When did I last miss a Monday blog entry?! Circumstances beyond my control, folks. That's all I can say.

I'm spending the week at my grandparents' place. My school has some kind of fall break going on; don't ask me why they couldn't just have us start a week later in August.... But I'm not complaining at all. With all the things going on in my social life at the moment, I'm glad not to have any homework.

I met some Estonian choir girls on the weekend. Saturday night was a relaxed, informal, post-discussion-evening social gathering at my cousin's Oulu apartment. Sunday night we headed to said cousin's parents' place in the countryside for some real happenings. There were at least twenty people, aged 14 to 50 (parents hosting), half of whom were singers. Naturally, the evening's main event was a series of choral and musical performances. I muddled through the first song in the baritone section, and thereafter opted for an audience role. Words cannot describe the beauty of the sounds those practiced, enthusiastic, young singers made. I would have loved to participate, but my singing voice is the kind that sounds best in the shower. With headphones on. I assume no responsibility for anyone who tries that at home....

To return to the subject of the Estonians, they were members of a school choir on a non-competitive trip to Oulu. Their language sounds so crazy! Some words are exactly the same as in Finnish, some are similar, and some are totally different. We Finns laughed ourselves silly at some of their talk amongst themselves. The language of mutual conversation was, of course, English. We were very interested in each others' respective cultures. Estonia's independence from the Soviet Union is still young, and the socioeconomic situation is very Former Eastern Bloc. My class will be visiting there in the spring.

On a marginally related note, the future looks worse than ever for the democratic experiment in Russia.

On another marginally relevant note, I find that my "native" Canadian English makes me a commodity in demand, so to speak. It's nice to have a gift like that just fall into your lap. Everyone tells me how lucky I am. At the same time, my complete ignorance of Swedish goes a long way towards making up for it. I also regret my years wasted "studying" French in school. If I'd known it might actually be an asset now, I might have approached my studies with a further goal in mind than the next test.

By the way, I am so happy right now that it scares me. Is that good or bad?

-BC