I AM

STRESSED.

Once. Again.

Not. Fun. At. All.

I just want to be at peace and happy.

Been too busy

I've neglected this blog...and the other blogs too.

But here's a summary of what I've been up to over the past few months; since summer started and is now over =(

Started 'working'... thanks to a couple of Malaysian friends I have here. Still with them, currently.

Moved out of the suburb and into the city. Felt somewhat liberated but worried at the same time. But it turned out well...in the beginning.

Started school.

And having fun while I'm at it.

Started dating again.

*fingers crossed* I'm happy at this point =)

Got a new phone (finally!). Thanks to Angeline, the sweetheart, with her help, I manage to open a line with the local phone company. Sometimes, I think Finland has got too much legislations. *shrugs* So I'm finally on Whatsapp (who's on Whatsapp??!!), finally able to tweet and FB update on my phone, finally able to take photos and actually use them (I've had camera phones but the cameras were next to being useless), finally able to do a lot more. Finally, a touch screen smartphone =D

Two months into school, work's piling up. The first few weeks were orientations + parties. People here know how to be serious and have fun at the same time.

Work at the part-time workplace piled up too. And those were shitty days.

And then there's the housemate situation. Not a very nice thing to be added into my calendar and mind at the moment. I really do not need additional stress.

I had a test today. It was supposed to be an easy test. The questions are random, I was aware of that. So the difficulty of the paper depended on my luck. And I had questions of a topic I deliberately skipped just cos I thought they would not be too technical. I almost failed, though I passed. But I'm still very disappointed at it. It feels like the day I failed my first Physics test in Form 4, all over again.

My Sunday was ruined, because of a certain someone. It ruined my appetite and my mood for the rest of the day. Sadly, I still encoutered the same effect today, when my classmate mentioned about her. I was happily having my big and awesome chicken thigh lunch when my classmate asked 'so what are you going to do about her'. At the thought of her, I felt a churn in stomach and I lost my appetite for my chicken =( I hate it when it happens. I freaking love food ok. Don't ruin it for me.

Tomorrow's wine tasting class is cancelled (yes, I have wine tasting classes for free :P ) and there's no replacement. So yay, free morning. But I have an assignment due tomorrow afternoon for another class, and then the Grand Dinner on Wednesday. My class of 30 will prepare a 4-course dinner. My group's in-charge of the first starter and it'll be awesome. Just you wait =)

Seriously?

I am tired too.

Thanks for ruining my Sunday.

363: A little experiment

Once, a friend told me to 'do one thing that scares you every day'. I tried to remember that but I always get chicken shit scared of doing some things anyway, if not get all nervous and talk about it all the time and then blowing away the chance of actually getting something out of it. But never mind that, now.

I did something out of the ordinary yesterday. I wouldn't say it's something entirely scary, but still, not something I would do at all.

I created a profile on an online dating website.

Before you think I'm all desperate for a man, I am not. I am simply curious how an online dating website works, what kind of people you get in there, and partly also because I've been watching (a reality TV show) and reading on successful career-driven women (and men) turning to such sites once in a while, to either look for potential partners or short flings.

Still, I was kinda scared - scared that I'll get unwanted attention. So I first created a fake profile, with the first name that comes into my mind as a username, and did not upload any photo - cos I just wanted to 'browse through' :P Naturally, I did not get any messages and had only 1 or 2 visitors.

Two nights later, while reading more of Catherine Townsend's articles, I somehow got inspired to just do it. So I did. This time, I carefully picked out a username that wouldn't reveal my real name and doesn't sound desperate, picked out the right keywords and wrote a little something about myself, and uploaded a photo - just to see who and how many messages I would get =D

So I put up my new photo of fake pouty lips and eyes that looked elsewhere.

I set all this up before I went to bed close to 3am. I woke up the next morning at 10am, I had 7 new 'lovemails' waiting for me to open. In the next 2 hours, I had 4 more new mails. And after that, they just kept coming in 3s and 4s. I was so excited about it and the messages I got were hilarious, so I shared this with one of my best friends who lives in London at the moment and had a good laugh about it.

Most of the men who wrote to me lives in Sweden and wrote to me in Swedish. Some in Norwegian and Danish but mostly Swedish. Scandinavian languages are somewhat unique. So unique that when you use Google Translate on them, the English translation becomes ridiculous and makes no sense.

For example:
'Are you a girl/woman who is mobile?' whaaaat?

And the funnies:
'Cute. How email it? See you tomorrow in Gothenburg?'
'would you keep up to Copenhagen today?'
My profile clearly says I live in Helsinki, dudes.
'Move right to norrköping .- let me know if you want to be seen' No, I don't want to be seen lol.

And then the cheesies:
'Do you know a good, nice guy like me and maybe get together and see what it leads to.' Really??
'Hello! How sad to see that the mail basket huh even when logged in ida But know one thing! YOU are out there and waiting just for me!' Uh, I don't think so...

One friend decided to tweak my profile by adding the lines 'Please send me messages in English. Swedish is a great language but it's not one that I master.' It did not work.

The youngest who wrote to me was 19 and the oldest 47. Average age was 30. Most of them were not exactly very attractive but there were a handful of them who could be eye candies. Some have kids, some were clearly looking for hook ups (most of them are anyway), some looked miserable, and there's even one guy who clearly wrote in his profile 'looking for a mistress'. He sent me a virtual flower. ...

Unfortunately, this was a site that's sustained by a membership fee and I had only 24 hours of free trial. I couldn't reply anyone even if I had wanted to. By 7pm, I decided to update my profile a little bit to see if I would get more responses, since I did not know what was going to happen to my profile after 24hours (no, it did not say in the website). So, I uploaded another photo. This time, an old and infamous photo of mine I've used frequently, on Facebook and sending out for casting opportunities.

In the next 3 hours, I got another 11 new 'lovemails'. Yea, they call it lovemails. And then again, they kept coming in 3s and 4s and 7s. By the end of the 24 hours, I've had a total of 49 visitors and 55 mails, 6 of which are from the same people. So that makes up to 49 new mails. Not bad. I got more than what I would've expected.

It was good laugh for a while. And then I got sick by just looking at it.

It's truly a cheese fest and a perv nation.

11 days to one year

I'm in this phase of my life where I'm pretty bendable, in the sense that I can easily adapt to new situations and perceptions by accepting or following the current. Which, is good and bad at the same time, maybe. Being open minded is one thing. Being open minded and losing yourself in the end, is another. It's scary to think when you have a teenage child. It's even scary being myself now.

I like rom-coms, does not mean I don't enjoy other types of movies, and does not mean I don't live in the real world at all.

The problem is, I was suffocating.

376: Supposedly 335 days in Finland

*Originally written yesterday, 4th of May.

I'm finally free. My exam is over. I can finally sit back and relax for a while.

Now, I'm a little bored. But that's just today, maybe.

I woke up at 11am today, after sleeping for more than 12hours. Well, that's cos I woke up at 4.30am yesterday to catch the 5.45am bus to Helsinki, just so I could reach the school in Haaga by 7.15am. The exam was scheduled to start at 8am but registration was opened from 7.15am. Plus, I haven't been to the school before, so I thought I'd go early, just in case I get lost.

But not only I didn't get lost, I instantly made 3 friends at the train station. One guy who asked me on the train if I was going to the exam, and 2 other girls who came to us at the station. So we walked together to the school, hung out and talked for the entire day.

Overall, the exam was quite ok. I had to take the essay language test as I didn't have any IELTS or TOEFL to submit. The paper asked to elaborate on a sub-topic of one of the 26 topics in the reading package (that was delivered in the form of 300 pages). I was worried for a while as I could not remember much of what I read (it was the very last topic in the reading material and I read it only once). Since the question asked about the change in transportation and infrastructure in the next 85 years, I just made stuff up. No one knows about the future anyway.

And I passed. (Yays!)

Then came the time for the written exam. Multiple choice. I was told it would be tricky so I had to make sure I really read the reading package. True enough, it was pretty tricky; in the sense that they asked and quoted word for word from the reading package. Like seriously, unless you've memorised all 300 pages by heart, you most likely won't be able to answer. Thankfully, I could answer *some* of the questions and was pretty confident about it. I just don't like the history questions that involved numbers e.g. Which year did the first Chinese restaurant open in downtown Helsinki? Urgh, I hate to memorise numbers.

And then the interview. Had to wait 3 hours in between so we went for lunch. Spent 5.50€ for chicken curry pasta and salad and gorged on it cos I was sooo hungry. This time around, I was grouped with a new bunch of people. Standing at the corridor of the classroom with no speaking a word, there was some kind of tension in the air. But once we got in and were required to discuss about our answers to the 3 questions, everything seemed to be at ease. Everyone was quite talkative, participating in giving opinions and what not, and 1.5 hours went by pretty quickly. Initially, when we heard the interview was going to be 1.5 hours, we were like 'Omg what are they going to ask us for 1.5 hours??' But hey, there we were, not having enough time to elaborate on our stories :P

I went back to Nummela, since I didn't need to go back to the school the next day. Talked to Anu for a while, had a sandwich for dinner (with fresh salad grown in the 'greenhouse'!), watched a little bit of TV in my room and fell asleep until morning. Bliss. Dirty, but well rested =)

***

Today's the 5th of May. Two weeks ago, I was offered a job (another yayers!) by a fellow Malaysian friend, who's one of the partners of an Asian grocery store here. It started out as a favour/help just so I can stay here in Finland as my permit was expiring in 2 days. I went to his office the next day to get the contract, came back and submitted the papers for the permit and was told to come back today and pay 120€. I did just that, but now I'm told to wait another 4-6 weeks. And at first, they didn't even seem to know where my papers were. In the end, they found it and told me they now have to send it to Vantaa and then back here and then bla bla bla and it will take 4-6 weeks. Urgh.

Anyway, it's back to waiting again. About 1.5-2 months of waiting for answers from both sides. I'd be so crushed if I hear another rejection from either party. These are my last hopes. My applications to previous jobs have returned with negative responses. If these last two options are also not fruitful, I guess I'll be showing my face back in KL.

It has been a while since I last wrote something. Mainly because I was preparing for the exam (300 pages is really a lot to read). Also, I didn't want to shout out loud yet about the job and all, just in case. Cos I'm really good in jinxing things.

Life has a been a real roller-coaster ride so far. One day, I'm happy and everything's sun-shiny, the next day's gloomy and indefinite. And then the cycle repeats.

A lot of things happened in the past month, though. I got fined for speeding (Lol!), I went to a kid's birthday party and got a job from there, went to church one Sunday after finding out about English services, met up with someone new, rekindled a friendship, attended more interviews, had a great time at another Malaysian event again, met up with Paulina and dragged her along to a friend's party.

Last weekend was Vappu (Labour Day) and it's celebrated as a festival in Finland. I've got photos but my uploader's not working for some reason =( Anyway, on the eve of Vappu, the town is filled with loads of people, mostly students (and in a type of overalls with different colours representing their schools), balloons, coloured hair spray, face paint, etc. and the capping of Havis Amanda, the statue. This year, there was a live band, soap in Havis Amanda's fountain, and confetti before and after her capping. Apparently, the best Vappu ever.

I think I've been quite lucky. I had an unusually warm summer, a good winter with loads of snow (which is also not typical), and experienced a good Vappu ceremony compared to the previous years. Maybe it's a sign, that I don't have to stay here longer to experience it all? :P But I hope not.

350: Jane Monheit and other jazzy songs

Read up some old posts of mine, just to see how much I've changed or how far I've achieved. I went back to as far as the time I broke up with the ex. And after that, at one point of my life, I stumbled upon Jane Monheit and was listening to her songs every day, together with a few other jazz songs.

This particular song struck a chord in me. At that time I said, 'Listening to songs like that, makes me wanna take a stroll in the park or lie down on the grass staring into the black sky with that someone I love.'

Now it makes me wanna slow dance.

But it's interesting how I'm remembering the song almost exactly one year later, and my feelings are about the same one year ago.