Ribbons (and a big jug of symbolism)

So like I said, University was a big chapter of my life. It's strange for me to think back to the day before I left for Freshers' Week, packing far too many clothes and personal belongings. I was sitting on my bedroom floor, going through my things a little too meticulously when I came across my silly collection of ribbons. You know those ribbons that are sometimes attached to new tops? Well, I would cut them off and keep them all together in case some creative impulse required them. As with many similar random pieces of crafty items I had, no creative impulse arose. And so the poor ribbons lay abandoned and gathering dust for several years (must like this blog...).

And now, here I was sitting on my bedroom floor looking at what was essentially a bunch of rags. And a fleeting idea surfaced.

Wouldn't it be cool, I wondered, if I tied one of these ribbons around my wrist now, before I start Uni, and keep it on until I finish Uni?

In my mind, it was akin to lighting a candle on New Years Eve, and letting it burn into the next one. It would be my symbolic image of transition, from high school graduate to University graduate; from adolescent into adult; immature to mature.

Yes, I wondered back. It would be very cool.

I picked out a steely coloured bit of ribbon and tied it around my right hand wrist. I tied the knot several times. It looked a little pathetic and boy was it weird getting used to. I mean, I rarely wear any form of jewellery and now I had this foreign bit of fabric rubbing constantly against my skin. I figured it would probably fall off at some stage. It certainly didn't look as though it would survive four years!

As the years passed and I got used to the ribbon, I attached many others. Some had specific meanings, others were just because I'd bought a new top. Many fell off. In fact, most fell off. But somehow, I don't know how or why, but that first one stayed firmly attached to me. It was a part of me...

And then I graduated.

For several weeks after the grand ceremony, the ribbons stayed attached. I had intended on recording a video explaining this story and cutting them off at the end in some visual form of symbolism and then uploading this masterpiece to YouTube where it would most definitely go viral as some form of inspiration. But alas, procrastination reared its ugly head again and before I knew it, I was frantically packing for Finland with absolutely zero time in which to make the video.

I grabbed a pair of scissors and SNIP. Symbolism was binned.

In hindsight, there really wouldn't have been a problem if I had just extended the ribbons lease until I got to Finland where I would have just included a sentence or two about how grown up I was because I had moved to Finland. But in that frenzied moment in the kitchen, I thought there was no other option but to cut and bin.

As I mentioned earlier, it was a weird feeling having the ribbons on my wrists in the first place. Even now, over a month after their demise, I still make motions to "roll them up" when I go to wash my hands. It's like an extension of Phantom Limb Syndrome.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, I'm here in Finland, things are different and I'm certainly a very different person from the nineteen year old girl sitting on her bedroom floor looking at ribbons, but I'm still getting used to not having the strings of Uni holding me up. I know I said I don't miss Uni, but I do miss having a set schedule.

I'll probably feel like this for a while but, at the moment, things could definitely be worse!

History Class

Why, hello there!

You know what? I signed up for this blog a very long time ago. Years ago! I had stumbled across food-blogs and thought - hey! That looks like fun! I bet I can do that too!

Incidentally, I was wrong. I didn't have the time or patience. That's a lie, I had plenty of time. I guess I suffer from that horrible illness called procrastination. You know, the one where that little voice inside your head says, "I don't need to do anything today, I mean, I've got the blog haven't I? When I'm ready, I'll go get creative and do something with it."

And that's when I forgot all about it and this blog has sat here, abandoned and unloved for God knows how long (I'm too lazy to even go and check).

I'm not saying I'm not creative, on the contrary, I consider myself to be quite creative. I'm not exceptionally creative because I still suffer from procrastination but I like to dabble in photography and stuff (now you know I must be creative; I used the word stuff...). And I did actually bake and try and take pictures but let's get serious for a second - after months of drooling over the food-porn created by Bakerella, my photos sucked. Trust me, the photographer within me was too ashamed to upload any of that crap. I decided that I would just stick to eating my baking and not worry about photographing it.

And therein lies the problem. The fundamental flaw. Even I was aware that a food-blog is almost completely redundant without brilliant photos for readers to gaze at admirably. Without photos, doesn't that just make it a recipe? And as much as I love recipes, that wasn't what I had set out to do. I wanted something more. As a result, my blog wilted away until it became another waste of cyber-space.

Until now.

You see, I'm not only older and wiser (hahaha!) but I've got a bit of paper to prove it. This summer, I graduated from University and let me tell you this; I'm not missing Uni at all. Don't get me wrong, I loved Uni and I loved learning and I'm so incredibly ecstatic that I passed and have all those experiences under my belt, but I like to think of my life as a book. A book with chapters. University was a nice big four year chapter that I enjoyed writing (metaphorically) but now that it's done, I'm moving happily onto my next chapter.

So, what is this next chapter?

At the moment, I'm not sure. I took a leap of faith and decided to move to Helsinki in Finland to be closer to my sister who moved here almost two years ago to be with her boyfriend (which is a beautiful story in and to itself!). I have ideas about what I'd like to do here, creative ideas that I'd like to pursue now that I've got a lot more free time on my hands. I was sitting in my room here in Helsinki, wasting some more time (damn procrastination!) when somewhere in the back of my mind remembered that dusty old blog account I'd set up all those years ago.

Hey! I thought. Maybe I should write an *actual* chapter about my time here!

You mean, you don't want to use it as a food-blog? I thought back.

No, that venture is dead and buried. I think I'd like to see where simple blogging takes me.

After a little while trying to remember my password, I managed to sign in and figure out how to write a post.

This is what I churned out.