1. Having fun creating an imaginary world in my head. :-D
2. Getting my dose of cat photos or videos every day. Can't stop rewatching this one for example. The ginger cat Marmalade reminds me of our cat back in Indo. SO CUTE!!!!!
3. Watching this makes me feel so relaxed...
4. Reading this post: Ten Things I've Learned About Trauma.
5. Had my yearly work appraisal and it turned out well. The appraisal showed that I neither overestimate nor underestimate myself. Plus we got to discuss what other things I could do to improve myself, which was great! :-D
6. Ginger, herbal tea, Neti pot AKA "sarvikuono nenäkannu", and sauna. I've been feeling under the weather lately and they've all helped.
When I was a child, I used to think of myself being in between two worlds: the real world and my imaginary world. I considered my imaginary world as a place where I could run away to whenever I needed to. I even imagined myself standing in the middle of two worlds where I had one foot on the real world and another foot on the imaginary world and I was happy to be able to stand like that between those two worlds. They helped me cope with life, so to speak.
Recently I read a blog post that reminds me of this. She moved to NY from the UK and she's now been living in NY for years. She stated that she would never become a true blue New Yorker, but she also felt that she didn't "belong" in the UK anymore. She said the feeling didn't make her feel troubled, but it just felt weird.
I can relate to that. After having lived in Finland for almost 4 years, what I consider "normal" has changed. When I first moved to Finland, my perspective and what I considered "normal" was still very Indonesian, but now I know more about "the norms" in this place and what people do and what people expect from the government, etc. I don't feel that I ever want to live in Indo again (though if I REALLY have to and there's no other choice, I know I can make it), but I'll never become a true blue Finnish person anyway even if I have a Finnish citizenship later on.
Speaking of this topic, I've always been a "foreigner" whether I was in Indo or in Finland, so I'm used to that. I'm used to being the "minority" 'coz I'm a non-native person. Now I feel like I'm in between two worlds again in this real world: between Finland and Indo.
It doesn't matter, though, even though I'll never become a native my entire life (roughly speaking, even if I move to China 'coz my grandparents are Chinese, they won't consider me as a native 'coz I can't speak the language), I know where I belong. First and foremost, God accepts me the way I am and loves me. Secondly, I've got my family and plenty of friends who accept me the way I am. That's enough. Isn't that what we all need? To be accepted and loved just the way we are, whoever we are, wherever we are?
Anyhow, here are some more winter pictures I took yesterday...
First pic: "snowy flowers" he he...it was around -17'C or -18'C yesterday.
I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the shadow/sunlight patches on the snow...don't you?
The other day I started this topic in MyLot: Childhood Imagination: How creative was your brain? Did you have any imaginary friend? Any other creative ideas that your mind created when you were a kid?I've seen many movies where kids have imaginary friends. It makes me wonder how creative our brains were when we were kids. I never had an imaginary friend, but I used to love sitting in front of my Mom's dressing table mirror and imagined that there was my other self in the mirror world. She looked just like me but we lived in different worlds. She lived in a mirror world. I used to imagine talking to her and she'd reply to me. It was sort of like an inner conversation, but my mind turned it into a two-way conversation between me and my other self in the mirror. I never named her, though. All I knew was that I was having fun talking to her ha ha ha ha...I used to start talking by asking her about her day and her life he he he...I imagined her to have a different personality. (Almost forgot to add: I think I imagined all this when I was about 7-10 years old) In the discussion that followed, I found some interesting things:1. One person said that she didn't have an imaginary friend, but she had a guardian angel. And the guardian angel saved her from a lot of trouble.2. Another person wanted to have a sister so much so that she created one. She created her to be her twin sister and they'd share everything and talk about their love life, etc.3. Another person imagined there was another world inside his closet.4. Another person was made to believe that there were tiny people under the house, talking to her spoons and forks, so she left some food so that she could befriend those people. 5. Another one had an imaginary younger brother. Since he is the youngest, so he always wants to have a younger brother. 6. Another person had seen a young girl talking to the walls and to everywhere, to an unseen person. At first she thought the girl was some sort of weird girl, but turned out she excelled at school. So, 'fess up, my friends...what did you imagine when you were kids? He he he he...
