Camoflauge

It's the first word that came to mind when looking at this picture:

 

 

Coco and I had some nice walks at the beginning of the week as Kirsti and Katie were in Helsinki for a work trip.  I shot a short video of the swans that were out (and Coco was intently observing).  It turns out that although the screen flips on the smart phone when you're recording upside down (I didn't know it was upside down...how can one tell when the screen flips in all different directions?!), it records upside down.  :)

 

 

This video reminds me of The Most Surreal Underwater Video Ever Made. 

Thank you Rachel for sharing this with me!

*Post-script: Blogger flipped the video so now it's playing right side up.  Well, just imagine you're watching it upside down (or, alternatively, you could flip your screen)!

 

Katie and Kirsti brought back this for me from Helsinki:

 

 

My very own build your own pearl necklace.

 

Above are the instructions...

 

on how to open the oyster!!  What a brilliant idea!!  We made a video (that is unfortunately too long to upload here) as I opened the oyster to find my very own pearl.  AMAZING!!  The oyster is so thin that I wondered if it was possible for a pearl to have formed inside.  It's quite remarkable that the oyster turns an irritant like a grain of sand into such precious material. 

Any guesses as to how long it takes for an oyster to turn a grain of sand (or another unwelcome object) into a pearl?  You can find the answer here.

 

Our book club met this week for our monthly meeting.  Eleanor hosted this month.  The first course had a healthy serving of hummus she had made from scratch.  It was delicious! She soaks the chick peas for 18 hours.  And then from there... yeah.  I kind of got stuck at the '18 hours' part thinking about what would happen if we were to soak our fingers and toes in water for 18 hours.  Random, could we say?  :)

 

 

We missed Wendie, the founder of the book club, who was unable to join us this time.

The KäTU Symposium was held in Tampere (two hour train ride from JKL) this year. 

Off I went to see Cecilia Wadensjo's plenary talk 'On myths about interpreting and their revelation':

 

 

Her talk was of particular interest as this week we added to our website (discoursehub.fi) the video presentations of some members of our research team addressing some of the 'myths' of multilingualism in minority language communities.  You can check out the videos here.

 

They also had a panel on translation and interpreting studies for sign languages.  One of the presenters talked about translating movies.  This was the first time I've seen a translated film. 

 

 

Check out the translator who's in character (in the bottom right hand corner of the screen).

 

This weekend I experienced Virpominen for the first time.  I've heard about it for the last few years.  It's basically an Easter version of Halloween.  Kids dress up (as witches) and knock on neighbors' doors.  Rather than saying, 'Trick or treat', they wave a willow branch they've decorated with feathers and other colorful materials as they recite a poem of sorts that wishes the neighbor good health in exchange for a treat. 

 

 

Willow branches that Kirsti and Katie decorated.

 

Here's a video of some of Katie's friends who came by:

 

 

And below you can see Katie 'trick or treating' us at home.  :) 
She also gives a quick translation in English.

 

 

 Happy Palm Sunday!