#lolfinns

[tiikerikani]

Today’s #bitterforever lolfinns story is brought to you by hearing on the radio “Olen suomalainen” song for the first time. I’d only ever heard it at karaoke, and I’ve only recently started putting the radio on sometimes.

I used to be invited to do a couple of karaoke songs at the lolfinns’ parties. They kept trying to suggest that I sing that song, as if, if you want so much to be Finnish (when you aren’t “actually”, whatever that means), then you have to show it with symbolic displays like that (ironically, it’s actually a cover of an Italian song). Which only would reinforce the idea they wanted to have in their heads about me - the assumption that it’s not identification with the culture but a superficial infatuation, a hobby, or a phase.

I never did sing it, because I didn’t find the song very interesting, and still don’t.

[tiikerikani]

Because I am a human being with feelings about other people (contrary to what some people think), I often wonder how Crazyfinn is doing. I wouldn’t say it’s being nosy; I just kind of feel sorry for him for being all hated by the other lolfinns (for good reason). I sometimes consider poking my ex on Facebook to ask about him, as it’s the only way of doing so without actually talking to lolfinns, but it’s also too awkward because it’s my ex and we don’t have anything to do with each other anymore.

I sometimes wonder about the rest of the lolfinns too, at least the group in general rather than specific people. But those guys who started all those rumours about me that Crazyfinn happily ate up? No sympathy for them whatsoever.

Maybe one day when my Swedish is good enough to pass the proficiency test, I should write a letter to the lolfinns in Swedish and just imagine their heads exploding.

[tiikerikani]

lolfinns apparently had a “pea soup making” and a “fish filleting” demonstration at their cottage last weekend. I only have mixed feelings about this because at least the fish part was part of a suggestion that I had had way back when. I don’t know if there are new, younger people there now, or how many of those speak Finnish. Or how many of the older people are still there, or how they view these possible new people.

*wipes tears*

Sorry, the memories of being a pariah still make me upset. 

Even though the way they treated me at the end is still representative only of a minority of so-called Real Finns™ (i.e. those living in Finland), is it only a matter of time before even Real Finns™ of all stripes decide that I have nothing more to contribute (either in principle or actually) and make me unwelcome here too?

[tiikerikani]

In the last few weeks, I keep thinking I see people I recognize on the street, who have no business being on this continent. It’s not them, of course, but it’s freaking me out a bit. Just what would they think, of Finns actually accepting me as I am?

[tiikerikani]

When the cantor asked me after practice tonight whether I wanted to sing a solo, and wrote down the name of a song to listen to and consider singing, boy was I glad it wasn't "Olen suomalainen". Not that it'd even be a possibility in this context, but for some weird reason whenever people have written down names of songs that I should learn, that is always on the list.

I have no idea why the lolFinns always felt I had to perform that song.   ...actually, I do. It's because they never considered me an actual Finn at heart so they felt I had to do things like sing that derpy song to "demonstrate" my Finnishness or something.

But anyway, this Jaana Pöllänen song is more contemporary in style than I'm used to singing solos for, but okay

[tiikerikani]

LOLFinns had a movie night!

Who wants to bet that Mrs CrazyFinn bitched and moaned about all the sex and violence and swearing in the Vares movie? (I haven't seen this one in particular but have seen a few others in the series.) (I kind of watched half of the Teemu Selänne documentary when it was on TV here but got bored for lack of subtitles / interest in hockey players.)

[tiikerikani]

I don't know if it's being alone in my parents' house, or paper-writing stress, or keeping an eye on the flood stuff, but absolutely nothing productive has gotten done this week except for shipping my box of books and stationery for Markus to take care of until September, recording the shitty cover of the mandolin song the other day, the Skype meeting with my prof, finishing a card game rulebook translation I started 3 years ago, and reinforcing the holey bits on my patchy canvas messenger bag (which has been retired to light duty only). And that paragraph last night, which is the only actual work of immediate necessity.

I feel...melancholy. Waking up anxious. I'm caged inside myself. I hardly know him but I wish I could be with Markus. The presence of non-strangers.

The silly FinnSoccers are back from their silly cabin now, and the pictures are slowly coming on Facebook. I'm trying not to care: it's six hours away by car and it's not like I was there last year either. But it's hard. There's still something bitter in me about that, though I keep telling myself that I'll soon be among real mökkejä, real saunoja, real järviä, real metsiä, real suomalaisia. As real as can possibly be, and more real than the quaintness that those men never in good faith allowed me to be part of.

I want to hold my student visa in my hand so I know that it's really happening. But I won't have it for a few more weeks.

I don't feel like trying to get drunk again just to get the inhibitions away long enough to write another paragraph for the article, so I'm going to call it a night.

[tiikerikani]

I was about to make a further comment about the last post. About the way, to silly expats, knowing how to speak Finnish completely overrides any other deficiencies in adhering to the stereotype, but then realized that the analogy I was about to make was to what happens when Antti and I throw the prepositional complements for my research verbs into the logistic regression model.

The preposition says too much about which verb goes into the sentence, overshadowing any semantic considerations. That is, for example, if the preposition is on, that practically tells right off that the verb is most likely to be reflect by a huge margin. Sure, think on and ponder on are okay too (and show up in the data), but it's too heavily weighted toward reflect on that nothing else about the sentence context really matters anymore. But it's those other things that are actually interesting and tell us something about what those verbs mean (while choice of preposition is more of a syntax thing). So we decided to leave the prepositions out of the modelling equation.

In other words, for the silly expats, speaking Finnish is the gold standard for "acting/being Finnish". No matter if you hate bonfires or binge drinking or rye bread or going to the cottage, or, hell, even if you hate sauna. If you speak the language fluently, you are in their minds a legit Finn. Nothing else matters.

Let's see what happens if we leave that out of the equation. You might better understand what being a Finn is really about.