When all is said and written

Here I am back in my apartment in Helsinki after two exhausting but fun days in Jyväskylä. +25, sunshine, friends and what feels like a successful entrance exam made my mood jump up to the sky. On top of that, school's over tomorrow!

I hate guessing the result after an exam 'cause even though I want to, I don't dare say that I believe I will get in. This time however, I'll say that damn it, if I don't get in then I don't know who does. There's always a possibility to improve but still, I feel confident that my interviews and essay prove that it is where I belong.

Now all there's left to do is to go check out the Wednesday's Spanish exam and to make someone go to Linnanmäki with me. 

Who would make the time stop?

Damn it, here I am again, wondering what the hell I want to do with my life. Not that any drastic changes are on the way but once again I feel like I should make decisions but even if I would make them, nothing would happen until after a long, anxious wait. Or not at all. And it sucks.

I have had more piece of mind after my conversation with my friend a while back, thank you for helping me by understanding my confusion about being so clueless and messed up! Can't say I've figured it out but maybe I'm not quite as confused anymore. Anyway, another feeling has emerged from the back of my head and it is one of the scariest feelings I know. Time is running out.

Having one exam and one feedback lesson left of school this spring, it is starting to really sink in that this is it, maybe for good for me in this school and this city. I know it is completely my decision when it comes to what I am doing and where I am going, but somehow I feel like time's up here and I am changing the direction of my life again, mostly willingly but a little part of me wonders if I really wanna leave this place. I don't know if I'm finished here yet. 

I am looking forward to the new breezes school-wise, but my social life here is really what I will remember of these few months of my life. I have made so many friends and even the thought of leaving them and this part of my life terrifies me. I am so ready to find what I am good at and passionate about, but what am I supposed to do when I am finally passionately living my life and it finally got interesting? I get the now or never-feeling quite a lot now but in the end I always end up pushing that thought away because the never-option makes me actually a little sad.

To finish this I want to share a song that gives you the feeling only a student knows. Though the education gained in this school hasn't been really my thing, it has been probably the best time of my life so far, even with all the confusion and steps taken backwards. Figuratively and literally, I gotta add... And notice Haaga-Helia coveralls, nobody's got them as cool as we do! I have been proud to wear them through so many weird and amazing moments.

 

 

Nothing to add

After three hours of filling paperwork and gathering documents (I have a tip for everybody: get a job or be rich.. paperwork sucks), I just need something relaxing. This song should do, don't you think?

 

   

Too much but not enough

It's been a while again, but I haven't really been sitting around with nothing to do in a while either. The May Day celebrations are now over (finally) and those ten days will remain in my memories for a long time, I had such a great time getting to know new, awesome people and doing all kinds of crazy things all around Helsinki. I've taken silly pictures, visited plenty of bars, got (asked for) five fake proposals, wrestled in a park and laughed a lot. Thank you all for making this an amazing experience!

After all the craziness, sleep deprivation and the sudden realization and panic that my entrance exams are in a few weeks, it was good to come back home to the countryside to recharge my batteries again. I needed to clear my head and take a look back to see if what I've been lately wondering is really an issue. After I moved to the capital I wrote about finding my place and myself and finally starting to change into the person I wanna be. Well, how do you know when you are going too far? What if you realise that you went past that good place and you want to take a few steps back? How do I know if all I'm going through is a natural part of the process of growing up and maturing or if it's reflecting something that's wrong? I used to feel like I have it all together, now I don't know anymore. Why am I so complex that even I can't figure me out myself...

This very moment, writing this text in my parents' house, in the basement, in the same exact chair I used to sit in every night, the same kind of mysterious thoughts trying to jump from my brain to this blank white space to form a story, brings me back to the time when this was my everyday life. I didn't think it would feel so strange, nor that I'd remember this situation so clearly and vividly from the past. Although everything seems to be the same (I am even wearing the same jacket I always wore back then!) I know that something's different. I am.

Whether it is a good or bad thing, I am not sure. Maybe it's good that it's been bad, or bad though it has been also good. It is possible that the change is good, but how it happened is bad or that maybe the direction of the change was bad from the beginning. However, no matter how I put it and try to judge if I am a better or a worse person than before, one thing is for sure: I am many experiences richer than before. That sentence wasn't what I initially wrote, though, at first I was going to claim that I am stronger than before. I thought of it and decided that it's not yet time to say so. I will say it one day, though, I promise that.

 

Ready, set, go!

Tomorrow I'll jump in a train once again to go home for the (very much needed) Easter holiday to charge my batteries, since the real challenge starts next week. I guess I have a few exams and report deadlines too, but the real deal is the Helga's 8 day of May Day celebration that actually takes ten days. That is the ultimate student life challenge, since we will try to balance the last remaining lessons and exams and reports with over a week of events, parties and a lot of fun!

Feels a bit weird to start celebrating 1st of May already right after Easter is over but I am not complaining. Besides, it is the first year I am able to wear my graduation cap! And it doesn't even matter if we will only be able to crawl by the 1st of May since we will be wearing our awesome coveralls that are made for exactly this purpose. 

I gotta admit that it's not so clear to me why we even celebrate May Day but I don't really care. I have a feeling that this year it will be memorable (for a change..) and that I will have a blast!

 

Magic & discussion of European language teaching policies

I was almost sad to write that title since I'd rather not know so much about language teaching policies and all the different approaches to it. However, that is exactly what my day has been about. I won't make anyone bored telling you what the article was like or how many hours I spent studying it but I'll tell you this: there are certain words of the English language that I have read so many times during these past few days that I can't stand them anymore. Conceptualization, plurilingualism, various and diversification are a few examples. My brain was whining when I even wrote them here. Well, at least I can use them in my answer essays since they are stuck in my brain. Forever, I assume.

The magic part, on the other hand, has been a much nicer way to spend this carefree Sunday before yet another exhausting week of writing reports for our oh-so-lovely company project. I didn't do any magic, unfortunately, but I read about it. I surprised myself with how well I can actually read a book in Spanish though it's been forever since I've actually done that. Now I regret that I ever stopped reading books, even due to lack of time. I had completely forgotten how nice it is to put on comfy clothes and to get lost in the fictional world of the novel, suddenly realizing that hours have passed. Then you feel like you've been sleeping the whole day but you're still tired, you have a messy hair but a happy mind.

While I've been studying or reading, I've been listening to the Spotify top list over and over again and I have just started to really like this song. Don't know why but I just replay it all the time. This was one of the things I'd better not confess, wasn't it?

 

 

Did you hear that?

I just read a piece of news about a little girl who was both blind and deaf and finally got back her ability to hear. I started to think about that and realized that I have probably never heard a complete silence. In fact, if it's completely silent you can't hear even that so basically I undermined my own words, right? No matter how alone or far away from the traffic I am, there's always something. My own breathing, my footsteps on the floor, neighbors talking, elevator moving, music playing. 

Unless I have been in a noisy place for a long time, I don't like silence so much, it makes me uneasy. When I still lived at home, a silent moment alone at times was really needed. However, now that I live basically alone, I constantly have music playing from my computer or the television is on the background. It creates a cosy atmosphere where I can be more relaxed. Somehow, I have never been able to concentrate properly when it's too silent, which is kind of all wrong. My conclusion is that since all my life I've lived among noise coming from the sisters and since I enjoy social situations, it is what I consider normal and therefore the optimal surroundings for studying, for example. In case I try to study in a perfect silence, my own thoughts become so much louder that it steals all my attention. Maybe my brain tries to bring back the balance of normality.

That is why I'd go insane if I lost my ability to hear, I would drive myself crazy when I couldn't hear anything but my own thoughts. I would miss hearing the raindrops falling on the roof while still lazily laying in bed on Sunday morning. I would miss hearing a funny joke and the laughter that follows. I would miss the sound water makes when you put your feet in there. I would miss my favorite song that I play on repeat when getting ready for school, dancing with the curtains open and always remembering too late that there is another apartment building opposite to my window.

The world is full of wonderful sounds that makes it so much more exciting place to live in. And the best ones are the ones you don't only hear but also see and feel at the same time making the experience perfect.