Question of the day.

What “old person” things do you do?

My answer:

Sofi says I’m awfully vintage! 😀 Is that seriously true I have no idea, but also I’ve heard that I’m an old soul so possibly yes, though I’m not sure I myself would put it exactly this way either that I have an old soul, I have that Bibiel part of me and she’s anything but old, and probably that’s why some yet other people, especially those who know me more closely, say I’m childish. Well but I have a bit vintage taste in some things, like baby names for example, though I like a lot of modern names as well and hate a lot of vintage names so I can’t say I’m really a vintage names lover. I like archaic words that are no longer or hardly ever used, I like folklore, and would most happily live some time before 20th century, although the only tricky thing would be that there would be no power, no Internet or anything so I couldn’t read books etc. 😀 But I’m not sure if that is really “old person” things, I guess not really. I’m sure there are such things that I do, probably even a lot of them, maybe more than I realise, but I can’t think of anything… Yay! I remember something now! I don’t have a smartphone, still! 😀 How absolutely indignant for a blind person! This may change, and most likely will sooner or later, it’s hard to imagine it not to change, though we’ll see what the results will be. For now, I am happy with my other electronic stuff, and my good old Nokia with Symbian OS which is like 10 years old. I always say that I stick to it because of my loyalty towards Finland (Nokia is Finnish, there’s a place called Nokia in Finland and I believe the company originates from there). 😀 It has only survived such a long time because really in recent years I hardly use a phone. I had this phone with me at school and kept in touch with my family, and back then it went through lots of weird things, but these days I live with my family, I hardly ever call anyone and hardly anyone calls me, because I hate making phone calls and those who know me well know that it’s faster to reach me via email or something like that and that I much prefer writing. If I need to do something that you can only do from a smartphone, I can do it from my Mum’s Samsung with her help if it’s nothing private. I’ve been really wary of touchscreens because my spatial imagination and orientation are rather poor, whether it’s a large or a small space, and so it’s sort of hard for me to imagine that I would be able to figure out something as abstractive as a touchscreen, and my manual skills and coordination aren’t impressive either. But I’m thinking more and more about getting an Iphone because as I said I’ll most likely have to do it at some point anyway, as it can be difficult for a blind person without a smartphone these days, and Iphone and phones with Android (most phones with Android I guess) are the only ones that have screenreaders that you can use with. Then we will see if I can figure that out and to what degree, and in case if not, I’ll have to think about some alternative then, though it’s hard for me to think what it would be, perhaps getting a used Nokia from someone, the same model as mine, and going next 10 years with it haha.

How about you? 🙂

Question of the day (29th April).

What personality trait has been the most useful to you?

My answer:

I think I could say that my distance to myself and situations in my life, other people and the world in general. What I mean by it, is that I am able to usually laugh at things that are happening, at myself, at things people do, approach them with some sense of humour, usually either a bit dark or cynnical but not necessarily, even if things aren’t easy, and even though, because of my overactive inner self-critic called Maggie and the AVPD thing, when it comes to myself, I can also be quite sensitive to criticism at the same time. It may be a bit paradoxical and I guess it is, but I think it’s completely possible to have both some distance to yourself and be able to laugh at yourself and things you do and things people say to you, and at the same time be very critical of yourself, sensitive to criticism or even things like self-loathing, I know other people who are like that and don’t have the best self-esteem yet are able to have a distance, at least outwardly. I think for such people it’s actually even more important to keep some distance from themselves. It has helped me to keep possibly sane in lots of situations throughout my life, and it is also a very good coping skill and a protective mechanism in my opinion, and makes engaging with people slightly easier for both sides.

You? 🙂

Question of the day (28th April).

Hey people! 🙂

Do you use a skincare routine consistently? Why or why not?

My answer:

Not really. The only thing I try to do consistently, at least in the winter months when my skin gets really dry, is using some oil, like coconut oil most of the time, on it, and I have a peeling once in a blue moon, but it’s a very minimalistic and natural peeling, I don’t use any ready-made exfoliators. I seriously don’t feel the need for anything more, I’m not someone who would interact with lots of people in a professional setting or anything like that so I don’t think I have to look perfectly, and doing it for myself doesn’t really sound convincing because I’ve always found these kind of beauty self-care things quite uninteresting. On one hand I think my skin isn’t that bad at all that I’d need some fancy skincare routine, I have no big problems with it apart from being a bit too dry at some times, and on the other hand, I don’t know how to put it but it’s like, I don’t have the drive for such things because my self-esteem is too messed up, so I just don’t see the point in bothering, it’s not something pleasurable to me like it is for some people and it doesn’t really affect the way I feel about myself. I’m sure the fact that I’m blind plays some role in it too though I know some blind girls and women who are way more image-conscious than a lot of sighted people I know. And, while my Mum is someone who definitely likes to look good and take care of her appearance, and even is a trained beautician, by the time I was about the age when girls usually learn about those things, her views on skincare shifted dramatically, she’s always inclined to live healthily, but it’s become much more of a passion and a discovery journey for her and she’s started living much more naturally, she used to use tons of things for her skin and now she doesn’t use any shop-bought beauty products at all and relies much more on sport and diet. So the message I was receiving at that time was that it’s actually good that I’m not interested in putting too much shit of unknown origin on my skin, because skin will not absorb all that, so usually a skin product will only have an effect as long as you don’t wash it off, and what will get through the skin may be actually harmful, and it’s illogical to expect for example a cream, especially a cheap one, to make your skin look considerably better, and that it’s better to use natural oils from plants for example, we even use a homemade deodourant. Most of that made a lot of sense to me and still does, so that’s how I am trying to live though I am not nearly as much of a lifestyle freak as my Mum, rather than doing everything to stay healthy or something like that I just do what I like, and if it happens to be good for my health, then it’s a great bonus. She has it much more difficult these days with Sofi because she is much more image-conscious, she’s very pretty and knows about it and wants to fit in, watches loads of YouTube videos and observes her school mates and while she rationally understands Mum’s point of view, she really wants to do make-up, manicure etc. though she’s rarely allowed, but when she is allowed she is very creative, and she does have a very fancy skincare routine.

What about you? 🙂

Question of the day.

Hi guys! 🙂

Considering some items are difficult to come by these days, what would you trade me for half a dozen eggs?

My answer:

Well, if it were you who gave me half a dozen eggs, I could trade you for a jar of gooseberry jam, for example. We have lots of home-made jams, and, while we like them, we don’t keep up with eating them, haha. Or I could give you some cucumbers if you like. And we do have a lot of toilet paper in case you would be suffering because of a lack thereof. Not like really a lot, but I’m sure it would be enough to share with someone in a desperate need, haha.

What about you?

Aimée – “Break Me”.

Hey people! 🙂

A song I have for you today is by Irish singer called Aimée. I often decide to show you acoustic versions of songs because I think they often just sound better and are more expressive, especially when it comes to just normal pop, but this time I think the original album version sounds better and conveys more emotion, I just like it more. Though what i like it mostly for is the lyrics. Aime is quite a new artist to me, but I think I’m going to like more of her music.

Question of the day.

Hi people! 🙂

Here’s my question for you today:

In which way have you surprised yourself this week?

My answer:

Well, that wasn’t a very big surprise maybe, but I couldn’t think of anything else. It surprised me that, the night before last, I was crying in my sleep, because I am generally not a big cryer, or at least definitely not in such situations when I’m just plain sad, even when it’s very sad, or moved by something either positive or negative. My Mum and grandma both have eyes on a very wet spot and can cry about anything that moves them, but I usually only cry when really angry or overloaded and just pretty much physically can’t keep any more feelings inside. I had a dream about my grandma (yes, that same who cries so much) that she was dying. In the morning Mum asked me if it was corona that she was dying of, and that wasn’t clear to me what it was, but it’s possible because she had real trouble breathing. She was lying in her bed and there were loads of people in her bedroom – us, all my Mum’s siblings with their families, all my grandma’s siblings with their families, I guess even my grandad’s family. – She was praying, and we were praying with her. I am often more like an observer than participant in my dreams and see things in a kind of neutral, emotionally detached way, often either from the point of view of someone else, everyone involved or just an observer, rather than just myself. And so it didn’t feel like I was sitting there with them, I was sort of looking down on themm and hearing what they were saying and I was separate from them, I don’t think they could even see me.

My grandma is generally a very melancholic person, a huge worrier and catastrophist and I call her Fillyjonk – like Fillyjonk from the Moomins – but in my dream she was happy – just in a calm, peaceful, quietly satisfied way like I’ve never seen her in real life – usually when she’s happy in real life it’s because she’s moved by something, and then she cries anyway so it’s kind of bittersweet, or at least so it looks to me. At some point though, she started worrying and talking about someone, I don’t remember why, or maybe I couldn’t even fully understand it in the dream, but I know she was worrying about one of her grandchildren and her worries had something to do with school, so I think it could be my cousin who is currently experiencing some school troubles and to whom she’s very close because she’s actually bringing him up no less than his parents as they live very close. So she grew very nervous and worried what will happen after she died, people tried to calm her down, and the more she was nervous, the more she couldn’t breathe, and then she just died.

Then my point of view shifted so that I was more participating in the dream and only then it hit me what happened. The whole room was quiet, everyone was so shocked, and I suddenly started crying like I think I never did in my real life. It was as much strange that, while I do like my grandma and she is a really lovely person, I don’t have that much of a personal connection with her, same as with most of my family, so it was a really strange reaction and I was really surprised even in the dream.

Then I woke up and realised that my eyes were actually wet and that I must have seriously cried in my sleep, and as it was about Misha’s waking time – 4 AM – he was wide awake and curiously peaking out of his bed and had his paw on my cheek. 😀

That was really quite a strange dream, but strange dreams are intriguing, and I don’t mind them if they’re not sleep paralysis, even if their topic is negative. I think it happens to me more than most people I know that I cry in my sleep, but I think that night was probably the most emotional in that respect, and I was wondering about the whole sleep crying thing – since I often find it difficult to cry even when I want to, maybe it’s some sort of release of actual emotions for my brain, and that’s how it’s coping with some shit that I am at the moment unable to get rid of while being conscious and in control. – In any case, I think brain is absolutely fascinating, but sleep is probably even more in a way.

On a slightly different note, today I also had a dream involving death and quite emotional, but no crying. I dreamt that I met some friends online that I was getting along really well with – it was actually a whole family, parents and children, though I’m pretty sure all of their children were grown up already or maybe one of themm was a teenager, but they lived all together somewhere in the countryside, I have a vague feeling that it might have been somewhere in England, because some parts of my dream were in English, also the mummy had a bit of a Scouse accent and I think England was mentioned somewhere in that dream. – And for some reason I moved to them and lived with them permanently. They were really such cool people, I had something in common with each of them, I remember they had a huge house with a huge garden, what I know for sure is that they had loads of apples in there haha and they had a horse, we spent a lot of time together just because we genuinely wanted it, we read books together, actually I think one of the girls was a writer. One guy was called… yes! you guessed it! Jack and he was so funny. I also remember the mother particularly well, she was really smart and sweet. I bonded with them all really strongly and closely.

And suddenly they all got sick with something on the same day, were all really ill, and finally all died pretty much at once so I was absolutely devastated and so sad and missed them terribly. I woke up soon after that and couldn’t shake off that sad, longing feeling, I guess I could actually say hiraeth as they call it in Welsh, which is longing for something that has never truly existed, it usually refers to a place but i think it describes what I felt really well. And for a while I couldn’t figure out why I felt like that either. As it happened, there was also some really sad piece of music playing on my Spotify as I woke up, nothing better than having a soundtrack to your dreams! 😀 Of course I got over it when I realised that it was a dream, but I found it really sad, and when I recall the whole thing I still feel strangely sad as I seriously knew those people, and I kind of miss them. But I really enjoyed the part of the dream when I was with them. Maybe I’ll add them to my Brainworld or something so that they’d feel a bit more realistic haha.

So, how about you guys? 🙂

Question of the day.

Hey people! 🙂

What do you have this week that you didn’t have last week?

My answer:

The most striking difference between my last week and this week is that this week i have a broken SAPI5, instead of a functioning SAPI5. Well, it has broken last Saturday so technically last week, but only at the end of it and as I said, it’s the most striking difference between what I didn’t have/had last week and what I have this week. Plus I want to fill you in on what’s been recently going on in my life and need to rant a bit.

Do you know what SAPI5 is? Probably not, and that’s too bad, unless you have Mac OS or Linux, then you’re justified. But it’s too bad if you have Windows XP or later, because most likely, regardless of whether you use it or not, you do have something called SAPI5 on your computer. But even many technicians and IT people donn’t know what SAPI5, or SAPI in general, is, and that’s part of why it’s so frustrating when it breaks. I am not an expert in that either but I’ll try to explain it to you the way I understand it. SAPI is an interface developed by Microsoft that allows most modern speech synthesisers to speak in the system and all the apps on PC that use speech synthesis. Most people have SAPI5 on their computers as far as I know because most computers have at least one voice developed by Microsoft installed by default, and some people use apps that convert text to speech so that they can read books with speech synthesis, even though they aren’t blind or anything, so I guess SAPI doesn’t even really count as assistive technology though I may be wrong. How has it broken for me?

You may know that I’ve been fighting for a while now to regain some of my speech synthesisers that I really need and that I couldn’t, for this or that reason, get working on my new computer easily. I couldn’t activate my Swedish speech synthesiser, for example, because the company that used to produce it no longer exists, and it seems like now my activation key for that voice, and most of their voices, but strangely not all of them, doesn’t work. I do need some Swedish speech synthesis really badly though, so I decided to get some Swedish voices from another company, which in a way I thought could even be better, because that company is part Swedish and they have even some voices speaking with specific dialects, which can be useful for a learner. I’ve already been using speech synthesis in some other languages produced by that company, but to be able to use their Scandinavian voices, you have to upgrade to Nordic license, which is quite expensive but I felt like that was the best option for me so I went ahead with it. Finally, I got those Swedish voices, but then had some problem activating the licence so had to ask their support people to help remotely. They fixed my licence so that it worked right, but then when I was reinstalling their app containing all their voices that I own to get the access to the Swedish ones as well, I must have made some mistake along the way or something else went wrong, I’m not sure, anyway it wouldn’t start up properly after the reinstallation. I reinstalled it yet again and this time it did start up properly but there was some other error along the way, so again the support guy fixed that for me.

I was using my Swedish synths for just about a day, and was quite happy with them and really glad that finally that one thing is dealt with for good and I don’t have to read Swedish stuff with a Polish, or even worse, an English synth anymore. Then the next day – which was last Saturday – my antivirus went paranoid and detected some malware on my computer, which I think was very likely some false alarm because I’ve noticed a pattern to its paranoid behaviour earlier and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with any real threats. Anyway, it wanted to make a full scan, so I let it do its thing. After that, my computer rebooted and my screenreader spoke to me with a completely different synth than the one I had been using. Well, that happens sometimes, so I was only slightly surprised. I wanted to change it back to the one I was using prior to the scan, but, to my now huge surprise and dread, I only got a message “Couldn’t load SAPI5 synthesiser”. All those Swedish voices, and all the other voices from that company from whom I got the Swedish voices very recently, and a few other synths that I use on a regular basis use SAPI5, so now I don’t have access to them. Now I only have a couple Polish voices that aren’t on SAPI5.

Other than that, when I tried to open the app with those Swedish voices and others from that company, it would never start up, it looked like it was constantly loading, and when I finally gave up and close it, it exploded with strange error messages.

It could be that I got something wrong with that reinstallation, but I feel like if that was the case, it would crash much earlier, not after the scan. Therefore I think it’s my antivirus that is to blame. It is apparently the only third-party antivirus these days that is (somewhat) accessible for screen-readers, so that’s why I’m using this one, but I’ve heard that actually the built-in Windows Defender is quite good these days, and apparently also accessible, so I’m seriously considering a change in that respect.

I had experienced a SAPI crash once before, many years ago, and that was absolutely dreadful!!! The technician that frequently helped me with things back then was clueless. I called him and just told him that my SAPI was broken, but he was utterly confused and like “Ummm, and what is SAPI?????”. I do know some things about assistive technology and generally about tech stuff because naturally you sort of have to know more when you’re blind if you want to survive and not be completely cut out from the world, I’d say an average blind person has to know a bit more about tech things than an average sighted person. But I’m far from being techy, and I don’t think I have to be, so if I had to explain really well what is SAPI like in theory, how it works and all, I don’t think I’d be able to do it well, all I know about it I have already told you, it’s only from a user’s perspective, and it’s entirely possible I got something wrong. Unfortunately I’ve had a couple technicians that have helped me with this or that, whom I had to educate on what is a screenreader, how does it work, what does it not do etc. etc. And it’s not like they are stupid jerks who don’t want to learn or don’t care or anything like that. They were really interested in all that and always asked me tons of questions. They just never got a chance to learn about it. I know a fair bit from user’s perspective, though not as much as a lot of people I know, and the inner workings of those things in theory aren’t something I’m particularly knowledgeable in.

In the end, with that previous SAPI failure, I had to send my computer to a company I know quite well who distribute specialised equipment for the visually impaired, the same people who helped me to choose a computer for me and then set it up, and they do similar things and they kindly fixed SAPI for me back then, but the whole thing dragged on for over half a year as far as I remember.

So this time round I was absolutely gutted when that happened and still am, and not really sure what to do, I would really not like to risk trying to fix it myself, I have no idea how to do that. Straight away after that happened, I wrote the support guy from that speech synth company from which I got the Swedish synths, that was what my Mum advised me to do, although I doubted they would be up to helping me this time since the problem didn’t have directly to do with their product, or not only with it. I thought he’d at least write that “No, sorry, we can’t help you with that”, but so far he hasn’t even written back to me. Maybe he doesn’t know what is SAPI either? 🙃 I will wait a couple more days for his response, but if he won’t get back to me, i’ll have to try our current technician who usually helps our family with tech issues and test his knowledge about SAPI, and he’ll be able to learn something new, hopefully without devastating my computer further. If that won’t work, I’ll have to ship it to that visually impaired company on the other end of the country and let’s pray that my fan won’t break yet again in the process. 😀 Or that they can do it remotely. Though if I’m honest, for some reason i have a gut feeling that it’s not a good idea to ask them to do that, despite it were them who did it the last time. Maybe it’s because of all that bad luck with my computer when they were setting it up for me. Anyway, in the end I may not have a choice. I’ve always had a more or less mild tech issues phobia, but lately those things are scaring the shit out of me and if that won’t stop, I don’t see how it could improve.

So yeah, I’ve become the owner of a broken SAPI5 this week, such a positive news of the day for my readers. 😀

How about you? Do you have some more positive news, or have you also become in possession of something you really don’t like having? 🙂

Nina June – “We Watched It All Come Down”.

Hi people!

As I’ve already told you, I’ve been discovering some Dutch music – mainly in English so far – lately, and my search is continuing, so I may show you some more Dutch music in the near future. Today I have for you a piece from an Amsterdam-based artist called Nina June. This was the first song by her I’ve heard, so far I’ve heard a few more but still I think I’ll need to familiarise myself better with her music to get a proper feel of it. This one is the one that I like the most so far though, so thought I’d share it with you as well.

Question of the day.

Hi people! 🙂

Yesterday we talked about our personalities, and today my question is:

What physical traits do you share with your relatives/children?

My answer:

Both my parents are generally considered tall people. I have hypopituitarism and was born with growth hormone deficiency, so I had to have it injected daily as a child, if I was to grow on my own I’d be around 140 cm so definitely not much. As it is, after the growth hormone treatment I am 168 cm. I don’t consider myself tall and neither does my family, in fact I’m the smallest person in our family, even Zofijka is now taller than me. But a lot of other people for some reason do say that I am tall. Is it just autosuggestion because they know that my parents are tall and that my brother is almost 2 metres, or because I am skinny so perhaps I look taller than I am, no idea. But really lots of people say I’m tall.

I mostly look like my Dad and his family rather than my Mum and her family. My Dad’s family all look rather northern European and have blue eyes, and so do I, but my hair is a bit darker than my Dad, like he’s is light blond or something like that I believe, while my hair is kind of mousey these days though when I was younger it was more light like his. His skin is quite light, but mine is even lighter. I have his fingers as well. He used to have long and slim, shapely fingers, sadly that changed quite early on for him because as a teenager he got his hand into a machine that was grinding food for ducks and that resulted in a lot of destruction, he had 30 something stitches and it’s a bit of a miracle apparently that he can use this hand at all, let alone that he still is as manually skilled and dexterous as he is. So now some of his fingers are a bit crooked. Still, I really like his fingers anyway and I often say that they are very shapely, because I genuinely think so, just shapely in a different way than most people, but he always laughs at that and thinks I’m being sarcastic. Despite I have similar fingers like he did before the accident, I don’t have his manual skills, haha. All of us have also inherited his quite typically ectomorphic physique and quick metabolism, although I looked different as a small kid and was rather plump to begin with and only after some time I suddenly have become skinny, about the time I went to primary I guess, which I think was when I started taking the growth hormone so it makes perfect sense. I’ve also got scoliosis after him and loads of people in his family have it, some to a quite bad degree, his is rather bad too.

We all have very thick hair after our Mum’s family, which is fun on one hand because it just looks better than having thin hair but on the other it’s a lot of hassle when you’re doing something with your hair, haha. People have also told me that I have my Mum’s facial features and long eyelashes like her. We have very similar skin, not in terms of colour but rather things like that for example we both have rather dry skin, have never had bad acne or other such annoying stuff, but have a tendency for a lot of moles instead. We both have always low blood pressure and often low energy and I’ve got mild asthma and loads of mucus after her, ew yuck!

How about you? 🙂

Question of the day.

What personality traits do you share with your relatives/children?

My answer:

I have a tendency to be very suspicious of people just like my Dad, well, actually for him at this point it looks more like paranoia and I can clearly see that he’s getting worse with age so hope that I will not end up like that because it quite bites both for such person as well as perhaps even more so for everyone around. I am also a pessimist like him and generally our worldview is pretty similar, although my pessimism is more defensive than just plain grumpy. I think my sense of humour is also similar to his. We are both introverts and get overwhelmed with things quickly though each of us manifests it in vastly different ways. If the four temperaments theory makes sense, and I think it may, I seem to be something like a rather even mix of melancholic and phlegmatic, and I’ve got the phlegmatic part definitely after my Dad. I think I’ve also got my rational brain after him, like that despite I am generally rather dreamy and imaginative, I can be very down to Earth and sensible when need be, so that my imaginativeness can’t turn into insipid sentimentality and I always keep some distance to things. Although our types of intelligence are rather very different despite that. Ah yeah and I hate changes just like him and neither of us is particularly spontaneous, and we tend to have rather very consistent views on everything that we have views on. We both have some sort of anger issues but each of us of a completely different nature, because while I turn it mostly inwards unless there’s no room, he gets it all out on other people and has meltdowns like a baby, which also get worse with age and due to other factors as well.

Me and my Mum are both deep thinkers, are sensitive and emotional and very empathetic and caring, think way too much, like things that most people either don’t know or don’t like or don’t/can’t appreciate, are individualists, overly self-critical, good listeners, like our own company, though my Mum is generally an extrovert, she likes to share her emotions with other people and is very chatty and exuberant, but still at the same time she feels the need for being just with herself sometimes, is not dependent on others and calls herself wild, used to be very shy and doesn’t have many friends outside of family. We both have our passions that we are enthusiastic about, we are very intuitive and introspective, and I’ve got the melancholic part of my brain after her, as she’s sanguine-melancholic.

And I can be quite a catastrophist after my grandma, though she is much worse and her catastrophism is much more contagious I think.

My Mum also says I have a lot of traits after my grandad, and while we get along very well and he’s the only person who has always stood by me no matter what and he often seems to get me better than other people in my family, I don’t personally feel that we have much more in common in terms of personality than that we are both veeery introverted and nerdy loners, as my grandad has very high ego, and despite he’s always been amazing to me, throughout his life it’s been clear that he doesn’t have high empathy levels and has to be the best at everything and even when he is not, he still is. Oh yeah and I’ve got sleep paralysis after him which is not a personality trait but because of its severity and that it’s stuck to my brain since forever until now it has had some influence on who I am. 😀

Oh yeah, and my Dad says that I am as smart as my Godmother, which is not necessarily a compliment, not because my Godmother isn’t smart, she is very much, but because I am smarter than him and authoritarian folks don’t like that. I think we do think a bit similarly with my Godmother, because we both tend to overanalyse a lot of things and sometimes take them a bit too literally, but overall I don’t get along with her that well and find her slightly intimidating.

What does that look for you and your family? 🙂

Question of the day (17th April).

Have you ever really disliked someone and then changed your mind?

My answer:

Hm, not that I can recall. I can sometimes be quite judgmental towards people often without even realising it, although I am not quite as much since I have figured this out and made some effort not to be, but generally I tend to rely a lot on my “x-ray” – as my grandad calls themm – abilities, and I trust my talent for understanding and figuring out people’s characters. I am often right, but sometimes I don’t take it into account that I may be wrong, and judging someone incorrectly or unfairly. Still, if I realise that I had been wrong, I usually have no problem with abandoning my prejudices and looking at someone from a different angle. But despite all that, I don’t think I’ve ever had it so that I would start out disliking someone very much and then change my mind in a significant way.

How is it with you? 🙂

Question of the day (16th April).

What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better?

My answer:

I was going to say Misha but MIsha’s not a thing. OKay, so Misha’s presence. It won’t always fix everything but it always helps at least a little.

What is it for you? 🙂

Song of the day (16th April) – Declan J Donovan – “Anymore”.

Here’s a song I’ve recently grown to really like. In case someone of my more long-term readers would be confused, this is not that Declan I’ve had a faza/music crush on, that one is Declan Galbraith. I do like Declan J Donovan too, even though I don’t think I could ever have a faza on him, and this is my absolutely favourite song of his. I’ve only just learnt about it when preparing a bit for this post that this song was actually played on Love Island, which I suppose might be an interesting bit of info.

Question of the day (15th April).

What’s your favourite way to spend a weekend?

My answer:

I don’t have very high demands as for that. Any weekend that’s not too anxiety-filled for me is a good weekend. I like to to be with Misha, listen to my favourite music, read something interesting, blog, spend time with my family etc.

You? 🙂

Song of the day (15th April) – Elsa Birgitta Bekman – “Waiting For You”.

This is another Dutch artist of Swedish and French descent whose strong voice I really like, and her music is really good imo.

Song of the day (14th April) – Celine Cairo – “Strong Enough”.

I’ve said on my blog a couple times that despite one of my most favourite languages that I am aiming to learn at some point is Dutch, I know very little Dutch music, whether English- or Dutch-language, and that I can’t find a lot of Dutch stuff that I would particularly like. Recently though I’ve been discovering some Dutch pop, and hope that from there I can also move on to other genres.

So, here is a Dutch singer called Celine Cairo, and I think this song of her is particularly beautiful.

Song of the day (13th April) – Bluma Petersen – “All My Time”.

Hey guys! 🙂

This is a song from an artist I’ve only heard about recently, and I quite like it, although I was able to find very little to no information on Bluma Petersen herself. She is signed to a Swedish label called Epidemic Sound, and it looks like most artists collaborating with Epidemic Sound are quite elusive, have no social media or anything, strange thing. From the little info I’ve got on her it looked like she might be American, but then her accent would rather slightly suggest that she’s from some Scandinavian country, and that’s about all I know.

Happy Easter, pets and peeps!

Hhrrru? 😻

This is Misha. I am soon going to sleep because all my peeps are soon going to sleep, but before I do that I wanted to wish all of you, on behalf of the Emisha team – that is Mila and me – a very happy happy happy Easter. I hope it will be a very joyful time for you if you are Christians and if you are not and are just celebrating for the fun of celebrating something I hope you will be able to have as much chocolate as you can keep in. And if you are not celebrating I hope you have a lovely, beautiful Sunday and won’t be stressing too much about that human plague thing. If you are a pet like me I hope it will also be as happy day for you as it’s going to be for me and that your peeps will stay at home even though it is a holiday and spend some more time with you, but hopefully they won’t be too noisy and intrusive and will let you have a bit of time for yourself too. Happy Easter to all our readers. 😻

Emisha 💜 💚 💙

Question of the day.

Are you a light packer, or do you usually have an overstuffed suitcase?

My answer:

I like to pack a lot of things just in case, or such that make me feel more cosy at a strange place if I’m going to sleep there, so it often happens to be overstuffed I think. I always have a lot of chargers with me, and generally quite a lot of things that not everyone would consider necessary when going for a trip, but I definitely do. It’s not like I am petty though, I just like to have things that I’m used to with me especially when it comes to sleep, often I’ll even pack my little pillow ’cause you never know if I’ll like the pillows at the place where I’m going to sleep, or maybe I’ll still need one more pillow, haha.

You? 🙂

Olivia Garcia – “Freedom Hearts”.

Today I have a very catchy pop song for you. Olivia Garcia is a singer from Manchester who took part in X Factor some years ago, and then also in British preselections for Eurovision 2017, but didn’t get chosen in the end. I think the song is quite cool and her voice is very powerful, so thought I’d share.