Christmas Adventure

Happy Christmas everyone! ♡

I made it home for Christmas this year! It wasn't quite as easy as it might sound to you. Surprisingly, we didn't have any problems with any of our three flights. Instead the domestic travel caused more problems.

Christmas tree at Aberdeen Airport.

After arriving in Finland, I spent a couple of days in Helsinki with a friend while Laura was visiting her family Hyvinkää. After that the great journey to Loimaa started. And I have to say that this was not the first time, I've travelled from Helsinki to Loimaa by train. It should be fairly straight forward: just change trains in Toijala and you won't accidentally end up in Tampere. What could possibly go wrong?

Well here's a little map I drew you using Google Maps, so that it's easier to follow my story.

Green line is our train route and the red arrow is a little taxi "short cut".

Okay, when I was still considering which train I should buy my ticket to, a friend invited me for coffee in Vantaa. It's on the way, great! ... So I went to see him in Vantaa. I had an hour. Unfortunately, I spent half of it in a forest with a coffee machine and a huge broken suitcase. I had a coffee machine, because my friend had lent it to me so that we could use it at my mum's 50th birthday party and my friend Tiia's graduation party. And something unfortunate had happened to my 25 kg suitcase and it only had one tiny little wheel left. And no, I didn't mean to end up in a forest, but instead of taking the tunnel that lead to the parking lot where my friend was waiting for me, I had taken the tunnel to a forest. So instead of an hour's calm coffee drinking we ended up downing a 4-minute speed coffee from a kiosk while standing at the station.

After I safely back on train, I nicely placed all of my luggage on the shelves I can barely reach and found a good spot for my suitcase to stand up. The train was fairly full but I had found good seats for me and Laura, who was meant to get on at Hyvinkää. She got on put her stuff away and take-away pizza out of her suitcase.

Dinnertime!!!

Oh, but that would be way too straightforward wouldn't it? Soon we realised that everyone else was getting off, and we were just sitting there eating pizza. Well, of course we were sitting in the only coach that was going to be left behind at Riihimäki and that we had approximately 1-minute to get all of our stuff and to run to one of the coaches that would carry on with the rest of the train. Laura lost a bottle of Fanta in the process. It was tragic.

After finding new seats and the train was moving again, we thought that we could just sit on the train and eat. Finally. We were very happy about this and I was telling Laura about my forest adventure and she was talking about meeting her family.

Then I asked Laura when exactly we would need to change trains again. And at the same time the conductor walked in saying:

"Tickets from Toijala?"

Oh, yes, of course we had just driven past our stop while chatting. Fortunately, there was a nice couple on the train who were getting off at the next stop at Viiala and they helped us phone a taxi. Fortunately there was some extra time, and we arrived back in Toijala 5 minutes before our train arrived there. But hey, let's look at the positive side! We didn't have to stand in freezing rain waiting for the train - instead we got to see Viiala.

Back in Toijala!

I think it's quite funny how many things we managed to fail during this 2-hour journey... But in the end we made it home for Christmas!

But was it a white Christmas? Well... It was raining, but because we are ninjas at getting lost and then finding things, we found a little pile of snow!

How was your Christmas?

Does photo quality matter?

I've been getting really stressed out about cameras recently. 

I've always enjoyed taking photos. When I was in primary school, I had a film camera. I was able to take 24 photos － sometimes 25 or even 26 if I was lucky! － before I had to take them to the photo shop to get them developed. In 2004, I got my first Nokia camera phone as confirmation gift. I used it to take some cat photos and random selfies that I could put on IRC-galleria, the online site the Finns used to use before Facebook. But I still took all holiday photos with my lovely film camera. After I got back from a language course in Oxford I took 8 film rolls to the photo shop. The lady who worked thought it was a lot. The times have changed. Imagine if almost 200 photos from an adventure-filled holiday was still a lot!

We visited Paris on the way home from Oxford.

In 2007 I got my first digital camera as a present. I still used my film camera a lot though, and normally took both of them with me when I went somewhere. I have several albums filled with photographs from all of my adventures. But nowadays all of my photos (well not all but some of the best ones) just get uploaded on Facebook. That's the only place where I have some of them, thanks to Microsoft Support that deleted them from my hard drive.

Fitting room mirrors have been handy whether I've been using a film camera or a camera phone.

But I really love taking photographs. They help me remember all the fun things I've done and amazing people I've met. I feel like photographs keep me together. My memory has been very bad recently and it has really helped that I'm able to look back in time in form of photographs, and that way being able to remember things that I would have otherwise forgotten. I might be a completely different person if I hadn't had a camera all of those times, because I wouldn't be able to remember them!

I've used a digital camera i.a. at Avebury, Aberdeen University and Stirling Castle.

  

What's the point of going on a holiday if you can't take photos to remind you of the sunny days when you sit at home and it's raining outside?

It's almost Christmas!

Today I woke up. (Well yeah, that alone is quite an achievement for me...)

And I realised that there's only a couple of days left until I'll be trying to fly to Snowland for Christmas. And I have't even eaten all the chocolates in my advent calendar! Also, the snow is not guaranteed. Thank you global warming. But I wish there will be snow!

I have spent the three most recent Christmases in Scotland. But this year it's time to do some crazy flying around Europe and sleeping at airports to get to the Finnish Christmas Wonderland.

Finland, the land of trees and snow.

I have bad experience of flights being delayed, cancelled, diverted and whatever other things could happen to them. So I never really expect to get where I am trying to fly. You can read about it more in my post "About unexpected situations!". From past experience I am flying via Scandinavia, because they are more prepared for snow and will not close the airports like the rest of the Europe tends to do. And when I say Scandinavia, I really mean Scandinavia. First we're flying from Aberdeen to Stavanger, Norway. From there we fly to Copenhagen, Denmark. And from Denmark we fly to Helsinki!

Helsinki Cathedral. Or the "Church of Doom" as the Finns like to call it.

I quite look forward to spending Christmas in Finland this year. I'm taking Laura with me and we'll see where we end up spending it. We've been invited to three different households on Christmas Eve. Fortunately all of them are in the same town.

But Christmas in Finland is fun! Teletubbies even made an episode of it.

That's exactly what it used to be like in my childhood! I'm not sure what I'm going to wear this Christmas, now when I don't have an elf costume.

Loimaa, the little town in Proper Finland where we're going to spend Christmas, is not that bad either. As long as there is Christmas food, Christmas tree and my cat. It might even be enjoyable. It's a small town - most of which is agricultural field or forest. It's name basically means "countryside". The greatest landmark is the grain elevator - the huge building for storing the crops. They even put fancy lights on it.

Loimaa! Photo by 16valve at taloforum.fi.

But what! I didn't realise it was almost flying time already! I better get on with doing laundry and packing. I can't really do laundry without emptying my suitcase that I currently use as a laundry basket. And I can't pack anything because I am almost out of clean clothes. And if I start doing things with it I could just start piling Christmas presents in it already. Tomorrow I'm also going to meet a friend I haven't seen since first year, do the rest of the Christmas shopping and then go to our Japanese society's Christmas meal! Where having hot pot. I'm so bad at eating hot pot, but thankfully there will be skillful people there to help me.

Icy Tampere.

Can you feel the Christmas approaching?

Birthday time!

Hi!

There's this thing that happens every year that is a good excuse to have a fun day. It's when we finally get to tell people how old we actually are. And then for the rest of the year you are expect to round down to that number. Last Sunday I finally reached the age of 24,00 years, and many people wished me to have a fun day and and a wonderful year. It was amazing to see so many people write on my Facebook wall just to wish me a happy birthday! And to get some text messages and cards too.

So, I thought I'd tell you how I spent that day!

This picture is not foggy, it's just demonstrating how sleepy we felt on the bus.

Obviously, the day started by getting woken up by a beautiful girl to realise that it was my birthday and that I was wearing a ball dress. That's how birthday's should start right? No need to do anything to your face because, magically, your make-up is already on, and a fairy godmother enchanted you into a fabulous dress.

Well, okay, I had come home from a Dance Festival's after party 5 hours earlier and fallen asleep on the sofa in full gear. That's what three glasses of vodka sometimes does to you.

But it was all okay, and I had a shower and got ready, and then Laura and I jumped on a bus and headed to cinema to watch Nativity 2: Danger in Manger!.

It has two of my favourite actors in it: David Tennant and Joanna Page.

Just watching David Tennant makes me happy, but adding Joanna Page, cute kids singing funny Christmas songs and a real donkey made it absolutely worth it to get up early and go see it at 10am.

Cinema!

After watching the film about a bunch of kids travelling to Wales, we headed to an Irish pub in town. I had booked a table, but we had some confusion with the name it was under. But after we realised that instead of Tia-Maria, the table was reserved for Tia Mallo - we found our table. Because obviously many people want to book a table in an Irish pub at the opening time on a Sunday.

I got some presents! It was very exciting.

What is round and has a trunk? I bet you'll never guess what this is.

There's also this film clip of me looking at a present. I tried to add some subtitles too, because the pub was a bit noisy. I hope the video works.

I've never tried to edit an video, because I've always thought it's very difficult, and haven't even tried because I've been too scared of embarrassing myself. Maybe I'll try one day, if I get a camera I can film with.

I got a text message from a mystery person, letting me know that he couldn't make it.

Then there was food! Laura and I had half a burger each, because we had taken our breakfast to the cinema and weren't super-hungry yet. But Liz was hungrier.

The Ultimate Burger.

She ordered an Ultimate Burger. This is what you get in pubs when you feel very hungry. It has everything you can order in a pub in one burger.

But no one knows how it's meant to be eaten.

After lunch we went ice skating, but unfortunately there's no pictures from there, because everyone was silly enough to leave our camera phones in the car. But it was fun to get on ice again! I would like to go there again soon. Would anyone like to come with me? I'll try and take some pictures next time too!

It was a fun day! It wasn't a super-amazing party, but I got to eat a lot, and I got lots of eating related things as a present: frying pan, pancake mix, maple syrup, bowls and chopsticks! I also got to spend time with awesome people and to laugh and practise my favourite sport! 
And by favourite, I mean the only one I like.

Love confessions

Oh look, it's December!

It's time to open our advent calendars! Mine is a Hello Kitty one. Yesterday I was telling my girlfriend about my nightmares and about how I probably would get nightmares if I ever had to enter a house of someone who is obsessed with Hello Kitty. Then I was trying to light candles, dropped the burning match and nearly set the carpet and my leopard patterned blanket on fire. In the end it was all okay, except my finger that now has a Hello Kitty plaster on it. Don't play with matches or this might happen to you.

To celebrate the start of this crazy party month, I thought it would be time for some self-examining "...and that's who I am" picture therapy. For me. But you can do this too if you haven't already!  In the meantime you're just welcome to learn more about my secrets.

This time I'm going to tell you about things I love. Except I find love as a very strong word and almost never use it. It makes me sound too passionate. And I'm not a passionate person! Or maybe I am, but just don't want to show people that I am? To be honest, I'm just overly worried about people finding out what things I really like or even love. Because then they'll know how to hurt me most. And it will leave me in a really vulnerable position. By telling people that I generally like many things but nothing in general will leave them in a lot less clueless position and then they can just mock me about things I don't really care about! But then only those, who I will tell my secrets to, will really know anything about me. But maybe it's time to change that.

Would you like to hear confessions about my feelings?

Christmas wishes?

December is a fabulous month of gift giving because almost everyone I know has a birthday then. At least that's how it feels like at the moment. That includes me as well. And then there's of course Christmas. So everyone needs to come up with a wishlist or otherwise they will get ugly and bulky things they don't need as presents.

My parents have been asking me what I would like for Christmas. I assume birthday wishes are supposed to be included in the same list, because December is joulukuu in Finnish - "Christmas Moon". The time it takes the moon - kuu - to go round the Earth is approximately a month. And once this "Death Month" - marraskuu - is over it will be time for Christmas - joulu !

So I've tried really hard to think of things I would like to receive this December. Unfortunately, I've developed a bad habit of buying all the things I would like myself. I mean, I already bought candles and a Pikachu costume, what else would I want?!

Perfect for any occasion.

I'm not really a difficult person to buy presents to. I like many things! Presents make me really happy, especially if they are useful. Things that I don't like are toffee, stupid decorative things with no real purpose apart from being in the way, and mugs. For some reason mugs are everyone's favourite thing to give. I understand this, I've given several mugs as a present, too! But I just moved to a new house and there's a shelf full of my mugs. There's 13 mugs! One of them is Laura's but all the remaining 12 are mine. And I've only bought one of them myself, the rest have been presents. If I had known this, I maybe could have left that one mug in the shop. But it came with a coaster, and I only own 3 of them. I like square ones that are not slidy and pile up nicely. So please, no more mugs, I don't have enough coasters for all of them. I also have many candles, but only one tiny plate to burn them on!

But because I felt I needed to come up with that wish list for my family, I tried to think of things that I need. It was so much easier when I was five and I was just given a toy catalogue to circle things in. 

Anyway, these are the things that would make my life nicer and easier:

Swimming costume that fits. I went swimming today and it was a real struggle to get my swimming costume on. I may have got bigger. Or maybe my current one shrank. In either case, I think I need a new swimming costume that fits. And because I like to be difficult I would like it to be a swimsuit, because I feel funny wearing a bikini at the swimming pool. Bikinis are for pool parties and the beach. Neither of which I very rarely go to. And to make this issue even more difficult I would like it to come with an integral bra support system. In my size. They are rare and expensive finds.

(Photo from Freyalingerie.com)

A pleasant alarm clock. It's one of the most difficult things to wake me up. I can sleep through fire alarms. And without setting an alarm, I might never wake up. I have several alarm clocks, but all of them are mean. I would like a pleasant, happy one. One that would tell me that there's a nice world out there and that if I woke up, I would get to be a part of it. 

(Photo from Suurikellokauppa.fi)

Compact system camera. I love taking pictures of nice things in my life. So that I can look at them in the future and remember what my friends used to look like and where I used to live and what places I've seen. My current camera is a 6 years old digital camera, and the picture quality is not quite as high as I would like it to be. It's impossible to take nice pictures with it inside, and I really would like a better one. 

(Photo from Verkkokauppa.com)

Chopsticks. I would like to learn to eat faster and more sophisticatedly with chopsticks. It could be made possible by having something to practise with. 

(Photo from Keittiovaline.fi)

Medicine organiser. As I mentioned earlier this month, I take a lot of dietary supplements these days and would really like something to put them in when I go travelling. I hopefully will also get some medication that works if NHS figures out what's wrong with me. That's my hope for the next year. 

(Photo from Hauskakauppa.fi)

These five things are something that I really wish I would get.

This Christmas wishlist thing is something that is going around in many blogs, so I did it too, in case it would help me think of something I would like to get so that I would stop getting asked about it.

But it's done now, so can I now tell you how I feel about Christmas gift giving?

Mostly I find gift giving as a stressful obligation. You do it to show people that you wish to keep them in your life. Because in the future they are supposed to return a gift to you. I feel that Christmas is too materialistic with the whole compulsory gift giving. It's not the thing I care about in Christmas. At Christmas I would like time to sit in peace with people I love and have some time to think about how wonderful life is while holding a warm cup of mulled wine. That's really all I want for Christmas. This moment would also be made even more wonderful with snow, fire, Christmas music, church, candles and joulutortut.

Have you written your Christmas wishlist yet?

It's snow time!

Dear blog,

I think the winter has arrived. It snowed last week!

View from our home street!

I am quite amused by the fact that we had our first snow before my family in Finland did! It's all gone now but the winter atmosphere is still here. I've been burning so many candles (that my girlfriend is worried that soon I will have no money left)! But I feel that the candles are making me feel less stressed out about this whole Christmas thing. Especially Christmas shopping, because surely I can just give candles to everyone. Candles are lovely.

A little Laura-elf hiding behind the tree.

We also erected our Christmas tree! It's new, cute and we bought it at 2am in our local supermarket. It's plastic and lacks that sensational pine tree scent, but I've solved the problem by buying pine tree scented candles. It's like having a real tree.

And since, I've now told you about the snow we had, it's a good time to tell you that Katja from Little Snow-blog gave me 11 questions challenge. I've done this challenge once before and told 11 facts about me, and answered Jonna's questions in this post, but now I'm going to answer Katja's 11 questions.

Family, friends and future

It's crazy o'clock and I'm drinking lumpy chocolate milk and burning a Yankee candle while I'm writing this. I just had a candlelit shower. It was awesome. I'm kind of glad this no-light-in-the-bathroom incident happened. Otherwise I would have never bothered lighting candles in the bathroom just so that I could have a shower. I feel clean and happy now.

I think this is a fantastic moment to tell you something about me. This time I'm going to tell you about my background. Me, my family, friends and my future wishes relating to family and friends. And I'm going to be using "...and that's who I am" pictures again.

Ready to find out more about me?

Back to the Middle Ages

Hello lovely people!

I thought I'd update you on what's going on in my life. For most people, this probably wouldn't be anything big, but for me it's pretty much everything that's going on at the moment. I've bought new things, got some health news and also ended up in dark.

First, I'm going to show you my new bag and shoes! Because the weather has got colder, I needed new shoes for the Scottish winter. They are the first wedge heel shoes that I've bought. What do you think? The bag is also new, I thought I needed something to brighten up my life!

Health-wise, I'm happy to announce that something is finally happening. I got a phone call from my GP yesterday saying there was something abnormal found in the blood tests that were taken on Wednesday. Originally I was told that there was no need to test my hormone levels and that there can't be anything wrong with them if I'm still getting my period. But because I knew that most of my health problems started or got worse when I started the Pill, I knew that it most likely was hormone-related. The GP claimed that the Pill does not affect hormone levels. I knew that she was either lying or really stupid. I kept on insisting that I my hormone levels really needed to get tested without threatening that I would grow a moustache if she didn't agree - because that probably wouldn't have helped. Eventually she gave me a referral, but said that next time I would have to go and get tested privately.

Yesterday, when she phoned she sounded fairly alarmed though. I was right, there was something wrong with my hormones! I'm very glad that I was stubborn enough to get it all tested this time. Before they've tested my blood for some other things and only noticed that my iron stores are low, but that clearly wasn't all that was wrong. I've been very tired for two years now and had some sort of headaches everyday and at least one migraine every week for a year. The doctors have been saying that being tired is normal and there's nothing that can be done about sleeping 18 hours a night. I've been told that I should just take more painkillers.

But now I'm finally getting to go and see an endochrinologist! Hopefully they will be able to figure out what's wrong with me, and hopefully one day I will be able to wake up without taking painkillers and stay awake longer than the time I spend sleeping. My symptoms match the symptoms of pituitary gland tumour. The tumour pushing my brain and my eyes would explain why I have a headache all the time and why my eyes hurt, and why I felt that my eyesight was getting worse. The patient.co.uk website also kindly warns me that "there may be a leakage of the fluid that surrounds the brain and pituitary gland, felt as watery fluid leaking through the nose" and that those symptoms need urgent treatment. And it's November in Scotland, so of course my nose is occasionally leaking. So great, now I have to be worried that my brain is leaking out through my nose every time that happens. They still need to MRI scan my head to confirm whether I have a tumour or not, but at least now there's something happening about it. That makes me feel happier and kind of relieved.

In other news, my flatmate left to Africa on the same day as the light bulb in our bathroom died. It would be okay, if we would understand how to change it, but it's weird and we don't understand how to do it. We have changed light bulbs before, but for some reason we can't figure out how to change this one. Is this a same-sex couple problem?

Fortunately we have candles and have survived under these circumstances. At least it's been athmospheric to use the bathroom. It hasn't been too awful, but hopefully we get the electric lighting back before Kata returns from Africa.

I'm going to take this opportunity to show you what our bathroom looks like in the dark.

Our tiny sink without a mixer tap looks quite cute in candle light. My Bioré face scrub is for those days when my skin feels like it needs a wee salicylic acid treatment. The Alighiero Campostrini hand soap is the least drying one I've found so far. I have dry hands but I like to wash them often.

I'm sorry the candle is closer to the rubber duck than my Lush soap bar. I'll try to think about the spacing more in the future. They are on top of the toilet, in case you were wondering. The duck glows in dark, so that helps a little bit too.

There are 3 different tubes of toothpaste in our bathroom because we all want different things. Laura wants hers to be whitening, I want mine without fluor and Kata wants hers to be non-whitening with fluor.

Do you like candles? Or do you happen to know how to change light bulbs?

Who even am I?

I find it very stressful to introduce myself. Especially when I have to tell people more than just my name. Should I tell them things that I don't even identify with? Not lies, but just things about me that I don't feel that really describe me very well. It would help to keep the distance and stop them from knowing the real me. I am afraid to tell people anything that would let them close to knowing the “real me”. What if they don't like me?

Am I cool enough to pull off these shoes?

Lately, I've started thinking about this problem more. I'm not sure why I feel that way. But then again, I'm not even sure how I would describe myself. What could I tell people? I'm not even sure if I am enough anything to present myself as something.

Then, I stumbled across a tumblr page called "...and that's who I am". There were many pictures with little sentences all ending with “and that's who I am”. I scrolled down the page and saved all the pictures I felt I identified with on my computer. It actually felt really therapeutic. I feel that seeing things that I identify with written on the computer screen made me feel that it was more justified to see those things as something that I am. It kind of felt like I was given a permission to be me. I looked at those pictures again today and I think I might be ready to be brave enough to share those pictures that represent me with the blogger world. It's scary, to show people who I really am, but I think I might be ready to do it. The blogger world is probably tired of “and that's who I am” related blog posts, but this is my first attempt, so I'm going to do it anyway.

I am going to use these pictures as a tool to show my readers who I am. I have saved so many pictures that I will have to do this over several posts. To make it even more personal, I'm going to say something about each picture. Although I will be using pictures I saved directly from the tumblr page, showing these things makes me feel very naked.

This first post will be the deepest and the darkest one.

Are you ready?

Maybe I'll grow a moustache this November

November is here!

It's been exactly a year since I first realised I suffer from migraines. Last November, I had the worst migraine of my life. It lasted for 2 weeks. I occasionally felt slightly better and occasionally just wanted to lie in a pitch black room and die. I had had headaches before but never for that long and I used to just take ibuprofen for them.

A year ago also stopped taking the contraceptive pill. 10 months earlier a doctor had given it to me, because I told her about periods that I had gotten every two weeks. To me, it didn't make sense to start the pill because of it. But I also hoped it would improve my acne so I tried it.

Photo from Mirror.

I wouldn't recommend the Pill to anyone who doesn't need it for something hormonal. I think it's too easy to start. Many young girls start taking it because they think it makes them feel more "mature". It's good to use contraception, but it's definitely not the only method of contraception there is. Bayer has been advertising the Pill as a "miracle drug" for all women's problems: it would provide contraception, lets you decide when you want to have your period (you can even stop having them completely!), it will cure your acne, help you control your weight, relieve PMS, etc. I think medicines should not be advertised like that, especially since it's misleading and has so many side effects. They are selling something as a product that makes women believe that their bodies' natural cycles are bad and that they should control them with chemicals that will mess up their whole natural cycle and hormones. 

I might write a blog post about my thoughts on contraception at some point. But really, my headaches and migraines got a lot worse while I was on the Pill. Those were not the only side effects I experienced. In the end I stopped taking it mid-sheet because even the thought of swallowing one made me feel ill.

But even after I stopped taking the Pill, I've been getting migraines every week. I've tried a lot of medication for migraines, but everything seems to give me side-effects I'm not ready to live with. Triptans for instance did not keep the migraine away for more than a few days, and they made me really thirsty. When I say really thirsty, I mean really very thirsty! I went out to eat in a restaurant, and I had to drink three jugs of water during the meal. And I obviously had to leave the table several times to go to the toilet too. It wasn't normal, or safe either because being so thirsty probably meant that there was something even more wrong in my body. Recently I've been taking beta-blockers for the second time. They keep the migraine away, but they also keep me asleep. I haven't been able to stay awake for more than a few hours recently, which has made it pretty much impossible to function as a normal person who lives a normal life full of everyday things. 

I went to Holland & Barrett's to get some proper multivitamins because I really had serious problems with lack of energy (which may have been just due to all the medication I was on). They advised me to get some multivitamins and B vitamin that could boost my energy levels.

It didn't help me stay awake though and I ended up talking to Kata about it.  We were wondering what I could do, because I really had to stop my preventive migraine medication. Then, Kata made me realise that my migraines might be hormone-related. Maybe there still is some bad oestrogen in my body from taking the Pill? I think I need to get my blood checked out for all the hormone levels to find out why I cannot stay awake and why my head hurts all the time anyway.

Studenty challenges and tips!

Some people think that students are just lazy nocturnal creatures who don't need to do much apart from lying around all the time. Especially arts students who rarely have classes to go to. Because I have years of experience of what student life actually is like, I decided to write this blog post to show some of the challenges I've had to face during this past week. It's shocking how hard life can sometimes be for students. And because some of you are students and already understand what your life is like I have an added bonus at the end of this post where I will provide you with fun decoration tips that will make your flat look more student-like.

This week

There are a few essential things in life. The most important one is food. Students love food - especially free food. There's this wonderful pub called Korova in town. Before, I've only ever ended up there when I've been fairly drunk - occasionally too drunk for them to let me in. But last Wednesday we had a little flat outing and went there when they were serving free food. It obviously was mostly just a trick to get students in so that they would buy drinks. This assumption was confirmed when we walked to the bar to ask about the food and the rude lady behind the bar told us that "it's not free", and that we "have to buy drinks first". Well, we did that, and got a plate full of pub food. Not bad for less than £2.

You can't get free food everyday though, and sometimes you have to cook. Cooking is not easy though.

Kata experienced a pea attack.

Frozen peas especially are not easy to deal with. Sometimes they jump on you when you open the freezer. And then there's peas all over the floor - and that's a safety hazard.

Peas where they should be.

If you survive to cooking procedure, you get to eat homecooked food which unsurprisingly tastes a lot better than free pub food. But student life challenges don't end there. Sometimes after a meal you want something sweet. But student fridges are funny places.

Hygiene+ has kidnapped my Swiss chocolate!

My chocolate has frozen to the back wall of my fridge. Is it trying to ensure that I really want to eat the chocolate? Anyhow, it's very inconvenient.

The next thing is not really an inconvenience but it's a thing that students don't tend to do. 

Ironing.

Poor Pikachu.

I had to iron this week. Turned out that the Pikachu costume I ordered online was vacuum packaged and if I had worn it without ironing I would have looked like a very wrinkled Pikachu.

See, hard life isn't it?

Okay, now for the  awesome home decorating tips! 

Jonna's Challenge

This blog post will be very different from my other posts. I will take part in a blog challenge where I have to answer some questions and also come up with some questions. I've seen these challenges in other people's blogs, but I've never been challenged before. This time my friend Jonna challenged me though! I will tell you more about her and how we met in a separate friend post that I will write at some point in the future. Thank you for the challenge, Jonna!

The Challenge

• tell 11 things about themselves
• answer the 11 questions asked
• ask 11 new questions
• challenge some bloggers

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Why don't I have tattoos?

Dear blog,

Today, I wanted to write about tattoos. They are art that we carry on our skin. I myself am not very artistic, and maybe that's the reason why I don't have one. But I've been secretly jealous for people who have beautiful tattoos that are now a part of who they are.

Ira Chernova.

Tattoos are a way to make friends. It's like a code: if you see someone who has a tattoo, you know they share at least one aspect of their worldview with you. It's a conversation starter. You can share stories and talk about the pictures, text and symbols you and they have tattooed on your bodies and where and why.

Via Overd0z.

I really like Ira Chernova's tattoos. I think she's beautiful. Her tattoo choices seem somehow unusual. It's fascinating.

I think it's just as fine to have writing tattooed on you as it is to have a picture, as long as you can read your tattoo yourself. There's no worse tattoo than ones that are grammatically incorrect or say something that you didn't want written on you.

My favourite type of tattoo is something like this:

Tattoo Design Live.

I guess I find that there's something magical about big tattoos on small people. Especially when none of it seems like it's too much. I like the tree, the compass and the owl. It gives me a feeling that she's part of nature. People sometimes argue against tattoos by saying that it's changing our bodies in an unnatural way. But if tattoo makes you seem natural, then it's just beautiful, right?

There are people who find tattoos really cool. You get respect from them if you have tattoos. They probably find me boring, because I don't have any. I'm trying to figure out whether I find myself boring.

I'm actually don't think there's anything wrong with my skin. It seems fine without ink.

I feel like if you're going to get a tattoo, there needs to be a good reason why you're going to get that tattoo. Perhaps people who are covered in tattoos get pictures just because they think it might go with the rest of their tattooing, or maybe they just have a lot of meaningful stories. We all have a lot of stories. But maybe it's easier to tell them if they are tattooed on you? Or maybe then there's no need to tell them. But I feel like if you're going to get your first tattoo - there definitely needs to be a good story or reason behind it.

Jonna Äyhö.

My friend, Jonna, got her daughter's name tattooed on her shoulder. I think that is definitely a meaningful tattoo you wouldn't regret.

Probably the biggest reason why I don't have a tattoo is that I don't have a clue what sort of picture would be meaningful enough for me to tattoo it to my body. Not to mention that I would also have to know where I want the tattoo. And it costs and probably hurts as well.

Until now, I've always been quite sad that I don't have a tattoo. Nothing to talk about with those cool kids.

But now I am quite happy being tattooless! I've been looking into Japanese culture recently, and turns out that tattoos are not cool in Japan. In recent past, tattoos used to be illegal and they are still associated with criminals. In Japan, tattooes are not seen as something respectable. Apparently many places may refuse to serve tattooed customers. And in some places such as gyms and onsens they are banned. Onsens are places where you go to bathe and relax. You use them naked because it's easier to relax when you don't wear a swimming costume. And that's why everyone would see your tattoos, and it might cause problems.

And after I have learned Japanese, I want to go and visit Japan. And it would be sad if I couldn't visit an onsen.

Hakuba Happo Hot Springs.  白馬八方温泉。

Onsens are "hot springs" that are located in hot spring area where you get to bathe and relax in really hot water. There are a lot of different ones. There are public ones where men and women are separate. Some are run by the muncipilaty and might even be free. Then there are some private ones that are meant for families or couples. At the moment they are something that I definitely want to  experience when I go to visit Japan. They are on the activity list already!

My Japanese vocabulary is still fairly limited. I can say hello, introduce myself and say onsen. I haven't even learned many kanjis* yet. I know the kanji for an onsen and for a book.

温泉　　　本

     Onsen                                          Book

* Kanjis are the Chinese characters that are used when writing Japanese.

I feel like I have now learned very essential things. I also know that a book is pronounced "hon".

So, because I am this excited about the possibility of visiting an onsen, I am not even worried about not having any tattoos anymore. Oh, and no - I wouldn't get a kanji tattoo even if I could go to an onsen with one.

After feeling lame for so many years because I didn't have any, I don't feel that way anymore. I like this feeling. I celebrated it by buying a new dress.

New dress.

What kind of tattoos do you like?