i have survived

Okay, so: I think I can safely say I have survived fresher's week. There's still some kind of pyjama party thing tonight, but the ultimate "survival" party was last night and I'm actually really looking forward to tomorrow's lectures, so I wanna be fresh tomorrow. As in fresh like the morning dew in the sunshine, not as in fresher fresh. I'm done with being fresher fresh, at least until next week-end (that's when I'm going to a pub crawl held by GU Nordic Society). We're gonna have a big dinner with all our flatmates to celebrate getting through the week alive. I'm gonna bake banana bread!

But it was pretty epic. Non stop partying for a week. Here's a list of my ultimate favourite party moments of the week:

- Putting your hand in the enormous mass of foam in a GUU (= Glasgow University Union) foam party (in the purpose of rubbing the foam all over your friends' faces, of course) and finding a swim fin. The fin is now in our kitchen as a party trophy.

- Drinking shots so that after every shot you have to kiss a picture of the Pope

- Playing Ring of Fire, the ultimate drinking game, practically every night with your flatmates

- Going out to the balcony for some fresh air in the kitchen, looking down to the garden (we're in the second floor); oh, so THAT'S where our missing mop is. Someone has thrown it down.

- Suddenly the security guys crash our flat party. But not because they want to complain about our party; no, apparently there's a CCTV in our balcony and they've seen somebody smoking there, which apparently is banned even in the balcony. So we live in a Big Brother house? Well, after preaching to us a little, the security guy says: "...and what's that piece of toilet doing on the table?". Somebody has taken our toilet seat and put it on kitchen table. Yuck.

- Dancing to Lion King and High School Musical tunes in the QM (= Queen Margaret Union, the other of the two GU unions) headphone disco. The club night's epic ending: everybody's singing "Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" ("O ye'll tak' the high road and I'll tak the low road, an' I'll be in Scotland afore ye; but me and my true love will never meet again on the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomon'") at the top of their lungs

- Dancing to Digimon opening theme in the kitchen.

- Making the most awful punch ever (including vodka, cranberry juice, beer, Strongbow, tequila, sparkling wine, salty liquorice shots, Jägermeister and everything else we can get in our hands) and making everyone in the building taste it and taking pictures of their faces

- Waking up in the morning, looking at your desk and finding a unfamiliar pair of sunglasses without now idea whose they are. Your own sunglasses are missing.

- Waking up in the morning, wanting to put some ice in your juice; but the freezer is filled with weird, unidentified frozen goo. Oh right. We've forgotten to take out the beer cans and they apparently have exploded during the night.

- Waking up in the morning, thinking: "Oh, I actually feel pretty good!" But after some thought you realize, that no, you're not good; you have just forgotten how it feels like not to wake up hang over, so it feels weirdly normal.


This is the censored list, though. Kinda relieved the week is over. Can't wait for tomorrow! University life, here I come!

tomorrow you won't remember a thing anyway

It's now been a week of my new, glorious life as a Scot. So about time I finally sat down and wrote a thing or two about it.

I actually find myself very content with my situation (I've got the feeling this just now was a Jane Austin quote....). Well, more than content; today and yesterday I woke up with a big grin on my face. It does feel wonderful. Sitting like this in my own room, in front of my own wonderful Mac, drinking excellent coffee I made with my brand new (and a little too expensive....) coffee maker, from my beautiful, own Iittala-design mug; all the while knowing that I can spend the whole day however I want in this interesting, lively, weird, bubbling city. It's begging for me to come and explore it thoroughly. That's not possible, though; this city is way too big to be explored inside out.

Anyways, there's so much thing I'd like to talk to you guys about - I'm gonna tell it in a form of a list to make it easier for me and you!

1. Life in the student halls

I'm telling ya, it has it's good and bad points. Good; I really like my 10 other flatmates (haven't met the 11th one yet). They're nice lads, who ask me how I'm doing today and want to chat when hanging around in the kitchen, who dance as crazy as me on the dance floors of freshers' parties, who don't mind if I ask them to repeat what they said w

hen their Scottish accent gets the best of me (our flat has two Finns, th

at would be me and Karkki, one bulgarian, and all the others are Scotts). Bad; the kitchen is a terrible mess, and you can hear practically _everything_ that's going on in the room next door... Our rooms are really dreary and when we came here, the iron, the toaster and the other stove didn't work... Can't believe I'm paying 400 pounds a month for this...

Yay, it's a flat party!

...and this would be how our kitchen table looks most of the time...

2. Fresher's week

It's crazy, I'm telling ya. Parties, drinking, parties and more drinking. In the halls, in the streets, in the clubs, at the campus - everywhere. I can't believe that here the University's unions actually have clubs and bars of their own. Not that I'm complaining...! Other great thing about Fresher's week is how they keep giving me all kinds of free stuff when I go tho the campus. Two days in a row I didn't make lunch 'coz I got to eat free pizza and free breakfast. I've gotten free tabasco, toothpaste, onion, tomato, chocolate, carrot, potato, meal tickets, club passes, candies, corn flakes, energy drinks, calendar... This city really loves freshers.

3. The University

The campus is real interesting. It has the most beautiful old buildings - the main building itself looks like Hogwarts! Then there are also some pretty nice, brand new, modern buildings. Then there are these horrible, awful, simply hideous buildings, which are like the embodiments of ugliness. And the campus has got everything; different kinds of shops, cafés, restaurants, movie theaters, libraries, parks. I've grown really fond of the campus. I'm telling ya.

Some shots from the main building, inner court

I just found it real cool that there's a tombstone in the campus with a Bob Dylan lyric! Gotta find out who this guy was

4. The Classes

Oooooooooh, I'm telling ya - I can't wait for them to begin! I ended up choosing Theatre Studies, Film and TV and Classics as my subjects. So I'm gonna spend the next year watching movies and plays, reading Homer and Shakespeare, analysing and pondering the deep questions of Arts - I feel so amazing just thinking about that! Monday is my first lecture! Aaaaaaaaaa

5. My iPod is...

...acting real weird and I'm afraid it's gonna stop working. I'm gonna die if I lose all my music and my iPod :'( I mean, in a way, I do feel a little homesick already - listened to Antti Autio Trio today, and I wanna keep listening to that, The Crash, Leevi and the Leavings, John McGregor and other Finnish acts in the future.

So, that's about it for today - right now I feel like relaxin' a bit before the Cheeky Pop - party tonight. Probably gonna watch Sense and Sensibility, don't like that movie version that much, but it does have Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant...

time to go

'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where —' said Alice.
'Then, it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

I'm so lame - I never have enough words, so I shall steal some from the greater minds. I should already be sleeping, gotta get up at 5, but I haven't even done packing... Today I mainly saved my energy for saying goodbyes. And I'm glad I did. One thinks they'd get easier after having to practise so much. Enough of that. I really have to be able to finish packing.

Anyway, actually I feel a nice bubbling inside of me - tomorrow at this hour I'm probably gonna be sitting in my new, own flat room after having met my new roommates and having greeted a whole new city.

Here I go.

royally wasting time

Guess what I did today when I should have been packing? But hey; I finally understood why Squall is one of my favourite FF characters...
(some links which entertained me greatly:)
remedies for Darcymania
Mr. Darcy voted dreamdate

pummi/darra/denafest tribute

I never was very good at saying goodbyes...

packing pondering

So, packing... I started with which I thought was the easiest - my dvd's, books and comics. Hah, how naïve the me of Sunday was... I reserved the smaller suitcase entirely for dvd's and books, thought that would be plenty. No way. My dvd's filled already the first half! And I have even more books! Even though I already had decided not to take Harry Potters or Tolkien's! Oh, this is gonna be so ugly... My mind is a battlefield... "Do I really need the French Grammar Book? But I love it so... And didn't I just finish reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes? But I've used to looking at it on my shelf..."

Truth is I really don't want to leave any of them behind. My books, dvd's and comics are what make me feel home. If I ever feel homesick, I know that watching a loved movie or reading a Lucky Luke is what gets me in the track again.

I've been rereading Potters for the millionth time - how come they always manage to draw me completely in and make me feel all dizzy? To break my sense of reality like I was still eight years old? I've seen dreams somehow related to Potters for six nights in a row already. Last night was the weirdest - I think my antibiotics might have something to do with it, though (my every year tradition of having a sinusitis is early this year)... Somewhere in the borderland of wake and sleep, when you're not really sure if you're already dreaming or still awake, I was convinced that Voldemort was in my room for hours.

Also packed two very important items I'm not gonna find in Scotland - pulikka and juustohöylä.

a fresh start

Notes from yesterday:

Today I finally started packing. About time; only four nights in Finland left. Untill now, packing just didn't feel... necessary. "I'm leaving to Glasgow" probably just wasn't real before Karkki's and my going away party on Friday. There I kinda hit me - "Hey. I have to say goodbye to these people. I'm actually going somewhere where I can't just see them whenever I want to. That's what going away is, I guess. I have to say goodbyes." And I did say goodbyes - I've always hated them - and started packing.

I also felt like starting a blog again. Writing things down is important; it's amazing how much one forgets and changes. It's the weirdest feeling, reading entries of your diary you've written only a week or two ago; you can hardly recognize the you of those days. I'm still faithfully dedicated to my diary, but this blog will also give a window for people who might be interested to stalk my new life across the sea. I thought about writing in Finnish, but I write my diary in Finnish, so I believe this will help to keep my interests up. Besides, I can feel how rusty my written English has become..... uh... feels like trying to swim upstream...

Right now Friday seems so huge, so sudden; why wasn't I prepared it would feel like this? I feel mixed. I'm extremely excited and happy, a new city and country which don't know me, a fresh start, an adventure. I know I simply couldn't have stayed here any longer. But all the unpleasant feelings are tingling inside, too. I've lived in this room for many years, every corner and surface is filled with layers of letters, drawings, gifts, photographs, books; memories and faces. And they just remind me how many hard goodbyes I'm gonna go through this week. I hate goodbyes, I really do....