May Day

The last day of April and the first of May are considered to be the most joyful days in the Finnish society, in my opinion. That's simply based on the amount of people being seen on the streets all of the sudden after a cold, dark winter. Though it still is cold on those days, we have our ways in keeping ourselves warm.

Here are some tips;

Wear a warm hat.

If you're a student, put on your degree program's overalls and gather a team to participate in your own town's Amazing Race competition. If you're really lucky, you might as well climb a high mountain and realize you're in the wrong place.

Move to a warmer country and do what they do.

orange army in amsterdam by l. lundberg

Put on your high school graduation hat to remind yourself that you have indeed accomplished something in your life. Remember to eat munkki (Finnish doughnut) and drink sima (mead drink,everything always sounds delicious in English) in a park.

This year zero %, and now when I think about it, it seems that it's every second year! Yet had a fun one, though it felt a bit strange to be running into old school mates who are asking why I am here, when I should be living somewhere abroad. Then I ran into my beer tasting buddy Janne, who seemed sincerely shocked in bumping into me during the night. Now, seriously what are the odds in that happening in one of our favorite indie bars in a small city during the busiest time of the year?

It was really pleasant to see a top Finnish artist Olavi Uusivirta playing for a huge crowd for free. He's such a charismatic and good performer!

This year's May Day was also spent with my mom at a Chinese buffet. I don't remember when was the last time we spent May Day together!


And last but not least, here's why my May Day became mayday.

Like Shaggy would say; "It wasn't me!"

RIP Converse

Dear Converse,

I've been trying to find the perfect you. That took many years, and ironically I had to fly back to my birth place, The Philippines. It was January 2008. I was strolling down the streets wondering each day, if soon would be my lucky moment. 

And there you suddenly were, right in front of my eyes. The only one left, feeling all alone, perhaps due to being a bit dirty. But I saw the pain the loneliness had caused you, and realized we'd understand each other. So I took you into my life knowing, what my life was lacking of, it didn't anymore.

It was the beginning of a magical partnership. We were so good to one another, we were inseparable; inside/outside, summer/winter. You made me smile and feel good about myself. 

During Bloc Party's gig in February 2009, you got your first proper stain, which made me love you more. However, that's when the alarms went off from my family side. My mother's loathe towards you began, and it just grew from day to day. She insisted you brought shame to our family and banned you from any of our family trips. Also that you could be easily replaced.

What she didn't see (until only in the very end) was the unique companionship celebrated literally all over the world, in what special events. For four years.

Play the following song and scroll through our memories.

Aug-08 Esslingen, Germany

Dec-08 Stockholm, Sweden

May-09 Jyväskylä, Finland

Aug-10 Lappeenranta, Finland

Sep-10 Breda, The Netherlands

Oct-10 Three Land Point, The Netherlands

Oct-10 Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Nov-10 Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Traditional New Year's dive in The Hague was the trip for us. Unfortunately it was a turning point towards worse. As much as we did have fun, it caused trouble to our relationship too. So we decided to take some time out, but never did we think that the break would have lasted that long. 

You can blame me for you being stuck in a water bucket for a few months.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That's the best way to describe our post-break time.

mother's comment: yahaaa, still alive???

We were better than ever, ready to conquer the world again.

May-11 Dublin, Ireland

May-11 Cliffs of Moher, Ireland

Jun-11 Versailles Palace, France

Jun-11 Disneyland Paris, France

The end of summer meant we were off to London, aka the concrete jungle of Europe. The streets were made for you. Although at some point, we came across with the fact of London life being living and dying at the same time. There was so much to do, but also no time to rest. 

Dec-11 London, UK

Jan-12 Liverpool, UK

Jan-12 Brighton, UK

After a snowy three hour walk home a couple of weeks ago, I sensed your suffering and your quiet request of 'putting you out of misery'. 

We thought it would work, but it got worse. The dream of celebrating our 5th anniversary back in The Philippines became distant. Seperation hurts, it's like the end of a circle. There wasn't an easy way to end it in sight. 

 We knew it was the best for both of us, and you'd want me to move on. It will be hard, but I will always carry a piece of you with me.

You just keep walking towards the light, with the lovely looks of yours.

Forever yours,
Jaleh

Explosions In The Sky @O2 Academy Brixton, London

January 27th, 2012

I asked my South African friend Jordan, if he liked Explosions In The Sky. He told me this:

i find their music predictable, but incredibly transportive. visual.

you see stories when you listen.

you can feel their music with your body, live: it's huge, swallowing.

That's exactly how most of the people would describe the band, which completely owns the art of composing instrumentals that take its listeners inside a story. A story, which one builds in their mind and feels it being told forward with the help of the 'mini-symphony resulting into a catharsis'.

Some consider the music to be sad, having for example war pictures in their minds. No doubt that it does have the melancholic side in it, but it also transmits happiness. Thus I call it my 'happy melancholia'.

As the stories I build in my mind are joyful.

The first time I saw the band play was in The Netherlands last May (Explosions In Paradise). I remember being all depressed, because of leaving Ireland, the place which I very much enjoyed and then hoping that 'explosions in the sky in amsterdam would cheer me up'. I'm lucky that no one came to arrest me due to that Facebook status update.

Another lesson learned from that gig was not to drink beer. Otherwise, I would have ended up having a miserable time building stories, with a picture of a toilet.

The show couldn't have started better by playing one of my favorites 'Postcard from 1952'. And I love how they introduce themselves.

It's amazing to see how the audience at their gigs sway peacefully, eyes closed, so deep into the music. Then suddenly start to bang their heads, when the climax strikes. They are simply one of those bands, which everyone needs to see live.

I was so happy that this time they played 'The Birth and Death of The Day', the piece, which made me fall in love with them at the first place. What I was missing in Amsterdam, I got in London. I guess the 1½ hour of non-stop superb musical talent celebration, filled with several emotional purifications, was an enough dose to fill up my 'feel-good factor tank' for a long period.

Until next time;

 

Or like my Spanish friend Sara, who will 'super take care'.

Iron & Wine - Godless Brother In Love

I thought this day would never come, you see Iron & Wine's latest album Kiss Each Other Clean is already a year old, but only now has he released a proper video for one of his singles.

First single Walking Far From Home, which is an album favorite of mine doesn't have a video and second single Tree By The River has just a live performance put out as an official one. So, I guess third time is a charm with Godless Brother In Love. What I remember vividly of this particular song, is when Iron & Wine performed it at one of my favorite venues around, Paradiso in Amsterdam.

Hearing him (Samuel Beam aka Iron & Wine) sing about a godless brother in love in that bju-t-ful place with fine acoustics was perfecto.
Click Iron & Wine @ Paradiso to read more.

Watching the music video makes me think about how I wish that all my plans for 2012 would come true. Graduating from school and having the complete freedom to stop dreaming, but to live the dreams I want. Carefree.



Ps. this video was published last October already, but why do big music sites write about it now?

2l of water for life

14.12.2011

Last Wednesday I woke up with stomach ache I hadn't felt before. My landlady told me to go to the toilet, drink some water and lie down. It was impossible to push, as if there was a wall, but I thought to wait for a while and just let the pain disappear.

Instead of getting some relief, it got worse by every moment. That's when I decided to call Linda, who had her phone silent, but luckily noticed my call and called immediately back. If it were me, I would have continued sleeping (of course I'd call back now experiencing this). After that I called my boss, who instructed me to go to the closest hospital. At that moment the pain was unbearable, and I also puked a few times while waiting for the cab, which took 20 min or so to get to my place. I was worried that there would be quite a traffic jam, but thankfully I didn't have to lie on the backseat for too long. I don't know about other places, but here you can call the ambulance only if it's a real emergency. So to what extent do you have to be suffering to be allowed to call?

Somehow the bad luck continued as the hospital had just opened the new emergency department that day. The staff didn't really know where everything was, the reception was as slow as Tesco's cashier lines. At the same time when my left side of my stomach was cramping in my mind I was thinking how English people are so slow and that they should do less talking with their colleagues and act more.

Finally when I got all my details transferred into the system, they brought me into the waiting room. And once again I felt like yelling for them to give me some damn treatment (but calling the guards would have made it worse). There wasn't even a place to lie down, so I just went on the floor to feel a bit comfortable. But of course a nurse comes to tell me that that's not allowed, and tells me to give them a urine sample. Pff, luckily I was able to pee something, which looked normal to me. Then again I had to wait, that's when the unbearable got even more unbearable. I was crying of the pain, being all alone and the feeling of not getting any help. Good thing Linda had arrived to listen to my swearing in Finnish of all the slow and annoying people I had to deal with.

After a really long wait, well at least if felt so, I got a nurse to come check me. Changing position didn't really help anymore, but at least I realized to stay in my pyjamas when I left the house to keep some comfort. She had my urine sample tested and told me there was blood in it. That was pretty shocking to hear that there can be blood in your urine without you noticing it. She suggested different ways how to take the pain killer they were about to give, and one option was to take it through the arsehole. Before they gave me the pain killer I had to change to another room and wait yet more time that I could have some relief. And when I got the relief they actually didn't ask anymore which option I wanted, they just put it in.

Few hours of squirming in agony I turned into the complete opposite; being calm and having a quirky satisfied smile on my face. It was like the department had turned into Amsterdam. And my boss' comment, who also had arrived already, was as if they had stunned a horse.

They took some blood samples from me and when I asked how many they were taking, the nurse replied '17'. In the end it was only 4-5. I had to drink a lot of water so my blatter would be full for the scans, and they once again transferred me to another department, where I was the second ever and first female patient to be there. They didn't have a name for that department yet, so we were thinking that naming it after my nick name Jallu (Finnish drink/porn magazine) would have been great.

I was put on IV too, everything was so new and exciting for me and all I could think of were House, Grey's Anatomy and some British hospital shows. Of course on TV everything looks more interesting and dramatic. It took me a long time to get my blatter full, and when that happened we had to wait for the blood tests to be ready, so that it was safe for me to go to the scans. Apparently they've had some religious girls who claim that they haven't had sex, but then end up radiating their babies. Thus the hospital policy.

So with a full blatter waiting.

And waiting.

Waiting.

I was thinking should I just go to the toilet and then drink a lot of water again, but it was a lot of water so I decided to train my holding skills. When the time came, this Filipino guy took me with this really old wheel chair to the scanning room. The machine wasn't as big as on TV, but still as I said, a new experience. I heard instructions of how to breathe through the speaker; 'breathe in, hold your breathe, breathe normally'. It took about 30 seconds and I was off to pee! The IV bag was empty with blood, which the nurse said it was only dark because it was dark. I guess she didn't want to freak me out. Luckily I'm not that sensitive, when on the other Linda couldn't even look or listen to me talking about it.

All we could do at that point was to wait for the scans, and hope it's only a kidney stone like they expected it to be. Had a nice nap, though too bad we couldn't get the bed down due to some problems with the electricity (just opened department).

Woke up to hear good news; scans and blood tests were normal, so it was most likely to be a kidney stone which just passed. The most painful moment is when it's in the urine stream. The nurse compared it to giving birth, but of course in much smaller scale. I actually was thinking on my way to the hospital of my sister-in-law when she has to give birth, if a kidney stone hurts that much what about that then.. Also what popped into my mind was the stories of the evil doctor Josef Mengele, who did experiments mainly on twins at Auschwitz like trying to turn them into siamese by connecting them from the veins and organs. Then they'd just be in agony for a few days and die.

Yes, everything can always be worse.

When asking the nurse what to do with it and will there be any medication, she simply said; 2 litres of water everyday for life.

That's a common rule, but the way she said it, sounded like I have to be on life time meds. Well, if you've had kidney stones once, it can easily come back. No thank you. I guess one factor is living in England, because the water is bad and I'm not used to buying water. But I did buy a lot of slush juice, drank a lot of tea and had water bottles filled when I got back home. I had a prefect Wednesday morning planned with eating a lot fruits, but it turned out something totally different, however now it was a really good thing to have healthy food at home.

We were set to leave, and the good thing of London is that no one cares if you walk with your pyjamas on the streets. Also have to thank the lovely, caring, humoristic staff (not in the beginning though when I hated the whole of England). And of course Linda and my boss for being there. And for Linda doing the phone calls for me when I didn't have the energy to explain anything (we did talk about just posting a photo on Facebook for them, lol, now we can all laugh about the whole situation but not then, or actually then too). Another great thing was the non-existing paper work and no bills afterwards, that made everything less stressful. Just pop in and out of the hospital, without anyone shouting after you.

And the pain killer!!! <3

At home I had to read more about kidney stones, apparently 80% of those who suffer from it are men and the first time they get it is usually when they're 30-40. Great I'm a female in my early twenties. Read more from the all mighty Wikipedia.

I was really lucky to not having to go the hospital throughout my exchange year in Holland, but of course I've always thought of how scary it would be end up going to one abroad, and who I'd be calling etc. I kind of had a feeling for a couple of weeks that there might be something wrong with me, but that's the usual paranoia. Or in this case it wasn't. But everything is fine now.

I usually don't want to post these kinds of things in public, but I thought that reading this might be useful for someone. Actually last night I was talking about this with my Dutch friend, and she asked me if I'd take this experience back. No, I wouldn't. It at least made me wiser now, I learned and experienced so many new things. And I'd probably know how to act in the future, if something occured. Hopefully not, when I try to stick to my 'medication'.

You should get on it too.

Ps. when I had to explain the nurse what happened, my story started like this; '7am I woke up..' and could you guess which song has been playing quite often from that? Also Linda started singing the exact opposite what's in the song. Watch the video below.