After a tragic week, nature blazes

A week ago a tragic act of violence shook Finland to its foundations. It was made even more disastrous because it was the second of its kind within ten months. In both instances, the atrocities were carried out by young, alienated males, with handguns, whose primary contact to the world was the Internet.

There's been so many questions on how we Finns bring up our kids, and what kind of people we really want them to grow up to be. There is no single answer that would solve everything but we hope our leaders and decisionmakers will wake up to the fact that what we do need are policies that support caring, tolerance, social skills, openness and creativity instead of the current forces of greed, self-gain and alienation.

Needless to say, we also strongly question the reasons why any civilian would ever need to carry a firearm.

All we can do, as parents, families and individuals, is carry on and do our honest ten cents worth to give love strength and alleviate suffering. Given the hard edge of our times it may sometimes be a tough call. But we have no other option, and neither should we.

And oh my: what wonderful colors we have had through these sad and confusing days. We spent the last weekend with friends, about a 120 north of Helsinki, where we enjoyed the season's quite possibly last outdoor games of soccer and badminton, and where the autumnal nature really showed her best. If we city dwellers had any chance of actually surviving in the countryside, we could move out there. Now there's a surprising thought...

Peace.

Planes, trains, soccer, drums and exercise

Oh, it's such a stuffed life with kids, isn't it? There seems to be little time for anything else than the obligatory stuff, but when you look closer... at least some of your daily hours are spent on doing something voluntary.

Atte has picked up two new things to do. He goes, with Make, to a model railway club at our town church. The kids get to both drive the model trains and in time they will learn the maintenance and landscaping tasks of a fairly big model set. And when he's not there, he loves to fly! The Microsoft Flight Simulator has totally taken him, and it's truly cool to watch him learning to read the real instruments in a plane's cockpit, and learn the genuine basics of civilian aviation. (Make too has a few flying hours under his belt by now...)

Reko has started soccer last week. He seems real enthusiastic after he got bitten by the Euro Champs this summer; his skills are not top notch compared to most others in the group but at least for the time being he makes up for it by going headlong into the game (sometimes literally).

Annu is trying to accomodate herself to a work with extra long shifts (even 24 hrs at a time), and she enjoys the rewards - days off in the middle of the week - immensely. There's plenty to learn and internalize yet, so the job at this point is probably more draining than it will in time be. She loves it though! She's kept up with her jogging, and taken up swimming on the side as well. The boys in the family try to keep up with her :)

Make has joined an ex-work buddy's band, so the drums stay in the picture very much. He even remembers to take his earplugs to rehearsals nowadays, although remembering anything else is something of a chore. Oh well.