The Midnight Ponders

It’s been a while. It’s actually really hard to keep a blog and be bothered to write in it. The only thing that can motivate me is looking at others people’s awesome blogs. They make me feel like having a blog just like theirs and be someone just like them. But this makes it also really annoying to look at their blogs. I become way too jealous of their life. But why is it then so hard to make my life so good, that I won’t feel jealous anymore? Is it impossible? Perhaps. But I hope not, otherwise I’m doomed.

Two day ago my phone started randomly ringing an unknown tune. When I went to see what was going on, there was a text on the screen:

Hey krn this is a surprise reminder! <3 From: Pablo

First I was utterly confused, and then I spent the next 2 hours searching for this Pablo, as I had no idea who it was. But the reminder made my day :). Thank You Pablo!

Lately I’ve really started to reflect upon myself and think who I want to be and who I will be in the future. In my head those two are always the same person.

I want to be someone who leaves surprise reminders for their friends or secret notes under their pillows, that they only find when they go to bed.

I want to be someone who spontaneously texts someone a good night or good morning text message, only for the sake of having a person to do that to.

I want to move out to my own apartment, get a cat and decorate the place to be perfect reflection of who I am.

I want to find the perfect cheesecake recipe and then invite my friends over to celebrate.

I want to have a party when I watch the movie Tangled for the 50^th time. So far only 19. Still 31 to go :P

I want to have a hammock in my apartment and flowers on the windowsill.

I want get into a good university and really discover what I want to do with my life when I grow up. But the thing is, I don’t want to grow up.

I want to stop listening to other people opinions, ideas and dreams for what my life should be like in the future and I want to stop thinking that those opinions, ideas and dreams are actually my own.

I want to find someone to love and share everything with. Someone who will love me for me. I don’t want to be an I anymore.

I want to discover the reason why people enjoy things like running or yoga.

I want to get motivated so I can study a lot more and be a lot better. Yesterday I did 16 mathematics problems, now I have only 173 left.

I want to have much longer hair.

I want to speak French fluently.

I want to look up and address in Google Maps and send a letter there.

I want to put a Christmas card into a stranger’s mailbox

I want to have a beautiful voice and know how to sing.

I want to fly in a dream. I’ve never done that and I hear that it’s awesome.

And maybe someday all of these things will have come true. Will I have a new set of things I want have or do in my life? Most likely I will. But so do everyone, even those bloggers whose lives seem to be perfect. No one’s is, some people just have a need to hide that and create an illusion of a perfect life. Well I don’t. Here I announce that my life is not perfect at all. And no one should believe otherwise.

But I’m sorry if this all came out somehow sad. It did to me, when I read it through. Well I’m not sad :D Maybe a little bit lonely, even though I have no idea why, and perhaps a bit frustrated as the boy I have a crush on is offline in Facebook. Pathetic, I know :P But life sometimes is. For you, here’s something I’ve always wanted to say: 

Too-da-loo !

Ahh the Moomins...

Sorry I’ve been gone so long. I’ve just had so much to do! I’m so behind on all the school work and totally stressed out. I was meant to return my Finnish Internal Assesment this week Monday, so like 4 days ago and tomorrow is the deadline of my History IA. I haven’t started either one.. I know I’m a bad student, I admit it. I also have a load of essays to return in the Finnish and English subjects. I should probably delete my Facebook, get rid of every distraction and get right to work, but it’s so hard! My self-discipline sucks!

Also my really awesome friend Noora has her birthday next Monday. Noora and me are really close and I love her. The thing is she is leaving me and moving to USA in the summer, which completely sucks. So I want her to have the best time of her life now, so she won’t forget me in America. Also I apparently have a reputation for making the best presents. So not only do I want to make Noora something she will love, but I just have this feeling that I have to live up to my reputation. I’m really under pressure. But if I get the present done by Monday, it will be amazing :D I would love it if I got something like that, and I know that Noora will appreciate it.

As you know, I already turned 18, which means I could drive a car if I had a license. Well I’m gonna get one, I’ve already completed all of the theory and driving lessons. The only thing I have to do now is pass the tests. Except that before I can take the driving tests I have to get a doctor’s certificate and give it to my teacher. My teacher then passes it on to someone, I have no idea who, and It’ll take them at least (emphasis on that word) 3 weeks to accept it or something I’m not really sure. But anyways I was meant to see the teacher last week Thursday but noooo, she cancelled. My new appointment is in May, which means that I’ll get my license at least 3 months after the time I could have got it.. Pisses me off.. I want to go driving. It’s so much fun! Seriously.

After Ansku reminded me of the awesomeness of the Moomins, I’ve been completely obsessed with them. Last week when I was finishing my Espoo School of Art päättötyö –thingy (This project that takes one year. I do it independently). I stayed up all night doing it. I never went to sleep. Actually I did it 24 hours, only stopping three times to eat and to go to the bathroom. The only thing that kept me awake, was the Moomins. Even though I have seen all of the episode like thousands of times, I still watched almost all of them that night. Well actually not watched, instead I the episode was playing on my laptop and I was only listening to it.

During that night the Moomins inspired me. Now I know what I want to do the last 3 lesson in the art school. I’ll draw this awesome map of the Moominvalley with details and pictures of the houses, and notes of what happened and where. It will be so cool :D Also when I move to my own place, I want to have loads of Moomin stuff. For example the mugs. In fact, I’m gonna go today and buy the light pink one because their on sale, the “Love” one. I think I like it the best. Or it fits me the best. And I have memories connected to that specific one. 

I also think that these two are so so so cute!! Especially the cookie jar with little My on it. I have to get it!

Actually I want everything they have :D All of them. I have to get really really rich so I can buy all of them. And quickly. Go see how awesome they are: Moomin stuff <123

Obsession..............

Ansku helped me a lot by making the new banner. So thanks :) . She actually made two, but the other one has a spelling mistake so I had to put this one. However I don’t really mind, I liked both equally and anyways had a hard time choosing between them.

The pictures were taken from the Iittala site. Link here

P.S. I saw this really funny thing in 9GAG. This is a smiley= :-) and this is Voldemort= :) Laughed so hard.

"I take thee, cream cheese...."

What a day! Today I got a 7 from my history essay. I’m sorry, but I just have to brag a little bit about it… It’s the top grade! And I never get good grades, trust me. I’m actually a pretty bad student. Even my parents were so happily surprised and pleased that they gave me 50 euros because of it :DD Yay! And another thing to be happy about will happen tomorrow. I end at 9:30. In the morning!! Life is good. I usually end somewhere around 4 P.M. so this is a very welcome variation of my Thursday’s schedule. To add to that we will plant flowers in this club me and Ansku have for little girls. Excited about that. I love flowers and the spring is coming :)

This week’s Monday I went to a youth center called 'Kulma', where I spend a great deal of my time. But the reason I went there now, was because they were organizing a girl’s night. I had been to one before and it had been awesome! All we did there was nails and gossip and eating. Now who wouldn’t love that?

This time we also did face masks and talked pretty intense stuff about what it’s like to be a woman/girl, the pros and cons of it etc. But I especially enjoyed the masks. We had something that was apparently meant to smell like chocolate and strawberries, but I think it just smelled like chocolate pudding. Close enough. Me and Ansku were the only ones to put it on. It felt really weird when it dried on your skin. Ansku looked just fine with it on, but I looked completely different. My God how people were laughing at my appearance. Someone said I look like a Latino man and another mentioned something about an overly make upped (is that even a word?) teenager. But I’ll let you decide on that one :D

Pauliina craving for the chocolate on Ansku's face

Me and Ansku 

So a Latino man....

...or a teenage girl with way too much make up on?

 

The food was also really good. Easter eggs, grapes, mozzarella (<3), Princess cake and of course my new favorite: baguette and cream cheese. Oh My God. Words CAN NOT explain. How haven’t I realized this heaven on earth before?? Ok, I admit, I may be exaggerating slightly, but so so so good! I went the next day to the shop to buy some straight after school. I could have gone with the same bus with this boy I really like a lot, but noooo cream cheese was calling out to me.

<3

I also really loved how the edges of the glasses had been made all sugary. Awesome

They had mud cake in addition to the Princess cake.

The last thing we did was nails. I had a hard time concentrating, so I didn’t do something as fancy as maybe the other girls but I was still pretty proud and happy with what I had in the end. I tried to use colours that I don’t really own myself (so pretty much everything else except different variations of pink). In the end I first put a layer of orange nail polish, then a kind of orangy red on the tip and finally I dotted with a white French manicure pen, a line were the two colours met. 

The red nails are mine and the other ones are Heli's

I had an amazing time. Thank you again, everyone who was there and who organized it!! It was awesome.

Just wanted to mention that I’ve been listening to Moomin music while I’ve been writing this. If you don’t know what the Moomins are, then shame upon you and go quickly google it! Recommend watching them, regardless of what age you are! The songs that play during the episodes are either sad or scary, beautiful, nostalgic, wistful, magical, give me shivers or make me cry. My childhood is rushing back... Thank you Ansku for reminding me.

The Age of the New Karen

I had such a great day last Saturday! I did so many new things. I woke up in the morning feeling all depressed and thinking that I’ll just do school work all day. I had planned to go to Kallio, a region located in Helsinki, to this flea market, but feeling so lazy I kind of decided not to. Until my my friend Ansku talked me into it. And I’m so glad she did! Not only did I get a ton of new awesome earrings, but I also did a lot of new things in Helsinki I had never done before!

The compulsory fashion blog's outfit picture :P Isn't Outi the sweetest?

I arrived at the flea market pretty late. My friends Ansku and Outi were already worn out, hungry and wanted to leave. Me and Outi really wanted to go eat somewhere in Helsinki, but Ansku, being raised more practical than us, said that the only place she would eat was her home, as that’s where the food would not only be good, but free too. Me and Outi still decided to eat out, even though Ansku wouldn’t join us. And Outi really wanted to go to this Thai restaurant in Kallio called Du Dii. So we went there. It was the first time I had Thai food in my life. And it was so worth the 7 euros. So good… I recommend it to everyone!

Outi was completely lame and didn't eat with chopsticks and still I was done before her!

Me enjoying chicken with some sweet'n'sour sauce. Mmmmm :)

After eating we went to the mall ‘Itäkeskus’ or like it’s nowadays: ‘Itis’.  I had never gone to that mall before. That was already the second new thing that day (!) The reason we went there, was the fact that I had pretty spontaneously decided to get second piercings in my ears. I’m so glad I did. Even though my mom thinks that is completely foolish of me as I apparently will regret them later (she doesn’t know yet that I actually did it...), but I doubt it. My mom’s anyway a really old-fashioned person.

Look at my second piercing! Isn't it awesome :D And this is an earring that I'm really glad I bought even though it was pretty expensive from a flea market...

The reason I decided to do it was because I needed an irreversible event in my life. Something that would change me, and the way I see myself. And I always thought that people with more than one piercing in their ear were really awesome and cool. I don’t really know what it was that set in motion this sudden need to change. But on Saturday I really felt that the “Age of the New Karen” was about to take place. The “New” Karen would be almost like the old one, with a few slight changes:

o   she has second piercings

o   does her hair everyday (people always asked the old one why she didn’t)

o   has a blog

o   is single and proud of it!!!1

To explain the last point I should probably tell you that I’m well-known for being a really romantic person. I lived for love and falling in it. The sad part was that no one ever seemed to fall in love with me, or even get a small crush. I also always complained about that. But now with the “Age of the New Karen” all that has and will stop. I will be a strong, independent woman who does not need men. That is the plan.

But yeah, hours later after eating and piercing my ears, me and Outi decided to follow Ansku and go to her house. On the way there, we saw one of the first signs of spring; pajunkissat. I don’t really know how to explain it. If I translate it straight to English it would be: willow’s cat. But thank God we have Wikipedia, which can hopefully do a better job at this than me:

"Pussy willow is a name given to many of the smaller species of the genus Salix (willows and sallows) when their furry catkins are young in early spring."

Seeing the pajunkissat made me so happy and excited! I felt just like I did when I was a little girl. In Finland it is and Easter tradition that on Palm Sunday children would decorated braches of willows that had pajunkissat on them with feathers and colourful stuff and go around the town in costumes, kind of like trick or treating, only replacing the trick part with exchanging a branch to some candy. We call it “virpominen”. God I haven’t done that in years! Maybe I should suggest it to Ansku and Outi :D

A picture of virpojat

Pajunkissat

 

And finally a small treat for you guys. I did my hair that day after a long time! And it was actually pretty simple to do:

1.   Put your hair up in a high ponytail.

2.   Braid the ponytail.

3.   Wrap it pretty loosely around itself and pin in place.

4.   Pull on it to make it looser.

picture of virpojat from: http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/artikkeli/Virpojat+liikkeell%C3%A4+t%C3%A4n%C3%A4%C3%A4n/1135234842805 thanks

So is it memorable?

Now when I finally decided to just do, start a blog, nothing just seems to come out. Starting one is harder than I imagined. I feel a bit like a scared little girl completely intimidated by all these criticizing people waiting for her to say something smart, touching, funny, impressive, and/or memorable. I guess I’ll have to start with something as lame as introducing myself.

So hello, I’m Karen. A girl, studying in Espoo in a lukio (I guess it’s something close to a high-school). I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a really long time now. Before I thought it would be too mainstream to do it and I thought that I’m too lazy to keep one. We’ll see if I was right. I promise I’ll try my best.

So what will this blog be about? Life, mostly mine. Life that a girl in Finland can experience after just turning eighteen. Haha, now I made it sound like, I’ll be telling everyone about the bar life of Helsinki or something :D I actually might if something awesome happens. No, seriously, there are a couple of things I feel that I’m good at. For example, doing my hair, or anybody’s to be exact. I love different kinds of braids and hairdos. I’m also good at crafting things, jewelry, knitting, clothes, accessories etc. And I enjoy baking. So you’ll be seeing a very girly variety of things. And yeah of course, my daily life. Let’s start with that…

P.S be warned, I’m not exactly famous for having the best grammar etc. So be prepared for A LOT of spelling mistakes :P