Every time I return from a journey, I'm amazed at the beauty of the country I live in. Snow peaked mountains, deep blue lakes, and cities glistering in the sun like pearls or pieces of jewellery. "As in Heaven", I say to myself, (pseudo) poetically. However, what makes me particularly thankful for living here is … Continue reading Authentic pearls
This morning I woke up startled. I had dreamed I'd gone to enroll at a high school. The corridors of the incredibly large and complex building were bustling. The crowd was making me feel small, insecure and perplexed. I was trying hard to understand how everything worked and what I was supposed to be doing, … Continue reading Hey, where’s my backpack?
The title reveals my new project. Last Friday, my friend and I started doing the exercises of Writing the Wave - a creative writing guidebook by Elizabeth Ayres. I had bought the book about three years ago on the recommendation of my former creative writing teacher but hadn't found the time or mental space to … Continue reading Writing caterpillars into butterflies
Max Lucado's story You are special has spoken to me a lot since I discovered it recently. If you aren't familiar with it yet, you can watch it in the form of this eight-minute video. The story illustrates how we tend to evaluate each other (and ourselves) on the basis of performance, distributing each other … Continue reading Regardless of the stickers
In my previous post, I promised to explain these pictures in which the text to be mindful of the meaning appears on the canvas as seemingly detached letters, syllables and words. As soon as you read the whole thing you discover that the letters, syllables and words actually form a sentence of which meaning goes … Continue reading Back to the forests and the trees
Colors were splashed on a canvas, and pictures were taken of it and posted here some days ago...Would you mind having a brief look at them? Now what do you think, what's your reaction to what you see? The one who made them would be excited to find out... But how could she know unless … Continue reading Author(ity)
Counter-intuitively, out of all the four seasons, spring is for me the most challenging time of the year. Why not winter, or even autumn, I’ve been asking myself for quite some years. Today when having an afternoon walk with Miika I suddenly realized why. In Finnish, October and November basically mean “the month of dirt” … Continue reading Springtime comparisons
“Good strategies need a clear problem definition”. This is a brilliant insight and applicable to all contexts. Although, I copied it from Jesper Johnsøn’s book Anti-Corruption Strategies in Fragile States which obviously addresses a very specific kind of a problem. As Johnsøn points out, the definitions of fragility of the World Bank and the EU … Continue reading Getting the theory right
Surprised by the landscape 