Photo of the week: St. John's eve*

23 June is the night we celebrate the shortest night of the year  (though as I've been informed, it's actually 11 seconds longer than the night of 21 June) by making humongous bonfires, drinking way too much and trying to convince our friends who drank even more not to try and jump over those humongous bonfires.

There's also a St. John's eve tradition according to which unmarried girls have to pick nine different flowers  (or seven if you're lazy) and climb over seven fences during which they aren't allowed to speak  (this can also be skipped), then arrange the flowers into a wreath, put it under their pillow and then they're supposed to see the man they are going to marry in a dream. 

We've done it twice before and in both cases I saw absolutely nothing - and I always have really crazy and vivid dreams! But I refuse to give up, so this year I was really prepared to do the whole wreath thing and dream about Jensen Ackles afterwards, but unfortunately it was raining too hard to do any sorts of flower-picking - we used up three canisters of gasoline just to get the fire going for long enough to take a picture.

Oh well. At least it gave me one more year of not accepting my faith when it comes to marriage and I can still believe I would have seen someone.

But here is a picture from a couple of years ago:

The next day you're supposed to take your wreath to a crosscrossroads and throw it over your left shoulder. If it gets stuck on a tree, you'll get married that year. Mine fell apart mid-air as I was throwing it. I guess some people are just hopeless...

*All photos taken from people whose battery didn't die at the most inconvenient moment. 

Photo of the week: Master of Arts

Yes, it's official. I am now a cum laude graduate of the University of Tartu. I can now end all my letters with my name and the title MA after it. After 18 years of continuous studying I am finally done with school... for now. I guess it must be a really weird feeling once I actually realize that I'm no longer a student, but right now I feel no different from what I did the day before yesterday e.g., except for the fact that I have a pile beautiful flowers and a sore throat, because it was cold yesterday, but one must suffer for pretty pictures!

Photo(s) of the week - Stockholm, you big bundle of joy

So I'd been to Stockholm three times before, as it is really easy to take a one-day cruise from Tallinn (or Riga, if you feel you wanna party with Latvian teenagers, awyeah), but the first time I went I was really young and the past two times were in the winter when it's cold and your feet get wet and it gets dark really early and it's just all sorts of annoying. But this year I was obsessed with taking the trip in the summer and managed to find three SUPER AWESOME girls to live it up with on the ship and spend a day in Stockholm walking, eating cinnamon rolls and shopping (there are definitely worse ways to spend a Wednesday!). Oh it was so much fun!

 See ya, Tallinn!

 Words cannot express how excited I was to have a window in our cabin. I guess you can't really appreciate a cabin with a window if you haven't been on two cruises with a windowless cabin

 King's palace

 This was supposed to be a group selfie (an usie if you will), but only two of us managed to look in the right direction. Oh well.

 We were watching change of guard at the king's palace, which basically meant we were watching a bunch of tourists watching change of guard and taking pictures

 Strike a pose! I guess this is the point where I should mention the SUPER EXCITED elderly Frenchman who was standing next to me. The only way to see anything was to lift up my camera and take pictures, but every time I extended my arms, he went 'tickle tickle!" and tickled me. Every time.

 (Apparently) famous Swedish cinnamon rolls

 Had to go and see what my old friend queen Kristina was doing. Still as majestic as ever

 Arrogant Swedish seagulls

 We're on a boat!

 A mirror usie of the infamous rap group Feminem before performing Lose Yourself next to a karaoke bar a few hours later

And sunset over the Baltic Sea

Photo of the week: before/after WowRun 2015

That time I Mastered the Arts

(this is the last time I move my blog, I swear)

It's over. I am no longer a student. I have written, handed in and defended my thesis, now all I need is a diploma to make it official.
I haven't blogged because I've spent the past five months drowning in words and at the end of the day writing something voluntarily (or functioning at all) has not been an option.
There has been very little in my life apart from deadlines, translating, writing and nightmares about deadlines, translating and writing. It feels like it was one ridiculously long week of translating during the week, going to bed at 10.30 PM on Friday to wake up on Saturday to write my thesis over the weekend, but instead it was about 5000 weeks like that.
I have exhausted myself and probably everyone I know with complaining, so I'm making this one last post about it and be done with this bitch of a semester forever.
And since I'm just so sick and tired of words, here are some numbers instead:

113 pages of my Master's thesis
23 pages of a notebook covered with thesis notes ranging from neatly written and numbered complete sentences to intricate drawings to often illegible attempts to keep up with my thoughts at rare moments of ingeniousness resulting in fun notes such as "find out how 'penis' is used" and "NO penetration" (both related to the thesis, I swear), 90 degree changes in the thought process such as "add reference to first paragraph, buy milk" and switches between languages like "one sentence is missing leheküljel 34!"
4 jobs I was working while writing that thesis
19 work-related e-mails during one day (maximum)
97 times when I felt like I was drowning in e-mails and couldn't breathe
3 times when I considered crying because I felt there was no other way to deal with the stress
1 time I actually did cry
4 weeks with more than three 12+n-hour work days
14 times when I was so tired by the end of the day that all I could do was wrap myself in a blanket and watch John Oliver
200 or more cups of green tea - by now my body is pretty much 90% green tea
6137 times I wished I was married to Mika
6200 times I wished I was married to John Oliver (sorry, Mika)
0 weekends completely off
0 shots of tequila
4 days where I suddenly had no deadlines and became so stressed from the lack of stress I didn't know what to do with myself
74 gym sessions at 8 AM (tsau Maria) that kept me sane
270 km jogged or walked
infinite number of apologies I have to make to the people in my life for never being there (or passing out on their couches really early if I actually was there)
2 people who no longer talk to me (at least)
still quite a lot of people who actually do talk to me
500 hours of sleep I have to catch up with
568 times I uttered the words "I'm just so tired"
5 weeks when I wasn't tired at all even though I slept an average of 6 hours per night
not enough times when I laughed until I cried
so much love

But it's over. I survived and quite successfully, I'd say.
Plus, there were also (rare) moments like these

 And these

 And these

 And all these

And others.

And now...

One day, Mika, one day...

(PS, ma mõnikord ausalt kirjutan eesti keeles ka)