Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #131, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland.
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Do you see the snow?
Just now, I tried to click a picture of the falling snow just outside my window. Not one picture showed promise. If I click and hold the picture, as it moves, I can see the snow falling, but as soon as I let go, it disappears.
I tried to take a picture at different zoom levels, against the dark green of the pine trees, against the yellow paint of our apartment building. Nothing worked.
YLE had given me a heads up on Monday that we were going to see snow in the south by the end of this week. Sure, the weather was fine now, but come Saturday, there will be snow. Lo and behold! There is snow outside my window now!
The announcement took me a little unawares. The winter has been a bit on the warmer side till now. I was talking to friends just last week and telling them that you could get your tyres changed in November, but there was no snow coming now. Lo and behold! There is snow now.
I called a person and asked them to come to my apartment to change my tyres as soon as they could. They came on Tuesday. I got the tyres from the basement. They changed the tyres in hardly five minutes. Last season, I had visited a shop and got the tyres changed there. This was way quicker and smoother. I did not have to put the tyres in the back of my car, drive to a shop, and wait for them to change the tyres. It happened in my parking lot.
Highly recommend this.
I also finally booked an appointment for my yearly maintenance. I am late. I should have gone during the summer. I had called the company and talked to a person because there was a recall for my car model. They never called back. Then I took a holiday. And after returning, there was a whole other mess at work. I could not get back to it. I tend to do that - procrastinate - from time to time. I wish I didn’t. But hey, I’m only human.
Prerna had asked me last year, and this year too, before Diwali week that I should take a holiday on Monday. We get burnt out after Diwali. The week before Diwali and the day of are marred with lots of chores - cleaning, decorating, cooking, going places.
We had three back-to-back parties this week - one on Friday, one on Saturday and Diwali on Sunday.
Dahi wada
On Saturday, I was feeling a bit off. I feel like I stepped out with just a sweatshirt and caught a cold. I pushed through, and it felt like I had dodged a bullet (I hate cough/cold).
On Sunday, we had invited a couple of families and a friend of mine I had met almost serendipitously after a meetup. We were both working from sun-up till the time I got a ping on my phone that my friend was downstairs.
Waiting for aarti
We had a nice time on Diwali. Diwali for me is two things -
- Preparing a place of worship for the aarti. Doing the Ganesh and Laxmi aartis.
- Sweets.
With friends
With gods
After everyone had come, we did the puja. The same two aartis I sing every time. We sat and ate, talked and ate, laughed and ate. We talked about a bunch of things - about how different things were as children, growing up, about the injustices in the world, about the war, about work, and also about AI. I think I’ve said this before, but the more you talk to different people, the more your outlook improves. You become less afraid of the others, and the world becomes a bit better too. I love listening to stories. And the more I talk to people who are different, the more I realise we all have the same stories, similar wants.
Did I mention we ate?
I felt happy and full.
With family
I had planned on working on Monday. But come morning, I felt so damn tired. I woke up and messaged at work about taking a day off. We were sitting on the sofa, having coffee at around 11:00 when Prerna asked me why I had not logged in by now.
We idled away the rest of the day. Maybe we watched something. I could not tell you either way. The day is a blur.
On Tuesday the sore throat returned. And you know how the rest of the story goes.
This is how the Finns feel after Christmas, I think. I have not talked to a Finn about this. Maybe I will.
Seth Godin talked about a similar thing this week.
I imagine that your energy levels and mood fluctuate during the day. When working on async projects, the smart path is to match your internal energy with the work to be done. Write blog posts when you’re on a post-swim high, pay bills when all you can manage is clerical work.
The idea being that you sync your tasks or work with your energy throughout a day. Of course, that requires you to know about your energy levels throughout a typical day.
The same idea could be expanded, though. Like not planning anything after Diwali or Christmas. Maybe it makes sense to take a day or two off after the festival and not before.
There is a similar idea behind wanting to keep the lights up during the winter months. We know darkness will be here, so let the lights remain. Let the cheer they spread remain.
And I went and saw Ramayana on Wednesday. It was an IMAX show. The theatre was mostly full, though I did not see that many Finns in the theatre. It was mostly full of Indian people. I wish more Finns came to watch the movie. It’s good, really good.
Have you seen it yet? If not, go.
The wait till 2028 will be too long.
The weather turned a bit while I was writing this. The snow is visible in still photos!
The snow thickens!
If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄
Until next week.
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