"Friday final" and then changing into the role of a dressage judge - never a dull moment this summer!

Roofs.....

the roof of the cathedral in Porvoo was burnt completely in 2006 by three youngsters, of which the main burner is paying the rebuilding costs for the rest of his life. He could´t give a better reason for putting the church on fire,  except that he and his friends had been drinking and he didn`t like religious things..He was also convicted to prison for six and half years, while the two others remained free and had only to pay some fees.. The church was in use again 30.11.2008.
When thinking about this accident, I suddenly remembered something like that which happened about 15-20 years ago in Mäntsälä. A gang of young men- I had even taught two of them- were drunk and got the splendid idea to put a fire on the sawmill nearby the center of the main village. Unfortunately I could not  found any old news about that happening, but if I remember correctly, there were huge payments for these youngsters for their joke! Sometimes even a short loose of control- for instance when getting drunk- can give one problems for the rest of one´s life! Even worse things can happen, often accidentally, in a gang where someone has to show "braveness" or just by careless behavior! Sometimes we teachers could, just by talking about accidents like this , help some young people to use their brains and avoid situations which leaves unpleasant traces for the rest of their lives! 

kuva: Henrik Wager,Porvoon museo, 2006

The first thing at Friday morning we had to do, was to tell about our dinner to those, who hadn´t been able to participate. So we again had a nice discussion, now about meals. This is the way to include people, who has been missing from something, to your tasks! By having students to take photos ( remember the mobile-phone!) you can make their discussions even more personal and interesting!

the menu included:

greek salad, smoked beef or salmon (salmon in this picture), and the rhubarb pie with cinnamon ice cream- yamm!

then again some thoughts for us teachers:

ALWAYS BE AWAKE WHEN YOU GO AROUND AND COLLECT SOME MATERIALS!

So, now I understand why my coffins and all places at home are so full of all kind of everything.... I`ve already been practicing  this ideas of Mark´s! Unfortunately, most of my time goes to try to find out where I`ve hidden  different items, pictures or journals !

We were next handed some copies of last Tuesdays "Daily Mail"and had to read one article about a case of violence in France.This text had gained a lot of hot discussions in the social media, and the original French newspaper, which had published the writing, had to correct the issue. 

the Daily Mail 28.7.2015

To make this story short - Three girls passing by some girls suntanning in a parc, talked to each other. One fat girl said that she would ever wear a bikini in a public park , cause of her  body, and when one of these bikini-wearing girls heard that and cried out "Yeh, because you´re fat" the fight was there! Absolutely nothing to do with religion !

This story reminded me of  a huge demonstration which took place in Helsinki, Tampere and even Oulu last week. One politician from the true Finns- party had made some not-very-clever- notes about multicultural societies on his Facebook pages, and people get angry and even furious about him and the true Finns-party. People joined up doing very fast conclusions about some stupid opinions written in the social media, and to make  a demonstration was decided just in two days! All because of this guys ´very carelessly written nonsense. It was a bit kind of hat "I am Charlie"- discussion,  and don´t misunderstand me now - I ´m absolutely not a racist - me self belonging to the minority of swedish-speaking finns- but  being so upset and go and march for something someone stupid has said or written - I don´t really understand. In Finland we are sometimes too polite to foreigners just because we are so afraid of  to be labelled as racists! "Maassa maan tavalla" / "man tar skeden i vacker hand dit man kommer" means that if you live somewhere abroad, you have to notice and accept the culture in that country where you live. But of course, you must also be accepted as you are with your culture in Finland as long everyone gives room to each others religion and opinions  

vanhavittuilee.omasivu.fi

I found on my FB-pages, put in by a friend, a quite interesting article about this subject.

OK, the whole idea about this, why Mark told us this story and showed us the article and discussion around it, was of course :                                                                                                                           FIND MATERIAL FROM THE LIFE AROUND YOU, and

BE CRITICAL TO ALL SORTS TEXTS YOU READ!

Multiculture in Finland..... :)

Then we had a short introduction to British politics and the results from the voting last spring.

The results were showing how much media today has got power in everything and how they read and show the results- in who´s interests?

I was then a little hurried to get of to Lahtis judging a dressage  so I missed watching a film about JK Rowling which I perhaps find on youtube later. But alltogether, these three days have been very interesting and pleasant and gave me a lot of new ideas! Perhaps next summer to Ireland- Mark already asked us if enyone was interested of a seven to ten  days long visit to the green Island!

a big hug from Mark to Mia when receiving as a present from Finland cloudberrymarmalade and  juice made of seathorne!


The afternoon from 13-19 I spent sitting in a tent judging riders from all parts of Finland on riding-schoolhorses. The level has certainly rose since I first judged this competition more than 20 years ago. Nice horses, good riders, some nervousity among the riders  but also calm, correct riding - me like! Have to check the final results today with some other judges, because  I was asked to judge in Kauhajoki today . There had been so few participants that they didn´t need so many judges, thats why I`m free now and even had a tour in the forest picking blueberries  with my neighbours !

preparing horses in Lahti

participants from  Northern Savo

Anu Iivanainen and her staff

pricegiving ceremony

And in the evening, I will take care of my grandsons- absolutely fantastic! As a granma´, I can spoil them, love them, do nice things with them, but leave the responsibility of education to their parents!!

By the way, something I can´t leave out from my weekly program: Sauna & swim in the lake . So this was again yesterdays end of the day - such relaxing!

...and the sunset!

ja jotta arkinen totuus ei unohtuisi- nämä ihanuudet huolehtivat aamuisin että herään!