Singing happy Swedish songs

Fyra bugg och en Coca-Cola!

Vill du leva och vill du dansa?

Våga skratta och våga chansa?

Eh, I've been playing Singstar. I'm really bad at singing, but unfortunately I really like to sing. Don't worry, I won't upload any videos of me singing here. Instead I will tell you about a couple of amazing songs I've discovered while playing this popular PlayStation game. 

Recently we discovered that you can buy songs in Singstar and I wanted to buy this one so that I could practise Swedish:

Haha, this song is so much fun! Especially when you do the dance while you sing it. It's okay, I don't know what they sing about either... Something about four chewing gums and a Coca-Cola.

Do you want to live and do you want to dance?

Do you have the courage to laugh and to take a chance?

That's what life is all about right?

That song makes me so happy. We also bought another song which is not Sweden's Eurovision entry from 1987. But it is another awesome song from Sweden.

Amanda Jenssen via Singing Girls.

This is fantastic! Why did no one tell me about Amanda Jenssen before?

I don't know why I'm so excited, but maybe I just have a thing for really femme girls with a hint of masculinity? I'm glad that no one's tried to create statistics of how many times a day I look at a picture of Katy Perry. Eh, I'm only slightly obsessed.

People say that I drink too much

But I'm as happy as I can be

Hanging by my amarula tree

Amarula Tree is also a very happy song. Kind of hippieish. I haven't listened to Amanda Jenssen enough to say, if all of her songs are like that, but at the moment she reminds me a lot of Sandi Thom.

I love this song! I love everything about it. It was my favourite in 2008.

Okay, okay, Sandi Thom is not from Sweden, she's from Aberdeenshire. But in my last post I said that I need more reasons for being enthusiastic for living here. And this definitely is one.

I think the world would be a better place if everyone would listen to more happy songs. I mean seriously, why are most Finnish songs so depressing? Most folk songs are fairly depressing too, they just play them as if they were happy.

Sandi Thom via KidWhit.

What kind of music do you listen to? Any happy songs?

I'm a traveller.

Hello!

Remember my "...andthatswhoiam" -posts? They can be found under the tag being myself. I used them as a method of therapy, because I struggled with situations when I had to introduce myself or tell someone about myself. It clearly helped because I actually went to a job interview last Friday!

But I haven't actually shown you all the pictures that I chose from that website last autumn! So now I'm going to tell you a little bit more about myself.

I love travelling. I want to see everything. I feel like the best thing to spend your money on is to travel and see all the different places and meet people who come from different backgrounds than you do. It will widen your views and help you grow as a person. You will get memories that you'll never forget. It will help you become less materialistic and you'll start to appreciate your experiences more.

Travelling has probably always been my favourite thing to do. I'm from a small town, but it does have a travel agency. I used to go there and carry a copy of all of their brochures home. I loved looking at all the pictures and dreaming of all the places I could go to.  Unfortunately, my mum's idea of travelling was to catch a ferry to Sweden, and to stay on it and head back home straight away, without even setting a foot on the ground. Once I was old enough to travel, I cached one of those ferries and went to see what Sweden really looked like.

I'm the exploring kind of traveller. I find it hard to just do what the tourist guide book tells me. I want to find out things myself. I might go to the tourist information to get a map, in case I get lost (which unsurprisingly happens quite a lot), but my favourite activity is to just wander around aimlessly in a new city. I've never been on a beach holiday, because I think I'd find it difficult to just lie there getting burned, when I could be exploring all the suspicious side alleys and getting to know some interesting local people.

Did I ever mention that I'm a big Doctor Who fan? How many TARDIS-themed things have you noticed on my blog? The whole concepts of being able to travel through space and time really fascinates me. There must be more out there. And there is a reason why I ended up with a degree in Archaeology. But I'm stuck in this time and our planet. Which really isn't that bad after all. Exciting things are happening in our time, with all the digitalisation and equality movements. Scary and awful things are happening too, and there are many places I don't even want to travel to at the moment thanks to their political situation. But there's still at least half a planet left which I could and would like to explore.

I strongly believe that understanding the language of the place you travel to helps you get more out of the trip. The more you understand the language the more you understand the culture. And vice versa. Travelling is also the key to learning languages. When you need to find a Burger King in Spain, you suddenly can understand those instructions in Spanish. Or at least I found my way to the Burger King. I also learned to pronounce it the Spanish way.

I've never been to Asia, but I've got really interested in Japanese, Korean and Chinese cultures recently. I thought that Japanese might be the easiest Asian language for me to learn first, so now I've started planning a trip to Japan. It will happen once I feel that I've learned enough Japanese to get the most out of that trip!

I have a funny feeling that the only reason why I've watched all of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit films is the fact that they are shot in New Zealand. That's one place I would really love to travel to. Originally, I wanted to spend an exchange year there, but it never happened. It's the furthest place on Earth I could travel to, which probably makes it even more exciting.

I have lived in a couple of different countries. I've lived in England and Germany for a month, and in Finland and Scotland for years. All of those countries have a place that feels like a home to me. Sometimes I meet people in Scotland who hear that I'm a foreigner and ask me "so where's home?" They think it's a cunning way to phrase the question: "where are you from?", but I always find it a little bit insulting. Do they mean I'm not welcome here, and want me to go back where I came from? I don't want to go back. I want to find a place I belong. The question is also difficult, because I find Scotland to be my home just as much as Finland is. I'm from Finland but I live here now. And I'm not sure where I want to move next. 

But okay, my home is in Europe. For now at least.

Finnish people don't make friends easily, which is kind of a problem. I have, however, met amazing people from all over the world. I wish I'd find it more natural to open up to people and actually make life-long friends and to stay in touch more.

I've always thought that the best cure for depression is to go travelling. I've never felt sad or depressed while travelling. Everything in this world is just too amazing, to feel depressed. Depression is like being stuck. If you don't realise that you're free to go and do anything, you will feel depressed. If you ever feel suicidal, just sell everything you own and use that money to go travelling. As far as possible, and you might find the reason to live again.

I love learning to get to know this planet. I want to explore my options before I decide where I want to settle down to. I feel that there's no point feeling miserable with my life, if I don't want to go and see how people live elsewhere. Maybe there's a place that is more suitable for me than the place where I'm now? And if not, there's nothing better than that feeling of coming back home.

P.S. Here's a map of the places I've conquered so far.

It's fairly Western Europe centred so far, but I'm working on it.

I pinned these places on the TripAdvisor app on Facebook. And then I mangled it a little bit on Paint, because I hate the way Google Maps stretch the North. Unfortunately this app doesn't have all the places I've been to. I'm especially sad that North Rona is missing. But according to this app, I've visited 17 countries, which is 13% of the world. That sounds like a good start!

I honestly, don't know where I'm going next. But I like to keep my options open.

The need to feel alive

Hello.

I just read the most influential blog post, I've probably ever read. It was written by a 24-year old Finnish student called Heidi, who writes Converting Vegetarians blog. The blog post was a recap of her year 2013. It was very summarised, but I feel like it was more eventful than any of the fantasy books I've ever read. And she probably had managed to do more in one month than I have in my whole life.

© Heidi.

Last year she was living in China, where she was learning Chinese, exploring her faith and worldview and growing as a spiritual person. She hiked a lot and explored forgotten and beautiful places. She travelled to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, Xinjiang, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. She explored temples, tiny North Chinese villages, forests and slums. She slept in yurts, shelters she built herself, underneath holy trees and at the top of a Chinese holy mountain. and She questioned everything. She learnt a lot. She was homeless in Peking and nearly ended up in a Kazakhstanian prison.

© Heidi.

In autumn she returned to Finland, where she had to learn to live a completely different lifestyle. During her year in China she had changed a lot, and Finland was very different compared to all those exotic places she's been to.

Her blog is the most inspiring thing I've discovered this year. She's a proper adventurer and she's really going out of her way to find out what life is really about.

She's writing a book and I'm very keen on reading it when it gets published.

© Heidi.

My year 2013 feels very pathetic now. No, actually, my life feels fairly pathetic now.

I know, I've been ill, but maybe I should try a little bit harder? Maybe I should go for more walks in the middle of the night and smell the fresh air? Maybe I should use computer less and do exercises instead. Maybe I should start yoga and learn to meditate.

I want to go travelling again. I had no idea some of the places she went to even existed. And now I'm really scared that I might never get to see them. What if my life just passes by and I never manage to learn what life is really about?

I've never been on a proper hiking and camping trip. I've never walked somewhere you wouldn't get in one day. I'm a scared little city kid who doesn't even know how to do that. Would someone brave like to come with me?

I know, I've already been to a lot of places most people will never go to and lived occasionally in places with no mobile signal or internet. But maybe I should try and do things like that more often?

Maybe I should really put some effort into learning languages and really try and get somewhere with all of my plans. Maybe I should try and speak Japanese person staying with us.

I can't just stop now.

I love adventures. But at the same time I'm really worried that I will soon be too old to go on adventures. Not that you can be too old, but you can think that you're too old. Heidi is my age, which means that I could have done all that, but instead I've enjoyed sitting at my sofa watching travel documentaries. I don't want get too used to this. I could be out there making hose documentaries.

Do you know what it feels like to be alive?

Panic and learn!

Hello!

I've been considering posting a video of myself talking English, but before I do that I thought I'd tell you how I learned English. I've briefly mentioned about my language learning techniques before, but never in much detail. So I thought I'd tell you know how I learned English.

I hope this post will be inspiring for those who feel they aren't very good at languages. You don't have to be good at languages to be able to speak them. You just have to forget that you can't do it and go and talk to some people who speak the language you're trying to learn. Or that's what I did anyway.

Scottish gear.

School

My Finnish school tried to teach me English since I was 7. I was very good at school – in everything except English. English was the one subject that I was always failing at. I was very worried that I would have to repeat a year, because I couldn't pass in English. I always managed to pass it somehow though. Occasionally, maybe out of pity.

On seventh grade, when I was 12, I started learning Swedish. A year after that I started learning French. And a year after that something meaningful happened. One of the girls in my school asked me to do her English homework because she hadn't done it and didn't have time to do everything before her class. I told her that I couldn't do it because I don't know any English (I was still just barely passing my English classes). But I tried anyway, and after her class she thanked me because I had filled in her exercises correctly. That's when I realised that I had actually started learning English. 

I believe that learning Swedish and French had helped me a lot. I had always wanted to learn languages and because I hadn't learned English I had chosen other languages that I thought might be easier and really put some effort into learning them. But turns out that learning one language really helps you learn another. Once you learn how languages work, it will be easier to understand a language.

I took part in a Nordic exchange program and hosted a Danish boy while I was at school.

Languages are not just sets of words tied together with different grammar rules. Language is something that people use to communicate with each other. Language is a tool for expressing yourself. Language is a frame for our thoughts. There are things you can't translate from one language to another. You need to understand things about the culture in order to learn a language properly. You can't know every word in any language. And you don't have to speak grammatically correctly in order to get understood.

Language exchanges

Although I wasn't good at languages, I always really wanted to travel and see the world. There are so many organisations that offer language exchanges for teenagers. My family never travelled abroad on holidays so the language exchange organisations offered me opportunities to travel and see the world on my own. And I probably got a better deal, because it gives you a better chance to learn about foreign cultures and to use the language if you live in a host family, than if you just stay in a tourist hotel with your own family.

Sweden

When I was 14 I travelled to Sweden, because although I had been studying Swedish for a lot shorter time than English, I felt that my Swedish was stronger than my English. I was incredibly scared to travel to a foreign country alone and to live with a family I had never met before. I was there for 2 weeks. My job was to work at a farm and to experience what Sweden is like. There were 8 Nordic kids there, 2 from each country. I met wonderful people there and apparently somehow managed to communicate with the others. I can remember things we've spoken about but can't even remember what language I used or how on earth I was able to talk about those things.

Photo from Jokar.se.

England

When I was 16, I wanted to become an exchange student and go to New Zealand. It, however, was too expensive for my family. Instead I got a chance to go on a language course in Oxford, England! Originally I was meant to go with a friend, but then she wasn't able to go. But because it is so easy to make new friends on language courses I went alone. And to be honest, I think it's better that I went alone. Maybe if I had had a friend with me I wouldn't have been so open and willing to get to know people. Language-wise the trip maybe wasn't the most useful because almost all the people I made friends with were Finns. But for my self-confidence this trip made a huge difference. For the first time I had a chance to meet new people who didn't know anything about me. No rumours, no gossip, no worries that someone might judge them if they talked to me. I made friends. It was incredible. I loved the people I met and I loved Oxford. And I wanted to return to UK one day.

So much love.

Denmark and Germany

When I was 17 I did a couple of youth exchanges in a row. I spent a week in Denmark and then one month in Germany. I spoke English with Danish and German people and we managed to communicate with each other. That's the whole purpose of a language. I also learned to understand German!

Time for making future plans

When I was 18, I graduated from upper secondary school (high school / reading school / whateveryouwannacallit school). It was time to figure out what I wanted to do next.

Big secret: I had no idea what I wanted to do next.


I had great dreams of becoming an air hostess or a lorry driver or anything to do with travel. But Finnair stated that you must be 22 before you can start training. I considered joining the army and getting all sorts of driving licenses there (because it would be just cool to drive a tank, right?). I phoned the Finnish Defence Forces and asked for a leaflet. I considered that I might need a realistic back-up plan though, and considered applying to Kuopio where I could study to become a sign language interpreter.

Army lorries from Yle.fi.

There was this Fayre about all sorts of universities and future careers in Helsinki that my school "forced" me to attend where I stumbled upon a stall labelled "Scottish Universities". That sounded fun! I had never really thought about Scotland possibly being a real country. To me it had been some sort of fairytale land. You know, Loch Ness Monster, bagpipes and kilts? When I realised that it was a real place, I thought it might be a fun idea to apply there.

Without actually believing in my chances of getting into a Scottish University, I also applied to a college near my hometown where I could study acting in English. I had decided that I would go back to UK and study there, but knew that I would have to improve my English. I got accepted to that college and I was happy.

Then, I got an acceptance letter from a Scottish University, and was ... shocked? I figured that I would of course go and do my best at studying there, and see how long they let me stay before they kick me out. I said bye bye to my army plans and asked my dad to book my plane tickets. (He didn't quite realise what was happening because still two weeks before the university started, he was under the assumption that I was going to go and study at the college near my hometown.)

Scotland and its piper girls and Nessie spotting.

Panicky learning

After I knew I only had a couple of months to properly learn English, I did the most sensible thing I could do. I practised English by reading Harry Potters. I watched a lot of TV series. I started with Friends. First, I had subtitles in Finnish and really tried to listen to what they said. The language they use was fairly easy to understand, so when I thought I was almost ready to let the Finnish subtitles go, I changed them to English. It was easier to follow the dialogue when I could read what they were saying and I didn't have to rely on catching every word. And when I was able to follow what was happening, I turned the subtitles off completely. And was happy to notice that I still could understand what was happening.

After I ran out of Friends, I chose a more difficult TV series: Gilmore Girls. It's brilliant, but they speak really fast. And a lot. I used the same 3 step subtitle technique. I really recommend it if you need to learn a language! When you have a long enough TV series to follow, you will get to know all the characters and start to understand them. It's like going on an exchange program and making new friends, except you don't have to go anywhere. But you will learn the language.

1. Choose an enjoyable TV series and watch it with subtitles in your own language while listening to what the characters say in their language.
2. When you're used to listening to their speech, change the subtitles into their language.
3. When you can pick out all the words, turn off the subtitles.

Obviously this technique only works, if you have some background knowledge on the language. But when you're desperate and really out of practise it does help.

I learned such useful phrases.

Scotland

So what happened to me after I trained myself to understand English by watching American TV series?

Well, I had learned to understand spoken English. I didn't need long to adapt for most accents I heard when I arrived. I lived in halls and there was a cleaner whose Doric accent was hard to understand. And so was my future flatmate's Geordie accent. But my accent was the hardest thing for people to understand. I had a strong monotonic Finnish accent. And Gilmore Girls had taught me to speak really fast. I have a feeling that hardly anyone understood me for the first 6 months. Apart from some foreign people. 

I spent my first year mostly socialising with French, Polish and German people. It was easier to speak with people who weren't native speakers. And we learnt to understand each other although our language skills weren't perfect.

But I survived. And after this experience I would recommend everyone who is trying to learn a language to visit a country where they speak that language.

So, um. Would you like to hear what I sound like these days?

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! 

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?

Glasses, きき and pink nails!

Hello, nice to see you here!

Remember when I mentioned that I would get new glasses? Well I did! 

Also notice my funny socks that I got from my
ex-flatmate, Louise, as a birthday present!

What do you think of them? I quite like them, but my girlfriend thought at first that they are too hipster. They are big, but I've secretly always wanted big glasses, and since they are in fashion now, this seemed like too good and opportunity not to get them. I can also see a bit more comfortably with these than the old ones, although these felt heavy at first.

This week I also joined a new society! It's called Nippon Connections, and they are the university's society for people who are interested in Japanese culture and language. They had a film night on Friday, and I went along. We watched two Japanese films. The first one was an old Japanese film called Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa.

I don't know if it's because it was Japanese, or because it was released in 1950 or because it felt like a play - but it was a very weird film. It's refreshing to see something different though! After Rashomon, we watched an anime called Kiki's Delivery Service -　魔女の宅急便。

きき！

It was a great film! I mean, it was probably aimed for kids... But kids' films are happy, and I like happy films! There was a 13-year old witch, Kiki, who leaves home in order to become a successful village witch somewhere. Except Kiki has always dreamed of moving to a big city. So she takes her cat Jiji, and her mum's old broomstick and flies away to start a new life. And when she finds a perfect city, she's determined in settling in and starting her own business. I wish I had seen it earlier! I think it may have become my new favourite kids' film*.

In other Japanese study news, according to my phone and it's useful hiragana trainer app, I now master 97% of hiragana. And the morning after the day I congratulated myself for that, I turned on my computer and there was a little surprise for me. Erm, I wasn't really sure if I was ready for this.

My laptop screen.

For some reason my laptop was in Japanese. Presumably, some sort of error happened when the Japanese keyboard was installed for my computer. I had wanted to be able to write hiragana with my laptop, but my Japanese definitely is not good enough yet to have my whole computer in Japanese.

But fortunately, you can google anything these days. It is very useful in this sort of situation to be able to just ask google to translate things like "shut down". Being able to do that definitely made a traumatic experience like this more comfortable.

Thank you, Google Translate for helping me shut down my computer.

So yeah, my language learning is going well. I also received my Japanese Textbooks today! I now have a Basic Japanese Kanji book and Japanese for College Students. I hope these will be useful books when I try to learn vocabulary and grammar. My girlfriend is clearly threatened by my enthusiasm to language learning and signed up for a Mandarin Chinese language course at uni. Soon we can have competitions which one can read more kanjis. Doesn't that sound like a fun freetime activity?

Kone Helsinki: U05 and
Natural Collection: Crystal Clear.

Another thing I've been practising recently is something I've always found very difficult: varnishing my nails. My nails are short, but I think they look a lot more cheerful when they are painted a bright colour.  I used to like coloured nails in secondary school, but I was really bad at it even then. There was always colour on my fingers as well, and the surface of the varnish was never smooth.

But I bought these cheap nail varnishes so that I could practise. And I think I am getting a hang of it. Instead of one thick layer, I've been painting 3 thin coats and letting all of them dry before adding the next one. And because the pink nail varnish has some glitter in it, I've finished my nails with a layer of clear varnish on top of it to get a smooth surface, and also to make the varnish last longer. Ha, I have learned something new!


* I definitely think that the films I refer to as "kids' film" are suitable for adults too. I'm an adult and I enjoy watching them too! But because I have other favourite films from other genres, I wanted to specify that this is my favourite without an age limit.