Social Animal

I have had a very nice couple of days, it feels like everything has gone just the way it's supposed to. First, on Saturday we had our subject association's birthday party with a theme of 1920's. There were many new people, and I was proud of myself to actually get to know many of them, because I'm normally really shy and not good hanging out with totally new people. And it was really cool to dress up like a 20's lady - there was a photographer and a place to take group pictures, I'll maybe post some here when they are published. The after party was simply awesome, because I danced two hours in a row with some old and new crazy friends.

Yesterday I participated in student's Shrovetide's celebrations by playing snow football in my subject association's team. If you don't know what it is like, I can describe it briefly: amazingly fun, socially connecting, chaotic and physically hard as hell! Right now every muscle in my body hurts because of having kicked a football in snow, and also I'm full of bruises because of the chaotic nature of the game (probably other people have bruises because of me, too…), but I have kind of always liked the feeling of hurting muscles, because then you know you have really done something. But god, that was fun! And again, I'm proud of myself for getting to know new people, because there were almost none I knew from before. I was supposed to be there only for taking pictures, but I'm happy I was recruited to the team.

And I can't express how weird and confusing it was again that at night at the after party of this event there were no people I knew again! Then I totally exceeded myself and went to talk to a guy with whom I had changed names before, and told him that I really know no one there, and that he looks like a nice person so I would like to join him if that's fine with him. Then we talked whole night and he actually was a really nice person and I'm hoping to get to know him better in the future.

When O came to pick me up, we noticed that for the first time in weeks the sky was clear, so we decided to go check if there were any northern lights - and there were! I didn't have my camera with me, and the lights were not too strong, but it was amazing to be there with under the stars, really bright moon and the northern lights with the man I love.

In these images you can see an example of how the weather has been for way too long now. Just cloudy and gray.

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Dog's Life

All my energy is gone for having worked two hours interviewing people outside a store in a rain, so no text this time either (:
Enjoy the puppies instead!

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Sun Is Coming Back

I always start having much more energy when it's noticeable that the days are getting longer again. I visited my grandparents, and there went to introduce my camera to the countryside's forests during sunset. The pictures in the earlier post are actually from the same walk.

Nature makes me feel so relaxed and simply good, happy. It's like I don't have anything to worry about, and I can feel myself in the moment being part of everything. I might have already written that, but I really can't stress enough how important nature and that feeling are to me, and how important it is that everyone should feel like that sometimes. That feeling makes my problems seem silly and unimportant, and I remember not to worry so much. I think it's kind of meditation.

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Winter Wonderland

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New Year

Here is my New Year's post that's a little late written (but who cares!).

I didn't make any resolutions, because I think it's not logical to promise to do something the year following, only because it happens to be the day when our calendar year changes. For me, I prefer making promises whenever I feel ready and motivated to change my life in some way. Right now I'm in a process of cutting down the amount of sugar I eat, because even though I know it's really really bad for me, it's been hard to eat less sweet things. I had thought about it as my one bad habit, but now little by little I decided to reduce my sugar eating. I'm still in the phase of "drinking tea without sugar" and "only bake one sweet thing every two weeks" and "try to invite someone over to eat the sweet thing you've made". Because baking is one of my hobbies, I would like to still keep doing it when I have the chance of sharing the results.

Another kind of change in my life I'm processing right now is doing more sports. I don't see it as very challenging, because I've always loved moving and have had like five trainings per week, but now I just needed motivation to start doing something again. I started dance classes last week, and I've been doing some physical strength training every other day, and I think it's just fine like this. I would really love to have a dog also because of the amount of walk it requires, and for previous experience, most of the time it doesn't feel like I have to go for a walk only because of the dog. It just makes a good habit out of it as far as I know.

I asked my best friend recently what she thinks is the best thing in having your own dog, and she answered me with a novel, and it didn't really help me with my puppy fever (not that I would want to be helped anyway..). She talked about the trust and unconditional love and friendship with the dog, and that someone who has never had pets just can't know how much you grow to care about each other, and how much it can make your life happier. That would be the novel in two sentences (:

Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or soon anyway I'm going to post now actually much more recent pictures, and then I should be up to date with them. Pictures here are from my New Year's celebration, and some things I've been baking (:

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