on bad presentations

I've lived my whole life in a faith and according to that faith professionals know their stuff. During the last couple of weeks I've come across multiple not-horrible-but-absolutely-not-brilliant presentations. It literally drives me crazy.

You all must be familiar with the situation of a bad presentation. I've given couple of those myself and listened to more than one of them. I know we're all learning and that we're not perfect, but, I mean, please.

In my school we are now having weekly presentations by professionals of all kinds: a doctor, an engineer, a therapist etc. I've attended three now and let me tell you my opinion: either I know absolutely nothing about those careers (which I won't be separating here for obvious reasons) or they are telling something really wrong. I am supposed to be there to find out about careers that I might be interested in and take some notes for the reports we have to hand in in the end of the term. Instead I'm sitting there and making notes on how that particular presentation could be a million times better. 

Really, as far as I know, anyone can google "how to get in to university" and if unable we do have student councillors to do that exact research. The professionals, as I've understood, should be there to tell about their jobs not about how you can get it. I'd understand if there was a brief slide on how-to but the presentation should focus on the real job itself.

This problem doesn't exist only in career presentations, oh no. Lately there's been so many bad-structured or just lame presentations I don't know what to do. I feel the urge to interrupt them and start again myself. Obviously, as a well-mannered lady (you can always wish) I end up sitting quiet with a nice pretentious smile through the whole thing. When they've finished I might ask some questions just to get a brief answer that really says nothing. There goes the social skills, I say.

In the end I am quite devastated how this whole thing is organised. It's either brave or stupid to write about this but I thought it might create some conversation as this is a subject I have a strong opinion after a really long time. I'd be really interested to hear how you feel about this and if you've had similar situations.

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returning to school

School is everything I didn't expect. Still, I always knew what it was going to be. I knew it all, based on my first year, although the second year was going to be different in any case. In this case it just depended on how different this year could be.

Despite all of my many fears I settled back to high school already on the first week. All of my anxiety had been for nothing: everyone seemed to remember me and the new classmates seemed eager to get to know me. One thing had changed for sure: the need of the group has vanished.  Last spring my good friend summed it up pretty well when I asked her how had the second year been. "I don't even mind going eat by myself anymore" she said. It is exactly like that. It's wonderful to know a lot of people but I'm just fine if I ever need to or get to spent the whole lunch hours in my own world or studying.

Talking about the actual studying, I'm exceptionally pleased with the results I've noticed. Wether it's history, advanced maths or even advanced Swedish I'm doing really well. The exam weeks have just kicked off and by far I've been a bit nervous but mostly excited. A year off made me realise there's more in life than just school and that school is not forever. I did enjoy studying before but now I do even more — now that I know my grades don't define me.

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apparently I might be a hipster

and I might be astonishingly fine with that.

I've been getting quite a few comments about my current interests during this summer. I knew I was going to be a bit "different" due that I had just spent a year no further than the other side of the world. I still didn't realise how much I had changed as a person {as everyone does in this age, I've been told}. The most obvious change was in my style which had taken a radical turn January. As did literally everything in my life. That girl who refused to put on anything baggy, who loved Katy Perry, who didn't really care about yellow nor anything retro woke up one morning absolutely loving oversized shirts, Taylor Swift, yellow and desperately wanting a typewriter and a vinyl player. I swear, it was a revelation.

Changing when no one even knows you at all is exceptionally easy compared to the struggle I faced once I came back. People knew the old me. Some people knew the old me dangerously well. So in reality what I faced was a tiny existential crisis. It took me until last weekend to actually define myself well enough to know what I want to do next with my little project called self-improvement. Someone dropped the label for probably the twentieth time. I denied everything, for probably the twentieth time, but the next day I really got into thinking about it for the first time.

I like my sweaters and my ankle boots. I love my typewriter and my postcard collection. I deeply love my dear MacBook and my beautiful cameras. I cannot say I "like" the popular music {except Taylor Swift, of course} and really enjoy more authentic, the less over-replayed tracks. I went totally crazy about the fairy lights about a month ago. I have a rather complicated coffee order to place. Of course these things don't define me completely, not even close. There are much deeper features that build my character. I just thought it felt nice to be placed in a group for once. Also, fitting in one group doesn't take away the possibility of fitting in dozens of other groups. Think it as a passport: the more stamps, the more interesting, but in the end someone needs to tell the stories of those trips.

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The Yellow Castle

Cold cafe au chocolate sits next to my macbook. My beautiful calendar lies on the left side. I have a need to surround myself with pretty things. I mean, I have scissors shaped as the Eiffel tower. I have a mustard yellow typewriter. I have a clapboard. I have a pretty decent collection of everything I will need in my own apartment. 

Since January, when Minttu moved to her own apartment I kinda got a moving fever. I go to IKEA far too often and end up having multiple interior plans for my apartment — which, to be clear, I don't even have yet and probably won't have for at least couple years. I google apartment blue prints, print them and start planning where I'd put my desk and clothing rack and so on. In a nutshell I go crazy with interior design.

This might be just a part of me realising I'm 18 and that I want to become an adult. I'm gonna state it again: for me the definition of being an adult is not about all the usual stuff {drinking alcohol, driving a car and so on}, for me the definition of being an adult is cooking parties. I guess it might seem and it might even be a bit pretentious but all my underaged life I've seen my parents having so much fun with their friends coming over, cooking together and sitting in the living room with fancy looking glasses of cognac {or whatever} and chatting. That's what I've been waiting for. And gosh, have I waited long.

I'm still living with my parents and I love it here, I really do. But a big part of me graves for an own apartment, The Yellow Castle. The Yellow Castle is a metaphor for my dream life. The Yellow Castle is the answer you get when you ask what I want to have when I'm grown-up. The Yellow Castle has high ceilings, a warm grey kitchen, beautiful bathrooms, a walk-in closet. Most of all it will be the perfect venue for cooking with friends, for sitting in the living room with friends listening to old blues.

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18

How am I supposed to do this?

I'm Kaisa, 18 and I do wear hats. My wardrobe is the replicate of Taylor Swift meats Spencer Hastings meats Blair Waldorf. My ideal self is the replicate of Taylor Swift meats Spencer Hastings meats Blair Waldorf. I guess you could call me mainstream. Don't, tho.

I haven't been doing nothing, if that's what you thought. No, I've been here and there. I came back from Australia {but that you already know, I hope} but then I met people, went to France, met more people got my driving licence, went to Austria and yesterday my little sister had her confirmation. I'm going back to school on Wednesday. See that odd girl in the art class? Yup, that's me. 

And then, next weekend, we are gonna have a cooking night with four of my friends at my best friend's own apartment. It's all very adult. This is what I've been waiting for my whole freaking life. A classy evening with my friends sipping white wine and eating delicious food while listening to my very self-explementary Spotify-playlist called "when I'm a happy grown-up in a big city drinking fancy coffee". Yup, it's a thing. Except it's not really a big city and possibly doesn't include coffee but you get the idea.

Being 18 doesn't necessarily mean being an adult. An adult would know how to spell "necessarily" without autocorrect {note-to-self}. Still, being able to drive the car, drink champagne and being treated as an adult means a lot to me. I don't know if it's just me, I feel like people take me more seriously now.

It's all very new and exciting. There is a certain glory. Honestly, I was so freaking excited going to the bank for the first time by myself, to get my own bank account information etc. You'd think it's oh-so-boring. I guess it kinda is, but just knowing these professional looking people don't treat or think of you as a kid makes my world. I get very excited every time I get a bill by mail. 

And even tho I'm not 22 yet, I still am happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time and it sure is miserable and magical. Yeah. So thank you Taylor Swift. You keep telling me how to do this 'cause it seems to work.

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