Outlandish

* I tend to demand things, not ask: it's very impolite and quite arrogant /  It's also very effective and I usually get my will across. * I am an extrovert: culturally in my home country this is quite unacceptable behavior, it's not OK to be too loud or too open about differing opinions; it all can be embarrassing for family and friends /  I make friends easily because I am very open-minded and willing to try new things, which all leads to not being judgmental. * I am emotional: culturally (again) quite strange, sometimes I am unable to control myself, especially negative feelings can take over my entire body (head ache, heart attack etc.)  / I come across as genuine, honest and caring person, so people find it easy to trust me, which is the base of any friendship. * I value free time/freedom of choice over money: there’s no risk of me ever becoming rich / I am happier when I spend more time with my friends and family and am able to do things t...

Hand up all you singletons who have become face-to-face with this question at least once this year . How did it make you feel? Degraded, lonely, like there’s something wrong with you, or like the asking party was offering you a compliment the hard way? Of course, the way this question makes you feel depends a lot on how it is asked: in an accusing tone of voice or just out of pure curiosity because the questioner is actually interested in your views on living a life. Regardless of the motives of the people who pop this question at regular basis, I find it a funny question to be asked in Western societies in 2017. Aren’t we far enough culture-wise in the Western world already that each and every single (pun intended) one of us could live exactly the kind of life they want to? Why do you consider it your business to inquire about their love life, when will they have their first child or why they don’t want to have kids? Even if you know the people you want to ask th...

” If all the people who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote "Me too" as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem. Please copy/paste.” The above text started popping up all around Social Media this Monday. The whole thing started from the Hollywood producer legend Harvey Weinstein  being accused of having a problem. A problem that he admitted, and which too many men on this planet have; He can’t stop harassing women and he has now sought treatment for this. Some of you might now think ”Oh, well that’s good, right? He’s at least trying to get better.” But no, it’s not good enough, and here’s why: It took until his current age for him to understand that everything he’s done to women his whole life is actually not OK. This is unacceptable in every possible way because we are talking about an issue that SHOULD be clear to every effing human being on planet Earth in 2017: my body is my own and you do not have any right to c...

This year has been particularly bad weather-wise; we moved from Spring straight to Autumn (read: we moved from rain straight to more rain). And now it seems that global warming might ensure that in the future 'Summer' will become a word that can only be used in past tense, because warm waters (and thus weather) will flee from these latitudes. It's little bit hard to try and stay positive when the shelf of clouds on top of us is so  thick and consistent that we live in constant darkness. The difference between day and night becomes more and more obscure every day as the days also get shorter. Oh yeah, and then there's this rain. Like, non-stop rain, which I thought was a physical impossibility... Unless you live in the monsoon area, which I do not. But it turns out that there is an area, the very last corner of Europe where all clouds gather and dump their load throughout the year. And that place is called Estonia and I, an imbecile moron, decided to move here...

”Travel broadens the mind”  is a quote that everybody has probably heard. It has even been translated to almost all known languages. And the reason for this is simple: it’s true. I started my mind-broadening travels already as a teenager when I moved to Brighton, England for one summer to learn English with EF Language Travels. That trip was the starting block for my great love for England, English culture, English language and also for traveling, meeting new people and learning about life from different perspectives. Because each person you meet sees life a little bit differently, even if they come from the same country as you. I have discovered that even though each country has its own culture, and each culture has its own habits and traditions that largely define how we live our lives, in the end we human beings are all similar in so many ways. We all have the basic needs and emotions, even if in some cultures showing those emotions publicly is not considered appr...