Laziness and money

I just found these pictures from last spring that I forgot to post here then, and they happen to be the oldest pics not published so I was wrong about the northern light pics coming only later on. Now that I have learnt a great deal more about how to capture this amazing phenomenon, these seem like such practise pictures now. You can see with your own eyes later and compare the quality between these and the ones taken two nights ago. I am happy I have improved though!

Northen lights are really something you have to experience yourself to understand the magic in them. I can watch fire like hypnotised for a very long time, and the aurora has the same effect on me. The constantly moving, appearing and disappearing rivers and pillars of green light live me wordless. I can see why there are so many legends and myths involving these 'fires of the fox' as we call them in Finnish. Imagine if you didn't know what is going on, but every now and then it just happens to seem like the sky is on green fire - no wonder people have had most imaginative explications to it. To be able to admire this is one of my favourite things in living this north.

I feel weird now for having done absolutely nothing today. It was hard, I almost started to clean up and wash the dishes, but I thought that this is my day of total vacation aka laziness, and tomorrow I will start doing things again. I didn't even have any school work to do to entertain myself. My body and mind are praying for me to do sports, so I will start tomorrow hoping that I'm recovered fully enough from the cold. If not - well, I might be screwed then, I feel like I simply can't stand still one second longer. We'll see tomorrow what happens, cheers everyone until then!

I want to get a job so bad. I have had an interview, and they were first supposed to tell me last week if I got the place or not, then this week, and now it is Sunday and I still haven't heard of it. So I started writing applications again, sent just one at first somewhere where I'd really like to work, and they sent me an interview invitation right away, so I'm hoping it will work out well. I want a job to keep myself busy, I have too much free time now. Maybe I am too quick to finish all the school assignments. Also economic problems are one of my least favourite things ever in this world, I hate how today everything orbits around money. It changes people. 

The problem with money as we know it, is that there have to be more things to buy all the time, or the system won't work. It is more convenient then to sell low quality products so that people will have to buy them often, instead of making one that would last a lifetime. And when there are no more things to invent for the consumers to spend their money, it will simply collapse. Or that's how I see it. I would more like to live in a society that would be based on sharing and kindness. No, I don't have perfect recipe for it, nor do I know if it would really work. If I think about it, that's how people used to live when we still lived in tribes and smaller groups. Maybe it wouldn't even work in a city, because it would be too many people, but in smaller communities I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. 

I think with so many things you can buy in the world, people have gone blind for their real wants and needs. For example if sometimes there were three different yogurt flavours in the closest supermarket, and you could taste all of them and know for sure which one is your favourite. Now it's not reasonably possible to taste every yogurt on the market, so you can always be left wondering, if the one next to the one you chose would have been tastier or healthier or just better. People are constantly unsatisfied, because there are so many things, so many false needs media and advertisements create, that it is not possible to get everything, not even a fracture of what you think you want or need. And that leaves you unhappy, if you don't realise it and make yourself simply not rely on material things. I have noticed that it really doesn't matter, I've learnt to let go of most of the stupid material desires I used to have. Now the material things I grave for are something that can get me closer to my goals in life that are not material, for example to have money to be able to buy plane tickets to travel around the world and get to take pictures of different cultures and places. Or to have money to buy a horse or few and a place where to have them. Goals in a shorter term would be to get a sewing machine so that I could make clothes and things myself instead of buying everything with the stupid world ruling money, or to have money to be able to actually take dance classes to learn to be a better dancer. And to buy different lenses to my camera, so that I could become a better photographer. It's like you can't do anything in the normal world if you don't have enough money. (I say "normal world", because of course you can sleep under the bridge and hitch hike everywhere and eat food the supermarkets throw away and go nowhere and do nothing that requires money. For me it wouldn't be the way I'd like to live, and to meet my goals and passions and just hanging out with friends and exaggerating practically not-living-in-a-box costs money.) Even eating healthy food is too expensive for a person who doesn't have much extra wealth, at least here in Finland. I would really like to eat healthy, so there the job would help me too. 

I hope you can get something out of my night-time thoughts flow, now good night for me and for you too if you read this before bed time :D

Living My Life

I feel like so much has happened in my life in such a short time! I have been doing and living so much both physically and emotionally that I practically forgot that I own a blog, sorry for that. The good thing in that is that now I have so many pictures I haven't posted here that I can post at least every other day for a while.

I really don't know where to start writing. In these couple of months I have met tons of amazing people and spent many precious moments with them, I have gone for a hike in Lapland, hitchhiked for the first time in my life going around Spain, gotten more tanned than I've been in a long time, picked up more than 30 litres of berries (no kidding), meditated in the woods, seen the northern lights, helped other people the best that I've been able to, lived in a shared apartment for the first time in my life, started living alone for the first time in my life, learnt to cook something else than desserts, fasted for an entire week, and best of all, I have gotten to know someone new who has become incredibly important to me in such a short time. All in all, I have been really happy and able to live in the moment and just enjoy everything around me most of the time. And maybe you already know or have guessed, a while ago I broke up with the person that I thought was the love of my life, and I feel like it was actually healthy and a good thing for me, feeling bad and stressed only for the other person. Luckily he seems to be fine too, and I hope it stays that way.

Now I was sick last week, and I am just waiting to fully recover to be able to do sports again. I now have room enough to practice dancing or capoeira or whatnot in my living room, and I can't wait to start! I desire to go for a run every day to clear my head, climb in a bouldering cave to get some work for my muscles and dance without thinking how I look in the eyes of others.

Last night I saw some amazing northern lights, and could capture a few beautiful pictures, but I still decided to go in order with the oldest pictures I have not published here yet. Auroras will be coming when it's their time.

I also decided to write here more in the future, starting from this post. Writing relaxes me, and I often have flow experiences while writing, so I think it's also good for me and not just nice for someone reading my blog. How selfish of me! I think people should write more, write a diary or a short story or poems or whatever they feel like writing, because I think it is a perfect way of getting to know yourself better and more deeply. By writing you have think about how to put the words and how to express your thoughts and feelings with them, and by doing so, you might realise things you hadn't thought before, even and maybe most when it comes to yourself. People seem to take it for granted that they know what they think so well. I dare everyone reading this to write something for one week every day, and see if you gain anything from it. If nothing life changing, at least every time you write something you learn more about the language even if you wouldn't notice.

Right now I'm thinking that maybe I should have this blog only in English, because it is pretty exhausting to write the same text twice in different languages.  And you can't have the same kind of flow in writing when you already wrote the thing once. And I have at least as many non-Finnish as I have Finnish friends, who might be interested to read about my life every now and then. Or at least check the pictures. Stereotypically I will also argue that Finnish people know English anyway. This is a great example of how writing helps you discover your thoughts in a deeper way, I have just decided something I wasn't sure about before - only while writing this paragraph!

Here we go, this first picture actually isn't taken by me, for I myself am in it, but I thought a good portrait of myself might be nice for a change. Maybe someone hasn't seen me yet. And unfortunately this is going to be the only picture in this post, as I will have to ask some people if it's ok to publish their pictures here. Thanks to one special person in my life, I have started to think, why people want their pictures taken, and what are my reasons why I would want pictures taken of me. More of those thoughts some other time.

I have a secret wish of this blog getting more readers for I might feel some point in writing here then. So I happily welcome any new readers to follow the blog! Also, if you are reading this but are not a reader, please click the "I read the text" box under the post and make me happy! (;

Urban Bird

Ice and Summer

I recently learnt how to put a watermark easily in my pictures, yahoo!

I am now spending my summer partly in Finland, then going to Spain after Midsummer Eve, and then, who knows - being spontaneous is more interesting than plans. I'll try to remember update pictures here a little more often (:

First two are the captures from my hike to the Urho Kekkonen's national park in northern Finland. There was so amazingly thin layer of ice still on a lake, and the sound of it melting and cracking to escape the summer was indescribably beautiful. Kind of rippling, jingling, rumbling and cracking at the same time. Magical.

The rest are from a lake Päijänne in central Finland from a tiny island that I went discovering with the camera. The forth pic is my favourite (:

Changes

I'm sorry for not having posted anything for a long time. It's because recently there have been many changes and things happening in my life, so I haven't had energy or time to post anything. Neither have I used my camera much, but today I took it for a walk in Rovaniemi, as you can see in pictures below (not the two first ones). I'll write about my life here later on, because not everyone in my real life know yet. On Friday I'll take a little vacations from everything and go hiking for a couple of days somewhere here in Lapland (: