God works in mysterious ways

So I have to admit that when I moved to Turku I was quite tired. Church tired that is. And not tired from going to church but from all the responsibility I had in my church. The last year in Helsinki I had been: coordinator for the Action festival, head-dishwasher for Women’s brunch, leader of the ushers and organizer of the interpretation. Not all at once, but still… And all very fun things, but still…

So when I moved to Turku I thought; OK, this is my chance to just relax. Take it easy for a while and just be.

But what happened! I am now involved in building a church!

So I guess all Christians should be church-builders, but it is a bit different to belong to a church where there are hundreds of people and one where there are maybe 30.

What I am saying is that I now have to scrape off all the organizing, planning and list making that took up most of my life in my old church and instead focus on praying and building a family.

And I feel so blessed!

Blessed because of what I’ve learned in my old church. Blessed because of what God has thought me throughout my life. I’m so happy to have been a part of both Elim and Fila – and now Friffe.

Life is growth and God is the one who sends the rain to make it possible.

Finnish, the most difficult language in the world

Poor Matteo, he is taking a course in Finnish and to help him out Juha has thought him some useful phrases. Now every time they meet, Matteo greets Juha with a happy: Mitäs äijä! Something he obviously thought ment “what’s up!”

M: I tried to say “Mitäs äijä” to a girl but she got real pissed off. Did I say it wrong??

J: No, but she had the right reaction

“Mitäs äijä” means something like “what’s up, dude!”. Yes, you should only use this if you’re talking to a guy!

Today a day like other days

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:

Award

I was challenged by/got an award from Carina to name 7 things you might not know about me. Thank you Carina! And if you’re wondering who this person could be just follow the link above or find her name in my blogroll. She is a childhood friend of mine who’s now married and has her own house and two beautiful daughters. AND she is currently building the sweetest doll house I’ve ever seen. So envious. I’d like to have some kids just so that it wouldn’t look so vierd when I want to play with toys.

Kun tämän palkinnon saat
Kiitä sitä jolta sait tunnustuksen
Kerro seitsemän asiaa itsestäsi, mitä muut eivät vielä tiedä
Anna tunnustus seitsemälle
Linkitä nämä blogissasi
Kerro näille seitsemälle tunnustuksesta

Seitsemän asiaa itsestäni:
1. I have a pattern phobia. I get really nauseated whenever I see certain patterns, for example the seed house of a sunflower when it’s getting a bit old. 2. The movie that I’ve watched the most times is Charlies Angels. I just love it, despite the sexism.

3. I collect icons, but you probably knew that already. I’m just telling you so that if you go on a trip to one of the Mediterranean countries you could remember to bring one back for me I currently own six.

4. I never failed an exam when I was at Helsinki University. AND I wrote all of them (except maybe one) on the set date. (I figured this would be the perfect time to brag…)

5. This year, I ordered a take out pizza for the first time in my life.

6. I’m still afraid of needles, after being a diabetic for five years! But I’m only afraid if they’re longer than 5mm and someone else is pushing them into my arm.

7. I tend to read at least two foreign fashion/interior design magazines a month. In a year I’ve probably read five times the amount of magazines compared to books…

  

I hereby reward/challenge:

• Lena
• Ulrika
• Janne
• Jeannette
• Hanna D
• And just anyone who’d like to join in

Things that’ve made me happy this week

*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!

Action and old friends

So this weekend it was time for the annual Action festival at my old church. And of course I went!

Beautiful people and music by Hillsong Stockholm and Fila’s own band. Plus Andreas Forsberg with band, who was forcing everyone he saw to buy his new CD.

And I even saw my cousin’s daughter Elin! Either I’m getting old or she is, I vote for the latter

Three beautiful ladies. Marie, Hanna and Mikaela. And Mixu was kind enough to let me sleep in her bed! I was kind enough to leave her with all the dishes…

Take home message from the weekend:

Just like we in today’s society are trusting the government and its organizations to care for people in need, we can look at the church in much the same way. We let the systems that already exist, in forms of outreach, Alpha groups, annual Christmas gifts for the poor and so on, dictate what we are able to do. Instead of looking at what we can do, we look at what our church can do… Quite a strange thing when you think about it.

It might be time to take some responsibility on an individual level!

I have some work to do

Here is the infamous sign – now with the addition of Oliver’s skull.

And yes, it says ubuntu on our door as Matteo has declared it a Linux zone. I have not yet succumbed to the idea…

If you want to see what my colleagues have done in their lives you can just look them up on PubMed.

Friday evening I spent talking in Finnish. And even singing in Finnish:

Sä joka päivä töitä teet

Joka ainoa aamu C-vitoseen sä meet

Ja ahkera oot ollut niin

Että valmis oot vihdoin uudenlaisiin haasteisiin.

Here are most of my colleagues after singing in Taija’s honor. She has just got her PhD and is now moving on to new challenges as the song goes.

My boss is the woman in the front row with glasses and holding a glass. I am the stupid looking one in black stockings.

To put your mark on things

Today I put my name on our office-door. We have this wonderful tool at work that makes any name tag you’d like. It’s almost like a mini computer. You write whatever you like and then it prints it out like a piece of tape that you can glue on to for example a door. Amazing!

I put a nice frame around my name and placed a heart at the end. After I’d glued it on the door I realized that it was the biggest name there + it had a heart on it!!

To ease the regrets I felt over this I forced the new girl, Hanna, to write her name even bigger than mine (though, she did not put a heart after her’s). So now my name isn’t as visible anymore.

And Hanna is the one feeling bad.

I’m just feeling a little bit bad for doing this to her… But just a little bit. I would have liked her to put a star after her name but she didn’t. She is after all 29 and has already passed the heart/star stage of a 27 year old.

Let Ida be your personal TV-guide

There are some rules when it comes to watching TV. The most important one being: All great shows air at impossible hours.

This is a rule with some modifications. Because great shows will always find their way to the masses (meaning: they will all, at some point, start to air at 9pm).

So the rule should be: Only watch shows that have been upgraded from say 11pm on a Friday evening to 9pm on a Thursday.

This is a terrific rule when you want to distinguish between all the CSI replicas out there.

You should therefore watch:

- NCIS. Navy CSI but so much more. It has personality. It has a goth. And it did not start to air at humane hours until they had killed off the first female investigator. Yes, it is true, the Mossad agent has not always been there! (Can I just say that those in charge of the Finnish television are total idiots!)

- Bones. Also a show that has strong CSI connection – but again, is so much more. It has personality. It wants to connect with the nerd inside of you. And it has also been upgraded from 12 to 9 o’clock on Saturday nights.

And finally, a show that still airs at 22.30 on regular Thursday evenings is The Closer. Also very much like CSI. But here you have a cat, a big handbag and a very feminine way of always having a bad conscience about something or another. (Although I do admit that all the episodes share the same pattern: Bad guy won’t talk, boss gets epiphany about the case from her everyday life, boss goes into the interrogation room, boss gets bad guy to confess)

AND, what do all these shows have in common?? All the investigating groups are  led by females. This might be a subconscious trigger for me…

The rule is then updated: Always watch shows that have aired at inhumane hours AND where the boss is played by a woman!

There you go – you can stop zapping.

How to make blood bread, part 2

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.

And you thought you had to go abroad to buy strange things from the supermarket!

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??

Heard on the train

(Hmm, this might not sound as funny as it would if you’d heard it yourselves.)

I was going to read some articles on my way back to Turku this Sunday, but…

Two guys + a six-pack of beer sat down in the seats next to mine and started talking with a guy seated behind me.

Drunk Guy: We’ve been drinking for four days straight now. I woke up with this cut in my head but it didn’t seem to have caused too much damage so I just thought I’d continue on.

…and yeh, these are not my shoes.

Guy seated behind me: So where are you headed now?

DG: We don’t know (laughing)

Younger Drunk Guy: Where is this train going?

G: Seinäjoki.

DG: Yeah, we got a bit bored with Vasa so we thought; should we take a taxi or a train out of here? I mean, we’ve got the money, we could go anywhere we like, why should we stay in Vasa?!

…Maybe we should go to Holland!!

…Where are you going?

G: Laihia.

DG: Yeah! Let’s go to Laihia!

YDG: No… (a bit hesitant)

DG: No, but we can go out and buy you a beer when we get there!

G: I’m going to work tomorrow, laying some asphalt.

DG: No, but you should come with us!

G: Ah, I’ve got four kids at home that I need to support. But tell you what, I could buy a beer from you right now.

DG: Yeah, let’s drink these now before the conductor comes!

(yelling) watch out you in the back! (opening the beer bottle so that the bottle top flies across the aisle)

The conductor arrives.

Conductor: Tickets…

DG: We’re going to Seinäjoki – one student and one junior ticket.

C: That will be 15 euros.

DG: Do you take Visa??

C: No, we don’t take Visa electron here.

DG: But, what the… How am I going to pay? Could I pay you when we get to Seinäjoki? I promise that I have the money!

C: No, that won’t work. Either you pay cash or I’ll give you a bill.

DG: No no, no bill! Hey (talking to the guy behind me) Can’t I borrow some money from you – I’ll pay you back I swear – I’ve got the money!

G: My boss payed for my ticket, sorry…

The conductor waits for reinforcements while the younger drunk goes to take a piss.

C2: You know you’re not allowed to drink on the train!

DG: But these bottles were open when we got here.

C2: You’ve had three beers since Vasa, don’t you think I’ve been watching you!

(I’m thinking; these guys must have some hidden cameras somewhere or that conductor is just pulling something…)

G: (Trying to be helpful) But I bought one of them!

(they are not the smartest bunch of people!)

C2: So you’re going to Seinäjoki?

DG: One student and one junior.

C2: You know it’s not allowed for minors to drink alcohol!!

*****

The younger drunk comes back from the toilet.

DG: It worked out, I’m going to leave the beer as a deposit when I go and withdraw some money.

YDG: Oh, fine. We’ll leave the beer – you could just leave me as well. I can be the deposit!

DG: OK, and then we’ll go to Tampere to take a piss!!

YDG: No, let’s take a piss in Seinäjoki. We’re in no hurry. Let’s just stay there for a while.

DG: No, we should go to Tampere, to my summer cottage.

YDG: But we’re in no hurry. You go and get the money in Seinäjoki and I go get some more beer.

DG: Yeah. And when you come back you could shout *strange nickname* and I’ll shout *an even stranger nickname* and then…

G: But weren’t you supposed to be the deposit??

…

DG: So what was it that you do?

G: I lay asphalt. But you know what, if you want to get some money you should go work at an oil rig! They are always looking for new people

YDG: Yeah, and there you don’t have to know one word of Swedish!

DG: But first we’re going to take a train from Seinäjoki. So should we go south or north?

The guy seated behind me gets a call from a friend.

DG: Hey, ask your friend where he thinks we should go!

G:…He says you should go north.

DG: OK, it’s decided, we’ll go to Oulu and when we come back we’ll take a job on an oil rig!

And I’m thinking; how come these guys aren’t already dead!