A New Vibration...

You'll feel me coming
A new vibration
From afar you'll see me
I'm a sensation.

-The Who

As I believe Paul McCartney once publicly stated, I am not dead! In fact, I fell sensational. My cold is gone and my stomach woes have ended. Glory be!

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog, already (somewhat) in progress...


My art class went downtown to the Oulu Cathedral on Wednesday to take an artistic look at the building. It was originally constructed in 1777, but burned down in the mid-1800s (NOTE: everything burned down in the mid-1800s as there was a giant fire that engulfed the entire city of Oulu in a hellish, catastrophic, and generally unpleasant event which left most of the town demolished). The church was then rebuilt on the original foundation and still stands there today. We took a look at some of the architecture of the cathedral as well as old and new artwork throughout the sanctuary.



Then we went somewhere that was even more interesting. A gallery of modern art. Modern art done by graduate students. Feminist graduate students. Angry feminist graduate students. With materials, dammit!

We saw some very bizarre and often humorous artwork in what used to be the city prison but has since been converted into an art gallery.

This was my favorite piece. It's a drunken puppet. (Alcoholism: that hi-lar-ious!) Much of the art we saw I am unable to show you as it not only blurrs but quite near destroys the line between common decency and...well, that which is actually entertaining. To save your innocent minds, I refrained from even taking photographs of things such as toy bears with _________, women with _________, and a _________ putting _________ in ___________!





Once we got past the really funny stuff and the angry feminist stuff, we came to a room filled with what seemed to be wax sculptures that had been partially melted. It was as if someone had planted a flower too close to the egg nesting field in Aliens and it warped. Very strange. This is where your money's going dad! It's all for education! (Actually, I am learning a lot about contemporary Finnish art).






Ate dinner with my Kummi family again. I rode to their house 25 minutes in the rain in 34 degree weather. Hyvaa! I'm learning more Finnish every day and was pleased to watch an episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brian in English with Finnish subtitles. (These scandinavians love their Conan!)

I'm supposed to read Ibsen's A Doll's House for my literature class, but cannot find it in English. I'm not sure what she expects us to do, but I will soon find out. I spend most of today writing a paper on the Inuit (not "Eskimos!") for my Nordic Environment class. It's kind of like Snakes on a Plane in that I'm sure it will be well received, despite it being mostly bull. Ah, writing.

Everything is back to normal now. I'm going on a day trip to Hailuoto island on Tuesday with my art class and I'm sure I'll have more stories and pictures from that.

Well, hyvaa yota (good night) to you all.

d

Be sure to check out even more cool photos at:

Dustin's PhotoBucket!

Also...
Check out this cool short video that someone sent me:

Free Hugs