It's been a good day

After a crappy week, it feels like all the good things came back to me at once. I had a stellar day at uni, the EU-simulation course is as fun as ever. Also got feedback from a lecturer about my performance so far and frankly couldn't have been better. After 15min of discussing why I'm so good, I felt pretty confident. ;)

Then booked the venue for Eurovision party though it's still conditional, will have to wait for their confirmation. But hopefully it will work out and that's sorted.

And then was a really nice day at work as well. Despite the possible evacuation alerts, for the life of me I can't keep my composure. I don't do panic situations well. I tend to panic.

But yey, it's all good again. Now I only need to get some sleep, and then tomorrow is a whole day full of leisurely activities before work.

Talk about a bad week...

It doesn't seem like this week was bad but in retrospect, it was hardly a good one. First, I was sick a lot. My pillow was so crappy that it was making me wake up with a headache, then Grant Management pulls this little trick of theirs. Then I get some sort of thing at work, felt so dizzy and nauseous that I had to leave early. Then go to the gym after some recovery time but get too excited and work out a bit too much and get ill from that.

The worst is last night when somebody threw rocks at our windows and managed to break Alvaro's window. His room is already minuscule so it got really cold. Anyway, the police came over, called Grant Management who won't be here to fix till who knows when and all that.

And then hörhilö pulls another one of his tricks. Won't go into details, that would reveal the identity, but good old times sprung to mind.

I'm left to hope happier times are ahead of me. Tomorrow uni starts and also am working until late every evening until Wednesday (when I'm going to Maastricht!). So at least I've got that to look forward to. And Jenny will be back as well, will meet her on Wednesday and get to eat proper food! I've lost my appetite recently, I'm suspecting it's more of a cause of my poor cooking skill than anything else.

Problem Solving

Today I woke up with a headache and it was pretty easy to figure out where I got it from. No, it wasn't a hangover like my dad thought (cheers for that though daddy) but because of my crappy pillow. I'm a very mobile sleeper. I twist and turn so much and now that I've got a big bed I do it even more. And then my pillow is just so flat and hard that I tend to put my head under my arms and whatnot so no wonder I've got a stiff neck in the morning.

So the headache remains with me the whole day and I decide to splurge out on a proper pillow and as I'm heading out, I see a letter from the company that owns and rents the flat. The idiots have once again claimed that I haven't paid my rent. I've gotten that letter every month now, the amount changes (I don't know what's up with that) and the name changes (it's a variation of my name, the previous tenants name or our names combined) but the point is that someone that seems like me, hasn't paid the rent. But, like I phone to tell them every month, I pay by direct debit and every time I've called them they've said it's a mistake on their side and they're going to fix it. I've been living here since January and it's April... not very quick on their feet now are they?

Anyway, so I fix things. I get a new pillow to prevent the headache, I buy ibuprofein (as weird as this sounds, I love ibuprofein) to help the symptons, call the idiots to fix their problems and to make myself feel better, I buy a tub of ice cream. Problem solved! I feel happy again.

Little things in life

Today it's snowing. I don't usually talk about weather when I'm in Newcastle simply because I rarely leave my room. I have a window but I keep the blind down all the time because a) the window is mouldy and b) it gets drafty and blind keeps it a bit warmer. So I don't really see the weather action that much. But today I went to get something to eat, one those occasions that require me to go outside the house - delivery would be too much like fatty-action, and it's proper blizzard outside. And of course today being Sunday, busses go very rarely and the one I'm aiming for is always early so it's gone by the time I get there and the next one is always late. Murphy's law. But the point being I got soaked.

But then I get to shop, my feet are wet and am cold all over, get my stuff and suddenly chocolate chip cookies seem tempting. So I buy them, get home after getting a bit more wet on the way and open that bag of cookies and the whole thing was worth it.

Now I start work in about 3.5 hours so I've got a few more hours of bliss ahead of me. Project Runway is calling...

My fallback plan

Minna and Jenna were in Newcastle for 5 days and we had loads of fun. We even booked a make-up lesson at a salon to get all glammed up one day. One thing I noted was that I actually already do my make-up the way she instructed, if slightly better. And I also quite often do the hair and make up for my friends. In ylä-aste (upper comprehensive school, grades 7-9) I was told that I could start a nail salon because I was quite interested in nails back then and now I was thinking of branching out to hair and make-up as well.

I can't really cut hair but I can do fabulous dos and glamorous evening make-up. And proper nice nails as well. So if the whole politics stuff doesn't work out, I know I have a back-up plan. I have done Jenna's hair and the make-up was created in collaboration with Savannah Salon & Spa.

Other than that, Triin's back from Peru and took loads of happy and amazing pictures of llamas! And they are all dedicated for me, could I ask for a better friend? There's much love there, llamas all the way.

Songs for all occasions

Eurovision songs are like the perfect accessory, they go with everything but I do listen to other kind of music. I didn't use to though, I remember one of my friends got really frustrated with my lack of interest in music. Anyways, I'm still very uninterested in the fineries of music; I like it happy and easy to dance to. I did however add the theme song application on facebook and I'm really proud of my selection so I thought I'd add the best bits here.
Current mood: Illi - Palaan luoksesi The lyrics are about wanting to settle down vs nomadic lifestyle
Partying: Tarkan - Simarik Excellent Turkish song
Sexual: Mika - Relax, Take It Easy The title of the song influenced the decision
Love: Juanes - Para Tu Amor Because Spanish is the most beautiful language ever
Dancing: Shakira - Hips Don't Lie I'm never too shy to ask the DJ to play some Shakira
Work: Abba - Mamma Mia The trailer for the movie with the same title has been running for months now and is always playing when I'm at work, it's a sign
Guilty Pleasure: Basshunter - Boten Anna I like to think he's singing about a boat he really likes
High School: No Doubt - Six Feet Under School was never really that much fun anyway

And I also bought Leona Lewis' CD a few days ago, I haven't bought a CD for a really long time, in like 10 years so it's a big thing for me.

On another note, Minna and Jenna are coming here tomorrow. Looking very much forward to our quality time together. Shopping, eating, going out... who wouldn't like a break from reality?

Älypää Mathquiz

As if I wouldn't be weird enough by getting excited about the EU, eurovision and America's Next Top Model, one of my favourite past time activities is playing the mathquiz at the Finnish gamesite Älypää. They have it in English as well if you feel like trying. http://en.alypaa.com/
It doesn't my any means require you to be a genius in maths, it's just simple adding up and multiplying as quick as you can. I love it.

Anyways, something to take your mind off mundane things. Like the jerk customers at work, today I had the worst one so far. Proper dickhead. But other than that work is fine and dandy. Though admittedly I feel my IQ has dropped like 20 points, because I'm the newbie I have to be taught everything and the stuff they say are the simplest things you can imagine but just because I haven't done it before, I don't know about the procedures and all. But still, I should dye my hair blonde.

And the English sure do love their bureaucracy, I've signed - without joking - approximately 60 pages so far. And there is the fear that they might contact my referees. Not that their not legitimate or anything, I'd just love to see the contacting my former employers in Finland because when I was working there my job was basically taking care of all the English speaking people because the bosses couldn't... Bless.

Eurovision 2008!!

It's Eurovision time again! I'm so happy after listening through all the entries for this year. Me any my sister have a theory you see, every other year is good whilst other year is bad. Last year was admittedly quite bad, 2006 was excellent. This year the songs are again really good. I have six favourites this year! And I pretty much know Dima Bilan will win for Russia, for sure.

But I seriously listened through all the songs on youtube and the amount of novelty entries puzzles me. Not funny in a good way like last year's Ukraine but just crap. Like the turkey from Ireland, or the chiki dance thing from Spain or, bless them, Estonia's horrible, horrible song. But luckily good ones exist to compensate. So here's a list of my favourites, in no particular order:
Sweden
Norway
Russia
Greece
Germany
Armenia

Listen to their entries online but I must warn you, if you go through all of them it will take time. There are so many countries participating this year. I knew Azerbaijan would join but Montenegro and San Marino are in the first time as well, superexciting! Whii!

Luckily the final show will air May 24th, day after my final exam! So there's definately going to be a parteyyy!

What is it?

Lately I've been questioned about my nationality quite a bit. Part of it is due because I started work where there are actual British people who can spot a fake British accent like mine instantly but also some very random occurances. Most amusing and odd was the taxi driver on my way to the airport (granted it was like 6am and dark) and he asked whether I was Chinese. Then the other night another taxi driver asked whether I was American. When I was out with the people from my work, one of them asked whether I was Polish. Most scary was the one that happened today though. I was just walking down to Co-op and this Geordie man, aged around 40 with a really raspy voice approaches me and starts asking me whether I think the people here are ugly.I then matter something intellectual like "I dunno" and try to walk faster but then he starts questioning where I'm from and the first guess is Sweden, then Denmark and then Austria. Which are pretty good guesses considering I had only said around 3 words so he had only my appearance to judge on.

But that aside, one cool thing to happen today was that I got the chance to talk to Triin online! And that is exiting because the girl was in Peru, in some oasis in the middle of the desert and online! Imagine that. Got to love modern technology. She hasn't seen any llamas yet but promised to bring me one as soon she sees one. I really want that llama. And when I spoke to my dad and told that Triin is in Peru, the first thing he asked was whether she's seen any llamas. So see, it is important for Triin to spot that llama asap.

Oh the pain...

I'm still in the process of writing my dissertation and today was a rare day when I didn't have uni or work. But I had no inspiration and in addition to that, I went to work first at the library but all the computers were taken and there were loads of those people hanging around, waiting for one to become available. Then I headed to the Old Library Building which was pretty much empty except that the air there was so stuffy and it was so hot that I felt sick. Then I moved on to Bedson building. I stayed there for an hour and managed to get some work done but then the people kept coming in, people kept talking and some even played with a football or something so it was hardly a quiet study area.

But when I managed to get home, not only do I realise that I forgot to send the latest version of the whole thing to my email but I also continued to feel really ill. I still do actually. So no progress there. I do however intend to be finished by Wednesday which only means that I have to work hard until then. I will be skipping my East Asian Political Thought lectures this week because of it. Also, despite being interesting, I feel that the lecturer is trying to convert us rather than teach us and it is putting me off a bit. I hardly need to be into Confucianism to study it, do I? I mean I really hate realism but that doesn't mean I don't know it.

I've had loads of shifts at work, I think I actually did something like 26 hours last week which I think is quite impressive. But on Thursday I managed to bust my wrist twice so can't do the café with Häagen Dazs for a while. Instead I worked at the screens and have seen the endings of almost all the films showing at the moment... The Other Boleyn Girl seems really good and I intend to actually go and see the whole thing when I've got time. Some of the people at work seem really cool as well, so it's a nice environment in general. I wouldn't continue there after June though if I would stay in Newcastle. The actual work is a bit too simple, I just can't be that bothered whether or not there's two flavours of the same ice cream on display and whether or not I've put enough froth on the capuccino (HINT: if I'm on the cafe, DON'T order a capuccino, I suck!).

So yea, anyway, I also hurt my finger today with out downstairs door because it is seriously horrible. And with the wrist added, I'm pretty much on my way to destroying my right hand. ;)