First days in Leeds

I am in Leeds. It is wonderful, weird, funny and so so absurd to be in this house and in this city. It's my third day here in the north and it has been so much fun so far. The school only starts tomorrow morning (or the welcome week at least) and we have been exploring the city without any expectations or prejudices. There's only been positive surprises and things have gone so smoothly. Even the first day, when I woke up at 4.30 am in Kirkkonummi, Finland, travelled to Helsinki-Vantaa airport and we flew to London Heathrow, taking a tube to Victoria station, getting in the bus to Leeds and finally after 5 hours on the weird noise making bus journeying through the English Midlands a taxi to Kelsall Terrace, went beautifully without any stress or frowns. No kidding! Even the lack of elevators in the tube stations or the 5 changes of a tube couldn't bring us down. At the end of the day we were so proud of ourselves with my fellow exchange student Kata!

So far it's been all about the city centre, Starbucks, getting to know our flatmates, Fish 'n Chips and some shopping in the sweetest and cutest little shops. This week's plans are going to be interesting. On Thursday we were thinking about going to the first gig, skip the welcome party and see Panic at the Disco. On Saturday we will travel to Manchester, to vote for the first (openly) gay president in Finland. And on Sunday it will be York, and I've been told it is really going to be beautiful. Besides doing all these fun things, I have to get myself a student MetroCard, English phone number and probably an English bank account as well. I will be informed about that tomorrow I guess.

Me having some Fish 'n Chips in the Nash's.

This was just a quick comment about the beginning, I will be wiser about everything sooner or later. Now I don't really have much else to say, but I am loving every single moment of it. Absolutely brilliant and the people are so polite, calling us "darling", "babes" or "love" all the time. I miss my friends and family, but not Finland. I will be interested to see how my feelings towards the cold northern home will change during this exchange. The chocolate in Finland is better for sure though.

Cheers

Time has come

In less than a week, next Sunday, I will pack my bags and fly to London. Then I will take a train or a bus and journey to the beautiful Northern England and the city of Leeds.
In other words, the 5 months period of my exchange starts very soon! The most interesting observation right now is that I am actually not panicking at all. I have been fighting with Kela and lost the battle (for now anyway), I haven't even started packing yet, I know I won't see my loved ones for a long time and other stuff like this is probably going to hit me in the face with an imaginary shovel when I get to Leeds and have time to stop and think for a moment. I'm not going alone anyway and there is always Skype..... So I can't really see the point of panicking right now. Instead I am concentrating on bringing all my music from the old lap top to the new one. Which I love btw, the lightest and most compact sized Asus there is. <3

I plan to continue writing this blog more often (weekly at least) from now on. I haven't decided yet about the languge I'm going to use, and it's possible some posts will be in English and some posts in Finnish. I will post pictures as much as possible, tell about the things I've done and places I've seen and also about the aspect of moving in a foreign country.

Right now I don't want to go deeper into it because I need to tell about the cult I've joined. I'm a proud member of the Wolf Pack, which happened on the Independence Day of Finland at the legendary Tavastia Club in Helsinki. I'm pretty mad I had not heard about Mr Wolf before the year 2011 because he is one of most inspiring musicians who can create unique sounds and musical worlds by multi-talented instrument playing and mesmerizing strong voice and huge stage charisma.

I recommend everyone to have a listen to the prince of folktronica, Patrick Wolf.

"Cold showers are for psychopaths"

As the imaginary reader can see my blog doesn't look pretty at the moment, which is consequence to me deciding to change the appearance of it and pretty soon after that getting bored doing it, which leads to the fact it looks horrible. I hope the imaginary reader can forgive me.

I haven't been writing anything here or anywhere else for couple of months. After this week I have realised many things, come to understand some things and thought about, well, things. I could say I have seen the light, but probably more accurate expression would be that I have seen the black holes of this life. I've been reading quite a lot, some blogs, some books, some articles, and have come into a conclusion it's all a big scam. Of course I have known this for a long time, but knowing is not the same as realising. It's like being in a huge crowded room and seeing all the people but not really having a conversation with any of them particularly. When you go to a silent corner of the room and stop seeing everyone and instead you really see someone, a person, a human behind all the commotion. Then you can say you are paying attention, realising instead of passively knowing.

However, seeing the life as it is, the personal truth, is worth nothing to any other living soul than you. Sometimes you see a person (you most definately admire already) say something that opens your eyes. It's all lies though, and you're own individual thoughts and ideas do not exist. There's no need to get sad about this though, because we still have thoughts and ideas, we still have values and heroes and ideologies. If it's all based on a lie does it really matter? The counter argument is based on a lie as well.
I can't help it but I am quite extreme supporter of philosophical relativism. But I don't like pre-chewed theories, I got my own teeth for that. I think ideology is a matter of the number of habits and manners you have adopted. Without the daily routines we are anarchists!

Anyway, I don't have anything to say that anyone else but me would be interested in, so let's smoothly change the subject.
The long expected IAMX gig was a week ago, and I got no words to tell how huge it was. Without art there is no soul, and I feel like my soul is doing much better after seeing and feeling what I saw and felt.
I must say I fell in love with Janine Gezang. No kidding!

   

Only thing you can rely on is that you can't rely on anything

I got 2 weeks off from work which is a very needed break indeed. Besides being happily on a winter vacation I am more than happy to announce that I was accepted to the Leeds Metropolitan University to study tourism, hospitality & retailing and event management for the 5 months time in spring 2012. I just got all the motivation that was missing coming back to me. I've always played with the thought of living abroad and now I can actually try for real if it's going to be as good as I've imagined. Is the grass really as green as I've thought it is in England? At the moment, when it's still about 8 months before I leave, I pretty much feel this is the dream coming true and nothing could possibly disappoint me! As I've heard people's experiences and stories about all the things that can go wrong and become an issue I am still not afraid of going. I'm going to take this as a exploration and an adventure. I got certain expectations but hell with them! What happens, happens and I'm aware everything is not going to be going smoothly. But that will just make it all more interesting and exciting :)


When I return to Finland, I expect I can say "Bloody 'ell matey" and sound convincing :D



 

Waiting is the salt of life

Today was supposed to be the day I have been waiting for months. But unfortunately IAMX had to cancel the Nosturi gig due to vicious virus that almost the whole band has caught. Of course me and my friend are terribly disappointed but these things happen and I hope they will be well soon. However, the biggest fear of mine didn't come true, and the gig has been rescheduled :) There will be another 2 and half months of waiting which in the life of a fan is not really that much. After all, the 23rd of March I received the new album Volatile Times and I really think it's amazing. Much more challenging the the previous ones but definately in a good way.
Today, instead of the Nosturi we are probably heading to the relatively new bar Bäkkäri owned by Jussi 69. Since I first heard about it I have wanted to see if its worth all the hype. Tonight there's going to be the official after party of the Ink Fair at Cable Factory, featuring couple of bands, so it should be fun. :)

I love the new album and it was hard to choose a song to recommend to everyone, but this beautiful morning I've been listening most to this one:

Good things must come to an end

I'm a master of missing the goodbye gigs of the bands I really love and have lived with. The Ark is not an exception. The last album was honestly a huge load of crap but The Ark will always be in my heart. It all started at the end of the summer 2002 when I was watching Levyraati on TV, and saw this video of beautiful Swedish freaks singing about how they must have the same rights as every other citizen. The Ark became very popular in Finland too and it all kind of ended when they took part in the Eurovision Song Contest which was kind of a deathblow for the band. From the point of view of a fan they never recovered from the fame and disappointment that followed.
I will always cherish the memories I have and the couple of exceptionally fantastic albums they made though.
I'm also very relieved I didn't get any tickets for the goodbye concert in Tavastia because I am not interested in the dying, weak and over sentimental side of a band I respect for it's vitality, energy and happy foolishness!

RIP The Ark

I will always remember that we can never let the bullies set the rules and fighting love always makes you a loser! <3 

   

Leeds here I come!!!

In a year time, the spring 2012, this should be the environment I will be studying in. Just a moment ago I sent my application for the international exchange programme and Leeds Metropolitan University is my number one choice! (Here's a video and very appropriate song from the official band of Leeds)

I spent almost 3 hours writing a motivation letter, and if they won't give me this chance to go to Leeds, well then I know I have tried my best. I'm not going to accept "no" for an answer though. I am going to Leeds or else I don't think I will have motivation to finish the school at all. This has been a dream for years, and it is now or never. So, keeping fingers crossed here!