Five Good Things This Week

Forgot to do this yesterday for whatever reason. Last week was full of lots of little fun things and hopefully I can remember/think of (only) five for this weeks five good things!


1) I walked about 44 kilometers from Monday to Sunday. It was nice weather the entire week so I had a lot of motivation to walk almost everyday to school. It's about 7ish km from my flat to my university, so about an hour from door to door, and the path I take goes right next to Iidesjärvi for about 45 minutes of that hour; a lake in Tampere is shocking, I know. It put me in a great mood all week and I want to do it this week as well but it's not such nice weather now. It was also good because I plan to use that route to skate to and from school once I get my skates sorted out!

I love winter but I'm so ready for nice weather

2) Speaking of roller skates, because I don't do that enough already, I finally got my outdoor wheels! I got the Atom Pulse outdoor wheels in green. I've heard great reviews about them and they already seem nicer than the outdoor ones I got with my skates when I bought them a year ago. I wasn't able to order the skate tool (for none skaters, it helps take the wheels on and off) I wanted, which is why I have yet to stick 'em on my skates and get out there. I should be able to get the skate tool soon, so I should be out skating soon! I got the wheels from Gearcheck.fi and they are just lovely. I was a bit of a noob and forgot to select the green ones when I ordered them, but noticed it straight away...once I had already paid, got the invoice as an email and noticed the colour selection was ”smoke” (black) and not ”green). I sent them an email straight away telling them it's not a huge deal but if they could send the green ones, I'd be really happy. I got a very quick and lovely response saying that they would make sure I got the green ones. I'll definitely be buying from them again!

What lovely wheels I have!

3) Saturday was spent eating. Seriously, just eating. Actually, more than just eating, but, mostly eating. Also, eating. My flatmate and I went to our friend's place to apply for apartments for next school year as all of us want to share a place together that actually has a living room (ah international student housing, how I loathe them) and is closer to town. We decided to make brunch and it was a feast. English style pancakes with assorted toppings, homemade korvapuusti, bacon, coffee/tea, turnovers (which are called something else in German but I can't remember the name), and some fruit. We actually managed to apply for four nice apartments that are all close to town, wish us luck!
As if brunch wasn't enough, Saturday evening was pizza night. And I don't just mean ordering pizza from the nearest take-out place, I mean honest to goodness made by a real Italian pizza. My good friend made me and seven other friend about five different pizzas from scratch. I can't remember all of them because I later went into a food coma, but there was margherita pizza, pizza with salami and sauce, pizza with ham and no sauce, and pizza with peppers, eggplant, no sauce and mashed potatoes. Never in my life had I had mashed potatoes on pizza but it was so yum and quite normal in Italy. My flatmate and I were so food drunk by the end of the night.


4) I had lots of fun at roller derby on Friday night. I was in a position that I haven't really had to do before. I fucked up a few times but got lots of help and encouragement from two friends I NSO (Non Skating Official) with and it really helped out my confidence.


5) Yesterday was not so much fun because my friend and I were struggling to get a statistics project done. Neither of us is good with numbers and we realised that we had to change a bunch of stuff right before it was due (we can't work on it at home or even in just a computer lab because we have to use a program that's only on the school computers and you can't talk in computer labs). We were so burnt out after the four hours of doing it, especially me since I get frustrated easily which leads to me being rude, and we couldn't face going to Finnish class for two hours. Instead of becoming even more frustrated and wanting to crush some skulls, my friend and I decided to take advantage of cheap(er) day time movie tickets and go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier ,or, as it's called in Finland, Captain America: The Return of the First Avenger. I wasn't a huge fan of the first Captain America and I didn't like The Avengers that much either, but I do love me some comic book superhero movies, especially ones that involve Marvel characters. I only know about The Winter Soldier from wikis I've read and Bucky's appearances in the Wolverine: Origins comics, and I didn't like him much in the comics (same goes for comic book Steve Rogers. Again, I've only read him in the Wolverine: Origins stuff), but laaaaawd in the film Sebastian Stan did an awesome job portraying him. I'm a sucker for tormented baddies that aren't actually that bad; and it's an added bonus if they've got longish hair. I obviously don't want to spoil anything, but it's definitely the first comic book film I've really enjoyed in long time (I enjoyed it more than some of the X-Men films, which might not be that hard to do but I really like X-Men films so that's saying a lot). I might even break away from my exclusive Wolverine comic book reading and start reading Winter Soldier stuff because I enjoyed the film so much. It was definitely a perfect thing to do after a rough first half of the morning and I really want to see the film again! Curse expensive Finnish movie tickets!

10/10 would recommend

The film was great and Winter Soldier can get it.Photo belongs to it's owner

That's it for the week! This week is going to be busy as well with events on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday! Stay positive!

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5 Good Things This Week

Apparently my week has gone from starting and ending on Sunday to starting and ending on Monday. Sunday nights are now being spent watching a television show with friends and I can't be bothered to write afterwards, before I go to bed. Annnnyways, on with five good things from the week. 


1) I dyed my hair. I've had various shades of purple hair, and loved it, for over two years. My screen name for every social media is in part due to my hair and I get identified a lot by my pastel purple/lilac hair. However, it is a pain to up keep. It fades/washes out quickly and I can't be that bothered to keep dying it every week or so. Monday was about the four month mark since I've done my roots (unfortunately, I was not born with purple hair and the blonde hair I was born with has now gone very dark.), so I decided to try something new with my colour as well. I said I'd never dye my hair all green or blue, but since I starting adding the green/blue streak in my hair, because it brought me one step closer to becoming my favourite Care Bear Cousin, Noble Heart Horse, I learned to like the look of those colours. Since I've got an array of hair dyes because I mix everything to get the colour I want, I had some green and blue to try out my new colour. I quite like the colour it turned out, even though I wanted it a bit more green, but the colour reminds me of the pretty mermaids in one of my favourite films, Hook starring Robin Williams. 

I love the purple hair colour that I've had for what seems like forever, but I really dig this colour, especially when my nature waves behave 2) I went to a concert on Tuesday night! Apocalyptica has been doing a Finnish tour with Avanti Chamber Orchestra. If you don't know/haven't heard Apocalyptica before, they are three cellists that became known for doing covers of Metallica songs. They have since carved out a spot in the music world for combining classical with rock and metal music to produce fantastic original work. I saw them about six years ago at a club in Toronto, and they were as amazing in 2014 as they were in 2008. Their collaboration with Avanti is stunning and they managed to make their songs even better. The only downside was that their light show was a bit overbearing at times, but, if the only thing bad about it was a slight headache, I'd say it was a success. Still showstoppers after so many years listening to them Absolutely gorgeous instrumental version of I Don't Care. The original features vocals by ex-Three Days Grace singer, and fellow Canadian, Adam Gontier. You can check out the other videos I took during the concert on my Youtube account.  We discovered after the concert that you can get a bottle of wine for 10 euros. This is a big deal.  3) Thursday and Friday were both bar nights, albeit early bar nights. My classmates and I went for drinks after a long day of class on Thursday and then on Friday we said goodbye to another classmate as he is leaving our program to pursue other dreams.  4) I went on two nice long walks. Last Monday lead me on a new path, one that I most likely won't be taking again since I had to walk beside a busy road for about forty-five minutes. Today I took an old path to a small lake and it was extra nice because the sun decided to show itself today!  The path around the lake I haven't been here since September or October. It definitely looks different now! 5) Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were derby watching days! It was the first ever Men's Roller Derby World Championship, and boy was it a good one! Men's Roller Derby, or Merby as it is affectionately called (my friend Caitlin also loves that term so I had to mention it), is fairly new, I didn't even know that most countries had a team until this weekend, but you couldn't tell from the high level of athleticism that happened this weekend. Of course I was cheering for Canada and Finland, but I think I was cheering for Finland more than my own country. I pick Finland over Canada in this case because I actually have a connection with the Finnish team. If you didn't know already, I am involved with Tampere Roller Derby as a Non Skating Official (NSO). Tampere has two teams that have only women, the Tampere Rollin' Hos (the A team) and the Tampere Howlin' Rolls (the B team), and since early May 2013 Tampere has had a guys team, the Tampere Rollin' Bros. Since the Bros are a small team and one of only two merby teams in Finland, the other being the Sons of Peaches in Helsinki (the Finnish team has players from the Bros as well as Sons of Peaches), they scrimmage a lot with the girls teams; and some of them are even refs, so I see them much more. This is where my connection comes in. I help NSO the Thursday and Friday night scrimmages and the Bros go against the Rolls and Hos quite a bit. I've spent many an hour writing down and timing their penalties, so it was really neat to be watching them at the MRDWC this weekend, even though I have never actually met any of them and they probably have no idea who I am other than maybe as being "the girl that doesn't speak Finnish". Considering that they haven't even been around for a full year yet, the guys did awesome. They only lost one game (it was against team USA who just dominated the entire weekend and won the championship) and managed to finish seventh out of fifteen countries! And not to sell my home country short, Canada achieved third place! Way to go everyone!

Team Canada may have finished third, but I think that they should have gotten first for best logo and best beards

That's it for this week! Other than a bit of St. Patrick's Day festivities tonight, and school, I don't know what is happening this week. Let's wait and see! 

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