I fell in love with a..

Sometimes it is very easy for me to fall in love.
Ok, perhaps “fall in love” isn’t the best term or the right term, but let’s not quibble over semantics.

I can’t stop thinking about them. Their actions have given me what I call “brain tingles” -or a  ‘autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR). They make me have a reborn faith in humanity and suddenly, the world feels like a wonderful and welcoming place in which I too am important. It’s like love, but not the kind of “love” you feel for the douchey “cool” kid in high school who hardly knows you exist, it’s like the love that you feel for your family, it’s the kind of love that comes from true kindness, not just aloof hotness.

I am currently in love with the cafeteria lady in my office building. Although I hardly eat at the cafeteria, due to my economical (90%) and dietary (10%) preference to bring my own food, she remembers me. How do I know she remembers me? Because today when I decided to buy a salad lunch, in which a bowl of ‘protein’ in the form of meat or cheese is included on the side, I was suddenly being handed a small personalized bowl of my own, filled with cashews and three* strawberries. The pretty cafeteria lady handed the bowl to me and said “I always feel so bad that there’s no side for you, so I brought you these so you at least get some protein.”
My jaw dropped. I closed it. I was mid way through my thank you as she was smiling and already moving onto the next thing- giving me that ‘no thanks necessary’ wave of the hand.

Bam. In love.

Being a shy, mostly introverted person, getting noticed and remembered is a big deal. I’ve had many times in my life where people don’t seem to remember that I too was at that party or in that class, and while everyone else received a fun superlative like “funniest” or “most beautiful” I received “most quiet” (which yes, we could argue isn’t so bad, but it was made worse by the awkwardness of everyone else reacting like I had just been handed poop). These things don’t happen too often, but they have caused significant dents in my confidence and feeling of importance.

Today, those dents feel more like tiny dimples and I feel memorable and important and visible. It’s a lovely feeling that, (oh my god I’m such a sap!), is making me tear up as I write this.

So thank you beautiful cafeteria lady for handing me a bowl of cashews, strawberries, and importance. Thank you for remembering me, and I love you… In a non-pyscho creepy way.


* My co-worker and I have noted in the past that they add a half a strawberry to some of the less appetizing sides: edam cheese that’s dried out to the point of looking like parmesan, goats cheese that appears to have melted and then re-solidified. All edible of course, but all in need of a bit of a spruce or compensation. Three strawberries told me that despite her extremely gracious act of even bringing me cashews in the first place, she felt she still needed to compensate, so touching.

Dear Bear: Stop Motion Animation

Hey everyone!

Are you ready for the most over-used line on blogs.... 'I know I haven't been posting for a-'.. yeah yeah, let's just skip all that. 'I've been busy. lazy. etc. I'll try to do better. ' ok done. 


Now onto more exciting things!

From January to April of this year I was busy working on my thesis. If I haven't mentioned it before, I studied Media, (what a stupidly broad term) and ended up making my thesis about stop motion animation. Luckily this didn't just entail reading and writing about stop motion animation, but actually the creation of my own animation: Dear Bear.

I've shared a few of my mini stop motion animations here before, but keep in mind that these previous works were usually created in a matter of hours. My goal with this animation was to create something more intricate and to really take time to build the set, create the characters, craft a story, and then bring it all to life.

The majority of my time was spent in the planning and building of the animation. Despite the strict mental deadline I set for coming up with a story, my brain refused to cooperate. This was a less than ideal start to the project, and actually even thinking about that time now makes me feel anxious! But anyways, obviously I came up with a story and then I was really able to get all the wheels in motion.

Painting the cottage (exterior set)

The exterior set in progress

For the animation I built two sets, one exterior and one interior. The exterior was for the most part made from cardboard and newspaper-mache  (is that a thing? do I need to specify that it was 'news'? :D.. anyways.-_-) as well as some natural sponges for the trees, and Popsicle sticks. For the inside I used a variety of cloths, Popsicle sticks, oven-hardening clay, wood and cardboard.

Building the back wall of Bear's home

The main character in my story, Bear, was made with a simple wire armature and a wooden ball as his head, covered with clay. I had originally dreamed of a furry more intricate character, but well basically, building puppets is hard! And with all my time constraints I just had to let go of that dream.. but you know what, I still loved my Bear. Oh and I was able to create 6 different heads for him! <3 (a little bit of explanation: I've been fascinated with the replacement head method since seeing the making of the Nightmare Before Christmas, so this was all pretty exciting to me :P)

And finally, filming!

My gosh,  I think writing a whole thesis about this animation has made me incapable of just sharing it without a lengthy prequel of information. So without further ado, here is Dear Bear.




I'd love to hear what you thought! <3 And what do you think of stop motion in general? Is it a visual style you enjoy watching or not? And if any of you have created stop motion animations please share them with me!

Oh and please go over to youtube and give Dear Bear a thumbs up was well! ^^

A-

Happy Women's Day

So in all honesty I have slightly mixed feelings about Women's Day. On the one hand, I really don't care. It's just another day to me. It's a Saturday, nothing out of the ordinary really happened to me today.

But on the other hand I think it is a completely useless day that just wants to promote consumerism in a similar fashion as Valentine's Day (which ironically I enjoy very much, just not the typical 'it's all about the women/girl')

And on the, ermm, third hand (?) it's a wonderful way to promote women's rights and issues.

But with that said, why not head over to youtube to watch my new video about it! 
Where I basically say everything I just said in an even less eloquent fashion- I'm sorry, I'm still getting used to talking in front of a camera and you know, forming words in general (I think 'great' is pretty much the extent of my vocabulary when it comes to positive descriptions)

:)

Oh and while you're there, check out last week's Wanderlust TAG (I forgot to post about it here!)

Thoughts on Envy

Hey everyone, long time no blog!

Well the simple explanation here would be that I've been lazy, but shortly to convey the far more elaborate reason, imagine these words strung together with some clever stories, verbs, adjectives and all that other good stuff that forms witty sentences: busy-holiday-South Africa-Christmas-New-Years-Thesis-Stress-Darkness-Winter-Depression-Lack of motivation-or-something... ;)

But anyways now I'm attempting a comeback, so stay tuned for many more updates! My first update is this little video I made about envy/jealousy, check it out:





So no matter how long I plan a video, I always end up going into way too much detail on one thing, and then completely skipping over one of my pre-planned points. This definitely happened here, but all in all I'm happy with how short and concise I was able to keep it.

But with that said I would like to add one thing, and that is how heavily media is designed to trigger envy. Every clothing advert wants you to feel some level of jealousy towards the model, because they want you to believe their product will make you as beautiful/cool/sexy as she/he is. And beyond that, even social media: facebook, twitter, instagram and pinterest, feed on our jealous nature. Everyone presents their best side, their best meals, their best moments, so all we see of each other is their 'best', where as with ourselves we can't escape our 'worsts'.

Wow, maybe it's a good thing I didn't try to explain that in the video because I'm not quite sure if it made sense :D

Anyways it feels good to be back, feel free to comment your own ideas on the topic of envy or go over to youtube and comment there on the video!

Crazy Finnish People (part 1)

As you can tell from the title, my latest vlog is about the craziness that is Finnish people. :) Now I wrote part 1 because I imagine I'll do another vlog of similar nature later- but it wont be for a little bit.

Fun background facts about this video, Albert was actually in the same room with me! This may not sound like a big deal but I am ridiculously shy, even around the people I'm most comfortable with. I will admit that he had earphones in with the volume way way  up, haha- but still, I think this is a step in the right direction. I think his prescence did make me alittle bit extra awkward, and his sighs and sniffles can occasionally be heard, but overal it felt much better than sending him out of the house.

Anyways enjoy the video, and go to the actual youtube page if you wanna see the original news stories that I talk about :)

September Favorites!

So like I explain in the video below- I got super busy towards the end of last month and had to put the videos on hold for a little bit. I went into more detail in the video, but then ended up editing out most of the explanation because I didn't want the overall video to be too long. But basically we had an event at work that ran into the evenings, I was house/dog sitting for a few days, Albert and I are busy making Acid Bunny 2 (yay!) and then I had my birthday party and some other social engagements like a sushi night. So none of it was really super stress-inducing, but it did leave with me very little 'free' time.

Anyways the video just goes through some of my September favorites, from food to entertainment. I was so glad that September ended and I was able to make my video about this, because I hadn't really had time to think of any other specific topics or issues I wanted to discuss.

In the video you'll hear a constant stream of water from the shower, this is because I'm not quite comfortable enough to film these videos in front of Albert yet :D In the past I've actually waited for him to be out of the house before I film, or asked him to go for a little shop trip or something, but I can't always just send him away so when he said he was going to take a shower I just told him to make it a long one. heh.

I hope you like the video, and feel free to share your opinions of any of my favorites, or tell me some of yours on here or comment on the video! :)

How to be a Good Pedestrian

New vlog! This time I go through 10 ways to be a good (awesome) pedestrian! All these little examples are based on personal experiences, that I'm sure many of us have witnessed.

Oh and some of the plushies I created for Acid Bunny are featured, so that's fun. Also as you can see from the thumbnail a little bit of love for my old Nokia phone.  Up until a month ago I still used a black and white nokia button phone. The only reason i stopped using it was because I happened to land a smart phone for free. I'm still not entirely convinced that 'smart' phones are any better. I mean, their battery life sucks, they aren't as easy to type on (especially while walking ;) ) and somehow they make me feel overly connected. But there are definite plus sides as well- like finally getting messaged by my friends more frequently via whatsapp- it's free, so this is totally understandable.

But anyways, enough random ramble about phones, check out the video!



What do you think of my shirt? it says 'Dream, Believe, Believe'. okei, so usually I'm not a big fan of slogan shirts, but this shirt stuck out to me because it's a 'mistake'! So I really just loved the style of the shirt, the graphic boldness of the words contrasts really nicely against the lace, so despite not being a big fan of the words themselves I decided to try it on anyway.

In the changing room I put it on and loved it but suddenly became confused, Wait, I could have sworn the shirt said Dream, Believe, Achieve... weird. So I went back to the rack (considering putting the shirt back) when I noticed I was right- all the other shirts did say that! 

So maybe a misprinted shirt should be in an Outlet shop, but for me this little mistake just made me want the shirt even more. This particular shirt was one of kind inside this shop. No one else would have it! Even more than that, it somehow made the words less cheesy. My shirt suddenly became a hopeless believers shirt. Someone, who unlike the other shirts, would never 'Achieve' their dream... yes, depressing when I put it like that, but really it had more of an underdog kind of appeal to me.

And best of all when I got the cashier it turned out that all 'sweaters' were only 4,95 that day! -This concluded any doubts I was still having about the purchase.

Have a lovely day!