Vol 20 Issue 15

INSIDER 16.02.2018 | VOL. 20 | ISSUE 15

STUDENT MAGAZINE OF XAMK

PHOTOGRAPHY

 UPCOMING EVENTS  BOOK REVIEW  PROFILE

THIS WEEK

 MOVIE REVIEW  RECIPE

EDITORIAL STAFF

Stela Demaj Kouvola Current Affairs

Lingli Jing Profile

Hafsa Farah Kouvola Current Affairs

Van-Trang Le Kouvola Current Affairs

Minh-Trang Le Recipes

Long Nguyen Layout Editor

Trung Dao Kouvola Current Affairs

Nikita Munenko Kouvola Current Affairs

Hugh Clack Editor in Chief

INSIDER STUDENT MAGAZINE South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Paraatikenttä 7 45100 Kouvola Editor in Chief: Hugh Clack INSIDER ISSN 1457-1587  /INSIDERSTUDENTMAGAZINE 2

PHONE +358 44 702 8758 WEBSITE insider.xamk.fi EMAIL insider@xamk.fi

EDITORIAL

Tik tok tik tok... One more week and it is winter holiday! My Asian friends are you celebrating our biggest annual time: The Lunar New Year? More about this beautiful and sentimental tradition will be featured in this issue by Trang. In a relevant news, Ari Lankinen who has just been back from his exchange semester in China will give us some appealing cultural reflections about the country as well as his study there.

Have you got any plan for this weekend? Me, I am drowning in assignments and project to be honest… but hey do not forget to grant yourself some time entertaining your mind. Better mind, better productivity! Put on a warm jacket and invite some of your ‘detectiveblood’ friends with you to the movie for “Murder on the Orient Express”.

A review by Nikita may intrigue you even ones who are not so into this genre (yet), try something new pals! Or how about getting lost in fantasy with “The Hazel Wood”, curious about its content? Read through Hafsa’s article in this issue. Also remember to visit Stela’s corn flour soup recipe, easy yet very appetizing for these cold winter days.

Time runs fast and we human all once or some time want to stop that clock, aren't we? Maybe that’s the reason why we try to keep and capture the precious moment in a tangible form that the dictionary defines as photos. Talking about images and memories, I believe it is better to have Trung to express his love and things for photography since he has such an affection for capturing those bits of the life.

Well, for the epilogue of this editorial, on behalf of Insider team I hope you all have a safe and fun holiday. See you next (Lunar) year!

Van-Trang Le 3

PHOTOGRAPHY

When I was younger, seeing someone holding a DSRL is like seeing a wizard with his magic stick.

Just the sound of a click and reality became illusion. Eh, maybe that’s a bit too much but you get it ei? If not then let’s just say a DSLR was kinda cool to a youngster who viewed things straight as a line rather than constantly changing his perspective like me. However, film photography was what intrigued me most for it complexity and aesthetic. I am still on my way to completely perfecting my shooting skills and sharpening my sense to start taking pictures with a film camera.

Captivating as taking pictures may, I spent my whole high school time dancing and performing on stage so I cared more about whether people were shooting photos featuring me looking awesome or not. It sure sounds like most idiotic juvenile would do right? That is, until one day I went out for coffee with a close friend of mine then we wandered around the city with him carrying around a film camera rather than his usual DSLR. I did not know it at first as he just kept taking photos of random things. I asked to see his pictures but he said it was impossible and that I would have to wait until he returned from a dark room. A dark room? Was that I night club or something I thought. He then clarified what a dark room actually was and turned out it’s some sort of photography lab for people to work with photographic films. The conversation followed by me listening to his rambling harangue about camera, photoshoot, editing and stuff which I found to be pretty interesting, thus triggered my curiosity about film camera.

I asked him to teach me use a film camera yet he insisted me on learning how to take proper photos with a DSLR first since a film picture cannot be easily edited as a digital one. I did not think I would actually attach myself with this whole photography thingy for long since I just wanna learn it for fun so I borrowed his instead of getting a camera for myself. He showed me all the fundamentals and as time passed by, I was pretty much in to it. I decided to purchase my own camera but instead of a DSLR, I bought a Fujifilm mirrorless for I am not a static knucklehead. My presence at one place never lasts more than a few hours. Mirrorless is smaller, cheaper and lighter hence making it 4

much easier to carry around. I still choose to use a mirrorless to this day now that wandering around shooting random small stuff is so convenient. With the already compelling magic of photography, my mind is always fixating on taking photograph and reviewing what I have taken that I managed to hit my head on a streetlight in Luxembourg before an old couple turned around and grinned at me along with a friend who was already laughing out loud next to where I hit my head.

I have not changed the habit of meandering after I got here to Kouvola. I once saw an allegedly stray cat, took a few pictures of it because he was such a cutie (sorry in advance if you’re a female dear little squishy cat). Above are the photos of him.

And there's also a picture of a little bee or maybe a hornet...I don't know, you tell me.

Trung Dao

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BOOK REVIEW Look until the leaves turn red, sew the worlds up with thread. If your journey's left undone, fear the rising of the sun. – Melissa Albert, The Hazelwood An amazing and buzz debut novel before it was even published, The Hazel wood. It is authored by Melissa Albert and was published in 2018.

The genre of the novel is Fantasy, suspense and phycological thriller.

The tale is about a granddaughter of a famous bestseller author. Who wrote a collection of dark fairy tales, from the tales of Hinterlands.

The 17-year-old Alice and her mother, Ella where always on the run and they never had a stable home because of strange incidents and a bad luck that was hunting them every time. However, Alice has never meet her grandmother and she wonders why her mother kept her away from her grandmother but nevertheless, Alice find out that her mother was kidnapped, and she is forced to go into the Hazelwood in search of her mother.

The Hazelwood is a place that her mother was firm of her staying out of it and, it’s the state where Alice’s grandmother lives in.

Overall the Hazelwood is well written novel, quite interesting and

modern fairy tales and unique plots

curious story in away. If you enjoy

then you will love it.

reading dark, mysterious, a twisted

Hafsa Farah

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

PROFILE

Ari Lankinen

Ari Lankinen, one of the IB15 students who just came back from his exchange in China.

Which university did you go? How was your student life there?

I went to Northeast Forestry University in Harbin. I had been an exchange student before so I was familiar with many things. There were some other Finnish students too so we studied together. My Chinese friends who were exchange students in Xamk before helped me with many things How do you like China?

China is good. Chinese are friendly to foreigners and everything is cheaper than Finland. However, some people’s level of English is not very good, so it helps if you have Chinese friends to help you with translation Any must-try food you want to recommend?

Hot-pot.

What’s the biggest cultural shock you experienced?

Maybe how university in China to control us. We have to be back in dormitory 22:30. If we want to travel and stay out of dormitory we have to fill paper of five signatures. Also in China there are some limitations to foreigners. Also they don't have any system like Moodle and if we want to print something we have to go one office in campus and ask someone to print for us.

Would you recommend student go to China for exchange?

Yes, as it's so different from Europe. I would also recommend to learn even the basics of Chinese.

But this university itself wasn’t too ‘’foreign students-friendly’’. Their course selection was so bad, there weren’t too many optional courses available in English, most of them are in Chinese. But in Xamk exchange students can choose so many classes.

Lingli Jing 7

TET HOLIDAY

Tet, Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year – whatever one calls it, is the most important holiday in Vietnamese and Chinese culture. In fact, it is more than a holiday. It is the most cheerful, joyous and anticipated time of the year, where anybody would be willing to trade anything to be with their loved ones.

Tet has been mentioned countless times everywhere, thus almost everyone is familiar with it. This article from me is not going to cover our celebrating rituals, what kind of clothes we wear, what traditional food we eat, etc... I want to talk about Tet from the perspective of a person who is living overseas, who does not have the luxury of witnessing that sacred atmosphere in person.

This is not the first time that I do not celebrate Tet with my family. Around this time last year, my Vietnamese pals and I all gathered around to cook and watch the most popular show during Tet, just like what I always did at home. It was as fun and cosy as it could have been. But expectedly, we could not conceal our feelings. I was fine and all till one of the girls began sobbing and tearing up while talking to her parents on the phone. That was when I realized, I was 8000km away from home.

This time around, as Tet is approaching again, even if none of us mentions it, everyone knows how precious an evening with our parents is to us right now. The convenience of social media can be a double-edged

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sword as well, since our friends and relatives are posting about how many day-offs they have this year, how neat the chung cake they just made is, even complaining about the number of dishes they have to wash, or how cold the weather is. It makes everything seems so close, yet so far.

So, how to cope? You can either choose to buy a chung cake for >10e, a plane ticket home for >800e, a train ticket to Helsinki to go to Phuc Lam pagoda for >30e or a dinner with friends who also celebrate Tet. I have made the decision to do nothing this year.

No dinner. No chung cake. No last minute flight with 2 transit points. I reckoned I am used to being away from home on these kinds of holidays now. I consider myself a sentimental individual, but when I want to focus on other things, Tet would just be like any other week in this snowy land.

So, yeah. How about you?

Minh-Trang Le

DEPRESSION

“I drank to drown my pain, but it learned how to swim” – what to do when depression hits.

From time to time we all get depressed and we see close and loved people fall into the state of melancholy. In this article I am going to talk about how to identify and deal with depression. The biggest challenge is to spot the difference between what is actual depression and an episode of sadness. The first sign is a prolonged feeling of sadness, when depression hits it can be a constant feeling which lasts over two weeks. Another important sign is lost of interest and pleasure in usual activities, whilst constant irritation is something to look out for.

The question is what to do if you noticed those warning signs? Well the first step is to try and to talk to a close friend or a family member. Expressing the negativity allows you to get rid of it. The next step is to obtain a balance if life – by this I mean getting evolved in a variety activities that you would enjoy, sometimes going out and meeting new people is a great option. The best option is perhaps having a more positive outlook on things, focusing on positive things and assuming the position that life will eventually get better can really help in a battle against depression.

In case you see that someone is suffering from depression, the best option would be just to listen to them. Trying to cheer them up might not always work, but showing them that you are there for them always does the trick.

Erik Parkhomenko (INSIDER Mikkeli team)

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CORN FLOUR SOUP

The recipe that I want to show you guys today is something really delicious that my mom taught me how to cook a few years back. This particular dish is very easy to cook and it doesn’t require ingredients that are hard to find, you can find these ingredients at your local supermarket or even have them at home already.

How to make it: - So what you wanna do first is boil some butter in a stew-pan and then add 5 spoons of corn flour to it.

- After seeing that the color of the corn flour is changed into yellowish you have to put three glasses of hot water and mix it up very fast.

- When the stew-pan runs out of water you have to add some boiled milk into it and then after that one or two eggs, as you wish.

- If the dish goes dry then you should add some more water into it and then some chicken essence or any other kind that you would like.

- It’s recommended to add some salt to it and pepper or other seasoning.

Stela Demaj

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Ingredients: 1. 5 spoons of corn flour 2. 1 or 2 eggs 3. One glass of milk 4. Chicken essence 5. Seasoning

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

STUDIO 123 Kymenlaaksonkatu 1 45700 Kuusankoski 044 375 3686 www.studio123.fi 16.02 - 22.02.2018 STUDIO 1 BALETTIA: COPPELIA (S) | 23€ | 2h20min Fri 12:00 Tue 18:00

DIRECTOR: KENNETH BRANAGH WRITER: MICHAEL GREEN. BASED ON THE NOVEL BY AGATHA CHRISTIE STARRING: KENNETH BRANAGH, WILLEM DEFOE, PENELOPE CRUZ, MICHELLE PFEIFFER, JOHNNY DEPP DETECTIVE, CRIMINAL, DRAMA / BUDGET: $55 MLN

Finally a good detective.

Somehow detectives, one of the most interesting genres to watch, haven’t been getting too much love recently. While Marvel, Star Wars and other CGI-powered movies dominate the theatres and the box office, it seems like no one wants to film good old detectives or when somebody does it, the outcome sucks. The last brilliant one, Sherlock by Guy Ritchie with Robert Downey-Jr and Jude Law, was released back in 2011 and we could barely watch anything ever since.

Murder on the Orient Express has come to our rescue. The movie was supposed to be a powerhouse with so many Hollywood stars in it. Come to think of it, Johnny Depp, one of the “most wanted” actors for any film, can scarcely be called a supporting role performer. Kenneth Branagh, who played in a lot of amazing movies but hasn’t directed anything fantastic, was supposed to work with a bunch of stars and, to be honest, he did his job quite well.

The movie is based on the story by Agatha Christie and tells us about her signature character, Hercule Poirot, who goes to Istanbul on Taurus Express, an Aleppo-Syria train, not so long after the World War I. Hercule just minds his own business and he is happy that he was able to catch this train and get to Turkey in time. It’s just a usual journey – some passengers are fine, some are weird. Nothing extraordinary, we’ve seen it all, right? In a few hours, however, after the train departs from the station, one of the passengers is found stabbed to death multiple times.

The main question each of us asks themselves before seeing a detective movie, “Will I know who the killer is after a half of the movie?”, gets a no for the answer, which is a good thing. The actors are amazing, as mentioned before, and the cameraman does a decent job – he is able to find perfect angles and the occasional views are truly beautiful. There is just too much of the filming from the top, he’d better take that camera off the ceiling. The movie gets boring somewhere in the middle but then makes up for this with a good ending. Waiting for the 2nd part!

 Nikita Munenko

SUPERMARSU (S) | 10€ | 1h26min Fri 17:00 Sat - Sun 15:00 Mon, Wed - Thu 17:00 FANTASTINEN NAINEN (12) | 11€ | 1h44min Sat - Sun 16:40 BLACK PANTHER (12) | 12€ | 2h15min Fri - Mon, Wed - Thu 18:45

STUDIO 2 STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (12) | 12€ | 2h32min Sun, Thu 19:15 SOLSIDAN (7) | 11€ | 1h45min Sat - Sun 15:15 THE SHAPE OF WATER (16) | 12€ | 2h05min Fri, Mon - Tue 19:15 VARASTO 2 (7) | 12€ | 1h40min Every Evening 17:15

STUDIO 3 KEDI (S) | 10€ | 1h20min Fri 19:30 Sat - Sun 15:45 COCO (7) | 11€ | 1h45min Fri 19:30 Sat - Sun 15:45 15:17 PARIISIIN (12) | 11€ | 2h05min Sat, Mon -Tue, Thu 19:30 IDÄN PIKAJUNAN ARVOITUS (12) | 11€ | 1h54min Sun, Wed 19:30 Students/armed services, pensioners 1€ discount on all full priced tickets of 10€ or more

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13.-16.3.2018

TARTU ESTONIA

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