Suomi

So I live in Suomi, also known by its Swedish name, Finland. I get paid to study and research vector X of interrelated intellectualities. X? A farrago. I embrace obscurantism. There are many things which deserve to be buried and left unexhumed.

Specifically, I am studying the philosophy and methodology of social science. Most people have no idea what this means (perhaps I will attempt to explain in upcoming posts). I also twiddle from time to time with down-and-dirty methodology, such as Bayesian probability and statistics, Markov chains, and evolutionary game theory. Most people have no idea what these mean either. Nor should they. One doesn't need Bayes' rule to deduce that I am most likely to jettison or fail out of all of the above (this has already come to pass!). Above all, as a rule of thumb, one should avoid becoming impressed.

Nonetheless, I am grateful to everyone who has helped me. Ant hills are really cool.

Certainly my least noble but most eccentric Finland moment was attempting to cross the Vantaa river by bridge at Pikkukoski beach in Koskela. As banal as that sounds, in fact, I attempted to cross by hand: that is, hand over hand along one of the lateral I-beams (see image below for clarification). Queerly, the beam got progressively fatter towards the middle until it was truly obese, and my arms were swinging widely beyond the shoulders. I happened to attempt this feat the day before Halloween. The water met me chilly.

I am also guilty of turning the duvet cover on my bed into a pumpkin for the aforementioned October festivities. If I may say so myself, it turned out passably well. Pillows rounded me out. Some industrious friends cut out a face with black felt so I was a jack-o-lantern rather than merely an unmarked gourd. I set forth in company with Lyndsey Hoh and Lyndsey and John Helling. We made a jolly and bizarre quartet: pumpkin-face, the gnome, the mime, and the greaser. On our long haul from Koskela to a  party in city center, we witnessed not a single other costumed crusader.

Fortunately, I have multiple contingents of industrious friends. Some Sergeis - one Russian, one Ukrainian - were kind enough to host a kind of Russian night. It all started in the sauna, which is apparently Slavic as well as Suomalainen. However, we (John Helling and Felix Horns also being present) were to discover that the sauna rites vary from place to place. As it turned out, the Ruski had harvested birch branches from the motherland (St. Petersburg), which were liberally moistened during the first 45 minutes of sauna in the hot water bucket. Throwing this water onto the coals not only generated the familiar heat-sensation humidity but also, imbued by the birch, a lovely fragrance. Eventually the time came for ritualistic scourging: unleashed with the branches upon the back, buttocks, legs, and soles of the feet of a person laying stomach-down on the upper bench. One could call this sensation refreshing.

After cleaning up the carnage of birch leaves, we headed upstairs (nearly every Finnish apartment building has a sauna on site) for the second course: vodka. There were some other things thrown in, such as chicken legs and salami, potatoes, home-pickled cucumbers and mushrooms (thanks to the Russian Sergei's mother!), olives, raw garlic (actually I'm the only one that ate this) and, last but not least, chunky lard slices on bread. Salty and delicious!

These are highlights characteristic of a blessed existence here in the upper latitudes. Other nice things include but are not limited to: superlative office, bike, bucolic urbanity. About time Suomi is naked and unbounded.