wnd's weblog

Another week at Lapinjärvi, another early morning. Because I was left out the first two busses last Friday I decided to play safe and arrive early today. I packed my stuff (minus hair brush) last night and woke up at 5:30. I brushed my hair, packed the remaining bits and took a taxi to Kamppi, from where the bus would leave at 6:35. I arrived at Kamppi just a few minutes before six o’clock and found maybe ten others already there. This time I would catch the first bus no matter what.

When the bus leaving to Pori at bay 2 stopped accepting more passengers a couple of us took the initiative and moved to form a line at he door. As soon as our bus arrived and started letting people in we would be the first ones to get in. Mission accomplished. Soon others started gathering behind and all around us. Good old group behaviour could clearly be seen. At this point I noticed that more people were still coming to Kamppi bus terminal.

A few minutes later our bus arrived. The driver took his time to finish a phone call. After that he got up and walked out to open the door and to address us. He told that people who were not in hurry to get in and on their way to Lapinjärvi could wait for the next carter bus which would arrive earlier to Lapinjärvi. Since I was the second in line and having this all planned up I decided to ignore the driver’s plea to leave some space for line’s regular customers. I didn’t come to Kamppi half an hour early just to change my plans! Surely the others would get to their destination first but I could be sure that I wasn’t left without a seat. Not this time.

Our program today starts with environmental education, whatever that is. Unfortunately I have an appointment with a doctor overlapping the lecture but hopefully my health check won’t take long. After the lunch break we have health education about addictions. That could be interesting unless we only talk about alcohol, tobacco and drugs. Finally, we have some sports before we have our fair share of yet another free meal. If things go as promised, walking counts as a sport. Maybe I’ll live to tell a tale.

I can’t really wait for Thursday. On Thursday we have people coming from WWF (which I proudly sponsor) to tell us about how to deal with oil disasters and how to treat birds contaminated by oil spills. That ought to be interesting – and also why I chose to get in YKS group. YKS stands for “ympäristön ja kulttuuriomaisuuden suojelu”, or “protection of environment and cultural wealth”. The other groups are PP, “palo ja pelastus”, or “fire and rescue”, and KaVa, which mysteriously stands for “yleissivistys ja kansalaisvalmiudet”, or “general knowledge and civil readiness”.