On training and dieting

My latest "mania" when it comes to training is proteins. The fact that you need to eat more protein if you train actively is nothing new to me, but lately I've started to actually keep track of my protein intake. I don't count calories, just how many grams of protein I eat every day. I don't eat any less than before, and want to point out that this is not about weight loss - I don't need to lose weight (rather the opposite!). On the other hand, even following your eating habits tends to make you change how you eat, and so I have obviously been loading in more protein than before. I've been doing this for a week now, and found it quite interesting. Also, I've learned new things too, one of the nicest being the probably simplest recipe for protein/banana pancakes to eat after training! But now, after a week of it, I feel a bit weak - not sure whether it's the diet or something else. Maybe it's just a question of getting used to it.

Last night, when I went out for my regular jog in the park, I had a quite unpleasant experience. The jogging itself felt good, but after only 1 1/2 laps in the trails, I encountered this... strange..? guy at the bars. First he just paced the bars while looking at me - never starting to train on them - and then just hung himself from the lower one, rocking back and forth like a money while staring straight at me (I was running past). This might all sound like me being paranoid, but I just got seriously bad vibes from him. I jogged past, trying to just relax and not "do" anything or pretend to react, and when I had past him with about 10 metres,... ...the lights went off. This was when I got scared. At that point I just tried to mantra "IamablackbeltIamablackbeltIamablackbelt..." and then left the trail at the first chance to do that. Jogged home under the streetlights instead. What I don't get is: Why turn off the lights in the at 22.30 in the evening? This is when it's just got dark enough for them to actually be needed. The streetlights were obviously still on. Why not the lights in the park, too? Are you not supposed to jog that late? Or is it to keep people out of the park at nighttime? If it is to save energy, couldn't one hour oor so be saved in the early evening instead, by turning them on later?

Also, I do realise that this guy was probably no real danger, but it still felt very uncomfortable. And guys: If you feel like flirting, the jogging trails by nighttime might not be your greatest pick of a place for it...

Aura river photographic expedition

One thing you can chose to do (for free!) if you, as I actually complained about in the last post, have too much time off, is to go on your own photographic expedition. I decided to do this yesterday, and  went for a long walk with the simple plan of snapping pictures of anything nice or interesting that comes my way. As a route I chose to go along the Aura river, on both sides. I had planned for this to be an early-morning walk, but lost track of time and found myself out walking in the blazing mid-day sunshine in close to 30 degrees heat. It was still fun - nice to walk around acting like a tourist in your own town!

Posted some of the photos on google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/107842808026424646494/posts

(Quite often I've posted pics here on the blog and the a link here on my google page but I'll just do it the other way around this time)

Medieval market 2013

End of last week, it was the annual Medeval Turku happening and, once again, I just had to visit  the "medieval market". Took a whole bunch of pictures, here are some of them.

soap

Turku painters' guild

fish "since 1350"

icons

insanity certificates

Late Knitn'tag photos

A bit late, but here are some of my photos from the "Knit n' tag" exhibition of knitted graffiti along the river Aura. I love the idea! And the artwork ads a bit of fun and change to a space we are very used to. I walk here almost every day, to and from uni. The works are made both by individual artists and different organisations, as part of the Turku Design Week project.

A tree-hugger! Unfortunately, you can't see her arms in this picture)

On being effective, and sleeping

This week I've been just about as effective as I should be. As in, all of the time. Had I always worked like this, I would have a degree by now. Or two. I would love to be able to keep going like this, to get stuff done, sometimes even finish things on time (OK. I'm not in control of everything. For example, I can't even remember the last time I cleaned my flat... It's messy on a post-apocalyptic level. I've offered that, for now.) But I've learned that this will not work long term. The problem is that if I force myself to keep it up, I burn out. Why? How come "everyone else" are able to get things done on time? Somehow it seems I have to push myself to the absolute limit to get anything done at all. I wonder if that's where the problem really lies.

Completely unrelated to this, I've now learned that that have caught the sneaking guy I wrote about last summer. I was very relieved to hear this, while also a bit creeped out to learn of his earlier "history". This guy has a history. However, he's been in custody since December, and last night I went to sleep without having fastened the door chain - just wanted to see if I was up to it. (And I was! I slept like a baby!) This was the first time since last summer that I didn't secure the door before going to bed. I still keep my bo staff close to my bed. Just in case.

Listening to: Depeche Mode, Nine Inch nails

Tuesday is the new Monday

I've crashed right back into reality after having been spoiled rotten for days. I think I mentioned earlier that I would have a friend visit me last week? Well, it was all very nice, I've enjoyed dinners, movies, visit to the art museum as well as pub or five, and I didn't have to wash any dishes for days! It's been very boring to return to reality and sit myself down in front of the computer again. On the other hand I am, as also mentioned earlier, a great procrastinator! Tonight, whilst sending emails, I've also done things as important as updating my twitter profile as well as stumbleupon account, and posting the same funny pic on both google+ and facebook...

Oh, and speaking about movies I will now give you one of my so far very rare movie recommendations: Moonrise Kingdom! I'm not going to write any deep descriptions or summaries on the plot, but just let you know that it was a lovely movie that made me very happy, and quite possibly also one of the best I've seen this year. Also: Wes Anderson.

And what might the odds be of me getting anything "important" done any more tonight? Oh well, it's quite late anyway. I'll get myself some sleep and try again tomorrow. Good night!

Creepy

For a while now, there's been rumors going on here in Turku about a... well, the closest word i can      think of right now would be calling him a peeping tom, only it seems this guy actually gets himself  into peoples homes - by his own key, it seems. This is of course very creepy but I hadn't thought too much about it, until this morning.

Because this morning I met one of the facility caretakers as she was hanging an announcement about the guy having been seen in our building. She recommended that I start using my safety lock. Okay, so this guy doesn't really "do" anything, he doesn't steal or threaten people or act violently, but he has some kind of bizarre need to get in to the homes of others, preferably in the middle of the night. Which really creeps the fuck out of you, doesn't it? He's been reported to the police several times but they haven't been able to catch him so far, and as he shows up in the night it's been hard for people to give any good descriptions of him, so these have been quite varying.

I can't tell if I'm more relieved or worried about leaving Turku this week. On one hand, this means that I won't have to worry about some stranger showing up in my home by midnight, but on the other hand this also means that when I return there's no way for me to know whether someone's been in there or not, in my absence, touching stuff for example.

I hope they get him soon. (Because) I can't promise I wouldn't hurt him if he was to show up in my home. I'm just hoping he won't.

happenings and weekends

Wow. I've actually enjoyed going back to work after the long weekend. However fun it is to have days off, three Sundays in a row is a bit too much for me. At least getting things done now.

This weekend there will be a medieval fair here in Turku, see pictures from two years ago here and here. I got a peek of the preparations yesterday on my way home from university, some of the stalls were in place and the actors were practicing. This happening is both touristy and well... a bit tacky to be honest, but I still love it! I keep telling myself that as an ethnologist I should see through it, but that doesn't mean you aren't allowed to enjoy something, does it?

Winter day

To experience the Real Winter that we finally have in Turku, I decided to go for a long walk today. I had meant to go first thing in the morning, but as I slept until noon this didn't happen. Instead I went out in the early twilight of the Finnish afternoon - and was rewarded with the most beautiful winter day! The weather could best be described as crispy fresh, and every branch, straw amd stone was covered in the most amazing minus eleven degree-frost. And over it all the slowly fading sunlight, giving everything more and more of a bluetone. I so wished I'd had a camera! And there where a particularly big amount of photographers out amongst the normal joggers. It was so cold I had to force myself not to start running instead of walking ( I still have karate practice tonight, and didn't want to exhaust myself), and to keep warm I tried to walk extra actively instead. (I have no warm outer pants) I'm now pausing at university on my way back home, and my fingers are still so stiff from the cold that it's hard for me to write. Looking forward to hot food when I return home, but also so happy about my walk that I just had to write about it immediately!

Friday

what I expect this year's beginners to look like ;)

Finally Friday! Not that it would mean any actual changes in workload or so, as I do about as much of more or less the same things during the weekend as I do during the week... ...OK. Not always, if I am to be honest. And I am thinking of pouring a whiskey as I write. Mmmwhiskey...

The advertising/representational gig of last night went okay. There were of course some things that could have been done differently considering the material we used, and it might also have been a good idea to try activate some of the younger members in the gig (younger as in years on earth, not necessarily as in club activity), because we did feel a bit old... The typical fair visitor being about 18-21 and us being around 30... However, we did have several persons show genuine interest and it'll be exciting to see who of them will show up for practice!

Next week there will be another similar gig, but on a more sports-themed on-campus happening. I'm looking forward to this, too, especially since I kind of expect the older students and staff to be a bit less shy about asking us stuff.

Now, about that whiskey...

Bilder på väg

Sitter i en nästan kvävande sommarhetta och går igenom foton. En del kommer bli synliga här på bloggen men inte riktigt allt... Det är svårt att välja vad man vill visa och vad inte, svårare än jag trodde. Nästa bildinlägg blir mer "allmän/turistig" igen, med foton från senaste helgs medeltidsmarknad här i Åbo. Det blev många bilder tagna där, så har en del sortering att göra innan inlägget är klart för postning.

Kan annars upplysa om att jag idag fick ett brev från akademin där det står att jag blivit antagen. :) Har ju bara studerat här några år redan, hah! Men systemet sade att jag måste söka in pånytt för att byta huvudämne. Gick tydligen ok i alla fall. Inte för att jag väntat mej annat heller, hur fel kan man skriva i inträdesförhöret till ett ämne man redan studerat i tre år...

*edit: märkte först nu att inlägg postas enligt det datum då jag först börjat skriva på dem, och inte det datum då jag verkligen postar dem... (Någon som vet hur man ändrar det här?) Så bilderna jag kommenterar i detta inlägg finns alltså "redan" publicerade i det "förra" inlägget... Råddigt!

Bilder från medeltidsmarknaden

Marknaden pågick på Gamla stortorget och i parken intill. Den största andelen utklätt folk fanns i parken. Här såldes och uppvisades till större del traditionellt hantverk.



Försäljningen som kantade parken var en mix av traditionellt och modernt...

...men fortsättningsvis stor del hantverk. Här coola tovade föremål.

Demonstration i parken av "Åbo Målargille". :)


Såhär kan det se ut då skampålen är i användning. (observera att personen på bilden "fuskar" med höger hand. Han "fäste" sej själv dit framför sin familj medan jag stod och fotade.) Skampålar fanns utspridda lite här och där på området.

Idyllisk bakgata.
Skådespel vid bybrunnen. De flesta scenerna spelades upp just här.

Barnen fick åka handvevad karusell.

Traditionellt hantverk av horn och ben.

Till de vandrande uppvisningarna hörde t.ex. styrkeuppvisning av en narr...

... och en kvinna som vandrade runt i parken och berättade om musik medan hon spelade.


Del av skyltningen hos Härkäpään Sahtipuar.

Detalj ur smedens verkstad.

Mera dramatik på torget.