Day 71/97 - Tuesday (2010-11-02)
(still backlog from yesterday)
16:40 The housemates will have to give the presentation about "Finnish culture" they prepared last week.
They read and act out a Finnish poem. (This is actually a piece of particularly bad and lame "poetry" from a well-known comedy film, but they tell Sandra it's by a great, well-respected Finnish modern poet.) They also show Sandra a banner with their handprints on it, which is supposedly an old Finnish custom (every house should have one, the handprints are representing people who live there.)
Next, they discuss "Finnish" Christmas traditions. The housemates claim Christmas trees are unknown in Finland. Instead, Christmas bonfires are lit. The main Christmas dish is based on bear meat. Also, the Finnish Santa Claus dances on a table when he comes and visits homes.
Sandra tells them about Christmas traditions in Slovenia, with Christmas trees, going to a church and all.
Petri: "I've seen it in movies."
Some of the other Finnish housemates: "Me too!"
The housemates also teach Sandra at least three different Finnish dances and their related songs. These are existing dances and songs but they're for kids, not "traditional Finnish", or "currently popular" as the housemates assure Sandra.
18:39 The housemates are back to the sofas, chilling out after so many different presentations. They're playing one of the games Sandra taught them, a variant of
Wink murder, which requires assigning different roles to the players by drawing from the hat.
Sandra is called to the confession room. While she's there, Marika suggests a different method for the drawing process. The other housemates don't agree with her: the current method is good enough for them. Marika is pretty sure her method is better, but no-one sides with her; instead, they tell her to stop fussing about it and pestering them with her suggestions.
This kind of a thing has been going on a lot in the house throughout the season - between Marika and the other housemates. The other housemates often see Marika as fussing over nothing, and her suggestions are often automatically ignored or judged unimplementable by them. This may happen mid-sentence, before she even gets a chance to explain them fully. Marika has also been contantly nominated by the other housemates whenever possible. Especially during this week task, Marika has been trying to make the housemates practice things a bit more and she has had ideas about last-minute changes to the presentations, to make them better or more believable, but her ideas have been constantly rejected by the others.
Usually Marika accepts her fate and keeps up the positive attitude, but this time she feels she's finally had enough: she breaks into tears and storms to bedroom, crying. The other housemates are not sure what just happened. They didn't expect that kind of a strong reaction from Marika even though they've been doing this to her (ignoring her ideas) for countless times now. This is the first time Marika reacts to that in such a strong way.
Jani gets up and goes after Marika in the bedroom, to talk to her and comfort her. The other housemates make no effort to get up from the sofas. They speculate Marika has been stressing over the weekly task and the strong reaction from such a small thing is related to that.
After a while, Marika appears at the sofas, with teary eyes, and Nino has a talk with her, trying to make his point and explain why they didn't feel Marika's suggestion was appropriate for the situation. Nino's main point is that Marika can't take "no" for an answer, she always wants to do things her way, and that's not possible especially with this weekly task as the way how they're doing these presentations was already planned and set in stone last week, so it's not possible to change the details now. It is not clear whether Marika agrees with him or doesn't. But the housemates are now also worried that when Sandra returns from the confession room, Marika's face reveals to her they have had an argument and will maybe raise some suspicions about their "False Finland" project.
Sandra indeed opens the confession room door now, and steps out. At the same time Marika dashes to the bathroom, to hide her face. She spends a lot of time there alone, first just sitting on the toilet seat cover and sobbing quietly, then getting up in front of the mirrors and reapplying her makeup.
19:25 The door to the yard was blocked for a while but the housemates are now let out. They get a party with traditional Finnish food, beer, cider and wine. The jacuzzi is available for their use and they can also use the sauna. Music starts playing. The other housemates go outside, Marika is in the confession room. There is a barbeque grill in the yard and the male housemates start grilling chicken breasts.
19:29 Sandra joins Nino, Jani, Petri, Eetu and Noora in the smoking area.
Nino: "Sandra, do you want punaviiniä" ("punaviiniä" is Finnish for "red wine")
Somebody: "Red wine."
The music is playing all the time.
19:31 Sandra and Elisa are sitting on the benches in the smoking area. Sandra hugs Elisa and says she's really beautiful from both outside and inside. Elisa says she has never met a person like Sandra. Sandra promises to introduce Elisabet to her friends when Elisabet visits Slovenia. Elisa says she's so annoyed about the language barrier, her English not being top-notch. But Elisabet thinks she could pick up some Slovenian fast as she's bilingual and her mother tongue is Russian. They're kind of related langugaes and Elisabet says she can understand a word here and there when Sandra has been speaking some sentences of Slovenian in the house. They'll surely get along.
19:42 The chicken is ready, taken off the barbeques and brought inside. The housemates gather at the dining table. Marika is still in the confession room. Elisa fears Marika might even have been ejected from the house as a delayed punishment from the party last week, where she was very drunk and behaving erratically. Nino doesn't believe in that theory.
20:11 Sandra and the others are exchanging information about their Facebook profiles. Nino tells the others to say Sandra he has 3400 "friends" in Facebook because he was in Big Brother already last year, and got quite infamous in the yellow press. Sandra: "Really?" Nino wants to know if being well-known in the country has caused Sandra any problems. Sandra says a couple of times, when they were in a bar with friends. Someone walked up and started pushing aggressively, shouting who does she think she is. She hadn't done anything, just been dancing in the club. Sandra says she's not a violent person and doesn't believe in violence as a solution to anything. Someone had told her to hit back and she had to explain many times she wouldn't punch anyone back even if she were punched 3000 times.
20:15 Marika returns from the confession room. She has clearly been crying and heads immediately to the nearest mirror to check up her makeup. Then she goes to Eetu, hugging her and sobbing. Sandra is watching this scene confused and emphatical, wanting to know what has happened. Marika can't talk about the weekly task so she just simply says she's depressed. Sandra is trying to ask if it is because she doesn't like it in the house, or misses people in the outside world. Marika can't give a clear answer.
Sandra gets up and goes up to Marika. They both open their arms, and she gives Marika a long, tight hug, stroking her back and hair and talking nicely to her, with many comforting words, while Marika is sobbing against her shoulder, occasinally trying to say something. Sandra: "You're a very nice person. I'm sad when you're crying." Marika: "Oh! You're so sweet!"
20:26 The party is getting on, the housemates are drinking wine now. Sandra says Marika always looks so cheerful from outside but that's not always true, is it. They discuss this some more and Marika nearly breaks into tears again. Sandra hugs her and Marika takes another sip from the wine glass.
Eetu: We can go away.
Marika: No don't go away.
Petri: Race was very good today. (A random reference to Finnish rally drivers who speak about their races in TV interviews with a strong Finnish accent.)
20:37 Marika says if she's feeling bad, she can't really keep it inside. Petri tells Sandra about having had a two-day stretch of depression before - and Nino getting on his nerves on purpose wasn't helping, either. Elisabet says she nearly asked to be ejected from the house after a former housemate close to her, Satu, was evicted.