Dear freshmen (and all you oldies out there)! Fall is the best season, there's no doubt about it. The leaves are falling, the moist smell of cold mornings, the iron grey sea... And of course the freshmen running around Metsätalo, BTSB holding its checkpoint and the anticipation of the editors when we have our first meeting of the academic year: will there be freshmen? I'm more than happy to say that we were delighted by the number of freshmen participating, but we welcome all of you (and also you old geezers) to come to our meetings and write for us! When I was planning the first meeting and what I wanted to say, I think I came up what BTSB is really all about: it's a cool platform to publish your work and, first and foremost, it's a place to get feedback on your writing. When you submit a paper to your teachers, it is rare you get anything else than just your grade (hint: you can actually email them and ask for feedback!) and when you freelance for papers, they usually just edit your text and don't tell you why they made the changes. We pride ourselves on being different from that. So, first of all, I bid you welcome to BTSB and secondly, to follow us on twitter and facebook and join us in our meetings (keep an eye on the SUB mailing list)!

This one is a semi theme-issue, namely, editors abroad! In this issue, we visit Portland with Elizabeth, Indonesia with Laura, Alaska with Kaisa, and Cuba with Esko! Of course, we would never forget about our dear old Finland and thus have several articles that help give us a new perspective of Finland and its citizens: in her first article for BTSB, Saara talks about moving from a very small town to the capital city while Inka attempts to look at the curious traits of Finns from an outsider's perspective as Zania speaks up about letting Finns be Finns. We've also got two additional articles from brand new writers as Susan talks about changing careers and beginning anew while Juho offers up some creative writing. But wait, there's more! In addition to all of that, you also get Ile serving up yet another chapter full of mystery and crime while Jesper doesn't keep quiet about his scary experience in the town of Silent Hill. Finally, Ari goes to a concert and gains a new understanding of just how awesome Persian-Jewish Death Surf music can be.

Without further ado, enjoy the issue!

Kaisa Leino Your friendly neighborhood editor-in-chief