FEELING FREE.

So I've spent most of the summer in London, and it's been so amazing and so much fun. I got to go to Finland for two weeks at the beginning of the month and also was lucky enough to get booked for work trips to Nice and Venice earlier in the summer. I've been trying to focus on myself here and find out what I really like and want to do. That might sound weird, but I had sort of a crisis in the spring. I realized I have had a very low self esteem as long as I can remember, and I've always been afraid of what other people think of me. Also I've been trying to please other people to the point that for example I didn't know if I liked a genre of music because of myself or because a boyfriend or an old friend was really into it and I wanted to seem cool to them. Deep down I do know that it doesn't matter what other people think as long as I'm happy and feel free and can live with my decisions and deeds. So I've come to the conclusion that I am awesome. And anybody who thinks differently is wrong. As long as I have good intensions and positive energy towards others, I am allowed to be of the opinion that I am awesome.

I've found out some of my true passions here too. I really, really love bikram yoga. I'm dreaming of doing the bikram yoga teacher training, if I happen to have free time and extra money before I go to uni. I first started with bikram in 2006 but only recently I've begun to really enjoy it and not just do it because "I need to work out". And maybe the lack of proper Finnish saunas in the UK has been driving me to the heated studios too! Another thing I love is dancing. My favorite style is waacking, it sounds and even looks a bit funny but I just love it so much. My arms and shoulders hurt from practicing and I'm really no good at it, but the music makes me feel sooooo good. Sometimes I go to hip hop classes too, but the fun in that really depends on the personal style and taste of music of the teacher. Some hip hop dance teachers can play Chris Brown and others 90's rap, take a guess which one I prefer...

On top of the yoga and dancing I'm obsessed with nutrition. It all started last year in New York, I spent the summer there and realized how horrible and unnatural the basic food ingredients and groceries are there. One day I accidentally bought a bottle of organic milk and it said something along the lines of "no antibiotics, no steroids, no added sugar or sweetener". That really made me wonder what it was about and I started looking into the matter. I found out that basically the standard beef and dairy comes from cows raised by feeding them antibiotics and steroids and who knows what horrific substances to make them grow fast and bigger. And all that crap ends up in us humans when we consume beef and dairy products. And the same applied to basically everything sold at the big supermarkets. Eggs, vegetables, fruit, everything. I got so freaked out by it, it got to the point that when I was in New York for three months earlier this year I spent propably a few thousand dollars in groceries alone because I just couldn't eat anything that wasn't organic or all natural. I mainly shopped at Whole Foods at Union Square and dragged my groceries all the way to Greenpoint, Brooklyn from there. Now I eat fish or chicken maybe twice a week, red meat even less and keep opting for plant based organic food. I've learned a lot more about good nutrition from friends and books, and my only motivation to eat healthy is not anymore the fear or the toxicity of American food products. London is quite easy for my kind of diet, there's Pret and Pod and such for the take-away lunches, a good variety of organic products in most super markets, a few Whole Foods- stores and even some all organic grocery stores like Planet Organic.

I've also managed to make some goals and aims for myself. I want to study and go to university, so that will be the next thing I do after modeling. I can't wait to have a more settled down, regular life and be able to make plans and have a home. I really, really enjoy what I do now but I don't see myself doing it full-time at the age of 40, so I see no harm in planning ahead ;) I'm dreaming of studying at Christ Church College of the University of Oxford, now all I need to do is win the lottery to afford to study there (tuition £9 000 per year plus board and lodging etc... we are looking at about 30 000 euros a year)! Maybe a more realistic option would be a university in Helsinki or Stockholm, at least it would be fairly affordable to study there. I haven't really even decided the course or major I want to take but I'm investigating all possible options. If all else fails I can always return to the university in my home town of Jyväskylä and finish my chemistry degree, or just keep on working on my online courses for communications at the Open University of Helsinki.

Well, that's a lot of babble for a Friday evening. I'm not really in the mood for going out, so I will just read and sleep early. I haven't been sleeping enough the past week, I can't wait to crawl under my blankets and NOT have to turn on the alarm clock :)