a year abroad

Well hello there.

I'm sitting in Frankfurt airport writing this post with the last 5 minutes I have off my PAID internet. In two hours I am off to Tokio Narita airport and there are major butterflies in my stomach.

This is the farthest and most unfamiliar i have ever been to

So here's for this normal saturday evening that will change my life for a year.  A toast with bionade kampai!

Big day, tomorrow.

Hello.

Today we are preparing for tomorrow's big day. I have packed a full IKEA bag of art supplies and so has I.. It's that time of the year again - entrance exams! A yearly event full of joy and happiness. This is my 4th time applying, ha! So yeah. I think it will also be my last. In Finland people actually do apply for schools 4 times or more, and there's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's a bit of a tough competition but at the same time we are provided with top notch free education, and the thrill of 5 day entrance exams of art assignments from 8 am till 5 pm.

I. has been drawing lines and I packed my pens and so we are off.

Also, something exciting is happening for which I am super excited about. Oh the excitement! What it is, well that cannot be disclosed quite yet. Just watch this space.

Little things I probably don't need but like

a list
- japanese masking tape
- jars, that are hard to open but so pretty
- these scissors designed by Klaus Haapaniemi (fiskars, such a good scissor to have)

Stories of our lives

This post is personal, written in vague terms, never the less opening myself up just a little bit because I want to document this for the me to come, and because I wish sometime in the future I no longer feel this way and because it's hard to be honest about unhappiness and write about stuff that doesn't involve the weather.

Recently I have been thinking about my life. Where I am, what I am doing, how I got here.
It's tough. To find myself in a place that I did not approve of, that didn't belong to any plan I have ever had, to a place where I would have been better suited 5 year ago (or more).
It kills me inside just a little bit and for once I don't know what to do, what my next step is.
And this has been my thought process for the past 12 months. I've been thrown into a loop but I just have to hold on to dear whatever is out there that will make this worth it.

So I sleep here.

Read this, maybe watch some of those.

All in a room with only my clothes not my name.

And then grow increasingly homesick and suffer a great deal of nostalgia.
Remembering times years ago, living in the past, trying to fit it into the future. Missing all those people I have missed, sometimes heartachingly. And somehow it seems that this year came as a weird surprise. Like a lot of things have before, but this as a kind of unpleasant surprise in many ways. I'm giving up for something I believe in, in ways I have never before but it's hard. And yeah, I wish I could actually for once say that: I am where I belong and I am happy.

helium balloon.

 Woops. I'm a little embarrassed. It's been a while since I updated and I've really neglected this space. Sorry. Anyway, great news.

It's almost summer. In other parts of the world the end of May would be considered to be a summer-ish month but here in Finland the leaves haven't even bud out completely. Summer (here) is so special and I want to enjoy it truly. Especially when there are proportionally a lot more long dark grey gloomy days during a year than say, anywhere out of Scandinavia.

I already have my summer song.  Helium pallo (helium balloon).
I hate music festivals because I dislike big crowds of people and intoxicated behavior, but to see these guys outdoors while the sun is setting in a haze, yes, I would reconsider.

Sunflowers

I wish so much to be able to pack and take a long-distance flight somewhere. There is just so much to see and I want to see it all.  But I can't really. I should be working on several things right now, school application as a priority. I want to also work more on this blog, get a camera and be able to share more.

I sporadically practice illustrator and come up with fairly simple designs, mostly flowers right now. I wonder whether I will ever make anything of commercial value and actually be able to make some sort of a living with these pictures I create. I hope so. So far I am in the beginning, and these pictures I post are mostly documentations of that process. I don't think these are really that good but it's a step forward from what I started from, can't wait to make something actually really good...

Spring!