessed some Russian athlete that Camille had chosen; and then we all tried to guess Patric’s…it ended up being a muffin, because he saw it when we were choosing, it was really hard.

We got back to Helsinki, and they all went to their Hockey game so we said bye. I headed to the Central Railway Station to meet Ulla (Finnish lady who wants to practice English). We met and talked for a while, she was reading the paper so I asked her to tell me what was on the articles. We also talked about Lahti; a town near Helsinki where they have ski jump competitions, and they have an athletic museum where they have a ski jump simulator, so we decided that maybe one day we can go. We also talked about maybe having dinner this weekend since it’s Easter break. I said bye and went to my place, and then got ready to meet some people’s for party-time that night.

When I got home I realized that it was Thursday and I hadn’t turned in my logic homework that had been due the day before, so I worked on it, and got two thirds of the problems done, but there were 4 that were really strange/hard, so I left them for later and left for the party even though everyone had been there for a half hour already. I did post my questions about the homework on the course forum.

In my effort to be on time always, I have realized that sometimes it’s just impossible; I mean, things happen. But I always make sure I text people and explain why I won’t make it on time and I text them at least 5 mins before the meeting time so they don’t wait for me unknowingly. That way I’m sure that if I’m late it’s for a legitimate reason. So I got there late, but it was nice, I met this guy who stuttered a lot and I decided I would just talk to him for as long as he was willing to talk to me. I think a lot of people lose patience with him but I decided I wasn’t. He was a cool guy, studies English, tried computer science but didn’t like it, has been on mini-finnish-metal cruises. I went back home and went to sleep around 2-3 am.

April 6 – Friday

I’m not really sure what I did all day…probably worked on some Udacity (one of my online classes, the one that’s really easy)…yeah that’s what I did. The important thing is that I didn’t work on my math presentation which is the thing that’s really important. Oh yeah and I also worked on some of the logic problems I couldn’t get, but they were really strange, and when I can’t get the answer right away I subconsciously distract myself and so I probably watched a lot of Chespirito. I could have even gone to the sauna (barbara’s reprimanding voice “should have…done…something…better” except she would know exactly what it was). But anyway, this was the day that Carmen Jung, a Swedish girl/lady that I have met on both 70000 tons cruises was going to see a concert in Helsinki, since she knew I was here she invited me to go and so we were going to meet there. It was really cool! My first time hanging out with someone from 70000tons outside of 70000tons, that cruise is beast! Anyway I also told Javi about the concert, and he was like I only know one of their songs but I like it a lot…and it’s only 10 euros, so HECK YEAH!

That day my cousin Leslie, a really cool cousin of mine she's like 15? (by the way they found another tumor and removed it but they’re doing tests to see if it was malign or not), got on facebook and we started talking a lot…oh yeah! It was because of the status I posted about giving your life to give the world a shot at salvation, she asked me if I would give my life for someone else, and so we talked about a lot of stuff like that, it was really cool at some point I talked about giving one kid a chocolate bar that costs one dollar or giving 10 kids a piece of candy that costs 10 cents each, or saving or investing that dollar so in the future you can have more to give. I told her that for me life was about that, I know it’s not mine and I know that I will give my life for others, the problem is how to use it to make sure that I give the most. We talked about that and other things (which made me late for the concert but it was fine because last time I went it was supposed to start at 10 but didn’t start until 12), and at the end I asked her what she thought and she said: “it’s ok cousin, don’t worry, I’ll help you buy the other 9 chocolate bars”

I know she will. She’s awesome.

So then I went to the concert, ran into Javi who had brought 2 girls with him, from the netherlands. Turns out Javi had already made friends with the girl selling t-shirts also, who happened to speak perfect Spanish. I was impressed. Then the concert started, the opening band was really good. But I still couldn’t find Carmen…she’ll show up. After they were done we went for some drinks, I got a delicious dry apple cider. And then the actual band started playing, they’re called Norther, they were fun, maybe even good, but not enough for me to be like oh god I have to check them out. Still I decided to enjoy the show, headbang…maybe a little too much (my neck was sore the next day), and just have fun with friends. At some point some finnish guy comes to us and asks Javi and I “moshpit?” I was like “yeah! why not?” and so we had a cutesy 4-5 people moshpit, it was fun. One of Javi's friends was really strong everytime she pushed me, she pushed me. But it was nice and fun.

So yeah, just another normal Friday night in Helsinki, good metal concert, moshpits with nice people…like you do.

During the concert Carmen finally showed up and we hugged and said hi, it was a really cool feeling, like “I thought you were from that other world, where bands are constantly playing and there are infinite amounts of food and there is water all around you, and the guys from your favorite bands are eating breakfast at the table in front of you….but you’re here…does that mean that world actually exists? I didn’t dream it?” It was cool, she was there with her boyfriend who is working in Finland but is from Germany, so she was visiting him. After the concert we went to this bar, where I know they tend to play hard rock/metal as background music, because once I walked by it and I heard Opeth playing (only in Finland). We sat there and talked for a while. When we said bye I told her I was planning on going to Switzerland before I go back to the US, and she said we’d try to see each other there, “if not, I’ll see you on the boat next year”, I told her I’m not sure I’ll go, and it really depends on the bands, to which she replied something like “whatever, you know it will be worth it”. So she’s signed up to go for the third time, and her boyfriend for the second (he missed the first one). I guess there are people crazier than me :D.

I got back home around 3 am and went to sleep…hmmm basketball at 10 tomorrow…we’ll see.

April 7 – Saturday

Woke up at 10…basketball actually starts at 10:45…hmm but I could go back to sleep…ok basketball. So I got up got there right on time and played an awesome 2 hours of basketball. Then there’s Abdu, he’s a guy from Saudi Arabia, really good at basketball and a playing style really similar to mine. I like him a lot, and he goes to play every time I go…so every time. Also on Saturday we always go eat lunch after basketball, so we went, unfortunately it was closed because of some “easter” thing or something (:P). So we said bye and I headed home, hungry and sad, except not really sad. I’m not sure what I made for lunch, maybe sandwiches. But I got home (OH! Taxes! Yeah I also did, or tried to do that on Friday, no wonder I felt like I wasted a lot of time.) and showered…and maybe ate?... and by the time I sat in front of the computer it was 3. Ulla was going to pick me up at 4 to go to her house for dinner. So I finished my taxes and almost immediately the phone rang, it was 4, Ulla was outside, and I was still in my towel! So I got dressed and went. On the way there we picked up two of her friends Jussi and Tiina, while we were in the parking lot Over the Hills and Far Away (by Nightwish) started playing on the radio so me and a 45-ish year old lady enjoyed some awesome symphonic metal in her car (only in Finland). We got to her place; it was a really nice and cozy house, the furniture was all made in the same style; very simple clean, light, unpainted wood. “The boys”, that is Jussi, Kimmo, and I went to the basement to throw some darts. Unfortunately Kimmo does not speak English, and I speak even less Finnish so we could not talk a lot. But Jussi made up for that, he is a really nice guy, originally from Sweden, absolutely beast as darts, and played basketball growing up, then was assistant coach for the Finnish national Baseball team, then fell in love with golf. So he had plenty of stories and was glad to share them, also as his wife Tiina said, he tends to drag them out, which I didn’t mind at all. I won the first round of darts! But it was all beginners luck, also Jussi’s board at home is broken so he’s really out of practice (hadn’t shot in like 2 weeks!). Sure enough in the other 2 rounds he kicked our butts, but it was a lot of fun. Then I said to him “as a basketball player I have to ask…can you throw with your left hand?” and as a basketball player he replied “I can shoot a basketball just as well with my left, so yes I’m not as good, but I’m ok” and then we threw darts with our left hand for a little bit…I was pathetic.

Then dinner was ready, Ulla made delicious smoked salmon with a brown sugar coating. MMMM so good. Also, Finnish fun fact (triple F), Finnish people tend to peel their potatoes in the winter but not in the summer, this is because in the winter, the potatoes have thicker skin, so they think it’s too much. For desert we had mämmi, a finnish desert that tends to be controversial apparently some English tv show cook tried it and didn’t like it. I thought it was delicious, first I had a little serving, it’s this black…poopish looking thing with the consistency of mud, but you pour a little sugar on it and then some cream on top of that. Duuuuuuuuuude SO good, I had a second serving that was 3 times bigger than the first one. Good stuff. Then we talked about stuff for a while, Jussi said that Nightwish is much better now of course…because they have a Swedish singer hehehe. We talked about ABBA and how one of the girls was able to sing really well in English but didn’t know a word of it. And then Ulla let me borrow her Mamma Mia DVD, I’ve never seen it but I’m excited about it.

I took the bus back to my place and got ready quickly because the Italian girls had invited me and some other people to go to Karaoke that night (it was a busy day…and I still hadn’t started my math homework). It was fun, we sang…something and then we sang Another brick in the wall part 2, which was surprisingly boring to sing, all there is is the chorus, and then a solo and then the chorus twice. Also what makes the song good is that it’s sung by a large group of children, turns out it sounds pretty bad when it’s being sung by 4 young adults, who don’t know what they’re doing. Dang it, I can’t remember the first song we sang, but we did an ok job, they clapped a decent amount, which they definitely didn’t for people who did a crappy job, so it was alright.

Personally I wanted to sing some Sonata Arctica they had 3 songs by them

Tallulah - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20lwHaiomC4

Fullmoon - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfI8o_hzaDk

Victoria’s secret - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUszotxuwGo

And I turned in my little piece of paper for fullmoon, but time passed people left and even though I stayed there afterwards they never called my name…oh well, maybe they thought they’d had enough of me after another brick in the wall. At least I got to hear someone sing Tallulah, and everyone sing along to the chorus (only in Finland will everyone at the bar know the lyrics to a song that’s classified as metal)

I went home, knowing that sometime before going back to the US I’ll go sing some sonata :D. For the third night in a row went to bed at like 3 am.

Also I made a list of awesome/strange/unexpected songs at the karaoke.

Californication

Be our Guest (beauty and the beast)

Comfortably numb (someone sang this)

Defying gravity (from wicked)

Barbara-ann (hehe)

I’ll cover you (from rent)

Always – Erasure (the reason this game is awesome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzA4ZY_ZGo0)

No rain (blind melon)

One – Metallica

Seasons of love (from rent)

Semi-charmed life

76 trombones (from the music man)

shut up and let me go – ting tings

speed of light – stratovarius (only in Finland)

Stairway to heaven

Welcome to the Jungle

That’s not my name – ting tings

Sound of music

Think of me – phantom of the opera

Angel of music – phantom also

Slaying the dreamer, wishmaster, like 2 more from nightwish :D…totally unsingable though.

April 8 – Sunday

On Saturday I told myself, ok you didn’t travel anywhere during this break because you needed to do homework…let’s get some homework done. But then the Italian girls (Ilaria and Roverta) told me they and another guy from Italy (Massimiliano) were having an easter lunch on Sunday and I had to join them. So I had to choose between math homework and homemade authentic Italian food…well math is hard so I told myself that I would sleep in (I needed it) and if I woke up on time to go to the lunch I would go. I did, and so I went, while we were waiting for the food we had a really enjoyable talk about the influence of the Vatican on the Italian government, of course that led to talking abortion, and taxes and all sorts of controversial issues. I was really surprised about how easy it was to talk with them about it, even though we were on different sides of the issues, I felt like I could push and use all my arguments and ask all my questions and they wouldn’t feel offended or take it personally. I even told them at some point that I really enjoy talking about things like this but I have to be really careful because sometimes it can hurt people. All 3 of them were like really? Why would anyone get offended or hurt? That was cool.

The food was delicious, it was like a rice lasagna; red rice/ham/eggs/cheese/rice/ham/eggs/cheese. Delicious and very filling. Unfortunately Ilaria (one of the girls) had to leave before the food was ready, though she was happy because she was going to the airport to pick up her parents who were coming to visit. Afterwards we had ice cream and then we left.

Ok, it’s Sunday, I have no more commitments, it’s time to do some mat…WAIT! I am taking an online course in algorithm analysis, I have homework due Monday night, and I haven’t even watched the videos. So there I spent the rest of the day watching videos, which were awesome…but still haven’t started math. I got to talk to Barbara for a few minutes but she seemed busy, it was nice to see her :D.

April 9 – Monday

Ok, sleeping in – check

Commmitments for the day: basketball at 7:45

Things that I need to do before math: finish watching the videos and do the homework for algorithm analysis…dang.

And so I did. I’m pretty sure I had delicious pasta for lunch. I did the questions, had a few wrong the first time, got them right on the second (and last) try…phew. Chino (guy from france, with whom I’m competing to do better in the class) didn’t, but he did the long programming assignment in like half the time it took me so that’s a little scary. Still for now “se lo echo” hehehe. I had some problems with a tricky part of the program and I thought I fixed it, but that created another problem, and now it was time to go to basketball, so I wrote what I needed on a piece of paper and worked out how to fix it on the bus (sigh…fine I might be a little geeky). Basketball was alright, Abdu was there and so we shot 50 3-pointers each, I made 21, 42% which was great, always go for 40%. Abdu hit 17, but he’s not used to the routine, I think he’s a lot better than me at 3 pointers, so soon he’ll start kicking my ass at that. The bad thing was that there were only 6 other people and they were not very good so we could not have really competitive games, it was still fun though.

On the way back I was going to buy groceries, especially drinks but the alepa (shop) was closed so no delicious drinks, I had to quench my thirst with ice cream, water, and grapes.

I fixed my program and turned it in, got it right!

Then it was sleepy time

April 10 – Tuesday

Slept in, :D

OK, NOW YOU’VE DONE EVERYTHING YOU COULD TO PUT OFF DOING YOUR MATH NOW LET’S DO SOME MATH.

Ok, fine, but first breakfast. I impressed myself today; first cooked a half diced potato, threw in a diced tomato, then 2 slices of ham cut into little pieces, salt, pepper and oregano (mmmmmm oregano), by now I expected the little potato cubes would be cooked but they were still hard, and the ham and tomato were starting to burn…hmmmm what to do? Let’s throw some water in, it should cover the potatoes and cook them more thoroughly and prevent the tomatoes from turning into charcoal hehe, also cover the pan to make sure all the heat is not coming from the pan.

Worked beautifully, when the potatoes were finally ready, I threw in 2 eggs, mixed the whole thing, and to top it off some cheese.

It was really good, too bad all I had to drink with it was water.

Still it was awesome.

Alright alright alright alright, math.

I did some math, I actually got a lot done, I was really happy with my progress, and if I do the same tomorrow, and thurdsay I should have my presentation ready on time (the deal is; this should be a 4 hour presentation which means I will be teaching my class for a whole week, the good thing is if it goes well, I won’t have to take the final exam, so it’s worth it, but a lot of work).

The initial plan for today was to go eat at the unicafe (university sponsored restaurant: full meal, usually delicious, for 2.40 euros) at 6:30, then go to the gym until 8 which is when basketball starts. Then basketball until 10 :D.

BUT THEN, Jessi, Linza’s boyfriend (linza is a girl from the us who studies in finland and who saved my trip here like 7 times, she’s awesome) posted on the facebook that he’s going to be part of a comedy night here in Helsinki. Awesome! I’m in! it was at 8 pm so I guess basketball is canceled, that’s alright, just for tonight. I invited some people on the facebook, but everyone was either busy or didn’t get the message on time.

Like I said, good progress in math, I liked the idea from the day before or working something out on the bus so I did the same, well I didn’t “work it out”, but I read the next proof that I need to explain and my understanding of it went from  “wait…what?” to “oooh ok I…kind of…see what you’re trying to do…still no idea how, but I see where we’re going” so that’s good.

I got to unicafe, the special today was salmon in some cheesy sauce, so I went for it (the special is 4.70 euros, not always worth it, but tonight, definitely) it was delicious. Ok, comedy time, I walked to the place which was a little hard to find, it looked strangely quiet, so I asked someone if there was a comedy event there tonight, I wasn’t sure it was the right place. He said no…ummmmm ok…find internet, check the event…the place is definitely right…OH WAIT! I FORGOT TO CHECK THE DATE! It’s on May 3^rd don’t ask me why, I was completely convinced that it was tonight. Good thing all the people I invited couldn’t go!

Ok but what now…hmmm basketball starts in 15 mins…but I didn’t bring my shoes, shorts or shirt, alright, I can play in these shoes (good thing I wear basketball shoes as everyday shoes) this shirt is a little tight, and it has sleeves, bleh, it’s old I can rip off the sleeves but the shorts…I had been thinking that I didn’t have enough, only 2 pairs of short, when I’m playing 4 times every week. Alright fine! I went and bought the cheapest pair of shorts I could find (18 euros, and pretty good shorts actually). And basketball it was!

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Now starts a big basketball update, you might want to skip it, though there is some interesting stuff about Finland itself, most is about basketball though and the friends I've made playing here.

I changed quickly and decided against ripping off the sleeves from my shirt, though I’ll probably keep using it for basketball so I’ll do it before next time. As soon as I walked on the court a team that didn’t have subs asked me to play with them and so I started playing, no warm up, no stretching not even a single shot so it was a slow start but I actually played pretty well tonight, though now that I think back it’s because I was going in a lot and not shooting I think my shooting was alright, but below average. I didn’t make a single 3 pointer…wait! Yes! One.

Jasmina is a finnish girl who goes to play a lot, for about 3 months I called her emmi…emmi is her friend. But now I know her real name, so that’s good. I like how she plays, she sets some really good and strong picks, and plays really good and clean defense, you can tell she focuses really hard when she plays. It’s fun to see her play, and she’s getting to know how I play so she’s really good at passing me the ball at the right time. I like it when we’re on the same team. She shoots with her left hand exclusively, even for open layups on the right side. But she’s good at getting tricky shots to go in, especially tonight, she played really well.

Then there’s…Mexican guy, I feel really bad I don’t know his name. But oh well, he’s really good, he can jump really high, one time I went up for a layup and he jumped like 20 cms higher than me and blocked the crap out of me, and he even called it he said “bajate!”. But it was in a fun exciting way, not really trying to offend me, I liked it. He shoots really well and actually he’s really good at going to the goal…even his defense is good so I guess he doesn’t really have any weak spots…ok wait it takes him a little bit of time to get his shot up from outside.  But yeah he’s really good, also love it when he’s on my team, or when he guards me.

There were 4 teams, so we played half-court 2 teams on each half. First we played the blue team, they had 2 giant guys and I got to guard them both, the first one was really tall did not miss a single shot from mid-range, I’m pretty sure he kicked my butt, but he didn’t play for very long. Then there was the other one, his technique was really bad, and his outside shot was crap, but he was incredibly strong and heavy; I stood no chance he could move my whole body just with his arm, it was so effortless for him that it wasn’t really a foul, if he could manage to get the ball in the key it was over he made it almost every time. But it was not impossible to stop him from getting the ball, and when I had the ball there was no competition I made it almost every time I got it either because he wasn’t quick enough to get outside before I shot it or because he wasn’t quick enough to stop me from going in.

Then there was the white team, nothing really special, still fun playing with them. Oh but Aleksi was with them, he’s pretty cool, I didn’t like him at first because he plays really rough, which is fine, but he also used to get pretty mad when people fouled him. One time, a while ago, I went up for a layup with there was no doubt I would make but he still tried to stop me even though he was in a position where he would foul me for sure. I ended up accidentally hitting him in the jaw, which hurts a lot, it was the last basket of the game, so then he started yelling at me, I told him “I’m sorry we both went up and I accidentally hit you, it’s not like I was trying to hurt you, sorry”, and I just walked away. A few minutes later he came to me and apologized for yelling at me. I told him no problem. That immediately made me like him. And maybe I’m making this up but I don’t think I’ve seen him get mad or complain at games since then. Actually last Wednesday after playing I went to the gym to stretch and he came and said hi to me, and we talked for like 30 mins. He’s a surgeon, so I got to ask him about how that works in Finland. (Wow, this is a long digression from basketball, but I think it’s worth it, so suck it.) Medical School is really hard to get into in Finland, it’s all based off of an exam, no interviews, no resumes no nothing, which is kind of bad. Also it’s not really about how much you score, it’s about the fact that they take the best X-number of candidates, so even if you did well, if everyone else did too, too bad. He said that they have 2 kinds of health-care here in Finland, the public one that everyone has access to, the waiting can be long sometimes, but they offer everything for close to nothing to everyone. Then there’s the private option, which pretty much only big companies buy for their employees. The problem is that those are small and only offer basic doctor visits, diagnostics and prescriptions, nothing big like surgeries or long treatments. So when things get bad people end up being sent back to the public which works well enough to take care of it.

He said that people still complain about it, but he thinks it’s a really nice system, if he could change something about it, it would be to get rid of the private, or to make it seriously work and not just for “wimpy” stuff. 

Ok, so yeah, he was playing for the white team hehe.

Then there was the yellow team. Abdu was in it, which is awesome, we’ve become the typical pair of players who play similarly, are deadly when playing on the same team, and always guard each other when on opposite teams. I think on the first play he got the ball at the three point line, and I was late to guard him so he hit it in my face. The next play I got the ball at the three point line, he was late so I went up and hit a three right in his face! It was awesome, we high fived each other. I LOVE playing with him haha! He knows my weaknesses, I know his, so it’s really hard, we’re really evenly matched…it’s just a lot of fun.

And finally there was Salla. So last week I went to work out before basketball and there was a girl at the gym too, she was wearing long-ish basketball shorts and a Mike Bibby shirt all other finnish girls who play wear tight shirts and short-ish shorts, so I thought it was weird. She was pretty short and looked like she was 17…ok whatev’s. Then I went up for basketball and a few minutes later she showed up too…alright, so it’s not just about the clothes, you play basketball…alright. She was, say on team 4, I was on team 1 and I was playing against team 2, then we played against team 3. When it was my turn to sit out and I was looking at the other teams playing I saw her making some really good, quick, and hard passes. Not only the fact that she could make the passes was impressive, but also the fact that she could see them. Intriguing. I didn’t notice this until today, but that day I didn’t see her shoot. She was organizing her team, passing to open people making things work without shooting. Her technique and her footwork were really good, she was also really good at faking going to one side and going to another, and quick too. The other thing that is hard to explain is that when she dribbled and passed and when she drove to the basket…it didn’t look like a girl was playing, normally girls just look weaker…it looks less natural and this is even for girls who are really good, almost all the time, even if you don’t know that it’s a girl from the way they play you can tell. The only exceptions that I have seen personally were 2 girls from the osu basketball team! That’s right, only 2 out of the whole team. And she’s only 17! I had decided that if she keeps going to play and she keeps impressing me I’ll try to talk to her, and then get her in contact with Lindsey the girl from the OSU team, she would know who to talk to in case she was interesting in playing in college in the US.

Anyway, by the time we got to play team 4 last week she had already quit playing, I was sad I didn’t get to play against her, but oh well.

Today, at some point, before we played each other we were both sitting out at a certain point and she sat next to where I was sitting, I introduced myself and we started talking. So her name is Salla, she had not played basketball for 2 years before last week, she saw that there was a time for “basketball” so she imagined that she could go shoot for a while, but when she saw that there were actually teams with pretty good people playing she was like oh god this is too good! She has been playing for 10 years (which is crazy considering she’s 17!) Had a really bad knee injury 5 years ago (at 12! That sucks). And had to slowly quit, she’s had surgery on it twice but they’re going to do a 3^rd one. Then I decided I had to ask her age, things didn’t add up, turns out she’s 21 (but she reeeeeeeally looks 17). She said that she feels in pretty good shape about basketball but her shot is really bad (which is when I noticed I hadn’t seen her shoot). Later on I saw her shoot, she got blocked but her technique was almost perfect (she even flicked her wrist!), I think ideally she should shoot a little higher, but on that shot she was almost exactly halfway between where girls shoot and where I think one should ideally shoot.

Anyway, I told her about the other times that you can play basketball here in Helsinki, but most of them didn’t work for her. I told her that Abdu and I are planning on trying to schedule some shooting sessions before the times when there is basketball. We ended up scheduling one on Friday since all 3 of us are free on Friday mornings and there’s no basketball on Friday.

SO! Now I have 2 really good, really serious shooting partners.

End of Basketball update

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As you may have noticed, I didn’t get to talk to Barbara a lot, I’m sure she’s been really busy, and so on the way home I decided that I would type this up, so she can read it when she has time, even if I’m asleep or not available, and know what I’m up to, and that I’m thinking about her. 

Another thing I should mention is that between a lot of the things that I mentioned here I probably read some of "the howling miller" by aalto paasilinna. It's the book on which the song "black sheep" by sonata arctica (you might say i'm obsessed with this band...wait until I start talking about nightwish) is inspired. And I'm really enjoying it. 

From that I figured it would be a good time to make a list of books i've read since the beginning of the year

Phantom of the Opera

The power of one

Angels and Demons

The hunger games, 1, 2, 3. 

Invisible cities

Wicked

The wizard of oz

Geeze! That's a book every 2 weeks! I'd never read anywhere near this much. I'm loving it.