♫Sunday Monday happy days Tuesday Wednesday happy days Thursday Friday happy days Saturday what a day Rockin’ all week for you♫ – Happy Days, TV tune.
Sundays should be a cosy day, as it used to be. But now the stores are open every day of the week. For me, Sundays are cosy. If they weren’t, weekdays would be stressful. Being cosy doesn’t mean staying inside all day. If the day is sunny, you can be cosy outside. Sundays, my parents and I went for walks in the countryside. After my mum passed away, I still went out with Dad, but the walks weren’t as long as before. He played golf, so sometimes we went to the golf course to hit balls on the driving range. But that stopped a couple of years ago when things happened, and he couldn’t do it anymore.
I still drive to nature or take bike rides whenever possible. That’s my kind of cosy. But I also watch TV or on the computer. It happens every day of the week, not only on Sundays. Watching sports on TV is relaxing and being cosy, even if sports can be irritating from time to time.
I watch the Finnish version of Dancing with the Stars on Sundays, but the season will end soon. Even if I don’t dance, seeing other people doing it is cosy. My late mother used to watch it, so I also started watching it. The final will be next Sunday, but I will watch it at a hotel. I’m driving to Helsinki that day because I’m attending an event on Monday. Life can’t always be cosy, and driving long distances is not. But by car, you move at your own pace. That’s cosy in its own right.
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.
Aquadynamic is a problematic word to make a post about. But I can describe my current emotions. If you haven’t noticed, it was a month ago that I posted on this blog. I don’t know, but somehow I haven’t had the right feeling to write anything. Let’s just say life has come before everything else. My filmmaking education started at Helsinki Design School last week. The first meeting was last Wednesday and Thursday. I think it went well. My schoolmates are OK, I guess. Getting to know people is difficult when you hardly have any breaks. Lunch break, perhaps, but we have different tastes. Since it’s in Helsinki, I like to walk in the city alone. I know the centre by heart since I’ve been there many times. I do some sightseeing and go to school. Two flies at one hit, so to speak. The education in itself is engaging. I already know something about filmmaking since I’ve studied screenplay writing, but a repeat doesn’t hurt. There will be something new too. We get assignments that we have to do to pass the course. The good thing about studying film is that you can watch movies or movie scenes. The problem is trying to analyse scenes. That’s what the assignments we have this time. We have two tasks since it was two days. The deadline is November 18. Our next meeting is on Nov. 17. Before that, I have no contact with my schoolmates. They all have WhatsApp, but I don’t. Maybe I should get it, too, so I don’t get left out. I don’t have any use for it, but perhaps I could make an exception this time.
Another thing I’ve done recently was going to an ice hockey game. The local team organisation turned 100 years old last Saturday. The organisation contain several different sports teams. One of them is an ice hockey team. It was an anniversary match, so there were celebrations before the game started. There were former players, including Saku Koivu. If you follow ice hockey or the news in general, you might know who it is. He used to play in NHL, in Montreal Canadiens, to be exact. Anyway, it was a beautiful ceremony. The match was won by our team in overtime, 1-0. I don’t go to games that often. Maybe once or twice a year. But when I do, I enjoy every moment.
Photos from the event. Photos by me
I’m going to see the movie ‘Amsterdam’ tomorrow afternoon (October 19). It features Christian Bale. I don’t know what it is about, though. I want to be surprised. I watch almost anything that Bale is in. There are only a few I haven’t seen, and one of them is ‘American psycho’ That movie is too creepy for my taste. It’s pretty expensive to go to the movies. I belong to a movie panel where they send surveys to take, and then you get small amounts of money. When you “collected” 10 euros, you get a free movie ticket. Sometimes you need to pay 3 euros, but that’s a small price to pay. I’ve already seen 4 movies this year. Tomorrow it’s the 5th time. I also went to the movies during covid, but not so often. I choose what movies to watch. Sometimes it’s not worth going to the movies because they will be shown on TV or streaming services anyway. Nothing beats a movie theatre, though. It’s for the big screen that makes a movie unique. Life without entertainment is no life at all.
I already have plans for next year. I’m going to see Robbie Williams again on March 5. The last time he was here was in 2017. I thought then that I wished I could see him live one day again, and the day did come. It will be the first time I’ve seen an artist twice. When opportunity knocks, take it, I would say. To think that I didn’t like big crowds when I was younger. I never thought I would, but I guess age makes you braver. You get used to it when you get out of your comfort zone more often. It’s pretty nice out there, after all.
In my world 