Photo contest and a new CV

I have been so busy these last few days that I haven't even had time to cook properly at home. I kind of like this, doing a lot of things and keeping myself occupied, I feel like I'm not totally unproductive, and might be of some help. Then I actually get good notes even when not attending to the lectures, as I'm on the move all the time even without them, and that's fine for me!

The first snow fell down here in Rovaniemi yesterday. It wasn't snowing when I left to meet some friends, and I was totally horrified when I realised I have to drive my bike home in the snow. It is funny how I am afraid of driving a bike, when there's no problem with people throwing me in the air and me doing flips and spinning or something. I have climbed up a rope, put it around me and come spinning down absolutely loving the feeling, but riding a bike scares me. When I have to go past narrow places, my heart starts beating harder almost every time, and the snow is killing me. I didn't even dare to turn the front wheel last night, so I'd just get down and walk the curves. Today I felt just a little more secure, but it was still an awful experience. I mean what's wrong with me, I even know how to drive a one wheeled bike, but still a normal one is the scary one for me! That's what I'm going to say is my weakness in my next work interview: "I might not get to work on time if there's snow on the ground". I apparently need some sleep now :D

I entered a photo contest with this picture today:

I don't know if it's good enough for a competition, but it's one of my favourite pics anyway, taken in Helsinki last December. I like the yellow light of the winter's low sunlight and the environment it creates.

I got so excited about making myself a new curriculum vitae last night that I didn't sleep at all. Here's the result with no valid information, (and the parts I saved are in Finnish):

I have been applying to some more jobs now, but there's one I would really love, would be the chief editor in my university's student' union's magazine. I am such a grammatical nazi that I would actually love to read texts and make them better, and to be able to write and get paid for it, and to be able to be part of the union, and also use my creativity and ooh I just want it so bad! I don't know if there are going to be many applicants, but I hope that at least I'd get to the interview. At the moment, I have so much will and motivation to work that anyone hiring me would gain a hard working and a happy employee.

Finally some pictures again, these are from my summer in Spain, where I was busy being on vacation, and actually used my camera much less than usual. 

Unnatural Death?

This time I'll give you pictures from my trip to Helsinki in early December (it's me in the last pic!), and some talk about death and old age, as it has been much in my mind lately because of my grand parents. I know my opinions are not to everyone's liking, but this is me being honest, and I definitely don't want to make everyone to think the same way either (:

I feel like in this modern culture the naturalness of the death has been forgotten. Surrounded by all these pills, medicines and machines the death is the unnatural thing that comes when you haven't treated someone well, long or strongly enough. I would never want to have a machine controlling my life or death, or even see a loved one get to that stage, because I don't think it is really life - at least not life worth living for. I know many don't agree with me, but I'm not ashamed of my opinion: when the time has come to someone, you should be able to let go. When someone can't recognise their friends and family anymore, or talk or think understandably, it doesn't matter much if the body is healthy. A relative of mine said this about my grandfather who has Alzheimer's disease: his soul (I would say mind) has gone in advance, but the body is strong and still hanging on here. You can't have any rational answers to even normal daily questions from a person in that stage, so who and how is in the position of deciding if the person still wants to live that way. I don't mean euthanasia here (that I agree with totally depending on the case), but that if an old person, whose mind isn't working anymore, has let's say a heart attack, I would think twice before trying to bring them back to life.

(Just to not have any misunderstandings: all this what I'm writing obviously only applies to someone, who's mentally not well for old age or some disease for example. So I'm not telling to kill every old person there is.)

The difficult question must be, who is to decide when someone's life is not worth living anymore. Even fully healthy people have very different points of view about "life worth living", so who's going to decide for those who can't have any rational opinions about anything anymore, or who can't express those opinions. I definitely don't have any answers to how to tell when the life isn't living anymore, I just think that when it gets there, it might be better not to live.

I always try to think my life and decisions by the golden rule ("Do to others what you would like them to do to you, and don't do anything you wouldn't like to be done to yourself."), and I do so concerning death and euthanasia also. Directly speaking, I would like to go quickly without years of suffering in the old age. Of course I would love to live to be an old lady, but only if I would be in good shape mentally and physically at that time too. And I highly recommend applying the golden rule to everyone, because that suddenly might make decisions easier and more logical, even though sometimes it is hard when there are too many points of view (:

I once read about some native tribe somewhere (well that sounds reliable :D) that used to send their elders in a canoe to the river to die when they either for the age of their mind or body could not participate in normal life anymore. According to their believes, this was the way they saved their people from the suffering of the old age, and from the shame of not being able to function normally. Death was not scary or unnatural, but something inescapable, and if I remember well, the ceremony had a positive  atmosphere unlike the sad funerals of today. It was celebrated that the soul is free now and the body isn't suffering anymore. Let everyone think what they like, but I would rather chose this destiny than lying in a hospital, nursing home or even at home extending the suffering.


I'll post more pictures tomorrow with no writing just to catch up with more recent pics!

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True Friends

It's unbelievable how easy it is to be with some people. The other day, hours went by flying when I was talking to a good friend of mine that I hadn't seen for ages. I can't remember if it was me or my best friend who said that those people, who you haven't seen for a long time but it still feels as if you had met them yesterday, are true friends. Luckily I have noticed that I have a bunch of those incredible and personal people, and I have understood not to feel sorry for those who have slipped away over the years - during this trip I haven't even had time to see all of my friends in Helsinki, and some of them I might not meet again. I try to remember to be happy for what I have, and not to be sad for what I don't have in my life. Hold on to those true friends!

Here I have some more pictures for you, though they are still from November in Rovaniemi (:

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Christmas Time

I have been spending my winter holidays in Helsinki. There is surprisingly lot to see and do in your old home town when you only have three weeks time. And unfortunately I spent a few days of that time just lying in my bed because of a flu, when in an alternative reality I could have been visiting friends, family and places I want to see. I wouldn't have thought I'd miss Helsinki this much when I first got here, but now I'm already ready to get back to the north. There's still something so nostalgic in this visit, and I actually love this city even though I wouldn't like to live here.

I am very contempt with the Christmas with my family and the few wonderful presents we got. Still, much more beautiful was to see other people being amazed and happy with the gifts I gave them. When you hear the words "this is everything I could ever hope for" coming from the mouth of your eight year old nephew, you know your night won't be ruined even if it would be for the end of the world. I gave my siblings and my parents calendars made from pictures taken by me, and I was so pleased to see that they seemed truly impressed and happy with them (:

I also installed the 30-day trial of photoshop lightroom to the computer of my parents, and luckily, for being sick I had enough time to choose pics out of the hundreds I had in my camera and edit them, so finally here we have some photos! Though they are from November, but I'll be moving on to some more recent pics in the next posts. I hope everyone had an amazingly wonderful Christmas!

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First Snow

Oh my, how time flies when doing school work and packing backpacks, I just now got my last taken pictures ready for posting, but I don't have any time to write something more enlightening. That is, because we are heading to Helsinki tomorrow and I want to get some sleep before the 5 am wake up. An exciting thing is (if everything goes as planned) also going to occur on the way to the south, because we are after long considering going to buy a used car. I just hope everything goes well, and that by this time tomorrow we'll be in Helsinki and happy car owners.

Here are the pictures from the day before yesterday, the first time it snowed this autumn/winter. This morning the temperatures were 10 celsius below zero!

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