This is the first post of my new blog. When I moved the last time in September 2005 to Hungary I started my first one, in Finnish, http://epalonen.vuodatus.net . The point was that my friends and family, who are used to not having a clue about where I am or what's up with me, should have a chance to follow my life.
Since, however, most of my friends are not Finnish speakers, they were getting increasingly anxious to hear from me too. *I'm so popular? No I'm too lazy to email, or in fact unable physically to spend enough time emailing!* The solution was to start to blog in English.
Perhaps I should just give another brief introduction, since all this might just become too complicated – even for the readership who are my friends. I left my native Finland in 1994 for a year in rural Quebec, and then after finishing my school at 19 I left for the UK to study at the university.
I stayed there for a number of years studying first Contemporary East European Studies in London for three years, and – as if that wouldn't sound complicated enough – Ideology and Discourse Analysis in Essex (Colchester) for another five. In between I've been staying in Hungary, and in 2005 six months in Vienna. I finally finished with a doctorate this January, so the university studies are hopefully over.
I have been living eight months in Budapest now, and will be moving to Berlin next week for another two. From July, after nine years abroad, I'll stay in Finland for the rest of 2006 – which means that I will be seeing more of the Finnish friends and family and I really should start blogging in English.
And what's the point of all this? To challenge the distance, the geographical one, between me and the people i care about…
