pride

I have been waiting for this day for a long time. 

A couple of hours before the first proper Pride parade in Turku me and some friends sat (/laid) down and wrote some awesome signs.

We finished them just in time

The demonstration walk started from the Turku Museum of Art

It was time for the people of this habour city to show their power. Together.

The whole parade made me so happy and we just smiled the whole way to the Kupittaa park. There was this feeling everywhere that we are here all together. And that we're all awesome as we are. Absolutely no shame.

Proud of ourselves and our signs

We had so much fun waving our signs so that everyone around us in the city could see them. It was surpsrisingly heavy to keep a sign up in the air for an hour. I saw only three haters during the demonstration, two old men with small A4 sized signs with some random biblical refrences about the cities Gomorra and Soloman (?). The third man had a Finnish flag and a sign that tried to convince us that marrige between a man and a woman is blessed by God and shall by that not be changed. 

Give me a break. 

But Turku I'm proud of you overall for being so tolerant!

According to Turku Pride's instagram the number of participants was around 3500. That's a lot for a small city like Turku! And for being the first proper Pride parade here! 

After the demonstration live music and nice hangaround was arranged in Kupittaa. 

               ~ love

love is love and nothing else

This habour city has shown it's power and pride

May the equality be with you

(Hahah see my refrence)

tj 101

When I entered one of our school buildings this morning the first fellow student I met was my relevant from the first year people. I stopped him and took my lipstick from my pocket and only wrote ABI on his forehead, as someone else already had painted hearts on his cheeks. 

Abi, abiturient, senior

To celebrate the start of the last 100 days of school the seniors of our school have the tradition to write and paint with mostly lipsticks and such things on the faces if the rest of the students (which is rather common in Finland overall I suppose). Common things to be written are "ABI", hearts, uni brows, the year of graduation (for us 2015) and so on. Some get one heart and one "ABI" and some are red all over the face/body, the closer friend, the worse. Mostly. And on this day we, the seniors, wear as ugly clothes as possible to look as funny as possible (which is not rather common I suppose). 

me and my friends (taken with polaroid camera)

Today we exceptionally celebrated the start of the last 101 days, because tomorrow the school photography takes place. I think you understand. 

(Excuse me but how is it possible to time these two event this badly?)

(And yes, that's correct, our last day of school is in mid February)

We also celebrated this countdown by eating pizza in the nice sun on the schoolyard. The order was so big (one pizza each), that we called the company one day on beforehand. The other students ate the normal school lunch in the noisy cafeteria, I heard some kind of soup was served.

You can only imagine how entertained the elementary school kids were and how weird and worried looks the 7-9 grade teens gave. And we just laughed. 

Note that we didn't paint on any of the 1-9 grade people or the teachers. Only high school students. 

(I heard the real 100 days countdown starts next Wednesday, but as Friday is a much nicer day, the "official" date was changed to 5.9)

Despite all the celebrations we had an ordinary day at school with a small math test and other nice things. I think this day succeeded, every single senior had dressed up, every single other student had a nicely painted face and I succeeded to paint on my sister's, my cousin's and an other relative's face. 

Seriously, some seniors had so funny clothing that I laughed and one girl wore roller skates the whole day. We're talking about wearing outfits of too small sun glasses, 80's shirts, sport socks in sandals, glittering shorts, huge fur hats and anything that can be found in an attic, with a tasteless mix of striped stockings or socks or both. All crazy, all worn with pride. 

We are fabulous.

the plastic challenge

(yes I know, it's the first day of fall woho, colors, school, life changes, so excited, cliche and sarcasm level infinity please give me a break)

To way more interesting and important matter,
it's the first day of the  "A plastic-free September" campaign and feel free to, like me, start today and keep on going the rest of our lives. This is a challenge to quit using plastic bags, disposable forks, cups and plates, you name it. Or at least reduce your consumption. It's not a difficult challenge, it's often just about what we're used to do.

use textile bags instead of plastic when grocery shopping
.. or anytime when shopping
use boxes instead of plastic bags when packing snacks with you
reuse disposable cups, spoons etc
try to choose products with as little plastic packaging material as possible
don't get me started on buying plastic accessories
recycle plastic bottles

don't be stupid
be creative.

The mother earth thanks you and so do I

these are easy steps towards a better future (=better life)

 at least I don't like to swim among plastic waste and neither do you