New beginnings

For some time now, I’ve been musing about starting a blog.  Mainly because I enjoy writing but I’ve been lacking ideas lately. So why not start from my own life: The things I’ve enjoyed and I’ve been annoyed with, dreams and memories, my views on how things are and how they should be, random things that make me smile. Whatever I feel like writing about. I will try to keep the focus on my interests, not on my personal life, if the two can be separated. After all, I do get excited about my personal life occasionally, too. I’m also hoping that writing about my interests might inspire me to try out new things, to go to new places, or help me see mundane things in a new light. Or at least make me eat healthier so that I can post food pictures without feeling embarrassed all the time.

There were some difficult decisions to be made before I could start.

Language. I’m writing in English even though it’s not my native language. I’m bound to make mistakes with the grammar and probably with the spelling as well. This is a little terrifying for me but I’m willing to risk it just in case someone who doesn’t understand Finnish would be willing to read my thoughts. I guess this could also be considered an exercise against perfectionism as I tend to have too high standards for myself.

Name. This was the hardest part. I’m still not sure about the name but I probably never will be. I ended up stealing a name from a Finnish book that I haven’t even read (I’ve heard it’s good though). This blog has nothing to do with that book but somehow I got stuck with the name and couldn’t come up with another one. So this is it. I think the name depicts well not only the feelings of excitement, enthusiasm and inspiration but irritation and anxiety as well. I’m trying to focus more on the former. I usually don’t get that excited about things that would literally make my heart beat faster so if that’s what you’re looking for, I’m sorry for misleading you.

Theme. As mentioned, I’m trying to concentrate on things, places and experiences, not that much on my personal life. I’m lucky to have people around me that I can talk about my personal life whenever I feel like it and so I don’t have a need to do it publicly. However, I'm hoping that sharing some of my thoughts might pay off. There can never be too much excitement, awe or dreams of justice in the world. And perhaps I could get new ideas from other people when sharing mine.

What do you need to know. I thought about this for a while. What I think will become evident is that I live in Finland and I speak Finnish as a first language. This means that my blog will include pictures from Finland, discussion about the situation in Finland, and maybe occasionally some text in Finnish, too (e.g., news articles, memes or book covers). Being born, raised, and educated in Finland might also have an effect on my views of the world, although I want to stress that I’m not nationalistic in any way. I would rather live somewhere else where it’s warmer and sunnier even though I do appreciate many things in Finland and Finnish culture. But I think that’s enough about my background.

When to start. It seems like it’s never a good time. I’ve always felt like I need a new start to be able to start writing. I often thought that when I move abroad, I could start writing (well, I tried that once but it didn’t help). So, I thought, maybe now there are enough changes in my life that I can consider this a new start. I graduated recently, working life is about to begin, and I’m moving in to another apartment soon. The new apartment is only two kilometers away from the current one but the surroundings will be new anyways.

So, what are those things that make my heart beat faster? I would guess that the tags I will mostly use in my blog could be books, science, feminism, equality, (vegan) food, traveling, nature, music, movies, art, cultures, religions, and history. Hopefully there will be many more!