Sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the blogs and end up neglecting one or two. EU-UK one is my absolute favourite though. I love finding out stories, writing about them only to find out a few days later some mainstream newspapers are running similar stories.
But that's beside the point. What I meant to talk about was how swamped in work I've been and therefore unable to update anything here. Not that I have much to say even now.
Suvi was in Cardiff. We had a blast. We ended up having a massive night out the day she got here so kudos to Suvi for staying up 20 hours straight and still being entertaining. The rest of the time we remained indoors (weather was crap) and were entertained by Mark.
One thing I could however go on forever about is how I hate editing videos. I have no patience for it. And since I don't know the software that well it's even bigger of a pain in the ass. The same goes for photoshop. I just love Microsoft's Paint.
One of the things that bother me most with writing articles is the reliance on others. I can't write an article when I feel like it, I need to constantly wait for people to get back to me. I miss writing essays when it was all up to me. Well, I miss that aspect of it but not the content necessarily.
I do find myself gravitating towards EU-related topics. And weird ones, like the Covenant of Mayors and transposition of directives. Guess Maastricht had some influence on me after all.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Thursday
A lot will be going down this Thursday. Most significantly, my friend Laura will be turning 18. She's one of those people that I remember thinking were really young. She's Riikka's sister and I remember Minna visiting Riikka's place and telling me about little 10-year-old Laura. Seems like ages ago! The first time I properly got to meet Laura I remember thinking that she can't be Riikka's little sis, she's so mature and tall.
Nevertheless, Laura has been hanging out with us for years now, making me feel old. She will finally turn 18 and we can include her in all of our fun and games. Would be so lovely to be in Finland to celebrate it but suppose we just have to make up for it in December. I just hope that all of my darling friends know that it's the most difficult being abroad when my friends are feeling really down or celebrating some momentous achievement. I'd love to be there for you!
Aside from this glorious festivity, on Thursday my mom is going on a holiday. Not significant you think but I think it is pretty wicked. She's going with a friend of hers, on a girlie holiday in what must be the first time since 1997. So kudos to mom!
Most fun for me will be of course Suvi coming to Cardiff. The most amazing friend ever will come and visit me once again and we get to experience all fun UK-stuff again! Yey! We'll even have a thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, organised by Mark.
On Saturday my grandma is going on a holiday which I found out she only booked yesterday. Such a globe-trotting family I have!
I'm looking forward to this weekend, I think it should be joyous on all accounts. Though I bet I just jinxed it here.
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
The ex that keeps on coming back
I don't remember when I first became interested in the EU. Must have been when I was 15 and took part in an economics competition in my school (which I won, might I add) and had an excellent history and society teacher. So when I went to high school, I took part into one European Youth Parliament session and even took a voluntary EU course. I remember loving it.
When I applied to universities in the UK, I believe only three out of the six were politics related. The rest were economics and language related - I was accepted to study Economics and Turkish at the SOAS and not accepted to Oxford to study Turkish.
I then notoriously ended up in Newcastle and then Maastricht to study essentially EU politics. But then February this year I had that existential crisis, what do I want to do with my life? And journalism dawned on me. So I prepared to abandon EU and concentrate on other stuff, possibly write about the EU in a distant future when I'd be experienced enough to be hired on the Economist.
So here I am in Cardiff, happily writing about loads of different stuff but at the same time keeping up EU as my hobby by writing the blog. On Twitter I started following the EU Commission's Representation in the UK, they started following me and even forwarded me their blog there.
So this Monday I was getting started to properly start finding my work experience placements. So I post a tweet about me trying to find them. The EU London Rep then tweeted me what kind of work experience I was looking for and I told them I'd like something to do with writing. They then ask me to send in my CV which I obviously did. And the next day they get back to me saying that they'd love to have me there!
So after somewhat abandoning any hope of ever working for the EU, they find me and ask me to work on what is essentially an ideal job! You have no idea how excited I was and still am.
It is a wonderful example of how social media is a whole new way of connecting people. I do a little happy dance about it especially as the only reason why they would have been interested in me was indeed my blog, so they must think it has some substance to it.
Yea so essentially my ego just grew exponentially. As if I needed that.
When I applied to universities in the UK, I believe only three out of the six were politics related. The rest were economics and language related - I was accepted to study Economics and Turkish at the SOAS and not accepted to Oxford to study Turkish.
I then notoriously ended up in Newcastle and then Maastricht to study essentially EU politics. But then February this year I had that existential crisis, what do I want to do with my life? And journalism dawned on me. So I prepared to abandon EU and concentrate on other stuff, possibly write about the EU in a distant future when I'd be experienced enough to be hired on the Economist.
So here I am in Cardiff, happily writing about loads of different stuff but at the same time keeping up EU as my hobby by writing the blog. On Twitter I started following the EU Commission's Representation in the UK, they started following me and even forwarded me their blog there.
So this Monday I was getting started to properly start finding my work experience placements. So I post a tweet about me trying to find them. The EU London Rep then tweeted me what kind of work experience I was looking for and I told them I'd like something to do with writing. They then ask me to send in my CV which I obviously did. And the next day they get back to me saying that they'd love to have me there!
So after somewhat abandoning any hope of ever working for the EU, they find me and ask me to work on what is essentially an ideal job! You have no idea how excited I was and still am.
It is a wonderful example of how social media is a whole new way of connecting people. I do a little happy dance about it especially as the only reason why they would have been interested in me was indeed my blog, so they must think it has some substance to it.
Yea so essentially my ego just grew exponentially. As if I needed that.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Why blog about personal stuff?
Today one of my lecturers commented on my UK-EU blog. I realised there and then how public all of my blogs are. This blog may not bear my name but people will still link to my other blogs and therefore easily find out my identity. So why should I write about personal stuff and reveal all that to people?
Unlike some may suggest, it is not fulfilling a narcissistic desire to expose myself and "become famous".
I have lived in five different countries over the past five years. I have made lots of new friends in that time from different countries with whom it is at times impossible to keep constantly in touch with. So I hope if they genuinely want to know how I'm doing they'd read my blogs. And whilst they are almost all on facebook, facebook is very limited in the communication it provides. I could obviously write notes there and just have people who see it on their newsfeed look at it but I think blog better suits my purposes.
When I started this blog I did kind of mean to make it public so that all those people who stumble across this and might want to go and study abroad could read about my experiences. But also it is there so that all of my friends could see how I'm doing by reading this. Reading this blog is voluntary, I don't want to impose my status updates or notes to everyone who I've befriended on facebook.
If you are indeed reading this, could you leave a note saying why you read it? So far the only person who I know to read this is my sister.
I do intend to keep it personal but at the same time, I won't usually name people and certainly not in a negative context because this is public. I don't want to be that kind of a person and also from a legal perspective that might be considered slander.
I am considering about making this private but at the same time I feel puzzled as to why I should hide who I am as a person. Though potentail employers might find this blog, surely everyone can see that I write this to keep my friends updated which would not reflect me as an employee.
Also I sure hope it doesn't paint an unfair picture of me as a person, right?
Unlike some may suggest, it is not fulfilling a narcissistic desire to expose myself and "become famous".
I have lived in five different countries over the past five years. I have made lots of new friends in that time from different countries with whom it is at times impossible to keep constantly in touch with. So I hope if they genuinely want to know how I'm doing they'd read my blogs. And whilst they are almost all on facebook, facebook is very limited in the communication it provides. I could obviously write notes there and just have people who see it on their newsfeed look at it but I think blog better suits my purposes.
When I started this blog I did kind of mean to make it public so that all those people who stumble across this and might want to go and study abroad could read about my experiences. But also it is there so that all of my friends could see how I'm doing by reading this. Reading this blog is voluntary, I don't want to impose my status updates or notes to everyone who I've befriended on facebook.
If you are indeed reading this, could you leave a note saying why you read it? So far the only person who I know to read this is my sister.
I do intend to keep it personal but at the same time, I won't usually name people and certainly not in a negative context because this is public. I don't want to be that kind of a person and also from a legal perspective that might be considered slander.
I am considering about making this private but at the same time I feel puzzled as to why I should hide who I am as a person. Though potentail employers might find this blog, surely everyone can see that I write this to keep my friends updated which would not reflect me as an employee.
Also I sure hope it doesn't paint an unfair picture of me as a person, right?
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Blogging
I'm really getting into the whole blogging vibe. I started another one, this time compiling all the stuff my friends say and I manage to write down.
Boring you might think but give it a go. Quite a good revelation into why I have such a good time here in Cardiff.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Friday, 30 October 2009
Truth is in the dreams
I value sleep a lot. I prefer to sleep 10 hours a night. Normally this has not been a problem. Being a politics student meant that I could study whenever I wanted and rarely had any morning classes.
In Cardiff however this is hardly the case. We are now kicking into proper working mode and there are so many deadlines and stories we need to be working on in parallel that it is just constant work essentially. I'm in front of this computer (or my computer at the maglab) for most of the time I'm awake.
But not only that. When I'm walking down the street I tend to carry a camera so if I see a nice spot I will pause to take a picture in case it would fit into a story later on. Also should I run into a possible story I have the possibility of recording it somehow.
When I'm out with friends I tend to think what stories I could write about stuff they say. I quite often keep a notepad with me if someone says something funny and take it down.
So how this relates to my sleep is firstly that I don't have much time to sleep. But when I do get into my bed, exhausted, my mind doesn't stop. Perhaps it is still the novelty of all this, but I keep going through stuff that I need to do, what could I write about and those kinds of things.
I have gone to bed, rolled around for a few hours only to get up in the early hours of the morning to write a new blog entry or write down what I just thought for an article.
When I finally do fall asleep it's all about the stuff I do during the day. Twitter, interviews and story ideas are now regulars in my dreams. I need to find a switch to turn it off sometime soon.
In Cardiff however this is hardly the case. We are now kicking into proper working mode and there are so many deadlines and stories we need to be working on in parallel that it is just constant work essentially. I'm in front of this computer (or my computer at the maglab) for most of the time I'm awake.
But not only that. When I'm walking down the street I tend to carry a camera so if I see a nice spot I will pause to take a picture in case it would fit into a story later on. Also should I run into a possible story I have the possibility of recording it somehow.
When I'm out with friends I tend to think what stories I could write about stuff they say. I quite often keep a notepad with me if someone says something funny and take it down.
So how this relates to my sleep is firstly that I don't have much time to sleep. But when I do get into my bed, exhausted, my mind doesn't stop. Perhaps it is still the novelty of all this, but I keep going through stuff that I need to do, what could I write about and those kinds of things.
I have gone to bed, rolled around for a few hours only to get up in the early hours of the morning to write a new blog entry or write down what I just thought for an article.
When I finally do fall asleep it's all about the stuff I do during the day. Twitter, interviews and story ideas are now regulars in my dreams. I need to find a switch to turn it off sometime soon.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Languages
Living in the UK means that I'm most of the time surrounded by people who only speak English fluently. So naturally they're curious how I function with my English and I have to answer questions like in which language do I dream or think.
These are really difficult questions for me to answer. It takes me a while and I don't think I can give a proper answer.
I have at times had a conversation and then had to afterwards contemplate did I just speak Finnish or English. When I'm forming a sentence I sometimes stop to look for the right word and I go through a list in my mind first in the language I'm currently using and then try the other language to see if it would remind me of the word I'm looking for. Most of the time I'd say it depends on the context which language I use. English tends to be dominant because I live mostly in an English-speaking environment.
But what makes me uneasy is that I find it easier to communicate in English. Most often I translate English phrases directly into Finnish rather than the other way around. My brain is attuned to English. But it's also weird because I'm not a native speaker so I'm not perfect in the language but I'm still better at it than my own native language.
Finnish is a difficult language. Me living abroad and studying in English means I don't write in Finnish and only speak with friends and family. Because of this also my dialect in Finnish is overly Lohja, I'm not hearing much else. So the grammar said byebye already in sixth form and whatever remained was gone a long time ago. I get asked where I'm from in Finland when I speak Finnish because I speak it a bit funny.
Same here in Cardiff. Most people outside from Britain would say I have a British accent. Some English think I have a Welsh accent. But those from Wales have a hard time pinpointing where I'm from, they usually guess something along the lines of Canada and South-Africa.
I guess I'm just ambiguous.
These are really difficult questions for me to answer. It takes me a while and I don't think I can give a proper answer.
I have at times had a conversation and then had to afterwards contemplate did I just speak Finnish or English. When I'm forming a sentence I sometimes stop to look for the right word and I go through a list in my mind first in the language I'm currently using and then try the other language to see if it would remind me of the word I'm looking for. Most of the time I'd say it depends on the context which language I use. English tends to be dominant because I live mostly in an English-speaking environment.
But what makes me uneasy is that I find it easier to communicate in English. Most often I translate English phrases directly into Finnish rather than the other way around. My brain is attuned to English. But it's also weird because I'm not a native speaker so I'm not perfect in the language but I'm still better at it than my own native language.
Finnish is a difficult language. Me living abroad and studying in English means I don't write in Finnish and only speak with friends and family. Because of this also my dialect in Finnish is overly Lohja, I'm not hearing much else. So the grammar said byebye already in sixth form and whatever remained was gone a long time ago. I get asked where I'm from in Finland when I speak Finnish because I speak it a bit funny.
Same here in Cardiff. Most people outside from Britain would say I have a British accent. Some English think I have a Welsh accent. But those from Wales have a hard time pinpointing where I'm from, they usually guess something along the lines of Canada and South-Africa.
I guess I'm just ambiguous.
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