Pic extravaganza! / Kiwinglish / Homesick

Whanganui river

Guyton Ingestre Street

My second home, the Computer Graphic Design Department. Some funky piece of architecture eh?

In New Zealand, even the toothpaste is antinuclear. Suits me sir.

A brilliant piece of local ephemeral typography

In Wanganui there are like a kazillion churches and zero mosks.

NZ cuisine is... interesting, to say the least

Kiwinglish

As I told Ryan, not necessarily 100% [one hundred pircint] seriously, my principal objective here is to pick up an exotic accent. My plan was to post a pronounciation sample every now and then to follow my progress but I still haven't gotten too far. My tongue keeps fumbling and the accent varies from Scottish-ish to Yank depending on who I talk to. The Kiwi accent is just lunatic — I would've preferred a Scottish one, (I was reminded by the incomprehensible girl sitting next to me in the airplane to Bankok) or an Irish one maybe (an industrial designer at the school likewise).

Anyway here's a brief intro to pronouncing things the Kiwi way.

• Seven = Syven
• Fish & chips = Fush & chups
• Me = May
• Deaf = Diff
• Question = Christian ("Are there any Christians?")
• Yeah = Yie
• No = Nay / Nor
• Pet = Pit
• Card = Cat
• Cat = Kit
• Pet = Pit
• Pen = Pin
• Pig = Peg
• Track = Trek
• Back = Beck
• Four = Fuar
• Go = Guy
• Airing = Earring
• Setting = Sittings
• Breakfast = Bikfryst

Subterranean Homesick Alien Blues

I've a major academic culture shock. Here goes: These people when presenting their work and ideas well first off they all have like 2 ideas each on average; secondly their visualisations & scamps — if any — come in thumbnail size; furthermore they don't stand up to present their thumbnails but sit still; fourth, the sketches aren't placed anywhere, just quickly browsed through and everyone goes like "I liked the one, uh, can't remember what it was, but you know what I mean right."

I'm not saying it's all bad, it's just different from UIAH. I guess this is what comes from having no time for or emphasis on concept hatching. Struggling with this plus my 9-day flu that's now thankfully dealt with I was overwhelmed with this desperate homesickness and depression. I miss a lap to curl into. I miss the trams of Helsinki. I miss home. I miss green politics. And B-class movie nights with friends.

I was having a taste of a 25-year-old fucking expensive port with some Australians. One of them told a donkey joke and said, "You get as much as you put in." I retreated back to my chamber & listened to Chris Clark – Bricks. Music helps. Music and people.

Then again one day I was howling with laughter watching Sponge Bob with Meghan and Jasmine (except that Jasmine didn't find it funny and changed the channel because we did). I clearly need to watch more cartoons.

Footnotes maybe:

• The Malesians just love my blonde hair.
• I'm having dreams about the whole NZ business having been a dream. In them I'm back in Finland and happy about it.
• It gets so cold at nights I had to wear a cap once. Now I do have a heater in my room though.
• I'm planning on renting an apartment sooner or later. The flats are unfurnished but getting a set of furniture from the Salvation Army and other second hand shops wouldn't turn out too expensive perhaps.

People & experiences

Whee I got my luggage back safely (everyone at the school, including those I haven't met yet, seems to know me already as the boy who lost his baggage) and the school coordinators who first had put me on the year one semester one courses agreed to put me on year two semester one and take whatever courses I please. So I did. And there was much joy & merriment. So my courses are as follows:

• Print Production
• Computer Animation
• Poster Design
• Illustration
• Typography
• Computer Graphic Design

These total 30 hours a week and I'm expected to do some 15h+ more independently. So far it's been kinda rough & I've been spending just about all my waking time on school stuff. Hope it'll ease out once I get it going. It's immensely different from back home where we might have 4–5 months for a project, 2 months of which is purely concept hatching, whereas here it's five weeks for a project and concepts have to be done in two weeks. I'm loving every bit of it though. It's good to have both approaches I think.

Speaking of waking time, the courses start at 8am. I first went like "oh feck", but instantly realised that my sleeping rythm was topsy-turvy anyhows. The classes could have started at 5am for all I cared. Getting up on time was ridiculously easy (I barely had any jet lag) but is getting increasingly challenging & I'm dreading for next week since this weekend I've just lulled in bed till 11ish. Thankfully Jasmine's school's starting too so I won't have to listen to children's shows booming from the room next to mine till 11pm. Hopefully.

Which brings me to the topic of the family I'm staying with. It's Teena and Jason, a couple doing property business & wood & whatnot, and their adorably crazy still sickeningly annoying little daughter Jasmine who's in her rebel period and might keep on insisting on me having one of her tic-tacs till I completely give up and who occasionally calls me a "Lolly" which I suppose is a sort of chewing gum or candy. Alternate titles include but are by no means limited to Lollipop and a colourful set of imaginary names. They're really great though I'll have to see if I'm staying here for the whole year or what.

The other international student in da house is Meghan, a Filippine girl. She's a postgrad student who's already spent some time with her own company doing print design. When we were playing with the kids — Jasmine had her cousins visiting — she said I was good with kids, which was kinda new to me since I've always felt helpless with babies, kids, animals, and many a time people too. But I guess I'm pretty good at converting into a girl-eating Scot after all. She said she knew straight away I'm queer, which is odd, or maybe not so, anycase her best friend is gay and they fell in love and were supposed to get married! But then they concluded it wouldn't work so there we go. Now she's got something going on with a boy in the school and the gay guy's getting jealous. The reason I'm putting this here, if there is any: People are silly as life.

Other people I've met are mostly from Malesia. More than half of the int'l students are from Malesia. Crazy Malesians. There's a postgrad student who wants me to design sunglasses for him and he's god a business down in Wellington. One guy wanted me to move to the student flats so I can party with them all day & night :D Compared to Jasmine's cartoons at 100dB it's an option, really...

What else, well it's a bit challenging to get to the web since at home I have to use Teena's computer and at school they haven't given me a student card yet so I can't get into the building on my own. If I want to have Internet access at home I'd probably need a modem at minimum and participate in the connection costs, at any rate NZ ISP:s are yucky since you only get a snail speed connection and limited transfer with Finnish rates. Maybe I'll just linger at CGD (Computer Graphic Design) once I get the card.

Some rather impressive experiences, somewhat unexpectable perhaps:

• A rainbow, the brightest I've witnessed, seen from the plane from Auckland to Wanganui
• A park we went to with the kids, with huge pumpkins & shoes & whales & stuffs, along with a Flying Fox — I'll put on some photos later on
• I once watched the news, all sad; made me think how the whole world is bursting with sad news and in one country you only see the tiniest portion of it. Overwhelming, really.

Bungy jumping

Continuing the series of corny analogies: NZ is a bungy jump. If the shit really hits the fan there's a big splat & I'll never get up again. (This is not the actual plan however.) I don't mean dying though leaving everything behind me certainly has felt something like it. Maybe as a result I've been afraid of death to an alarming extent & thinking about the limits of life a lot. It's resticting and annoying. For example, contrary to my what my gut had to say, the most dangerous bit of the whole two-day Helsinki–London–Bankok– Sydney–Auckland–Wanganui journey was not any of the flights — not even the noisy one in the adorable 17-seat propeller airplane to Wanganui — but the very last five minutes prior to reaching my new home when a crazy Kiwi driver almost crashed into the van I was in.

Answers to frequently asked questions:

• It's a one year post. I'm coming back in the end of June 2007.
• NZ is 9 hours ahead of Finland.
• On my summer vacation Dec–Feb I'll be touring NZ with any friends who manage to get themselves over here. Not coming back to Finland. (One across-the-globe trip a year is enough, thank you very much.)
• My address is Bell Street 2/65, Wanganui 5001.
• My phone number is +64 21212 94 90. It costs me 30 eurocents to send an sms so bomb away.

Footnotes:

• My luggage was left in London. It's due tomorrow. Meanwhile I'm using my foster parents' clothes and say, "None of this is mine."
• Fer fuck's sakes left hand traffic is weird shit.
• I doubt I'll get used to wearing shoes indoors, too.
• Rocky asked me if I was from Africa.
• I had a lucid dream in which I was paralyzed and my brother stuck me in the shoulder with a syringe. オーディション
• 5 am last night, jetlagged in a cold room in a flooding city, I threw a college around myself and imagined a special someone wrapping his arms around me.

Tätä kautta

Pari viikkoa takaperin minut hyväksyttiin Uuteen-Seelantiin opiskelemaan Wanganui School of Designiin sellaista juttua kuin Computer Graphic Design. Kutsu tuli koko kevään kestäneen rumban jälkeen. Hyväksymisestä lähtien olen käynyt hurjaa paperisotaa. Pikkuhiljaa kaikki vaikuttaisi järjestyvän mallikkaasti. Häivyn maasta tiistaina ja koulu alkaa 10. päivä. Muistuttaa 2004 elokuussa saamaani puhelinsoittoa Taideteollisesta korkeakoulusta, että onneksi olkoon, sinut on hyväksytty varasijalta, kurssit alkaa sitten ensi viikolla.

Kuten välillä elämänkäännösten kanssa, en ole ollenkaan tajunnut koko juttua. Yleensä ottaen on sellainen olo, kuin elämän elokuvan filminauha leikattaisiin yhtäkkiä poikki ja jatkoa liimattaisiin aivan toisesta leffasta. Yhtenä päivänä olin kauhuissani siitä että joudun jättämään kaiken. Mutta sitä kesti vain sen päivän. Ehkä seuraavan kerran se iskee sunnuntaina heippajaisissa. Tai luultavammin vasta lentokentällä tai koneessa.

Koljoset saapuivat tänään aamuyöstä Espanjasta viettämään kesän Jämsässä. Olin vastassa nähdäkseni remmin pikaisesti ja tuodakseni vuokra-auton (tai panssarivaunua se kyllä muistutti). Istuessani lentokentän odotusaulassa iski outo, etäinen tunne: muutaman päivän päästä, tätä kautta, jätän kaiken vuodeksi taakseni.

Porukoilla oli hurja määrä matkatavaraa. Ei meinannut kunnolla mahtua tankkiinkaan. Isillä oli mukana tuttu, vuosikymmeniä vanha matkalaukkunsa mustaa nahkaa ja tutuin tarroin. Kun nostin sitä, Paqui sanoi että varovasti, Pappa on siellä. Sai varomaan. Isi sanoi että yksi päivä hänkin tulee tätä kautta, ja hymyili päälle. Harmaat silmät.