How much do you hate being wrong?

Because I HATE IT! Really hate it! I'm taking a course in Project Management, as I mentioned earlier and I did my first exam yesterday. I'm a nerd when it comes to school, so I was totally prepared to ace the little sucker. The exam was compiled of questions that you answered and got it corrected at once. No biggie. The first part was bananas. But then...I get this LARGE RED WORD in my face...It's a word that's totally alien to me...it said: FALSE... OMG! Kiss my squirrel! I got so thrown off I answered the next one falsely too. Absolutely hate it. There must have been something wrong with it... ;)

What is the worst response to "I love you"?

Have you seen that episode of Friends where...is it Ross? I think it is Ross, who says the three famous words (and no I don't mean "food is ready" or "football is on" or anything nasty) and gets a "thank you" as a response. Have you seen that? Or am I out biking? (swedish saying) Maybe it was somewhere else, well anyway you got the point, right? Is thank you worse than a laugh? Worse than a shut down? Maybe thank you is synonomous to a shut down. Silence? What do you answer if you don't feel the same way? The weather is nice today?

Who died and made you worldpolice?

Some people are always prone to interfere. My question is now: why? Why do they want to make the life miserable for others? What do they get out of it? Is it just the fact that their life is so miserable they want others to have a horrible time too? Or is it just in their genes? I don't understand. Why bother? Isn't it better to pick your battles and interfere when it is necessary, I mean if someone or something gets hurt or whatever. That's a fantastic time to interfere. We need more of that. The interferers I'm talking about are the ones doing it only to assert themselves, I think. There's no other gain. There can't be.

Shoes are good for a lot of stuff...

Finally summer in Stockholm...or? Remember to bring your mittens and hats and gear up for the swedish summer.

The first pic nic this year. Tantolunden, Stockholm

Oh and this is my collegue. Crazy lady. Fox in a box! Would you think that our age added up is...56 years?!!!

Hey! I'm married to one of those....

Yupp, here's the evidence. I'm married to one of the 48% of guys who, in Sweden, actually iron their own clothes. Hallelujah! And apparently not all of the 11% who iron naked live in Gothenburg (as the poll stated), one lives in Stockholm...Just imagine the picture without the undies....I wonder how long I'm gonna be able to keep these pics up here, until he sees them and forces me to remove them...

I like, how much?

Yummylishous!

Yesterday we came home and it seemed we had nothing to eat, you know grub... ;) Well this is what McGyver and Pete threw together. And man, it was yummylishous!

The salad with grilled Haloumi cheese, bell pepper and grilled pine nuts.

The salad...In the background are some recepies and more importantly the love the food was made with. The cards I have all gotten from my sister and they give me a smile (and a tear sometimes, to be honest) every time I see them. Hey just blow your noses, u softies! ;)

What happens when you have a baby?

I had coffee with a friend and we disgussed kids, people with kids and the fact that we don't have kids. And one thing both of us were astonished about was the phenomenon on facebook. People who have kids, oooops I just realized I'm gonna step on a lot of toes here, but here it goes, exchange their profile pictures into a pic of their kid.......WHY? Maybe the ones who do and did could enlighten me? I totally understand the pictures where the kid is with you, because it is still such a big part of your life. But only the kid??? Did you disappear once you had the child? I want to think that you just get one role more. You become the mother/the father. I don't want to be synonomous to the offspring. I still want to be me. Although I would probably be ready to sacrifice everything, probably including my life for it/them.

"This is boring, I think I'll just take off""

I can't believe the low standard some people have when it comes to work ethics. Do they not understand that if they do a lousy job, they will never be hired again with that company? Do people just not care? This is what happened: A girl that worked on the same project as I did had apparently called my boss in the middle of the workday and said:

"This was just too boring, so I took off"

Errrr..... You can't do that! I mean I hope that when I am...let's say...in surgery or something the doctor doesn't think it gets boring and takes off! Really. Holy Moly I am astonished by people's nonchalance. What ever happened to values, huh?

People are so weird!

I was on the bus today in downtown Stockholm and man it was packed. I snitched one of the last seats (and held on to it with my bare teeth, ha ha) and had a good sight over the rest of the bus as I sat there on the last row, where all the cool kids sit, u know.

Well, on board steps a man, normal looking with a bag and books in his arms. He looked like an mathematician. Anyway, this man puts his bag on the absolute last seat and when a woman makes it clear she wants to sit there, listen to this, he refuses and gets upset over the request! I mean, c'mon people! So much for the social skills in people, right. Maybe he is just good with numbers and dark basements with rats, or something. I would have lost faith in people for a bit because of that, hadn't it been for the young teenaged girl sitting next to the bag. She took the bag and offered to hold on to the bag, so the woman could sit. And so she did. And the bagowner-weirdo let her. Such a sweet girl. I just hope she will be able to maintain as sweet and not be bulldozed over by these weird, socially retarded people, who evidently are out there.

Life management skills taught at the University of Stockholm

"Change before you have to - get a culture at your company that loves change"
Jack Welch 2004, legendarisk VD för General Electric.

I'm taking a course in Project Management and had a revelation today. The things I read about were perfectly transferrable to life.

What I realized was that change is necessary and it happens faster and faster. Everybody who try to work against it, lose the battle. It's all about finding the right tools to change according to the goals and visions you have in life. Therefore it's imperative to actually have those visions and goals, so you know what to strive for and change into and foremost evolve.

Who would have thought to get such good life-advice from a Project Management course, huh?

Radiohead, always a good choice!

What is it with the post office in this country?

Compared to other parts of the world everything is very organized and reliable up here in the Nordic countries. It's safe and you know that you will get help if you go to the police and so on. But what is it with the post office that makes it completely impossible to deal with? Today I went to the convenience store where the post office now a days resides to get a couple of packages with stuff I ordered from the internet. She wanted to see my ID, which is perfectly fine. But when she sees it she says:

No, I want to see a swedish ID.

Mioli: Oh I don't have one.

cashier: You have to have a swedish passport or ID.

Mioli: Well I'm not a swedish citizen, it's kind of hard for me to get a swedish passport.

Finally she settled for my Europian Union driver's licence as ID and I got my stuff. You would think that a passport would be the most important piece of identification, but apparently not for the swedish post. You can get in and out of a country with your (in this case) finnish passport, but you cannot get a package out of the swedish post.

Time for an update, Posten?

THEY PLAY TODAY, GUESS WHERE!!!!

These things don't happen often...I took a look at their website the go-getter and the-making-things-happen-kind-of-a-person that I am...And tadaaaa: SNOW PATROL play tonight HERE in Stockholm!! How cool is that!

Open your eyes

I wish I were a kid again

On Saturday I was on the subway in Stockholm and as I was ascending the escalator I saw this tiny person standing in front of me. He was clearly the offspring of the man standing down below on the platform. The offspring, aged maybe 3-4, was eagerly climbing the escalator steps one at a time and once and a while glancing down at the father. He hade hope and joy glistening in his eyes. He was clearly on a mission, an adventure. He reached the top and I beholded his next move.

He went to the escalator next to the one he just rode. He looked at it. Stood still a while and pondered. I stopped to see his next move. The escalator he was taking back down was still. It didn't move. His father down at the bottom tried to gesture to his son to take the next one, that was working. The boy looked down and started his adventure down. On the escalator that stood still.

As I stood there my heart started aching. Because I remembered what it felt like taking the longest escalator I'd ever seen. How exciting it was. How I could stay out all day, without eating, to build the biggest snow castle. How I remembered and at the same time realized I'd lost that. I'd lost the child's enthusiasm about the small things. They become every day life. But then I realized that the father, at the bottom of the escalator, gets to expirience it all over again. Through his son.

What is the best thing in life?

Yesterday I had one of my epiphanies again. One of those fabulous ones that leave you speechless and filled with feel-good hormones. I once again realized what it is the best thing in life. This time I was galopping like the wind with my friend Malin's family's icelander Hlynur by the meadows in Tungelsta, where I grew up. The sun was shining and the meadows were filled with flowers and fresh grass. All of a sudden I, yet again, realized that that is what I love: Being one with nature, with family/friends, doing sports (preferrably something speedy gonzalessy). Last time it was swooshing down the Alpes that took my breath away. Oh and let's not forget the riding the waves in Bali, ah. I am a succer for epiphanies.

I have muscles THERE?

You'd think a physiotherapist would know all the muscles, and believe me I'm sucker-good at physiology, especially the muscles...But buttely butt I had no idea I had some of them in places I found today at Belly Dance... Wawaweewaa, I'd like to say. FYI: I am now a proud executer of the camelwalk!

Hey I should put this on my CV!

Today is the day I start learning how to Belly Dance!

Mioli's nightly escapades

My hubby wonders why my family every now and then (he would definitely say ALL THE TIME) reflects over dreams we dreamt the night before. The sentences that start with: "I had the creaziest dream last night"... just don't exist in the pretty head of his. He simply doesn't do it, dream, I mean. Or atleast doesn't remember them afterwards. But I do. So here we go:

I had the craziest dream last night! I dreamt that I was a drug smuggler and had a bunch of policemen chasing me first around a train platform and then in the house. When I woke up my first thought was: Holy Balony, I have to hide my stash!

I don't usually ponder on what the dreams mean, but sometimes they make me wonder how come I had those thoughts during the night. Some people mean dreams are a way for the brain to prepare you for things to come (important load of drugs coming in apparently...) So in this case...I really hope not.

Screaming your lungs out is liberating!

I was at Friskis & Fläskis (It's Friskis & Svettis really = Healthy & Sweaty, but it's too lame, Healthy & Fatso sounds much better) today at a dance class, which was amazing! We got to sing along, do fame jumps and even scream our lungs out. It was so liberating!

The art of cooking

Is cooking an art if you have no observers? And if you are the observer, does that count as being part of the cooking art? I love the art of cooking, as long as I am the one observing, maybe chopping an onion or two, so much I can do for art. Tonight I am seated on the first row of the Visa's art of cooking show, which, so far, is fantastic. I'm going to give him standing ovasions. Somehow that came out dirty.

Age, a funny thing

A couple of my collegues were amazed when they found out that I was born 1980. They are 7-8 years younger than me and apparently you are only twenty-something before you hit the 25 mark. They were in awe over the fact that I was "so old". I was definitely the only one in the herd that thought that we were kind of the same age. The best part was when they asked:

"If you are that old, how do you stay in shape"?

C'mon people, I'm 28, not 58 (sorry mommy)!

Running vs. Walking. What burns more calories?

Alot of people are not familiar with the fact that you actually burn the same amount of calories if you run vs. walk the same distance. The difference is, of course, that running you do it faster and have a longer afterburn. But the factors for burning calories are roughly: time and weight. So the heavier you are and the longer you exercise, the more calories you burn. That is why you have to alter your exercise routine once you start losing weight.

What is the key ingredient to a good relationship?

My friend said such a wise thing. He meant that long relationships are all about choosing eachother over and over again. It has to be an active choice. Maybe the American way isn't that cheezy after all, I mean doing the wedding ceremony all over again after a certain amount of years and once again say your choice out loud. At least you would get another party...and maybe a new dress? Hey, I'm totally up for that!

More swedish tunes

Happy socks going to the dentist...

Serious business!

...I am no big fan of going to the dentist. Might correlate with the fact that I was a total cookiemonster when I was a youngster (who am I trying to kid writing in past tence. I STILL AM!) and therefore I had like 13 cavities at one point (and if that's not a traumatic experience, what is). But now it was time again...to sit down in that chair of horror.

This time I was prepared, though. My weapon against the Monster in a White coat: HAPPY
SOCKS!



I don't know what happened, maybe I really tamed the Monster, because the experience wasn't half as bad as I remembered. Sure, I was sweating like a pig (there I go again, smearing the good rep of pigs. Sorry pigs. I know you don't even sweat) and my eyes might have teared up once or twice, but I did good.



The feeling of half your face being numb...



Happy socks. Happy Mioli.

The best running music ever.

Trance Around The World with Above and Beyond. Definitely. Check it out!

More fantastic music

José Gonzáles, oh yes, he makes my heart beat. Or maybe even skip a beat.

STUFF. Crave it AND hate it.

Sometimes I get these cravings for stuff. Stuff I don't need. Like that skirt down below. I don't need skirts. But it's just so beautiful. Why is it I sometimes get this urge to just spend money? Without any specific purpose, just the plain spending gives me satisfaction. I am pretty good at restraining myself, though. I have a dream of becoming minimalistic. With only the very necessities and nothing more. I want my home to be simple, clean and with no eccess stuff. How does that go with the need to buy stuff? I have one answer: Delayed satisfaction. If you convince yourself to wait, you might get an even bigger satisfaction.

I got these feelings again trying to get to the apartement in Stockholm after picking up stuff from Finland. I felt like a donkey, I tell you. So much stuff! Phew.

21 KM, 2 Hours 11 Minutes 54 Seconds

My final result is here. Helsinki City Run 2009, 21 km, half a marathon. Holy balony, I did it, again! Next time I will go for the two hours and break it like fine porcelain!

Release the pressure...

I have a plan. I'm going to London with the smurf-daddy in June and what could be a better occasion to release myself from the shopping-ban than that very trip? NOTHING, I tell you, nothing. So I am gonna release my surpressed shopping needs like a mainiac in London. Be afraid, Visa. Be very afraid!

The swineflu brought something good with it...

...As I wrote earlier my father had to go to the States for work and therefore miss the Helsinki City Run...BUT the trip was cancelled due to the swineflu! Yippie yay yey! So I didn't have to start alone. I had my dad with me. And he was with me the first 4-5 km or so...then this little daughter of his took off. The weather was pretty harsh; +9 degrees Celsius, raining and storm winds. That didn't stop this raging Finn, though. I ran like I had a heard of Pigs infected with the swineflu (sorry piggies, I know you have nothing to do with the deciese) chasing me. I was like the wind and Flash Gordon combined. What I'm trying to say is that I did pretty well. I am satisfied anyhow. So you want to know my time? The preliminary time was 2 hours 12 minutes. 21 km. My dad was a fighter and crossed the finish-line at 2 hours 22 minutes.  

More John ME

His voice gives me goosebumps. I love getting goosebumps!

Stockholm City Hall

I felt like such an important person the other day when I was working at Stockholm city hall. You know, where the Nobel price is awarded... Well I got to walk the famous stairs up and down like a dog, so now I'm just waiting for an invitation to the Nobel prize ceremony so I can show how I can walk down those stairs in my sleep. Or maybe it's just the king and queen who walk down the stairs. Anyway. Hey, I just realized I've walked the same stairs that the king has, wow, How hot am I? On fire! So now I can add "walked the same stairs as the king of Sweden" to my list, right after: "sat on the same toilet as the President of Finland". Tsssst, don't get burned, that's how hot I am!

Don't do it!

So if you read my posting about what to get a 30-year-old man...Don't do it! Don't buy the mini lap top. Apparently it's true...30 doesn't come alone. It brings friends. Friends called change and crisis. So instead of a gadget it is now time to be one with nature and music. That's why the mini laptop is going to get exchanged for a bike (!) and a guitar. There you go. The engineer has become a humanist.

It's closing in...Soon it is time to...

...Run The Helsinki City Run 09.05.2009! Last year I ran my first half a marathon. It was quite an ordeal, since I the same morning of the run woke up with a pretty bad muscle spasm in my neck. I became so disappointed and angry because of it, I kicked a bed so hard I got a minor crack in the foot, too (ever heard of disguising pain with another?) I was in serious pain and could not move my head. Well you would think a physical therapist would have decided not to do the run, but persistant and stubborn as I am, I did. And man did I do it. I thought running 400 metres, which was the distance I competed in back in the day, was tough. But these 21 km would never end. Ha ha. Well I am very proud of completing the run and winning over a famous polititian on the last 100 metres. Don't tell anybody she's like 55 years old or something.


Anyway, now it is time again. Helsinki City Run, Round 2 (for me, that is). This time my father and brother were supposed to race me, but it seems they have gotten cold feet. My brother is in China and my father in America. I know, they went as far as they could.

This time I hope to be able to run without injury and my goal is to do a personal best.

My biggest fans: Dad, Mom, Myself and my hubby

Oh, by the way...I had to see a physical therapist for Months after the last run. She thinks I got a minor hernia in one of my cervical disks due to the strain. So don't try it at home, kids!

Pictures by Vesa Metsätähti. Copyright, of course.

The stupifying can

In Sweden people call the tv "dumburken" where dum means stupid and burken means the can. I mean, I can't but agree. I feel like one of these chicken above when I watch tv. Paula knows that whenever I tune in, I tune out. There's just no more contacting me in that stage. I guess that's why I can't handle horrormovies, I'm just too in there. I'd be right there running the wrong way with the poor big breasted half naked girls. Oh, that's also one reason tv is stupifying; the endless mocking of the human mind. We can't be that stupid can we? Well, I guess we are, staring at it hours after hours. But I have a victory to announce! Mioli vs. the stupifying can round 1: Mioli wins. I no longer watch tv. Bits and pieces, sure. But I am no longer hooked to any tv show. Badabing badaboom, good for me, huh. Alright I'll admit I do enjoy the little bit of watching I partake even more now, it almost feels a bit festive to turn the tv on.

What is it with crying anyway?

Have you ever experienced a sheer anger that is sooooo strong all you want to do is scream or pop a whitty comment, but all you seem to be able to do is shed tears? I don't know if it is a woman thing. And I don't like to categorize things or behaviour according to the genitalia you're carrying. But tell me, why does it happen? Is it because I get sad more often than I get angry (luckily I don't do either that often, I'm a happy hamster) and my brain just puts on the wrong switch? I mean like if you have intestine/internal organ pain it usually bodyfies itself somewhere else, like the shoulder or arm when you're having a heartattack (referred pain) because your brain is so unused to get pain intel from the actual place, it just gives you the wrong address. Same city, wrong address, kind of.

It is annoying anyway. Especially if you are working on building up your street cred. Usually that doesn't go handy with the crying bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of crying. It's liberating. But when you are furious, you're kind of sending out the wrong signal. You want to say: Save the heart! But instead people start to mend your arm. You know.

David Guetta and Kelly Rowland at Ambassadeur, Stockholm

Friday May 1st, 2009 the worldrenown houselegend DJ (or what are they called now a days? MP3Jockey?, hilarious, I know) David Guetta came to town to play at Ambassadeur and created a sauna, frankly. It was hot as in a proper Finnish sauna. Hot hot hot. And I mean literally. You could sweat the weight of eating hamburgers for one week straight off in that dancing frenzy! I love it. Kelly Rowland, who was tiny, or then it's just me who is ginormous, was there accompaning the Frenchman, or was it the other way around? I was surprised by how Kelly was given such privacy in the VIP room. I feel that if it were America, people would be all over her. Am I right? I guess we are either too selfabsorbed here or just plain shy?

People! Start raising your children properly!

I know I'm the last to talk, since I have not yet squeezed out a mini-me, BUT I still want to say this...It should be mandatory for people to take a course in proper parenting or atleast a course in pedagogy before allowed being a parent. Well evidently that is not the case. This is what happened today:

I was at a café with my friend Malin and the line was long. Everybody wanted to buy icecream and drinks because the weather was gorgeous. Anyway there we are wating for our turn like the proper people we are. In comes a man in his 40-ies with his daughter who was maybe 3 years old. She sees the icecream box and says: icecream a couple of times, whereupon the dad comes after and says:

"No, you can't have any more icecream, Stella."

Stella whines one second.

The dad takes out the money, gets the icecream, pushes his way through the line up to the register and excuses himself with:

"I'm just gonna buy this icecream".

GAAAAAAH.

The best hot pot in the world

Who would have thought, after living in Hong Kong for 6 Months, that the best Hot Pot would be intaken in *drums* Jordbro, Stockholm, Sweden! But that is in fact the case. We were invited to my BFF Christine's parents' house this Easter for dinner. And how we ate. Yummy in the tummy indeed! Christine's mother is Japanese and she makes the best Japanese food we have ever eaten. She would have a long line of kids outside her frontdoor waiting to get some of her food, figuratively speaking. I was first in line, of course. ;)

Walpurgis night

Ha ha this cracked me up: Did you know that Vappu=Valborgs is Walpurgis night in english? He he Check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night That is tonight. Vappu in Finland beats Valborg in Sweden by a landslide though! In Finland it is a carneval with partying for two days straight. In Sweden you burn a bonfire and sing. Oh crazy partypeople, those Swedes.

Walpurgis, Finnish style

I think Vappu just became my favorite holiday, just because of its name Walpurgis. I can't stop saying it. Walpurgis-schmurgis.

Can you imagine my surprise my first year in Helsinki, when I decided to take a walk in the park I lived by in downtown Helsinki and realised that ALL OF HELSINKI had had the same idea as me? What the... The park was PACKED, as you can see in the picture above. It was scary until I was told that is the thing you do. May 1st everybody goes to Kaivopuisto. Oh. Mioli felt stupid and a bit paranoid. Now I embrace it. And feel sorry for the grass.

I want I want I want...

...I have become one with my shoppingban. We are friends now. I can even say I cherish the ban. It feels good not to buy anything. Except for the catsuit, that is. But hey, catsuits don't count, right? Because I am all for minimalism! Deep inside I really am (I know atleast Paula is laughing right now if she reads this), I love clean empty spaces and would love to be able to start all over again when it comes to stuff. And the second time around really contemplate before every shopping decision. Nothing on a whim... he he Kidding myself? I think so. But still. Every time you move you just moan over all the stuff you have accumulated but not seen since the last time you moved. I guess the question is what to do with the stuff, right? You don't want to just throw it away. We sold alot of stuff at a thrift-sale before me moved from Helsinki. We made 400 euro easily on half a day! That is also when I realised I'm a MEAN negotiator and vendor. I could sell salt to a thirsty person! ;)

BUT (the inevitable big butt)...These two thingys are items that I would buy. After thorough contemplation of course.


Roll-up chinos, 48£ Urban Outfitters

This blazer is amazing! Come to mama! Ooooohhh...Guess what I just realized? The catsuit would be killer-nice with this blazer... Cats don't like to be alone...The want a family...A family made of jeans...and sleeves...and stuff... ;) I'm also very good at convincing myself. ;)

Eric Prydz at Berns 30.04.2009

I worked at Berns tonight, which is one of Stockholm's finest nightclubs, and had the pleasure to see Eric Prydz do his magic. I had an excellent time and couldn't believe I actually got paid for it.