Af-riikka

What follows is a very unscientific analysis of YOU people! I suppose almost everyone who has a counter on their homepage checks the information acquired of visitors every now and then. I remember some bloggers that have similarly been wondering who are you? (for example here) Well, according to my counter (the little box on the lower left corner) most of the visitors who end up reading this blog seem to find here through Google, and to stay only for 5 seconds or less (75 % of visitors). Such quick glances could mean that the visitors are either regular readers who are just checking if there are any updates, or alternatively that the googlers didn’t find what they were looking for. But then again, almost every 7 th person spends more than an hour on this blog – I’m impressed! Although two thirds of visitors come from Finland , it seems that I should still continue writing English now and then: the visitor map is filled with red dots from all over the world (see statistics from 10

http://www.kassandra.fi/zambezi/ Eilen näkemästäni Zambezi-näytelmästä jäi jotenkin ristiriitainen olo. Se oli ehkä liian yksioikoisesti hyväätarkoittava ja multikulti-propagandistinen näytelmä siitä, miltä tuntuu olla pakolainen vieraassa maassa. Kulttuurikeskus Stoassa esitetty, Aleksanterin teatteriin siirtyvä näytelmä kertoo ajasta tulevaisuudessa, jolloin Eurooppa on sekasorron vallassa ja suomalaisperhe pakenee huonoja oloja päätyen lopulta lautalla Afrikkaan, kuvitteelliseen Zambezi-maahan. Esityksen vahvimpia hetkiä olivat musiikkikohtaukset (etenkin mainio Satumaa, tulkittuna ensin sekakielellä, josta erotin ainakin muutaman swahilin sanan), lisäksi mieleen jäi pikakurssi suomalaiseen kulttuuriin: "perusperiaate suomalaisten tervehtimisessä on se, ettei tervehditä ellei ole aivan pakko". Kyseisessä kohtauksessa näyttelijät peittivät kasvonsa yksinkertaisilla naamareilla, ilmeisesti esittääkseen geneerisiä 'suomalaisia' - naamareita käytettiin esityksen aikana

I have lately encountered presumptions about what I am supposed to be like. Funnily enough, they are often correct. For example: we started the Academic English study group by guessing what the other students in the class are studying. As everyone else, I was being examined by other 3 members of my small group solely based on my appearance. Everybody answered something such as: "I'd say you're a humanist, from the Faculty of Arts - maybe folklore studies or something?". Not single one of them guessed even the Faculty of Social Sciences, not to mention Biosciences or anything like that...I suppose I'm that obvious, then. Another occasion when I was being judged was one Tuesday evening at the Theatre Academy. I went to see a dance performance by their students and being a bit early, I decided to sit a while at the school restaurant. I was just glancing through their menu when the bartender asked me: "Red or white?". (I chose red :)) Or when someone entered