Canada's Wonderland

Small picture update

First picture is the type of food I have been eating lately. I was supposed to make makaroni casarol, but was too tired to do it. So I mixed this up.

The second picture is of my Jack. He is keeping me hydrated as you can put at least 5,5 dl in him.

Still working

Already an hour over time. Now eating and working. I think when I have time, I might do a post about how to behave online... Some of the mail I have to go through is just so nasty! Thank god(s) that some know how to behave. They really do save my day. There is no big rush luckily, but the flow is constant. So few more hours of work, here I come. 

Plan: Sponsor children

Plan does very good job and instead of just supporting the one child they support the whole village. I had the pleasure of talking with two Plan workers who were asking people to become supporters. I actually did become a sponsor, but since I got the news of my work situation I had to drop the sponsorship. Once I get another job, I will continue the sponsorship. But for now, I shall tell you that it is a very good idea to sponsor a child. 

The idea is that you will send 37cad/27eur monthly to the Plan and they will direct it to the country and child you have chosen. I prefer not to choose country or the child, so that the organization can choose the child that has been waiting for a sponsor the longest. I think this is a fare way to deal with this. I don't like the idea that you can choose from a group of people in need, and someone would have to wait a long time before receiving help. 

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, I recommend going to Plan.(your country's ending i.e. .ca, .fi, etc). There you can read more information about how Plan works, and you can become sponsor right away. There are many kids in need, and this is an easy way to help. 

Alice in wonderland (2010)

This movie I did not see in the theaters but I saw in the TV. I had heard some bad wrap about it, but I had high hopes for it still, because it is a Burton movie. I think the person who played Alice has played Jeanne D'Arc, or then it was just some other similarities to that story that brought the thing to my mind. But back to the movie. I like these type of movies where the old story has been given a new spin or it is a continuation of the existing story. 

The commercial were a bit drag, but otherwise it was very entertaining to watch. I think I might even buy this movie for myself, as it is like I mentioned before a Burton movie. :))

Heat (the movie)

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCharty in same movie. I do recommend this movie to be watched. It is not a waste of anybody's time. It's a bit hollywoodian, but it is good to see a cop movie with two leading roles played by women. Having said this, this is a good movie to be watched at home as well so no need to watch it in the movies. I am not a fan of comedy movies, so my interpretation of this movie might be off. Or then it should tell you that this really is a good movie. I don't think you really need to know more about this than that this is a cop movie. It tells you all you need to know to enjoy the movie, but if you need to know more of the plot, then go read it somewhere else. 

To me reading the plot sometimes reveals too much, and you can't enjoy the movie anymore. Especially when we are talking about feel good movies, then you really do not need to know anything about them. 

What happens to paycheck part II

There was this article in Finnish newspaper on how to save money. You can check the article here:  http://www.kauppalehti.fi/omaraha/tuntuuko+palkka+hupenevan+15+vinkkia+saastamiseen/201309507769
The tips continue...

Ninth tip is to compete the electric company and phone company regularly. Well, for some this might be very valid advice. My Finnish phone is already very good and it is really difficult or impossible to find better deal. So if you already have a good deal, don't let it go for a deal that is only good for few months. 

Tenth tip is always take receipt and hold on to it. Yeah, very important for house items, but if you buy food you need to think twice. Sure hold on to the receipt for a day or two, but once you have used the food, you can through the receipt away. 

Tip number eleven. Complain, if there is need to complain. Right... Like you need a tip for that. They really made this as a tip? Really! How stupid they think people are?!

Tip twelve. Sell things that you do not need. This is a good tip. If you have excess items then sell, sell, sell. If you do not, like many who have little money don't have, this is not important tip for you. But if you are handy, you can fix items that others through away and sell them.

Tip thirteen. Use bicycle instead of a car. Well, if you do not have money, you probably don't have a car. Or if you need to you should sell the car, as if you only use the car once a month you are better off renting the car. Going by bike or by foot is a very good option if you are living in city. I don't have a car here in Toronto, but I use the public transportation. Also it is good to have friends who have a car.

Tip fourteen. Have vegetarian day once a week. Right... I remember that when I was a student, I ate meat probably once or twice a week. So not a good tip either. When you are calculating what you are eating anyway, you will loose the most expensive part of it. 

Tip fifteen. Use what the forest gives you. Right. Good advice, can't deny that. I just think that this should have been higher on the list and they should have explained this a bit more. At least in Finland you can go to the forest pick up berries and  mushrooms and also go fishing. You'll need to buy a permit to fish though. 

Like I said in the previous post, some of these tips are just no good. I had high hopes for this article but as you can see some of the tips are just not really helpful. I would have hoped for some really helpful tips. Basically if you haven't had that much money when you were growing up, just remember how you did things back then and you'll be fine. 

What happens to paycheck?

There was this article in Finnish newspaper on how to save money. You can check the article here:  http://www.kauppalehti.fi/omaraha/tuntuuko+palkka+hupenevan+15+vinkkia+saastamiseen/201309507769

Unfortunately the language is in Finnish, so not all of you will understand it. But I will discuss about the subject now. So the article gives 15 tips on how to save money. 

First tip is to pay the Credit Card bill fully right away. This is a good tip, but if you don't have that much money coming in each and every month, it is impossible to do that. I remember at one time, that I pretty much paid the rent and other bills, then transferred rest to my CC and lived from my CC rest of the month. I did this until I had something left on my bank account to use. Usually it was either around christmas when the overpaid taxes were returned or around my birthday. 

Second tip is never buy stuff with installments. With this I do agree. If you do not have much money, and you buy with installments, you will end up paying more and loosing more money. I try not to buy anything with installments. I think I haven't done so ever, but I can be wrong. Basically if I can't afford something now, then I will wait until I can. Credit Card being acceptable payment method, as usually airline fares have to be paid by CC. 

Third tip is to pay something for yourself every month. I agree with this one, although if you do not have a big income, most of it will go on bills and living expenses. So might not be possible. At the moment I do save money monthly for the retirement and also I have some money going to my sister's children. I don't have any for my brother's children because they are better off anyway. 

Tip four and five is to always make a list when you go shopping and never go shopping hungry. The list thing I have used quite often, and I always remember to add something sweet to eat as well. Nowadays I just try to have enough food on my fridge and freezer for a week. Well meat I will have to buy at least twice a week, but other stuff only once. I do see the difference between shopping and hungry shopping. But there is a quick fix for that too. Just think that you can't afford to go over budget, or you just won't eat for the rest of the month. This is what I did when I was younger, but I think I will need to take this approach again. 

Sixth and seventh tip is to buy the shop's own brand and plan what you are going to eat for a week. Of course I buy the shop's own brand if it is the cheaper kind. It might not always be, so I think better advice would be to check the price. In Finland they have to have visible the price for one, or per kg, so you can easily check what will be more valuable for you. Here in Canada I have noticed that they do not do that and the packaging is different. So I need to be careful when buying something "cheaper" as it might actually be more expensive. Planning what to eat for a week is quite easy, as I live by myself. So if I cook something, it usually carries me over few days. I have macaroni, rice and potatoes that I can use to do the basics. I would say that cook at home, is better advice and then if you have a family, then you will need to plan what to eat more specifically. 

Eight tip is to use discount codes and take bonuses online. This is such a random tip... Of course someone with little money will do their research and buy where they find the item cheapest. Also they will collect the bonuses where they are available. If you really are in need of money, and you have a bonus card that will give you money back, you will try to buy stuff that will return the money back to you. If you have money and are not that worried about it, maybe then this is a good tip...

The rest of the tips are kind of obvious to me, and this post is getting really long, so I will tell you about them later. I just was so disappointed with the article as I had hoped it would be much better. If you go to any forum and ask there tips on how to save money, they will instantly tell you to to stop ordering magazines and cut what ever netflix type of thing you have going on. These were not mentioned in the list. I'll probably do another post later today, as I am supposed to write my thesis now... 

School update

I did it! I did it! Now I am uptodate with all my courses. I only had one paper that needed to be approved, but that one paper could have slowed me down really bad. But now I have all my courses uptodate and I can study with my group the rest of the year. Also I can start doing my thesis. Yay!

It's middle of the night

This is just a silly post, to keep me up for few more minutes. I am waiting for a teacher to come online. We might (or might not) be able to talk about my thesis... Well it is nine a.m. in Finland, or few minutes after actually. Here it is after two a.m. and I am a bit tired. Well maybe more than a bit. I think I will suggest that next time it is either between 6-8 a.m. or in the afternoon after 2 p.m. so that I will be able to sleep some. 

I have no idea on how long should I wait... Just because she wrote that she might be able to be here, but there was no promise. I will not wait too long, because I do need to sleep. But I don't want to be gone if she would appear in few minutes time. So I need to wait at least 15 min? maybe 30 min? Now it's been 15 minutes and my teacher is not here. So can I now go to bed? Should I still wait for few more minutes. Maybe I sent my reply to her a bit too late, and she did not receive it in time.

I think I am going to go to bed in 4 minutes. Then I will have waited for her for 20 minutes. That is still nine-ish right? Now I have the song In the middle of the night stuck in my head... I should have chosen my topic a bit better. Three more minutes... Have I mentioned that (two minutes) that my boss has moved away from Finland? Also that due to the time difference he is almost twelve hours ahead of me. So when it is morning for him, it is night for me. Also he has chosen to keep me updated on things when he wakes up... This means that I have to listen to the possibility of not having a job just before I am going to bed. Oh, and the possibility of me not having a job is quite big. We are now talking about months instead of years. I might not have enough money for my living here in Canada for the last two months, if I don't get paid in January. So sweet dreams me. Now it's already one minute over... So posting this post and closing the thingy, and waking up in few hours. 

Flying is dangerous part III

Well, well, well. I have now received the official reply from BA. Here it is:

Dear Kasku

Thank you for your email.  I am really concerned to read about the trouble you had getting out of the aircraft BA 794 in Helsinki-Vantaa on 24/08/13, and also about the way the situation was handled by our staff.  Please accept my sincere apologies for that.

Please believe that we take pride in our standards of service, and this certainly includes courteous and helpful staff.  The behaviour you describe is unacceptable and a report has gone straight to the line manager of the staff in question.

Thank you for getting in touch, and for your helpful observations about our service.  I hope that you did not keep any injury from that fall, and that despite this event you will choose to fly with us again soon.

So, now I am quite happy with my education, because I read this text and it just makes me angry. This message I should have received just few days after I sent the complaint... It does not take weeks to come up with this message. First of all, I did not have trouble getting out... I got out fine! There was problem with the landing part, as I landed on my knees. Do not belittle what I experienced. The apology should have come first, before any comment of the incident. Had I broken my leg or knee, there would be hell to pay. Trust me! Fortunately the most painful part was the first two days. After that I healed. I am not that old, so the healing process is quite fast still.

Do you also notice, that there is only one apology in this message. They do thank me twice for contacting them... There is no need to thank me for that. My helpful observations of the service was done while landing on my knees! Again belittling what happened to me. Basically, I read it as it has been my own fault for tumbling down and having difficulties getting out of the plane (maybe I got lost in the plane). The fault is not the staffs, but they still should have done something so they are going to report this to someone who is not going to do anything about it. The rest is as "But hey! Thank you for telling all this to us, and please use us again, because we are so perfect!"

Can't be bothered to write them back, because it would just mean that I would have to think about the incident while I would rather forget it. Maybe my New Years resolution is not to fly with BA. Also tell as many people as possible not to fly with BA as well. I am converting into KLM customer. 

/Edit: I have shown this message to a few friend and told about it to another friend. They think the message is just fine. Maybe it is because we have talked about the importance of wording in school i.e. how not to take blame that this text just doesn't suite me. Really my first emotion after reading this, was anger! Or am I just overreacting? Well at least one of my friends agrees with me about how this message should be read. Hmmm, we both do customer care for living...

Insidious: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 the continuance of the horror movie Insidious. If you remember, I have talked about the first part here. I rented it with my friend based on suggestion from someone who had seen it. Basically the first part was not very good to be watched at home, so I decided that I would see this second one in the movie theater. 

First big problem that I faced was the other movie goers. I think this is my tenth time in movies here, or close to tenth, and never has the audience been so disrespectful of other movie goers. People played with their phones and talked well beyond the start of the movie. Not a very good start, when you are trying to enjoy the movie. I actually kicked someones seat, because the phone was so distracting. I could clearly see his facebook messages. Rude, I tell ya, Rude!

Other problem was, that the audience reacted to everything on screen. I think there were more laughter then in a comedy movie. If there was a hint of a ghost, people started ooOOing. I also think someone brought a young child there... It was very unpleasant experience. 

All this beside, the movie as a horror movie had only few scenes worthy of horror stamp. I would say that this was a good thriller, and as such worth watching in theater. If you love horror movies, then don't have your hopes up, as you'll be disappointed. Having said that, when you have low expectations you might end up loving the film. Just be warned, that the other movie goers might also ruin the movie for you. Plot was good, the acting was good. No bad words there, but maybe a bit too much comedic scenes to my taste.  

Flying is dangerous part II

So I have sent complaint of the incident to both to Finavia and BA. First contact I made via Twitter, basically to see what kind of response I would get there. Points go to Finavia, as they replied quite quickly with a link to the site where I can submit my complaint BA was not so friendly, although they did say they were sorry to hear about the incident and hoped I was okey. 

Then I sent the complaint via the suitable channel via their sites. I did not wait a speedy reply, as I am sure that both companies do receive a high amount of feedback all the time. So I was not worried when a week went by. I was not worried when the second week went by. I did expect to hear from Finavia by end of the second week, because to my understanding it is a smaller organization and thus the reply will come faster. 

Well I decided to send a tweet again. I admit, I was being a bit snarky in the tweet. I said "Wau! You guys either don't have customer care or the lines are long. Still no reply to my complaints." I addressed the tweet to both of the parties. To my surprise I got a tweet back from Finavia, saying that the official response will come from BA. So basically I do not need to wait for a reply from Finavia anymore, just wait for the BA one. 

I was pleasantly surprised that Finavia and BA have been communicating with each other about this, and are releasing a joint response. Not quite what I had expected from their past performance. There is still hope for the companies, although I still get chills just thinking of BA and the gate in Helsinki-Vantaa. If you ask me now, weather I will fly with BA again; my answer will be no. I do have to say, that because I love flying and traveling I am eager to just forget the whole thing. I don't want to stress about choosing flights so that I would not use certain company. I am sure that closer to Christmas, if you ask me again, I will think about it. Year from now, I will probably be flying with BA again without any hesitation. 

But, this is just an update on this matter. We will see in few weeks (hopefully) what kind of a reply I have received. 

Finnish expatriate problems

1. Send emails late in the evening and in the morning be angry because you haven't received a reply to them. This only works if you are sending emails to Finland, and not to someone else who has the night at the same time...

2. After days work, send messages to your friends and wonder why no one replies... Oh right! 7 hours time difference.

3. Get confused when people talk Finnish to you.

4. Plan to bake something from home, only to find out that you can't find ingredients. No porridge rice, no raesokeri (its a type of sugar), potato flour is actually starch, rye where art thou, yeast why art thou so dry? No quark, but if you mix Greek yogurt and Philadelphia it will taste the same.

5. How to inform the new address easily? Well not with those handy cards that you can pick up from any post office...

Summer is over, work and school has started

I don't mind the school work at all, but the work is a bit stressful. It feels like I would not have been on a vacation at all. Oh well, such is life. Just need to make the best of the things that are given. 

Star Gazing

Here is a sneak peak of the pictures I took. I did saw a few more celebrities, but I was not able to take pics of them as they walked by so fast. Also my battery was very low in my phone. I would have loved to talk to Sandra Bullock, but a lady behind me started yelling how his son is a fan and is standing behind/squeezed in there. So her attention was directed elsewhere. No worries, at least I got a picture. 

Riddick

The third part of the saga called Riddick. What can I say... I love the movies and I love Riddick! (Had to take the harts out, as I never seem to remember that blogger does not like them.)

Well having said that, I do have a small problem with this new installment. Although they explained it in the movie, I really did not grasp the idea what happened after the second movie. It just did not fly with me. Fine, the first and third are done with the same concept as indie movie whilst the second one was more Hollywood movie. 

But despite the rough start, mostly I enjoyed watching Vin Diesel taking the screen. I saw this movie as IMAX movie, but I really do not think it brought anything extra to the experience. So I recommend seeing this movie if you are a fan of the series. Knowledge of the previous movies is not necessary but recommended to see this one. Some is explained in the beginning of the movie and references to the first movie is discussed throughout the movie. 

The World's End

Last night I saw The World's End. If you are a fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, you will love this movie as well! It was a bit different in my opinion compared to the previous ones (keep in mind I have not seen the Shawn of the dead). Still I would like to give a word of warning, the movie is not for everyone. You definitely need to have a specific kind of humor to fully enjoy it. Some kind of humor is needed to enjoy the movie. As what goes for the acting, this movie has one of the best scenes I have seen this year. Somehow those actor who thing they have made it have forgotten how to act. It is so boring to watch a movie where the actors seem to be just reading lines. So compared to that, the World's End is a good movie to watch. 

Plot, what can I say about the plot. It is what it is. It is definitely different from what you are used to if you are watching lots of Hollywood movies. I wish there would be more this type of movies where the plot is some parts plausible. It is very relateable and I imagine that because of that not that many people will like it. Basically if it hits too close to home, you won't enjoy it as much. And no, I am not talking about the aliens!

But in the end, I would say that this is a good movie to see in theaters or at home. I enjoyed seeing the movie in the almost empty movie theater (day showing), but I would guess it will be even better with a full house.  

Comparing airlines

So I flew back home with Finnair. What can I say... It was nice to fly directly from Helsinki to Toronto. Unfortunately the plane was a holiday plane (it only flies during the summer holiday and only the summer holiday trips). I really do not understand why they chose such a bad plane to fly between HEL and YYZ. The passengers were not holiday travelers, but traveling journey. I think there were ten Finns on board the plane and the other 200 passengers were coming somewhere else. Really Finnair?! You could do so much more! It really was a long journey to travel, when you had to follow the screen far away and it only had few programs on it. Maybe I am spoiled but when I am traveling over the ocean I would like to have some control over what I watch. I had not planned to sleep, but I had little choice on what else to do. 

I flew to London with BA. I have used BA quite a lot and have preferred them earlier. Now I am changing my mind about them. Although there were some trouble with the entertainment in the beginning of the flight, the rest of the flight was trouble free. I loved the steward that we had, he was funny and smiled and was friendly. All good qualities. The plane was quite small surprisingly, with not that much leg room. The second plane that I had when flying to Helsinki, had much better leg room space. Now as we are speaking about the long flight, I shall not comment more about the shorter flight. So on the long flight, when it was ending, I was expecting to get a warm towel type of thingy, but they did not give it. I have a clear image that they did give one when I flew to Toronto. Somehow the service in BA has lowered with every flight I take with them. I don't think I will dare to take another flight with them, because with this track record the next flight will be really shitty one.

Last year I went to Winnipeg, and I crossed the Atlantic with KLM. I thought back then that the service was okey, but not as good as what I would have expected from BA or Finnair. So basically I was happily surprised. Now after flying over the Atlantic couple more times, I have to say that KLM actually is pretty good choice. On either trip, there and back, they did not drop the ball. I was entertained and fed well. The flight attendants were friendly and efficient. The plane were comfy (compared to BA and Finnair) and spacey. 

So out of these three, the KLM is the best one and if I have any choice I will choose them. 

School and travels

So my trip to Finland did not have a great start. Luckily the rest of the trip was not that bad. I had friends meet me at the airport and take me to the train station. Then I traveled by night train to Tornio, where my sister picked me up. I spent the sunday with my sister's family. Then on Monday morning, I went for school. Due to unexpected events (i.e. one of the teachers was sick) we only had three day week instead of the four day that had been planned. I learned that we are going to have a really difficult semester, as we are expected to write a lot of text. Joint assignment alone is about 20 pages, where it usually has been half of that. Also the joint task is now individual. 

After the school days, I concentrated on writing my rs3 Handbook which had not passed the first time. I am still not happy about it, but I have little choice on it. Also I do not have the energy to look for another place at the moment due to the complications at work. So I spent some time to fix the handbook so that I will be able to continue with my studies. 

Then on Friday night I traveled back to south Finland to visit my niece and nephew. My nephew had not slept well as he had been waiting for me to come. He had missed me really much. So to give them a dosage of me I stayed until Tuesday morning. Then from there I went to see my friend who had just given birth to a new baby girl. I had not seen her for over a year, so it was about time I saw her. 

I saw a few friends by accident, as I had not informed anyone that I was coming over. Well that is not entirely true, as my brother and sister did know that I am coming and also my school friends knew that I was coming. This was pretty much off the radar trip for me, as I did not have that much time to visit anyone. I was so tired all the time, and went to bed latest at nine.