Suck it up and keep going

Finns are a straightforward nation. We mean what we say, we do the work assigned without hassle.

We’re not keen on admitting to our weaknesses, the general rule is to suck it up and keep going.

I, however, came out recently with my fear of flying. An affliction I only recently developed after a few landings didn’t go as planned. A most inconvenient thing considering I fly at least twice a month.

I did the Finnish thing for a few months and tried to suck it up. Didn’t work.

So I decided to seek help so I could just get over it. I went to see a psychologist. Mature and responsible, but it didn’t quite have the desired effect.

After discussing the issue, the psychologist deemed that we need to change my negative thought patterns into positive ones. Fair enough. But then we got to the “tools” which is I should employ and the pragmatic Finn in me cringed.

I should think of my fear of flying as something I’ve packed in my suitcase and just vision unpacking it before I board the flight.

We also discussed the possibility of me visioning the worst case scenario and I’d just distance myself from it. We came to the conclusion that me picturing a plane crash might, however, not be the best way to go about it.

In conclusion I should just think positive and imagine any negative thoughts as clouds that will just float away in the sky.

“And just out of frame is the thought that I’ll have another aborted landing and this time they can’t fix the technical fault. Just look at it floating away…”

By the end of the session I felt a lot more sane. I’m not that far gone that I’d succumb to thinking about clouds and boogeymen I’ve packed with me…

So keep sucking it up and dealing with it and all will be well. Sedatives also help.

Blogs about Finland

I get a lot of comments from people who want to read about Finland and what it’s really like. And in the true Finnish public service spirit, I now provide you a list of good blogs about Finland I’ve come across.

Life in Finland

The blog describes itself as “Originally started as observations about various curiosities about living in Finland in comparison to my native Canada (northern Ontario), Life in Finland touches on the humourous, the political, the maddening, the strange and so on. I hope to bring you interesting tidbits on life in Finland. It’s always a learning process and it’s been fun let me tell you.”

She must have had a few choice words for me for having already taken her blog’s url. But it’s a vicious cycle, somebody had reserved Way Up North before I got around to starting this blog…

A French girl in Finland

The blog is rather aptly named and aims to share the author’s personal experience as a foreigner living in Finland. It’s written in both English and French.

Finnish from Afar

The author doesn’t live in Finland but has some weird fascination with the language and the country…

So happy reading!

Finnish (misplaced) optimism

I admit, I thought our nation was a bunch of terminally pessimistic people with a tendency to always overlook the bright side of things.

But this week has proven me wrong and it was the weather that brought about this change.

Thermal spring has finally arrived. That’s right, the time of year when temperature no longer drops below zero. Thermal spring is an actual term we use because we love our precision and the temperature is a delightfully accurate way of measuring it.

So the whole country is overjoyed now that spring is finally here.

But let’s put this into perspective: currently it’s about 3 degrees outside. During the night it will be about 0 or 1 degrees. Some of the snow has melted but there’s still plenty of it. It will still be months before you can go out without wearing your coat.

Rain, toasty warm 3 degrees and snow still everywhere. What about this doesn’t scream spring?

Despite all this everyone is exuberant. Spring is here!

Walking

Us Finns, we’re all country people at heart. And we’re built like country folk. So more often than not, we rely on our own two feet to get us from place A to B.

Not everybody would walk from Hanko to Nuorgam but if a Finn a says “It’s just a short walk from here” – be prepared.

I was in Doha a few weeks back with a Finnish friend. Our local friends drove us everywhere, often you didn’t even need to walk from the parking lot since there was valet parking everywhere.

But one day we decided to walk by ourselves the short distance from our hotel to a cafe. Already at the reception we had to lie to the reception desk who worriedly enquired whether we had a ride. Once on the street we realised the seemingly short distance was made slightly more challenging by the absence of sidewalks and pedestrian crossings. The quizzing looks we got on our way was explained by the simple fact that nobody walks anywhere in Qatar.

These shoes were made for walking. And the feet as well.

A short walk to a Finn is also very different than what it is an Italian. A 30-minute walk for a Finn already means a considerable distance as we move… briskly.

My former Italian colleague explained the difference perfectly: Mediterranean people are used to a more leisurely pace as it’s always hot there whereas Finns are always eager to get out of the cold.

My own family is the perfect example. A relative of mine was told by the doctor to avoid any strenuous exercise. She then walked to town, and had a short stroll in the afternoon, covering close to 10km. But walking doesn’t count, does it?

My grandma goes against the grain though. She’s been instructed to exercise half an hour every day. So she went for a 30-minute walk. She’d already been (cross-country) skiing for a few hours but surely that doesn’t count?

Still world’s best at self-validation

Finns have a small inferiority complex over our place in the world. We’re small, there’s not a lot of us and we’re stuck in northern Europe, next to that bloody successful Sweden and infamous Russia.

As a result, whenever Finland does well in an international study or gets a mention in foreign press it’s national news.

We might sometimes forget how awesome we are but thankfully our public broadcaster, YLE, has provided us with a list of all the charts we topped last year (the article is in Finnish). We still have the world’s best education system, we have great research and our bottle recycling system is practically genius.

I’ve actually already written about this topic before but just thought we needed a reminder. We wouldn’t want other countries to miss how great we are. Or the fact that we exist.

Mating rituals

Seeing as I’ve now somewhat come into terms (not really though) with the fact I’ll make Finland my country of residence permanently, I’ve also resigned to the fact I’ll probably need to snatch myself a Finnish guy (still, highly unlikely).

But how does one do it?

From all of my posts, it should be pretty apparent what I think of our social skills. If talking to strangers is seen as weird, there’s no small talk and your personal space is the size of a hockey field, how do we flirt or show interest?

Suffice to say internet dating is very successful in Finland.

But I for one don’t want to go down that route. I’ll do it the traditional way. I’ll scour through my entire social circle, pin down a candidate and do some prep work. No matter what’s your preferred method, it will always come down to two of you getting drunk.

A budding romance in the making?

Alcohol works as a social lubricant. Without it we’re awkward, self-doubting and too critical.

I don’t think I could name a couple I know whose relationship hasn’t somehow involved getting drunk. Obviously it won’t be the story you tell your grandkids or even your friends, but we all know the truth.

People who don’t drink can bond over the fact they don’t so it’s still there.

A Finnish friend of mine read a book on how to marry a Finnish girl. Apparently the author’s advice is to get drunk. That’s the gist of it. And I agree.

In its simplicity it’s quite beautiful. Get intoxicated, find a partner et voilá!

The real problem for me lies in finding a guy. For whatever reason, I’ve never quite figured where all the men in Finland are. They all just suddenly turn up as my friends’ boyfriends.

Languages

Finns take it to extremes with languages and the number of languages we speak is generally met in awe anywhere in the anglosphere.

Let me start off by recounting the languages I’ve studied in my life:

I started English in third grade. German I started in fifth grade, then came Swedish at seventh and French at eighth. At high school I stayed with an Italian family on a school trip, they only spoke Italian. So I learnt the basics of Italian. At university I dabbled in Spanish. And after graduation I figured it would be useful to learn at least the alphabets in Russian. All in all, I’ve studied seven foreign languages.

Mind you, I’m only fluent in Finnish and English.

Now anywhere else in the world I’d be dubbed as a language genius (by myself mostly) but in Finland it’s a fairly normal occurrence. Most Finns will start English as their first foreign language (about 90% according to SUKOL) in third grade. Then comes the obligatory Swedish with Finland being a bilingual country and all.

Just leave the birds alone.

With already two foreign languages in the bag, it’s easy to add a few more. According to the Teacher’s Union in Finland, about 49% of high school students studied at least three foreign languages.

Now to most this seems rather excessive unless you plan a career in the diplomatic service. But when you think about, you’ll realise that our mother tongue is Finnish. And who speaks Finnish? Yep, only Finns. So if we ever want to venture outside our borders, we’ll need to learn another language. We haven’t got any convenient ex-colonies that we’ve converted to the niceties of the Finnish language.

And after Finnish, all the other languages seem so easy. I laugh at the mere mention of English grammar.

Having studied the language does not, however, mean that you speak the language. Because speaking would require verbal communications which does not come naturally to us.

That said, I can order a beer in at least those seven languages. And surely that counts for something?