Scare tactics 101: Icelandic folklore

Grýla at her work

The basic concept of Icelandic Christmas tradition is the same than in other western world. Little children are scared into obedience by combination of reward and punishment. But in Iceland, the methods are on a whole different level.

On December 12th, the Yuletide Lads crawl from their cave and start a journey, one per night, towards the population. These thirteen descendents of trolls each have a different fetish (mostly about stealing food) that they perform meanwhile monitoring children’s behavior and making them frightened. A well-behaving child is rewarded daily with small gifts while naughty ones get punished with a raw potato. Each Yuletide Lad stays in town for two weeks latest retrieving on 6th of January.

The ultimate prize for misbehaving brats is to get boiled alive by Grýla – a monstrous ogress and the mother of the Yuletide Lads. Icelandic children are also taught to appreciate soft presents: any child without new clothes on Christmas eve are also eaten – this time by Grýla’s gigantic cat!

Hmmm… I wonder why Iceland is so sparsely populated country?

P.S. Wouldn’t it be cool to export Grýla as a development aid to some overpopulated third-world nation?

Starting over

For weeks I have tried to write new blog entries without any success. And frankly, there are quite many subjects I would have wanted to write. A lot has happened since November that has also affected my life in Finland and led me to make few decisions.

First of all, I resigned from my band, Backstabbing Bastard. This decision was relatively easy since I’m in Iceland while there is a desperate need for the band to practice and record new material – not to mention touring. Furthermore, I haven’t been interested in playing the guitar in a long time. I would be selfish and a terrible person to keep my friends waiting for someone who doesn’t share the same enthusiasm.

Secondly, I terminated my apartment contract in Finland. Currently, I have a sub-tenant living in my furnished apartment but by the end of December all my personal belongings move permanently out of Espoo centrum. Mark my words: I’m never going back to that part of the town.

My original intension was to come to Iceland and have a relaxing four-month vacation. According the plan I would go back to Finland after new-years eve well rested and ready to continue my studies and work. Well, after reading previous paragraphs, it should be easy to read between the lines that it’s not happening.

I decided to stay in Iceland also for the spring term. Without going into details, let’s just say that I’m happily escaping the reality and eager to continue hiding here in Iceland.

A fair judgement is served

Although studying has been a secondary priority for me this semester, I passed all my courses with honor and surprisingly good grades. The gained 24 ECTS were worth studying even though they are not beneficial to my degree. When I eventually return to Finland I have to study all the courses I missed this semester.

As an exchange student I was privileged to study whatever I desired. I utilized this opportunity by selecting courses like Writing and Critical Thinking and Icelandic Nature. In overall, I'm very pleased of my selection. Here is a short summary of the courses.

Algorithms & Data Structures (overall grade still unknown)
"An algorithm is a clearly specified set of instructions the computer will follow to solve a problem".

The learning outcome for this course was to construct, apply and analyze time complexities of different algorithms and to understand basic concepts and operations relating to data structures. We mainly focused on sorting algorithms but also studied how various graph algorithms function. It was extremely fascinating. This was by far the best course I've taken in years.

On top of lectures and lab exercises we had two major assignments. I scored maximum points for both of them. First one, Optimizing Quicksort, was an experimental assignment where students tried to find the optimal local settings for Quicksort algorithm (assignment instructions). Second assignment was a 15-minute presentation of a predetermined subject. For me it was Policy Based Email Encryption Service (assignment instructions).

This Computer Science course got me thinking why on Earth am I studying at the Kindergarten (aka Metropolia) in Finland if I have an opportunity to take courses like this somewhere else?

Writing and Critical Thinking (grade 8,5)
A writing course for law students taught by a fast-speaking, young Scottish lady that had a mocking smile and a feminist ideology... Sounds terrible (and felt like it in the beginning) but turned out to be quite interesting.

The main topics in this course were OSCOLA citation style, academic writing and reading skills, critical thinking and how to improve performance on exams and oral presentations. Many of the subjects seemed familiar to me (for some unknown reason) but I still learned a lot of stuff particularly about critical thinking.

The overall grade derived from attendance, exam and two OSCOLA-styled referencing exercises that took a lot of effort to complete. I actually had to make the first exercise twice because we had identical papers with my friend (we did it together). My good grade came as a surprise since this isn't my field of expertise and I didn't buy or read the course books.

Icelandic as a Foreign Language (grade 8,5)
Since I'm in Iceland and (apparently) look like an Icelandic man, I'd like to be able to communicate even partly in the local language. However, it's still a wet dream of mine because this course was a disaster from the start.

The main focus was to learn dozens of words but not how to build sentences from them. We bypassed the grammar entirely! If it wasn't for Google translator, I wouldn't have been able to finish my essay and presentation.

I know some basic things such as greetings, introducing myself, the clock etc. but nothing really worth mentioning. I'm still not willing to give up. I will continue learning the language in some way.

Icelandic Nature (grade 6)
6 ECTS of amusement :) Two cheerful professors taught a lot about fisheries, plants, animals and the history of Iceland. We made excursions to a whale-watching safari, a poet's house and to an experimental farm in Möðruvellir.

The course was graded from essay results. I wrote papers about Volcanism in Iceland, Global Warming and its Impact on Iceland and Imported Wild Mammals in Iceland but didn't return a paper about fisheries (hence the low grade).