2012.

Hi guise!

So sorry it took me this long to write a new post. Moving to London was rough and then I went to school at AOFM (Academy of Freelance makeup). I still have 1 week left and then I'm a certified makeup artist ^_^

Dragon's year isn't over yet. I have about two weeks left to be productive and successful. Well apparently 2013 is going to be very successful for us Dragons so we'll see. To my friends 2012 was either so-so or not nice at all. To me, 2012 was very nice. I was working most of the time, but a lot of things happened and because so many things happened, I'm now living in London.

But about 2012, it began peacefully and I took a habbit of going to my parent's cabin in the country once a month, or once every other month. I spend a week there just painting and relaxing. I miss it already. It was exceptionally nice to be there in winter. I'd wake up around 8.15am to feed birds and watch the sunrise (around 9am). It was very excotic to be up and still find it pitch black outside. In the country we have a lot of different types of birds. I loved to bring them seeds and watch them eat whilst I had my breakfast inside. It was usually around -15'C outside. I'd paint the rest of the day and workout too. I managed to make 7 oil paintings in 2012, and they were supposed to be featured in my first solo show in Helsinki right after New Year's, but yeah I moved to London on the 2dn of January.  London is exciting, but still, I miss our cabin, the winter scenery and painting in tranquility.

Enough. (c) Heini Mika 2012.

In early spring 2012, I got infatuated with Kpop! I have been listening to Jpop for a decade now, but I never got into Kpop like my little sister did. She has been listening to Kpop for 6 years. I discovered Kpop through Simon and Martina of Eatyourkimchi. A schoolmate of mine was talking about “Bubble pop” on Fbible, and one of his friend put a link to eatyourkimchi review on his wall. I was like “I have heard about Bubble Pop, so lets see what it's about”. After that I started watching eatyourkimchi videos on daily basis xD I even introduced their “Shinee, Sherlock” video to my little sister. Simon and Martina are so much fun! And their videos are really well made. They don't just talk about Kpop, they talk about Korean food and Culture and what's it like to live in Korea (as a foreigner). At first I was just watching the videos, but when I watched their review on Big Bang's “Fantastic Baby” I was hooked. It started with Big Bang and U-Kiss, but now I love Super Junior and Junsu, and Shinee is good too and so is 2ne1 and Bilasaa! And of course, G-Dragon! I felt a bit like a cradle robber when I began to like him, but I checked wikipedia and he's 2 months OLDER than me xDDDD G-Dragon really is an expectional talent. Everyone get your crayon!

Big Bang (G-D, Seungri, Teayang, Daesung, T.O.P)

After 8 years I finally got to go to Paris again. I was a little girl when I went to Paris the first time. The second time I was a teenager and at first I didn't like Paris at all because it was so dirty and there were rubbish every where. But after the first day I started to like Paris. By April 2012 I had saved some fun-money and was planning to meet my BBF in London during his spring break. But then I reconsidered it. After all both of us had seen plenty of London already. I thought of Rome, but we had been there already in 2008. Now I have been to Rome 4 times. And then I had the idea to go to Paris. We met at Charles-De Gaulle on monday evening. Our hotel, H'otel Odeon, was on the other side of Seine, not on the Louvre, Pompidou side. H'otel Odeon was really nice, and reasonably priced too. We went to see the sights and he even agreed to go to Disney Land with me! Disney Land was so much fun xD But I was so upset that the Michael Jackson ride wasn't working. But I had a great time (he was mostly in a coma due to Disney overload). Paris was exceptionally beautiful in April. We even had a small heathwave on tuesday. After that the weather was mild. We walked a lot during that trip. And may I just say, avoid Champagne mojitos! XD they are deadly! I would have loved to spend another 5 days in Paris, but I had to get back to work. So we left on friday, but before that we went to have tea and cakes at "Laduree" near Concorde. They make such excellent macaroons, I brought a box of those to home with me. Also if you like tea/coffee/confectionaries go visit Fauchon! They have an excellent tea selection, “Un Aprés-midi á Paris” is one of my favurite Fauchon teas. My BFF went back to Aberdeen and I came back to Helsinki and later in September, I started studying french.

In summer my family and I went to visit my little sister in Dundee Scotland. None of us had never been to Scotland so it was going to be a treat for us. We left our cabin early in the morning to drive to Tampere. We took Ryanair to Edingburgh and a train to Dundee (1,5h). It was freezing in Scotland, in June. In Helsinki it had been +25'C all week so we had only prepared summer clothes. The whole week was freezing and I was really scared that I'd catch a cold because my art show was right after our trip + I had work too. It was a lovely trip never the less. We got to see my little sister and we met Mochi, her pet bunny for the first time. He is such a darling! Even though he likes to chew everything xD Mum and Dad were bunking in her boyfriend's room (he was working in Helsinki) and I slept in her room. Mum and Dad were excited to be back in the UK and to have the chance to explore Scotland. We went exploring and shopping and one day we went to St. Andrew's. Really beautiful place! That was a lovely trip even though I was freezing the whole time. Scotland is actually very different from England if you believe it. The architecture is totally different from example the architecture I saw in Manchester. On our last day together we went exploring in Edinburgh. It was raining, and I had my little adventure in the rain. I got lost whilst trying to find this famous vegetarian restaurant. I spend the rest of the day in bed, trying to avoid catching a cold. I'll always regard this trip with warmth and I hope we get to go to Dundee again someday.

St. Andrew's coast line

I had my first art show in Worcester in 2011. At Movement gallery. My second show was in Helsinki at Akvart gallery. I was so happy when they accepted my application. It was particularly hard to come up with a concept for this show. At first I wanted to do pretty landscapes and cityscapes from Paris, London, Kyoto etc, but I reasoned that you could buy those anywhere. In the end I came up with a fictional city called “Summer City” (the show was called “City Summer”). I'm actually rather pleased how the paintings turned out. There were 9 of us showing our works, and 5 of us sold a piece, including me =D A nice couple bought one of my paintings to give as a gift to their relatives. I was full of joy when I got the call from the gallery telling me that I had sold a piece. The show lasted for two weeks, and I was vigilating four times. It was so cool, my BFF came there to keep me company <3 I'd be happy to exhibit work at Akvart again.

Lady Gaga in Helsinki 2012

In August I went to see Lady Gaga for the first time. I had always liked her music, but I kept missing her shows. So when I heard that she was coming to Helsinki in 2012, I quickly bought my ticket. I was hoping to get in to the Monster Pit, but I didn't. I was walking around the arena, hoping that someone would spot me and let me in to the pit. But no luck. It was okay, I had a pretty good seat anyway. I really had to reel myself in at the merchandise booth. I wanted to buy all the t-shirts xD In the end I bought 1 t-shirt, the tour poster, “Married to Gaga” ring and a unicorn keychain for my little sister. I really love that ring, alhtough it's a bit too big for me, I love it. I wear it on my left thumb. The concert was rather good. I was so blown away when “Highway Unicorn” started followed by “Government Hooker” (← my personal favourite). I thought “this show is going to be a-may-zaahh!!”. However it kinda fell flat after that. It was a good show, but I was so dissapointed that Gaga used so much playback! So dissapointed. It seemed to me that Gaga is unable to sing and dance at the same time. It's difficult I know, but many other artists sing a song and then they have like a dance breakdown, like in MVs and then they sing again. Whilst Gaga was trying to do them both, but it just wasn't working. Another thing that I didn't appreciate either was that she only sang half of the songs. I mean really only half. She cut “Bad Kids” half! And “Love Game” and “Poker Face” and many other songs too. That was dissapointing. However I had no idea she had such a fabulous singing voice until she sat down on her motorcycle and sang “Hair”. She really has an amazing voice! Anyway I did enjoy the show and to me it seemed that Gaga was really enjoying herself as well, that the show wasn't just 'another day in the office'. When she thanked the audience for spending their hard earned money on her show, that really touched me. Never before have I heard an artist actually thank their fans for spending money on them. Thank You Gaga, thank you for noticing that!! Never the less, it was a good show and I wouldn't mind spending money to see Gaga again in the future.

After, maybe 7 months, I began to wonder what to do with my life. I was waitressing part-time and I knew that that wasn't what I wanted to do with my life. It was my mum again that asked me to concider makeup artistry. So I began to look for makeup schools in Europe. I found 3 really promising schools. One in Milan, one in Paris and one in London. The Milan seemed cool, but it was too expensive. The Paris one intrigued me the most, but my employment after the course seemed unlikely because I don't speak french (well I do now, but only a little!! Tourist vocabulary etc). So I went with AOFM. They were based in London so I knew that language wouldn't be a problem, plus the school had such marvelous after care programs. They have master classes for graduates, their after care programs includes personal guidance and every year they take graduates to assist at London Fashion week. I sent my application for January's “Total Pro” course and I got a call from AOFM in less than a week. I got in =D And now I have been studying there for 3 weeks. Next week it's Nails and Airbrushing. I'm slowly leaning towards fashion/editorial/advert makeup, but I'm also really interested in movie and theatre makeup as well. My plan is to find a job in retail and then test,test,test to build my portfolio =D I had my portfolio shoot a week ago (AOFM provides everything) and it went alright.

Kuroshitsuji II. Alois&Claude, Ciel&Sebastian

The anime of 2012 for me is Kuroshitsuji II. Last year it was Naruto (still nr. 1 in my heart), but this year I got obsessed with Kuroshitsuji. I watched the second season first, because Takahiro Sakurai is the voice of Claude. I really like Takahiro-san's voice! I thought he was a-may-zaah in “Princess Tutu” <3 So I was looking for anime featuring Takahiro-san and I found Kuroshitsuji II. However Alois Trancy stole the show. At first I was sure that Junko Takeuchi (she does Naruto) was Alois' voice, but nope, I was dead wrong. It's Mizuki Nana!! I was so surprised! I had only heard Mizuki-san do female voices, so I didn't know she could do boys as well. If you listen to her voice as Rue in “Princess Tutu” and then compare that to Alois in Kuroshitsuji, they sound nothing alike! An exceptionally talented voice actress I'd say.

It sucks that Kuroshitsuji II was so short --__-- I could watch Alois all day *_* The plot had some promise, but in the end it turned out rather stupid. The first Kuroshitsuji was a combination of short stories and running plotline. So personally I think that that would have been perfect for Kuroshitsuji II as well. It would have been really interesting to watch Alois plot how to catch Ciel, episode after episode. It would have been like those American tv-series from the 90's. There is a plotline, but the focus is mainly on the individual stories (per episode). The first season was much better in terms of plotline, which still isn't much as far as good plots go. So the shortness of Kuroshitsuji II was a let down. However, there is always Kuroshitsuji I for those who are completely infatuated with Sebastian Q_o I'm making it my duty to find a butler just like Sebastian! I wouldn't mind having a piece of that action ;)

Oh yeah and I had two of my wisdom teeth removed (in one go)  --___--- it's done. The procedure was a piece of cake, but the aftermath, oh boy. It took me a week until I was able to return to work. I pretty much ate just ice-cream, soup, soft tofu and yogurt for 3 days solid. So if by any chance it's not necessary for you to get your wisdom teeth removed, don't do it! It's not worth it, to go through all that suffering and healing after they are out. Seriously.

And I also got “promoted” at work. I was just a regular waitress, until I passed this alcohol custom/law test and got my licence. After that I was able to do manager shifts at work. It was rather fun being the manager for 2-7h per shift =) But again, I never intended waitressing to be my career career.

That's pretty much what happened to me in 2012. Well the highlights. It was a rather eventful year full of happiness with some major negative incidents as well. But it was a good year and I can't help, but feel a little proud that it was my year. I'm a Dragon after all. For 2013 I bought a tea pot from Chinatown that has a Dragon on it to remind myself that I am a Dragon, and Dragons are strong, passionate creatures who'll go through granite and grey stone to get what they want. 

A little bit about my future posts. Because I'm trying to build a life for myself in London I won't be able to write artist reviews for a while. I'll do my best to find a time to write, but right now I'm too busy with school, plus I need to find a job. So after I find a job and get a better sense of my schedules, I'll arrange time to write new posts ^_^

Take care everyone and thank you for reading!
Happy 2013!!

A.P