NFIMBY: No Finns In My Backyard!

Lately there's been a lot of talk about multiculturalism. There is, however, one group that has been wholly forgotten: the notorious Finns. Forget about the Turkish, the Chinese, or any inhabitants of your favourite Islamic nation. Here come the biggest and the meanest - enter Finns.

I'll start with their unsocial nature. Whereas a representant of a more civilized nation would be happy about the daily meet & greet, an invitation for a cup of coffee, or just some stress-relieving small talk, the Finns are from the Down Under in this respect. Don't expect to be greeted by them. Actually, more likely the Finn will just avert his gaze and avoid eye contact completely. Even though their language skills are better than average, their inclination for discussions with any weird people is limited. And to a Finn, everyone but himself is a Weirdo.

Which brings me nicely to my second point: complaining. In a world filled with weirdos, the Finn can always conveniently find a source of unhappiness, discontent or just general annoyance in someone or something other than himself. And as a rule loving nation, they are quite adept in picking the most diminutive details in anything. Also, they seem to have a knack in knowing the rules of anything inside out, visible especially due to the aggressive way they relate to breaching them. So you'll be hearing about what's wrong. All the time.

As inhabitants of a cold, northern land, Finns seem to have get stuck in an era way back in some ways. This holds true especially for alcohol and aggressive behavior. The aggressive behavior has been somehow integrated in the Finnish gene, and it still is to this day held up in their society. There's even a famous song where they sing "työttömyys, viina, kirves ja perhe" (joblessness, booze, an axe and a family) and the song goes on to tell about how the father drives his family out to the snow with an axe while being completely wasted. Does that sound like normal behavior to you?

The consuption of alcohol in large amounts is also related to the unsocial nature of Finns. They can never talk without a drink. That would be fine, if the Finns wouldn't overdo this too. To them, one drink is nowhere near enough, and throughout the night consuming even a 12-pack per person is quite normal. This means that if you really want to talk to a Finn, you have a time frame of two drinks - he has already the courage to open his mouth, but isn't too drunk yet. Naturally, as they get ever more drunk, the Finnish parties get real loud. And if you, dear reader, happen to make a comment about this, you'll just be blown off and told to mind your own business. But if other people have parties when the Finns want to sleep, well, that's just wrong! Have some manners! Think about the sleeping people! So, welcome to a world of double standards.

I remember this one politician advertising, how an inhabitant registry of a building would look like, if it was full of Arabic people. Well, with Finns it gets equally bad. It'll be a building full of people, whose last name you will not be able to pronounce, ever. Just try it with "Kämäräinen" or "Pääskysalo". Yeah, I thought so.

To sum up: if you'd like drinking and complaining socially incompetent people with incomprehensible names in your neighborhood, fine. Otherwise, join the Basic Foreigners front against Finns!

Note on teaching

I think everybody has heard the following famous quote from Abraham Lincoln:

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

Today I suddenly found myself reflecting on all the different courses and lectures I've been to. The differences are huge: the best lectures have been phenomenal, whereas the worst ones have made me feel like I'd rather be deaf to avoid any similar experiences. I know the lecturers try their best, but teaching is really not that easy. It should be informative, compact and easy to understand. But still, the key ingredient is to not make it boring! So, I thought of an application of Lincoln. Maybe the golden rule of teaching should be instead

You can bore all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot bore all the people all the time.

That's what the lecturer said

Key:

What he said
What he meant


"This subject is very important basic information for anyone looking for a career in business."
"You won't learn anything useful, but it's a mandatory course so you'll just have to sit through it."


”This course will be a lot of work, but it will also be rewarding once you learn all of it.”
"I cannot understand that students have a life outside this classroom.”


”Even though the lecture notes are available on the Web, I still encourage you to read through the course book.”
”Hey, even I haven't read it. But I'll still put a question in the exam regarding one nitpick piece of it, just to force you to read it.”


”I hope you will ask questions and comment as much as possible.”
”I don't really know what I'm talking about so I hope you'll do the teaching for me.”


”I will keep the theory part as short as possible.”
either ”You are idiots and wouldn't understand it anyway.” or
”I don't really understand it myself, so I can't teach it to you.”


”That's a good question, but in the scope of this course we won't go further into that conversation.”
”I don't have a clue how to answer that.”


”I think you have an interesting viewpoint into this.”
”I think you're an idiot.”


”I think we can agree to disagree.”
”I think you're an idiot – besides, I'm right.”


”That question cannot be answered with the knowledge of this course.”
”Hey, I'm the one with the PhD! Who's criticizing who here?”