Frozen

Hello!

Almost X-mas! Soon I get to eat Christmas-food - I love it! X-mas ham, rosolli, rawpickled salmon, rutabaga-, potatoe- and carrot casserole, garlic... and much more. This year I will make rutabaga casserole myself (even though we will have dinner with our families) also try making beetroot casserole with blue cheese (must be delicious) ;)

Since I a few days ago got older I promised to invite my parents for a birthday coffee, which happened to be today. It was quite many years ago I baked a cake last time but I managed somehow anyway.. more practice is needed, or then I should try on chocolate cake (which I usually would prefer anyhow). Then I made pasties with ham, onion, blue cheese, paprika-filling. They were really gooood! Unfortunately I did not take pictures of them.... It's funny, btw, I used to hate blue cheese but at the moment I could put it almost anywhere haha.

The picture was taken in late November while there were some snow.. hope we'll get some snow for X-mas. Otherwise Santa is stuck at home and the children won't get presents... :o

/ina

Tallinn (II)

           





                      

Architecture in the Old Town of Tallinn.

Doors in Tallinn

 

           

Had a trip to Tallinn the first weekend in November. I took most pictures in the lovely old town, where these doors also can be found. This was my first time in Tallinn and Estonia and I really liked the place. Probably it would be even nicer in spring-summer-early autumn when it's warmer :) Next time I would also stay one or two days longer and have more time for shopping..

Summer is just a vague memory now

Say Hello to the Green Thumb

Two weeks ago. A beautiful sunset. In the countryside of Western Finland...

... with a colorful sky...

... a cozy, warming fire...

... and a rising half moon.

About a week ago I decided to give a try on growing herbs. I was actually a tiny bit afraid they would never start growing since the days are so short and dark this time of the year. But surprisingly - at least what i think is basil - started growing after a few days and now after more than a week the rosemary and mint started growing. I have never really considered myself as a "green thumb" and usually all flowers I sometimes had, died quickly... but maybe I have grown more adult when growing herbs etc. has become interesting :D

/ina

Two Cones and Moss and some words about Marimekko

These cones were captured by me in autumn 2009.

Yesterday I read in a Finnish tabloid (Iltalehti) about a new plagiarism scandal with Marimekko. A pattern called Kuuskajaskari designed by Aino-Maija Metsola is claimed to resemble a ceramic work Heljä Liukko-Sundström desingned for Arabia Finland. They actually never shown any comparison between the Marimekko textile-work and the ceramic work in the newspapers, so I had to Google it myself. 

If they ment to compare these two pieces below (on left: Marimekko, on right: Arabia), I have to say they don't resemble each other that much. The same colors can be observed but the artwork for Arabia includes an island and rabbits and penguins which cannot be found in the artwork for Marimekko. But as we know tabloids and even newspapers love to make a big deal of something that might be a potential scandal, and people read it. And since Marimekko is a strong Finnish brand and plagiarism has been revealed before (which in that case was very clear and can be compared here) and when some piece of work that could be too similar to another designers work it is of course debated. A question that also was pointed out in this article was: How similar can someone else's work be that it could be defined as plagiarism?

Both pictures can be found here. Marimekko textile.

Heljä Liukko-Sundström for Arabia.

Well, when Google'ing further Aamulehti (another Finnish paper) had a real comparison of the similar artworks. Now you can see they are more similar. Still the Marimekko textile has less details compared to Heljä Liukko-Sundström's work and they are composed a little bit differently. In Aino-Maija Metsola's work the horizon is in the middle while it is much higher in Liukko-Sundström's 

Pic from here

work. The colors and shades differ... In my opinion the these two pieces of artwork are not too similar, I see different ideas. 

I see the Marimekko piece more as clubrush on a beach, where upper part below the blue could be sand (in autumn shades) and the blue part a darkened October sky. 

The Arabia piece I see as a cultivated field in August when some of the seed still is green and some has already changed to yellow.

This was only my point of view and I don't know the real deal what happened when the Marimekko piece was designed. Either Aino-Maija Metsola confesses to the media that Liukko-Sundström's work inspired her or something or then not. But both pieces are quite simple and I guess everybody at least as a child has drawn something similar, or a similar flower field, anything. Now I'm not claiming that simple art is bad or less valuable, I like it simple, but simple art can more easily be re-painted and by drawing grass or a field you are probably not the first one coming up with the idea.

Oh, I have probably never wrote anything this long in this blog :o

/ina

Why couldn't it be Tuesday evening?

Tuesday is one of the days I've been waiting for, for a quite long time. Meanwhile, this summer picture was captured last summer at an island in Finland. Soon I will find myself there. Soon my three-year-long living in Stockholm has come to an end. Once again an era ends. A new one begins. I will miss Stockholm, all people here. But I'm happy about moving.

Lokkien leikki

Sunset

A late-summer sunset from 2009. 

I have finally started my bachelor degree project about 2 weeks ago and I cannot really wait to be finished with all school stuff and take a break. The subject though, is very interesting and also very new to me, so I have been reading a lot of different papers and tried to learn about the blood-brain barrier and and cell-penetrating peptides. Last week I splitted cells to get my own cell culture (which then are supposed to mimic the blood-brain barrier) and tomorrow they should be grown enough to make some test experiments :). 

The Door In The End Of The Hall

Once upon a time (in 2008) I went on a school trip to Metz, France, and visited a local school named Lycée Fabert. The school was very old, had beautiful architecture and not really what you are used to in Finland for example.

My plan here is to publish photos I never managed to post here and even post photos from the time when this blog did not exist yet. 

Yellow

Smooth water

 

Last summer.

Spectral problems

Hellou!

I have been practicing to an exam by doing these spectral problems, which are not easy at all... Probably I still should be doing them right now, but my motivation died gradually during the day when non of my structures seemed to correspond the information in the spectras (yes, by looking at a few lines in a paper you should be able to determine the whole chemical structure of a molecule). Instead of being able to concentrate any more on the problems I tried to take macro photos of the spectras...and here is some of them. Yay. At least I am glad that we did not have an exam right after the Christmas holidays, like we have had earlier years.

...And the vacation once again went too fast. And even last year went fast. All in all, it was a good year even if there was some shit in the beginning. I had a little accident in February and broke my elbow, then I moved back to the city (and I like it so much better here) and had a great summer in Finland, played my first lacrosse games and made my first goal in Jyväskylä ...just to mention some things about last year. Then I hope this will be even better or at least as good as last year.