Avril Lavigne in a bikini.

I've been having an emotional hungover after last week.

I never imagined I could be so happy around people. It's like I'm a completely different person now. My social phobia is almost gone.

I realized how great my life could be if only I had more friends. Friends I could meet everyday, even if just to say hello and chat a little nonsense. That could keep me happy.

But no. I'm back to seeing and talking to no one at all every single day, unless I go to buy groceries or something else, so I get to say hi to the salespeople. Not very gratifying. Now that I know just how much I've missed out on, I can't stand being alone anymore.

I'm trying not to freak out about having no lectures or classes. I only have a couple of papers to write. I have no work.

I really, really, really have to find some work soon or I'll go crazy. Not just any work, but work where I can meet people and chat with them. I'd love to do something similar to what I did at EAA, helping and guiding people. So I could keep my spirit up until the day when I might have a friend or two to help me keep sane.

Because I know it can't happen very quickly. It takes time to find a friend with whom you can spend a lot of time. I met some nice people at EAA, but they all already have a wide circle of friends. Of course they don't mind new ones, but they probably won't start spending a lot of time with me on a regular basis. They think I have my good old friends as well, so they don't know just how desperate I am.

I do have a couple of friends of course, and they're all great. But no one lives in Tampere. Except Deniselle, if I'm allowed to call her a friend yet. An online buddy? I've been gathering courage to ask her to meet up some day. She seems like such a fun person.

Until then, all I can do is try to keep busy. One surefire way of making me smile is some Avril-therapy, watching old videos of her and watching her brand new bikini pics:



I'm not a lesbian or anything, but Avril's so freaking hawt!!

My French friend just can't accept that I like watching women in a non-lesbian way. Why is it such a big deal that I can appreciate female beauty but don't want to romance women? Must be a guy thing. In fact, I read about research where they found that women enjoy watching both men and women naked more often than men. See! It's biology, people. Women are naturally more bisexual than men!

I'm a rawk star now.

So back in March, Amoena tagged me with the Rock Star meme.

This is what it requires you to do:

1) Go to Wikipedia and hit the random link on the left sidebar, under the navigation heading. The first article you get is the name of your band.

2) Go to the website The Quotations Page. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your album.

3) Go to Flicker's Randomizer feature. The third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover.

4)Use Photoshop or another photo editing software to create your album cover.

5) Post your album cover on your blog, along with this text. Be sure to nominate at least 5 friends (by leaving comments on their blogs with a link to your post), and tag me, Amoena, by leaving a comment so that I can see what you've created.


Ergo.


My band is called Jon Harley - or maybe it's just the singer. Jon could refer to a female, right? I like the title of the cd, only ten of them. It sounds so artistic. I also like the photo on the cover, the colours in particular. Too bad I can't do wonders with Windows Paint.

I'm a little confused with the last instruction. "Tag me, Amoena, by leaving a comment..." Is that like the last tagger talking to Amoena, or Amoena herself giving instructions to those who she tagged? My brain doesn't work properly in the morning you see.

Anyhoo. I only tag Deniselle. I can't think of anyone else who'd be willing to participate in a meme like this.

When great minds engage in discourse.

Me and Kai have the most intellectual MSN Messenger conversations sometimes.

High says:
aa eli joo.

Kaitsuh says:
joo eli aa.

Kaitsuh says:
kpp eli bb.
lrr eli cc.

Kaitsuh says:
*lqq

High says:
totta.

(I'm High and Kaitsuh is Kai.)

I should wear pale blue more often.

I'd never voluntarily wear this colour. Cyan, yes, but pale blue? It's so blahh.

I'm relieved that you can't see my hairloss. I'm determined not to cry even once even though big amounts fall every day. Everything in my life is too ok right now to cry over some lost hair. I'll start crying if this goes on for much longer because it'll start to show again. I hate, hate, HATE being able to see my scalp.

Yes, I have a complex about my hair and my intermittent hairloss periods.

This is the shirt for assistants at the EAA conference in Tampere this week. It's a European association of accountants but visitors come from all over the world. It's bigger than I expected: over 1,100 participants! It's so grand, compared to the conferences I've attended before. Everything's so nicely organized! Not to put down the organizers of the other conferences or anything...

EAA has been in Finland once before, in Turku, and it'll probably be another 10 years before it comes to Finland again. People in Helsinki were so bummed that Tampere nailed it this time. I think this town totally deserves it, the Tampere Hall is more than adequate to fit in all those people and has the appropriate grand design. There are two university buildings right in the vicinity and it's easy to navigate around. It couldn't be better really.

Most importantly, the lunches are amazing! They're worth 8,70€ so that's basically our pay, in addition to coffee breaks. It's like a gourmet restaurant buffet. Yesterday I had sesame seed salmon with some sauce, today steak fillet with onion gravy and creamy potatoes. The salad table has 6 different salads, mushroom salad, all kinds of flavoured olive and sunflower seed oils, piths, many different dried fruits and seeds and nuts! Oh and fresh, warm bread!!

Mmm, food. Makes me happy. No wonder my tummy bump is making a comeback.

We also got a conference bag with an umbrella. My old one was broken so that made me happy too.

I had fun overall. There were three other English students, two of whom I met years back in the beginning but never made friends with. Back then, and up until very very recently, I was always too paranoid and depressed to be able to make friends with anyone at all, so I haven't seen them in a long time. They still seemed just as nice, though. I wonder if they'd think twice about hanging around with me more often now?

I used to think that I've burned bridges behind me because I didn't befriend many people when I had the opportunity. But who knows, now I think - or want to believe - that people are more accepting and open than that. I'm ready to make the effort now because I can.

Yesterday I felt a little sad thinking about it. I could have been friends with them for the past six years. How much I could have done together with them, had so much fun. I'd know something about them. But I have to stop myself from thinking like that. I was really surprised when I noticed that now it's possible for me to deliberately change my thinking patterns. I can force all those bad thoughts away! I really think there's still hope for me to have the life I always wanted.

After today I realized that I definitely need to find a job. I think once I have one, I won't have as much time to think negatively and I can focus on developing other areas of my life.

There. End of power speech.

Shoez, baby!

So my mum took me back to Tampere on Monday. The first thing we went to Sara Hildén, but after that we hit the shops. Oh and first we ate STRAWBERRIES!!!! They were surprisingly sweet, and not even that expensive!

In particular we looked at shoes, because it's much easier for me to find good shoes when mum is onboard. I also bought these shorts - they kinda remind of the Joker. I've been wearing them every day with burgundi tights and a rose colour jacket. I didn't intend to colour-coordinate, the clothes just happen to match.
Could the image be any bigger? I got it from the H&M website, the number 1 choice of clothes shopping for all non-ethical, colour-loving people. Since I love my Adidas summer shoes made by cute little Chinese children who got no money from it, why couldn't I love whatever comes out from H&M sweatshops around the world?

Anyway, mum also brought some ridiculous looking clothes in the dressing room for me to try on, so she could have a laugh. You wouldn't believe she turned sixty.

The shoes I bought are completely ethically made. (In fact I simply don't know if they are or aren't.) These only cost 10€ at Halonen:

I'm going to use them in the summer when it's hot and I just want to quickly slip some shoes on. The colour is like electric blue, with a slight tinge of something I can't pinpoint.

These are my Mary Poppins shoes.

The picture sucks, but I love them. Really cute. The heel may look impressive, but they're actually very comfortable, even with my injured foot - I don't have to limp! I just need to be careful what I'm going to wear with them. I might go crazy with colours in my clothes sometimes, but I don't want to look like a clown. Not REALLY, just secretly.

Sometimes I think so many people are just colour-challenged. What's wrong with wearing bright red and green together? Yellow and purple? Orange and blue? Why couldn't you wear a hundred different colours at the same time? There are so few colours that don't go together, in my humble opinion.