Review Survey 2014

1.What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before?
Became board member at a non-profit.
2.Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't keep a single one of them. Don't think I'll make any for 2015
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My friends Fie&Pie had their 2nd baby
4.Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5.What countries did you visit?
Czech Republic in February and that's about it
6.What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?
Motivation to return to work
7.What date from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
19/1: Sparkle with Conchita Wurst. My first steps into the LGBT world
8.What was your biggest achievement of the year?

The launch of our reborn LGBT movement
9.What was your biggest failure?
Not passing the entry exam for dental technician training
10.Did you suffer illness or injury?
I realized that I had gone off my meds too early. Back on since September
11.What was the best thing you bought?
My Sparkle ticket
12.Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Helen's. She invited me for Christmas Eve
13.Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
A certain colleague's in the movement
14.Where did most of your money go?
Rent
15.What events did you get really, really, really excited about?
The launch
16.What song will always remind you of 2014?
Rise like a phoenix
17.Compared to this time last year, are you:
i.happier or sadder? Happier!
ii.thinner or fatter? Thinner!
iii.richer or poorer? Probably poorer, but hey, see i. & ii.
18.What do you wish you'd done more of?
Loving myself
19.What do you wish you'd done less of?
Emotional Eating
20.How will you be spending Christmas?
No idea
21.Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Helen
22.Did you fall in love in 2014?
No, but I tried to date
23. How many one-night stands?
Zero
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Sons of Anarchy
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.
26. What was the best book you read?
"Oud = Out"
27. What was your greatest musical discovery or rediscovery?
Daft Punk
28. What did you want and get?
More friends
29. What did you want and not get?
A spot in Optometry training
30. What were your favorite films of this year?
"Pride" and "Any Day Now"
31.What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
37 and I visited Dali & Mucha in Prague.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Getting a spot in optometry
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?
Dykin' it
34. What kept you sane?
Encouragements and laughter with fellow volunteers
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most/least?
Most: Conchita
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
LGBT issues
37. Who did you miss?
Ikiryo
38. Who were the best new people you met?
Every single volunteer & our Ventana coaches
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014
It's all just façade
40. What are your plans for 2014?
Find a  job and keep it.

Time to yell "Plot Twist!" and move on.

found on tumblr

Geography

The actual reason why I decided to write about geography today.

For the entire 8-year stretch of middle school, I had the same geography teacher: Mag. Norbert "Geomayr" Mayr. He was feared by most of us for being one of the strictest teachers at our school. During the 5 minute break before his class started, we each had to get our atlas of the world, geography text book and note book, all neatly stacked on one corner of our desk. In case we had forgotten one or more of our books at home; we had to report this immediately upon the start of the lesson. There was a quiz in every lesson.
I remember being at my most rebellious around 14 and having been called to stand next to the teacher's desk for one such quiz, I failed to answer some (or all?) of Geomayr's questions. He would address us by our surnames back then, so he said to me, "[my surname], your knowledge is showing as many holes as your jeans." I'll never forget that. I also remember him formally asking my peers and me if it would be okay to call us by our first names when we were 15. Such a peculiar thing to do, this was in 1992 and by then some of his fellow teachers had offered us that we call them by their first names...

I graduated from highschool in 1995 and decided to attend the academy for teaching 10- to 14-year-olds. My chosen subjects were German (because I was never good at maths and didn't have the confidence to teach English - imagine that!) and Geography - exactly the same combination Geomayr taught, but at a different level. That year, Austria had joined the European Union and my new geography teacher decided to take us on a field trip to Belgium in May 1996, so we could visit the European institutions there, see Zeebrugge, the polders (transport & geology being part of geography lessons then) and meet with colleagues at both the catholic and the state academy for teaching professions.
There were 9 students, four of which decided to have as much fun as possible during that trip, the others preferred to stay in their rooms. To my big surprise I found myself with the "fun" group, drinking Sangria in Bruges, Tequila Sunrise in Brussels and teaching our host at the youth hotel in Bredene how to prepare white wine Spritzer.
It sounds cliché, but the last evening there, he showed up. Alain was loud and irritating and looked at bit silly with his long curly hair and ring beard, but we started talking and the next morning I left our host a note with my postal address on it and asked him if he could pass it on to Alain. A week or two later the first of many letters from Belgium arrived and set into motion the chain of events which lead to me now writing this blog while looking out across the rooftops of Ostend and listening to my cat snoring next to me.

Around the World in Antwerp

I've been meaning to write this long post explaining a couple of things that have happened since January, but then I procrastinated and it never happened, and other posts that would've followed from "that big one" were never written.

So, I've decided to blog anyway, explain along the way or not at all.

Here I am, out & about in Antwerp, on a little excursion with a bunch of lovely people.

The trip was organized by the West-Flemish Rainbow House, where I started volunteering in February. It's not always fun & drinks there (though, frankly, often enough), but I've made so many new connections, met people from different walks of life. I still seem to get along better with people 15 - 25 years my senior though, so little change from my knitting groups there.

My main job as a volunteer is website maintenance, with a side of newsletters and social media.

Mad Men

“Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.”
― Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

The Saddest Thing

source

SFBT

"I am going to say something widely inappropriate now", he interrupted my summary of the last few months.
"I missed the cadence of your speech."

SG

"That rotten feeling when you spot someone you used to connect with in the past
but haven't seen in 9 years
walking by with his arm around the shoulders of someone he connects with now.
And you're torn between wanting to run up to him to say hi
and hoping he hasn't seen you and thought, "Oh wow, she put on a lot of weight."

When SciFi explains...

source: tumblr

Hair obsessions

This morning at the hairdresser's.

A: Well, it's funky ^*) again.

B: Indeed. And you know what's best? I don't have to worry if the boyfriend will like it.

A: Ah, still single?

B: Absolutely and planning to keep it that way. I think I'm actually shooting "Leave me alone" rays. Pew, pew, pew.

^*) Note that she didn't use the word "special". Smart woman, that.

Ours is the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as its national ideal. *)

The world isn't kind to mavericks Bill, 

you want to lead an unconventional life, 

you gotta learn to hide in plain sight. 

Barton Scully - Masters of Sex **)

This post has been brewing for a few months now.

The word "special" (or its Flemish nominalisation to describe a person - specialleke - note the diminutive) has given me some food for thought of late. 

I heard it to describe me choosing my spectacles, because they're constructed upside down, "Your glasses are different - but of course you chose them as you're a special person."

It's been used to comment on my craft projects, "Always something special, huh? It looks difficult!"

I've been told that my recent life changes also mark me as special.

So, what is it?

A compliment?

An expression of annoyance?

A warning?

A sign of the new Biedermeier / Victorian Age?

Dare I ask the next person's motivation for using that word, or will that be perceived as something only a specialleke would ask?

I have been invisible for too long to content myself with mediocrity.

*) The Moviegoer (1961) by Walker Percy 
**) "I think one of the daring aspects of the show is how Beau Bridges has been portrayed as a fully rounded man who is a closeted gay, who is living a lie in one sense and yet seems to be an all-American success story. This has never been portrayed on TV like that. I think Beau has been amazing. At age 72, with all of his accomplishments, to take on such a complicated role that is breaking so many taboos is extraordinary. He has my everlasting gratitude." Thomas Maier, author of Masters of Sex

Don't misunderstand this one

“Stay single.
I only say this because when you’re young and in love, everyone thinks they’re the exception. Sure maybe mom and dad slept in separate beds and then separate rooms, maybe the older couples you know bicker or fight, maybe they don’t talk at all if they ever did.
At your age, you can’t imagine it will ever be you, but it will be. Which is bad enough but what’s ever worse is how much you’ll feel like a failure because when the person who knows you best loses interest, that really takes something out of you—like surgery almost—and you really start to wonder if you’ll ever be whole again.”
 — Margaret Scully in Masters of Sex

It's my party so I'll bail if I want to

My birthday has been a rather unpleasant event for me for a long time now. I don't remember when it started. But this year, turning 37, it had to stop.
I booked myself a city trip to Prague, February 4th-6th. Why Prague? "Because Helsinki was already completely booked", I like to quip. I had my flight tickets, knew in which part of the city my hotel was and that there was a big Alphonse Mucha exhibition I wanted to see. Apart from packing, those were the only preparations I had made.
So upon arriving at Vaclav Havel airport, I had to figure out how to get to my hotel without being ripped off by taxi drivers. A shuttle bus delivered me in the center of the city, where I immediately spotted a supermarket of a common Austrian chain. I felt at home!
It was freezing cold and it took me a little while to get my bearings with the help of a small tourist map, but then I was on my way to the hotel. 4km walk at 0°C after nightfall (only 6pm though) in a country where a language is spoken that I don't understand. Which also makes it difficult to memorize street names, as I soon realized. I saw much of city center, passed by Kampa museum with its disturbing baby sculptures, walked under Charles' Bridge and ended up asking for directions at an Ibis hotel approximately 300m from my actual destination. Close enough ;)
The hotel was fine, had some Central European charme to it, but unfortunately I didn't feel very safe there and also had an allergic reaction to the detergent used for towels and sheets. I was in for a sleepless itchy 2 nights' stay...
The city itself however was beautiful beyond belief. I loved wandering around, retracing last evening's steps in daylight (and still cold weather). I took a few pictures, but not too many, as I wanted to experience Prague with my own eyes - not through a lense.

The Mucha exhibition was stunning, I spent hours wandering around, enjoying the detailed sketches, the epic paintings of later years. One floor down in the same building, a Salvador Dali collection was open for visitors too. An admirer of his work since highschool days, I had to pay him a visit too. Now I know: Don't go see Dali's works when sleep-deprived. A walking nightmare.
For lunch I treated myself to Vietnamese, as I had stumbled across one and had heard one of my students praise this cuisine  many years ago. I'd like to say he was right, but that day in Prague I wasn't convinced. A negative factor that cannot be ignored was the fact that smoking is still allowed in many restaurants and cafés in CZ. Another reminder of my Central European upbringing in the 1980s & 1990s...
The afternoon was dominated by my attempts to find the Fashion Museum. I think I spent hours looking for it and when I finally found it - well... Let's call it quaint. What was announced as "The Czech Republic's first fashion museum with vintage shop" was... well, one room, some clothes and shoes along one wall and "the history of the little black dress" on 4 mannequins along the other. But hey, it was free and warm.
After buying a picture postcard I walked back to my hotel, but sleep was elusive again and I couldn't wait to make my way back to the airport by public transport.

I'll definitely return to Prague one day, but I will stay away from Hotel Petr and its detergents.

Maybe I'll be celebrating my 38th in Helsinki.

Praha 2014

go to flickr Set "Praha"

The Ballad of Lucy Jordan

At the age of 37
She knew she'd found forever
As she rode along through Paris 
With the warm wind in her hair

An all-time favourite of mine, I don't remember not knowing this song.

I thought about it often last year, becoming ever more determined not to end up like Lucy.

For my 37th birthday I didn't go to Paris.

I chose Prague.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

If you read all the way through my 2013 questionnaire, you know that the year hadn't been bad to me at all.

Let's have a look at the "defining moments":

End of May 2013: Depression diagnosis

End of September 2013: End of a long, comitted relationship

End of October 2013: Work contract terminated by employer

So, you could look at that and think, "What an unpleasant year!".

 Or "The poor girl!". Luckily only one person reacted that way, and I haven't spoken to him since.

What people tend to have a hard time wrapping their minds around is the notion that

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Life is not linear. Maybe not even circular. It's spectacular! (Sorry, got carried away there.)
Being diagnosed led to getting better. Losing my job led to soul searching, research of options and the decision to go back to college and be serious about it this time around.

What was interesting to see, were the five groups of reactions to my new beginning as a single.

A) Fun:
Those who said they're sorry. Oh, the looks on their faces when asked if they had anything to do with the break-up!

B) Concerned:
Their first reaction was some kind of inquiry about my feelings towards this. "Are you okay?" "Which cat(s) did you get to keep?".
Yes, my cat defines my well-being.

C) Crystal Ball:
The ones who saw it coming. There's actually only one person who can be given credit for that, the others are just trying to save face. Luckily most of my friends admitted they didn't see it coming, because, well, I never talked much about my relationship. And that's when they realize, that indeed, I never talked about problems, but also hardly ever about good times...

D) 8!:
Those people who seem to be concerned about the fact that the break-up happened after 8 years of living together. This is quite puzzling. Do they mean that I should've figured it out earlier? Or that there's a threshold amount of years after which one cannot end a relationship? Or am I over-analyzing it, and it's just a reaction of "Oh crap, I don't know what to say now?"

E) The realtors:
This is the group I have the most problems with. "But you only just bought a house together!" (Thank you for reminding me, I knew I had forgotten something important.), or "What about the house?" (It's been standing for 100 years, it'll survive this too.) Flemish people, and mostly the older generations, place a lot of importance on real estate. You're not a real adult if you cannot tick off that box on your character sheet. Why would you untick it? How could you be so mean as to potentially, at some point in the future, cause it to be unticked for your partner?

That's it, I think I'm done comtemplating 2013 now.