Final Week

Sorry for not posting last week. Got back from Rome and next morning it was right back to classes. This week is my last week in Finland. I am both sad that my time here is ending, but also relieved. Finland weather is not for me. I could deal with the cold and the rain and the clouds, but not the sun setting so early. My vacation in Rome was the perfect way for me to see the sun and enable me to push ahead with this last bit of school.

Speaking of Rome, I have a LOT of pictures. My internet is slow, however. So what I'll put here are just some of my favorite pictures. Over the Christmas break I may put some more pictures up but I may not update my blog at all. I plan to come back to it in January when I go to Manchester for sure, but over the holiday my posting will be pretty inconsistent. For now, here are my pictures from Rome :D


Day 1

Very first place I went to in Rome, was the library! Just wanted to see what it was like. I only got a picture from the outside because to walk in and see anything I had to sign paperwork to be let in, and that was more effort than it was worth >.<

My next stop was the zoo. I walked through a beautiful park area to get there.

A fountain from the park.

 

In the park I found this, the national art gallery of Rome. I wasn't in a hurry so I stopped and went it. I ended up spending about 3 hours here. Lots of gorgeous statues and paintings and soem interesting exhibits :)

After the art gallery it was getting kinda late so I had to hurry to the zoo. I took a few pictures at the zoo, but my camera died halfway through so this is the best photo I got at the zoo. I had my I-pad with me though so I spent my time drawing the animals (mostly the lions) which was a lot of fun. I will be taking my I-pad to zoos everytime now to draw with!

 

 

Day 2

 

 

I went to the Colosseum! And you really notice in this picture that Rome has sun. I have a new found love for the sun. The Colosseum was so cool. I have more pictures but these next two are the unique ones  ;)

There was this adorabel kitty in the colosseum! So cute!

After it got bored with the column, it walked over to this bench. A woman had been sitting here but she jumped up and ran away from the cat (turns out she's got some severe allergies) and the cat happily took her spot. The guy the woman had been talking to thought it was the funniest thing ever.

 

I bought my Rome souvenir here, a small sleeping cat figurine and a pedestal for it to sleep on :D

 

 

After the Colosseum I went to see a bunch of ruins that were nearby. Impressive stuff.

 

The Stadium. According to the informational signs the name for this is misleading. This was used as a garden/art gallery. The rich would walk around down there viewing the garden and sculptures and talking to each other. No sports at this stadium.

 

More ruins. I really liked this area. Spent some time drawing here.

 

The Trevi Fountain! I spent a long time here drawing. I think is a really fantastic fountain. There were lots of people here, but I just found a place to sit and just enjoyed looking at it.

I can't even remember how many times I got lost trying to find the Pantheon. Eventually an Italian woman stopped me to borrow my map. I told her I was looking for the Pantheon and it was on her way so she lead me there herself. Then took me through the Pantheon with commentary about the building and arcitecture. That was fun :) 

At the end of the day I went to a wax museum since it was on my way home. Some of the people looked believable, some didn't. This one was Picasso.

 

 

Day 3

 

I went to the Vatican! I just walked around in the main big area here. I didn't pay to go back to the museum area so I didn't actually see the Sistine Chapel. Next time maybe.

 

After the Vatican I found this castle, Castel Sant'Angelo. I love castles. Afterwards I picked up my luggage from my hotel and found Jess and Todd! I didn't take many pictures after that because I was spending time with them :)

This was the last picture I took in Rome. All bookstores should look like this one. It looks cozy, is filled with books, and has a book reference right there in the title. I didn't go in since I can't read Italian, but once I learn I'll go back here ;)

 

Week 10

The days are getting very short now. It really messes with my head. Once the sun starts setting I start thinking, okay time to eat dinner and go to bed...but its 3 in the afternoon. I spend about half the day then feeling tired, ready to sleep....I will not miss this part of Finland.

I went to Finland this weekend with three of my classmates and we had a lot of fun. Our plan was to go see the northern lights but it was too cloudy so we didn't see anything :( That was disappointing, but we did get to see reindeer, snow, foxes, Santa's Village, and a museum so it was still a good trip. Here are some photos!

Arrival in Rovaneimi. We took the night train Friday night and arrived Saturday morning at 8 AM.

They had some interesting reindeer sculpture stuff in the city, I liked this one.

 

Nothing is open in Rovaneimi on Saturday morning. Not until around 9 or 10 at least. We spent the first hour wandering around, looking for somewhere to grab breakfast while we waited for the car rental place to open. We finally found McDonalds!

Rovaneimi's McDonalds is, according to their poster, the northern most golden arches. I guess now I have to go to McDonalds in Antarctica. Took this picture of the trash cans because kiitos is one of the few Finnish words I have learned, probably because it's short. It means thank you!

 

We rented a car and drove out to Ivalo, way up north. The area is beautiful, but it got dark so quickly! By 4 pm it was so dark that even with flash my camera's pictures are pitch black.

On our way to Ivalo we saw a herd of reindeer, right beside the road! We of course stopped to take pictures.

 

This is another herd we saw later. We saw several herds along out trip. It was a six hour drive both ways so we had plenty of opportunity. At night we saw two foxes cross the road but they were way too fast to get a picture of them.

 

 

Sunday we went to Santa's Village. The ground was all iced over because the snow was melting that day. They have reindeer, but only Mon-Fri, and they have huskies that you can watch pull a sleigh, but not that day because there wasn't enough snow anymore. We had terrible timing.

Here's the museum we went to. It had some interesting exhibits. There was a short, 5 min simulation of the northern lights that we watched. The closest we came on our trip.

 

A real Finnish reindeer :D We walked around this area that had a wall of graffiti; some of the artists were talented. Some were not.

Wednesday I leave for Rome! I'll share some pictures of that whenever I get back.

 

Week 9 - Welcome to November

I don't have a single new picture for you guys this week. I was busy with classes and I had cold so when I wasn't in class I was at home in bed. Tuesday night I came straight home from school and slept 13 hours straight until I had to get up for my next class. I did feel better after that :)

Since I don't have pictures I guess this week I will talk a bit about what I am actually doing in class. Last two weeks I have been working on my 30 minute script, writing 2 drafts of it as well as treatments for my feature film. The treatment is a summary of my story, for class it was 1-2 pages.

My 30 minute script is called Level Up, its about a ten year old boy named Cody who wants to play his video games but needs to learn to take care of his younger brother Tobias (age 4). I had gotten bored with my story back in the treatment stage so I haven't been super enthusiastic while writing these drafts. This has just been work. I came up with the idea originally so that I would have something that is set in the real world but I get bored easily with the real world. In talking about my drafts of the script with my classmates and teachers I have gotten a little more interested in my story, but I'll be glad when I'm done with this one. My final draft is due Nov. 11^th.

My feedback for this script is mostly that I tend to have the children speak like adults and that the tension in the story plateaus about halfway through, both of which I can agree with. One of the teachers really liked my script and saw it as being a sorta dark commentary that yes, Cody helps his brother but nothing is solved so the message is that Tobias will always be in danger. I think my script would be much more interesting with the dark tone that this teacher sees, but I have a hard time seeing it myself so its difficult to write this last draft to reflect it. We'll see what happens.

My feature film is currently titled Golden Years of a Dragon. Feature film means movie length so an hour and half to two hours, somewhere around there. I see this as being an animated family film. It's about an elderly dragon named Ed who wants to be an admired dragon with heaps of gold but needs to realize that there is more to life than gold. Now that I've written several version of summary treatment my next step with this is to write a scene-by-scene breakdown of everything that I know is going to happen in the movie. This is due Nov. 20^th. I haven't started this yet, but I'll have to get it done way before the deadline since I'm going to Rome right before its due and I don't want to think about homework while I'm there. I am much more excited about this story and I think I will actually enjoy figuring out what I want to happen scene by scene. I would never have thought about breaking it down before writing but I am sure this will be really helpful for when I do start writing the actual script. When will I be doing that? I'll be writing the first Act (first quarter of the film) over Christmas break. I think it'll be fun.

Other than these two assignments, over the next two weeks I am also going to be writing a two-page review of what I’ve thought of my classes up to this point (due Nov. 13^th) and I am doing a breakdown of the movie Nightmare Before Christmas with two of my classmates which we will present to the class on Nov. 21^st. My group is just about done with the paperwork part of our presentation so at least this assignment is nearly complete. It’s everything else that still need work.

Don’t worry, it sounds like a lot but over the next two weeks it’s not all work. As I mentioned I will be taking a trip to Rome as well as a weekend in Lapland to see the northern lights and hopefully some reindeer. Hopefully next Monday I will have some Lapland pictures to share with you!

Week 8

Whew, another week of classes, a very exhausting week. Learned a bunch of stuff and wrote a whole lotta stuff. I'm currently working on a thirty minute script, I've turned in the second draft so only one draft to go. Also working on the treatment - basic story plot - for my first feature film script. I'm a lot more excited about my feature film than my 30 minute script. I'm ready for that one to be done.

Besides school I've also stayed busy doing fun stuff this week. Last Sunday night, the 21st, I went an saw an elvis impersonater. He was okay but not great. We went to a bar called Stag's Head to see the performance which had a different atmosphere from the other bars we've gone to. This one was pretty quiet when we first entered. There were a lot more of the older Finnish generation here rather than the loud college crowd that have been at most of the bars.

Monday I went wandering around the city with some of my classmates. It was a rare sunny day in Tampere and really nice.

We went to an observation tower and this was our view just walking to the tower.

The tower itself.

 

The view from the tower.

 

Saw this cool statue while we were walking around.

We also visited this little market. It was so cute. Reminded me of the markets I went to in Indie with Jess.

The fountains are all closed down now. Most of them get this nice glass covering, I don't know why the otter fountain got an ugly metal box...

Thursday night it snowed! Yay! This is the view from my doorway.

Me, waiting at the bus stop in the snow. The number 3 bus is the closest to my house but since it only runs twice in an hour sometimes I walk 10 minutes to get to the main street and take other buses. It's a lot nicer to just take the number 3 though.

For the last week or so they've been putting up these lights along the street. Here is Moomin with a package for someone :)

Sunday, the 28th - which was also their daylight savings - they had a little ceremony with a fire show and fireworks and they turned on the lights.

Lights in front of Finlayson. We wandered around on the streets but the Moomin light wasn't turned on for some reason but everything else was. Poor Moomin.

That's all I've got for this week. I've got another week of hard work and classes ahead of me. Besides class work I need to figure out the details for my Januaray stuff, traveling to Manchester, housing in Manchester, whether or not I'm buying a visa....fun times.

Week 7

I have a new washer!

The metal part inside is what stopped spinning on my old washer. I'll be sure to close it up every time from now on.

I've got all these buttons on it and no manual. The guy who installed it said to just set it at 40 and it'll be fine. I thought, okay, cold wash no problem. It wasn't until I pulled out a shrunken shirt of my first load that I realized that it was probably 40 degrees Celsius...not so cold then.

Got to wash my sheets so here is the second set I bought......

So this week I went to the theaters to see Looper, the new Bruce Willis movie with the whole time travel thing. I thought it was pretty good. Time travel always makes for a complicated plot but they did pretty well with it. I'd go see it again :)

Other than that I have been doing a lot of writing this week and haven't left the house too much. I went to see an improve comedy routine with one of my friends. I was kinda skeptical going in but they were actually really good and I had a great time.

That has been my amazing week. I thought I'd give you a look into my kitchen for those curious about what I'm eating. At home I'm eating sandwiches, pasta, or fish generally. Here are some pics.

My fridge stocked with soda, juice, hot sauce, premade pasta, and the ingredients for sandwiches.

 

My freezer. I have fish in the lower drawer and ice cream in the upper drawer. When I bought the ice cream I thought I was buying cake. It says "mud cake" on it. I thought that meant a particular kind of chocolate cake but apparently that is a flavor of ice cream. It has marshmallows in it like rocky road so I like it. It has lasted me for a few weeks of dessert :)

I can never figure out the cheese flavors when I'm at the grocery story, this is the latest one I got. A Danish cheese made in Finland if I remember correctly.

I could not find just plain mayo so I'm having it with a chilli flavor :) I've never had flavored mayo before but its pretty good.

Yeah, it never lasts long. Salsa just goes with everything!

 

I like this flavor. They have Lays chips too, but trying different potato chip brands is about as adventurous as I get.

 

Mmmm, my delicious sandwich, with Sprite! I bought a tomato that day to do something different. I don't buy vegetables unless you count the potato chips. I like vegetables, but they require more effort to prepare than pasta or frozen fish. I buy fruits, like plums, kiwis, or peaches to eat for breakfast when I have class that day.

After eating, I wash up my dishes by hand and they drip dry in my cabinets above the sink. It's a pretty handy set up.

Alternative view of the drying racks....

And for a final picture, these are my cooking tools. I fry the fish in the skillet, also make quesadillas with it. The pot is for my pasta and I used it once for rice but that made more than one meal's worth so I don't make it a lot. Then of course the handy-dandy microwave! When in doubt, nuke it.