Life rolls on...

Well, thought to let my non-existent reader know I'm still here, regardless of my lack of posts. Anyway, life goes on, school is fine, still no girlfriend. Nothing special. Yesterday was our school's winter disco. It was ok, and I think I may have been inspired to ask someone out. I've sort of known her, she is a very intelligent Chinese girl, who is really good at dancing. Certainly worth a "wawawiwa!" Anyway, only problem is, she has a horrible hairdo. Yes, sounds terribly vain doesn't it. But she has like tufts of hair on the sides of her cheeks, like ungroomed sideburns. I think I might try and tell her that... just as a friend =D

Kuppila Studios

Last Tuesday we embarked upon a documentary making class project at school during "project week", a week of no normal classes. The subject was to be our TET experience. TET was a two week work experience exercise we did at school. The idea is, you go to a store, an office, a school or similar, and ask if you can work there for two weeks. With no pay.

After some brainstorming we decided to make a horror mockumentary, with the theme that only 5 people returned from the horrible ordeal. We were split into groups with different tasks. Scriptwriters, title screens and credits, music and sfx, talent, editors and others. And then we chose a director, in this case, me.

The start of the morning was used to write the script, and ready the set. Then, it was a few hours of frantic filming. After that, we imported the film to an iMac and left for the day. The next two days were to be spent editing the film, and finaly presenting it.

Quite swiftly the incompetence of some of the groups came up. Only one of our two editors had any experience at all, and even that was extremely little. The music and sound affects people had come up with a few shortened movie themes, pink panther, jaws, and Wallace and Gromit. No sound affects. Suffice to say, none of their work was used, and I resented having to add them to the credits, as we had in fact used music I had brought on my external HD, and some effects one of the editors had downloaded. Speaking of credits and title screens, they were horribly inadequate and inaccurate. While revamping the credits I accidentally cut them out, unfortunately they will have to be added.

I do not blame the editors for their lack of helpfulness, as there wasn't much they could do, but the sound effect and credits people were just annoyingly lazy. Nevertheless, directing and editing the movie was great fun and I am so grateful to all the people who worked hard on it. It was a great feeling to see the finished product.

Anyway, the experience has inspired me to do more movies in my free time, and I designed a concept logo for a bit of fun. The Kuppila was the name of my previous blog, and I am considering into making it into a homepage for my video, if i get any done.

Christmas Company?

I find myself once again hopelessly desperate. Whenever I see some nice couple outside, or at school, I feel incredibly jealous that I don't have someone special. I had a girlfriend a while ago. It went a bit like this:

I've always thought she was really cute, but she is a year below me, and probably doesn't even know my name. Next thing I know, a friend of mine tells me she likes me. So, I ask her out. Everything is great, except that we dont have one, single, fucking thing in common. Sure, I have some fun with her, but It didn't last long. Quite bad luck.

What would be the ideal girl then? Someone I coul talk to, someone who I could share my interests, or someone who could share their interests. Someone I could spend time with and enjoy it. And pretty of course, I'm not enough of a hypocrite to leave that out. I'm not asking for that much, am I?

A Short Autobiography

I was born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1991. At the age of seven, our family made the decision to move to England. As sad as it was to leave friends behind, living in England was the most enriching experience of my life. Without it, I woul probably be a very different person. For one, my English would not be nearly as good. There I attended Claremont Fan Court school. A school which had the most magnificent grounds. The main building was Queen Victoria's old summer cottage (more like temple ^^) and had Britain's olders working lift. I remember how lessons were often delayed as teachers got stuck in the often malfunctioning elevator, having been too lazy to walk up the stairs.

At Claremont I made many good friends, whom I am still regularly in touch with today, and am confident that our friendships will never dwindle. Infact, three of them will be visitng finland this February. Something which we are all really looking forward to.

Upon returning to Finland at the age of 12, I went to the English language school, Komeetta.* To put it bluntly would be to say it was a crap school. To put it honestly would be the same. Luckily, It was short lived, and I advanced on to Espoo International Lower Secondary School. I am now in its last year, and will be going to lukio (hmm... I need a seperate article on the Finnish education system really." at the EIS Upper Secondary, after which I hope to study abroad.

In my second year of lukio, I hope to go to Japan as an exchange student. Although I am quite confident I will be able to go, I wont know until next year when I will be called for an interview. Japan is quite a popular destination, but I think that with my fluent English, motivation and independence will get me there. By then I will have also studied Japanese for two years. I've always been fascinated by Japan, and I'm slightly annoyed so many other people are ^^.

One of my biggest and longest interests is History. I have always found it extremely interesting and have excelled at it at school. I also find technology, design, politics, business, and current affairs interesting. My hobbies include miniatures, Tae-kwon-do, computers and Japanese. Playing games isn't really a hobby, but I do much more on a computer, enough to consider it a hobby. I've also played guitar for a couple years, but that has been mainly due to parental pressure. However, I've cleared them up on the fact that although my dad would love it if I were to play in a band, I care more about my own aspirations for myself. Still, I dont want to waste the investment and will continue practicing as I please.

More articles on the centre of the universe... err.. I mean me, will be popping up every now and then.

*A clarification on my school hopping. At England I had already moved on to senior school, secondary school to some people. Once I returned to Finland however, I had to return to the last year of Primary school, as in Finland school is begun only at the age of seven. Contrary to what you might think, we are not actually behind. In the PISA study, Finland has ranked at the top in education; the study measured the skills of 15-year-olds in topics relevant to everyday life.

Christmas Presents

To me, christmas isn't about religion. To me, its a great excuse for a holiday.To be honest, I'm not at all bothered that christmas is a commercial event. Infact I prefer it like that.

Thinking of christmas presents is one of the most challenging brainteasers of the year. Parents have it so easy, their kids just hand them a list of their wishes. For everyone else, its not quite so simple. So far I've only decided on two presents for my friends. One is getting a cheeky pair of fluffy pink handcuffs, while the other a Kaiser Chiefs CD. Speaking of handcuffs, theres a K15 sex shop at a shopping centre here. Nothing explicit such as porn though. Naughty clothes, toys, and the like. Sadly though, very little for guys.

Independence Day

The 6th of December is Finland's independence day. In contrast to the independence days of many other nations, it is a solemn occasion where we remember the lives of those who fought to keep our contry free from Russian rule.

Every independence day YLE (the finnish equivalent of BBC) shows the old(1955) black and white movie, Tuntematon sotilas. This translates directly to: unknown soldier, but doesn't sound quite as corny. It is based on a hefty novel, and both movie and novel are some of the most famous of Finnish literature and motion picture. Tuntematon sotilas is still widely regarded as the best Finnish movie of all time. It follows the life of soldiers in the continuation war against Russia. At times I almost cried. At times it is very tragic, at times very solemn, and at others very humorous. I'm not sure whether a foreigner would appreciate it in the same way as a Finn, but it would be nice to know.

I could go on for a very long time about the war Finland fought against Russia, but I will leave it to those interested to look on wikipedia. It is a very interesting and important part of the second worl war, often overlooked by the more large scale events of the war. Although the initial Soviet attack had three times more men than the D-Day landings.

Strip Poker

During February I will be having some old English friends visiting. One of them visited last year aswell. I think its really great that these people can be bothered to come over here, to desolate old Finland.

One of them is an avid poker player, and insisted that he brought his chips over. I thought it would be a great idea to play some poker with old friends. However, normal poker would get a tad boring after a while, so I took the liberty of inviting a few girls for some strip poker with the lads from England (almost thought we were gay didn't you?) They cant wait.

Encouraged by one of the girls, I asked another good friend of mine to join. Sadly, her outlook was a little different, saying that the first thing she would do when meeting new people probably wouldn't be taking her clothes off. Without this kind of attitude, the world would be a better place.

We haven't quite decided on the rules yet, but I don't think we will be going past the undies... unless the girls get carried away.