Hammock-dreams

Sunday afternoon went by just rocking in a hammock at my friends backyard, Sipping mead and mango-strawberry lassi. The weather was like a young maiden and I just can´t imagine a better way to spend an afternoon. Someday I will have my own hammock too. I'm just afraid I´d never get anything done then. But I'd be busy thinking great thoughts, like Hemingway...
-Tiina

May Day celebrations!

May Day is  on tuesday and like every other student in this town I'm busy celebrating. To me, May Day is even better than Christmas. I'm totally a May Day person ;)

Last night we sat at the Ale Pub with my classmates planning for May Day and getting our overalls ready. Tonight were heading to the Old Harbour and on monday theres going to be even more dancing, marching singin and barbequeing. So until then I wish a very, very happy May Day to y'all!

-Tiina

The soundtrack for the day is, of course, from Gogol Bordello.

Sweet things from scrap!

I just found something wonderfull I want to try too! This girl Katja at maedchenmitherz makes a spring-inspired scrap journal. Every day for a month she makes a new page with a subject by glueing, painting, draving and what not and they look so cool! 

Picture by Katja @ maedchenmitherz

 Now if someone didn't know already, I'm crazy about notebooks, but not so crazy about writing, so here's a way I could put my notebooks into use and make something beautiful out of them. I just have to gather some pictures, and pretty papers and all kinds of scrap. And glues and rulers and a knife and different pencils... Luckily I already have one cupboard full of all sort of missmatch stuff. Whoo! I'm so excited already I want to start right away! My first journal could be about happiness..

-Tiina

At the gates of bureaucracy

It seems that the sicker you get, the closer relationship you are bound to have with KELA. The amount of papers I have to fill and send there is unbelievable. Until last month I had managed to do it all by myself, but then, eventually I had to ask for help. And so I met my social worker, who is actually really nice, and always thinking to my benefit. She always comes up with new benefits that I should apply for, and makes me fill dozens of applications for KELA. I'm not even sure anymore to what  have I applied for. Maybe next time I see her, I should tell her I'm quite content already with what I have. Otherwise it'll be a neverending red tape.

I while ago, I thought I should share with you some tips about how to work with KELA when you get ill. I think my best advice is to ask to see a social worker already when you´re in the hospital. There you can go through together some benefits you're entitled when you're ill. And before you leave the hospital ask the social worker to make you a new appointment after you get home and feel bit better. All the applications and their affixes are way too much to take in when you're not feeling good. Hopefully, you'll have as nice social worker as I have. And when you apply anything from KELA, or the social welfare office, be persistent and ask for help in time. Over here is a finnish welfare guide summoned together by different support associations of people with long-term illnesses. It's vast and helpfull even for those who are well.

Phew.. A lot of heavy stuff here today. My apologies. Other than this, it's been a very good day today =)

-Tiina

Carpe diem my friend!

This morning, after an only hour in school and I could already feel that nothing would work that day. So when I heard my friend would be driving to Oulu after classes I decided to join her. I left school, packed my things and of we went!

The lesson here, seize the moment and live as if someone left the gate open =)

-Tiina

Painfully quiet in here..

A Couple of days ago I went to the dentist and had my one and only wisdom tooth pulled out. The operation itself didn't hurt too much, but  I'm starting to think that nothing before has ached as much  as my face has been aching since. For the past couple of days I´ve only been able to eat ice cream and painkillers and watch Boardwalk Empire. Thats why I haven't been writing anything. Now there´s going to be a massive bruise on my jaw. Now I either have to learn how to make up or just stare the people in the eye and tell them they should see the other heroine. I think I'll choose the last one ;)

-Tiina

A day as a starfish

I once read a book, where there was this woman, who lived by the sea and believed that humas and dolphins had evolved from watermonkeys. The woman herself was addicted to water and she spent most of her days in the water and swam and lived like otters. Eventually she was put in a mental hospital.

Anyways, after I read the book, I thought I'd want to learn to swim properly, so that I could enjoy it like the lady in the book. My swimming is just about passable and I didn't learn it in the swimming school. Luckily my friend offered to teach me, and yesterday we began our lessons in the kids pool. Well, needles to say my swimming style was nowhere near that of the otters. It was more like one of a drowning starfish. But we had lots of fun and I learned to dive without pinching my nose. I think its a start allright and I can't wait for our next lesson.

My exercises have always been bit of and on, but now, since I want to get in shape for that Synja-hiking I've decided it's time for some drastic measures. So yesterday I printed myself a pocket-sized calendar and bought bunch of stickers. From now on, everytime I do sports I get a shiny sticker on my calendar. Now I allready got two!

Have you ever had problems with keeping up with sports or something else you wanted to do but just can't find the time/energy etc.? What were your "drastic measures" then?

-Tiina

A real downturn

The egg-holiday is over and it sure feels like it too. Holiday was good; friends, drinks, good food, love and bowling, good times all and all. So good that its been actually painfull to get back to weekdays.

Yesterday I thought I´d need to get back to blogging after the holiday, but I couldn't bring myself to it. I hated beeing back in Kuopio where all things related to my illness fell on me hard after few days away. I had to go to hospital for some tests, I had to see my therapist and call my GP about my medication. I should have tried to call my dentist to book a new appointment, since the last one was cancelled due my bad medication. After that I should have called the doctors at KUH (Kuopio university hospital) to book an appointment to some medical treatment that can't be done before my teeth are fixed. On top of all that I had received three or four letters from KELA; one was an announcement that I had been admitted some benefits, another announced that some of my benefits were cancelled 'cause I was admitted another and I suppose the third would have been a report request of all things related to the before mentioned benefits. I don't know, I get these letters weekly and I'm too tired to follow them anymore. For months it´s been like this every week and I swear this illness and all this that is related to it is like running my own business. I've gotten so tired of this all and often wish it would all just disappear if I didn't do anything.

I've been writing this blog for about a month now and sometimes I have had to really try and make myself think positive. It's not very easy always and the circumstances aren't actually helping. But now I'm wondering why should I even try being happy when I'm not?? 

-Tiina

Just little things

I'm going on a little holiday to Oulu, but before I do I'd like to share these little things with you. They are from the world known blog Just Little Things.

Happy Easter to everyone!
-Tiina

Mämmiä!

Yay!! I think I´ve finally learned to like mämmi! To those who don't know, mämmi is a traditional finnish pudding made of rye-flours and served in the Easter with milk or cream and sugar. Its dark brown, sticky and pudding-like and its flavour is rather strong. I never liked it before, but now I do! Maybe because I´ve banned my self from eating sweets, I think mämmi now tastes of stout and dark chocolate. Besides, who couldn't possibly like stuff that has a cute little chick and catkins printed on the lid??

-Tiina

The elephant in the room

Well, this post isn't exactly about those positive sparks of life, but I'm gonna share it with you anyway. Maybe then we can laugh on this together..

I have a teacher who clearly thinks that I'm pregnant. She hasn't said or asked anything obvious, but I know she thinks I am. How do I tell her, and to everyone else I meet that I'm not, without embarrassing neither of us? Within the last year I've been through so many absurd and akward situations where people have happily greeted me with "Oh! You're with a child! How wonderful!!" and then after I corrected them gotten so embarrassed  that it's painfull to watch. Since this keeps happening to me, I´d like to find a smooth solution to it. Should I just blurt it out straight away when introducing myself? Like in an AA-meeting? "Hi! My name is Joe and I'm not pregnant." 

If you have any good one-liners on this, please do share =)

-Tiina

Just one random elephant here..