Sami - Stylus and Squid

As time has passed, it has become clear that there is a certain bureaucratic touch to certain aspects in the school as well. The tools needed are available, but you may need to wait on them for quite some time. “Tomorrow” is the word I heard for almost two weeks. Stress was building up as I fumble about with Autodesk Maya while waiting for a stylus so I could become something more than a shapeless blob taking over one of the working stations. I suggest bringing your own Wacom tablet. I myself didn’t bring too much in the way of electronics so I now need to hold on to my sanity.

We are still waiting for our missing and rather valuable team member, and we should have things in good shape before rather than after his arrival. If he is even destined to arrive at all. Skepticism takes over as I look around on my chair, spinning aimlessly and counting the times I hear the same melody play out outside the project room every now and then. Being a first-year student among third-year foreign students brings it’s own mental strain too.
Towards the end of the week, Thursday, I got my pen and finally can get myself accustomed to the smaller drawing tablet and can finally get to work properly. I will need to remember to return the pen at the end of the project, lest I be chased all the way to Finland for it. Although a detour would be in place since I’d be located elsewhere at the time. Maybe I won’t cause that much of a hassle though.

Either way, getting around doing some concepts as we figure out the art direction for the project.

Foods n' Stuff

On the earlier post I mentioned strange laws and being cautious. This doesn’t mean that you need to be looking over your shoulder every minute. I have yet to see guards or police in public after the airport and most people tend to do whatever works for them at the time.

I have given up on finding milk that tastes “right.” I found something that is probably as close to regular milk as you can get. It might be that it’s not about it being processed too much, but rather too little. I remembered how much Finnish milk is processed in the end. As one would imagine, it was I who is the strange one all along. Even if the milk comes from Australian tree-dwelling flesh-eating spidercows or something similar.

Fruits are cheap and nice, that’s something to grab for snacks. I was tempted to buy some interesting and relatively costly snacks the other day. A roommate of mine grabbed some pringles-esque chips flavored with wasabi, while I was staring at things that I couldn’t comprehend. Fish snacks that from the looks of I couldn’t tell whether it was fish flavored or meant for fish, something that resembled tiny birch trunks, a strange looking mixed bag that had “leather jacket” as the first thing listed on the ingredients, something that looked like liverwurst sitting in the middle of the snack shelf and something flavored with “chilli power.” Must take some of the stuff as homecoming gifts. After all, they cost only a few Singaporean Uncles.

I figured I'll also describe some foods that I try in the cafeterias and around town. Sometimes I'll accompany the descriptions with some really crappy images if I get that system to work. I'll warn you, you're better off seeing just the thumbnails as the image quality is absolutely horrendous. Here's a few for a start.

Hotplate Sotong

A Korean dish. Vegetables and squid served with rice and a sweet hot sauce.

It's served while the oil is still boiling, and the squid are fried to have a crisp surface while retaining a soft center. The vegetables work well with the sauce and the flavor is good. The only issue is that the flavor is gone really quickly due to the burning sensation, and you need to take short breaks in order to get that flavor back when you eat.

Teriyaki Chicken Don, Bandung

A Japanese dish of fried chicken with sweet teriyaki sauce, rice and fresh salad. In addition, a separate broth with a prawn-suited flavor. Good in general, the chicken was soft and the teriyaki worked well with it. The rice was a little plain, but that was easilly fixed with a little bit of flavored soy.

I drank something called Bandung with it, which is a drink well suited as a dessert. Apparently very popular in Malaysia. It tasted like a milkshake with the added flavor of caramel and berries/fruit. Despite the flavor, it doesn't look like a milkshake. It is a pink drink served with ice.