how to survive Scotland

* Go to university to study English in your country of residence and then travel with your fellow students to Edinburgh for a month-long course for foreign university students.
* Ensure you are being housed with an elderly Scottish couple living in a tenement in the north of the city. He is retired and likes to play golf even though it cripples him for the next two days, she goes to work but still has the time to cook and clean and mother you. They are both excellent at dealing with your shyness and broken English.
* Stay in an attic room with poor heating (since you are unsure of how to work the gas heater and too shy to ask) but which has two lovely goose down duvets in the bed.
* Have doughy bread with marmalade for breakfast. Have lunch in student cafeterias or at Pizza Hut. Have hearty dinners with your hosts. Discover that crisps are perfectly respectable as part of an ordinary lunch, not just (as your mother taught you) an unhealthy snack.
* Take the double-decker bus - a lovely experience! - to campus every morning. Walk home every evening. ("I have miles to go before I sleep.")
* Explore the Castle, Arthur's Seat, Prince's Street Gardens, the Royal Mile, the Camera Obscura, the lovely little closes and the amazing book shops.
* Learn about Scottish literature, art, society, education and justice system. Not to mention Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots. Learn absolutely everything about Scotland.
* Go on field trips to lots of castles and realise that it rains a lot even in May.
* Have a crush on one of the Scottish course coordinators and gossip about him during pub evenings.
* Experience cultural differences in relation to the other foreign students. Especially the ones from your own country. Deal with it and learn something in the process.
* Attend ceilidhs and learn to dance reels and gigs with men in kilts.
* Ask people in the street about ghosts. Interview a professor of parapsychology.
* Try the haggis.
* Act in a play. Almost get thrown out of a court room for giggling at the judge's wig.
* Walk seven miles to see the Loch Ness monster, because you don't realise how long a mile is, until a Scottish family takes pity on you and takes you to the lake in their boat.
* Travel on lots of trains, stay in lots of hostels and eat lots of fudge.
* Ride horses on a Braveheart beach, hitch-hike with strange men and manage to get involved in a local feud.
* Love Scotland.

go away, cold beauty

"I used to pretend I loved the winter. But I'm tired of pretending. I can't wait for it to be over."

After this statement, I put my insulated gloves on, pulled my woollen hat down over my ears and tugged the zipper on my fake-fur coat as high as it would go. Then I walked in the hazy almost-sunshine (much welcome after weeks of no sun at all) down to the snowy paths by the seafront. The sea was frozen and snowed over but birds were singing. It was so cold I could see ice crystals floating in the air. And I had to admit: It was beautiful.

how to write a thesis in English lit

* Do it in an era when few students (and certainly not you) have their own computer to use.
* Choose the computer lab of the English department at a small university. Make sure the lab is located in a tiny basement room with a couple of minuscule windows near the ceiling (showing the feet of passers-by to remind you that there is a world out there), limited air supply, about six working desktop computers and one temperamental printer.
* Choose to work on your thesis mainly on Sundays and in the middle of the night so you have the room to yourself.
* Choose as topic a modern work of literature but make sure it includes having to study Herodotus' The Histories in detail. A topic which you will have no use for in the future is preferable.
* Have the department choose for you (to your dismay) a thesis supervisor who is an eccentric Englishman who does not know how to dress or keep his office in order but who can discuss at length Medieval alchemy, celestial spheres, Orientalism in literature and other things that are utterly beyond your own understanding. Discover that he knows the exact formula for inspiring/pushing you to write, is able to descend from the celestial spheres and is in fact the best thing that has ever happened to you.
* Hum "ain't nothing gonna break my stride, nobody's gonna slow me down, oh no, I've got to keep on moving" while you write. Save your work on a floppy disc.
* Watch a certain film a hundred times and read a certain novel until it falls apart at the seams. Fill a large notebook with your illegible scribblings. Do some of this at a café where it is impossible to concentrate but which has great coffee.
* Ponder, "'till it drives you mad", the symbolicism indicative of national and/or personal identity, and the effect of post-colonialism on Sri Lankan-Canadian writers.
* Take endless, long breaks to surf the internet (a fairly new thing, and a limited experience in this era), reading Star Trek fanfiction and exchanging lengthy, eloquent and extremely funny emails with your email buddy Ole who is sitting somewhere else in the same city studying something really boring.
* Discover, after many long years of literature studies when you didn't really get it at all, the beauty of intricately symbolic writing. Let it affect your pragmatic heart.
* Make late starts a habit, and only call it a day when your brain and body scream for sleep or food. Ride your bicycle home through eerily empty streets in the small hours and feel strangely at peace while you wonder what your mother would say if she knew you were out alone at this hour. Count yourself blessed to be tripping over the same uneven cobblestones as students have for centuries and try not to wake your flatmate when you get home.
* Put your thesis on hiatus while you are busy working, holidaying or flirting. Email excuses to your long-suffering thesis supervisor.
* At last, spend a few hours coaxing the temperamental printer into printing your 70 pages, take them to the university publisher and pick out a handsome navy blue cover.
* Submit your thesis and revel in the feeling of being a published writer - conveniently forget the fact that in all probability, the two thesis examiners will be the only ones to ever read it.
* Realise that these were really the best of times and the worst of times.

* For a long time afterwards, occasionally entertain the fantasy that the author whose work you studied will one day read your analysis of his work (and be extremely impressed). Yes, Michael Ondaatje, I'm talking to you!

at opposite ends of a century

Two new prized possessions (after a year of frugality). A new phone. And an old pocket watch - handed down from my grandfather and probably owned by one of the American emigrants in his family. Hello, my beauties!

a native of Nokia land - supposedly

Want to feel like a moron with sausage fingers? Then I recommend buying a fancy new phone.

saturday night on the Island

Driving the long, dark road to the Island. The car skidding in every curve on the wintry road. Having to dip my headlights and slow down every time I meet another car (which is not very often). Keeping my eye out for elks and hoping the road won't get snowed in before it's time to go back home.

It's tough driving. But I'm experimenting with some new music on the stereo. And when I reach my destination at last, 40 kilometres later, lights are welcoming me from every window of the picturesque cottage. The candles are lit, the table is set and the guests are mingling. The Warrior Princess, dressed in pink silk, is smiling at me. It's the end of the world and the party is on.

to carry bumblebees

Last night I was carrying a stack of bumblebees which I had, in an ingenious way, crocheted into my sweater. Then I had trouble disentangling them from the same when I was about to release them into the forest. How does my boring mind ever come up with these storylines in my dreams?

That it was a "stack" was significant somehow - my mind puts words on things and probably only then visualizes them. Intriguing. I should donate my brain to research.

the veil between the worlds is so thin

A lovely man who is real and present, and an even better one who is fictitious - you would think the choice is easy. But, le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point.

the peace of white

Late Friday evening, a small city. A deserted back street near the seafront. The blizzard is just winding down and a snow plough has just barely cleared the street. Huge piles of snow has been pushed to the sides, almost burying the parked cars and mine is of course one of these. It takes me twenty minutes to brush four inches of snow off it, another twenty at least to shovel away enough of the powdery stuff around the wheels. The wind is hurling snow into my face, my thick gloves are getting soaked through and the drift is more than knee-deep in places.  Normally, this is something I hate doing, especially being cold and wet.

But the silence of the winter night is deep, there is only the sound of the wind which is strangely soothing. I work myself into a meditative state. Snow is so earthy - nothing is as real, as present. You can't ignore it and drift into a daydream when it is covering you, chilling you and at the same time calming you with its purity.

No matter how much you might hate winter, it is a powerful experience to embrace the essence of it.

a snowy night in the Underworld

"You know the Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times."
"You know, that's the first of two curses."
"What's the other one?"
"May you find what you're looking for."

(Quote from my latest TV obsession, White Collar)

I am in no danger of any of these curses befalling me. This is the dead of winter, literally and figuratively. And what I am looking for can never be found. So I sit through dark nights of blizzards, with lit candles, lots of wine and left-over Christmas chocolates. Sometimes I even savour it - being dead. Being far removed from life of any kind.

Because I am Eurydice and there is an Orpheus coming to play his lyre and get me out of here, without looking back. Or perhaps I will just play my own way out. I'm practicing on the lyre.

January pursuits

* Dream of seagulls with teeth and get reacquainted with real winter (2006)
* Feel technologically successful and plan new Celtic adventures (2007)
* Experience sinusitis, raspberry soufflé and a splinter of the True Cross (2008)
* Walk in golden boots and attend chocolate tasting parties (2009)
* Feel the rain and the smell of turf fires and be unconditionally happy on an Irish beach (2010)
* Be down and out but occasionally seen despite invisibility (2011)

surviving quasi-winter

When the worst kind of winter (if you can call it that) hits Finland - alternating snow and rain, resulting in sleet, slush and utter dreariness - it is too dangerous to go out because you might be overcome by suicidal impulses.

The only recourse is to hole up with lots of candles, blankets, wine, chocolate, music and DVDs.

2011: everything from caraway fields to dead puppies

2011: A year of sorrow and various afflictions, Arthurian legend, poverty and absence of newspapers. A year of watching smurfette movies just to be near a certain man. A stay-at-home year when after two decades of foreign travel I did not go beyond 75 miles from home. A year that included four summer weeks of non-stop sun and family and happiness. A dull year often shaken up by whirlwinds of obsession and emotion. A year of being vaguely aware of revolutions in Arab countries and the imminent collapse of the euro but in my little street there were only dog fights and in my purse there was a constant lack of euros anyway.

* Started the year with grief, good friends, fireworks and Harry Potter.
* Found a way into my enchanted forest again.
* Suffered through a winter of repeatedly digging my father's grave out of the snow and lighting candles with frozen fingers. Pain had never before seemed so real.
* Dated a man with licence to kill. Probably should be grateful he chose to dump me only in the metaphorical sense of the word.
* Received a personal delivery of parmesan cheese from Sicily and salami from Hungary.
* Tried a combination of wine-tasting and volleyball with positive results.
* Dedicated a holiday week entirely to three seasons of a TV-show. Which caused some despair but also inspired me to be strong and brave, to fight, to seek supernatural power, to go back to the British Isles and find me a prince. Finally realised having kids and a house is not my thing.
* Found my first geocache underneath a jetty, within spitting distance from my own home, and learned that there are 500 of these treasures within a radius of 50 kilometres.
* Celebrated my birthday by trying new things: using an automatic car wash and changing tires on my car all by myself.
* Spent May Day weekend with fine dining and then a hike to the end of the world. Picnic on the beach while watching eagles, hearing the snow melt and feeling winter turn into spring.
* Experienced nausea, extreme weakness, dizziness, fear of death and even a few days of sick leave. Drew a skull and crossbones on my cough medicine bottle.
* Explored a mansion complete with ghosts and dungeons.
* Sold all of my stock (I had four shares in total, 6 euro each).
* Spent Midsummer's Eve with the Midsummer people, lilac juice and caraway fields. And Midsummer Day navigating the labyrinthic archipelago in an old wooden boat with a baby on my lap, feeling wonderfully lost in a water jungle.
* Felt responsible for the entire English-speaking world while arranging interpretation for a conference. Not many of them showed up.
* Savoured another summer in the serenity pool with the sticklebacks (who put on a show) and fantasy novels, and on the beachvolley courts with the beautiful people. The price: two lost toe rings.
* Watched a house move - literally.
* Found out I have a sibling in heaven.
* Attended a lovely wedding in a very bad place.
* Breezed through my first job interview in years and even succeeded in naming all the planets in the solar system.
* Got even more internationally involved.
* Enjoyed a Chinese tea and dumplings party which evolved into a wasabi-eating contest and story-telling of babies born in bank vaults.
* Experimented with towing a car.
* Subbed for the secretary of the CEO of the city's biggest construction company - for all of two hours.
* Edited a text for an Israeli writer but was interrupted by Yom Kippur.
* Practiced spending entire evenings with strangers - at a cottage at world's end and in a posh penthouse apartment.
* Had my whole world put in order by a virus and an Irish philosophy.
* Closed the grief door and opened the happy memories door - once again with the help of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
* Danced in black lace and fell in love with a man in pure white.
* Was given a set of Torah scrolls and helped a celebrity sell books.
* Attended the most chaotic christening ever in an Alvar Aalto church.
* Visited a friend who had a dead puppy on the coffee table.
* Lent my voice to a Christmas performance where the archangel Gabriel had a sizeable beer belly and the wise men of the east were very proud of their asses.
* Washed my phone in the washing machine. Both broke down.
* Swapped one obsession for another and was inspired to know everything, play the piano and love.
* Skipped work, for the first time ever, to stay at home and watch TV.
* Enjoyed a very lonely and lovely New Year's Eve with lots of red wine.
* Couldn't decide which dream to go for: Power-dressing, cocktail-sipping white-collar worker in flashy London/New York offices or boho chic aid worker running soup kitchens.

in need of rocket fuel tonight

"There are times when we need the rocket fuel of singing and dancing to power us through an act of blind faith. Falling in love is one of those times, when we need to move into a phase of enchantment with enough force so that when things cool and the air clears, we are locked into that person, that love. We fall in love and we sing as we walk down the street; we turn up the music and dance."

(Lavinia Greenlaw: The Importance of Music to Girls)

I'd even cut my hair and change my name

A Christmas spent with my beloved family. A Christmas spent longing to be somewhere else entirely where there are no well-behaved kids, well-decorated houses, well-organized lives.

I have to go live in New York. Otherwise I will never be happy ever again. Have to find a way to walk those streets, exciting days, cool and smart people, glitzy bars to look beautiful in, a love to share a bottle of red and cold pizza with in a cramped apartment.

I think maybe I could, if I only first could find fifteen percent concentrated power of will.

finding the gate, finding the door,
finding the streets I used to walk before
when I was free, when I could see
when I was crazy
I wish somebody told me *

And then what? Throw away what I have now? Family, a view of the sea, a job I not only like but even believe in? Where is God and why did he make me want things and how come is life so bloody complicated?

* Marie Serneholt: I Need A House

the deadly blog entry

Note to self: Before you turn on the washing machine, ensure your phone is not located inside it.

While my phone is drying out on top of the radiator, I try to write a summary of the year that is soon to end, as I usually do this time of the year. Reading through the draft, I realise it is like that book from some fairytale I vaguely remember: Anyone who dares to read it ends up dead. (Or is my recollection of that stupid horror film I don't want to admit I have actually seen, The Ring?). I would like to believe there is something supernatural about my text. But the dreary truth is, my year 2011 was so miserable and dull that anyone who is bored enough to read a summary of it will get an immediate urge to slash their wrists.

how to locate your deity

It is important to locate God. In case you were thinking about trying this little corner of Finland, I can advise you that he is not here.

My God is in exciting stories, fascinating and odd people, animals, science fiction, pubs and above all in foreign countries. Most likely he is somewhere in the British Isles.

favourite smells

Lily-of-the-valleys, peppermint tea, coffee, railroad tracks, books, cigarrette smoke.

academic love

I had just studied Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and like Orsino, I was in love with love itself. Like Olivia, I was in love with a dream.

I was a first-year student and dreamed one night about a boy, an older student who bossed me around like older students do with freshmen. I fell helplessly in love. As far as I knew, he didn't exist in real life. But you never know for sure.

I would go to the old factory building where the English department was housed and attend lectures in the depressing basement room (only a few tiny windows near the ceiling showing the feet of passers-by proved to us students that life went on outside). There were lectures on British society by a white-bearded English gentleman, who worried about us in with avuncular kindness, and a smart, older-brother-type of a post-graduate student. There were grammatical drills by a stern but eternally smiling blonde lady (I tried to dislike her as much as I hated her subject but found it impossible) and strange literary analyses led by a weird girl who sometimes seemed to detest us and an even weirder fat man who spoke in a dreamy voice about medieval alchemy (never realising that none of us could follow him to the higher spheres where he dwelled). There were lectures on language history that I followed with reluctant but increasing interest, held by a Santa Claus-lookalike who patiently endured the fact that few of us showed up for lectures and even fewer ever did any homework (his subject somehow always ending up last on our long list of priorities). There were courses in American society, literature and language varieties led by the guest professor from Harvard who was deceptively funny and likeable and who scared us all silly with his high demands and his warnings against procrastinating. There was the one memorable course dedicated to Shakespeare, presided over by our awe-inspiring professor who had once shook the Queen's hand.

(How I would have admired all these people for their intelligence and knowledge, had I met them later in life...! At the time I was either too scared of them or just assumed I knew everything I needed to know.)

I also spent time in the dusty, deadly quiet of the two library rooms of the department, strangely inspired by the towering bookshelves around me and the feeling that these contained knowledge not found anywhere else. I was never inspired by the small room where we endured small-group tutorials and were forced to answer difficult questions, present our essays and sweat through the criticism of teachers and fellow students. I was scared of the common room, cosy with its coffee fragrance, magazines, and funny quotes pinned to the notice board, simply because the older students gathered there.

And wandering around the long corridors and tiny rooms with old carpets and new desks, meeting bright and beautiful people everywhere, I secretly hoped that I would one day turn a corner and stand face to face with HIM, the prince of my dream. Or that he would suddenly emerge from a group of older students gossiping around their coffee mugs. Perhaps he would pretend I was beneath his notice, like other first-years, but as he passed me with a regal stride he would grudgingly nod at me or toss me a mocking but well-meaning comment. And that would be enough. I would be his forever.

what I didn't learn at university

Next time I get a university education I will go to more parties, wear skirts and get drunk more often. But I will also get more involved in my studies.

Last time around, I did go to parties, but usually the non-alcoholic kind. For some unfathomable reason, I didn't pay much attention to the boys. I spent more time worrying about my personal morals and the European Union (!) than enjoying youth and freedom. I ran from lectures rather than let them inspire me. Stupid, stupid me!

Still, there is something to be learned from this. In my present life, I will go to more parties, wear skirts and get drunk more often. I will pay attention to the men. I will stop worrying about worrying and I will enjoy freedom, experience and the fact that I work for a crap salary and a good cause. I will be inspired.