Kid Fest at Oodi
Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #82, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.
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Yesterday (today, as I type this) was the Finnish Independence Day. Also, a Oodi Kid Fest at, you guessed it, Oodi Library.
I knew about one of the two things as I left home with Savya on Saturday morning.
During the weekdays, Savya has a barrage of things to do at his päiväkoti. There’s the play time in the play area, followed by play inside the day care, then lunch, nap time, followed by snacks and finally play time in the play area. On the weekends, or on holidays it is a challenge to keep him engaged. One solution, I have realised now, is to take him out to play. I never felt I could while we were living in Matinkylä. Helsinki felt like a different place. Now, since we have moved to Kumpula, Helsinki feels like the same place. And so, travelling to Central Helsinki feels like a doable thing.
I have written about Oodi in the past. I love Oodi. On the third level, is a kids play area. The plan for today was to go on a walk around the old haunt (Toolo lake) and then have a stop at the library.
Savya was sleeping when I left home. I took the #6 tram (I love trams!) from Kumpula Campus toward city centre. I got down at Hakaniemi. I wanted to relive the glory days, my old walking route around the Toolo bay area. Hence, getting maybe two stops before I should have, if I wanted to get to the library.
It was drizzling. The rain relented a little when I got down at the Hakaniemi station. Just a little. I walked around the lake and just as I was reaching the library, I heard Savya quip (He does that these days). I smiled. Just in time!
We entered from the back entrance. And as soon as we did, it felt a little weird. There were too many people in the place! But I ignored it, I had entered from the back after all, where the restaurant is, so maybe, there were lots of people having lunch.
I took the elevator to the third floor.
As soon as I left the elevator, I realised the folly of my ways! The place was stuffed with people. There must be something going on here.
My first thought was this - lets just go. I don’t like crowds. My second thought was this - now that I’m here, lets just see what the fuss is all about. Content for the nordletter!
We parked the pram next to the elevator exit. I got Savya out from his halari, removed his snow boots, removed his gloves. I picked him up, went past the crowds and took him to the centre of the kids play area.
Two people - a child and an adult were having a conversation on a makeshift stage. They were speaking in Finnish, so I did not catch much of it.
I looked around and on one of the monitors in the space, I caught a glimpse of the descriptions of different events going on.
I looked around. There are two rooms to the back. Usually they are empty but they had done some decorations for the event. Unfortunately there was a long line of parents and children waiting in line to get up. Upstairs there was something else going on. The line felt to my eyes, a little shorter upstairs. And so, I thought lets go there.
It was a challenge, holding Savya still in my arms. Other children - both younger and older were either standing in the line or in their parent’s arms. Not Savya though. He had to go somewhere, do something. And I thought - here I am, waiting in line for something, something that I hope he will enjoy, and this little guy would rather do something else. I thought, soon, he would be the one pulling me and telling me I want to go here. And then, whether I want to or not, I would need to go stand in line at all these places.
Just in case it was not clear - I do not like standing in lines.
I fought him, as he kicked and screamed. I let him on the floor for a little bit. He went and touched the safety net, got his hand out and waved to the masses below. And just as he thought he had gotten away, I pulled him back.
I was waiting in line for the space themed workshop. I was waiting because it was space themed.
This was an experience inside a black, air-filled ballon type thing. You walked in through the door and on the ceiling they had projected our solar system - the planets and the sun. There was some fancy light show sort of a thing and a soothing music to go along with it.
We went in and Savya wanted to get out just as fast. The space was dark. I held him, tried to get him to rest on the floor and look at the ceiling, like how you would the night sky. It did not work. But we stayed, his head in my lap, looking at the stars and the planets, and the changing light.
I do not know how Savya felt. I hope he enjoyed it though.
On the other side of Oodi, I could see a lot of crowd from the distance. After leaving the space workshop, we went there. Small children were singing there. By the time we got there, the performance was done though.
We roamed in the library some more, but then got on the elevator and to the first floor. It was getting late and Savya needed to eat.
On the way out, after the restaurant and before the exit, there was a small obstacle course. Savya will enjoy this for sure. And so I got him out of the outer layers again. He did, a little. For some reason he did not jump on the balloon as much as I had hoped he would. I took his hand and guided him through the rest of the course.
Just in front of the library, as soon as I had exited, I saw four buses parked in front. Four buses in wonderful paint jobs. I wanted to go home. I wanted to take a left and walk to the tram station. But the paint job and the colours. I was intrigued!
These were mini-libraries! Full of books and a little space at the back of the bus to sit in! I went and asked the staff what this was. Was this a one off thing? They said - no. These were mobile libraries. The four buses belonged to different localities - Helsinki/Espoo/Tampere. These buses follow a routine! I was surprised and inspired and so damn happy to learn this.
On my way out, I got a paper bus. Isn’t it pretty?
And on the topic of the Finnish Independence Day, there were no parades - that’s not how Finns do things. Instead, there were many protests around the Toolo area.
I caught one from a distance.
What were these people protesting? No clue.
/five things to share
1. Netflix wins the bidding war for Warner Bros. by Dominic Preston
Netflix is poised to purchase Warner Bros.’ studio and streaming business after being selected as the winner of the bidding war for the media giant.
I can’t really imagine this going through. To be honest, any company that is big enough to purchase WB, should not be allowed to purchase, with the exception of perhaps Apple.
But hey I already have Netflix so great if the HBO stuff is available on Netflix.
2. Early childhood education teachers increasingly lack qualifications, Etla study finds
The number of early childhood education teachers has risen by around 20 percent, but during that same period the number of teachers with qualifications had only risen by three percent.
The situation is a bit dire. There are temps that fill the void at times. And I know there are many people who are learning Finnish who temp for some time - maybe a month or so.
3. Transparent Leadership Beats Servant Leadership by kqr
The middle manager that doesn’t perform any useful work is a fun stereotype, but I also think it’s a good target to aim for. The difference lies in what to do once one has rendered oneself redundant. A common response is to invent new work, ask for status reports, and add bureaucracy.
A better response is to go back to working on technical problems. This keeps the manager’s skills fresh and gets them more respect from their reports. The manager should turn into a high-powered spare worker, rather than a paper-shuffler.
Interesting comparison between parenting and managing people here.
4. Bad Dye Job - Daring Fireball
John Gruber had some thoughts on Alan Dye leaving Apple.
The sentiment within the ranks at Apple is that today’s news is almost too good to be true. People had given up hope that Dye would ever get squeezed out, and no one expected that he’d just up and leave on his own. (If you care about design, there’s nowhere to go but down after leaving Apple. What people overlooked is the obvious: Alan Dye doesn’t actually care about design.)
It was an honest, scathing view of things. I like Liquid Glass on iOS. But on MacOS it is a mess. There are bugs. So many bugs. Hopefully we go back to design is how we do things and not how things should look.
5. Crucial is shutting down — because Micron wants to sell its RAM and SSDs to AI companies instead by Emma Roth
The brand’s shutdown is a huge blow for PC builders and hobbyists, who are already dealing with skyrocketing RAM prices linked to a surge in demand from AI companies. OpenAI, for example, struck a deal with SK Hynix and Samsung to make up to 900,000 DRAM per month for its Stargate project.
I had bought crucial SSD some time ago. They would provide comparable performance at lower prices. Sad.
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Until next week.