Some thoughts?

Hey, world!

It’s 01:30 am and I’m listening to Coldplay, so naturally, something really depressing is coming up!

I had a party today. Well “party” wouldn’t be the exact word, since there was no alcohol and Laura’s friends were there, too, so half-naked men and women coming up and down the stairs weren’t a strange sight at all. But my friends showed up. All of them (except for Noora and Karen, but they had a good excuse). It was a really, really, really late birthday celebration and I was happy the whole day. First of all, I didn’t feel bad at all. I was hoping that they wouldn’t bring presents, cause I don’t know how to receive them, but they did…and they were amazing! All I was hoping for was for them to show up, because for once, their company meant more than any present. But they still surprised me. And each and every gift was well thought out, which made me go all “awwwww” even more. It shows that they’ve been paying attention to me and they know what makes me happy! Even I didn’t know that…I’m really touched. Though presents are not everything.

We had a great time with each other! We listened to music, we were telling jokes and we even watched Eurovision. You can’t imagine how much I like these people. It’s like…every time someone else is talking about how cool their friends are, I think “you think that, cause you haven’t met mine” and I feel like what we have is special on so many levels. Not with EVERYONE, but with enough people. I care about them and I really do wish them only good stuff and happiness.

So in that relation, I wanna say something about time…

Time is a present. If you fail to use it properly, the loss is yours. There’s no turning back, there are no tomorrows you can live in advance, you have to live with the amount of each day! We should invest it in the best way we can, like in health, happiness and success. The clock continues advancing, so we should take advantage of the time. To appreciate the value of one year, ask a student, who has to repeat the course. To appreciate the value of a month, ask a mother, who has given birth to a premature baby. To appreciate the value of one week, ask a weekly magazine editor. To appreciate the value of one hour, ask lovers, who anxiously wait seeing each other. To appreciate the value of a minute, ask a person, who has just missed the bus. To appreciate one second, ask a person, who has won an Olympic silver medal. To appreciate the value of one life, ask someone, who has lost their chance. We must treasure every moment we have and treasure it more, because we have it shared with somebody special…someone so special that deserves a part of your time.

My point is that I am now realizing that time flies SO FAST and my inability to stop it is bothering me. I try to grasp every happy moment that I have experienced here in Finland and I try to relive it again, because I don’t want to ever go home and it’s almost time…I’m not gonna get lost in the past, but I think, maybe the biggest thing I’ve learned here is Appreciation. Not only for just time, but people as well. My family – for taking me in as one of them and giving me their home and love and advice. My real parents – for seeing my true wishes and respecting them, even though it hurts them not being close to me for so long! My friends – for taking the time to actually get to know me and make me feel happy with their presence. And I appreciate all of that, because I know I’m about to lose it in a way. Not completely and not irreversibly, but things will never be the same again. And life goes on, my life in another direction. But I have the tendency to cling into the present and not want the future to come, especially, when I’m having a good time. But it will. And it will hit me just as hard as the present did. Just have to deal with it.

What I can’t imagine, though is saying goodbye to, for example, Joel, Henkka, Jamppa, Jazz, Emma, Johanna…my friends. For most of them it will be easy. They’ll give me a hug and say goodbye, but for me, that moment will break my heart, cause I kind of over-think things. I will think “24 hours ago, we were together and how I don’t even know when/if I’ll see them again!” It’s going to be one of the worst moments of my life, I’m absolutely sure! Soon, I’ll walk down the same old streets, breathe the same old air, see the same old people, go to the same old school, do the same old things. It’s frustrating to think about. So I won’t right now.

I’m going to listen to the rest of the Coldplay songs, the ones Johanna so thoughtfully gave to me, and then go to bed, possibly…

//Stef – sorry for dramatizing again…

Last days of school.

Hey, everyone!

I’m back with some pics!

Well, I’ve posted most of them on Facebook already, but I still want to put them here as well!

This was from Helsinki last Sunday. I loved those flowers and colors, it was magnificently beautiful!

This is outside of school in the yard. The guys were playing this ball game that’s really fun and the girls were just chilling around. The day was quite good (Tuesday), it was warm and it was the last legit school day before the test week. I think all of the pictures from this post are from that day!

And yeah…I kinda had only 1 lesson that day, but still stayed until 4 pm in school. Just randomly derping around and taking pictures of people ! I also decided that I was too bored to function and went over to the radio-speaker thingy and spoke in Finnish a bit. Just say thanks to everyone and especially the teachers and all that. The whole school heard and I was kinda nervous with my Finnish skills, but in the end it turned out fine, except that I got a brain fart on the word “kokemukseni”, but they forgave me anyway. Ms. Voipio, to whom I should have thanked personally, since I did nothing but talk and laugh and disturb the silence in class, came to me and said thank you for the speech and it was nice of her in a way. Then Ms. Koponen was saying to some other people how it’s impossible to believe that I’ve been here less than a year and I felt kind of embarrassed, but flattered, too! Emma sent me a text during class, saying that she really liked it and if it wasn’t for the Swedish teacher, she would have cried. LOL. I mean, I know I’m okay in Finnish, but…calm dooown. Veronika had recorded the whole thing, though you couldn’t hear anything from her phone. But yeah, everyone seemed impressed and I just sunk it all in for a sec and then we all continued with our lives.

On Wednesday I had an “exam” in YH class, but it was something like a conference with speakers and it was like the real shit. You go in front of the class and talk about your assigned problem and then they butt-fuck you with questions and you have to sound smart and it’s not as easy as it sounds. Me and Emma had a refugee and asylum policy solution practice to talk about and it was nerve-wrecking in a way. The good thing was that I said my stuff in English and most of the Finns didn’t ask any questions, since they were afraid of speaking English or something. That was good. Then, of course, this had to have at least one “WTF” moment. It was Joel’s turn to speak and he looked at me and apparently thought that this is the PERFECT time for the “penis” game (for more information, watch 500 days of summer). My face, from normal, went to utter surprise and lack of understandment of the situation. “NO WAY”, I thought, and as if it wasn’t bad enough, he started drawing something on his notebook and the girl, speaking next to him looked really curiously towards his drawing and I started to giggle, to which he turned to her side and gave her the “none of your business, bitch” look, took the notebook in his arms, so that only he can see what he’s doing and after he was finished, he showed it to me…it flashed in front of everybody and it still went by unnoticed. I give him the lead for that one.

Then I went home, but met Emma on the bus and we decided that she doesn’t need to read for her Math exam, so we went on a freaking LONG walk with Nuutti…I had only half an hour at home again, when Maarit decided that it would be a great idea to walk to Haukilahti with Nuutti and Joonatan. During that walk, I really got into traveling again and now I wanna go to every single country there is! UGH. But yeah, after that, me and Joonatan went swimming in the sea, worst thing ever, since the water is fucking cold…seriously…COLD.

And today I went to school to take a stamp from the secretary for my bus card, but it turns out that there’s a different form for exchange students, so I have to go there again tomorrow. >.< The good part of today was that I got to play a little bit of that fun ball game. I was just getting better (as better as you can go from a complete retard), when Voipio came outside to tell us that we can’t play, cause we’re gonna break the windows, which was not true, but whatever, we stopped. I hope I get to play some more tomorrow, though! It was awesome!

I had like 2 and a half hours with Noora in Tapiola, we spent them talking about all kinds of stuff, from really freaky, to really sweet. And damn, we got to the conclusion that there are some ugly ass people coming to that side of the tapiola center. Haha!

Anyway, after that I went to the last YFU re-entry orientation in Helsinki and it was quite alright. Except that they made us close our eyes and then they read us these super depressing sentences, as if we didn’t know that we’re going home in a month. They said how our families and friends might forget about us and that we shouldn’t be surprised, but only look on the bright side of things and anticipate our return home. By the end of the thing, I was absolutely depressed and sad and didn’t want to talk to anyone and not only did I have worries of my own, but they planted new ones in my head and it wasn’t cool. Now I can’t focus on spending the next few weeks properly. Fuck. But the other exchange students were feeling bad, too, so at least I know I’m not alone. That’s cool.

But yeah, other than that, everything is fine!

// Stef – summer! <3

Weekend

Well, hey.

The weekend was quite fine.

I went to Suomenlinna on Saturday, cause I thought I was gonna meet Laura there for the last time, since her exchange year has been cut short by YFU and she leaves back to Austria this Wednesday. Well, I didn’t see her, cause she thought we were supposed to meet on Tuesday, but I got it all wrong. It wasn’t TOO bad, except that I was looking quite weird, wandering around by myself. Helsinki was also full of weird people – from spray painters, to glam-rockers, to drunk russians in their ice hockey shirts rooting for mother Russia…and some chicks with quite realistic fatal wounds drawn on their faces with I dunno what.

On Saturday, me, Kaisa, Joel and Noora went to see “Dark Shadows” with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and some other actors, ofc. Tim Burton special. The night before me and Joel talked about my frustration about the events and apparently he took it the wrong way, cause he was feeling sick in the morning before coming to the movies and he still came, to “make me feel happy”. I don’t want him feeling bad in the movies, just cause I’m mad at other people for stuff that are not even so important. I mean, I have my moments, I didn’t mean to make him feel obligated to come with us. I felt a little bit guilty, but he took full advantage of it Laughing and pretending to be worse than he really is…dat person…

Anyway, after the movie I went out with Kaisa, ate some pizza, went to Anttila, then I went to gym and then I chilled at home. It was cool.

And today I went to school, had classes…the weather is amazing. Summer is finally here! Don’t know how much more summer-ish it can get. I love it. I’m listening to summer songs and I’m outside at the moment and I’m having a great time! I don’t know what else I can say right now, since I’m not in the blogging mood that much, but I though that a quick update doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. So yeah, there you go. Today is a nice day.

P.S: I just wanna say something about arm hair. It’s not unhygienic or repulsive and I don’t think women are OBLIGATED to shave it off. I like my arm hair and it’s not even THAT much, so fuck you. I’m gonna keep it, cause I don’t need it gone to feel like a female. And it does not make me any more of a dude. Arm hair is not bad, it just is. The sooner you accept the fact that we’re not gonna be slaves of fashion and men’s idea of how a women should look, forever, the better. Different people, different tastes. Many girls have arm hair, what are you gonna do about it?

Have fun, everyone!

//Stef – who let the dogs out?

1547

Hey.

I’m extremely weird today.

It’s no one’s fault, I was relatively fine, before the guys started asking me what’s my problem and why am I pms-ing so hard. Fuck you, that’s why. The weirdest part was me getting mad at Joel for saying that I tend to get mad. Whatever. I’m ok. It’s just that I thought we’ll be doing something, cause Rasse had an idea to go to a picnic and all of a sudden all of the guys pussy out to Joel’s place for nintendo. Well, fine, what do you want me to do about it, dance the happy dance? Noora sent me a message asking what’s going on and the answer, just like almost always was “nothing”. I’m sick and tired of being the only one, who’s excited about going out with my friends. I’m not saying we don’t go out or anything, but the moment something better comes up, they flee. Especially Henkka. He’s not even pretending, he’s like “your idea is boring and I have better things to do and I don’t want to come, so I’m not coming…”. I appreciate his honesty, but frankly, he’s always bored with all ideas. I’ve had it with trying to get as many people as possible to attend one fucking event. This picnic is not what it’s all about. Every time I try to organize something, half of the people can’t make it and the other half don’t even answer my texts/posts. And I thought I deserved some decency. Whatever. I’m ok.

Then I also have to cope with the shit going on in Bulgaria and can I just say, I loathe the moment I will go back. I don’t want to. Even the good things I have to say about this fucking place won’t change my mind. Everyone there has given up on life and their souls are dead. I hate it. Everyone complaining about how much their joints hurt and how little money they have. I fucking despise it. I don’t ever, ever, ever want to go back for more than a week. I always knew I wasn’t supposed to be born there, now I belong nowhere, cause no country will take me as their own. I hate the bloody Bulgarian language, not only is it easy as fuck, it’s also slavic, hence everyone thinks I’m Russian and though we were the first ones to use it, Russia is freaking 4567890 times bigger than Bulgaria. I’m still a living person with hopes and dreams and ambitions, I don’t want the government to crush all of that like they did with everyone else. I want to be independent, have my own place, make my own money and worry about my own problems, I don’t want to talk to my dad 24/7 or mom, for that matter, everyone constantly complains and I don’t feel like listening to it.

Also, Karen is mad at me, but I’m not gonna say “sorry” for things I mean, so idgaf, let her rage all she wants.

On the good side, Maarit made pulla today and it was really good.

//Stef.

Blog.

Yo!

So, as I said earlier, I went to Vierumäki with my family this weekend.

Lalala, yes, it was fun, we golfed and walked and biked for 3 days in a row, *insert long explanations of hard exercise and funny stories here*, it was cool. Today I had a presentation at Hertoniemen Yhteiskoulu about what it’s like to be an exchange student and it was also nice and blabla and here’s some pics of the last few days and then let’s move on to the stuff I’m actually gonna talk about:

So yeah, it was awesome.

Then a few brotips I’d like to share with you, guys.

1. Imagine your best friend of the same sex. Would you sleep with them? Now you understand the friendzone. Get over it.
2. Do something for the fist time every day.
3. You don’t listen to enough music.
4. Chicks go crazy for beastly hugs. That one-armed shit makes you look like a little bitch.
5. You may think that cutting your hair like Justin Bieber will get you chicks, but you may also think a lot of retarded things…
6. Your jeans should never be tighter than your girlfriend’s.
7. Whenever someone is making you choose between them and another person, it’s usually safer to go with the other person.
8. Food is fucking delicious. Stop bitching about “calorie intake”.
9. Stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.
10. Fuck shit up daily.
11. Being a bro doesn’t have anything to do with gender. If you’re rad and forever legit you’ve got what it takes.
12. Stop for a second and consider this: You can literally do whatever the fuck you want.
13. High Fives are an acceptable form of agreement and brofists can also be legal contracts.
14. Write your will today and make sure it demands that your funeral is the sickest party of the year!
15. Never do anything you wouldn’t like to explain to the paramedics.
16. Give it a shot! You never know who or what will change your life.
17. Regret is worse than Rejection!!!!
18. I’d hate to say it, but you probably can’t pull off a fedora.
19. It’s only awkward if you make it that way.

//Stef – night

10-th of May…or my Birthday.

Hey!

So yeah, today is my birthday.

I woke up at 6.50 with the thought “Should I skip History or not?”. Completely ignoring the 9gag post from the night before that would have advised me to sleep more and not go anywhere, I got up, fixed myself up and went to school for an 8.15 class of History, only to find out that we DON’T have history, because of next weekend’s trip to Porvoo. And the stupidest thing was that I had a skip after history, so in theory, my classes today started at 11.45 am. I was very pissed off and slept for most of the time in Tyrmä with random people opening and closing the door all the time, turning the lights off and on. Well, I spent the second half of the second skip with Laura Rantala, just talking about random stuff and enjoying life. The lunch looked disgusting and it almost tasted bad. Almost. Could have been worse, in my opinion.

I saw Noora’s new short hair and I almost had a heart attack, cause it’s a huge change, really! Anyway, after some time I got used to it and it’s not half bad. Johanna started joking around that she’s gonna cut her hair as well and while Joel was gone, we made him kill himself in another dimension, in which he just can’t take the fact that Johanna has short hair and he cuts his veins vertically in grief. One boyfriend less. Then Henkka came fucking late to school, apparently he woke up at 11 and had a good nap, oversleeping. Oh well! After going into Geography class and withstanding 75 minutes of pure waste (watching the same video for the 3-rd time), I mean I like Pena, but it was boring. I was tapping my foot up and down all the time and it was just annoying. The day hadn’t started good. Then after that class, Saara and Emma found me and gave me a Marianne chocolate bar and a strong alcoholic breezer to mark the countdown to my 18-th year, which I didn’t drink. But I have it, anyway, as a reminder.

The whole school day wasn’t really that great, though. I had another skip after Geography and Joel, Jamppa and Rasse played video games for half of the time and the other half we went by bike to Tapiola. I can’t ride a bike. I’ll be the first one to admit it. Just because I can turn the pedals and not fall, while being on 2 tires doesn’t mean jack shit. I ran over this peacefully walking middle-aged lady, crossing on green light. My tire went on her foot and though I shouted “I’m so sorry”, I couldn’t help it, but feel extremely bad about it. When I got off the bike, I felt my legs shaking and while trying to lock my bike unsuccessfully, I had a panic attack/mental breakdown sort of thing. The situation was funny, Jamppa came  and said “let me do it” and I just started laughing, which really quickly turned into sobbing and Jamppa was there like “Are you serious?!” and when he realized that I am, in fact, serious, he hugged me and said it’s okay and I just kept on ranting about what I had done to that poor lady’s leg and god knows how much it hurts her and he was like “you’re overreacting”, which was true, but I was kinda scared and I don’t know…felt like overreacting, I guess. And then we went back and had religion, played a bit “stick game” with Joel, I’m certain I’ll win, I’m a pro at this. Had an argue about the spelling of Mohammed/Muhammad and yeah…then I stayed after school for a while with Jamppa and Emma and it wasn’t awkward, even though they’re together and I’m alone with them and all that.

They’re lovely, they made me smile somehow. Anyway, after that I went home and the best surprise ever happened! I knew my family would say “Happy Birthday” and stuff, but Laura and Chiki and Saara were there, too and we had a nice dinner and they sang happy birthday to me and there was a cake and presents and…it was so good! My whole shit day just went better. I really like what they did. And they went through all the trouble and it was beautiful! Thanks to everyone!

And I got a lot of presents, gonna post just a few here, cause I can’t post eeeeverything, it’s gonna be a damn long post:

 

Aaand yeah. Awesome family is awesome!

//Stef – leaving to Vierumäki tomorrow!

Finland – Switzerland.

Ice hockey!!!

So, shall we start?

The day was pretty cool. Except that I had to wake up freaking early for history class. It was utterly boring, the only good thing was that I don’t need to write my essay, cause I already did it and handed it in yesterday, which makes me the first one to do it, I think. Lovely. Except that I forgot to include sources in the back and Mr. Crawford is gonna deduct the grade from that, but I don’t really care about that so much, so…meh!

After that, most of my friends had a tutor meeting, something like “last celebration”, they ate cake, leaving their tutor year behind. I was hanging around for some time, then didn’t want to get in the way and I went to Eve and Emmi, listening to them complaining about history and stuff. Not in a bad way, they were just worried about the essay and all that. Then Eve went to print out some sort of fitness program and I printed out my religion pictures that I needed to have done for Monday (but well, oh well). I was pretty pissed off at my religion motivation level…and our house printer. I couldn’t get it to work and print colorful, so I had to settle for the black and white stuff my school offers. Blah.

But anyway, after I got that sorted out, I went outside in the sunshine for a while, watched the guys play some sort of a ball game like football…only not. And when they went to class, I went to the bus stop with Nelli and Minja. When I got home, Maarit was still there, almost on her way out for some important meeting. She didn’t have much time to talk to me, so in a few minutes I was alone with Nuutti and had stuff to do. First, I did some house work, then I took the dog out, then I literally just stood out in the yard in the sun for some time after what I did nothing, but chillax for the rest of the day. I had invited people over for ice hockey game – Finland vs. Switzerland. By people, I mean the guys (Joel, Jamppa, Henkka and Rasse). Henkka didn’t know if he could come, Jamppa and Joel said they’d be present and Rasse said from the start (naturally) that he won’t be able to join us.  At 14.00-ish Jamppa called me to ask if it’s okay to bring Emma along. Weird that he also asked, cause Joel asked me the same thing about Johanna and apparently they don’t feel welcome or something, just because I invited the guys only. I mean, sure, I didn’t say that everyone can come, but I didn’t say it’s only for those 4 people. Besides, Emma and Johanna are my friends, so of course I want them to come. I just didn’t think they’d be interested in ice hockey and I’m actually trying to at least pretend to follow what’s going on.

After I told Jamppa that it’s okay to bring Emma, he hung up only to call me an hour later, saying that he can’t come, cause his mom said she would like him to stay at home, since he’s been too social lately. She didn’t forbid him to come, but I’m sure she used that mother tone that no one can say no to. I would have stayed at home as well. But yeah, he was out and I was pretty sure that Henkka won’t come, cause he lives in the freaking forest and that’s far away from here and he’s so lazy that there’s almost no way I can get him to come. There would have to be a naked woman or something even more spectacular for him to get off his ass and come to my place. So I was right, he said he won’t come. I thought now would be a good time to text Joel and say that it’s gonna be just the two of us – tactically giving him time and space for retreat if he all of a sudden feels like staying home with Johanna or something like that.

Of course, I didn’t enjoy the fact that the guys couldn’t come and at one point it felt like I’m a complete failure at organizing stuff, though this time I got everything, and every time I try to do something, almost no one shows up. I know that people are busy and have their own lives and all, I understand their reasons and I’m not mad, I just feel kinda bad for being such a bad organizer. Joel texted back that he wasn’t feeling so well, but he’s probably coming. I think he got the message “if you wanna back out as well” cause he commented on it later on. Well, he was the only one, who actually showed up. I thought he’d rather stay at home, since the guys weren’t gonna be here, hence the quality of fun would be minimized, but I guess I was wrong. Sweet.

So, I got all this food downstairs:

+ there were mokkapalat, but I forgot to take a picture of them. We couldn’t eat all of this, cause…of reasons. So the game was supposed to start at 20:15 and it did, actually, but not on canal+ with Mertaranta as a commentator. I don’t know why they decided not to show that particular game, but we watched it on that one MTV channel (not the music television) with the commercial breaks and everything. And we turned on the TV on after the first goal was already made. Joel said he’d be really pissed if the score ends 1:0 for Finland like every other time, cause then we’d missed all the action. Thankfully, the game ended 5:2 for Finland and we got to see some hard times. Though I didn’t see both of the goals Switzerland made for Finland. I thought they were just unsuccessful tries, but I guess not. Meh, we still won (by we, I mean Finland…I’m almost a Finn now ).

For some reason, still unclear what, most of the things Joel said were hilarious and he was making those weird Mickey Mouse orgasm sounds, since the he was sitting on the massaging chair and it was rather…amusing. I laughed like a retard for most of the time and he scared me 2 times with his screams. It was like…quiet talking, quiet talking, quiet talking, GOAAAAAAAAL and it caught me off guard, so I thought something serious is happening like he’s having a heart attack or a nail went up his ass or I don’t know.

We talked though the whole thing, not necessarily about ice hockey exclusively. I literally saw only half of the game, the minutes, when we were busy chewing, but at least I got familiar with more rules, cause he talked me through them. Then we made fun of the players, of the coaches, we were imagining what they’re saying to each other, then he didn’t miss the opportunity to look at me with the “SERIOUSLY?!” face, when I didn’t see the puck going into Finland’s goal twice. By the way, there was one extremely close call when one of the Swiss players kicked the puck and it was exactly on the line and at that moment we both cringed a bit like we saw someone being hit in the balls (mascot story comes to mind again, since we were discussing polar bears and angry birds?). Yeaaaah…

I was probably the only foreigner with a hand-made Finnish flag, screaming “HYVÄ SUOMI” at the TV, even Joel refused to take one. Stupid Finns!

He relocated himself towards the computer for the last 15 minutes of the game. We were happy, when it ended, but look at what he’s holding. It’s my water bomb. It was nothing, but an innocent balloon, before he got his hands on it. I mean I thought it looked like a fake boob, too, but I never said it out loud. Still…I got him a pen and this is the result:

After a few close calls, we called it a quit, cause…he didn’t want to get “wet”, lol.

We hung around on damnlol and 9gag for a while, laughed some more and turned on the tv on channel 4 (nelonen) and watched some men in black. Good memories from that one, btw. At 23:20 something we went out with the dog…well, more like I went out with the dog and walked Joel to the bus stop. Out of nowhere, he saw Nuutti pooping and he said he wished he could do that in public without being socially unacceptable. It made me laugh out loud so hard. It was relatively dark and quiet out on the street and all you could hear is my laugh. I’m either a) easily entertained and immature  or b) tired…or c) both.

But yeah, he got the last bus to Tapiola, I walked the dog for a while and went home and wrote this and went to bed. There you go. A long post. Rejoice!

And a picture of Nuutti, cause why not?

Sooo, good night, lovely world, I shall see you again soon!

//Stef – 5:2, fuck yea!