made up

“Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever’s worst

Perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts

…We try to fix something but you can’t fix what you can’t see

It’s the soul that needs the surgery”

                                            (Pretty Hurts, Beyonce)

My favourite thing when I was little was to play at my grandma’s makeup table. I’d arrange all the makeup, jewellery, hairspray, rollers and perfumes into different drawers. Then, once they were in perfect order, I’d put on eyeshadow and try on shades of red lipstick and matching jewellery, spray a bit of perfume and pretend I was a posh lady.

Despite this, I was a little late with makeup as a teenager. All the girls in my class were already wearing make up by the time I realized it was the “cool” thing to do. So I started waking up earlier to make sure I had enough time to apply my make up before heading to school. It became a ritual, I would not leave the house before I had makeup on.

This continued all through university and all the way up until I was 24 and met my boyfriend. At that point I still felt uncomfortable leaving the house without makeup. It wasn’t until he pointed out to me (several times) how unnecessary it is that I started realising what a waste of time it was. I resisted at first, I felt I had to presentable at all times. But slowly I started cutting down. I gave up the eyeliner first, then eye shadow and so on... Instead of using 5 different products daily, I started using just the bare minimum. Now, instead of spending time on it, I slap it on in a few minutes and I’m good to go. I sometimes even put it on in the train or in the car on my way somewhere instead of wasting time on it at home. It still makes me feel comfortable when I have it on, but it's not such a big deal if I don't.

When I look at girls or women who have layered on so much makeup they look like dolls, I am glad I don’t have to do that. I am happy I am no longer 16 and can be comfortable enough to pop out to run some errands without makeup or a carefully thought out outfit on. I do not want to look like I’m ready for a wild night out in town on a Tuesday morning ( – it makes my Saturday night makeup look ordinary). It also takes so much effort to look “perfect” all the time because it needs constant upkeep and it’s never enough.

I still enjoy dressing up and taking time to prepare myself for a special occasion. But that’s the point, it makes it even more special when I make an effort and look different from my "normal" self. The difference is, now I don’t feel uncomfortable without makeup and it does not define me –it’s just a tool. Makeup used to be a confidence boost I couldn’t live without, now too much makeup just signifies a lack of confidence behind those layers and layers of blusher, fake lashes and perfect pout.

best of both worlds

In high school I used to make fun of Finland with my best friend who’s also Finnish. We’d diss the winters and the pathetically short summers, the lack of small talk or how people avoid eye contact. But when the Swedish boy in our class came over to boast about how they beat Finland in ice hockey, we had mad love for the team and were deeply insulted that anyone would disrespect us Finns. Only we were allowed to criticise Finland and we did that a lot, but it was funny to see how much it hurt our pride if anyone else dared to do the same.

I’ve noticed I love to tell about Tanzania and other places I’ve lived in when I live in Finland. And when I live abroad I enjoy telling people about the exotic things we do in Finland & make people laugh when I bring out the sock I’m knitting from my bag (“That’s for grannies!” they say.)

The point is: I wish I could have the "best of both worlds" because they are both so special. I've lived in the extremes in terms of wealth, weather and culture. Of course the grass is always greener on the other side, so I am always missing things wherever I am. Below are pictures of some of my favourite things, from both worlds!

Yummy food & fruits!

Colourful flowers & beautiful nature.

Holidays always meant hours of sunshine, beach & exploring.

Yummy food & berries!

Summer <3

Fishing & lazy afternoons on the boat.

cheers

There’s been a lot of talk about advertising alcohol lately because of a new law that bans it. I doubt that this will help with alcoholism and all the problems related to it. I think the attitude towards drinking in Finland (and other countries as well) is bizarre. On one side we have people think of alcohol as a taboo, a thing that should be hidden and not talked about. On the other hand some boast about how much they drink and laugh at mishaps that happened last weekend when so-and-so had a few too many.

NOTE: I am not criticising anyone’s personal drinking habits, that’s none of my business. I’m talking about the drinking culture.

I don’t think I was ever told not to drink. It was clear to me as a child that it’s not for me. But because my parents never made a big deal out of it, I didn't feel the urge to try it. Then when I grew up to be old enough to try it, I felt it was my responsibility to know if I wanted to drink or how much I wanted to drink. I don’t know if I was smart enough for that, but at least I was trusted enough to make that decision for myself.

The word “no” is always tempting for a child or teenager who is still learning and testing their limits. It’s like telling a kid not to look in that certain cupboard right before Christmas. Of course they’re gonna go and snoop around to see if there’s any presents hiding there. I think this is what happens when you are too strict about things like alcohol. When you deny something so strictly from people they get curious and when they get a chance, they will over do it because for once they can.

One of my favourite sayings is “everything in moderation”. It applies to food, to exercise, to work and to alcohol. Of course it’s important to teach kids about the dangers of alcohol and drugs etc. But I’d like to think that when I have kids of my own, I will be able to show them that there are more options than the two extremes - zero tolerance or binge drinking. I think letting a teenager taste wine or beer when they’re around family isn't going to make them an alcoholic, on the contrary—it will teach them that there is a way to enjoy a reasonable amount with a nice meal, or on a night out.

So cheers! Here’s to a healthy (drinking) culture where everything is tolerated and consumed in moderation.

let it burn

As a kid I loved sports and sporty activities. I used to climb trees, run around and swam almost every day. I also liked P.E. lessons. It was fun, relaxed sports. There were no winners or losers, we hardly kept score. I don’t remember being particularly good at anything, but I wasn’t awful either and most importantly I enjoyed it.

Then something changed. I started hating sports. I hated when we had to pick teams and compete against each other. I was always the shortest (I’m barely 154cm now that I’m all grown up) and when you’re a pre-teen or teenager size differences are huge… I remember having to run hurdles the same height as everyone else and ending up with bruised and bloody knees; I just could not get over those damn things.

Because I felt intimidated by competitive sports, I started avoiding it which of course made things worse as I didn’t get any practice. When I finally got out of school I felt I was free, nobody could force me to do things I did not want to so I didn’t exercise for several years.

When I was 24 I decided to join a gym. I thought I could ease myself into it, do it at my own pace but since I paid for it I would also be motivated to go so as not to be wasting my money. Half a year later everyone at the office I worked at signed up for a half marathon. Me, running 21km in one go? The teenage me would’ve had a heart attack just thinking about it.

I was sure I was going to die on the day of the marathon so I trained hard. Probably too hard. At first it was torture getting out of the house and go for a run in freezing, slippery conditions but I forced it. At the end of my 3 months training I remember running a 1.5hr session on a dark and rainy evening and on the last stretch before home I laughed out loud because I was enjoying myself so much. The feeling when I finally crossed the finish line at the half marathon was unbelievable—pure joy and pride.

Since then I’ve kept training moderately. I go to the gym, go for runs and go to dance lessons. I’ve found that sports is fun, as long as I feel I am not forced into it. It’s still difficult to get myself off the couch and outside, but it’s well worth it. I've learnt to enjoy that feeling when I reach home after a sweaty jog and that burn that I feel in my muscles as I stretch them out.

“When you feeling ain’t the same and your body don’t want to

But you know gotta let it go cause the party ain’t jumpin’ like it used to

Even though this might bruise you

Let it burn

Let it burn

Gotta let it burn”

          (Burn, Usher)

as good as it gets

When it’s summer again, I’ll eat ice cream and spend time outside every day.

When I get older I’ll save up for a big house.

When I’ve got enough experience I’ll have my own company & be the boss.

When I’m the boss I will only work on things I want to & I’ll choose my own working hours.

When I’ve lived in one place for long enough, I’ll know enough people to invite over to big dinner parties.

When I get my act together and start training I’ll finally get that six pack.

AND when I move abroad, I’ll do and have all of the above!

I’ve got used to everything being temporary so I’m always looking ahead. But (quoting Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall) what if this is as good as it gets?

What if it rains all summer? What if I end up always being an employee not an employer? What if I love food better than exercise? And what if I don’t move abroad? (*GASP*)

I’ve realized it’s good to daydream, it takes you places & pushes you to do more. But it’s even more important to keep your feet on the ground, grow some roots and make short term plans instead of looking too far ahead. Here comes the cliché of the day:

                      Every day is as good as it gets—you just gotta make it that way.

that is the question.

“Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know”

                             (Should I stay or should I go, The Clash)

A while back I had a conversation with a friend of a friend. We talked about where I’d like to live in the future. He said he was jealous because it’s so easy for some people to move abroad. This made me laugh, because it’s never easy to move abroad, but it’s a default for me. I always assume I will move somewhere else.

Moving and starting over in a new place is never easy; you have to find a job or a place to study, apply for a visa, find a place to live in and furniture, open up a bank account, get a phone contract, find friends, learn how to get from place to place and possibly all this in a foreign language. Once you’ve done it a few times it gets easier though, you shrink your possessions into a few suitcases and you settle down quicker because you’ve been through it before.

For me it’s actually easier to leave than it is to stay. Staying means commitment, it means I have to look further than a year or two. It means I have to have long-term plans and I have no idea how long I will stay in this particular apartment. I’m puzzled; half of me wants to buy heavy comfortable furniture, the other half wants to keep just the bare minimum because it’s such a hassle to move a sofa around. Owning a car, a double bed or (God help me) an apartment is scary!

I turned the conversation around and said I was jealous of people who have a network (check out my thoughts on networking).

Staying in one place or moving to another is not determined by how much effort it takes, it’s about reasons: if there are more reasons to go than there are to stay, it’s easier to go –and vice versa.

compliments

Compliments are difficult. Yes, they make you smile when you give them or receive them, but still they are not that straight forward. I’ve noticed I’ve become worse at compliments, both giving and receiving. I will look at someone and think of a compliment but might not say it out loud. Even more puzzling is when I find myself making excuses when someone compliments me:

That shirt you said looks good on me is just an old rag I found in the closet.

When you say you had a nice chat I’m sorry I was just rambling on and on about my stuff.

You congratulate me for finishing a project just before the deadline and I say I just had to pull something together, I hope it’s good enough.

I wonder why is belittling my efforts, my looks or my personality easier than saying thank you. It could well be culture related; the Hollywood movie “OMG, I LOOOOVE your outfit” just doesn’t fit in the Finnish environment (especially since love is such a big word in Finnish, more thoughts on that in a later blog post). Over the top compliments sound fake and do little to boost someone’s confidence. And there you have it: confidence. It takes confidence to encourage someone else, and it takes confidence to admit to yourself that you are worth that compliment.

So here’s what I need to work on:

• Give compliments when they are due but not too often, it makes people suspicious
• Avoid superlatives, no one buys that
• Appreciate it when someone gives you a compliment –it could be just as difficult to them as it is to you
• Be gracious when receiving compliments, say thank you like you mean it and no excuses!

only a word

My favourite word in Kiswahili is pole (pronounced something like poh-leh). There is no direct translation to English or Finnish. It was translated somewhere as “I am sorry for your misfortune”. But it’s more than that – to me it’s an expression of sympathy and empathy. You can say it when someone sneezes or drops something, if they’re tired after a long trip or if someone close to them has passed away.

I wish there was a word like pole in every language! It's only a word, but it can mean so much and it isn't pretentious. It’s difficult to think of what to say instead of “Pole!” to someone who doesn't know what it means. Too often I end up saying nothing.

“Lean on me when you’re not strong

And I’ll be you friend, I’ll help you carry on

For it won’t be long

‘Til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on”

                             (Lean on me, Bill Withers)

bilingual

“I'm just a soul who's intentions are good

Oh Lord, please, don't let me be misunderstood.”

                             (Don’t let me be misunderstood, The Animals)

You know that feeling when you press the send button and cringe because you notice the message you just sent sounds wrong? Or when you walk away from a conversation and come up with a million better answers than the ones you just gave? Or when it takes you half an hour to write an email that would normally take you less than 5 minutes?

I get that a lot when I speak or write Finnish. I feel I'm more witty and natural when I talk in English, I tell better jokes in English. It also makes me feel slightly uncomfortable and sometimes nervous if I have to talk Finnish instead of English in situations where there are people I don’t know well. It gets easier the longer I live in Finland, but I still struggle to find all the right words in the right language almost on a daily basis.

I talked about this with my brother the other day.  We talk to each other mostly in English, and both feel English is our “emotional language” - the language that’s easier to use when you want to express something important. We suddenly realised: we’re bilingual! It seems so obvious now, but that explains so much and makes things so much easier.

Normally I feel I have to apologise for sounding silly or saying the wrong word, & then I go through a long explanation of how I've lived abroad and haven’t really lived in Finland so much & that’s why I say things that might not sound right. It's a lot of explaining to do.

From now on I will just say “I’m bilingual”.

last night i dreamt of home

 “Let me go home

I’m just too far from where you are

I wanna come home

And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life

It’s like I just stepped outside

When everything was going right”

                             (Home, Michael Bublé)

Last night I dreamt of Tanzania. I started off in some old European city where I suddenly came across a nyama choma stall. Nyama choma is Tanzanian barbeque, grilled meat. I exchanged a few words with the owners and they were surprised I could talk Kiswahili.

(The alarm went off at this point, but I turned it off and went back to my dream.)

As I fell asleep again I found myself in a white Land Cruiser Hardtop, the kind we always had when I was little. I was in the back seat and to my left I could see a mountain range. It was covered in snow, and the hills were a dark misty blue. It was Kilimanjaro. I took out my camera and started taking pictures of it. There were clouds drifting over the mountain top at a fast pace, so I had to be quick to take a picture of the snowy top as the sun hit it and made the snow glow a brilliant white.

All of a sudden I was in a different city, on the other side of the country. It was the same neighbourhood where I lived for many years and I knew which junction would take me to my old home. It all looked different though, there were so many new buildings and even a mall that was luxuriously decorated and had international brands. I remember thinking “I gotta come back to shop here!” I was in a hurry though; I wanted to see my old home. I wondered through the maze of new houses, shops and cafes that had appeared out of nowhere. Some were rugged street cafes, some very high class restaurants, everything seemed to be freshly built and not quite finished yet. Eventually the houses ended and I reached fields of maize. The earth was a pale orange-red colour, everything was covered in a fine dust and I enjoyed seeing far across the fields. I didn’t manage to reach home before I woke up, but it didn’t matter. Everything I saw was familiar and new at the same time and I was just so excited to be there.

When I woke up, I lay on the bed going through the dream over and over. I felt I’d been home, even if it was just a dream.

call me maybe?

 “Hey I just met you

And this is crazy
But here's my number
So call me maybe”

               (Call me maybe, Carly Rae Jepsen)

When you first meet a person they are a stranger to you. You meet them a few times and they become an acquaintance and perhaps if you meet them enough they become a friend.

There are different ways of making friends. When moving to a new city or going to uni it’s almost like speed dating. You meet tons of people so you have to be quick; you find out if you have similar interest, change contact details and arrange something for the next day. Or you invite everyone in the room to a party you’re having this weekend. You also lose touch with them very quickly if you don’t see them enough or if they don’t make an effort to see you soon enough. This is what I’ve come across in the international circles; everyone is new and might only be here for a year or two so you’ve got to make a quick dash at making friends as soon as possible.

When I moved to Finland this technique didn’t apply anymore. Since I was studying a Masters degree, most people were working already, almost everyone was settled, had a home and a circle of friends they might’ve had for years. Same thing when I started working. It’s not easy to infiltrate a network. I have to meet a person several times in different social events before I feel comfortable enough to ask if they want to meet up for coffee. (Of course this is how I feel, I doubt anyone would be offended if I suggested it sooner.)

Both ways have their pros and cons. The speedy way creates a large network very quickly, but it might falter very fast and the friendships might not be as meaningful. The infiltration method takes a long time, but it’s very rewarding since the friendships built slowly are stronger in the end.

networking

I have a network. In fact it’s huge. I have so many friends living in so many countries, I can’t keep track. My family alone lives on 4 different continents.

I’ve got this network because I’ve moved so much. I once tried counting how many times I’ve moved and lost count after 21. I’ve probably changed addresses about 25-30 times. The longest I’ve lived in one city in one go is 5 years, and those were the first 5 years of my life. So I’ve had plenty of opportunities to meet new people, countless friends made along the way.

Still, I do not have a network where I am right now. I’ve commuted to another city to work for over a year now which doesn’t make it easier to form a network close to home. And I miss that. I miss calling someone and asking if they wanna meet up for coffee this afternoon. I’ve got to make plans to see my family or friends and that always involves a ticket of some sort, in most cases an airplane ticket.

I am lucky that two of my best friends at least live in the same country as I do. We’ve learnt to adapt our friendship to suit long-distance, even if we haven’t seen each other in months it’s no problem because we carry on where we left off. And what would I do without the internet and my iPhone? I am so grateful to have Skype, Facebook, whatsapp, FaceTime…

Maybe I have to stay put for longer than a year or two to finally have a group of people who I am comfortable with, who can come over unannounced, pop by just to say hi or meet regularly to have coffee. But I am also very happy to know that I can pick almost any country in the world, and there might just be someone there I know.

forever in ink

“I got it tattooed on my sleeve forever in ink,

with guess whose name?”

                             (Holy Grail, Jay Z feat. Justin Timberlake)

For my birthday last year I got a tattoo. It’s on my right side, under my arm on my ribs. I didn’t want it to be a cliché; so many people get a tattoo these days. That’s why I chose to put it in a place where it was visible only if I wanted it to be. This tattoo is for me, it’s a reminder etched on my skin.

It was autumn when I got it. I had that familiar anxiety I get every time the summer is over – I instinctively start looking for a way out, an escape route that’ll take me far away from the long cold winter. I’ve always thought I am my best in the summer. I am more relaxed, spontaneous and more active. I have less to complain about.

       I want this tattoo to remind me of that summer me.

And it’s not just the weather. I realised I’d lived in Finland for 3 years (4 years now!). That’s a long time to stay in one place for me. I had planned to stay in Finland for only 2 years till I finished my degree. I got “stuck”, in a good way. I found a job and a boyfriend, more than enough reason to stay. I just hope I remember that the world is still out there, I don’t want to be stuck just because it’s easy to stay put.

       I need this tattoo to remind me that the world is still my oyster.

I am Made in Kilimanjaro. As long as I am reminded of it, I have a bit of perspective and I don’t get lost.

introduction

This is the first time I am writing a blog so an explanation and a disclaimer are more than necessary!

I am what they call a Third Culture Kid (TCK). I have lived abroad most of my childhood, and even though my passport says I’m Finnish, I look Finnish, speak Finnish & even live in Finland at the moment, I feel I am far for a “normal” Finnish person. I am certainly not Tanzanian even though I lived there for 13 years between 0-18yrs. I am not British though I studied there and consider English to be my second mother tongue. This is a good thing, I love being international and I am proud of it. However, it does bring up some issues. This is what this blog is all about. By writing down issues or questions I face, I hope to clarify for myself how to deal with complications and how to make the most of my colourful background.

I always thought I’d be an “adult” in my late twenties. Turns out I still have no clue what that means. I am biased, I get defensive, I am probably more prejudiced than I’d like to be. So please don’t get offended, these are my opinions and even they vary from day to day! Feel free to comment, as long as you explain yourself I am happy to hear other points of view and even happier to hear if someone else has come across similar situations and thoughts.

One more thing I have to mention: I am obsessed with music. You’ll notice! I listen to music everywhere I go and I often have the same song on repeat for days, even weeks.  I take song lyrics and apply them very much to my day to day life. For every situation there is a song that fits.