First steps

It all started a couple of years ago, when some potential clients pressured me to start my own company. To tell the short version, I started my own translation business on the side of my full-time job, and it’s been surprisingly successful. At an exhibition this spring I spoke with a representative of one of the companies that was advertising in the magazine I worked for about possibly doing some freelance translations for them, but nothing really happened for a few months. I was really busy with some projects and didn’t really think about it. At about the same time I started to feel that I needed a change. I didn't feel challenged by my job anymore and I wasn’t really motivated. I spoke with my boss about leaving the company in the fall, and only working for them as a freelancer, which would give me more time to work with other projects as well. I was working hard to achieve my goal. The idea was to arrange my work so that I’d be living in Finland a part of the year and traveling the rest, since I’d be able to take my job with me wherever I went.

Then all of a sudden in May the representative I’d met in the beginning of the year called me and wanted to schedule a meeting. I assumed it was about the freelance translations. We met up at a café on a sunny, warm day in May and basically the first thing this representative told me, was: “How would you feel about moving to Germany? I’ve got a job for you.” It was a no-brainer. I basically said “yes” right away. Of course there were a lot of things to clear up, but I was totally in.

Since I’d been working full-time for almost three years and running my own business for about 1,5 years, I hadn’t had the time to finish my studies. When I decided to take on this new job, I realized that I’d have to write my master’s thesis before I left for Germany. So I put my summer plans on ice and decided to spend my four weeks of vacation at the university library, and so I did. I wrote 57 pages and almost finished my thesis before my new job started. (It’s still a work in progress though.) A lot of other things needed to be organized as well, but more about that in my next post.

This is how excited I was about spending the four hottest weeks of summer at the library.

Welcome to my new adventure

It’s been very quiet from my side lately. A lot has happened. I got a new job. I moved to Germany. It’s quite an adventure! More about that in a bit, but first a few other things. I thought a lot about starting a new blog to write about my new life, but in the end I decided that no other name would suit me better than Moroccan Mint and Double Apple. So I’ll keep writing here as often as I can. I will keep writing about all kinds of things, but foremost I will write about my life and what’s going on with me, so that my friends and family can keep themselves updated. And of course for the joy of writing.

I’ll write a few separate posts about everything that has happened lately, because I don’t want to write one endlessly long post. It’ll also make it easier for people to read about the parts that are interesting for them, since some know more and others less about what’s been going on in the past few months.

So for those of you who already know me and want to know what’s been going on with me, enjoy. For any new readers, you are more than welcome to enjoy my posts about life and whatnot. 

Valvontaa vai turvallisuutta?

Taloyhtiöni on päättänyt, että Tampereella sijaitsevan kotini rappukäytävään ja julkisivuun asennetaan videokameroita, mikä kuitenkin on sallittua vain, mikäli kaikki asukkaat antavat suostumuksensa, koska valvonta kuuluu kotirauhan piiriin.

Maaliskuun kieppeillä sain postissa kirjeen, jossa suostumusta pyydettiin kyllä/ei-lomakkeella. Siinä vakuutettiin, että kameroiden nauhoja puretaan vain rikoksen tai omaisuusvahingon sattuessa, eikä ihmisten liikkumista ole tarkoitus valvoa. En ala tässä listaamaan syitä sille, miksen halua rappuuni videovalvontaa, mutta täältä voi lukea lisää mielipiteitäni ja mietteitäni asian tiimoilta.

Kamerat seinässä - suojausta vai valvontaa? Kuva: Flickr/ep_jhu

Joka tapauksessa lähetin vastauskirjeen, jossa en antanut suostumustani videokameroiden asentamiseen. Pari viikkoa myöhemmin taloyhtiön edustaja tuli soittelemaan ovikelloani. Hän tuli juttelemaan minulle ei-vastauksestani, vaikkei omien sanojensa mukaan halunnut tiedustella syitä tai ylipuhua. Kysyin miksi tällaiseen on ryhdytty, eihän talossa vain ollut tapahtunut ilkivaltaa? Mies vastasi, ettei tässä rapussa ollut tapahtunut mitään, mutta naapurirapussa joku oli potkinut sisäoven ikkunan rikki ja oksentanut matolle. Lisäksi joltain parvekkeelta oli oksennettu niin, että alemman parvekkeen lasitus oli oksennuksessa. Totesin, että kyseessähän silloin oli joku oman talon asukas. Mies myönsi, että tekijä oli ollut erään asukkaan vieras ja hänet oli saatu kiinni. Ihmettelin, miksi kameravalvonta olisi tarpeellinen, jos ei ollut mistään sen kummemmasta kyse. Totesin myös, ettei mistään ilkivallasta ainakaan asukkaita ollut tiedotettu. Mies kysyi kuinka kauan olin talossa asunut, ja kun kerroin muuttaneeni tänne 2,5 vuotta sitten, hän vaivaantui hieman eikä enää keksinyt mitään argumenttia. Hän poistui, minä pidin kantani.

Tänään tuli uusi kirje huoltoyhtiöltä. Edellisen tapaan siinä vakuutettiin ettei kenenkään liikkumista ole tarkoitus valvoa, mutta lisäksi siinä painotettiin, että ilman suostumustani kameravalvontaa ei voida ottaa käyttöön, ja "Tällöin teidän porrashuoneenne jää ilman kameravalvontaa ja mahdollisesti aiheutuvat omaisuusvahinkojen selvittäminen sekä ihmisten turvallisuus vaarantuu." Eikös kuulostakin aika pahalta (ja kieliopillisesti virheelliseltä)? Tässä kohtaa lienee hyvä huomauttaa, että asuinalueellani asuu melko varakasta väkeä, ja ainakin oma rappuni on aina ollut rauhallinen ja häiriötön. Ainakin sen 2,5 vuotta, mitä olen tässä asunut... 

Kamerat on tarkoitus asentaa muun muassa porraskäytävään ja julkisivuun (Kuva: Flickr/liebeslakritze)

Kirjeen alussa mainitaan, että "Kameroita tullaan asentamaan porrashuoneisiin kadun sisäpihan [...] sekä kellarikerroksen [...] tasolle, julkisivuun ja jätehuoneeseen. N. viikon kestävän asennuksen arvioitu alkamisaika on perjantai 13.6." Eli kameroiden asentaminen on jo päätetty, vaikkei kaikkien suostumusta ole saatu! Aion ehdottomasti selvittää onko tämä kaikki laillista.

Mitä tästä asiasta pitäisi ajatella? Tuntuu ilkeältä, että taas tulee uusi kirje, vaikka olen jo kahdesti kieltäytynyt kameravalvonnan asentamisesta. Aion silti pitää pääni. Aion pysyä kannassani.

Out with the Old, In with the New

Well the headline might be somewhat misleading, because the point of this post is mainly about reminiscing the past year and taking a look at what is to come. My past year has been completely amazing. I haven't had the chance to travel as much as I wanted, but instead I had the chance to make one of my big dreams come true. I went to Australia. But that's not the only great thing about last year. It was a big year in terms of meeting new people. Australia had a huge effect on that, not only while being in that beautiful country down under, but also because of what happened as a result of being there. I started a new hobby. I found the love of my life: west coast swing. For those of you who don't know what it is, I'll tell you. It's a swing dance style that originates from the United States of America. Logically from the west coast. If you are interested, there are loads of videos on YouTube.
 
In Australia I was lucky enough to take two classes a week with the absolutely fabulous Raw Connection in Brisbane, and coming back to Finland I was a bit worried about what the WCS scene here would look like. I was happy to realize that my city has the largest and most active scene in Finland, although much smaller and less advanced than in Brisbane. The people are amazing though and the teachers fantastic and inspiring! Thanks to WCS this fall has been full of dancing and new, amazing people. I have attended three workshops and a WCS cruise, and it's safe to say that it has been the best autumn of my life!

Australia was however about much more than just WCS. The greatest thing about that trip, as well as any other trip, were all the people I met. I think I've made some friends for life and I don't think I've ever felt that welcome anywhere. I miss you guys! The atmosphere was great and since I mostly hung out with dancers, I got to try out a lot of other dancing styles as well: bachata, salsa, zouk and kizomba. Needless to say that WCS was the one that stole my heart.

Going back to last spring, my biggest dilemma was saving up some money for Australia, which obviously meant that I couldn't travel that much. Instead I spent most of my time enjoying dinner parties with friends, but I did do a few weekend trips within Finland as well. What else did I do last year? I recorded a Christmas cd with my choir, Tampereen yliopiston laulajat, and finished my fourth and last year in the choir board. I developed my own company to a level I never would have imagined, and I arranged a lot of fun parties. I baked a lot of cakes, cooked a lot of food, smoked more shisha than ever and hosted loads of couchsurfers from all over the world. I managed to learn a lot of difficult songs and performed them at two different concerts with my beloved choir. With that same choir I attended the Tampere Vocal Music Festival and recieved a silver stamp. During the festival I also hosted the slovakian choir, Collegium Technicum, and arranged a lot of program for them. I surfed for the first time of my life (hopefully not the last time). I checked out the amazing city of Singapore and showed a fantastic Australian girl a good time in Helsinki. I enjoyed the most beautiful autumn since moving to Tampere and got sad because the winter never came. I spent more time than ever with my dearest friend, including my time in Australia, as well as Christmas and an epic New Years celebration. Well that's not all, but I suppose those are the highlights.

One of many cakes.

TYL on stage performing at Tampere Vocal Music Festival.

Picnic in the park with Collegium Technicum from Slovakia.

Little buddy at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Brisbane.

Visiting the best friend in the world in Australia.

A visitor from down under.

Mind-blowing autum foliage.

So is it possible to top such an amazing year? Well, it'll be hard, but I can sure try. I have so much planned already, so it is looking good. Travel-wise there will be a wedding in Spain, a birthday party in Amsterdam, possibly another wedding celebration in Slovakia, maybe a WCS event in the south of France and a choir trip to Slovakia. Not bad plans, considering it's only the 3rd of January today... There will definitely be more dancing and lots of great dinner parties. Maybe I'll finally even graduate. Here's hoping...

Well anyways, a huge thanks to all the amazing people in my life for making the past year so unforgettable! Let's make this one even better!

Material Girl?

A few years ago this guy put all his things, yes every last bit of it, into a storage space. He decided he could take out one item a day. On his first day he chose to take out a winter coat. It was cold. In February 2013 a movie of the project came out. It is called My Stuff (Tavarataivas). One of my friends heard about this project about a year ago and decided to do something similar. Instead of putting away all of her things, she decided that she would get rid of one item every day for a year. In addition she wasn't allowed to buy anything during that whole year, unless it was essential (medicine or food for instance), or replacing something essential that broke down. It has been very interesting following her project. The My Stuff project has undoubtedly inspired many more similar projects.

A scene from My Stuff.

I have taken after my mother. I like to collect a lot of everything, and I have quite the difficult time giving up things. We live in a material world, and I bet a lot of people, especially in the first world, have similar issues. A lot of people work hard so that they can buy more things. A bigger house to put more things in and a bigger car so that they can bring all the bigger things to their even bigger home. Everything has to be new, and even if something still works, people want bigger and better equivalents to replace that something. Not that I'm necessarily any different, but this past year I have thought a lot about consumption of things and buying new stuff. I have come to prefer buying things of better quality, even though the price is higher. Cheap things don't usually last very long... I'm not really into doing radical things though. I wouldn't go on a diet or stop eating sweets for six months. I believe in being reasonable in all things. (Well except for dancing maybe.) Still, it is sometimes hard to be content with what you have, especially when living in a society, where consumption is a virtue.

After thinking a lot about consuming and living in the midst of an overload of bigger and better things I started to feel sick. I want to try to manage with less, which shouldn't be very hard, right? In the last few years I have tried to size down on things. One of my passions is traveling, and I like to travel light, since it is easier not having to carry a lot of things around. So why not applying this to living? Living light? After considering this for quite a while, I decided that it was time to do something about it. But since I believe in being reasonable, I didn't want to do any of these radical things I'd read and heard about.

These past few days I have been going through all the things in my small two-room-flat. The goal was to get rid of one item per day for a year, but instead of doing it for a year I wanted to do it all at once. So 365 items. It took two days to get through (almost) the whole flat. One cupboard is still left, but it is mostly full of papers, so maybe I'll still get through that tonight. My count after two days is 220 items. And it has been really easy so far. But what do I count as an item? I haven't counted each paper or piece of trash. When it comes to papers, I have surely thrown away more than 365 pieces of paper, I didn't really count all of it. As an estimate I would say that all the papers I threw away counted as maybe 20 items. So what else was discarded? Well a big pile of books and magazines, that I was never going to read a second time. A huge amount of decorative things, quite a pile of clothes and jewelry as well as make up and accessories. Then there's all the miscellaneous things, which added up to a lot.

Miscellaneous things and books that I'm discarding. Maybe the Salvation Army is interested?

I have achieved more than half of the goal, and it has been very easy. I still have that one cupboard to go through as well as my storage space in the cellar. I think the things in storage will get me pretty far on the list. As for the count, 365 items is a minimum. I'm not stopping at that count, if I don't get through all my things before that.

I am quite excited to see when it starts to get hard to give up something. To tell you the truth, I did have a bit of a difficult time with one item today. After some contemplation (well quite a lot actually) I decided to throw away my old dance shoes that were totally broken. They were old and the bottom had cracked, but I still held on to them for sentimental reasons. I've had the habit of doing that with many other things as well, like some clothes for instance. "I'm sure that at some point I'll use this old t-shirt that I don't really even like..." or "I need this some day when I'm painting..." Yeah right, like that day is ever coming... Well this time I was quite brutal and actually threw out all clothes that I haven't worn during the past year. I'm quite proud of myself!

I still have almost half of the count to finish up, so we'll see how that goes. Right now I'm feeling very good. Especially when looking at my tidy closets and shelves... Rounding up this post I'd like to announce one of my three New Years resolutions: I promise that before every purchase next year I will think long and hard about whether I need it or not. I dare you to do the same!