Welcome to my blog

OK

Welcome to my blogg. Thanks to R for getting me started on this. We shall see whether I can keep the thing going and have enough to say that doesn't make my reader want to fall asleep in seconds flat.

This week has been perhaps both the least yet in some ways the most productive of my time here in Finland.

On the downside I have stopped struggling with this stupid bio-rhythm disorder of mine. This keeps me wide awake all night until about 0500. Then I fall fast asleep from 0500 until about 1300 (after which I wake up feeling as though I have not in fact slept at all). I always wake with bright red blotches on my face which I think is a sign that a histamine shower has woken me. But then I am physically awake from 1300 but mentally half asleep until I wake up properly at about 1900, sometimes (but not always) with a productive 1 hour nap anytime between 4pm and 7pm. This sllep-wake pattern kicked in when my classes had stopped for 4 weeks. When classes resumed I tried keeping to normal time for about 4 or 5 days days during which time I managed with just about 11 hours sleep in total. Of course this was unsustainable and I collapsed in total exhaustion on the Friday afternoon. So there will be no more formal classes in the university for me until I can get back into a more sustainable rhythm.

On the upside, I have been doing some private study with some good outcome. But more to the point I have just about doubled the number of new friends I have made here in this little Finnish town where I live. I have already made some good friends here and elsewhere in Finland, and these new people I think I will become good friends because we share so much in common. The similarities are very strange.. almost spooky. Unfortunately two of these new friends are having a torrid time right now in their personal lives. Both are experiencing or have experienced recently the stress of divorce and family disharmony. I am especially worried about P who was in tears this evening. She is trying to cope and clearly manages to put on a brave face when she needs to (as I saw with one of her sons tonight) but...when he was gone she almost collapsed from the strain of it all. On top of everything she has lost her voice so everything is communicated in writing. We hardly "spoke" at all this evening because she was so engrossed in family matters, and they are clearly wearing her down.

I know hardly anything of her problems and I must rely on E. (who has problems of his own) to take care of P... but she needs him right now and I hope that he can provide her with the support she needs. He is a wise soul and I am sure she is right to trust him. I know she knows that I would like to help, but right now it would not help for her to even try to explain to me what is going on. I know she is not sleeping, and it shows. I fear for her terribly. I think this woman will be in hospital from sheer exhaustion before too long. I hope she is strong enough to cope the future whether or not that happens.

So I ought to be feeling elated about these new friendships but in fact I am rather fearful for them. And as for my other friend R, I know he is having problems of his own right now and I worry a little too about him. But he assures me that all is going to be OK and that he can at least share his troubles with a friend who understands.

As you who follow this bogg will come to realise, I am a born worrier! I worry about anything and everything. But it means that I care.

I hope you will find my observations about life in two different european cultures to be of interest.

Sauna-Ukko