QUIPU

Many of you have been wondering about my studies here at Michigan Tech. What kinds of classes do I have, what kind of projects we do, what my papers are about... Well for your delight I am going to share one of my projects from this semester. It's a QUIPU ! It is an ancient Incan communication code system for transferring information in their community. So instead of writing a 10-15 page paper about it we got to make our own. We were asked to create our own code system and create a different sets of knots. I did mine for my weekly activities (classes and tennis). The minimum time we had to keep record was a month. So each of my day has its own string and each string has different types of knots (which all mean different things). I also used a bit of color to point out the most important things (such as weekends haha) on my Khipu.

Sooo.. here it is!

Riina

Half of my..

"half of my heart's got a real good imagination
half of my heart's got you
half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you
that half of my heart won't do

half of my heart is a shotgun wedding to a bride with a paper ring
and half of my heart is the part of a man who's never truly loved anything"

Half of My Heart

FACEPALM

Yup. Should have study more for the exam. Couldn't find words strong enough to describe my feelings so...

..just came back from the windy city !

Hello all!

I was supposed to be studying for my Communication and Culture exam (and obviously I am not HAH) but I had an urge to share some photos from the last weekend I spent in Chicago with some amazing people (:

I have been missing the people from last year so much that it starts to get painful. The past weekend gave me a glimpse of the feeling I had last year. I have a lot of friends around this year too but it is not the same. This is one of the things I agreed with when I chose to come studying here: people are gonna come and go. Even the most awesome people are eventually going to leave. After the first magical school year here I did not expect this. The weekend in Chicago with great people really cheered me up! But enough whining, enjoy the pics (:

Riina

gas station fun!

the bean

rocky looks thoroughly amused!

the willis tower

chicago skyline

eugenia and i

christian eugenia and i

the crew: juho christian eugenia fabian and rocky

the end of the day

Oh German...

It feels weird how close we are going to be done with this semester already. Only a week or so to the Thanksgiving break (which, for my huge disappointment,) is going to be nothing as close as amazing it was last year. Most likely I'll just stay home.

Anyways, I am very excited about the spring semester! Just made my schedule ready yesterday (keeping my fingers crossed that I'll get all the four I am planning on taking). I would be having Risk Communication (taught by one of my favorite professors in the department!), Language and Society, Cultural Studies and more German. Having a German language as a minor in the US college still gets me. I still find myself giggling by myself to the fact that every time when an American pronounces "du" (=you) in an accusative form (which is "dich") it comes out as "dick".

Riina

ps. There is someone who keeps lighting up my Monday mornings by drawing four eyed dragons on the class rooms board.