Procrastination

The fear of too quiet times, leading to low activity here below, gave way to a little insubstantial make-up ; as unexpectedly as usual, times of intense activity caught up from the very back leaving the set-too-high rhythm far behind. Events have been rushing so fast and numerous that I was too drained to perceive any logic in there, if any was to be perceived... For a while these entries had been so little in touch with concreteness ; materiality now strikes back.

To sketch a picture of the last days, one could simply mention that I've been home barely two or three evenings out of one and a half week. It began on the next to last Friday with the infamous  Slovak party in Hervanta. To tell the truth,  I've been refusing to go there till the last minute, but Ben had been inviting me several times to the sauna party of his student union at the TTY, and was planning to drop there before for some time. Well... As it was easily predictable, regarding the number of invitations sent - two hundreds ! - the single flat in which the gathering was organized got soon filled to the brim, spreading to the nearby corridors. We fortunately left before an indefinite group of students devastated the soon-to-be-renovated building, piercing holes in the walls, crushing systematically the lights and tearing out the electric cables from the ceilings... Ben and I bolted to the sauna as soon as we arrived at the TUT's party place, some weird combination between a club, a bar and a public bath. Much to my embarassment, it was a naked mixed sauna with of course a mixed changing room... I could observe how different, more... let's say, collectivist was the mentality in this recluse island that technology students almost never leave, ignoring even which buses were going to the city centre. In the night, the Slovak party massively moved to our place, lots of people drunk and loud men. We left by the morning bus. This was a pretty frustrating evening, but I could at least attend to the legendary race to the obelisk, that sauna enthousiasts were performing naked before rolling in the snow... We took the first bus, then I walked from Lukonmäki to Kaukajärvi in the dark and fresh morning, took the usual dreakfast and went to bed after getting some more productive things done.

One of the reasons I was not that enthusiastic about going out on Friday is that Olga's, Sharon's and Carlos' birthday party was taking place on the next evening in my precise building. Contrary to the  Slovak mayhem, it had been prettily organized, even given a theme. Beach. A beach party in December in Finland. I had promised to lend my audio system and took thus part in the preparation. Music and sangria did the rest... I stuck to the very few Finnish guests almost all along the night, Olga fearing they wouldn't feel at ease ; I fulfilled well my mission. This was quite a crazy evening, ending in summer dresses and flip-flops in the snow.

I am the black dress' legs

After most of the people left to catch the last buses, I began to volubily discuss about Finnish music with a guy that I knew by sight since the beginning of the courses, but never addressed to. We were around ten to remain in this good atmosphere, that was unfortunately ruined by the stealth of two phones and a camera, revealed by the come-back of one of the girls crying of anger. For no apparent reason, my own phone that I had left with confidence and without surveillance on a table did not move from the whole evening, but those in the bags... Well, the feast ended in this sad way.

The day after was pretty hectic as well, still and again - I helped to clean the common room and ended with a flask of Jägermeister, a balloon and two cactuses with paper parasols, then awaited Anne for the French dinner we were planning for so long. The food that my mother sent was the first real piece of red meat I had eaten for weeks if not months, how wonderful ! With the Belgian beer I decided to open, and the huge cake as dessert, it looked like some kind of precocious Christmas dinner, at least in Anne's words. This was moving. We then rushed to the city center for a little gathering around Asia, that would depart some days after. Maybe this perspective turned her cheerful character into a more shady one, as she seemed so annoyingly undecided and let me organize everything in a pretty much half-ass manner at the last minute. I however guess that there is no reason of this genre needed to explain the shady characted of some other girl present there. Some things I'll never understand...

Trying to recollect my memories, I can't recall what I've been doing on the next Monday. This can be one of the rare evenings I was at home, then... Nevertheless, I was out again on Tuesday for Benjamin's performance in the Teekkarikuoro Itsenäisyysjuhlakonsertti. Few of the people, in the audience, did not belong to the TUT ; even fewer were foreigners, and we were among them. The religious silence, when the flag was brought down the stairs of the auditorium to the stage, everybody standing, was more impressive than surprising... All in all the concert was quite good, in spite of the lack of leading voices among tenors and bases.  Some modern covers, a reference to the Eurovision, and again the national anthem. It decided me, I think, to buy in once the seven symphonies of Sibelius - and to sing again, yes ! We escaped hurrily as early as it ended, for I had to join other people going to Iltakoulu's pikkujoulu ; I dropped by my place, took Coline, we rushed again to the city center and barged into a costume party - none of the foreign students had been told about that. A prohibition costume party. Quite a lot of costume parties for a week. We tried salmiakki shots, and those with this taste of sauna - that I liked very much. It was enough after a couple of hours ; we got back to take the last bus, encountered bloody French guys that were throwing bottles to the Stockmann's Chritmas lights and intended to get us to a club by trying to steal my handbag. I sometimes regret not to be that impulsive, for I asked Coline whether I should or not break the nose of one of them, that would have been easy as pie. They gave up quickly, fortunately for everybody.

Next day - Wednesday - was a premiere for me, as I accompanied Diego and Caleb to the Tappara - Ilves hockey match. Very deceiving regarding the ambience, and I almost fell asleep considering the total non-playing of the team we more or less supported... The most terrible thing was this girl shouting unbearably loud, every third second, in favor of the opposed team, and exactly in Caleb's ear. He must be half deaf now. 3-0 for Tappara, not much more to say.

As I was looking forward to a free evening, we received in the night an invitation of Markus - the one I met at the birthday party, if you recall - for a pancake party after the Independance Day's fireworks on Thursday evening. A truly good surprise. In the afternoon, I then took Asia to the bus station from which she should leave for Vantaa, and then Warsaw. We took a taxi, and it was getting dark and wet ; she waved to me through the window. I barely had enough time to get back to the flat before leaving again for the foreworks ; I took alone a late bus that literally threw me out on the very opposite side of the Keskustori, without any exact house number for the place I should get thereafter, and without any money on my phone. I ran to the meeting point where, of course, nobody was any longer... I was crossing at that moment the path of people singing the national anthem with the choir, even children ; all in the night, really impressive again. Some familiar face appeared further back from the meeting point, but nobody had a phone. Anne addressed me a strange look from the arms of her boyfriend, as the sky got truly on fire, white fire ; a touch of bliss, one of regret, and some strange slight reproach.

                   

I pieced in the right way my memories of Markus' flat location and arrived at the door entrance before the whole group. As soon as we came in, the Finns sat down in the living-room to watch the presidential four-hour ceremony of hand-shaking - they almost wouldn't move in the entire evening. We foreigners escaped after the comment about the President's dress to move to the kitchen, where we cooked pancakes for the whole evening. Anna and Markus spent a long time eating the said pancakes, drinking beer and wine and talking about Finland and everything with us, sitting on the kitchen's floor, and this was truly wonderful. We were the last to leave. A funny anecdote : I made some pancakes with beer, traditional recipe of Belgium and north of France. Some Finns rushed to try them and exclaimed right way, very deceived : "But it does not taste like beer !" I definitely have to find out a recipe of magical solid beer pancakes, which wouldn't taste like pancake but like pure and plain beer...

I then began to think about the coming Finnish exam - considering when I would have to begin to study, at the very last. Some other event happened, forcing me to place in my already full agenda the revamping of a profile and the writing of a very political speech ; it diverted me for some time from my genuine attempts to procrastinate till I risk to fail to the Finnish language exam. When this possibility had been exhausted, I took refuge in the kitchen, cooked litres of soup, baked a cake, got Asia's stuff out of the cupboards, did the same with mine before putting it in again in a different order, repeated the process with the basket of sundry things she left me, and decided to invite friends to eat the cake on the next day. Diego and Coline came, liked it, we drank liters of tea, I gained some more wasted time, and then we decided to get to the sauna. On Sunday morning I still hadn't learnt anything about the bloody examination. I woke up with weird dreams - I was in a class where nobody liked me (so obviously related to the aforementioned election !) then some people were stealing my laundry basket.

My mental health deteriorated the next day, after hours spent to wonder what the Finnish lessons written in Finnish were meaning and in what fucking cases there was a KPT-change. It might have been worse if I hadn't decided to experiment how to cook some unknown dry cereal found in Asia's affairs. I ended up at two in the morning, asking some friend at what time we should be in the examination room and trying to answer to the model exam's question - and even more difficult, to check what was the correct answer. I am not a little proud of even accepting one friend's request : correcting a personal memo about weak State and civil war at midnight. As you can tell, I would have done anything not to study... Then what day are we ? I took the exam, it was rather funny, and I'll certainly get the credits if not an honourable mark, then received at last instructions for a seminar taking place no sooner than on Thursday. I guess I can read fifty pages and prepare five cases of the ECJ in one afternoon, right ? Affection tightening with people in the country I'll be back to  soon, and an animated discussion pushed me to take again the article I started writing days before - in perfect conditions, dark, loneliness and concentration... till seven in the morning. Even though... I have been wondering if at last it had any use, as surely nobody will read it and even less would understand. The further I get into the work, the further I drift from people's understanding... Anyway. I hope it would stir up only one's curiosity. Spending the night on that ruined what remained of my reason, especially after watching delightfully some frames of Riget.  I felt like the present day had been the day before. I ate a breakfast before going to bed, got up at noon and took some energy drink, went to the University with empty bottles of beer in my handbag and an incomprehensible compulsion to shout "PÄIVÄÄ" as soon as I was crossing anyone's path, borrowed a DVD promising to give it back in less time than I needed to watch it, came back to something that looks more and more like an own pirate bay to rip the said DVD. I suffered from a terrible descent when suddenly the energy drink stopped working. The wisest thing to do was to check if there was any risk to die right away if I drank another one, as the feeling of exhaustion striking back was really unbearable - my heart was beating offbeat. As there wasn't... And I have such a lot of things to do, to write, to answer people's mails... Voi Juulia-parka...

Things have been losing of their structure, and then are regaining of it ; correspondences are elaborating spontaneously, as this new habit of text construction that sounds like poetry : opening, body and envoi. Structures reveal now.

Things of here have been mixing with things of there. Suddenly scenes and voices lived again, getting closer. People I... wouldn't dare saying it. Is there ultimately something really concrete and solid between here and there, and which ones are the ghostly voices then ?