After managing to stay healthy for half a year, (last time was about three weeks before I left Bellingham) I finally got sick again last Sunday. And what a nasty cold it has turned out to be. It's not swine flu, thankfully, but I have a horrible cough that just won't leave me alone. I had to miss a whole week of school too, but luckily nothing very big was going on.

I hate colds in general, but the worst thing about them is that whenever I'm sick I get really pessimistic about everything. I hate feeling like that because I'm usually an eternal optimist, never depressed for more than a few hours at a time.

I seem to be taking a small break from manga and anime at the moment and instead I've spent the last month or so watching TV series on Surf the channel. I've watched through all seasons of Criminal Minds, 5 seasons of Cold Case, 2 seasons of Medium and a bunch of other stuff. I've also fallen completely in love with Merlin and have been reading lots and lots of fanfic. The Sims also managed to distract me for a couple of days.

Gah, I really need to update more often. I often think about stuff that I could write about here, but if I don't write them down immediately, I forget them by the next day. And when I let all of those thoughts disappear, by the time I do sit down and write something I only end up writing about really general stuff, like what I've been doing recently. Colds seem to be one of the few reasons that get me to sit down and update my lj. Pathetic.

And yes, I really didn't have anything special to say this time either. I was just getting annoyed at the counter that tells me how many weeks it's been since my last update.

So much for faster updates, sorry. It's not that I've been that busy either, just lazy again.

School started a couple of weeks ago and I'm only now starting to get my first real homework assignments. I'm not sure which way I prefer more, the WWU method of giving lots of smaller bits of homework with only a few days to complete them or the Finnish way that gives me bigger projects with more time to complete them. Usually I think I'd prefer the latter option because it leaves me with a lot more free time, but I've noticed that it's also more stressful, because I tend to leave my homework until the last minute and until I finally do start working on it, I keep stressing about the deadline approaching. At WWU, even though I had more work, somehow I wasn't as stressed out because I learned how to do things at a steady pace. I wonder where all those new time management skills I learned disappeared to?

I'm finally taking that Swedish speaking course that I've been putting off for the last three years, and as I had guessed I seriously hate it, even though it's a lot easier than I had feared. The teacher lets us talk to each other in small groups and only occasionally listens in, so it's not that bad even if I keep making mistakes and forgetting my whole vocabulary all the time... I'm trying to refresh my memory by reading Harry Potter och Fången från Azkaban and I think it's somewhat working. Because I already know the story by heart, I don't have to check the dictionary as often.

I'm still getting along well with my roommate, but I'm getting slightly annoyed by the fact that she has visitors almost every night. It's not that they're being really loud or breaking things, but since they tend to hang out in the kitchen, it's a bit awkward for me to go cook something when I want to. In her defense, she did ask me if her constant visitors are bothering me and I said it's okay with me.

In other news, I have serious plans to start writing fanfic again. I haven't written almost anything in eight years (not since my Harry Potter days when Lily/James was my OTP), but I've been trying to work up the motivation to start writing again. I suppose one of my biggest problems has been the fact that nowadays I have so many fandoms (different manga/anime series) that I never stop in one of them for long enough to get any decent fic ideas. Now I've finally come up with an idea for a multi-chapter Kyou Kara Maou fic, which I really want to write. I'm a slow writer in general so it'll probably take me a long time to finish, but I seriously need to do it if I want to get rid of my 8-year-old writer's block.

This post will not interest those who don't care about anime.

I've just been wanting to make a list of my favorite anime for a while, and thought now would be a good time. There are still plenty of anime I haven't watched, but these are the ones that I currently love above all others.

I started out by listing the 80 most memorable anime series (I'm leaving out movies from this list) that I've watched and then started crossing out those that I didn't like as much as others. I meant to get the list down to 15 but once I had 17 anime left I realized I didn't have the heart to cross any more out. Thus, my top 17 anime list was born. I also realized that I can't really put them in any order of preference since I love them all for completely different reasons, so I'm putting them in alphabetical order. And now, on to the list:

- Detective Academy Q - Many have never even heard of this series, but it's one of my favorites because I like the characters and I like detective stories. Enough said.

- Fullmetal Alchemist - A true classic that everyone should see. The anime and manga story lines separate from each other early on, but both versions are truly brilliant. Look at all that angst!

- Ghost Hunt - Fascinating ghost stories and interesting characters. I prefer the manga version, but the anime is also great. I may write a fanfic for this someday...

- Hikaru no go - This is one of my Top 5 favorites and for some reason it's the one I most frequently rewatch and the fandom I would be most inspired to write fanfiction for. Man, I love AUs in this fandom. I have no idea why an anime about a board game can be so fascinating. Well okay, the obsessive Hikaru/Akira rivalry is a major part of it.

- Kyou Kara Maou - Lots of pretty men, intentional yaoi hints and plenty of "I would die for you" moments from my favorite character, Conrad :). What more could I want? Granted, this isn't one of the best series out there, but it so happens that I love even the stupid and cliché moments in this! Basically, a guy gets flushed down the toilet and ends up in another world where he is immediately crowned as the Demon King...

- Naruto - Do I really need to explain? True awesomness. I prefer the manga version though, because the anime has a lot of annoying fillers.

- Natsume Yuujinchou - I just want to give Natsume a hug. This series might be too cute and cuddly for some anime fans, but I love its mix of cute and serious.

- Ookiku Furikabutte - Baseball, team spirit and fascinating characters who are at times very funny and at times wonderfully serious. This is probably my favorite sports anime and the only one who made it to this list, even though I also love Major, Prince of Tennis, Initial D, Eyeshield 21 and Hajime no Ippo to pieces.

- Ouran High School Host Club - Not my absolute favorite by any means, but deserves its place on this list. Hilarious, but has its serious moments.

- Saiyuki - This series has made me cry more than any other (again, the manga is better than the anime) and is probably my number one favorite. Take four guys with very tragic pasts and put them together on a long journey. Pure awesomness ensues.

- Shounen Onmyouji - I'm actually surprised this series isn't more popular. I love watching the interactions between the two main characters (a boy and his guardian spirit/god). It's based on a novel series and the anime only covers the first eight out of over 20. I'm dying to get my hands on those novels, but since they're only available in Japanese, I'm extra motivated to learn the language!

- Skip Beat - A girl is betrayed by her crush who uses her as a maid while he himself is starting a career as a singer. Said girl decides to take revenge by becoming an actor. After 23 or so volumes of manga, the main character is still completely oblivious to the fact that there's a bunch of guys in love with her. Not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely in my top 3.

- Tactics - Again, I mostly love watching the two main characters interacting (a guy and his spirit servant or in more specific terms an onmyouji and his tengu servant). And yes, I do occasionally read yaoi fanfics in this fandom.

- Toshokan Sensou (Library War) - The fight against censorship has turned into a small war in this anime. It's only 13 episodes long, but definitely worth watching. Has some het romance.

- (The) Twelve Kingdoms - A girl is taken to another world and becomes a queen. A lot more fascinating than it sounds. I'm so going to cosplay this series in the next animecon.

- (The) Vision of Escaflowne - Yet another girl-is-thrown-into-another-world story, but this one is a true masterpiece. It's an old series (1996), but still one of the best there is. I would recommend this to everybody.

- xxxHOLiC - When I first tried reading the manga of this, I had no clue what was happening and gave up. I tried again a year later and was hopelessly hooked. A guy sees spirits and goes to a shop that grants wishes to get rid of his skill, but he ends up becoming the shop keepers employee instead. It's a complicated series that is a crossover with Tsubasa reservoir Chronicle, another series by CLAMP.

And here ends my list. Even though I didn't describe each anime in detail, it still took me two hours to write this thing. Can't be bothered to check this post for typos. To make this list as short as possible I had to leave out a lot of series I love, so if you know a good series that is not on the list, I either haven't seen it or I just preferred these over that one.

Where did all those weeks go? I spent over a month at home just lazying around and doing absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. I haven't had a proper summer vacation in four years so it was nice to be able to relax for once. Then again, I discovered that long vacations don't suit me. They make me lose all my motivation and then I start hating myself for being so damn lazy. Ugh.

I also discovered that I should never go back to my mom's place for more than a couple of days at a time. Being there drives me insane and makes me revert back to my old childish self. I need to have my own place in order to act more like an adult.

I just moved to my new apartment two days ago and I've finally finished unpacking my stuff. My apartment is bigger than my old one and has a separate kitchen, but on the other hand it's farther away from the university (9 km) and I have a roommate. The rent is low though, and the area is beautiful, so I'm not complaining. I was a bit worried about what kind of person my roommate would be, but my first impression of her is good (she just arrived a half an hour ago). It's funny how I never really talked to foreigners before my exchange year, but now I can't seem to escape internationality. You see, my roommate is an exchange student from Germany. I'm afraid my German has gotten extremely rusty... But luckily she speaks good English. And she also seems to be interested in learning Finnish (in a year...?).

So, I'm currently in the process of settling down to my new apartment and trying to figure out what courses I need to take next year since they went and changed my whole major while I was gone. Thanks a lot for that, by the way. I still haven't managed to read anything in Swedish and I'm supposed to take a Swedish speaking class. It's so going to kill me. Luckily my motivation for studying Japanese on my own is still going strong.

Not much has happened in the last seven or so weeks, other than me attending Animecon/Finncon 2009 in Helsinki. It was a lot of fun, but I was a little sad to see that since the whole anime/manga phenomenon is still so new to Finland, I'm one of the few older people interested in cosplaying and things like that. I'm not sure if I'm that interested in trying to mingle with a bunch of 15-year-olds. I hear there's supposed to be some sort of anime club at my university so maybe I'll check that out. Because the con was also a sci-fi/fantasy convention, we had some international guest speakers there, like George R.R. Martin. Everyone is always recommending his books to me, but I still haven't managed to try them. I still went to listen to his interview just in case I ever happen to become a fan.

I'll try to update more often from now on, now that I've finally gotten away from my mom's and I can stop being so horribly lazy. I already regret not updating during these last weeks since it's now hard to put into words what I felt some time ago. It's occasionally fun to read my own writings and see if I've changed any from back then.

Home sweet home. I've been back for a couple of days now, but was too tired and lazy to update until now. I had a major case of jet lag, but I'm mostly over that by now.

My flight home was absolutely horrible, due to PMS pains, nausea, tiredness, uncomfortable plane seats, a screaming baby that sounded more like a cat being tortured, and me sitting between two guys who talked to each other through most of my flight from London to Helsinki while I tried to sleep. One of the guys was from Texas and the other one from Helsinki and they apparently discovered during the flight that they worked in the same field and that they both loved blues and played in underground bands. It might have been kind of interesting to listen to if I hadn't been feeling so awful at the time. I actually talked to the guy from Texas for a while before the other guy got there and he was really interested in knowing things about Finland. Can you believe that the first American to ask me what "thank you" and "hello" are in Finnish is someone I meet on my way back home? During the last nine months no one else asked me that. Anyway, I was so happy when I finally arrived in Helsinki where my mom was waiting for me. By the time we got home I had been awake for around 30 hours (I slept a bit on the plane but that wasn't proper rest) and I just crashed into bed.

I woke up pretty early the next morning, still feeling extremely tired but not really sleepy so I got up. This is basically what happened when I got downstairs and saw my mom:

Me: *in English* Man, I feel so disoriented!
My mom: *looks at me weird*
Me: ... I said that in English, didn't I?
My mom: You know, I wouldn't even have commented if I had understood what you said.
Me: But I don't remember what that is in Finnish!

In other words, I'm having some major trouble switching back to Finnish. I keep using small English words and phrases in the middle of conversation and I don't always even notice it. My Finnish grammar is odd at times and I keep making stupid mistakes. I also still easily slip back into using English if someone surprises me. The books I sent through the mail arrived two days ago, but since I wasn't expecting it so soon I was surprised to see the package delivered to our door and when I opened the door I said "Hello?" in English. I really need to start reading those books in Finnish soon...

Other than that, I haven't really experienced a reverse culture shock yet. Of course, I'm starting to pay attention to some small differences between Finland and America, but it hasn't really been anything that shocking. Maybe the cultural differences will hit me when I start classes again in September. We'll see.

It's annoying that I bought lots of new summer clothing in America, but lately it's been so cold in Finland that if I want to wear them, I also have to put on a warm jacket (which effectively hides my new clothes).

Oh, I also got a new phone and a new number. I would've sent some text messages around notifying people of it, but apparently my sim card hasn't been activated yet (that's what you get when you try to get a new number right before the Midsummer holiday, I suppose...) so I'm still waiting... I like my new phone though. It's at least a lot more modern than my old one that I had bought in 2002.

And so it comes to an end. After nine months in America, I’m finally going home.

It’s been a crazy week. I’ve been so busy studying for my finals and packing up and running around trying to tie up all the loose ends that I haven’t had the time to update recently. But school is over now and in 48 hours I’ll be back in Finland. I moved out of the dorms yesterday (after a great deal of panic and stress over who had whose room keys and going over deadlines, etc.) and I’m currently freeloading at my friend’s house, waiting for Sunday evening when I’ll be flying home from Seattle (arriving in Helsinki on Monday evening). I did some major last-minute clothes shopping on Thursday and bought a second suitcase for all the stuff I’ve bought during the last year. I think both of my suitcases will still be over the weight limit, but in that case I’ll just pay that extra 45 dollars for each. I already spent a bit over 100 dollars to send most of the books I want to keep through the mail.

I’m not really as sad about leaving America as I thought I would be. I like the friendly atmosphere, but it sometimes gets on my nerves when you can’t go to a bus or a grocery store without having to greet somebody. I’m also tired of the fast paced studying that leaves you almost no time to yourself, never mind to your friends, if you want to do your school work properly. I’m glad I got to experience it at least once, but I’m so ready to put it behind me. I’ll be leaving behind a great friend, but she has plans to move to Norway permanently some day so hopefully I won’t lose that connection. Most of the other people I interacted with were other exchange students who are also leaving Bellingham.

Hmm. Somehow I thought this whole leaving America thing would make me more emotional and thoughtful, but I’m honestly just drawing a blank. I’m not sad about leaving and I’m not gonna really miss most of the things in here either, even though I rather like Bellingham. Maybe I’ll start feeling more strange about this after I get back home and have a chance to think about it more. The last few days haven’t really left me a lot of time to actually ponder on my feelings.

Gosh, I’m so tired I can’t think straight (like usual). I just wanted to update my journal for the last time from America before this year ends, so I wrote down whatever came to mind. I’ll probably write more about my experiences after I get home, but for now this will have to do.

Curse you, American college homework. I've been sick for the past five days (an annoying cold that has become worse every day), but I haven't been able to rest at all because I've had so much homework to do. Earlier today I attempted to write yet another short paper, and I just felt so ridiculous when I honestly couldn't concentrate enough to tell whether my sentences made any sense or not.

I also applied for an apartment in Tampere. I expected it to take at least a week or two so imagine my surprise when they already sent me an offer which they want me to sign by first of June. Right. Sorry, but since I would have to cross an ocean and two continents to do that, I think I'll pass. I asked if I could accept the offer in July, but if not, I think it should be pretty easy to get another good offer later since this one felt a bit too easy get.

Oh damn, my head hurts so bad... Would it be so much to ask if I could just put everything aside for a couple of days and just rest? *cries and crawls into bed*

Has it really been almost a month since my last update? Whoops. I can only blame homework, some stupid PC games that managed to distract me for a while and those annoying I'll-just-do-it-tomorrow thoughts that kept pushing it back. But here I am.

So. One thing that happened was that the baseball game trip to Seattle got canceled. I was extremely disappointed. Since the university doesn't have its own baseball team this would have been my only chance to go watch some baseball (and Major league at that!), but no, they canceled it because of the threat of swine flu. And when I tried to sign up for a hiking trip up to Mount Baker to console myself, that was canceled too. All in all, I've pretty much lost all faith in WWU excursions. Three out of four I was interested in got canceled in the last five months or so. I'm kind of glad I didn't update my lj when I first heard about it, or you would've seen plenty of angry ranting.

Since the university obviously wasn't sending me to Seattle, I decided to go on my own. That was too days ago. I got a friend to come with me and at least I had a blast. When I visited Vancouver some months ago, the trip ended up being really boring since we had no plans what to do when we actually got there. This time (I was with a different friend) we had a list of four places we wanted to go and we ended up running out of time so that we only managed a really quick stop at the last place (Daiso, which sells cheap Japanese stuff). I showed my friend around the Pike Street Public Market and the Waterfront and then we headed to Uwajimaya, which a huge joined Japanese grocery store and book store.

We were in a hurry by that time so we skipped the grocery store (man, I would've liked to buy some Japanese food!) and spent like an hour at the book store (and I would've gladly spent another hour but we still wanted to make it to Daiso before our bus left). I bought the second book in a kanji learning series (the first one teaches the basic meanings of kanji, the second one how to read them in Japanese), a bunch of manga (English translations) and also one book and one manga in Japanese for practice purposes. I'm still really slow at reading Japanese so I didn't have the time to pick out a book on the basis of the story synopsis (it took a lot of time just to find the section of the store that had novels since all the section names were written in Japanese, half of them in kanji). I ended up buying a random book (はじめてのことがいっぱい) by Yoshimoto Banana, who is a popular, contemporary female author. I had heard before that she uses a lot of casual, everyday expressions in her writing and that's what I'm really looking forward to since the textbook we use in class was written in the seventies and mainly uses the kind of formal Japanese that you would only use if you're trying to impress your professor or something. You wouldn't use it when talking casually with Japanese friends. The book I bought also seems to have quite a lot of hiragana and a relatively low amount of kanji so it should be a good choice for my first proper reading experience in Japanese.

There's only three weeks left before I go home so I'm busily finishing my homework and packing up all my stuff at the same time. I've bought a lot of new stuff, but I should be able to fit everything I want to keep in my luggage (I'll buy a second suitcase soon) as long as I send a part of my books in the mail. I've also been lazy about looking for a new apartment in Tampere so I'll have to fill my application today. I tried sending an email to the Student Housing Foundation to see if I could move in with a friend, but apparently I'm a couple of months too late. Darn.

I know there have been a lot of small stuff going on in the last month that I meant to write about, but I can't remember most of it anymore. Hmm...

It's amazing how I've been able to adjust to the American study style. In Finland we're used to relatively small amounts of homework but we still complain about how much stuff we have to do. When I was younger I spent a lot of time on FFN.net and I always thought that the American writers, who usually mentioned their homework as the main reason why they couldn't update so often, in reality had about as much homework as I did. Boy, was I wrong. Compared to your average American high school or university student, a Finnish student has lots of free time. I only found out the true meaning of being busy when I came here, and I know people here who are taking much more difficult and time-consuming classes than I am. Recently I visited the website of a Finnish newspaper and by chance I saw an article titled something like this: "Every fifth high school girl in Finland says they can't keep up with classes". Honestly, every Finn should be required to spend a couple of months in an American school so that they could understand how easy they have it. And Japan is still a lot worse than America when it comes to the amount of schoolwork. I'm not trying to insult anybody with this, it's just subjective observation.

I remember how I used to be so stressed out about having to do one piece of homework every two days or so in Finland (no matter if the homework could be completed in half an hour or required six). When I first started taking classes here last September, I took the first two weeks pretty easy and when I was forced to realize that it wasn't nearly enough, I spent the next month trying desperately to catch up. A couple of weeks ago I realized one Wednesday morning that I had two days to learn 70 kanji, read the last 60 pages of a book which I also had to write a one page essay on, and do my regular Japanese homework which takes about an hour every day. Had this situation happened a year ago in Finland, I think I would've had a nervous breakdown or something. But now I wasn't even stressed out. I managed to do everything just fine and even managed to squeeze in a couple of hours of anime watching. If there's one thing I've learned this last year it's how to manage my time. I'm just hoping I don't fall back to my old lazy habits when I go back to Finland.

And that's all for today, folks.

( Trying to get a suntan? )

Within two days I've had two odd things happen to me. One of them I can somewhat explain, but not the other one. In any case, both made me momentarily feel like something very mysterious had happened. It was interesting.

Yesterday morning at eight o'clock I received a text message from a friend. That would have been nothing special in itself, but the message was really confusing, like we were in the middle of a conversation, and at the same time oddly familiar. I realized that it looked exactly like a text message I had received from the same friend back in December. Huh. How is it possible to get an old text message to your phone again after four months? I haven't talked to my friend since I got the message so I don't know if she knows anything about it.

Secondly, today I received a surprise present from a vending machine. I was trying to use a certain vending machine for the first time and I was unsure how to work it. I gave the machine a one dollar bill and I put some coins into a slot that looked like it was meant for coins. I could see however, that my coins were still stuck just within the hole and they had not properly gone into the machine. I didn't know what to do so I tried pressing the big black button. No, I did not get the drink I wanted. Instead, the machine decided to spit out a one dollar coin. It literally came flying out of the machine. I was extremely mystified, because until then I didn't think one dollar coins even existed. I consulted my trusty old friend Wikipedia and that explained things a bit (there are series of minted one dollar coins that can be used in certain vending machines and such). I still don't know how it came flying out of the machine though. I spent 1,50 dollars on a drink and got a 1 dollar coin back instead. Huh.

Speaking of coins, I've been collecting different kinds of quarter dollars for fun. For my Finnish friends who might not know, there's a series of quarter dollar coins in circulation that feature each of the 50 states. I currently have approximately 20 different states. It's kind of silly to collect them but I thought it would make a fun souvenir. I don't think I'll have time to complete my collection though.

It's finally getting warmer and I noticed that I had only brought one sleeveless shirt with me from home. So, today I went on a bit of a spending spree (140 dollars on 7 pieces of clothing) and bought myself a new summer wardrobe. Amazing how new clothes can make you so happy. Part of it is of course due to the fact that I have lost weight in recent years and that's why clothes are finally starting to look somewhat good on me.

I'm finally done with my mid-term from hell. I don't know how they expect me to write a well-composed essay in 25 minutes... Yeah right.

By the way, friends back home, anything particular you'd like as a souvenir?

A week sure flies by fast. I'm so busy with my homework (and I will continue to be until the very end) that I really don't have time to do much of anything else (okay, fine, I do manage to squeeze in about two hours of manga and anime every day). It's taken me two weeks to catch up on my reading since I missed a whole weekend thanks to Sakuracon. And I'm reading like 50-100 pages every day (plus writing the occasional essay and Japanese translation). Mid-terms next week. Ugh. Right now I'm really glad this is my last quarter here and I can look forward to a couple of months of freedom after this. Then again, I do have a long list of things I both want and need to do over the summer.

Because I was gone for one weekend and after that my mom has been out of the country for two weeks on a vacation, I haven't had the chance to speak any Finnish in three weeks. It's funny how the less I get to speak Finnish, the more my inner monologue reverts back to Finnish. It's like an addiction... 7 weeks, 7 weeks, 7 weeks! *chants*

I accidentally overheard a pretty strange fight earlier (they were talking right outside my window!) between who I assume were a gay guy and a straight guy (since I heard them mention both a girlfriend and a boyfriend). It was really confusing and I could only hear one side of the conversation, but I couldn't help listening in when they started shouting things like: "you have no right to talk to my boyfriend like that", "you are nobody to me", "I never want to speak to you again", etc. At the end the assumed-gay-guy was repeatedly shouting at the other: "Hit me! Hit me!". It was so weird.

And here's a little something that happened in my Japanese literature class:
(on discussing tall tales)
Italian professor: "Have you ever heard that saying that the bigger the lie the better it is? I don't know who said that, but it's true, don't you think?"
Student: "Actually, that's a quote from Hitler's Mein Kampf."
Italian professor: "What?! Really?!"
I found it kind of funny how he was exitedly talking about an idea that he agreed with and then he found out that he had just quoted Hitler of all people...

By the way, I was pretty miffed to find out that this last week the weather has been warmer in Finland than in here. Grr.

Once again, please excuse the randomness of this post.