Back In The Saddle

I was in two minds about whether I'd be happy about it, but considering my return to riding is compulsory, here I am. The Powers That Be have decreed that I shall attend Finnish 2 classes fulltime until June.

The class is actually ok. I'm bored stupid with the grammar, finishing my 30-minute practice sheets in about 5 (and sitting there staring into space) but on the plus side, the grammar teacher is great and I understand her. Considering it's the vocabulary and speaking that I need, this is a Very Good Thing™.

The other students range from hopelessly lost to I-should-be-in-Finnish-4. Some of them are quite amusing. Unfortunately the ones I would like to write about might stumble on this blog one day, so, I'm afraid I can't. All I can do is write their quirks into the characters in one of my books. Who knows, one of them might become a main character one day.

Oh but I will mention Dumbshoes, from a sister-classroom. Let's just call her Dumbshoes. She's in her 20s and always dresses nicely but for some reason the "great outfit!" vibe seems to skip her feet completely. So far I've seen:
 - high heel tennis sandshoes
 - stilettos with huge pink satin ribbon bows
 - lovely high-top delicate leather sandals, with awful green socks underneath
 - low-heeled red slip-on sandals with big gold buckles, plus socks underneath
 - flat leather sandals with yellow and orange striped (hip high?) stockings underneath
 - mustard-coloured leg warmers

I just cannot understand how this lady has such awful leg attire in her wardrobe when the rest of her looks like it could be in a fashion catalogue.

When I get my new phone, I think I'll start photographing strangers' bad fashion choices. The attire all over Helsinki gets worse during winter as people throw fashion out the window and begin throwing random pieces on which deal with the cold rather than style.

That'll make me feel better about the fact that I wear the same black jeans and grey jacket every single day.

It's awful!

And horrible and mean and nasty!

I don't want to learn any more languages inside Google+. English and Finnish are quite enough trouble for me.

I don't want to go to French classes, I don't want to study German verbs or Italian case forms.

I don't want to learn the Russian alphabet or learn to paint beautiful Japanese kanji.

Turkish accents confuse me, Arabic is backwards, and Thai's stacked vowels just boggle the mind.

Isn't it awful that I don't want to learn to master 784 languages?

It's TERRIBLE! I'm mean and horrible and mean and nasty!

Heaven forbid that I should ask people to use a language I understand when they reply to MY posts. It's inappropriate, and I have no right to understand the replies! Inappropriate, my internets!