Here, enjoy! Don't own anything, but I wish I owned Denmark =D

UTA: Undergraduate Teaching Assistant

what happened in a field trip

(as told by Tino Väinamöinen)

.

And then came Norway.

... well, that wasn't really her name, of course, huh, but it's been quite long since all this took place and some things are blurry in my mind. And not only those nights Matthias and I got ourselves stark drunk outside the rims of the campfire and woke up in unsuspected natural ditches, hehe, no, obviously I don't mean that kind of blankness. Just, you know. It's been a long while. Back then I had this greatest-friend-of-them-all, whose name I can't either recall, regrettably, but he was awesome, I swear, and Canadian. Which means he was more sweet-tempered and tolerant than anyone else in there, honest to goodness. And he had always a pair of goggles to lend me when mine got lost, which happened really more often than it should have, I suspect someone kept looting my drawers and making great sums on e-Bay. Okay. So that's another story, whatever.

Uh, I mentioned Matthias somewhere up there, right...? Oh, yes, well, he and I were great buddies, went way back from our first year when I was lost and shy and he was lost and drunk... spot the pattern already? Life took us here and there, and soon as I knew I was absolutely into this awesome little nook of our field that is Seismology, took a detour from the normal schedule everyone followed, and met him again a couple'a years later when I eventually had to take Geomorphology.

Geomorphology, you see, in case you've never heard of it like any normal person should, was, in my eyes, the subject of doom. It was an entire semester only about how landscapes are formed and develop... well, I'm the clumsiest thing ever and just being out there doing field work and sleeping outdoors brought me nearly into hysterics. A few fellows recommended Dr. Wang's course, so there went I, only to find with the GREATEST relief, trust me, that Wang's UTA was no other than good ol' Matthias. And that was good. At least it meant that I'd be out there sleeping in the hard rock floor away from civilization... with booze. Of the strong and spirituous variety. Now, I don't really know why Matthias was a teaching assistant there... I guess he'd always been a weird guy, since the very start, whatever; but from the first outing (it was a lovely afternoon, I remember) it became clear that I had been, to put it delicately, lucky as hell to have stumbled upon him there and then. He was always being loud and helpful and making us laugh, and got on excellently with professor Wang, a Chinese man in his late thirties who was so goddamned wise we were all pretty discouraged pretty quick, 'xcept for Matthias, who was always there showing that it was not so bad knowing so much less 'cause it was always possible to learn more, more, more, and in high spirits, too.

A month or two had rolled by quick like lightning when I began to notice two things, though. First, half of the course had already dropped out, I guess they just couldn't handle that professor Wang actually made us study (but what were they expecting, anyway? A picnic a day? Geez!)... Second, that Matthias died to fool around with us in class, and I won't say anything about the outings (at this stage, we only took a bus to the outskirts of the city twice a week and observed and stuff some pretty awesome rock formations by the river, and once we walked downriver to follow the erosion patterns.) But he couldn't, you see, because he was supposed to keep the student/teacher distance... even if he wasn't technically a teacher, well, he was still there to give Mr. Wang a hand, so...

Yeah. Well, back then we still coincided in a party here and then a Saturday night or whatever, and he also seemed kind of off there too, so much that one night I took him outside where it was chilly and talked to him (ignore the fact that both of us were slightly tipsy), so I asked him, man, what's up? Anything you want to share or something? And he told me nah, it's allright, Tino, don't worry, I'm just kinda bored, or tired or something, must've been missing too many hours of sleep, or somethin', let's go grab another beer, huh?

We totally did. I woke up in the bushes outside campus the following morning that time, though.

So, well, then stuff went on and classes and exams continued like always, and then it was suddenly half of the semester already and outings in Geomorphology class got more exciting. Soon, we were hopping on borrowed trucks and making 600 km in a morning to nowhere in the middle of nowhere, where Mr. Wang took us to see and identify and study and stuff landforms that were honestly kickass and I began to be very glad I was taking this course, honest. We were only 5 students now, a poor amount compared to the 30 souls that had begun with me the subject when the term started, but it was better 'cause it was like taking personal classes, or something, and also because we were soo well acquainted with each other now that even Mr. Wang had lost considerable degrees of formality, and when we had to camp around a bonfire to spend the night under the stars because there was no shelter in maaany kilometers around, even he sang with us when we sang, and he even taught us some Chinese songs. I wondered about those, too, he did snicker way too much. I made a point to Google them or something, but then again you guessed right if you thought there was no way I'd remember the lyrics. So yeah, fail.

Needless to say Matthias always found the way to smuggle in some bottle of something that wasn't exactly water, right? He always said it reminded him of when he was a kid and his father took him camping.

Alcohol an' everything.

See the pattern? Remember the pattern? Good.

Well, it was well into the third month of classes when, and I'll pick up from where I started this narration, in came Norway. Or whatever that girl's name was. She had an unpronounceable last name, so don't blame me for forgetting. Whatever. I think Matthias called her "Nor", anyway.

Oh, Matthias... See where this story is going.

I'll indulge in a quick description- I'm not too tall, decent height, blond, dashing, handsome... haha, kidding. Well, not that that isn't true, but it's not what I meant. This Norway character was, objectively speaking, very pretty indeed. Tall, willowy, long platinum hair to her waist and the craziest shade of ice-blue eyes you'll ever see. But, you see, our cute little Norwegian fellow was only flowery and delicate in appearance, and that our most unique UTA had fallen head over heels for her at first sight turned out to be a problem for him when she turned out to be the coldest thing ever... to him, right, she was fairly civilized to the rest of us. On acquaintance, though, rather than treat him any less harshly, we discovered she had the sharpest tongue this side of the Atlantic and a sick penchant for sarcasm that just scared us away from socializing with her, so she was always left for Matthias to deal with her, ironically enough, 'cause I think that if he'd not been around she would have turned out just fine, just like any other exchange student from Oslo that drops in in the middle of the course. Whatever.

Well, in hindsight, it's not that I didn't like her... She was strange, 'is all.

Oh, and she got on just peachy with Mr. Wang, with whom she could talk hours on end about the subject that had brought her here in the first place, Glaciology. Quite the fitting field of work for her, though you didn't hear it from me. Right, so let me come back to my story... it turned out, from what Mr. Wang told us, that she'd come before her actual date of exchange to be able to study some months with him (he was flattered, obviously), and that he'd tweaked the study program a bit to put together two already scheduled outings, which he cancelled, to have more time for one long trip up north to the border, where, he promised, we'd be left gaping like freakin' fish at the beauty of what he'd show us. All for the good favor of the girl, eh, Mr. Wang? Well, I won't judge him. Probably Matthias had had his share in the scheming, too... And as if I'd not been head over heels for godly Svea from the library in the department of Archaeology. Ugh. There goes my secret... whatever.

"Nooooor!" was what we heard the most often during that one memorable trip, followed by the dry sound of a slap, or her pitifully choking him with his tie (which he kept wearing probably for her to be tempted to yank it, the masochist..), or, if our brave and lovable but eternally clueless UTA was lucky, a low "...you're annoying, idiot." But he was always honest about it: he loved it. He might have even loved her, dunno. Love is a strong word. But just... seeing him look at her when she wasn't paying attention to him made me feel kind of bad. 'Cause he had that look, y'see? Like he couldn't be happier anywhere anywhen but there just... seeing her, or something. And it was hard to concentrate too, pickaxe in hand and measuring implements while we were perched on some unstable land formation taking samples and he'd just space out looking at her as she was focused on what she was doing, I got worried, 'kay? He was so out of it he might have rolled downhill into the winding torrent below and never notice.

Again, I tried to talk to him once we stayed out later than the others labeling the samples for the rest of the class while Mr. Wang showed them this and that and I don't know what in a nearby creek. Hey, I told him, about this girl, ugh... you're really into her, eh? He smiled this little fond smile I'd never seen him smile before, kind of like when one recalls something nice that happened a long time ago, and said that yeah, hell, yeah, he liked her a lot. "You think she's noticed?" he asked me, hopeful, but like he gave a care deep down there. Dunno, I told him, she's kind of like Narnia's White Witch incarnate. He laughed, even if it wasn't a nice thing for me to call her, and I trusted Matthias knew his fairytales. He must have agreed with me, then, I don't remember. I remember him laughing, though, foolishly happy with his head probably in the clouds, and I thought, damn, this is the happiest I've seen him since I've met him, thought I'd just shrug and let it all pass...

It didn't pass, though, and three days of fieldwork and camping under a massive ash were gone in a snap and all Matthias did was look at Norway in sheer awe and pester her to no end; and all I did was go through a gazillion tubes with samples of glacial flour taken from different points in the valley and label them and store them, and why did I get the suckiest task ever? Katyusha and Felics were running around the moraine and actually enjoying the sun, and the rest of the class followed Mr. Wang around as he explained in detail how every. single. corner. of that gigantic U-shaped valley had come to be, what with the cirques that now were deeply forested cul-de-saqs, and the path of the original main glacier.

On the fourth day, though, we all went together on a merry hike towards the lowest peak of some truncated spurs, and though I minded my business I kinda noticed… stuff. Like that Norway didn't quite snap at lover boy as much as she used to, that he annoyed her a little less; and that he was carrying her backpack, which I'm willing to bet was as damned heavy as mine, what with the pickaxe and water and stuff.

I caught up with them, making him fall behind to walk with me for a while.

"Wanna carry my stuff too, bulky Viking guy?" I remember asking,

"Shut up," he laughed embarrassed, and I play-punched his arm,

"Show off"

Yeah, well, so he didn't carry my stuff, but I still felt happy for him. And that night, when we were back in camp (and luckily, no rogue grisly bear had decided to munch on our stuff), we sat all 8 of us on broad logs around the bonfire and she let him sit next to her without fuss, so quiet in fact that no one actually noticed that the "bickering until eternity and beyond"-pair were side by side and not bickering, well, no one but me. But I was kinda paying attention 'cause… well, I cared about Matthias. And sure enough, yeah, they sat like that the whooole dinner and after-dinner, not speaking, sure, but he wasn't bothering her and she wasn't trying to kill him. It was kinda nice, made me wonder if she might come to stand him some day.

Later, everyone was already in the sleeping bags, but our one and only teaching assistant was still sitting by the fire, only that now with a bottle of something in his hands. Hey, he greeted me quietly when I sat down near him, how's it going, Tino? He asked, looking into the fire. It's pretty cool, I told him, this outing and all, kickass, honest, now that I'm not labeling vials with dust anymore, and hey, can I have some of that? What is it, anyway? I think he told me it was German, whatever it was, dunno, but it was good and especially welcome for the chilly night.

We drank in silence, looking up at the dark foliage of the ash tree above us, and a star peeked though, now and then. Real pretty, too.

"What are you two doing out here?" a voice asked flatly, and we span round to come face to face with Norway who was wearing a huge warm anorak, twice her size at least, and hey, I knew that anorak! It damn right belonged to the one that answered her, and made me slyly wonder exactly what was going on between those two. On any normal day, she tried to choke him at least twice in the morning alone.

"Chillin'," Matthias said, "Wanna join us?"

She shrugged. Always so lovely.

…Aaanyway, the thing is, she comes and sits between us. Not that there was not a considerable amount of room there, but girl, not nice! I was kinda talking to my friend here!

He passed her the German liquor with some lame joke I'm sure I'm glad I don't remember, and she took a sip, then another, and passed it to me. I welcomed it. It had suddenly become sorta awkward, till Matthias said Mr. Wang had told him we'd probably be walking to the actual front of the glacier the following day. It was deep in the mountain, he said, but we could come and go in one day. He said something, she said something, and eventually I realized I had nothing to do there, so I said goodnight and went to bed myself. Yippee.

We were all up and kicking rather early the following morning, and the sun shone radiant over Mr. Wang's magical land of discoveries, aka the U-shaped valley. All up and kicking 'xcept for two little friends of ours whose identity you can easily guess. There was no way in which we could wake them up, and that's speaking of when we actually overcame the awkwardness of peeking into Norway's tent to confirm our suspicions. Well, my suspicions at least. The rest of the students + Mr. Wang were like, "omigosh, !", though probably Felics also totally saw it coming. Maybe not so soon. But my eyes are of the best Finnish quality, yeah, I'd clearly seen it happening- yeah well, I did wonder what it was Matthias had done to shovel out the feet and feet of snow surrounding Norway's character, but knowing the guy, maybe he'd just gotten her drunk.

I honestly wished, for his sake mostly, that he had not gotten her drunk, though. It would not be pretty, I guessed, when she woke up to find the entire class and the professor peeking through the tent opening at her cutely clutching Matthias, who slept on his back and had an arm around her keeping her close.

The epitome of the most embarrassing awakening ever.

And it was nonetheless, because what eventually woke our lovely exchange student up was the round of roaring laughter that ensued after Matthias cracked his eyes open first, to look around disoriented for a while, gape like a fish trying to process the information, and then grimace with pain when realization downed. God, how we laughed through his pleading look of 'please keep it quiet until I can stealthily disentangle me from her and pretend this never happened, pleease'…

No such luck.

Oh boy did she want to kill him. She might have raised her hand to whack him… for starters… but she never got that far. What saved Matthias was Mr. Wang's serene staring at them. Oh no, kiddos, he seemed to be telling them, you get drunk and wake up like this? Fine, deal with it. We're in university, not a freaking MTV reality show. Or well, kinda something like that but with more Mr. Wang-ish words.

The mood was excellent during the whole excursion to the face of the glacier, 'cause there isn't really a better way to start a day than with a good laugh, huh? Oh, we're cruel. Norway glared at everything and everyone all the fricking time, and Matthias exuded misery. He was carrying his and her stuff, so he was almost hunched over from the weight, and I almost took pity on him… almost. Serves you right! Hey, you ditched me, your bestest drinking buddy in the whole campus, for miss I-wish-I-could-insult-you-enough, so suck it up and be a man about it!

…actually, he was doing quite okay for being in such a shitty predicament. Whatever.

Mr. Wang was deeply amused, too. I swear, that man laughed inwardly at them for the rest of the outing, I s-w-e-a-r.

Right, so it took us three lifetimes to get to that blasted glacier, but when we finally did it was kinda totally worth it, and God must have spoken to Katyusha in dreams or something, 'cause she'd brought the camera so we took pictures of everything, and I mean everything, including what was left of a dead moose and Norway flipping the finger at us for trying to take her a picture. And Matthias sitting on a rock, sulking. I've still got a copy of that one, it's hilarious. Boy did that guy suffer that day…

But hey, don't judge me. We were all privately snickering when he pouted. And not that it wasn't his fault, he'd been the one to carve himself the reputation of party guy, always having fun, awesome me, all that. It was not easy to take him seriously, and much less when it all seemed like the cheap plot for a South American soap opera. It killed us… so much drama… priceless.

Also, all of that memorable day at the glacier is faithfully accounted for in Facebook, Felics made sure of that.

At midday, we ate our sandwiches in silence, looking at the enormous white mass of ice that was the glacier, and early in the afternoon we resumed our poking and studying around, although to be honest Mr. Wang was not pushing us too hard. He was one of the awesomest teachers I've had, ever, promise, and I think I decided it that very same day. Even if he did make us elaborate a complex report on the samples we'd gathered and the landforms we'd visited, and took it very much into account for our final grading (in case you're wondering, all 5 of us passed that course. Kat, Felics, me, and two other unnamed students I don't remember that much).

Oh, oh, yes. And here's when it gets interesting. Well, more interesting. Well, more like a Jane Austen novel, screw all I said before. So, it was clear that there was a huge black cloud of bad mood around Norway, right? I bet she was glad to be studying the glacier like that and all, but she had some serious communication issues, trust me. Also she couldn't deal with being so damned embarrassed.

The thing is Matthias also had communication issues of a different kind. Poor guy, a less subtle being has not yet walked this planet. He'd been trying to talk to Ice Queen #1 since we'd dropped our stuff upon arriving at the glacier, and had gotten turned away every. single. time. With varying degrees of violence. Well, I was talking with the guys when I saw from afar the scene I'm about to narrate to you, but let me give you an idea of the setting first, 'cause it had everything to do with what happened. Right. So this glacier towered above us like a huge white wall. We'd set our stuff on some flat rocks that stood almost at the limit of the forest, that is, where the forest ended and the glacier started. In turn, a face of the glacier stood like a barrier against a lake full of icebergs and chunks of ice dismembered from the actual glacier. All in all, the dry, solid, life-friendly forest ground bordered with both the glacier and the lake… Well, whatever, I suck at descriptions. Moving on.

So, I'm listening to Felics telling Kat that, like, there's no way in hell he'll ever be buying that brand of sleeping bags again 'cause his ass freezes every night all the way to Siberia, when I happened to look over Kat's shoulder and saw this- there was Matthias, who before had been talking to Mr. Wang , and he was approaching Norway, that was sitting on a rock that protruded barely from where the forest ended over the lake, and appeared to be taking notes or sketching something on a large notebook. Pity that I couldn't hear what they said, but the moment I saw him come up to her, I stopped paying attention to Felics because them interacting could only be entertaining. So, yeah. I'm guilty as charged, so fuck off. Ehem. He comes up to her, I was saying. Tells her something. He startled her, apparently, so she wacked him on the head with the notebook. He rubbed his head, sheepishly, said whatever, gestured in an apologetic fashion. She barked something at him over her shoulder and continued trying to draw or write or what-ever. He placed his hand on her shoulder, still looking apologetic. She knocked it away brusquely, he stumbled forward, she shifted violently, and the rock where she was sitting came loose and slid into the lake.

The noise it made as it collided against the water was deep, like an explosion, and it reverberated in the wide valley. Suddenly it stopped being funny.

All of us were too shell-shocked to react, at first. All of us, except Matthias. Who had the bright idea to dive in after her. Into a lake full of freaking icebergs… Well, wait, I can't criticize him. I doubt I would have done anything smarter.

Soon, we five and Mr. Wang had flocked around the hole left by the large rock, and helplessly looked down at the water with horror plastered on our faces. It was a horrible moment and I think we were all holding our breaths until our UTA's head bobbed up the surface and no time after Norway's too- their lips were blue and he looked anxious, and immediately we got round to helping them back up- Norway seemed to be out cold, too, pardon the pun. I might have forgotten to mention that, as we were in the vicinity of some ginormous mass of ice, the temperature dropped considerable degrees in comparison to where we'd set camp. Mr. Wang, always level-headed, sent the other two kids to get towels and basically whatever item of clothing they could find in our backpacks, while the rest of us were pulling them out of the lake.

Out came Norway first, and Kat and Mr. Wang immediately got around to taking her soaking anorak off and rubbing her arms to warm her into consciousness. Sure enough, soon she was opening her eyes again. Meanwhile, Felics and me pulled Matthias out, and he was shivering so much it looked painful, lips even bluer than before, but he managed that little sheepish smile of his and mutter one accurate "damn…". We had him take off his coat too, now heavy with water and damn cold as well.

When he managed to lock eyes with her, I think we all could see in them him apologizing, over and over again, with so much sincere repentance I think even she must have felt kinda sorry for the guy. But who knows. She was also shivering like possessed.

We still had some hours of light left, so Mr. Wang sent Felics and me to gather some firewood to make us a hearty bonfire, it was either that or hypothermia, huh? Mr. Wang was truly something, too. If I'd been him, I'd be panicking like a grandmother, honest. But he was there all level-headed telling us precisely what needed to be done, so I think that at the end of the day he was the great hero of the afternoon. Well, Matthias kinda did dive into the lake to get her out, but I guess that if they'd not been bickering around like two immature highschool kids nothing of that would have happened in the first place.

That with the fire seemed to work, then again Felics and I outdid ourselves. Betcha the forest'd never seen SUCH a bonfire before, huh. Matthias took Norway's hands in his own and rubbed them the whole while they sat there, side by side so close to the flames they ended up reeking of smoke, and it was odd to see Norway let him do, quietly. She let him pull her close to her and rub her arms, and fuss over her and scold her like a child when they noticed she'd twisted her ankle in the fall. Mr. Wang was not pleased at all to hear this last thing, because we still had to go back to our camp and, granted, now we had to walk downhill so the slope was in our favor and it would be easier and take us shorter, but it was still a long way to go and the forest at night wasn't the greatest idea.

So what happened in the end? Make a wild guess. You'll probably be right.

If you said I ended up carrying Matthias' stuff, I'll but you a latte next time I see you. That's precisely how it went, and Felics was stuck with carrying Norway's things. And Matthias, you'll ask..?

No, don't ask that, it's so obvious it'd be painful. He carried Norway, of course. And you bet he enjoyed it.

Eventually we arrived at the camp site. Instant noodles and dehydrated sauce (at 12 am) had never tasted so glorious, believe me.

Norway blatantly refused the slightest suggestion of us going back to university. Not because of me, she said stubbornly, you won't be going back because of me; and Mr. Wang obliged. After all, it was a sprained ankle, it's not like she was dying. So the remaining three days only six of us moved around and continued our investigations… yeah, you guessed right, it was impossible to persuade Matthias to leave her alone. Not that anyone tried, either. The night of the first day we'd left them alone they were more or less decently civil to each other, the second night they interacted like normal human beings, if a little awkwardly, and the third night I caught them kind of cuddling when they thought no one was looking. But it was not only me, pssht. Everybody else noticed. But, by that moment it was so evident that we'd all seen it coming, were expecting it (even Mr. Wang), and I actually had a bet going on with Felics as to whether stuff would happen or wouldn't. I refuse to tell you who won.

And yeah, well, then we went back to campus and life went on more or less like before, only that Matthias showed up less in parties and I spent more time quietly, playing hockey with the university team or hanging out with my Canadian friend. Like I told you, we all passed Geomorphology and had a weird sleepover at Mr. Wang's, who was married to a Vietnamese beauty that cooked like an angel from heaven, honest. Things went on quiet like that the following semester too; and Felics, Kat, Norway, our former UTA and I sometimes did stuff together 'cause we'd become rather comfy around eachother.

When the year finally ended and it was time for me to return home, Matthias came up to me with the awesomest news, Tino, can you believe it? that he'd been granted a scholarship to work on his theses abroad. Make a wild guess as to where… actually don't. A year in Oslo. Sounds suspicious? Pfft, nah. He told me later it'd had been one hell of a wonderful year. Actually, that year that Matthias spent in Oslo, I was too busy trying to make head or tail from Hydrogeology until one day, one bright day, I discovered that Svea (remember her?) was now helping in the library of the department of Geology…

And then came Sweden.

…but that's a story for some other time ;)

THE END

A/N:

Oooh, where did this story come from, don't ask me...! I just... woke up today to study, and... evidently didn't. Also, weirdest AU ever. They're studying Geology (WTHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!) in a university in Scandinavia, probably in Finland or Sweden. Also the character mix is so. strange.

I've been wanting to write Tino for a long while. And Denmark too, I love Denmark. Can't not love Denmark.

Some quick additional info:

More on UTAs: UTAs usually serve as true assistants to a class; they typically have taken the course with which they are assisting, often with the same professor, and have performed well in it. Unlike professors and GTAs, UTAs generally do not have a fixed salary but instead are paid by the hour, earn credit hours, or volunteer their time.

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves.

Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies.

Geomorphology is the scientific study of landforms and the processes that shape them. Geomorphologists seek to understand why landscapes look the way they do, to understand landform history and dynamics, and to predict future changes through a combination of field observations, physical experiments, and numerical modeling.

Glaciology is the study of glaciers, or more generally ice and natural phenomena that involve ice.

Hydrogeology is the area of geology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rocks of the Earth's crust (commonly in aquifers).

Characters:

- "me"/ Tino : Finland

- Matthias : Denmark

- Norway : you won't guess who...

- "that Canadian guy" : Matthew, kind of Canada.

- Mr. Wang : China

- Svea - Fem!Sweden

- Felics : Poland

- Katyusha : Ukraine

- Mr. Wang's sexy Vietnamese wife : Vietnam (ooohhh yes, I ship them!)

Hope you enjoyed the story! I know I make Author's Notes too long, but if I do research I like to share it. It makes us all a little wiser :)

Drop a review if you have a moment, I really love to read your thoughts and opinions :)

.

Oh, a NOTICE!

I'm CHANGING MY PENNAME to

[ witchfingers ]

be alert!

=D