Oct 30, 2008

Declaration of Intent

Today I'm taking my first step in quitting smoking. I've said this half-heartedly many times before (including once ceremonially throwing the last cigarette and my lighter into the trash) and none of those efforts lasted very long so this time I'm declaring it to the world. I don't spend all that much money on it (about 20€ a month - about what I get in tips on a good night, or the same as 4 pints of beer) and it doesn't consume my life. On a heavy day I might get through 10 or 12, and it never stops me from doing anything. I never feel the urge to sneak out of the cinema half way to have one. I can get on a long bus ride and not go crazy while I'm inside it. It's just a habit which I don't really need and, while it's not killing me (at least not yet), I remember I used to live quiet happily before I started when I was 21. M has skin problems which she thinks are linked to it so she's trying to slow down too. The final contributing factor is that I forgot my lighter at home this morning and I'm taking that as a sign. I'm not going cold turkey right away and it'll be a gradual process but I want to be smoke free (or at least reduced) by the end of the year.

The problem being that I'm not completely hooked on them and if I can get rid of the habit smokes (e.g. the "getting off the metro" cigarette, the "getting out of work" cigarette and the "waiting for the tram/bus and 10 minutes with nothing to do" cigarette) then I do enjoy having one from time to time. However I've decided to launch this challenge and we'll see how it goes. The main problems I have identified will be that

1) I've just bought a packet of tobacco so I'll probably be getting through that

2) These post-metro, post-work and pre-bus/tram cigs have become such a habit that I sometimes find myself lighting up without even thinking about it

3) The trip to the Balkans will be an enormous test of resolve given that, over there, people probably breathe larger quantities of cigarette smoke than they do of oxygen

4) There really isn't all that much else to do here.

The smoking ban probably helps although since everyone goes outside now you have to machete your way through a cloud of smoke to actually get into any bars. And then there is, of course, the with-beer cigarette which will be a tough one to give up. On the positive side :

1) It'll soon be so cold here that holding a cigarette with oversized gloves will be quite difficult

2) There will be absolutely no motivation to go and smoke on the balcony in -30 degrees

3) My fingers will be too cold to roll them

One little bone I have to pick with the smoking ban though, although it helps me in my task - why do they have to apply it everywhere ? Some places just HAVE to be smoky atmospheres. The bar I used to go to on Friday nights at school was what it was partly because the inside was so misty, and a few days ago I went to a pool hall which felt quite frankly sterile without any cigarette smoke. Even before I started, I recognised the contribution of smoke to the atmosphere of a pool hall and things just aren't the same without it.

Watch this space.

Oct 24, 2008

Talvi tulee

If I haven't written much recently that is because (as usual) nothing much has happened. Helsinki had degenerated into a closer-to-winter state. It's darker every day when I leave for work, and it's darker every day when I leave to go home. If it wasn't for fag breaks I'd never see full daylight. Yesterday was M's birthday so we went to Manhattan Steak House (I mention the name in case anyone was thinking of going there to have spare ribs - don't bother). I went to the States 10 years ago but if there's one thing that stands out in my mind there it's that, if you go to a restaurant, they make sure that you'll roll out rather than walking. The Americans haven't got absolutely everything right in life but feeding people is certainly something they do very well, and Europe could do well to follow suit. It might even get me eating out a bit more.

This weekend saw the delights of Finland combine to screw things up somewhat. I'd got M a skydive for her birthday, which was promptly cancelled because of crap weather. The restaurant was quite an experience - on the walk there I'd decided that I wasn't expecting much conversation from the others and when I got there and saw I was up the end of the table this suspicion was strengthened. M's friends, I'm assured, have nothing against me and I do like to integrate into the culture I'm in and accept that things are how they are. However when only one of the 7 says hello to me and the same is the only one who says goodbye at the end of it and that only 2 others actually say a word to me at all, I'm struggling to keep myself from thinking that I could have evaporated at some point during the meal and no one would have noticed or really been bothered. There are some things that I'm going to miss when I leave Finland but the social scene and the weather are not among them.

Winter brings with it the threat of illness, of course, and this is something that Finns are very well prepared for. I don't think I've ever come across any nation of people who have so many drugs in their closets or know so much about what every single medicine does - it's a wonder there are any doctors at all in Finland when everyone knows exactly what kind of medical complaint they have, and probably have the cure at home somewhere. When I arrived here, I realised that I had a bad reaction to mosquitos and I was actually given a choice of two antihistamines and asked which one I preferred. People ritually take painkillers whenever they wake up hungover here, of strengths which no one else would even consider touching. When I had mononucleosis, I took 400mg pills to handle the infection and the huge angina that came with it. People swallow 800mg here after too much beer the night before. I'm actually scared of sneezing on the streets here in case I spark of a stampede of people running to offer me part of the first aid kits which they lump around with them in case of a major medical emergency - coughing, having an itch, being splashed by a passing car and so on. With my ex (who I was with for a year and a half or so) I had about 5 MAJOR cancer scares ! It must be horrible to live in a way where you're constantly on death's doorstep but, just like the weather and the difficulties experienced with communication, the Finns have adapted. This combined with their dramatic intake of coffee makes me wonder what the people in this country would be like without any medicines/stimulants (lactose-free of course)/vitamin supplements or anything. I'd imagine they'd all be dead or, alternatively, normal.

Oct 7, 2008

Autumn thoughts

Autumn has arrived in Helsinki. This is usually characterised by one of many things.

Firstly, the leaves all turn various shades of brown, which is admittedly quite nice and I would probably enjoy it if it didn't signal the imminent arrival of 6 months of freezing my butt off. The Finns have a word, "ruska", which means the brown colour that leaves take on in the autumn. The Finns are well known for being close to nature and, even if it's being lost now as people are staying in the city to pursue activities such as working and going to the pub, there are still many times of year where Helsinki empties out completely and is strangely quiet as everyone disappears off to their cabins in the forest. While I've been here I've done many nature-related things that I haven't done anywhere else - going out looking for flying squirrels, cross-country skiing in the woods, shooting fish with harpoons, and a few weeks back a work trip was organised to a national park to go hiking around the forest in this newly found brown colour. In a bid to discover if the Finns just are close enough to nature to have a word that means "the brown colour that leaves take on in the autumn", I went onto Wikipedia to see what it translates as - the only other languages with one word for this seemed to be Afrikaans (Herfskleure) and Japanese (紅葉). Visually, it's quite a nice time of year. The immense amount of leaves on the ground, though, cause havoc to the half-asleep early morning commuter such as myself due to another factor of this season.

That second factor is the wind, which for some reason arrives in enormous amounts around this time of year. Many Finns in fact have taken holidays to the Caribbean given that they find the lashings of Hurricane Ike et al. quite peaceful compared to the battering they would get walking down a street in Helsinki. Heavy winds plus lots of leaves results in you getting assaulted by various pieces of foliage on your way to work especially if you work in a tree-filled area like I do. Although it's annoying (and let's face it, what isn't at that time of morning ?), it's quite good for waking you up. Another positive aspect of the wind coming at high speeds at this time of year is as a result of the average Finn starting to don headgear due to the dropping temperatures. It's not cold enough for the heavy duty woolly hats of winter but the citizen of Helsinki still likes to protect his head from the cooler air and the baseball cap appears to be the item of choice at the moment. This, of course, leads to crowds of young men running around desperately chasing caps which the wind is carrying off, which is clearly quite amusing. I've noticed that the "wind blowing cap off head routine" usually follows a very rigid pattern.

1) Cap blows off from head
2) Ex-cap wearer notices this but for some reason pats his head anyway, just to verify that it is, in fact, gone
3) Ex-cap wearer looks startled
4) Ex-cap wearer turns around many more times than is necessary in a desperate attempt to locate the cap before it has been blown half way to Turku
5) Ex-cap wearer runs towards the cap and tries to pick it up just as it is blown away by another gust of wind
6) Repeat ad nauseam
7) Ex-cap wearer eventually gets pissed off and jumps onto the cap, having to then brush it off but being thankful to be reunited with it nonetheless.

It's one of those things that shouldn't really be very interesting but it breaks the monotony of everyday life and I'll generally stop to have a good look.

It's probably the fact of finding this entertaining (as well as realising that all I do is work, wash up, do laundry, cook, eat and sit around waiting for something to happen) which make me wonder how people can survive as office monkeys for 40 years before retiring to a beach somewhere to soak up the rays before they die. It's nice to have a couple of jobs and get some money coming in but it's not very fulfilling is it ? More fulfilling than watching Big Brother or Pop Idol, admittedly, but still not immensely so. For once, I'm not going to blame Finland for this - I'd imagine workers the world over have the same syndrome but I suppose most people are also content enough with it to stay in the hamster wheel. M and I are off to the Balkans in December so hopefully I can rekindle the excitement in life a little. Until then, I'll keep working, washing up, eating and watching peoples' caps blow off.

In another bid to spice up life a little, I've recently discovered the Darwin Awards website, which honours people who died in quite frankly ridiculous ways. It's worth a little look, if only to feel slightly better about yourself after reading about the Chinese woman who died after climbing into a volcano to get better pictures, the Italian who perished while trying to protect his car by placing himself between it and an express train, the Polish man who tried to prove his manliness by removing his head with a chainsaw, or the German who allowed himself to be shot dead by his own dog. It's riveting stuff and can be found at www.darwinawards.com/darwin.

Have a good autumn !