Trouble, trouble, trouble

Sadly I haven't really enjoyed my week off as there's been so much drama and trouble. It seems like there's something every single day. The main thing has been that one member of my household has developed a habit of stealing food and alcohol. A couple of days ago the culprit burst into tears and confessed all. We had suspected her anyway, as she was the only person who didn't seem remotely concerned by all this, but still, it's created a lot of tension. She's made it worse for herself by, so far, failing to replace the many items she has stolen from everyone else, being unable to give any explanation for her behaviour, despite claiming that she can't stop thinking about what she's done, and generally causing a lot of hurt by lying to our faces, and leading others to become suspicious and think badly of each other.
Aside from that there's been arguments, a car crash, unpleasant blog comments, and more unwanted contact from my ex boyfriend. So this week just gets better and better. I wish I was working so I at least had a distraction.
Today I'm feeling quite miserable; all this is getting a bit too much. I'm trying to stay optimistic that it will all blow over soon. I've got a few things to look forward to, for example my birthday next weekend, hopefully getting a new tattoo before the month is out, and a trip to Tampere, and I just hope that these things won't get ruined by further problems. Right now I'd like to get far away from here and just forget what is going on. I haven't had such an unpleasant week in a while.

This week so far

It's been a very hot, sunny week in Turku so far. My enthusiasm for being here is back, so maybe bad weather was the problem. I've been out today putting english/art tutor adverts in supermarkets, and it's disgustingly hot and sticky. As stupid as it may sound, it never occured to me that it would get this hot in Finland. Of course, there are hippies everywhere, wandering around and playing music in the street. It makes for a really great atmosphere. I feel like I'm somewhere a bit more exotic than Finland.
This week I've been reminded of how much Finland likes to get the flag out - they were on the flagpoles for the past two days. Sunday was Mother's Day, but I'm not sure what the reason was yesterday. In my country the flag doesn't come out so much. I think it's quite nice to walk down the street and see them everywhere. It can be a shock sometimes to go outside and suddenly be surrounded by lots of flags. I've also been told that when someone dies the flag on their building is often put up at half mast as a sign of respect, and I have seen that a couple of times.
However, the most exciting and important thing this week - I have a job interview on Thursday! I'm so pleased, and I'm very determined and motivated to get the job. I just had a phone call about it, and I have an interview and trial period in the morning. It's at an English language pre-school, and I'd really love to get that job. Luckily, my lovely mother works as a primary school teacher, so hopefully she can give me some professional advice on dealing with large volumes of small children. When I called my parents to see if she was at home my father's advice extended to "try not to kill them." It would be so great to have a proper, sensible job and be more secure. I'm determined to make myself absolutely perfect for the position. I'm even happy to sell out a bit and adapt my appearance, seeing as that's not as conventional as it could be, and frightening the lovely children definitely won't make me seem like Mary Poppins. This means tattoos will be covered, hair, shoes and clothes will be sensible, and I need to somehow get my lip piercing out, which right now is proving difficult. On Thursday I will boggle everyone with my brilliance. If that fails, I'll just baffle them with my bullshit.

Finnish piercing

I was wondering what to do today when Emmi asked if I wanted to come with her whilst she got some new piercings. She knew I'd wanted a medusa piercing (one on the cupid's bow), and so I ended up deciding to do it. However, as I already have a smiley (the flap of skin under your top lip) and the two together could easily catch on each other and be very painful, I ended up with a vertical medusa piercing. I'd seen vertical piercings on the bottom lip, but never the top, and even the guy in the shop seemed happy to be doing something a bit different!
I'd actually walked past this shop before, and the fact that there was a happy hour on piercings (€20 for anything) worried me, because a good shop shouldn't need to do that. Emmi, however, knew the place and said it was good, and my attitude was that if it looked dodgy I could let her do it and not get involved. However, the place was clean, the guy was friendly and professional, and he set up in front of each customer. In my opinion (and I have 15 piercings and 8 tattoos so I have a good amount of experience here), this is important because if they aren't prepared to show you their procedures, what are they hiding? Any good tattooist or piercer will be happy to do their preparations publicly.
At first I was unsure, purely because there was lots of shouting in Finnish and a large crowd of idiotic 14 year olds on a rebellious streak. Realistically, any shop will probably be the same here, so I decided to get over it. I got it done, the guy was great, and I am very pleased with the result.
I asked him about tattoos. He is all booked up until September, (another very good sign - no one will wait 6 months for dodgy work) but on the last Friday of each month he has a walk-in day, and he says he prefers to do smaller jobs on these days. He is looking like a contender for the Muumimamma tattoo I want, because it's small and he's obviously good at his job, plus he had a nice personality, which is what I like. I don't want to be tattooed by miserable people who don't speak for the whole time; having a friendly person to chat to is preferable. Plus when Emmi told him I wanted Muumimamma he didn't laugh, not even at my statement "Muumimamma is badass." I think I'm better off waiting until after I've been to Norway to see what my financial situation will be, but I could always take him a picture of what I want to get an idea of the price. There's another small tattoo I've been wanting for about four years now, but which has been pushed to the sidelines due to other ideas coming up, and maybe that could finally get done too, if I'm super lucky financially.
In conclusion, nice guy, good shop, and I'm happy to be back into this as it's been a long time since I've had any fresh tattoos or piercings. Now, go buy my paintings so I can get my tattoos!

Reasons to love R-Kioski

I have been here for 3 months now, and it wasn't until today that I recalled that tattoo magazines are more widely available here, as they seem to be in many countries in mainland Europe. On one trip to Amsterdam I think my friend Emma and I bought about 6 between us. In England I only seem to find them in WHSmith, although there is one corner shop in Cockfosters Road with a surprisingly large selection.
The first time I went to Helsinki we went into a shop in Market Square to buy cigarettes, and found loads of tattoo magazines. On my second trip I made it very clear to Jussi that I absolutely had to go to this particular shop to get a magazine. How he did laugh when said shop turned out to be an R-Kioski, a nationwide convenience store chain.
Anyway, I suddenly remembered this today when I was a bit bored, and decided to go get a magazine. There was a decent selection available, one of which was entirely in English, but it seems I had also forgotten the price - all around €10, and I wasn't really keen to spend that much on a single magazine.
Then it got better. What, of all things, did I spy next to the tattoo magazines? BRITISH GLAMOUR! They had InStyle too, but I don't read that so often, whereas Glamour is fairly standard reading for me. It was all in English, and even though it was the international edition, the price wasn't any different to the regular English price. There were separate prices for USA and Canada, but for the rest of the world it's only £2.20, which according to xe.com is a very reasonable €2.55! Unfortunately the current issue is the same one I bought at Heathrow when I was returning from holiday, but I guess in a couple of weeks I'll have to get myself to R-Kioski for the new issue. This really is very pleasing for me - when I went on holiday I was quite surprised to see British Glamour being sold in one shop in Helsinki-Vantaa, so to find it in the shops is really great. Thank you R-Kioski!