15. IAMX

Echo, echo / I know it's a sin to kiss and swallow

IAMX aka Chris Corner is cool. He's so cool it's almost painful to watch him on stage in clothes that are a cross between flawless goth-emo and a demented leader of a circus, and his fantastic moves. And like MIA, he doesn't even seem to be trying, which of course makes him exponentially cooler.

Before I knew what a cool creature IAMX is, however, I thought his music was cool. 'Kiss+Swallow' was the first song I heard, and I still think it's (one of) the sexiest and sleekest songs I've ever heard. The song sounds like fantastic sex does in, well, our fantasies. (Tori Amos's 'Raspberry Swirl', for the record, is what I think actual, real good sex sounds like.) The lyrics are nihilistic and vapid and so, so good.

A year ago, I went to see IAMX live at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow. (I kid you not. Fantastic bands, unpretentious venue, but asking for directions is a pain.) I don't go for electronica-driven music in general, and was very sceptical about how it was going to work live. Chris Corner and his band (which I believe includes his girlfriend, who is also painfully cool) blew me away. I will admit I spent long periods of time captivated by Corner's top hat, but it was a really cool show even when one ignored the sartorial details. They had the most macabre amputated-looking guitars, and Corner is an engrossing performer. Good times.

I should probably describe IAMX's music so people will know whether to check him out or not. The best I can come up with is a mix between Placebo and Depeche Mode, only with more dynamic vocals. (By this I mean Corner's high register can turn a song airy and floaty, or he can use his pissy-moany voice to add grit.) There's a lot of synth sounds, but also nice vocals, and the synths are closer to, say, Violator than Speak And Spell.

I recommend checking out IAMX's MySpace, which has several songs up (although no 'Kiss+Swallow', alas): http://www.myspace.com/iamx

Here's a link to 'Kiss+Swallow': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e4GQFnKiDw&feature=PlayList&p=49722CEADDE8AA90&index=0&playnext=1

I know it's a sin but / tell me it happens

14. Christmas

Christmas is actually not my favourite time of the year, quite the opposite, really. This journal is, however, not about me complaining about seeing less than 27 hours of the sun in a month, so I will talk about things I do enjoy about the holidays.

For those wondering about the picture, I received some fabulous gifts this year, including a pseudo-Macedonian flag with a note in Ancient Greek. - Yes, I am the sort of girl who thinks a Macedonian flag makes a fabulous gift. I am also lucky enough to have friends who know me all too well.

Another thing I like about Christmas is the fact the woods where my family flocks for the holidays really looks like some sort of alternate reality winter wonderland. There's always snow, and the sky and the forest is black in a way it never gets in the city, although people stubbornly fight against the darkness with candles and more candles, building little cottage fortresses of light. On Christmas Day, I went kick-sledding - kind of like those wheelie things elderly people have, only with blades. I didn't take photos, but here's a link: http://www.kicksled.com/ It's surprisingly much fun: I once managed to wreck a sled with my cousin gliding straight into a ditch. (Not that wrecking things is fun, just the speed.)

The place is a tiny village, or a suburb of a village, and you have to wave at everyone you pass regardless of whether you recognize them or not or risk weeks of speculation. ("She's stopped greeting us. Who does she think she is?") The area was built up from wasteland in the 40s and 50s by the workers of a factory in town who were given plots of land by the company. In theory, every family living there used to be collagues. There are new houses and new families, but it's still a fascinating huddle of artificially settled people. Those were the days before pink slips and temping: my grandfather worked in the factory for forty years and played chess with the "boys" from the factory well into his seventies. They settled down and stayed. It's always lovely to be a temporary visitor to something so permanent. I went for a long walk there last year, and felt almost guilty leaving my bootprints on the still snow.

13. "Folie à Deux" by Fall Out Boy

It's a backhanded compliment at best to start a favourable review by saying the new album is better than previous ones, but I couldn't help but compare Folie à Deux to Fall Out Boy's Infinity On High and their earlier work, and the new album lacked the things that I wasn't crazy about on the previous albums while showing more refined skills (as wanky as that sounds). Some artists hit the jackpot on their first try, but it's almost more enjoyable to see people work hard and get better - whether they reach perfection is besides the point.

Somehow Folie à Deux strikes me as more consistent. Patrick Vaughn Stump's eclectic influences are still to be heard, but the influences are more carefully chosen and integrated better. (I wish I could remember the 80s song Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet reminds me of, but it's infinitely better than the tiki-tiki style of The (After) Life Of The Party.) The album solves the eternal problem of having a consistent "sound" while not making carbon copies of past years' Billboard material. She's My Winona kind of blends into "generic American pop anthem" with excessive doo-wopping and one unfortunate falsetto whoop at the very end, but most of the songs on the album are both cohesive and individualistic enough.

I think Stump does a fine, fine job on the vocals for this album. It seems he "discovered" his full, gorgeous voice before Infinity On High, but on Folie à Deux he sounds simultaneously much more skilled and natural. He uses his higher-to-mid register nicely without artificially pushing too low. (I think his low register works fantastically, but there's a reason Barry White is one of a kind and should not be imitated.) He does an admirable job with dynamics and his voice is versatile. The parts he really belts out sound much more impressive when it's used as an effect, a climax, rather than as a constant. There are a lot of people with pretty voices in the world, but it's the brain and heart behind the vocal chords that makes the difference, and either Stump is a very clever vocalist or has a gut that magically hits gold most of the time.

The band themselves have emphasized the lyrics' importance on Folie à Deux, but a)I'm not a "lyrics person" in general and b)it's very difficult not to get bogged down by the PR nightmare(s) when listening to the lyrics. Every time the phrases "hospital", "camera" or "nervous wreck" are mentioned or references to drugs are made, it's difficult not to connect the stories of the songs to the tragedy of being male, middle-class and white (to quote Ben Folds) and the paradox of glorifying misery. With the line "No one wants to hear you sing about tragedy" the irony gets almost too much to bear because let's face it, the only thing worse than unhappy songs are happy songs. It is a pity and a crime to reduce a band into a nervous breakdown, but there's no denying part of the fame of the band is based on the same ugly fascination that attracts people to reality TV and car crashes. I can imagine this being stifling on the band as well as the listener: self-irony is a slippery road and it's difficult to write honest lyrics when one knows three million pairs of ears will be pressed to stereos in hopes of catching one out being a hypocrite or, goodness forbid, saying something earnest.

However, if one tries be less of a product of the endless cynicism and nihilism of the emo generation and more like a person who dares to be earnest now and then, there are lines that I for one can already see myself crooning along to without a hint of self-irony. "You can only blame your problems on the world for so long/Before it all becomes the same old song" can be a truism, or it can be a true revelation. To paraphrase Justin Timberlake, claims like "I will never believe in anything again" may be a tiny bit silly, but boy, it's a hell of a statement. On the first listen I found myself chanting along to slogan choruses like the above of "Detox/Just to retox". "Doc, there's a hole where something was" would make any haiku master proud.

Above all and in conclusion to the nit-picking, my gut and my hips like the album. I already mentioned singing along on the first listen, and my hips are twitching even as I sit writing this. I listened to the album on the bus, and spent all my shopping time humming What A Catch, Donnie to myself - and it's possibly my least favourite song on the album!

The album makes me want to be an American teenager, and that, for the record, is a straight-forward compliment. I'm a very utilitarian listener, and I can already see which songs I'll use as a pick-me-up (Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes) or to strut around in my room like the dork I am (I Don't Care). There's the achingly beautiful (emphasis on the aching) chorus of W.A.M.S. that always catches me by surprise because it seems so incongruous from the rest of the song. There's the ominous build-up in Headfirst Slide's B-part (?bridge - there's a reason my reviews usually consist of "cool" or "not so cool"), and the endless anthem-like choruses that will earworm you whether you want it or not.

Time will show which songs I'll start skipping (probably the Robbie Williams-esque 20 Dollar Nose Bleed), but right now Folie à Deux works as a whole - lifting (although not necessarily up-lifting) choruses, delicious layering and surprises like beat poetry (bad pun fully intended) at the end of 20 Dollar Nose Bleed make up for the occasional less-than-fascinating verse. A part of me misses the fury of breakneck-tempo songs from Fall Out Boy's earlier albums, but I consider the versatility and sheer momentary grandness a fair enough trade-off.

My favourites off the album are Headfirst Slide and W.A.M.S., I think, although these things tend to change on an hourly basis for me.

12. "Barra Barra" by Rachid Taha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUbzX3izyw4

I've been informed "Barra, barra" means "(Get) out!" I spotted the song in a trailer for a game where you get points for killing anyone who doesn't look Caucasian. Make what you will of it, but it's a cool song. Arabic fascinates me.

11. (Vivat) Academia.

I recently realized I've turned into the sort of pretentious wanker who sits at the theatre and discusses Blake's Songs of Innocense and Songs of Experience mirroring each other while waiting for Shakespeare and chats about the jazz rhythms of Gwendolyn Brooks's poetry over hot chocolate. Futhermore, I just completed my Basic Studies in the fifth subject - which is not what is meant by cost-effective and contributing-to-society studies. The thing is, I love university and student life, and will defend the right of mine and others' to them nail and teeth.

I was reading a literary journal the other day, and it suddenly struck me what is meant by 'sophistication'. To someone studying subjects with few to no practical applications, the term tends to become a cliché and a joke. However, as I was reading articles about things I did not know I should care about, I was stunned by the sheer amount of intelligence and knowledge that shone through in the writing. In a society where advertisers do not bother to translate ads or film trailers, these people were using language that was accurate, colourful, and fluent - qualities that most newspaper journalists sadly lack these days. On most days, I feel a strong urge to hide behind a foreign language, but those articles gave me hope and pride that Finnish is capable of communicating everything any other language could, and more. It is often said that sophistication is something you only notice when someone does not have it, but these writers proved that sophistication shows - and that it is not synonymous with but rather the opposite of snobbery.

I am afraid I might have digressed. My point is, the chance to (free!) university education is something to be cherished. It is not cost-efficient, it is not sexy, but I fear to think of a world without it. In this era of productiveness and efficiency calculations, universities produce people who are on average less discriminatory, more willing to pay taxes towards healthcare and other services, less likely to die or be indapacitated at an early age by heart disease, and more active in resisting ideas they feel threaten them and those around them. If nothing else, universities make a lot of people feel happy and fulfilled.

I am so very grateful for the opportunity to develop myself with the support of society and to share space with people with interests similar and different, but with whom I can always find common ground based on our love of trying to understand what goes on around us in this world.

For those who would claim I am a lazy leech sucking out the juices of the community, I would like to point out in advance that I have at times worked two full-time jobs while still completing double the amount of credits required at uni. And yes, I pay my taxes happily and contentedly.

10. "The Sea" by John Banville

"What a little vessel of sadness we are, sailing in this muffled silence
through the autumn dark."

Nevermind the gaudy cover. A friend of mine who knows about my love affair with the English language borrowed me this book because "[Banville] writes wonderful English". After reading The Sea, I couldn't agree more. The novel is almost like prose poetry. The language is simple but filled with striking observations about colours, wrinkles, and loss. There's a painful honesty to some of his observations: a terminally ill woman says to his husband - I paraphrase - "It must be difficult now that you're not allowed to hate me anymore. It's alright, I always hated you a little bit as well." I believe the same paradox of hating someone and yet not being able to imagine a life without them is more common than we like to admit.

As a young reader, the novel felt simultaneously very foreign and scarily familiar. The viewpoint is completely different, but at the same time Banville is writing about things I have only slowly started processing. Loss will happen, but it's difficult for a twenty-something to fully understand it. For me, the novel made me see my grandparents in a different light; for others, I'm sure it'll do different things.

The novel is beautifully melancholy, but it's not hopeless. In a way it gave me a feeling similar to the one I get at cemeteries (which are, for the record, another one of my favourite things): the novel wasn't about death, but about life. It is about how people remain in our memory like caramel-sticky fingerprints. I think Banville actually talks about it, about people literally carrying their ancestors on their backs for a time. And that is baggage I will gladly bear.

Even if you don't normally like sad stories, read The Sea for the sheer beauty of the language.

9. Beyoncé Knowles (and Shakira)

Not only is she at times devastatingly beautiful, I also think she's one of the best performers in the world of pop right now. She's a very talented dancer, has a lovely voice, and comes across as a kind, well-balanced person in interviews. To me, she's also proof that it is possible to deal with publicity, and that the extent to which the papparazzi harrass one does depend on one's own behaviour at least a little bit.

Here's a link to her video "Single Ladies": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g

I'm also a big fan of Shakira, and the video of "Beautiful Liar" nearly killed me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aLFmVwbxro

I'm always delighted by how unique Shakira and Beyoncé's dance styles are. Some of Beyoncé's moves really shouldn't work, and Shakira does some downright bizarre stuff in her earlier videos, but it's lovely to see not every pop musician gets groomed into a carbon copy.

Here, have some Shakira being delighfully odd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z723RavRpw

Click here for Beyoncé doing some awesome tribal fusion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuNIKjKuptQ&feature=channel

8. Martti Ahtisaari

Today I am filled with words. Instead I will share the words of someone else which are infinitely more worthwhile than mine. Martti Ahtisaari is the third or fourth Finn to receive a Nobel Prize (depending on whether you count people born here or Finnish citizens), and the first one to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The quote is very specific - please read the entire speech to get a more balanced view of Martti Ahtisaari's ideas.

The most challenging peace-building project ahead of us is finding a solution to the conflicts in the Middle East, which have continued for decades. The tensions and wars in the region have been going on for so long that many have come to believe that the Middle East knot can never be untied.

I do not share this belief. All crises, including the one in the Middle East, can be resolved. The solution would require a contribution from all the parties involved as well as the international community as a whole. We might be strengthened in our resolve if we set our sights on the future and imagine what the world could look like if the countries in the region could jointly begin to develop their economic potential, build transport links, make full use of their educated population and begin to reap the benefits of an advantageous location in the crossroads of three continents.

I hope that the new President of the United States, who will be sworn in next month, will give high priority to the Middle East conflict during his first year in office. The European Union, Russia and the UN must also be seriously committed so that a solution can be found to the crises stretching from Israel and Palestine to Iraq and Iran. If we want to achieve lasting results, we must look at the whole region.

The credibility of the whole international community is at stake. We cannot go on, year after year, simply pretending to do something to help the situation in the Middle East. We must also get results.

For many people, tensions between religions have provided an easy explanation for the intractability of the Middle East crisis. I cannot accept this view. During my career I have seen many crises in which religion has been used as a weapon or as an instrument for prolonging the conflict. Religions themselves are, however, peace-loving. They can also be a constructive force in peace-building, and this also applies to the Middle East.

From: http://www.cmi.fi/?content=speech&id=107

Tämä on hieno maa.

7. Maria Mena.

I mentioned teenagers being stronger than we think in a previous blog. Maria Mena isn't a teenager anymore, but she's been writing songs from a very young age, and recently wrote a lullaby to her old self. This is what I'd like to tell myself at 13, this is what I'd like to tell myself now.

It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to be sad, but better to be happy. Everything will be alright. You will be alright.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1xZogpmYRU

6. Finland.

A lot of the time, I'm vague about my home country because a) it's cooler to be someone from Wessex/Scotland/Ireland/Australia and b) people sometimes have strange responses when they hear the name Finland. (My favourite being an earnestly curious, "Aren't you horny all the time?" Also, the fish slapping dance.) Finland is, however, a huge part of my identity and a country I'm madly in love with. No, we're not the socialist utopia that Americans critisizing their own system like to depict us as, but I do still consider myself incredibly lucky to have been born here.

This was written a few years ago, but it's still my love song to this land:


On January 27th, 2005, I fell down a hole. Triptumbled like Alice down the sewer system, lost my hold on the string of now Billy clutched as he swung about. My feet never grazed the walls of the tunnel when I swooshed down and landed on a pile of fabric and flesh soft as feathers. I struggled up to lean on my elbows.

(A friend says she carries her home with her, inside her. It's a beautiful thought, but I'm tempted to say it's utter bullshit. Sometimes I feel like I know where I belong, but I doubt I'll ever find out when I belong.)

So, I thought, this is what hell looks like.

Someone cartwheeled past me in a whirl of purple, and someone else blew fire on my face. The red and gold were almost blinding, and the candlelight reflected from the walls like hell’s flames. It was as beautiful as it was macabre, the greedy touches equally exciting and appalling. The scene overwhelmed me and I fell, people catching me like cushions. Time curled into a tight spiral, a whirlwind of moans and wandering hands and tangy wine. I lost myself in the spiral until I saw Her, Her fur a dull grey against the glitter and glow of everything around me. In Her eyes I found my sanity, and I saw the horrors surrounding me. Glistening mouths stretched in moans, soft boy flesh like cotton under your fingers, the dead eyes of the lost. I lifted my hands in prayer and cursed the sluts, whores, gluttons, capitalist bastards wallowing in filth. The Wolf raised Her head in a howl to the heavens. There was a mirror on the ceiling, and I grimaced at the lewd limbs of the whore in it. I realized it was me. She roared and I fell deeper.


We create history, but at the same time we destroy it. Everything used to be better, yet we wouldn’t survive a day without our electronic can openers or sliced bacon. The grass is always greener on the other side of the present, yet we are always wiser than the generations preceding or succeeding us. Will future generations find the concrete bunkers we build beautiful? Will they lament over the ruins of functionalism? Will they despise us for blowing up crumbling buildings like I detest Napoleon for wrecking a pre-Roman castle in Bratislava, or the layers built on top of another in Turku? We live in a layered world; we build on the remains of the past. To move on is to destroy; to stop is to die.


I fell with the paratroops, gravity merciless and making my bones ache. The earth was ash grey like the men surrounding me, but the devil’s breath and napalm kept us warm. I covered my mouth with my sleeve and looked. Cologne was on fire, the Rhone and Danube ran red. My hands were wrinkled and I felt old, old. I’ve never been Hamlet, but the bombs made the words leave me. I concentrated on my tweed trousers instead, and on the peach an Italian girl offered me. The Lion, the only survivor of a Jewish circus, left red footprints in His wake. “Mama, I’m coming home,” sang the Wizard (of) Oz as he panted out his last breath. It was a soft melody, but the earth crumpled from beneath me and I fell deeper.


I lay flowers on a grave in the early autumn moonlight. I sing of my land, to my land, to the night and the crisp air. My voice is weak but in tune, thank goodness, in spite of the ethanol running through my veins. I sing to the man who never saw winter, barely made it to autumn. But he saw the summer, the high skies and bright nights. He squeezed the dandelions and used the essence as his ink. He wrote this land and its people, giving song to the granite and poetry to the trees. This ungrateful land drove him insane like absinthe, then drove him away.


“Sacred justice moved my architect,” he said. “And yet, I am here. In the hollows left between His great plans.” He raised his arms towards the skyscrapers and spun around exactly once. “He didn’t count on any of this, you know. Wall Street, Broadway, houses that poke His ribs. Oil wars.

“We were supposed to be His image, but turns out He’s not that great a painter. Or maybe He just has a love for the absurd style. I don’t know, I kept nodding off during Art. Always was more of an Economics kinda guy.” He glanced up at the veil of smog before continuing. “What I know is that somewhere along the way, we got fucked up. Some of us less, like me, and some of us more, like you.” I tried to protest but he merely clucked his tongue. “There’s not much point in interrupting. Eternity is plenty of time to chat, I’m just helping you while away a fraction of it.

“I never had parents, so I had to learn to listen to the world.” He pressed his ear to the concrete and petted the surface. “Can you hear that? The hum of existence. Almost gone. We pump earth’s blood into the heavens. God must be the ultimate smoker by now. Pretty soon we’ll all have a nice tropical climate, not just us down here but everyone. If your Porsche hadn’t killed me, the exhaust fumes from it would have. So thank you. I must get going now, do enjoy your stay. Plenty to see here. You can almost spot the Gate and the Purgatory if you take a right at the next corner.” He limped away in his ragamuffin clothes and little black wings, and I took a look around.

Everything looked the same, down to my smashed Porsche in the middle of the street, but something was shifting. I could feel time slowly collapse on itself, bending underneath the evil of the deeds it was supposed to heal. I saw Evolution, and it was beautiful like the creation of a monster. I saw myself on top of it all, king of the hill. Then I saw Her face on shiny marble twist as I left Her and a thousand others. All She wanted was a bit of love, a hint of caring. But I am an empty cup. The Leopard stalks past me and smiles.

So this is how Judas feels.


I hear my grandfather’s voice every time I tell of my childhood. I hear it in the steady beat of time, the tick of clocks, the swell and retreat of the sea. It’s a constant, and I’m so used to it I need to listen carefully to hear it. The quiet hum of DNA lulls me into believing I belong: that I have a past, a present, a future, five tenses instead of equations of space and velocity. It’s a comforting thought, but a lie nonetheless.

When the tsunami came, he said we have a good, frozen land. A good frozen land, forged in the fires of eternity out of droplets of lava. But can something born out of change be unchanging? Will the bounds holding Prometheus crumple one day, will the birds haunting him shed their feathers, dashing to meet Poseidon and Hades? A strip of paper becomes a mobius strip only when the ends are glued together; do we talk of linear history only because we don’t see far enough? Can eternity be torn apart like the mobius strip? Will it snap under the pressure of change and fling time off its back to wander aimlessly, or will I be born again when eternity starts over?

(Welcome to my world.)

5. Adolescents.

I don't particularly like children, but I do like to watch them grow up and learn more things than us "grown-ups" ever do.

It's always miraculous to see teenagers develop into normal, functional members of society. (Just this week I told a class full of 14-year-olds they're like monkeys, and my only qualm about it is that I think animal primates are probably better-behaved now that I think about it.) They are, however, amazingly strong people. I for one could not survive the emotions I experienced during puberty anymore. I would simply slit my wrists or end up in a padded room. What millions of teenagers go through as "a normal part of growing up", adults pop Ambien and Valium for. For goodness's sakes, I know I couldn't face the questions I dealt with when I was in kindergarten. Children are vulnerable and should be protected, yes, but their strength shouldn't be underestimated. They are, on average, more capable and more fluent in dealing with emotions than adults are.

For a while, I was the baby of the family, but I now have the opportunity to see awkward teens, gangly pre-teens and wide-eyed three-year-olds around me all at once. Man, I have such amazing cousins and cousins' kids. There's the 12-year-old who shreds on the guitar and five other instruments, is already cooler than I'll ever be and still hugs us. There's the 3-year-old who ran when most babies still crawled around, and the 5-year-old who not only remembers things from before he could speak but could also do the most awesome chicken dance by age three. And most recently, there is the three-week-old who is the most amazingly beautiful baby I have ever seen. Welcome to the world, wonder child.

4. African dance.

There are so many things I love about African dance that I'm going to make a list in order to try and keep from gushing mindlessly.

1. It's good for your body. Oftentimes in African dance, your head is constantly bobbing up and down and your arms are making circles, so it's fantastic for students or office workers with stiff necks. (Be careful at first, though!) There's always room for variation, so your knees won't get twisted or your hips achy. It's also an amazingly good work-out - if you don't believe me, try bouncing up and down while spinning your arms in circles for an hour. I've done a few different sorts of dance from ballet to hip hop, and African is the one that has left me most exhausted after a lesson.

2. There's room for individuality. It's a misconception that African dance doesn't have its set esthetics, but it is true there is more leeway than with, say, classical ballet. Movements aim to be natural rather than carbon copies of the instructor's. Bizzarrely, this makes African dance all the more challenging (for me, at least): it's much more difficult to try and figure out exactly what it is that makes the instructor skip gracefully while I look like an elephant dashing through the jungle.

3. There's a lot of imaging, and it actually makes sense. Moves of African dance are often based on concrete, easy-to-visualize actions. My favourite is the drunken man, but there's also sowing the seeds, sending love letters, or throwing the spear.

4. There's variety. Even as a novice at African dance, I know I should really talk about African dances. There are numerous - or countless - different types of African dance in different parts of the continent. This allows for gentle, elegant movements with swaying hips or juttery foot-stomping with rigid arms.

5. Rhythm and drums. African drumming can be wildly different from Western music and sometimes downright difficult to follow. It does, however, add a whole new layer to the dances, especially if there are live drummers. The drummers control shifts from one move or tempo to another. In Africa, drummers sometimes are the dancers.

6. The communality. Anthropologists assure us that drumming and dance are a crucial force bringing a village together and educating young children. I wouldn't know, but for my part I do enjoy the bond - no matter how tenuous and brief - that African dance can create. It feels lovely to sing songs you can't understand after the instructor and hearing oral tradition in action possibly for the first time in your life. Also, Europeans who are into African-style drumming tend to be hippies who don't mind you skipping your way in front of them and pulling out your best moves.

7. I wasn't able to find any really good dance clips on Youtube, but I did find this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2cYwjiM79U Now that's what I call drumming with style.

3. Turkish apple tea (and Turkey in general).

Turkish apple tea is actually not tea at all. It's similar to hot apple juice made of powder with apple flavourings and sugar. It's no health drink, but for people who don't drink coffee or tea it's a nice alternative.

Tea is an ever-present part of Turkish hospitality and/or trade. If you stop for ten seconds to talk to a salesperson on the market, a tea courier will magically appear dangling a tray filled with small glasses of tea. Bargaining will be done in between sips - the tea is always extra hot, which means you're stuck with the salesperson for a while. The thing is, though, that based on my (admittedly very limited) experiences, tea isn't a way to force you to buy anything, but a sign of hospitality and genuine interest in people. Turkish touts and Turkish men in general get a bad rep, but at least in western Turkey (the most westernized part of the country) even lonely women will get treated politely and kindly as long as they behave politely and kindly in return. (This includes not wearing tiny sundresses, sorry.) Outside tourist areas males are actually very shy and extremely respectful about women's personal space. Turks are keen to talk about their culture and will walk you up to their favourite sight to make sure you see it. Cynics have told me that all these men are just trying to get into women's pants, but I've never had any problems politely thanking my spontaneous guides and walking away.

2. Four-letter words.

I know they're bad and completely unlady-like, but especially English cuss words are phonetic marvels. The sibilant in "shit" is just perfect for when you stub your toe, "fuck" rolls easily off your tongue when you're dashing to class half an hour late, and there's nothing more satisfying than spitting out the plosive in "cunt" when someone's an asshole of magnificent proportions. (Also, there are few things that impress Irish guys, but a girl using the word "cunt" and downing four rum-and-cokes in less than five minutes are among those things.)

Just remember, kids, that there's a time and a place. Don't be an arse, a dick, a shit, a fuck, or a cunt about your swear words.

1. The L word.

I have never been in love. There. I have confessed this countless times during countless rounds of truth-or-dare. The usual reactions run somewhere between "Oh" and "You'll find someone someday". The thing is, I'm not sure if I need to find someone - not when I already have so many people.

Sometimes you need grand confessions, blood-red roses and sex that can be hot or meaningful or both. To me, however, caring is about finger puppets that look like cows. It is about bringing someone a bucket when they're pitifully sloshed again. It's about listening to stories about assholes - metaphorically and literally. It's about sending someone demented songs about puppies. It's about asking "How've you been?" first. It's about laughing in hospital. It's about poor advice, telling off your significant other in defence of your moron of a friend, body shots, gruesome medical facts, random kisses on the tops of heads, letting your ego go to boost up another one's, sticking your fingers down someone's throat, climbing on trains, long lunches, never saying a moral thing and never doing an immoral one, suicide watch even when it's not really needed, concluding the Kama Sutra is bull, having someone tell you how you feel before you realize it yourself - and finger puppets shaped like cows.

These people make my heart go pitter-patter every single day with how much I like them.