I never make proper New Year's resolutions; I know myself well enough to know I couldn't keep them. Instead, I list hopes/wishes for the year. There is not many points this time, I feel like that is only a good sign as I'm quite content with my life right now.
Travel! I want to make weekend trips to explore my new home country; places I really want to visit include Oxford, Canterbury and just some any nice little seaside town. I'd also want to visit Paris. We'll see.
Pay more attention to my well-being. Not the eat-healthy-exercise-and-forget-after-January kind, but in a comprehensive way on different levels on my life. I want to take life as it comes, cherish the important details and have it simple.
Sketch a short film. I have an idea, just have to take it to the finish line.
There's a reason I have not posted lately, and that reason is my weird-ass beginning of 2017. I got a bad fever on New Year's Eve and then, after blood tests taken couple of days later for the temperature not getting down even with medication, I was taken into hospital. They don't know what was wrong with me but something definitely was as my stats were just crazy. I was there for almost five days.
At least I got an extra week of 'holiday' (aka just getting better). I didn't go to my exam today. I haven't finished my essays, deadlines were last week. But hey, it will be all fine. The most important thing is that I will actually get well because this. has. not. been. fun. Being this passive makes me just sad and useless.
A very good thing that has happened though is me discovering Please Like Me. I've heard good things about the show before and my friend very strongly recommended it to me, but in the hospital I had to get Netflix to not die of boredom so I finally actually started watching it. It's gloriously funny and I might never have felt such a connection to a fictional character as I feel with the main character Josh. He's like me on some deep level. please like me please please please please please????
The last classes of the semester were on Friday, so obviously instead of starting working on my essays like I was supposed to, I've been sick for the last couple of days; I always get sick only on holidays. The good thing about being sick and absolutely dying is that now that I'm better I feel very Fresh™ without actually being that fresh. Simple things like Pikachu socks and coffee made me happy today. Anything's better than the feverish sleepiness - but now I should actually work and I don't feel like it.
Time has gone by so quick, like it always does. I'm going home on Sunday and I'm counting days to see my cats and get home to rest. I still have to do my essays though, my original plan was to write all of them this week but it would be impossible at this point so I just have to go with it. But hey. Life is life.
I have good vibes for 2017. I already know some lovely things will happen: we'll go see Nutcracker with my Mom in National Opera of Finland in early January, I'll see couple of plays in March, I think I'll return to some of my hobbies.
Christmas is my favourite time of year and at this point of my first university year I really do need some relaxing. Everything has been so new and sometimes more tiresome than I've wanted to admit myself but after the winter break, I'll be ready to face the rest of it. It's only the beginning of my London life, after all, and there's a lot to look forward to.
I stumbled upon this idea online while thinking what to make out of a pretty beer bottle I didn't want to throw out. We can't have candles in the halls so as the nights become darker, I was really yearning for some lighting with bit more soul. The way tiny Christmas lights reflect out of the bottle is absolutely beautiful and it makes a simple yet very cute little decor.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was worth seeing for the entertainment purposes - and for the visual quality and experience at the BFI IMAX - but nothing I'd see again (or want to be followed by four sequels). It was just too much everything and it made me bit puzzled of who it was actually aimed for; it was partly too dark for the younger audiences but overall not very "adult" for the original Potter generation. The plot had too many lines going on, some of them absolutely useless, but still left the main characters without any depth. I'm honestly surprised J.K. Rowling did such a bad job with the script.
My favourite things in the film were character design and Colin Farrell.
About this time last year, me and my friend Inari came to London for a holiday. I had bought a video camera bit earlier, so I thought that instead of taking millions of photos, I should shoot around a bit and edit a travel video.
It was my first time in London - and in England, I had been to Scotland before though. Lovely autumn. Lovely holiday: most of all, I felt very at ease here.
So, it was a little before my UCAS application. I had the clear plan to apply to universities in Scotland - but while in London for a week, I secretly started thinking about how it would be to live in London. To go to museums anytime you feel like it, seeing amazing work by the masters you completely adore, walking by Thames and seeing all the city has to offer... But it would be so so expensive, I thought, and forgot about it.
Finding a perfect song for my travel video was a hard task, somehow nothing seemed to fit. At last I chose Chris Garneau's Hands On the Radio - for no particular reason, it just fit my footage and feelings for the city. Then, while applying to universities, I ended up with one free spot on my application. I added randomly King's from the top of the rankings lists for film studies - I thought I couldn't have a chance to get in.
But I got in.
The lyrics of the songs in my video became reality: "I promise I'll come back." I just did that sooner than I thought.
I went home to Finland for couple of days for reading week. I loved seeing my family and how normal it felt: my mom said "it's like nobody ever left". My cats were at first bit confused of me being home, then they were super cute and cuddly. Love those furballs.
But I learned something: the timing was not right. My genius plan was to rest for couple of days without thinking about university (expect finishing my first assignment). Great plan, right?
When I came back home to London - honestly the greatest feeling in the world, realising that I was going from home to home - and continued my coursework (had three deadlines this week) it hit me that the way my brain works with languages wasn't happy about the sudden change from English to Finnish and back to English.
It always feels really weird talking Finnish after a while, sometimes I can't even write properly. I forgot words from time to time. And then I got used to my first language again, and while writing my essays I had to use online dictionaries from time to time. I got slower even though usually my writing abilities in English are almost as natural as with Finnish.
So, lesson learned. Next reading week I'm going to sleep for one day and then work work work work and then offer myself with couple of days of rest back home. Because I'm a good student.
Or at least try to be.
Leaving London in the sunrise, returning at the sunset.
