I see London, I see Sams Town

I'm off to England in approximately 5 hours. There are no words for this feeling, buzzing of joy and excitement in a way completely foreign to me. I've never been abroad without my family. My exchange year doesn't really count, as I did have a super lovely and caring host family. It's the first time I'm traveling with just one of my best friends, so this trip will probably be a whole new world compared to all the others I've made during my 18 years on this planet. I look forward to what the world will bring us.

I know I haven't uploaded any Vlogmas videos yet. I decided to start vlogging in England, as that's a bit more interesting to watch than just me rambling about The Sims 3. I'll also take a lot of analogue pictures that I'll get developed after the trip.

I hope you are all still well,
enjoy the pictures and wish me luck
x

The Sweater Weather TAG

Yes I have a youtube channel, and yes, you should definitely subscribe to it. I try my best to upload videos once a week or so, but in December I'm going to be doing Vlogmas, which means I'll be vlogging every day from the 1st to the 25th. Just thought I'd let you guys know !

counting stars

 Earlier this week my package from Chicnova arrived and naturally, I was super excited to open it. I'd never ordered anything from them before, so I had no clue about the quality of the clothing etc. However, I had high expectations as I think some of the stuff on the website is a bit on the pricier side. Anyway, I'm happy with everything. All fits good and seems a fairly good quality(apart from the belt, which I think will break soon, but it was a freebie anyway).
Earlier today when I was drinking my coffee, it started snowing. I got super excited and grabbed my camera immediately to take a few pictures. Christmas is my favorite holiday after all, and the only real Christmas is a white one, at least for someone from up north.
I've started youtube again properly, and I hope you'll all go and subscribe to my channel Melnatalks, where I'll be uploading anything from daily vlogs to short film-like things. A Christmas market vlog will be up later today, hopefully, and the sweater weather tag later this week.

I think I'm actually going to manage to finish my nano. I've got 9,900 words left to write and then I'm done. Or more like, then I can start editing like a crazy person.

Anyway, hope you're all doing well!
Until next time...

nanowrimo.

The main focus of my past days have been writing my NaNoWriMo novel, which is pretty much sucking the life out of me. I find myself always thinking of ways to bend the plot or things to make my MC's personality more dimensional. I must say, writing a novel in a month isn't what's the challenge for me - killing my inner editor, who is screaming to go back a few chapters and look at that one dialogue or description - that's the challenge.
I don't know whether I'll be publishing it somewhere online for you guys to read. The answer is probably no, as I am quite protective over my writings and don't show them to any other than a few of my closest friends. Perhaps someday I'll let something see the daylight.
I realized this also counts as procrastinating, and I should probably get back to writing so I can go to sleep at human'o'clock.

Are you doing NaNo, or have you done it before? Share your opinions, experiences, tips etc. in the comments!

lo go mo

I had a lovely lunch with my dad at Logomo kitchen a couple of months back, and just completely forgot about uploading the pictures I quickly snapped while being there. The food was delicious, especially because I was super hungry! I highly recommend the place for lunch if you're in the area. I don't think it was horribly expensive for being a buffet with good food. I'm slightly bummed out about the fact that I forgot to take a picture of my food, haha!
I'm still going strong with my NaNoWriMo novel, which at the moment has reached the milestone of 30,000 words. I hope I'll be able to finish it, even though I have a lot of reading to do for exam weeks.
I hope you are all doing well and managing with the shift from summer to autumn!

Riot on an empty street

I think this is slightly a nostalgic post to make for me. As I sit here with my cuppa of spiced chai latte, I look through pictures from my exchange year with a wide smile on my face. To think that I've been a part of something like that, well, I think it's wonderful. I met so many amazing people. I'd do anything to get to re-live last year, and a part of me wishes I'd never left. 
I miss the people I met, most of all I miss my lovely host family and my closest exchange student buddies. I miss the freedom of being somewhere new, where no one can judge you by your past or remembers you because of the wrong things. Starting from a clean canvas and getting to decide who you are, finding yourself, really was life-changing. I think that year, I was the happiest I've ever been. 
Makes me wonder if Cambridge is the place I belong. I just feel like the city never stopped, like it was always changing and molding into something new. The majority of people around me were people similar to me: playing guitar on the streets or smelling the new samples at lush. Alternative people around every corner, I didn't have to feel like I stood out like a sore thumb. 

If you have the chance to do an exchange year or something similar, I'd say do it. Being abroad and away from your comfort zone, you really get to know yourself the best. Your limits. 

I think this became cheesier than I intended it to be. I'm just hugely nostalgic at the moment, winter does that to me every year. I'm also already in the Christmas spirits, which is weird, as it's only the start of November. 

That's it for today, I think. As you read this, go to facebook and send a message to a friend who lives far from you. Let them know you think about them, and you'll surely brighten their day, perhaps even week.

Ps. I broke the 10,000 words on my nano-novel today. I'm proud and on track!

Do I wanna know?

Sanni came to Turku for a couple of hours before she continued on her car journey towards a town nearby. We went to grab some coffee at Robert's, and ended up sitting there for about 3 hours. I swear I could live in coffee shops (and on coffee, tea and filled croissants with brie cheese). Some random updates: I've bought too many dresses lately, but I seem to be in a really girly mood. I'm addicted to tiny tower, I have 21 floors at the moment. Excited about our trip to England in a bit over a month, go follow Minni's blog to get posts from both of us. I bet there'll be a lot of travel-posts coming up.

I guess that's all this time, I didn't really have much to say as nothings really going on. I bought World of Warcraft gametime and I'm participating in this months Nanowrimo. I've written around 5000 words, so I'm pretty much on target to finish on time. I just hope my inspired mood will last long enough to actually finish a book. Anyway, I'm feeling good about this. 

I'm addicted to Arctic Monkeys new album AM. It's amazing. Go listen to it. NOW. 

Until next time, happy start of the month! 

favorite drinking glass

I want to take a moment to appreciate how nice empty glass jars are as drinking glasses. When I move out, I wanna get loads. There's something about them...

let's tressellate.

Photo-project I did for my art course this school period. The task was to take pictures of something familiar to you and then experiment with layouts to create a photo-montage thingy. I took these pictures at the old RCM café right when school started. Oh, I miss the feeling of late summer, autumn makes my bones ache.

I know places we can go, dear.

Been finding so much lovely stuff at flea markets lately, the weathers been nice and I've had nothing to do which sometimes feels wonderful. Went to an abandoned house to take pictures, such a haunting environment. Found the way to enter one of the houses, but chickened out on actually going inside. We had no flashlights, and it seemed pitch black in there. Maybe next time. 

mellan ett & noll

Foggy mornings are one of my favorite things to take pictures of. I just love the fact that everything looks like a ghost town. I can't even imagine what an actual abandoned town would look like in the hours of fogginess, probably haunting. The mint jumper is from the flea market, and I adore the retro feeling of it.

I discovered that writing about the good stuff is more painful than writing about the bad, weird huh? I guess that's why I haven't made any progress on my book lately... I need to feel inspired again, the question is: when will I?