KonMari, I choose you!

…and I hope it will be super effective!

It's not a secret that I'm a very disorganized person. Whenever I get to know new people, I try to make myself look organized and… well, a person that has her life together! However, I have always had difficulties when it comes to keeping my room/flat tidy. It's mostly books and papers everywhere, and I know exactly where everything is. An organized chaos! I remember 4 years ago when my Sardinian ex-boyfriend came to visit me – he entered my flat and said: "Hmm… I think I have seen this before! Oh, nevermind, it was a documentary about the tsunami in 2011." :D

I have been hearing about KonMari from my friends and my mom for a while now, and during my visit in Finland last month I decided to take a look at the book and see what the fuss is about. I read about halfway through (and spotted only one error – I have a very bad habit of proofreading all Finnish text I see) and was quite convinced. I bought the book, as it happened to be on sale, and now I'm going to try to KonMari the shit out of apply the method in my flat.

Me with my crap in Reykjavík in May 2008.

Basically, the KonMari rules are these:

1. Commit yourself to tidying up. (I've never been this committed. Stop laughing!)
2. Imagine your ideal lifestyle. (In Barcelona? Alright...)
3. Finish discarding first. (Meaning that you can't buy anything new before you've discarded everything.)
4. Tidy by category; not by location. (Instead of starting from the bedroom you have to start with clothing.)
5. Follow the right order. (There is a strict order, starting from clothing – tops and bottoms, dresses, pyjamas and so on.)
6. Ask yourself it if sparks joy. (The ultimate question. If something doesn't spark joy, you need to thank it and then discard it.)

Someone said that going through the whole house might take 6 months. I really hope mine won't take that long! To be honest, I know I will discard most of my clothes and it won't take that long, but with books it won't be that easy – I just counted that I have 102 books plus some small dictionaries. 102!? Not looking forward to that part… Wish me luck!

Me with my crap in Harrisonburg, VA in August 2008.

Polyglot Gathering 2018

Three weeks ago I took part in something unforgettable: Polyglot Gathering 2018 in Bratislava, Slovakia.

When I signed up for the gathering I didn't really know what to expect besides meeting other language lovers and polyglots. I had been to Bratislava twice already and it's actually one of my favorite cities, so I was really excited to go back there. Before the gathering, I flew from Barcelona to Helsinki and spent a week with my family in Turku before flying to Vienna, but that and the post-gathering trip will have a separate blog entry later.

On the first day of the gathering I felt really nervous – I'm not the most extroverted person in the world and I suck at small talk, and I knew that almost 600 people had signed up. I only knew a handful of Esperanto speakers beforehand and a few polyglots that I had been following on social media, like Richard Simcott and Luca Lampariello (who were both extremely nice when I got to meet them, I might have been a bit starstruck…) and I didn't even know if there would be many Finnish speakers. However, during the first hour after registration and finding all the flags for my name tag, I made some new friends and knew that the gathering would be amazing. And it's not every day you chat with someone and find out that they're behind a webpage that has saved your butt many times – I'm talking about Simon from Omniglot, the page that I had used for years for information and (funny) sentences in different languages.

So what happens in a gathering like this? Lots of things – anything from a lecture in French about haplogroups in Europe to a knitting workshop and from a quick language taster class of Southern Saami to a giant multilingual game of Scrabble. Once I entered a hall and there were people dancing like no tomorrow!

Here are some pictures of the gathering. Unless otherwise said, the photos were taken by me, so in case you use them somewhere (despite the horrible cell phone quality), please credit me!

I stayed in a wonderful AirBnB flat not that close to the city center. I don't have a balcony in Barcelona, so I was excited to have my morning coffee outside! It took me 20 minutes to the venue by bus, and with our name tags we got to use the public transportation for free.

There was a little Tesco near the venue and we thought these signs were hilarious. What if you do all those at the same time, skate inside with a camera, gun, dog and ice cream and you're smoking? What if it's gun-flavored ice cream? What if the dog has a gun? Those might need to be tested next time.

The venue was the University of Economics in Bratislava. It was a great place for the gathering, as there were many lecture halls that were big enough for many participants, and we could all fit into the cantine for lunches and dinners.

Kelvin Jackson gave a talk about polyglot punning. He also gave an interesting talk about Finno-Ugric linguistics, in Finnish. It always amazes me when a non-native speaks Finnish, as it's not one of the easiest languages!

Ah, the Polyglot Singalong! The wonderful Olivia came all the way from New Zealand and taught us some songs in several languages. My favorite was this traditional Maori song. Olivia was also in charge of the polyglot karaoke one evening, among other artsy workshops.

Simon Ager and his fascinating talk, Deconstructing Language. I learned quite a few new facts, and as a huge fan of historical linguistics I was on fire.

English-free zone. I didn't have time to check this out in action, but it didn't really matter – I think I spoke English only half of the time anyway.

Finally got to meet Richard Simcott in person! When I grow up I want to be like him – that includes the ease to talk in front of a large crowd and keep them focused the whole time.

Dave Prine spoke about waking the sleeping language of Tunica, a Native American language. While the talk was really interesting, Dave was incredibly hilarious and made me laugh in tears several times. I didn't have any previous knowledge of Native American languages, so I was really curious to see how the grammar works.

So how many languages do you speak? The question that polyglots dread, as usually the answer is not that simple. Tim Keeley spoke about this and gave many great examples including the fact that it's not quite the same thing to speak several languages within a dialect continuum than languages that are (not that closely) related.

I absolutely love Cards Against Humanity and was super excited when I saw the polyglot version, Cards Against Polyglottery! Hilarious times.

I took part in two language workshops by uTalk; Manx and Southern Saami. In both workshops there was a competition where we had to, in groups of 3, learn as many words as possible. In the Manx workshop we were all so good that we got a complete language course for free! They have 140 languages so it's gonna be difficult to choose. In the Southern Saami workshop I teamed up with Simon and an English polyglot Adam (also known as Töffari™). It was quite intense even if Finnish helped me a bit – Adam got a sore neck, probably because of the word njuenietjåerviejuvre (rhinoceros) – and despite our efforts we didn't make it to the final… which was fine.

I met so many wonderful people from all over the world. Some of them were Polyglot Gathering veterans, others were first-timers like me. Never had I ever been in a situation where you could just switch languages in the middle of a conversation without the other person even blinking!

Jana Fadness told us about Asian languages – I have to admit that one of the reasons why I have never studied an Asian language (besides those few weeks of Vietnamese…) is because I'm afraid of the writing systems and tones. However, with her talk Jana managed to convince me that maybe I should give it a try.

I only know a few words of Hungarian, but when Kyle Kuzman spoke some sentences, I was able to hear the differences between case endings. It was interesting to see how many grammatical similarities there were with Finnish (yes, I know, they're related, but so are Swedish and Greek). I really like how Hungarian sounds and would love to learn it one day.

Qapla' – André Müller taught us about Klingon. For those who don't know, Klingon is a constructed language made for the Star Trek films and TV series. I'm learning Klingon on Duolingo and was bravecrazy enough to put its flag to my name tag… This talk was super interesting and entertaining, and André was dressed for the occasion. I hope to be able to converse at least a little bit in tlhIngan Hol in the next gathering – hopefully they'll add the audios soon to Duolingo so that I won't end up with a ridiculous accent.

Melko-hyvä-Bra in action. Photograph: Jozef Baláž

On the last night we had an international culture evening. There was also a Finnish surprise – together with Jami and Tiia from Finland and Stefano from Italy (whose Finnish was impeccable) we sang Sinä lähdit pois by Ultra Bra. After that I sang a traditional Icelandic song, Vísur Vatnsenda-Rósu, a cappella.

The official group photo. Photograph: Jozef Baláž

There are so many things I didn't include in this blog post, like the reactions of people when they tried Finnish black sausage or how a Hungarian friend of mine, who I know through Esperanto, was happy about "understanding Italian quite well" even if he was actually listening to me speaking in Catalan (Oh! Well, looks like I understand Catalan as well!)… I want to thank everyone I met and especially Lýdia Machová, Peter Baláž and the other organizers and volunteers. I can't wait for the gathering next year – maybe I'll even send a proposal for a talk!

El vacío

I'm sure some of you think that I'm an attention whore with all these posts about depression and anxiety. You're partly right – I'm looking for attention, but not for myself. I want people to know more about what it's like to struggle with mental illnesses and how badly we're sometimes treated because of the stigma. For years I kept everything inside because I didn't want to bother anyone (a typical saying among Borderline people) but now I've stopped giving a poo.

Ever since I came back to Barcelona last week, I've had a really hard time with getting back to the routine. I haven't had motivation to do anything, just felt empty. I don't know how else to describe it. I don't have anything to look forward to until the Internacia Junulara Kongreso in August, and for some reason all agencies I work with are late with their payments, so my options are even more limited than usually. I wanted to go to the metal festival in Madrid next week but now I'll just have to drink kalimotxo at home while watching some concerts on YouTube.

I've told some of my friends that I'm struggling and they were quite surprised – apparently I don't seem depressed. I'm always a bit hesitant to tell new people about my history with depression and anxiety because these problems tend to be so generalized. Oh, you're depressed? But I just saw you smiling an hour ago! or You need to relax more, why don't you take a bath and stop worrying? are some of the things I keep hearing. Then people – who have absolutely no idea what it's like to struggle with depression and anxiety – tell me to watch a funny movie, drink sea water or move back to Finland. I've also gotten dozens of dietary suggestions from people I know – I guess they have no idea that when I have to worry about getting all payments in time in order to be able to pay the rent or trying to find the energy to leave the house, I'd rather not get anxious about constantly checking if a product has carbohydrates or milk.

And guess what? Yes, a funny movie might provide a quick help but it doesn't change the fact that I feel like I've failed with life. Yes, I might feel dead inside even if I'm pissing myself laughing after hearing a joke. Yes, I dislike Barcelona, but I won't move back to Finland because there I'd feel even worse. And I'm doing so much better nowadays – you know what I'm talking about if you hung out with me in 2009–2011 or in 2016. My depression and BPD-infected way of seeing things has cost me quite a few things in life, like good grades at school/university, job opportunities, even relationships.

I met with my wonderful (Basque!) therapist on Thursday and he was worried about me not wanting to do anything. Sure, there are many things going on in Barcelona, but they are either full of tourists or there's simply too much people. I have also given up on even trying to make new friends here – not to mention Tinder, which I uninstalled a while ago. The plan right now is to focus on work and this newly-found passion to make nice salads that I have developed recently. And, if a miracle happens and I get paid, I'd love to go to Bilbao next month to see Gorillaz.

Sorry for all this nonsensical banter, I'm just really fed up with this stupid feeling of emptiness. And for anyone who is lucky enough to NOT know what it feels like to be depressed/anxious/etc., please be careful with your suggestions, as sometimes they don't help at all – at least for me, some of them make me feel even worse. Mental illnesses are never our choice. I'd much rather enjoy life while sipping on a nice cocktail and laughing with friends than struggling to leave the house or crying over an ingredient I accidentally dropped on the floor while cooking.

I'll try to write about something nicer next time.

Cheering for Iceland 2 days ago. Before this I had had a major anxiety attack, and a few hours after the Iceland–Argentina match I had a crying marathon because the next day was gonna be Sunday. Depression can have many faces, not just the stereotypical zombie one.

Hello culture shock, my old friend

I flew back to Barcelona two days ago and I'm quite annoyed about many things – I always get a minor culture shock when I come back here... but to be honest, I get it when I go to Finland, too. I'm not accustomed to hearing Finnish that often or having so much personal space! :D

Anyways, I know this phase will pass, it always does. I've never been a fan of Barcelona, I've never liked living here, but I guess I've grown to tolerate it especially now that I don't have to go to the city center every day. On Tuesday, after traveling for 12 hours (Turku–Helsinki–Copenhagen–Barcelona) and not having slept the night before, I was exhausted and took an accidental nap of 12 hours. I had planned on going to a weekly Esperanto meeting in Gràcia, but instead of waking up at 6pm I was fast asleep until 4am! I decided to sleep a bit more, and in the end I woke up at 9am, after 17 hours of sleep. It helped me a lot, I wasn't nearly as annoyed as before it. Then luckily I had a 27,000-word text to revise, it kept me busy and entertained.

I guess the only place where the culture shock doesn't hit me is Italy – or maybe I'm just in a perpetual honeymoon stage whenever I go there. When I lived in Iceland (2006–2012) I had such a hard time with the shock that I sometimes decided not to go to Finland to see my family because I knew how difficult it would be to go back to Iceland – just the thought of returning made me extremely anxious. Now I'm more relaxed about the whole thing, as the flights from here to Finland are relatively cheap (much cheaper than from Iceland!) and because I can go pretty much whenever I want as long as I bring my laptop with me.

There's one good thing about being back: getting back to the routine. As a freelancer I usually work from home, and here I can concentrate much better – I get a lot of things done at my mom's place, too, but usually I'd rather just talk with her or cuddle with Susu the dog. And I like my flat, especially now that it's still not boiling hot inside!

I also might have brought almost 20kg of food from Finland with me... I think I'll have some salmon soup and rye bread for dinner. Fins ara!

A photo from January, Susu was helping me with proofreading.

New banters

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm back.

As some of you know, I've had several blogs over the past 10 years or so. The last one I had was when I moved to Barcelona 4 years ago, but then I gradually stopped writing because I wasn't really enjoying it. I guess the biggest reason for continuing blogging is the fact that now, as a freelancer, I have more time and I'm actually doing much better than when I last blogged.

Anyways, I'm hoping to write about stuff that's actually at least mildly interesting - might even throw in some videos or posts in other languages every now and then.

Greetings from the MTV studio in Helsinki.

Laters, peeps.