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.