Hair New Era

I’m posting this year’s first assessed piece in my Composition & Creative Writing module. The topic is very close to my heart and I became misty-eyed several times during the writing process despite the events discussed happening before I was even born. And getting a first for it suggests it might even be an interesting read for more people than just my close relatives.

“There will never be another summer like this one.”
Joel will always remember these prophetic words told to him by an old man, just like he will remember the extraordinary events that proved the man right.
In January he had married Heli, the girl on his food technology course he noticed when they were the only ones who got top marks on a test. A while later, he had convinced her to go on a date with him on the night before another test. The next day, she failed, but he still managed to get a first. After the marriage they had moved in together in a single room in Joel’s parents’ house in the suburbs of Tallinn, Estonia. By July she was expecting a child.
In September they were to start their final year of university. The knowledge brought with it thoughts of slightly panicky nature: uni is nearly over, and then what? Where are we going to work, what are we going to do? At the same time, living with the in-laws was not at all worrying. It was highly usual at the time; everybody lived crammed together with their parents. If you did not have connections in the Party, there was no way you would be allowed a flat of your own, certainly not in the city. Having a child towards the end of university was an obvious step: they were both nearly 25, what else were they supposed to do with their lives?
They got by alright. Compared to today, the shops were obviously empty. Footage of supermarkets with endless shelves stocked with food that was seen on Finnish television (the signal of which reached Northern Estonia) seemed unreal. The local shops had a couple of different types of bread, cheese and sausages all with questionable nutritional value. Shopping was made very easy: there was no worry about making the right choice; you simply bought what was available. The situation was no better with clothes. Luckily, Heli’s mother was good at sewing, so Heli was always wearing skirts her mother had made, and she even sewed herself a couple of pairs of trousers. Sometimes when she saw a person on the street wearing “real” jeans she wished that one day she would be able to have them as well, but Heli was generally pleased with her wardrobe. It was different from others, and she thought, slightly prettier.
Their only means of transport was the bus. The idea of buying a new car was laughable. Used cars were available, but they could obviously not fit in a student’s budget. The car parks in front of their university building were always half empty; and Heli could not help but wonder why on Earth they had to make them so big in the first place, as it seemed clear they would never be full. (Needless to mention, now that their son goes to the same university, they are seriously lacking parking spaces close to the building.)
The main difference from today’s world was that the people looked and acted and were all very similar because everyone had the same limited opportunities. Well, the people who belonged to the Party lived a different life where they could eat bananas and caviar every day, and there were those who had friends in Finland, and who would be sent several pairs of jeans, but most people ate the same bread, cheese and sausages, watched the same one Estonian TV channel and read the two Estonian newspapers. The children went to interchangeable pioneer camps, and had the same basic childhood. Everyone was economically equal: they were all poor. This kind of cloning effect was clearly the aim of the regime: uniform people are far easier to control.
But things had started to change, and the snowball kept picking up pace. Gorbachev’s innovative policies of perestroika and glasnost had carelessly opened the mouth of journalism and it was proving to be impossible to shut again. Television and radio waves were suddenly filled with titillating conversation and debates. Media outlets were now more interesting than ever before – or after, for that matter. There was talk of how communism should be declared a crime just like fascism. Of how they would get by so much better without all the decisions coming from Moscow. And how they had been a sovereign nation before, and what a glorious time it had been: for example, they exported dairy products to Finland, Sweden and even Britain. There was a general newfound feeling of indestructibility. It was encouraging to see how many smart people they had, and that these people would know how to get things done.
One example of the quick and unstoppable changes was the use of the national flag. In the beginning of the year you would be sent to prison for owning it. In April, at one of the earliest events that would come to be known as the Singing Revolution three flags were displayed next to each other: one blue, one black, one white – together becoming the Estonian national flag. Everyone was shocked, expecting arrests – but they got away with it. At the next event, an open air concert, a motorcyclist with a covered face drove past the stage with the tricolour attached to his bike. A week later, the flags could already be seen on television, in the crowd during a concert. A few more weeks, and the leaders of the freedom movement were wearing national colours.
Not much Russian was heard around town, even though the decade had been spent under the burden of Russification: Russian had been spoken in shops, institutions, even at school assemblies. At the same time, the state was unable to properly teach children the language. Most boys finally learnt it in the compulsory Soviet Army, which Joel remembers as the worst years of his life. Now that everything was changing, the Russians who had been located here to further homogenise and Russify the area, were starting to worry. They were confused as to why the Estonians were causing trouble, why they would want to step out of the union of friendly nations, and unsure about what that would mean for them. But the Estonians, after 50 years of having to be careful with what they could say, had had enough.
Joel can only describe what he was feeling during the time as “butterflies”. Changes were happening so quickly that it was hard for the mind and soul to keep up. The innovative thoughts of yesterday were replaced by new ones tomorrow. Free speech, free thought – these were new and unexpected experiences. Standing, singing, breathing together with hundreds of thousands of people after decades of fearful silence, Joel kept asking himself if this was really possible, if he was really awake. Day after day, all summer. But even with the craziness around them, Heli’s thoughts kept slipping back to the child she was going to have. She started noticing children’s clothes in shops and mothers pushing prams on the street.
Nevertheless, for her it really was a Singing Revolution, because at the time she was a member of Estonia’s top choir, and they were among the first ones to sing the newly written patriotic songs that soon became national classics. However, she admits that at the time she was unable to truly understand the magnitude of what she was a part of; being young, many grand things seemed easy and natural to do. But the words of these songs did have a deep impact on her. Being used to having to sing lyrics like “Great Lenin, you are generous” and “We will be guided to victory by the Communist Party,” these new songs touched something inside her. She and her friends wondered whether the words were too strong and direct. All their lives they had been used to the knowledge that everything important had to be said secretly, that it could only exist between the lines. But now they were allowed to go on stage and sing at the top of their voice: “I am an Estonian, and I will be an Estonian, because I was born an Estonian” and “Denying your nationality is as bad as selling yourself to slavery.” She notes that it is nearly impossible to explain how unbelievably powerful these songs were, to someone who has only ever lived in a free country. They were like a spell that moved people and said everything important and necessary; expressed all things that were thought, but not yet said.
She remembers The Baltic Student Song Festival Gaudeamus that took place in Vilnius on July 1-3. National flags had been seen before, but on this occasion, three people carrying the Baltic flags walked at the front of the march. She found it hard to believe even as she was looking at it. And these three flags were held up throughout the whole festival, with boys taking turns to keep guard. They all thought that the militsiya would eventually come and order for them to be removed, but they did not dare. There were so many young people together, and if they had tried, a fight would have most likely broken out. Heli wrote about this unbelievable event to Joel who was at a Soviet military camp at the time, the last one Estonian men had to go to.
At the end of the Festival all choirs sang a song together, each verse in a different language and “Eesti, Latvia, Lietuva” repeated in the chorus. She was the last Estonian in her row, five meters away from the Lithuanian choirs. Towards the end of the song all the Estonians joined hands and moved towards the others. She remembers the surprised look on the Lithuanian’s face when she grabbed her hand. Soon all the singers were holding hands and repeating the final song. At that moment Heli felt like anything was possible, that nothing would be able to stop them now.
September 11 was a Sunday. People had found out in the week that on this day there would be a big event in Tallinn on The Song Festival Grounds. Heli had been to choir practice on Tuesday and Thursday and knew what songs would be performed. The night before, she took out her national costume and made sure it was clean and ready. On Sunday, 300,000 people from all over the country arrived to an event called “Estonia’s Song.” Between the performances of old and new patriotic songs, the leaders of the freedom movement gave passionate speeches. It was the first time Estonian Independence was publicly demanded. Heli was on the stage among thousands of others: singers, speakers, politicians. And all she could see was a sea of people with no gaps between them, just faces and blue-black-white flags. This was when she thought, “We did it! It really is happening right here and now and I’m witnessing it! And soon we will have a baby and it is going to grow up in a completely different country!”
In March 1989, I was born, followed by my brother in February 1991.
Estonia regained its independence on 20 August 1991. No blood had been spilt in the Singing Revolution.

I was warned about that website, and about how it would ruin my life and my ability to enjoy any TV series, film, book etc for what it is, but of course I had to find out for myself. Because when am I ever going to turn down an opportunity to gain more nerdy knowledge which is also guaranteed to make me more cynical and more difficult to surprise or impress? Never.
And I have to say I absolutely love the site, but I'd rather not think about how many hours I've already spent there. Because it is addictive.

Picture from xkcd.com

4. Stephen Fry. We were having this discussion in one of the first weeks of term 1: Who in their right mind wouldn’t want him to be their dad, or at least uncle?
5. David Mitchell.

6. And while we’re at it: British comedy in general. Or even the whole British way of life: the less you know someone, the politer you are – and the other way around. So you’re extremely courteous to people on the bus, but once you get to the pub with your best mates, you start ripping the absolute piss out of them. There is a certain ‘cool to be cruel’ aspect to the humour, but it doesn’t worry me because, let’s face it, it is kind of cool to be able to do it in an eloquent and hilarious way. And the best defence is obviously a good comeback.
7. Jonathan Groff

8. Here’s a bit of an exception though: Glee. My friends are divided: there are the ones who love it and those who don’t watch it. And I don’t fall into either category. I watch it, but every episode makes me hate it more. It started off biting and funny, but now it’s just a ridiculously unrealistic show stocked full of ‘very important life lessons’.

I can’t wait to get back! To course mates who are all crazy, arty and extremely talented. It’s actually quite intimidating. Not only can they write so much better than me, they can also draw, act, sing, dance and do pretty much any creative activity possible. A true wake up call, I’ll tell you that.

And the tutors who are funny and weird and brilliant. Who have Wikipedia pages and who end emails to us with text kisses.

And the course itself! I don’t think there are many where you’re able to end an essay with a sentence like ‘Because otherwise, I’m fucked.’ and get a good mark for it. (I should add that it wasn’t the most academic essay we had to write that year. It was an end of the year super essay about our own writing and how it has changed since last October.)

Well, not long to go now. Back to good old England on the 21st.

Finally, here's my attempt at a bit of a summary of my first year at Warwick University, UK.

I’ve met all kinds of people from hyperhipsters to cheery goths, from transsexual to asexual to pansexual to cured gay (read: drowned himself in hardcore Christianity. And let me tell you what a normal person he turned out to be. Here are some of his beliefs: girls are not allowed to wear trousers or have short hair. Decorating yourself in any way (make-up, hair dye, nail varnish etc) is wrong, as is creating or indeed consuming anything fictional. So I’m going so deep in hell it isn’t even funny (it is a bit). Oh, and the world is definitely going to end in our lifetime).

I thought I’d do a list of things I like about my life there, or rather, a list of things that, surprisingly, are also liked by other people I’ve met this year. Quite honestly, I didn't really expect to meet other people interested in them.

1. I suppose it goes without saying, but brightly coloured hair. I’d wanted pink hair for years, but I doubt I’d have ever got round to dyeing mine if I hadn’t gone to a place where it is completely acceptable, even encouraged. In fact, on my course alone (I say alone, but really, our course has the craziest people. What else would you expect from creative writing students?) we’ve already had pink, purple, blue, yellow, orange and bright red hair. And I’m proud to say I was one of the first ones to take the leap.
2. The Midnight Beast

3. Harry Potter

In Estonia when you’re old enough to drink (at least old enough in your mind), it generally means you’re too old to be a Harry Potter fan. I've seen it happen to nearly all my friends. Sure, you’ll probably go see the films, but you’re too cool to get excited about them. That might actually be the best adjective to describe us as a nation: we’re cool. And we don’t generally lose our cool. Yeah, me might hear a great joke, see a famous person or win the lottery, but we’re not going to lose control over our emotions just because of that.

But in the UK, not only is Harry Potter cool (in a slightly different sense of the word), but it’s just so incredibly widespread. Of course everyone’s read and seen them, and they’re among the most common pop culture references. Picture from weheartit.com

We’ve had a drinking game around the names of Harry Potter characters and divided UK’s top universities into Hogwarts houses (Oxford – Gryffindor, Cambridge – Ravenclaw, St Andrew’s – Slytherin and finally Warwick – Hufflepuff. At least we’re being realistic). Every young person fancies Emma Watson (who’s doing a ‘year abroad’ at Oxford now by the way (proving our sorting skills)). Although, Matt Lewis might be taking her place now... (I still can’t believe how fit he suddenly is!)

But funnily enough, the only people to compare my ever-changing neon hair colour to the character Tonks were my brother and his flatmate. (And by the way, yes, that would be my power of choice: the ability to change my appearance to whatever I wanted. I’d be saving a fortune on hair dye alone!)

[to be continued]

I'm starting my review of the year with a bunch of photos, most from my iPhone. Here's a slice of my life since last October:



Classic library times writing essays:This is literally what our kitchen looked like when we left for Christmas holidays. The cleaners actually took photos of it too. And yes, the ones responsible got a hefty fine the following term.

Ah yes, that was the year of packing. And unpacking. I moved six times!



Birthday girl!





Watching the Royal Wedding at the Students' Union:

With themed cocktails (and some random wine):

Essay research:

And that point somewhere in the night where writing on yourself seems so much more important than continuing work on the essay: (At least it was a motivational message.)

We had at least half a dozen fire alarms - and one genuine (well, kind of...) fire (not in our kitchen though):

It's a jungle out there. Literally outside our windows:







Choosing next year's optional modules:

Eighties night:

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do quite enjoy internet shopping:





And buying rather pointless women's magazines. Especially if they lure me in with free eyeliners and lip glosses:

Spain:



And when I got back in the middle of the night and stepped into the common room then, well, then it felt like home:

The epicness that was our Summer Party:



My final evening on campus. With some of my crazy uni mates:

At my cousin's wedding with my brother:

Laulupidu:



The birthday party of my favourite Estonian chica's:

The last Harry Potter film and the first time I’ve gone to the cinema alone. It makes sense really, as none of my Estonian friends are as mental fans as I am. And for years I’ve heard people saying that going to the cinema alone is one of their favourite things ever, so I decided that it was time to try it myself.
The experience was alright, but I don’t think I’ll turn it into a habit. I’m not a huge fan of going to the cinema anyway, and being alone only accentuated the negative sides of it: the woman next to me explaining the plot to her friend loudly enough that I could hear every word, and the smell and sound of popcorn which is pretty distracting and even nauseating if you’re not having any yourself.
And then the trailers. I used to love them, but either my taste has become too snobby for Hollywood movies or the latest ones really are mostly shite, because Jesus, I just sat there, feeling my life slipping away, and my brain cells as well. I do want to see Bridesmaids and Bad Teacher (although with all the dirty words cut out, the trailer for the latter was quite pathetic), but the rest was just rubbish action and sci-fi galore.
Well, then we got to the film. I’m having a hard time deciding what I exactly thought of it on the whole. The first hour was pretty fucking epic, but the end bit that was no doubt meant to be climatic was just a bit meh for me. I feel the scenes of preparation and anticipation were better than the Battle of Hogwarts itself. But obviously this is classic me, always having expectations so high that nothing can live up to them. And already knowing the plot and thinking, ‘This is going to be epic, this is going to be epic’ isn’t the most helpful place to start. But it’s not like I didn’t love it, or get quite emotional several times. It actually felt like my school and my friends – because they pretty much were characters in my own story of growing up as well. That itself is already pretty amazing.

Now, I think we need to recognise something important about the films: how bloody attractive the cast have grown up to become! Phoar.
Like, have you seen Matthew Lewis (better known as Neville Longbottom) lately? He looks like he should be playing a freaking Austen hero! Didn’t see that coming…












Pictures from weheartit.com

I'm back from Spain now, and back from the UK. And I have a lot to tell you guys, but it'll have to wait a bit. My computer's crashed and I've lost access to all my pictures and half-written blog posts. It looks like they can be salvaged though, thank God.
So I'll see you later, hopefully very soon.

Right now I'm listening to this and feeling a bit melancholy:

Greetings from Málaga!
After I’d finished my exams I had a whole month before the end of term, so I thought, as there’s nothing to do on campus with most people still revising, why not go to Spain? I’d got a 3-week language course from my parents for my birthday, so here I am.
I arrived on Sunday. Here's bit about what’s happened so far, partly in pictures.
Packing my hand luggage:
Airport boredom:

Figures that as soon as I've left uni, I'm reminded of my least favourite book of the year:

First impressions of Málaga:
My host family’s home (every wall and door and cupboard is a different colour, and all the walls are covered with pictures and mirrors. In short, my kind of house):





My way to/from school:


Inspiration from the shops (I really love the different buttons, but there’s no way I’d pay that kind of money for a little summer dress. Methinks a DIY project might be in order):
Gazpacho evening at the school (icy tomato soup sounds disgusting, but it was actually pretty amazing! Might try making it myself this summer):
My Spanish really is improving, and I keep discovering how much I’m actually able to understand. Expressing myself is a bit more difficult, but I’ve moved on from one word answers now. Today in class we were talking about books and I managed to explain the plots of The Perfume and The Master and Margarita (albeit with saying ‘hay un garçon’ at one point – well, I was talking about France).
Yesterday we visited the Picasso museum (he was born here, as was Antonio Banderas, and we also saw his favourite bar in town). I liked the guide, hell, I even fancied him a bit, and I appreciated him trying to make it more than the average tour by asking our opinion on the works, but (and I know I sound twattish here) I wasn’t really enjoying having to listen to people who I didn’t know or care about, and who were clearly no experts, witter on in broken Spanish about what they saw in the pictures and sculptures. Not what I paid to hear. Apart from that, though, the museum was interesting and I learned a lot, even though Picasso is still not among my favourite artists.
At the language school everyone else seems to be either German or Dutch, but there should be an Estonian boy coming in the next couple of weeks. But before you think anything, he’s 13, so don't count on us hanging out much.
When one of the older Dutch guys in my class introduced the other one as his husband, I melted into the sweet and sticky little girl that apparently still exists somewhere deep inside me, and went all awww. Thankfully not out loud though.
Today we were doing an oral exercise that I already knew would be revealed as one of those pseudo psychological tests. You know the kind, it’s all like, imagine you’re on a road. What is it like? Now you see a branch/house/body of water etc. What is it like? What do you do? But I decided to use it as a creativity exercise like we used to do at uni, and let my sick imagination run wild. So I had a dead bear on the road, piano music in a forest, and a castle owned by a hot man with a dark secret. And then came the results. The most noteworthy one was that the bear I had killed had described my attitude towards love – which was fair enough. It would have been even better if I’d described it as a hallucination of a desperate mind, or why not a pervert in a bear suit.
Anyway, in short, I’m having a great time. The school is really lovely and intimate; everyone is super friendly, and there’s only four/five people per class. Oh, and did I mention it has a pool?!
Because I didn’t pay much attention to grammar when I was doing Spanish at uni this year, I’ve had to learn the four past tenses, as well as futuro, condicional, and their uses, all in one week. And I'm still alive and well.
I haven’t had any real Spanish sangria yet (can’t wait!), but we had wine and tapas at a bar, and towards the end the waiter brought us shots of caramel vodka for free. And it was delicioso.

Hasta la vista.