Tag: music

Bloganuary: What brings me joy

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two soft smilies in a smilie box
Bloganuary: What brings you joy in life?

At the moment, getting rid of this flu would bring me joy the most. It’s getting better, but it’s not finished yet. Flu takes a lot out of you. The nights are the worst with all the coughing and phlegm in your lungs. I get a headache from all that coughing. I miss breathing and the taste of food. Now it tastes foul, but even that is getting better. Being ill makes you appreciate being well. All that matter is that it will be over soon.

Blogging and writing bring me joy. I’m always good at it in some ways. I prefer writing to talking because you have time to think when you write. If I say something, I often believe afterwards that I should have said it some other way, but then the situation is over. That’s one of the reasons why I fail at job interviews. I’m not verbal enough in conversations. But writing can also be frustrating. Especially when it’s challenging to find the right words to describe things. I have a love and dislike relationship with writing. Fiction goes better than fact writing. I couldn’t live without writing my thoughts down somewhere. I used to write a diary, and now I blog. The difference is that blogging is sharing with others, which brings me joy.

You can’t always stay inside. If I didn’t go somewhere, I would go crazy. I love going out for walks and taking long bike trips in the summer if it isn’t too hot. I can get away from the city and be alone. It’s relaxing, and I get back home, feeling I have done something. I can’t understand how certain young people can stay inside a year in and a year out. They only go out to go to the store or smoke on the balcony. I’m a homebody, but I want to be away from it once in a while. I don’t love my home that much. I feel joy when I get to explore my city on a bike. Some people get to the gym, and I take bike trips or long walks. That’s all the exercise I need. Nature is essential to me. It gives me strength. It’s good for your mental health.

Movies, television, and music are my escape from the real world. When we first got cable in 1987, I was hooked. My mother thoughts I was watching too much television at the time. Cable got everything; it was a dream come true to see music videos and all that stuff. Of course, we had TV channels before, but not until cable TV videos were nonexistent. It opened a whole new world, and I haven’t looked back. Before cable, we went to the theatres to see movies. I belonged to a movie club with my mother when I was a kid. They showed movies for kids. I have been fascinated by movies for a long time. I always watch the extras on DVDs about making movies. One of my first education was screenplay writing, and now I am studying filmmaking again. That’s how much I enjoy it.

The most joy is definitely watching sports on TV, especially if they win. Nothing beats the adrenaline sport gives you. Seeing a Finn winning or losing gives so many emotions. It got everything, drama, tears, happiness, disappointments and everything in between. My favourite sport is ice hockey. I’ve seen quite many games on the spot from our local team. The atmosphere is fantastic. It’s something you don’t get through the television. The best feeling is when your country wins championships in something, and the whole country has something in common for a change. Ice hockey is a significant sport in Finland. Last year we won our first gold in the winter Olympics and world championships at home. Half of the country went mad. Winning in ice hockey is probably the only time Finnish men cry. Sometimes the win celebrations get overboard. They break things and do silly things. That’s what too much alcohol does to some people, which is a shame since it should be about fun and not acting like jerks. That’s one of the downsides of watching sports.

Without all of this joy, life would be much duller. Doing something positive will do anyone good.

No break for the wicked

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It’s not that I’ve had a busy year. On the contrary, it’s been quiet until October, when my filmmaking studies at Helsinki Design School started. The assignments aren’t as complex and time-consuming as the graphic design course. There is a lot of writing and analysing of movies. Two meetings in a row, we had about directing and screenplay writing. The latter is the most exciting subject for me. I’ve studied it before, so it’s a bit familiar. This week we had about casting, where two Finnish professional actors told us about the actor’s point of view of the movie and television business. They also played a scene that one of the students had written. There is a big difference between amateur and professional acting. An ordinary person goes through the script quickly, but a professional actor takes the time and, well, acts. This education has been fascinating and will continue to be so when the next meeting is in January. There won’t be a break in the assignments, but they’re not stressful, so it doesn’t matter.

If this year was quiet, I wouldn’t have that in 2023. Besides my studies, I’m going to a few concerts. First, the Robbie Williams one in March, and then in July, Pet shop boys. But wait, there is more. A sudden, surprising twist occurred. It was something I didn’t expect. My teenage dream will come true on June 27, 2023. The British band, Take That will come to Finland. The tickets will go on sale tomorrow (Monday 19th). They were here 29 years ago. My mother didn’t let me go at the time. I can’t let this chance go by. They’re a trio now when they were 5 at the time. I’ve only seen their concert in the movies and on television. It’s much easier to buy concert tickets nowadays, so I’m sure I’ll get a ticket. There will be a busy week at the end of June and the beginning of July 2023. First, Take That and a week later, Pet shop boys. So a lot of travelling next year.

Before all the above, Christmas break is upon us. I’ll be going on a cruise to Tallinn with dad. Maybe I will still post on this blog this year, but that will be after the holidays. In January, the Bloganuary begins again, which I will participate in. If I don’t write here this year anymore. Have a jolly good Christmas, and give peace a chance.

My few concert experiences

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I wanted to go to a concert when I was a teenager in the 1990s, but my mother didn’t let me. At the time, foreign bands didn’t come to Finland that often. You had to travel to Stockholm, Sweden. But sometimes, they did, which was great. The American boyband, New kids on the block, was the first band I wanted to see live in concert. Perhaps the tickets were expensive, so my mother didn’t want to pay for them. The same with the British boyband, Take That. They haven’t been here since then. I’ve only seen their concert on TV and once in a movie theatre. But it’s not the same. They’re still around, but they succeed more in their own country. I haven’t heard their songs on the radio anymore. But thanks to Spotify, I can listen to them.

I have never been into festivals. I think I have only been in one, but that was a free one. I have no memory of it, but I’m sure I have been into one. There are always some bands or artists I can’t stand at festivals. Concerts are more my kind of events. It took until 2017 that I got the courage to go to a concert. Before that, I didn’t like big crowds and didn’t have the money to go, either. The first concert was by Robbie Williams. That was the moment I got the going to concerts- bug. It was such a great experience. It’s the atmosphere and feeling of seeing your favourite artist in real life. You’re there with other people who have the same favourite as yours. The best part of a concert is when the audience sings along to the songs. The performer loves the feeling too.

This year, as you might know, I went to two other concerts. The one I really looked forward to seeing was Duran Duran. (FYI, today it’s Duran Duran Appreciation Day) You can read about the concert from the link to the band’s name in this paragraph, so I don’t need to repeat it. It was worth waiting for. Who knows if they will come back to Finland again. I can’t afford to travel aboard to see concerts, so they better get here instead.

I don’t usually do things without thinking, but when the American band Toto would come to my city, I didn’t think twice about it to go. I’m not that familiar with their music, but I know their hits. They’ve been around since 1977, with different line-ups since then. I listened to their other songs before I went to the concert. They composed most of the soundtrack to the original movie, Dune, in 1984, so they’ve also done songs without words. In the concert, there were awesome different instrument solos. I’ve always been fascinated by how some people can play instruments so well. I can hardly play easy songs.

In concerts, the volume is so loud, so sometimes you don’t hear what a band is playing or saying between songs. No wonder they have earplugs in their ears when they perform. Loud noises are not suitable for your hearing in the long run. I haven’t used earplugs. It’s a bit scary to put them inside my ears. My hearing is still great, anyway. The concerts should be heard as intended, loud and live. It’s only for a short period anyway. It can take years before I go to concerts again. If only that Elton John concert wouldn’t have been cancelled. It would have been next year. Oh, well that’s how it goes sometimes. You can’t always get what you want. Not even in concerts.