aftermath

Yay, I'm alive..! o/ Okay, first I had bronchitis, then I had migraine for 2 days, and now I have a cold sore on my lip (L0L). Anyway & overall, now I'm finally feeling like a humanbeing again. Still coughing my lungs out (did you know it's perfectly normal that bronchitis symptoms last up to 2 months?), but I can manage. Hopefully I don't get that sick any time soon again, because it really sucked, a big time. Looking for a silver lining? I'm now officially addicted to The Simpsons, I've watched almost 2 seasons in less than a week! The Simpsons has always been my more or less guilty pleasure, and now I've challenged myself to watch all the episodes - that's more than 20 seasons and 500+ episodes! OMG. Erm, well, time to move on, let's say me having bronchitis is now a closed case.

Yesterday was the first day I really felt better, and Emilia made my day even better by dropping by for a coffee. In case you've forgotten / don't know, Emilia is a friend of mine who used to be my flat mate, and after she moved out, we became friends instead of flat mates. We're both pretty busy in general, so even we live in the same city, we only meet maybe once a month or so, but every time we do - even if it's only for a quick cup of coffee - we have a good time together. She's the only one of my friends who's into photographing, so sometimes we go photographing together - eventhough she's a Canonist and I'm a Nikonist ;-) Anyway, yesterday Emilia came over for a nice little C&G (Coffee & Gossip). Damn it was great to have someone around after laying in bed for a week!

I also spent almost on hour on the phone yesterday, taking care of everything that got postponed because of me being sick last week. In the end I was very pleased with myself, this is everything I took care of yesterday:

• cancelled TOEFL (taking the test now doesn't really make sense, hence my changed plans about the next year)
• informed Itella that I want my mail delivered to Luumäki till the end of August (I won't be much in Joensuu from now on, hence the US and then summer job in Luumäki)
• called the boss of my boss and asked if I can come to work at the cemetery again next summer, and he said YES! :-) I'm so happy about this. I mean, I kind of knew I would get the job back, after working there for so long and all, but still it was great to hear it out aloud, you know. So, now my life is sorted out till the end of October.
• booked a hairdresser for tomorrow (my bangs are so long I can barely see!) 
• booked a cosmetologist for tomorrow (eeeeeep, I'm going to get my bikini line and legs waxed, which is pretty damn scary idea, L0L. Already had a nightmare about it last night xD but I'm sure it'll be worth of pain, I mean, ladies... who's up for shaving all the time while being on the road for month?)
• booked a massage for Thursday - it'll do me so good, I'm pretty damn sore after laying in bed for a week... besides, I think I'm addicted to massages.
• (and I also download like 10 albums - I'm building my very own USA road trip soundtrack)

So, things are looking pretty good right now. Now I only need to buy a sleeping bag and a new swimming suit for the US... Oh yes, and do laundry. Then I'll be ready to go! :-) I hope I'll get to leave for Luumäki by the end of this week, then I'd have a week for chilling out there before leaving for Helsinki and the US. I miss Luumäki so much... I just realized it's been over 3 months since my last visit which was in November after I got back to Finland from the Baltics tour. So I guess it's not a wonder I'm missing all my Luumäki people... On the other hand, now that my summer job is confirmed, I'll spend more than 4 months in South Karelia during the summer, and sooner or later I'll be whining how I'm sick of Luumäki and all its nosey people.

One more thing about yesterday - NORTHERN LIGHTS! We don't get to see much northern lights here in North Karelia (lol too much 'north' in that sentence) but last night the sky was lit up by the most beautiful northern lights I've ever seen. Took some photos too, but they aren't too good -- have you ever tried to photograph something that lingers in the sky, is constantly moving, fading away and reappearing somewhere else? Yeah, not too easy, especially because I was too lazy to use the tripod... Anyway, take my word - it was amazing, one of those rare moments which make think "Damn, this is worth of living up here in North - being able to see something like this from my own balcony."

yours truly -