Sunny Sunday

You’re writing this in the 2nd person. No reason in particular.

On a Sunday morning, the sun wakes you up and you feel instantly awake and energized. You suddenly feel the urge to hop on your bike and take pictures of the frozen lakes and of the Finns enjoying the crisp, cool weather. You get up and get dressed. Then you look at your clock and realize it’s only 9 in the morning. Sundays and 9 AM’s do not usually jive very well and you decide to go back to bed for two hours.

You wake up at 11:30 AM, but the prospect of doing anything more physical than watching QuickTime movie trailers now seems far too demanding. Yet, the sun is still in its prime and you decide you need to get out.

For some strange reason, you are in the mood for some Leonard Cohen. After a quick visit to your favorite Peer-to-peer sharing environment, you inaugurate Montreal’s greatest lyricist to your iPod and you step out the door.

Leonard ends up losing out to piano master McCoy Tyner, turning your bike ride into an intense mystical harmonic adventure. The frozen Jyväsjärvi is swarming with people skating and skiing. You step down and walk along the path and just take in the beauty of such a day. You wish you had sunglasses because the sun on the snow is blinding, but you remember you threw out your only pair back in September following an unfortunate ‘ass and chair accident’.



But that’s a small detail. You feel appreciative of the Finnish way of life and the fact that you’re living here for at least another year sounds very nice. There you are with the common people, doing what they do on a Sunday morning.

You feel your Finnish Culture Integration Meter go up 3 points.

Someone calls your name. It’s your thesis advisor Petri calling you. He’s on skis with his wife. They are just finishing 20 km around the lake. He tells you he’s skied 300 kilometers so far this winter and that it really helps the brain. Of course, you agree with him and think that a 20 km bike ride around the lake would be great. Finally your outing has some kind of goal.



So you head off in the opposite direction around the lake. 2/3’s around, the walking/biking path ends so you decide to just walk on the lake to get back. But the lake here has no walking path and you awkwardly pull your bike beside you in the snow. Everyone else around you is on skis and you realize Finns would never do what you are doing. But it’s ok, you’re foreign and you’re alone and you don’t know any better. You feel great, but you secretly hope you don’t meet anyone else you know.

That’s when you hear someone call your name again. It’s Hanna, your Finnish 1 teacher, on x-country skis skiing with…Maaria, your Finnish 2 teacher.





So here you are, gracelessly pushing your bike in the snow on a frozen lake looking desperately lost and you meet the only two people in Finland who make you feel completely inept.
Of course, they are very nice people and the conversation is mostly quite pleasant. However…

THEY: Have you been skating?
YOU: No, don’t own skates.
THEY: Do you ski?
YOU: Just alpine.
THEY: Have you been to the ski hill in Jyväskylä?
YOU: Not yet.

As they wish you a super day, you feel your Finnish Culture Integration Meter drop 15 points. But, no bother, you don’t need to actually DO what Finns do to feel like you belong.

After a quick reading session on Musical Memory in Coffee House (that’s the name of the coffee house), you go home and watch Sweden beat Finland for Olympic gold. You secretly wish you had moved to Sweden.

As you are finishing your blog entry, your pal, the Greek Guy Who Lives On Top Of You stops by to borrow your guitar. You end up having a jam session with him for a good 70 minutes. You and he step out for a pizza at Allan Pizza, which is full of Finnish drunks and weirdos.

You and your friend step back out in the cold and enjoy the crisp night air. Gazing at the stars, you discuss the un-manned spacecraft making its way to Pluto, scheduled to arrive 9 years from now. You realize that Finland is a little like Pluto. It’s far from home and full of ice…but at least they have interesting desserts. And that thought alone, rekindles your loving relationship with the adoptive country.

Bank Of Montreal Sucks!!

So, I've had a Student Line of Credit (SLC) with the bank of Montreal for about 5 years now. This past January, for the third time, my account was frozen do to some oversight that could not have been avoided (says the Bank).

What happened is that one day I tried to get a cash advance for my weekly expences and got the message saying, Account out of funds (in Finnish, ofcourse). I spent the next couple of days calling my branch, the BofM Hotline (which is unaccessible outside Canada) and Mastercard. Both Bank of Montreal and Mastercard blamed the problem on each other.

The reason ending up being that I had not supplied a proof of resigstration document to Mastercard (i submitted one to BofM). Somehow, the message did not get to Mastercard that I was a registered full-time student. So what do they do? They pick some random date to freeze my account. I've signed contracts with these people and this mysterious, 'Make sure you tell us you've registered or else we will freeze your account on January 25' clause never came up anywhere...

I hate the way that these corporations think they have the right to screw with your lives. They literately cut off my life support! My Dad and I (he's the co-signer) ended up writing several emails to my branch demanding they fix the problem within 24 hours, which the did, but they still never admitted that it was their fault, system error, not human error. Well...kiss my ass. Humans push the buttons, humans make the errors.

Like I've said, it's the third time this has happened. The first time my account was accidently freezed was three years ago in the week when my student tuition was due. The second time I was doing recording with General Rudie and I was in charge of paying the sound engineer $500 for studio use. Three weeks later, he called me up and told me I had written him a bad cheque. If he hadn't called, I never would have known this account had stopped working.

The sooner I'm done paying off my loan, the happier I will be and I will never have any association with BofM again. Bet on it.