Monday, May 09, 2011

The past month

Finally, an update. About time. Some glimpses:

A sunday in April:

"Yesterday was a good day,
of wandering on sun-kissed city streets,
a man bicycling by, whistling a merry tune,
sun-warmed asphalt and stone walls radiating heat"

A sunday in May, very much similar as above but warmer still, about +20 C and blazing sun. Also a contrasting mood:

"In the metro, a sad sight on this brilliant day - yet, tragically, not an unusual one: two alcoholics, a man and a woman, their features degraded by years (decades?) of alcohol abuse so that they look almost identical, as if they were twins. Ages: impossible to guess. The woman drones on and on about a horse - I get the vague idea that it may be a childhood memory - her words intercepted with frequent expletives."

Quite enjoyable recent developments: my brother and sister-in-law encouraged me to join the list of assistant writers for the University of Helsinki magazine. The people in this list can sign up for journalistic "gigs" - go listen to a seminar or whatever the task might be and write a short news item (of c. 1500 characters) for the magazine. I had my first gig a week ago and enjoyed the experience a lot. My brother gave me a frank review, and it was fun to learn the difference between academic writing and the style of writing required in a publication which popularized science. I've got the next gig this coming week already. Very much looking forward to it! Not only is this enjoyable but it also gives CV merits in freelance writing which I aspire to have. 

Starting from next week I'm going to be otherwise busy, however, as I'm beginning the summer university computer science studies which I plan to complete by the end of this summer.

More upsetting news in the country: the rightwing, "immigration-critical" (that's what they call themselves) populist party PS (True Finns) became the third largest party in April's parliamentary elections, with 19% of the votes. This means they will definitely get in the government. Worst of all, their worst racist was appointed head of the parliamentary committee in charge of immigration issues. This guy has opinions like: an individual's human value should depend on how instrumental he/she is to the society. That's practically fascism. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the news. The only good side in this situation is that the PS don't really have a consistent programme: very typically for populist parties they just promise whatever people want to hear. It's easy to shout out things in the opposition but being in the government is a much more difficult deal.

Ok, a part of the fault lies in the traditional parties' failure to deliver, but I still can't believe 19% of Finns are moronic enough to vote for PS. Not EVERYONE of the party's representatives is a raving racist but a great percentage of the supporters definitely is. And it's another thing I can't believe: why is it so easy to get people to blame the easy targets for their problems? Unemployment? Temp jobs? Economic uncertainty? It MUST be the fault of all those immigrants who come here and steal our jobs!