Next time I get molested on the bus…

There are many drunken Finnish men in this country. In fact, alcohol-related deaths were the leading number of deaths of Finnish men in 2005. They beat out heart attacks and composed 17.1% of males who died between the age of 15 and 64. Alcohol-related deaths made up 10.6% of female deaths. It’s a major problem, perhaps a national crisis.

Maybe this is a little morbid, but most people who die alcohol-related deaths have to drink an awful lot for an awfully long time before they die. These are the people who I’m talking about. They are magnetically attracted to me on the bus and on the train. They stumble onto the bus and inevitably right over to the empty seat next to me. They sit closer than any other Finnish demographic would deem appropriate, and then they talk to me. They not only speak loudly, but they exhale their horrific, vodka-laden breath right into my facial space bubble. It’s always men and they’re always drunk.

I don’t normally like to generalize but I will not put up with one more disgusting, drooling, perverted, drunk man sitting next to me on the bus. I’m sure there are many honorable, disgusting drunk men in this world, but they are no longer welcome to sit next to me on the bus. “This seat is now taken, and don’t mess with me because I will take your drunk ass down if you even try to sit here! One of your disgusting, drunk brothers ruined it for all of you. No more Ms. Nice Guy."

A drunk man grabbed my ass on the bus today. This particular disgusting, drunk man had me cornered as he kept asking me something in Finnish over and over with his vodka breath. I was trapped. I was publicly uncomfortable.

It was a little irritating that no one helped me in this potentially dangerous situation. No one said “oh that’s weird. Someone’s talking loudly. And that woman looks like she’s struggling. I don’t believe in letting men molest women so I’ll ask if she needs help.” I was on my own.

After what seemed like an eternity, my stop came. Thank God! I was dying to get away from this smelly, slobbery, drunk man. I dramatically pushed the “stop” button to indicate that he needed to scoot over so I could get out. The man didn’t appear to speak English. He was having trouble with Finnish as well.

As I got up to leave, he grabbed my ass! I turned around and I screamed at him. “Don’t touch me!” While it was quite noticeable on that bus, it wasn’t harsh enough. As it turns out, I’m not very quick-witted after being molested on the bus. However, I’ve never heard anyone scream on the bus before. In fact, I haven’t heard anyone scream in public anywhere in Tampere. Even though he was drunk, his jaw dropped. He gasped.

And then I realized that I had hit the stop button too early. Darn! I got off anyway and walked to my destination.

Here’s what I should have done: I should have stayed on the bus and yelled at the drunk man for the next few blocks until we got to my stop. I should have said “Don’t grab my ass. This is my ass and I don’t want you to touch it!” I should have kept yelling loudly in his face about how cowardly and perverted he was. And then I should have gotten off the bus and left him to drunkenly deal with the situation. How many women have had to put up with this man grabbing their ass? Probably a lot, and he’s probably never had to face a single one of them. I hate ass grabbers.

If you want to die an alcohol-related death, you’re in the right country to do it. Your country will provide you with food, shelter and medical care until you kick the bucket. But don’t sit next to me on the bus. Don’t talk to me, and don’t grab my ass!

Ice Skating at Night

There may be many more ice skating entries and short films to come. I'm hooked. You can see why: it's beautiful to go out and watch the sun set on the ice.Magda and Dasa tear it up. They're from the Czech and Slovak Republics (respectively). They both started ice skating shortly after learning to walk and can hold their own and their balance on skates!




Those Finns really have ice skating down to an art. There are public, heated changing rooms with a bathroom and a shower. You are welcome to use them to change into your skates or to find refuge and warm up after your little feetsies freeze. You can also get a touch of Finnish graffiti art from this photo.
It was Carnival last week. While we didn't celebrate carnival in Finland, my German neighbor teaches at a Finnish-German elementary school. He tried out his bumble-bee costume on Dasa and me before heading off to school. Holland also has a pretty serious sounding Carnival celebration that I did not know about. According to my Dutch neighbor, it's most crazy south of the River, but his village is one of the few that celebrates in the north. So it gets pretty wild there too. They wear these special jerseys that group people together by shirt color and prevent them from getting lost... or unidentified. The third neighbor in this picture is from Italy. Of course there's a big Carnival celebration there too.

Ice Skating

Nasijarvi, one of the two lakes that defines the geography of the Tampere region, is finally frozen. A tractor-like vehicle drives out and clears the snow so that we can all skate upon it. Some years they even construct a coffee shop out in the middle, but this year the coffee shop is on the side, just to be safe. It froze unseasonably late so things are a little different this year.
If you want to see some ice skating in action, check out this short video of my friend Leasa and me on the ice! Click here for ice skating video

On an unrelated but similarly cold topic, Chinese New Year was this weekend. Click here for Chinese New Year video

Frozen Snot

If you want to know how cold it’s been, I can describe the extent of the coldness to you. This is how you can experience the wintry feeling of Tampere:

First, go to the Meschke-Shin lab at the UW. Look around for the -20ºC freezer. Push aside the PCR reagents and Nalidixic Acid stock solutions. Climb right in there and close the door. After your body equilibrates to the temperature, try to imagine walking around in a place that is 10ºC colder than the -20ºC freezer.

I have clothes that are quite a bit warmer than anything I would ever wear in Seattle, so most of the time I’m pretty comfortable. Just below -20ºC, however, is when my snot freezes. No matter what I’m wearing, frozen snot creates a very uncomfortable situation. And there’s nothing I can do about it either. Shallow breaths or deep breaths, my snot is still frozen.

The coldest I’ve experienced is -32ºC (-25ºF). Most of the time it’s a much more manageable -5 and -20ºC. I just got some ice skates and I hear the skate tracks in Nasijarvi are open!

Note: Don’t try this freezer thing at home (even though your freezer is probably -20ºC). I was just kidding, but it really is that cold.

Frost Bitten

I moved off of Engineer Street. No, really. My old street was called Engineer Street. I’m sure it sounded neat to whoever chose the name, but putting all of the engineers on Engineer Street made me feel… labeled. And besides, how am I supposed to be cool if I live on Engineer Street? Now I live on Herb Street. I moved to a new flat in Lukonmaki, another suburb of Tampere. I’m quite happy here, though I sometimes still affectionately think about the death metal rocker that lived a nocturnal life in the flat above me on Engineer Street. I have friendly neighbors here, fun conversations, and even a common rec room. There’s quite a bit of opportunity for healthy human contact.

However, I got lost in the forest on the way to catch the bus the other day. I had to catch a slightly different bus because I had just moved and I needed to turn in my old key to the student housing organization. I wasn’t accustomed to this route.

Part of the problem was that I was not yet familiar with Lukonmaki. I also took a short-cut through the beautiful, snowy forest. I felt that I couldn’t go wrong… as long as I headed north. So I was walking and walking… directly north. The snow was deep but there was a good path. I passed by the ski jump place, and a few people shoveling snow out of their driveways. I thought about asking for directions, but I didn’t know the name of the street I was headed toward. I also wasn’t lost. Heading north. I came to a fork in the road. Since neither branch headed directly north; I halted for a moment. I felt like Robert Frost in the forest on this crisp, sunny (well, as soon as the sun rose, it was sunny) morning. If that’s not a good reason to take the road less traveled, I don’t know one. Needless to say, the path got smaller. The turns and counter-forks got more abundant. Just before I started to worry about being lost, I heard a car roar by. I had done it! I had found my way through the forest. I felt smart. I felt like Robert Frost.

Wait a minute. This road doesn’t look busy enough to be the one that I was looking for (that I didn't know the name of). Hey, that grocery store looks just like my grocery store… right next to what appears to be quite a bit like my new apartment building! I was… I was… I was back where I had started from. I need to remember never to listen when I tell myself to take a shortcut.

Kyykkä

Saturday were the World Kyykkä Championships. I didn't see anyone from outside of Finland but I hear they play kyykkä in other Scandinavian countries as well. From my experience on Saturday, the most important part of kyykkä seemed to be to have fun. There were over 250 teams from all over Finland, with varying degrees of skill and competitiveness. Kyykkä is a traditional Finnish sport that has become popular again in recent years, especially among college students. However, anyone who paid their entrance fee could form a team. In addition to the World Championships, you can find kyykkä tournaments within companies and between groups of friends, similar to softball in the States. There are some goofy traditions that start with drinking beer at 9:00 in the morning, and continue way beyond bribing the judges. I've heard people talk about the quality of their bribes for the judges with as much (or more) pride as they have in their kyykkä game.
All students at Finnish universities have these overalls that are worn during certain occasions. Kyykkä is one of these occasions. The color of the overalls correspond to a particular field of study. For example, environmental engineers have green overalls. My neighbor is from the Netherlands, they apparently have a similar technical student overall situation. In Holland you're only allowed to wash your overalls once per year! I don't know if that is the case in Finland.

These guys gave a high quality performance on the Kyykkä documentary below. They demonstrated the importance of drinking lots of beer while throwing things.
This is a short documentary that I made of Kyykkä Day. I interviewed a few folks and filmed the game in action. Check it out!