Three things that made me happy today:

1. I aced my interview for the PhD school. I was so good that I even made them laugh!!

2. I was so incredibly smart that I put some rubber finger pads on when I went to inject my mice. They could bite all they wanted but to no use – nothing could penetrate my rubber

3. And I found 200g of chocolate just lying on a shelf in my kitchen. This equals one very tasty mudcake!

Today.

I couldn’t get access to the work plan I’m writing until one o’clock. They had some problem with the network service.

I couldn’t add references to my work plan. RefWorks is an idiotic program.

I couldn’t transfer a mouse to another cage since it was running and jumping like crazy. I had to ask one of the animal care takers to do it for me. embarrassing!

I went home to bake a cake. Used 4dl cream, two lemons and 250g shredded coconut. And 2dl salt!

And I’ve been so happy!

A happy song to sing when nothing is going your way:

*The best yoghurt in Finland – Kalinka top, by Ingman. Totally artificial. When other yoghurt brag about containing real berries, this one only contains some kind of froth. But it tastes great!

*After living without mascara for two weeks due to a stubborn eye infection I now have great lashes

*Other things that make you feel like you’re good-looking, for example when a guy starts talking to you in the street, just like that, for no reason what so ever.

*My new blood glucose monitor. It looks like a tiny porsche, and it has wireless connection. What more can you ask for?!

*When Oliver sings Monty Python’s “Every sperm is sacred” at work.

*Finding a place for the things you love. I’ve now got two icons standing in the shelf above my stove, and my beloved indians of course!

You mix some cow blood with an equal amount of beer.

Then you add the flour, salt and some butter.

My mother’s comment: Don’t eat too much, you might get sick!

My grandmother – she started laughing. And then she told my mother that, in the old days, you had to boil the bread before you ate it because it was so hard.

My colleague’s comment: Well, at least you don’t show any prejudice.

And it’s actually not that good. But it got better when you ate it like my grandmother said you should – “with butter”. It’s like eating your steak “with potato”

So now I’m drying the loaves in the fridge, trying to get them so hard that I have to boil them before eating.

Yes, it is blood!

At Citymarket you can get half a liter of blood to make, for example, the highly recommended “blood-bread”.

To make this bread you need: 0,5l blood, 0,5l beer, 30g yeast, 1dl melted butter, 1,5tbsp salt, rye flour and barley flour (kornmjöl)

Mix, let rise for 1 hour, and bake at 225 degrees Celsius for 15-20min.

My question is; can you actually store this bread at room temperature??

1. You make a brulé with vanilla and hazel nuts

2. You make chocolate mousse

3. You make a meringue  with cocoa powder and lemon

4. You put them all together in three beautiful layers

5. You melt chocolate and make a hard chocolate edge around the layers

The result: the most wonderful cake ever – and it doesn’t contain one ounce of flour!!

In the process of making one Chocolate-mousse-brulé-meringue pie and two lemon-meringue pies, I kind of sacrificed my Bible on the baking table. You can see it in the middle of the picture underneath my watch. When I tried to wipe off the egg/meringue from its pages it got a hole in Hebrews 4. Luckily there are good records of what it’s supposed to say

• hazel nuts
• whipping cream x2
• vanilla
• eggs x24
• lemons x3
• gelatin
• 200g milk chocolate
• 50g dark chocolate
• 150g white chocolate
• butter
• digestive cookies

It’s hard business to get one year older…

This weekend Turku celebrates its glorious past by having a medieval market. This is in the same league as Night of Arts in Vasa or maybe something that Skansen would do. So beautiful and really family oriented.

Two guys get to beat the crap out of each other. When I first saw them they were hitting each other with swords, but then someone blew a horn and I thought the fight would end – but no, they just gave them even bigger weapons!!

The parents of the little girl on the left thought it would be funny to have a picture of her stuck in one of those medieval punish devices. It took some time though to get the picture right and as I was walking away I heard the girl say in a pitiful voice “äiti mä en pysty” something like “mother, I can’t do it”. Poor thing!

Johanna was there with me, but I think she left before I really started shopping…

They have hired actors to play out little scenes, love quarrels or convictions of criminals – and all the vendors are dressed in these “medieval” clothes! Besides a lot of handmade accessories and knick-knacks they also sell a lot of food. I had some roasted almonds and a very nice sausage (not served in a paper but in a cabbage leaf!). And I also bought some karjalan piirakat, 15 for 5 euros, that’s pretty cheap.

AND I bought two pairs of earrings and wanted to by a clay ikon – but by then I had already been to the vending machine twice so I though I could let it go…

Turku is really a beautiful city!

We’re having a lecture series at work. About animal imaging. And I came to the conclusion that I know nothing about it. And that you soon have to know way too much about computers to be a scientist.

One of the lecturers was from Gotenborg. He was a Chinese with a very obvious Swedish accent. Except for when he spoke quickly, then he had the typical staccato of a Chinese.

My landlady came to visit today. She works in a bank, and acts the part. Her husband came too. He was the one measuring my bathroom cabinet. I’ll hopefully get a new one since the lamp cover got burnt by the previous tenant. jej, I like new things!

Then I washed a machine of white clothing and baked a bread. Here is the recipe:

• 3 1/2 dl rye flour
• 3 1/2 dl flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 dl sesame seeds
• 1 dl raisins
• 1 dl sunflower seeds
• 1 dl oatbran (havrekli)
• 1 dl pinhead oatmeal (urvete)
• 1/2 dl syrup
• 4 1/2 dl sourmilk
• 2 egg

Mix the dry ingredients. Whip the others in a separate bowl. Mix all together. Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for about one hour. (I took this recipe from a book and you can basically vary it at much as you like. You don’t need to use eggs, you can add some lingon berry jam or use any kind of seeds or nuts, it’s good either way)

I’m not used to this regular oven. It’s too quiet! With the hot-air one you could always hear that there was a bread baking.

It took me one and a half hour to read the blogs on bloglovin today – half an hour was spent singing along to the worship songs on Stina’s blog. Especially “Prince of piece”. Here is a sample (and the lyrics):

• You are holy (You are holy)
• You are mighty (You are mighty)
• You are worthy (You are worthy)
• Worthy of praise (Worthy of praise)
•  
• I will follow (I will follow)
• I will listen (I will listen)
• I will love You (I will love you)
• All of my days (All of my days)
•  
• I will sing to (You’re the lord of lords)
• And worship (You’re the king of kings)
• The King who (You are mighty God)
• Is worthy (Lord of everything)
• I will love Him (You’re emmanuel)
• Adore Him (You’re the Great I am)
• I will bow down (You’re the Prince of Peace)
• before Him (Who is the lamb)
• I will sing to (You’re the living God
• And worship (You’re my saving grace)
• The King who (You will reign forever)
• Is worthy (You are acient of days)
• I will love Him (You are Alpha Omega)
• Adore Him (Beginning and End)
• I will bow down (You’re my Savior Messiah)
• Before Him (Redeemer and friend)
• You’re my Prince of Peace
• And I will live my life for You

Today I stole something. When did I do it last? I can’t remember. Maybe I’ve never stolen anything in my life - I would not be surprised.

Before eating my lunch of pasta and minced meat that I brought with me to work, I took the elevator down to our cafeteria, grabbed a small plate from the salad stand and got some ketchup. I just did it! I was so cool too! Walking to the plate rack I even passed one of the kitchen ladies and I didn’t even flinch. But I must admit that my heart was racing.

Ha, I’m such a criminal – stealing one squirt of ketchup

It made me think of my Hong Kong days when every exchange student had at least one plastic glass from the canteen in their own cupboard.

I just bought everything from IKEA. Even though we would have to give it away after just one year. I am way to chicken to steal a glass, and I think this was the last time I stole ketchup as well.

Too much exitement could kill you…

And I’ve never even taken some extra McDonald’s ketchup home with me!