This week I have been around bubble wrap and phone calls, printing out instructions and posters. I hope it all turns out somehow less troublesome than angry librarians and lost packages. I plan to lose my headaches for the rest of the week, maybe deal with some press releases or something.
These endless summer nights have been about camera-hunting rabbits and a hedgehog, who dwell in the lost oasis nearby. The panorama camera I got from my boyfriend's mother has revealed its secret heartache glamour and I'm in love.

I'll have some more work next week (and the one after that), I'll be tutoring at the entrance exams in my school. Those poor artists-to-be, I hope they won't leave with their mind shattered and souls torn, like some people. Surely everything works out. I can deal, I do okay with people, not everyone will mess up, the transport system doesn't usually fail, people know how to use phones, I sound cheery enough, my work's okay, I have a rabbit and there's chili chocolate, too.

When I go to art museums, I pay needless attention to the artist's year of birth in that tiny white note beside the piece. And the years are approaching mine, and it feels like the end of the world. When I meet 1987 I must be done. I must be late by then, hopelessly behind on everything. Not one good project have I finished until now, and I've had time to play boys' computer games and stitch pieces of colourful fabric together.

I came across some online portfolios of photographers, born in 1986! I only have one year! And I feel horrible having to pay 7 euros for developing one roll of 35mm, and I don't have a theme, I don't have a project. I've lost inspiration, because well, the art world says it doesn't really exist. "It's supposed to be fun, yet comment on the very structures of society and the art context." Or "You will fall in love, you're not supposed to make up your whole life when you're in your early twenties." I like this one better. Being in love with something, haveing a vague word to describe a feeling to capture, not being just clever but substantial. Knowing French, going to the gym, writing essays about films and discussing psychology with my mother; I guess I can handle this.

It seems that the inverse to-do lists make me quite comfortable, so today I took part in the boring list of following activities:
I stopped by the post office then headed to school to print some colour channels for my next silkscreen project. With the world so sunny and all, I went to see a photography exhibition (the best of last year's visual journalism) before heading home. And I didn't go home, but to browse some art supplies and I bought three pencils (one was turquoise green and one metallic pink).
Today I also studied some American photography theory and (this is what I'm most proud of) actually worked on my summer (or forever) project and found several possibilities for the exhibition space and even used my wide network of one regarding the project. Plus it seems so much better now, the whole exhibition. Not just my artwork.

Still, the art market out there seems hopeless. Maybe I'm in the wrong school, but they simply will never be all over me. And I don't have any good ideas to work on anyway. But at least it's semi-sunny.

I completed most of my to-do list today, and my summer job is a bit more massive than I thought. Lots of phone calls, and PhotoShop (yay!), DVD-making, maybe even travelling... It sounded intimidating at first, but now it's kind of lovely. Tonight we're watching House and munching!

I didn't find a tiny light bulb, but my portfolio's as good as new, I have an idea for my next silkscreen project, I read through the March issue of Art in America (well, it's mostly ads anyway), and then discussed the exhibition project I must now manage, promote and give my firstborn for. Oh, I feel productive and accomplished, I even picked up a little pink shirt at the flea market, missed lunch and dinner and got a headache but a friend at school was extra nice and I feel less silly now. Oh the spring!

I might just shoot my dollhouse photographs next weekend, if I find a tiny little light bulb, and can figure out a way to expose without using the flashlight and focus. Fortunately I have some paid work to do over the summer, and some other intern possibilities. And I'll still have time for orange juice, boring afternoons and such.

Easter candy's gone, there is a deadline for getting dressed and chores, running errands and meetings. I'm going to just rest for a while, then go to school with pictures to print, maybe look for that light bulb shop nearby, read the camera magazine, print out some new material for the portfolio, then discuss my summer responsibilities, then take pictures for a drawing due this week, then I don't know, cook!

We had a school trip today, a tour of five or six art galleries. I liked some. I got a little job, for a month in the summer or so: promoting and handling the exhibition we had in the autumn. Very useful of me. The coursework from the last few months is still unfinished, but I'd just rather move on, enjoy photography and forget any useful comments about my work that will only get me down. On top of it all, I've come down with a cold, too, and I feel like drowning in blankets and reading some Harry Potter, maybe smunching on a cookie or two.
My portfolio is pathetic!

Yesterday I got one more line to add to my resumé, though the work exhibited doesn't make me the proudest. They gave us a yellow flower each and wine coupons. I don't recognize good ideas anymore and I'd like to draw and own a craft corner. Here's the things it would include: a jar for brushes and another for pencils, a light bulb of neutral colour, a lovely little folder for films, the sketchbooks lined all neatly, ribbons and buttons in their boxes, colours and postcards and vintage things, with pictures of California. Very Martha Stewart, minus the dustruffles. I guess I'll be fine one day.

It's spring again, the time for dreaming and planning and other internal semi-emotions. I'd like a book to read.

I suppose it's all a part of the life crisis thing of being 20 years old. First the crisis of relationships, then independence, then identity, by Jean Piaget. Well, I'm not sure which parts are imaginary, and which are not. Apparently I have too much time to spend alone contemplating. I might allow myself a week of no course work now, just the deadline things and updating my portfolio. Maybe I'll have a clear, brilliant idea for photographing masks by Sunday. I've had good ideas before. But it's just my word against those of my alternative personalities.

Lately it's been defense mechanisms all over again; being misunderstood, not accepting the current laws of acceptability and disrespecting. Like being thirteen and dressing in black, or, sixteen, for that matter. I was fiercely fascinated by things then, discovering words, songs and cults to relate to. I'll never be sixteen again and it terrifies me.

I've been visiting the video store a lot, being happy for other people, applying moisturizer, googling some cult suicides and murders and wanting to visit Welsh suicide towns (Bridgend). I should read more, maybe next year...

Well I did make a Christmas tree this year, out of ribbon and buttons and a mysterious cone. I sometimes get very compulsive urges to make lists of things, like favourite words (in Finnish, in English and in French), favourite sounds, favourites colours (by hue), favourite smells and dishes. But since I'm not eight, it feels a bit, not that efficient use of time. Maybe I'm just getting old, I've even been watching MTV for a while and it really grows on you, I think. Like in the movie, where there was some mind-numbing chemical in the music that made you buy things.

Nnnn.. I can't get the song out of my ears.

Year seventeen.
Giving up on things. Slight decisions but not many to speak of. Silently moving elsewhere. Fragmentary but superficially very smooth, internally reasoned. The year of snow.

Year eighteen.
Soft focus, abandoning new things when frustrating. Goals. Uncomfortable highwear.

Year nineteen.
Exploring. Taking in, merging and practical things.

Year twenty.
Giving up on things? Focusing, but not that focused. It was heavy on my doorstep, the dreams at my feet.

School's mostly over for the semester, I did fine, I think but too lightly. I'm getting ambitious for the vacation and I will think a lot and read a lot and try to get there, where my age is not. Watch David Lynch maybe, and then finish up The Rabbit, my short film (the envious kind). I feel very metatextual at times. But I wrote an essay about the collective psychosis of the mankind and I feel secretly proud of my psychological theories. I feel very young, still. Maybe I need to spend more time at the library?

I'm skipping school a little. I've been working on my portfolio and writing about it. I came across some old drawings of mine and I just saw right through them. And I was thinking that I was being mysterious. Just two weeks and I need to have all my coursework done for the semester: the portfolio, the film and an essay (about the Western philosophy of life, not too wide a subject!). I need more photographs.

I have lots of ideas for spring and summer. And for the years to come. I've been looking into grad school options and countries, but most of all, it will be Christmas soon! I need more time to bustle around baking and wrapping and observing the lights of the night and keep the kitchen clean. Now I need to have lunch.

Yesterday I made my first two colour prints. Luckily I still have some film left. Still life and studio lights. I was working the past weekend, the Christmas seems to be coming. It's lovely.

I noticed that my artwork for just a few years back seems to follow a certain theme. It's almost too obvious! But Freudian enough to carry on with, I think. I was actually pretty prolific back then. I somehow had time for many things. Maybe I was getting more vitamins. I'm now really into photography and art theory. And chocolate.

Awful things have been happening. It's exhausting, awful.

I'm making a little film about a rabbit, that sad creature. I'm on vacation and trying to clean up the closets a bit. I've already filled a grey plastic bag with clothes to give away. The claustrophobia of these small rooms doesn't really allow things to start nesting. I found some lightweight particles on my flea market crawl yesterday, like a roll of vintage wrapping paper and an old tin container from France. I have to keep up with French.

We've been going swimming lately. Autumnal things at their best; syrup trees, freshcut cotton, apples, plans, stories. I'm a sucker for Christmas things, too. I haven't played the piano much, but a song for my film. A true love.

Well I managed to introduce some art to my life quotidien and I found some beautiful photos from Michal Chelbin. I just forget what's out there.

Wasting time. I just forget what's out there. I have to wake up earlier and focus and not think about school too much. I'm interested in a lot, so I better catch up on my reading. I'm getting old, after all, and I can't possibly find out everything, ever. And I should make things, but should I, if they wouldn't turn out good? I'm still tiny. I wish I was older. I'm giving up to-do lists, I am. Today I organized the fabric boxes, and had chocolate cake for breakfast. Then I had a little falling in love episode and then we went to see Evil Dead and it was horrible. I think I might be a fearful person. And then I read about prospective evening classes to take, and my french seems to be mediocre. I'm having my own painting evening, and that's it. I will sew on weekends, and go swimming every once in a while.

Crackers are my favourite nowadays.

I'm a bit over the top occasionally, but now I'm structured and I guess I should get a dress tomorrow or something. I've unmade decisions and I think I can do both. Lately I've been thinking of fish and other underwaterish musings, to include in a painting? Maybe we'll get a bigger apartment and there'll be room for such toxins and other things we call life.

Now I'm reading the Freud book and I'm so much more interested. I really loved the importance of nine months. I feel like taking up psychology, the real alchemy, but not the fluffy kind. I might stock up on my mum's books, though (she shares my thoughts on Freud). But last weekend I read the new Harry Potter book, and I was really glad I wasn't spoiled beforehand. Christ and mortals there were, though.

I've been browsing thrift shops a bit, and I found a lovely white wool coat. And some other autumn vanities in grey and such. Still no raspberries this summer.

I have a hard time deciding what I should buy at a grocery store. I think I make good decisions but then I tend to forget them. Summer's been fun, but a bit shallow. I spend a lot of time frequenting certain indie craft online shops and then sewing, and reading Harry Potter.

I haven't been painting at all, or drawing much either. I haven't read the Freud book that's been waiting for me. Not maybe to be in peace, but to be somehow content, I should think about those things. And secrets and absences and other artistically valuable phenomena, and then have a sketchbook that I love, not lose. I'm good at solitary things, I guess. Slightly shallow and slightly secretive. I msut be a bit scared of the autumn. But I'm good at what I do, basically, and then there's just learning, not failing. I'm good at learning, at least to some point. I wish we had more room here, so I could spread out the paint and the canvas across the universe!

Recently, I've been a little worried career-wise. I'd like to do projects by myself, mostly, take photographs, paint and draw. Go explore, exploit, trace the reality. In three years I will have a degree. To qualify me for filling out papers, asking for space and money? My pictures won't be ducks. I have a solitary future.

And in comes Karl Marx and I hate the idea, and the practice, of having to work for someone, doing something without any engagements. Doing something just for the sake of it. Dealing with elderly ladies, bittered by sexual frustration and then counting minutes. The spoilt brat in me can't handle it. I really like my little crafts business. I make things when I feel like it, how I like them. It's like a part-time job that keeps me in with the colours and composition, but keeps the misty act of drowning away. But I will do contemporary art, and it takes time. And trying to make ends meet with crafts takes time. Balancing act, banana split, and walks in the forest.

I have a false hope of knowing that I can do anything. And I will go somewhere else, meet other art restrictions, but feel better. Then sew a little.