Official Student garments have landed

The higher education schools, guilds and clubs sometimes have special clothes they wear for their parties.. overalls!! The medical school ones are white, Material science is light blue and IT is black and so on.. so in theory you could distinguish between students from a far if you happened to know the color of their overalls and if they all had them on all the time..
Vappu, the socialist party day...sometime in the summer is the primo day for wearing these traditional garments, but there are other occasions that call for some dressing up.
Dental school overalls are cool and have adverts from all kinds of companies, one to note is "Lifeguards Finland" My friend Niilos company whose logo shines on the right butt cheek in brighty RED. Unfortunately in our photo it is not showing well..

Dentist/Artist

As I pour over my studies of Dentistry and try to focus...I drift away sometimes and I am in a play set, getting ready.. then back to studies and molars cusps and what not. In the future, perhaps there is hope to join these two passions together after all. As has the British Singing dentist done. Have a look at his root canal routine!
Singing Dentist

Perhaps Shakespeares Midsummernight's dream, "Oh love, where ist thine caries infected buccal lining" would make the operation go smoother.. or perhaps some more modern, to jazz up the old Poet..

What do you think?

Apres ski

So for my second actual attempt at cross-country skiing, I envisioned myself as a Nordic goddess, skimming sveltely over fresh fallen snow through resin-scented pine forest. In reality, I believe I mostly resembled a windmill caught in a tornado, appendages flailing in the crisp wintry air. But there were a few seconds there where everything came together, kick slide, arms tucked right in. And I felt like I was walking in the air. Apparently, cross-country skiing has more to do with technique than with physical strength, so we'll see what a little practice yields.

H

PS: If my sister is reading this, I know, I know, the 'e' in 'apres' should have some kind of hash mark above it but I'm too lazy to figure it out.

PPS: A special shout out to my friend Peggy who submitted her thesis draft today. Woot Woot!

What are the odds??

Plane lands in hudson river after hitting a flock of birds, no passangers or crew hurt..!! praise God. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28688947/

Our neighbor in the block I has the same name, apartment number, door number and street number... hmm. to clarify our addresses are as follows.

17J B11 and
17I B11

Both Mehtälä...
Needless to say we get much mail addressed to the "wrong" mehtälä..

Today after "hard" days work at the uni, with research and all, at 5pm I headed home, felt really out of energy and as I was walking out the department I thought to myself. "Could really do with some candy or a snack".. lo and behold as I passed the machine I saw that there was twix bar paid and waiting for me to eat it..

Residence permit#2

On a breezy -17C, clear day we headed out towards the city police station.. How does it always make you feel guilty when going there.. even if you have done nothing wrong.. Anyhow, it was cold and our faces "yelling for bread" (finnish saying) and our hair turning snowy white.
At the station we took a queuing number.. like you would at a deli, and then proceeded to "investigate" the stall #8 that apparently had a foreign customer, when in fact the lady was not even at the counter. She told us to sit and wait, till she came to her stall and pushed the magical button...
Everything went well, she was helpful and happy, even though my comments earlier about how "busy" it looks... and we payed the required 120€..
There is one more time this whole circus needs to roll.. before Halle can have permanent all inclusive season pass to the Santa Land..
Hopefully this new residency permit has no added mustache from "security features"..
I started cross-country-skiing.. need to write it all in one as there is special word for it in Finnish too... It is like running with long bits of light wood strapped to your feet and using poles for help to mosey along the wintery landscape.. now we are just few inches short of more snow.

First days of school 2009

Flashbacks from high school and jitters for meeting new people and all.. as Halle embarked on a journey to learn more Finnish and meet the future classmates, who share the common sentence... need to learn Finnish.. They asked her bunch of questions and tested her spelling and reading and everything.. it was all to make sure they can place her in a right group. But I can imagine the hilarity.. "spell änkyrä" or other very finnish words...
I also had my first day, little less dramatic as I only took a test to see if I need to take a class in a future. From prior studies I was able to get the chem credit and don't need to go to school for a bit... but when I do it will be time for BioChem... can't wait...

New Year!!

Year has changed, and we are back in Oulu. The new year party was great and my whole family was together, which as time passes gets more and more rare. We sang the last christmas song together till next christmas and played games while we waited for the year to change. The younger generation took a nap and managed to stay asleep even though fireworks made the baby monitor scream and crackle. On a 3rd we took the train back and now we are settling in again to Oulu. Halle starting her language training and I go back to school also... only 4,5years to go.. horray...