two years since i moved to finland. crazy.

well, sometimes rain and art does mix.

art night was last night. it rained a lot. rain and art doesnt mix. here are the photos: /kuva/2004.08.26.helsinki

i had a job interview on wednesday (it was my second interview for the job) and despite being pretty confident going into it, i didnt get the job. i’ve had a giant knot in my stomach from stress due to it/things for the last while. not a pleasent experience.

the last two weeks i have been back studying finnish five days a week. the standard is higher that my level i think so its a little bit overwhelming, espically with half the class having lived here for 5 - 10 years so they have far more familiarity with the language than i. next wednesday i start my 3d visualiastion course. i have no idea what to expect. it will be 1630-2030 monday to thursday, so i’ll have four really long days a week. it will all be in finnish, of an even higher standard to what im used to. so im expecting to feel completely lost until christmas at least.

its amazing how something simple like a name can make you remember so much so quickly, and how that can happen the same day as a random phone call from a really good friend and how the two things are so closly linked. its like an explosion of joy.

svt.se - svt dokumentär. i randomly found a documentary/short film last night on swedish television. it was old footage from the late 1950’s to the early 1970’s stockholm coupled with a fantastic score by leif jordansson. the film is made by stavro and you can find more information about the film kometen (the comet) here. i only saw the second half of the 30minutes, so i missed a lot. the images fitted perfectly with the fantastic soundtrack. all shot in an almost home movie style, but with a disconnect. there was no characters, only randomly shot people going around doing their buisness in stockholm. lots of drunk people for a while all the while playing off and to the music which had a low key phillip glass feel to it with hints of some godspeed spin off and amina / sigur rós improvised introduction. fantastic stuff. (update: the dvd will be in shops (pesumably in sweden only) in about a months time)

stockholm 1965. a man with a film camera documents his surroundings the last days before the crash of the comet. a fiction film based on documentary material, from the time before the end of the world. 30 minutes of catastrophe poetry from 297 rolls of double-8 film shot between 1959 and 1971.

the 128 “bus” in st. petersburg.

my bank aib got caught a few times over the last few months. i didnt think any of the transactions that i done over the last few years were affected, but they were. i got a refund of 23€. good work.

i was walking home from the centre a few weeks back when i passed by a collection of art installations / weather machines. they are just to the south of töölölahti beside the train tracks and (temporary) skate ramp. the top photo and the bottom left photo are of a machine called “menninkäisten yösoitto” (a very rough translation i think is ‘pixies night ring”. the inner part of the piece was turned by the wind and produced random ringing, really nice. here is a sample:

20040819.04.wav : 28sec : 300kb

the piece on the bottom right is (i think) called “tuulispää” (gust of wind) and is also by the same artist : antti maasalo.

“nic finds it hard, yeah. it can be claustrophobic. it affects him more. if i try to block it out, it’s harder for him because he doesn’t understand why i’ve decided to do what i’ve decided to do. he doesn’t know why i’ve decided to behave that way. because i want to move on and forget about it, i refuse to discuss it. he’s a talker, with his other athletes. they talk about everything. they get to the bottom of a problem and figure it out. that’s not going to happen with me. we won’t get to the bottom of it so we might as well leave it and move on.” irish times

i think ive to get the flag out for her races next week.