Decision time

Well hello there. How are you?

Things have happened. I went to Manchester. It was great. Then today I got offered two jobs. They are very different and I have to make a decision. I'm now sitting on a train somewhere between Manchester and Edinburgh thinking about my options.

Job A sounds very exciting, but means that I would have to move away. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but doesn't have a very good salary.

Job B probably has better salary and I wouldn't have to move. I would also get experience in the field I needed.

But the job I needed the experience for is basically job A. So now I need to decide whether I want to jump straight into it or whether I postpone it and take the other job. That job is not bad either, I've applied for it several times before.

Jumps to unknown are easier to do when it doesn't mean a long-distance relationship.

Any advice or words of wisdom?

Terrible Valentine's Day cards

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! ♥

I had a great plan to write a post about my frustration with Valentine's Day cards and also to provide you with some advice on how to by a reasonable card. Unfortunately I'm a bit late for that. In case you failed at it though, I hope this post will help you understand why you got dumped.

As you know, today is Valentine's Day. In Finland we call it "Friend's Day" which is really a day UK should have too. But as awful as Valentine's Day is with it's cheesiness, it's a good excuse for people to let the person in their day dreams know that there are some pheromones flying around. And for those who already have caught that lovely person, it's a good day to remind them that they are still appreciated.

In order to prepare for this pink and fluffy day, I decided to buy a Valentine's Day card.

If you have any arts and crafts skills, I recommend you just make one yourself. But because I'm not very artsy-crafty, I had to go with what they sell in the shops.

It was kind of easy because all the other girls were buzzing around the "boyfriend"-shelf, and I got the whole "girlfriend"-shelf for myself. There were no men in any of the card shops I visited. Maybe they all buy Asda smart price cards?

It's not that bad a choice really. Compared to what these shops had to offer.

You felt forced to buy a card? Then this one is a great buy to ensure that you'll no longer have a girlfriend to buy cards for.

Confusing labels cause fights!

Hello!

Did you hear that Scotland passed the Equal Marriage law yesterday?! 

Yay, now I can get married! 

Well, almost. Now I would just like Finland to follow this example.

Rainbow flag at our university's societies' building!

Okay, because I wasn't going to go wedding dress shopping right now, I thought I'd write a little rant about a completely different topic. Is this even going to be a rant? Aren't you supposed to be angry at someone when you have a rant? I don't feel angry. And I actually really hope I won't offend anyone. I just want to bring these things up, so that they could be discussed. But this is partly about how people seem to get very offended by everything these days. 

People find it natural to label everything. So I just wanted to share some of my thoughts about labels we have for different genders and sexual orientations.

I got inspired to write this post after I read tau's blog post (in Finnish). She wrote about how very few people know about her pansexuality, because she's in a relationship with a boy, and doesn't really see why she should come out to everyone she meets. She also points out that in order to even talk about her feelings or orientation, she needs to pick a box and stand in it.

And she chose pansexuality. This made me want to write about pansexuality.

Picture from knowhomo.tumblr.com.

Do you know what "pansexual" means?

Does anyone know?

Is pansexuality just the ultimate category for those who got tired of questioning and finally felt that they don't really mind what gender their partners represent? Or is it just a fancy word for bisexuality that some people use to confuse people? Is it a fashion trend?

It could be any of those things, but probably for most pansexuals it's not. It could be a conversation starter. If you ask about their sexual orientation, and they reply pansexual, then they've only told you that gender is not important to them when they are looking for a partner. But you still haven't got an answer to what kind of people they're interested in.

But why do you need to have a label? Why can't people just be people?

I used to label myself pansexual when it was less acceptable for me to just be gay. It was important to have a label, because people would keep asking questions. I'm still bitter that I had to fill a form to university where the options were:

Heterosexual

Bisexual

Lesbian

Gay man

Prefer not to say 

Because back then I had a boyfriend, I felt that I couldn't really tick the lesbian box. I was kind of tempted to claim that I was a gay man just because I didn't see the point for separating "gay men" and "lesbians" when the other groups were grouped together and when there was a separate question for my gender next to it. And I didn't want to choose the last option, because I really preferred to tell them that I was LGBT since they were asking. In the end I answered "bisexual" although I felt that that label didn't really describe me. And later I realised how unfair it was for all the bisexuals that I would even call myself bisexual. 

There's enough biphobia without me jumping around as a bad example. 

"You can't like both genders, they'll all eventually just go back to men/women."

"Bisexuality is just a phase before they come out as gay." 

I don't want to make it worse and just ticked the lesbian box the next time I had to fill the same form. It felt a lot better.

Maybe everyone who identifies as a pansexual has their own definition for the term?

Oh, there are so many different kinds of pans.

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?

Last Friends

Happy autumn everyone!

It must be autumn since they've started selling advent calendars in shops.

Today, I wanted to tell you about something I realised recently after watching a Japanese TV series called Last Friends. But first, I am going to tell you why I was watching Last Friends!

ラスト・フレンズ

A long time ago, I set myself a life goal to visit all the continents. I've so far visited several European countries, and set my foot in North America, but there are still five to go. So since I've been enjoying Asian food recently, and because Asia is not as far away as some of the other continents, I figured it could be my next destination.

My next thought, however, was that I've never visited a country where I haven't been able to understand the local language at all. After studying Swedish, English, German and French it wasn't difficult to understand most of what I needed to understand when I visited the Netherlands and Spain. I have even managed to have a conversation with Tennesseans.

I think, being able to understand the local language - even a little, gives you some valuable insight in the culture that you're visiting. It allows you to understand the things that are not specifically aimed for foreigners and therefore written in English, but also the things that are there for locals. I also don't expect there to be signs written with latin alphabet in countries that don't use the alphabet, and being unable to read anythging sounds like a very scary thought. You also get a lot more respect from the locals if you try and say even a few things in their language instead of just assuming that they will speak English to you.

But I don't understand any Asian languages! Not even a word! I've only studied Indo-European languages before and would be very interested in learning a language that belongs to another language group. Fortunately, my mother tongue is Uralic so that should give me some perspective and make my language learning a little bit easier.

Thanks, Wikipedia.

But there are so many Asian languages to choose from!* I wish I could study them all, but that's impossible. It's better to start with one.

First, I decided that I would want to choose a living, lively language! With a lot of speakers, so that I wouldn't spend a lot of time learning a language I could not actually use in real life. I've spent some time over the past years doing some background investigations in languages such as Sami, Mari, Inuktitut, and Old Norse, but those are not really good choices for me, if I actually want to speak to real people.

I used to want to study Russian. There were a lot of language courses available in my country, but while I was living there, I was focusing on French and German. But now, I haven't started learning a new language for over 8 years, and I feel like it's time to pick a new language in order to improve my language skills. Unfortunately though, because of the current political situation in Russia, I no longer feel inspired in learning that. And I already decided to pick a non-Indo-European language.

I own a book in Thai. I can't read it. But when my dad and brother went on a holiday in Thailand in 2007 and asked me what I would like as a souvenir, I asked them to bring me Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in Thai. And they did! I treasure it in my book-case and enjoy how cool the writing in it looks. So, I considered learning Thai, but because of its tones, I would probably be really bad at speaking it, with my very mono-tonic language background. I'm not brave enough to try and learn it quite yet.

I also did not feel particularly inspired in studying languages of countries where they would be likely to kill or arrest me just because of who I am, so that cut out some options. Then on the basis of the food I enjoy the most, I ditched Indian and Chinese. I may have eaten slightly too much Indian and Chinese take-away recently and am not really feeling it anymore.

Lately, I've been really enjoying sushi and Korean cosmetics. Because I know some people (such as the two I live with) who also study Japanese, it felt like a better decision than Korean. Being able to practise a language with other people will make learning it a lot easier and definitely more fun. But if I decide to learn Korean later, Japanese will still be helpful, because they are from the same language family.

I definitely wouldn't starve in Asia.

To be fair, I don't know much about Japan. I know where it is and what the flag looks like, but that's about it. I don't even like manga or anime (which is why I never even considered studying the language before).  Apart from Pokèmon, of course! Sometimes I walk around town with just Pikachu in my backpack. It makes me feel like I have a friend.

Sometimes we go out for drinks.

Sometimes I feel like I probably should have grown past this stage 15 years ago. But maybe they will understand me in Japan. I've heard that they have a lot of weird things in Japan. I look forward to learning more about Japanese culture while I study Japanese.

I started learning hiragana (the Japanese phonetic symbols) last Friday, and am about to start learning katakana (the other phonetic symbols). I've also been watching the Japanese TV series Last Friends -  as I mentioned earlier in this post - in order to get used to hearing Japanese and to learn about the Japanese culture.

I really like the TV series! There are 5 friends who live together in a share house and face problems with life, love, work and relationships. They are there for each other. I don't like watching sad TV series, but this kind of reminded me of Gilmore Gilrs or Friends.

Last Friends!

Although there is a lot of dark things in this TV series, such as, domestic violence, manipulating, threatening and stalking - I enjoy watching their life in the share house. They are happy together and that makes me feel happy too.

But what I realised when watching the series is that: it doesn't matter how miserable some people might make you feel - when you're with the right people you can be yourself. And when you can be yourself - you will be the happiest. And those people who make you feel rubbish don't matter anymore. There's nothing they could do to take that happiness away from you.

It probably sounds simple, but this is actually the first time I've really thought about it. I've always focused too much on the people who don't like me, and it's made me feel like I'm not worthy enough to be happy. But when there's a happy place - like the share house in Last Friends - none of those people aren't there. And none of that feeling should be there either. The friends in the share house protected the house from all bad things getting in. That's how it always should be in life. I wish everyone could live in a happy place. When you're feeling miserable - you're not really yourself. But when you're happy, you can do the amazing things you're capable of doing. And you will be able to shine that happiness to other people.

Giraffe, Aberdeen.

Anyway, smiling is the easiest way to spread happiness around us. There's no language barriers there either.

Is there a language you would like to learn?

* I understand that many of the "languages" I mention, are actually not single languages but larger language groups that contain several languages. At this stage, however, I was only intending to choose a language group that I could choose a language within.

Snails and bunnies

Hey!

So, moving house happened. Life's looking a lot brighter now! About a week ago we packed our bags and moved to our new place. Instead of broken glass on the street and seagulls screaming outside that we had at the old place, we now see snails on the road outside our house and there are bunnies jumping around in our backyard.

Our fellow resident.

Moving house was really exciting. Unfortunately all of our stuff did not fit into a suitcase. We did a few trips with bags and suitcases, but last weekend I hired a van, so that we could move rest of our stuff. I miss driving. I would like to be able to drive more. Then I might get better at it and stop worrying about it so much. But having a car made moving a lot easier than shifting all of our stuff on a public transport. I'm not an expert house-mover, and I actually kind of hate moving. But it's probably because I have more stuff than I would like to. But I own too many things that I don't want to throw away. Having my own museum would be useful. All the things, I don't actively want to have in my life could go there. Like weird presents and old school books that might come in handy one day.

Waiting for a bus to take us home.

But now when the move is almost done, I like knowing exactly what I have. Some things have gone missing, but I've found things that I didn't know I had. I didn't know I had 10 toothbrushes or chopsticks! Okay, the chopsticks look kind of disposable and I have probably nicked them from a Chinese restaurant when I ended up using a fork and decided that I should really practise using chopsticks at home before I end up in an Asian restaurant the next time. I have since then realised that you can just stab the food with one stick and use the other to pretend that you are eating with them sophisticatedly.

Eating cereal is a lot easier than eating Asian food.

Since moving to the new place, a thought has occurred to me. I realised that some of my headaches and migraines might be caused by my sight. I went to see an optician, and my sight hasn't actually changed too much, but enough to get new glasses. So now I'm going to get new glasses too! My girlfriend thinks they look too hipster. But she's going to get glasses I won't like, so it's all even. That's what relationships are about - compromises and making sure all the feelings are mutual.

I have also been wondering about how I don't know when to come out to people. When should I and when shouldn't I? Does anyone know? Because I am really not sure. 

Is it appropriate to tell strangers that I have a girlfriend? For instance, when an optician asks about my week, is it acceptable to talk about putting furniture together with my girlfriend? For some reason, I feel that she might not want to hear about it – that she might see it as something too private. But if it was a boyfriend I was putting furniture together with, I maybe would not feel that it would be too much information to the poor optician. But why should homosexuality be more private than heterosexuality? And what about when she's just assumed to be my friend? When, for instance, a waiter asks me about “my friend's order”, should I tell them that she's actually my girlfriend? Or would that be rude? Should I just settle for people assuming that I'm out with a friend? I mean, girlfriend is still a friend, right? 

This is probably something that is not only a problem same-sex couples have. – Or at least I hope that people don't assume anymore that when a boy and a girl are seen together that they are automatically a couple. But what do you think?