Ett nytt kapitel i livet, och ett ganska stort sådant

To the non Swedish people who usually read this blog, I'm sorry but this time it's gonna be all in Swedish since this is first and foremost for the people around me here in Sweden. Ah yeah Sweden, I went back to my home country about a month ago, however I'm going back to Tokyo in the middle of December!

Såå, förlåt på förhand för ett troligtvis lång inlägg med en massa babbel, kudos till er som orkar läsa till slutet.

Detta var ett väldigt stort steg för mig, och även om jag inte är skyldig någon en förklaring så tänkte jag ändå dela med mig av lite tankar kring det~
Det finns säkert en massa sätt att säga det här på, vissa av er kanske har anat det ett tag, vissa av er vet redan, men i vilket fall tänker jag gå direkt på saken. Den 21 september gifte jag mig med min pojkvän!

 Nu finns det säkert några som tänker 'jaha ja, ännu en brud som gifter sig för visum', och huruvida folk faktiskt tänker det eller inte struntar jag blankt i, jag kunde inte bry mig mindre om visumet, faktum är att jag mycket hellre skulle bo i Sverige. Anledningen till att vi gifte oss var precis av samma anledning som alla andra som gifter sig, för att vi älskar varandra och för att vi vill spendera våra liv ihop. Hade vi inte gift oss hade detta inte vart möjligt, att få sponsrat visum i japan är lite som att slå huvet i en vägg om du inte är högutbildad, och att ta med min pojkvän till Sverige funkar bara inte just nu och kommer antagligen inte göra på några år. Så ja, vi gifte oss lite tidigare än planerat men det är också allt.

Internationella äktenskap är aldrig enkla, och det är jag hyfsat säker på gäller alla, vilka länder man nu än kommer ifrån. Man får helt enkelt träna på att vara mer öppensinnad och beredd att kompromissa vissa saker. Något jag definitivt inte ser som något dåligt, tvärtom. Jag har lärt mig att se saker ur andra mer internationella perspektiv tack vare min man, något jag är hyfsat säker på att jag inte hade upplevt i ett förhållande med en annan svensk.

Närmsta tiden efter att jag flyttat tillbaka till Japan kommer inte bli lätt, men jag är beredd att kämpa med allt jag har. Sen är det ju inget som säger att vi kommer stanna i Japan för evigt heller.

Jag läste en intressant artikel för några dagar sen, och det var ett visst citat som verkligen tog i hjärtat "Du är alltid Du vart i världen du än befinner dig". Jaha men det låter väl som en självklarhet? Ja det kanske det gör, och hade jag läst den här artikeln medan jag fortfarande bodde i Japan så hade jag nog inte brytt mig så mycket. Men nu när jag vart i Sverige i snart en månad och fått lite perspektiv på saker och ting så insåg jag att jag verkligen förlorade mitt riktiga jag bit för bit ju längre jag stannade i Japan. Troligtvis berodde detta på stress, känslan av att inte riktigt passa in i ett land som redan är så annorlunda, pressen att göra bra ifrån sig osv. Sen jag åkte tillbaka till Sverige har jag mått så bra, och jag börjar sakta men säkert inse vad det beror på. De anledningar som jag kommit fram till tänker jag ta med mig till Japan och se till att efterleva även där. Folk får helt enkelt ta mig som den jag är (vilket är en självklarhet men något som jag verkade ha glömt på vägen).

Så den 13:de december åker jag tillbaka till Japan för en nystart, och saker får gå som de går helt enkelt, i slutändan brukar saker och ting alltid lösa sig så länge man har hopp!

Quitting

So, I guess this is a bit like dropping the bomb but, I thought I might as well update people on what's going on.

I've dropped out of the hotel-school. The reasons were many but the biggest one was that it just simply did not fit me. It was like my mind was screaming at me, 'Hey, what the heck are you doing, this isn't you. Do you really wanna oppress yourself just to fit in here?'

To be honest I never had much of an interest in the hotel business to begin with. At the time when we choose schools I was choosing between this one and a designers college. I REALLY wanted to go to the designers college but everyone kept telling me what bad idea that would be and that the hotel-school had so much more benefits. And in the end I managed to tell myself that as well. But entering a school that you pretty much forced yourself into believe you'd wanted to enter was a doomed cause from the beginning I guess.

After a while I started to get depression and it only got worse. Working in a high class hotel as a high class service staff fit me about as well as a polar beer fits in the sahara desert, something I clearly came to feel as I entered my internship. All my colleges loved their work so much, burning with a passion to please the customers, and I couldn't grasp their feelings at all, I just felt completely out of place. I just do not have the right mind/personality for this kind of job I guess.

So in the end it boiled down to me quitting school. And no, it was not an easy decision, neither was it a decision taken over night. Rather it just came as the natural thing to do after weeks of contemplating, crying and that constant bad feeling that was always hovering there. So 2 days ago I signed the final papers and said my farewells to school. Saying good bye to my home room "teacher" was extremely hard, he's such a nice guy and I knew he really wanted me to stay, but in the end I had his support as well. But we're still gonna keep in touch which makes me really happy. If things had ended on a bad note it would've felt much worse.

Now most of you probably wonder what the heck I'm gonna do from here on, well, that is for another blog update I believe :D I can just say that I have things under control so to say, and I feel better than I have done in months! But for people hoping for me to show up in Sweden now, unless very unexpected things happen that will probably not happen in a long time .__. I do miss you all, VERY MUCH, but there is someone here who loves me very much and who wants me to stay (of course that makes me want to stay too) so unless someone can magically get us an apartment and give a non swedsish speaking person a job then things get very difficult (and unsure) considering a life in Sweden.

This was one hell of  a long rant but at least now you know what's been going on. And now it's time to write a new chapter in life!

Beat the heat with something sweet!

Ahh, Japan is frying itself on the surface of the sun and what do I do? I rade second hand shops and clearance sales for A/W clothing! Even though I'm into fashion I can't really say I give a penny for wether or not I'm wearing this years or that years collection, so If I really like a garment and it's dirt cheap because it's no longer "trending", well good for me! (and my wallet).

Soo, these are my recent gets

First up two second hand coats by EMODA

                         

　　　　　　　

I really wanted to buy these boots from LIP SERVICE last winter, but I never got around to and they sold out. Then a few days ago I just happened to stumble upon a random site that still sels them for a great clearance price :D Also when I got the boots I found the shop had packed a little present for free, a cute flowery make up box^^

During the weekend I just aimlessly wandered around the neighborhood and came across a 100円 shop where I found these adorable chopsticks, OWLS <3 

Last but not least, I had run out of most of my The BODY SHOP products so yesterday I went on a quest to get new ones and came across this heavenly smelling raspberry body lotion.

Good things comes to those who wait, and apparently I like waiting (for cheap stuff lol).

Update on life

To begin with, I can just say that I don't really like writing too personal stuff in blogs, but this once I made an exception.

I think a lot of people might feel like I have been ignoring them lately, to be honest I haven't really socialized with any of my close friends in ages, that goes for Skype and mail as well.
The biggest reason for this however is that I fell into a depression about 2 months ago, and I still haven't gotten out of it. I've only ever had a serious depression once in my life a few years ago and it really scares me. The feeling of just not being able to feel genuinely happy no matter what, going around with a plastered on smile because you don't wanna walk around looking like the heap of self pity that you actually feel like.
Sometimes you don't know why depressions suddenly occur, but in this case I guess it was the after shock of losing a dear family member suddenly at the beginning of the year and then being so brutally stressed and busy in school that there was pretty much no time for just sitting down and taking a breath. So, suddenly everything just crashed. And ever since that happened all I've wanted to do was to go back to Sweden. I've even been close to quitting school since I've felt it's just too much to take all classes in Japanese and I've also completely lacked motivation.  However I had a long talk  with my teacher (who is a wonderful guy) and he talked me into at least go through with the internship and see how I feel after that.
I could frigging offer my right arm to feel really happy again, happy as in "normally" happy and not just a feeling that last for a couple of hours. Like the old Tess used to be. I'm sure it will go back to normal some day, what scares me though is that what if I won't be truly happy again if I stay on this track, what if moving back to Sweden is what I really need to do? It's not like my life is gonna get any less stressful from now on, rather the other way around.
Moving back to Sweden is not that simple though, if it was just me, fine, but bringing my bf with me (which of course I would do), not simple at all. There are just so many obstacles that I really don't know how to overcome if we moved.
I just want a god damn break from life. Unfortunately there's no breakes in a looong while.

I hate this feeling, I hate it so much, I'm not a quitter, I'm a fighter, that's why I hate having this feeling. I have so much in my life to be grateful and happy for. I know it's not my fault, I didn't decide I was gonna get depressed, but still I get so angry at my self for having ended up like this.

I can't say enough how much I love my bf for standing by me while being like this, god knows he hasn't had an easy time as of late with my horrible mood. If it hadn't been for him I'd left Japan a long time ago. And I don't know if maybe that is part of my problem, I'm not really in Japan for my own sake anymore, I'm here for our sake, and I think that is what has led me to have pretty much no motivation, I'm just running on some sort of drive out of necessity.

I will do my very best to get back to being my normal happy self, I just wanna say sorry to people for being like I am right now, I just need time.

And sorry for making such an overwhelmingly long post .___. But it felt really good to just write this :)

Internship ranting and some OOTDs

I'm falling way behind on this blog, but I really don't have time to update much as of recently. School takes all my time and pretty much kills any inspiration I might have had about blogging -_-

Anyhow in about 6 weeks I'm heading out for a 3 month long internship, I still don't know where I'm gonna end up though, I'm sure it will be interesting, and probably pretty horrible according to any person who have ever done an internship at a Japanese hotel. What I'm most worried about is that I'm gonna flip a table and loose my temper, because the way interns are treated in Japan would probably not be legal in Sweden... And since I'm white and a WOMAN (omygosh!) I've been told I'm gonna have an even tougher time. Well they've probably never run into a Swedish viking girl before. To be honest I'm not really sure if I have the right kind of personality for the hotel world (at least the Japanese one), I do NOT take lightly on rasism and sexism, and as harsh as it sounds I'd rather quit than having to bow my head while having to take crap like that.

To get myself out of some negative thinking I've been going through my beloved closet, realizing I have a lot of clothes, sadly pretty much every morning I stand infront of the darn closet thinking, "I have nothing to wear". I realized it was mostly because I have a hard time coming up with what would actually go nicely with what, seeing as my closet is always a mess no matter how hard I try to organize it... So I came up with the idea of making outfits and taking pictures! That way I can look at those pictures for inspo when I feel like I have nothing to wear.

Skirt CECIL McBEE,  T-shirt Hyphen world gallery

Shoes EGOIST

Shorts Forever 21

Hat Fig&Viper T-shirt Cecil McBEE Shorts H&M

Necklace EGOIST T-shirt Lip Service Pants OZOC

Sunglasses MA*RS

I'm gonna try and post some outfits every other second week or so, that way I might get some posting motivation back and I get to play around with my beloved clothes and accessories <3

And I can't believe I missed Coldplay when they for once came to Tokyo ;___; They played in a ridiculously small hall and the tickets went out through a lottery, luck was not on my side. Hoping they'll come back soon to play at a big arena, if it's at festival I'm gonna drag myself half over Japan if I have to!

Well I'm off to kick som kanji butt, take care ya all~

A new adventure

Soo, I came back from Sweden about a week ago and have since suffered the jetlag from hell. Last night I finally caught up on sleep though and didn't even wake up when bf got up and went to work haha.

Even though going to Sweden wasn't for holiday reasons this time it still made a nice couple of weeks. Spring arrived about the same time as I did so I got some really nice weather and got to see lots of pretty spring flowers in bloom. Also got to hang out with my loved ones, they will forever be my reason for coming back to Sweden every now and then.

Today I had my first day of orientation at the Tourism college, and god my brain is tired now, doing everything in japanese for hours is REALLY exhausting, especially paper work. Can't really say today was that much fun since it's was just hours of getting info poured over us, but I think the other days will be more fun! And I made some friends which feels really nice, the people in my class are really open and friendly so I think it will be a great atmosphere :) On thursday we're gonna have some sort of mixed test though, not looking forward to that -_- On friday we're gonna sit down one on one with our home rome teacher to just talk about our thoughts on the school, internship and so on, I think it will be nice to have a relaxed conversation like that, also I really like my teacher which makes it a lot easier to talk about stuff. Also on friday we're gonna take measurements for our suits, man I wonder if I'll ever be comfortable wearing that haha, office lady skirts are like the invention from hell, you just can't walk properly in that, lucky for us I think we'll be wearing pants most of the time.

Next week we'll be staying at a hotel in Yokohama for 1 and a half day, really looking forward to that! (And the included dinner cruise moahaha)

Here's a pic of the school, looks classy on the outside!

On a totally different note, I've really fallen for the Body Shop' products lately. When I went to Sweden my roomy had gotten a ton of their stuff, which she was kind enough to lend me, and it worked so great with my skin! So now I've gotten their Tea tree face wash and toner, Sea weed face cream, Blueberry body lotion, schampoo and conditioner. I also love that all their products are nature friendly and nothing is animal tested.

Well that was all for now I guess, much more adventures to come though! 

Until next time~

Language school, sayonara

So yesterday I finally graduated from my japanese language school after 2 years of studying. Can't believe it's been 2 years already! Especially the first year went really fast, probably because it was easy and a lot of fun, guess life in general was easier and more carefree that first year. Second year was tough, really tuff, but it had it's moments as well. I've met so many nice people along the way, some who are remaining in Japan and some who've gone back home. I think that has been the toughest thing about being an exchange student, you make really good friends, only to be separated shortly after. All in all I most certainly do not regret coming to Tokyo and spending these 2 years here.

Since it's 3 weeks left until the entrance ceremony of my college I'm taking the opportunity to spend 2 weeks in Sweden, visiting friends and just trying to relax as much as I can, charge my batteries so to say. I would've loved for my bf to come to Sweden with me, but as he's a typical japanese salary man taking some days of was of course impossible. Hopefully we can go somewhere together during golden week, once again it's not a whole week off, but at least we'll get 4 days in a row.

Also I've packed away my winter clothes as it seems the weather in Tokyo is now staying stable above +12C, nowadays it's usually around +15, lovely~

Right now I'm in the middle of packing for my trip to Sweden, seems it's gonna be cold so I guess I'll have to pack a mix of clothes. Also my roomy have gotten herself some company in the form of a cat (it used to live with her mom before) so if kitty is not too scared of me I'll have a little snuggle buddy^^ Starting to get a bit hyped up now!

Well I'll probably be writing again once I get back to Tokyo, bye for now~

A spring in "full bloom" fashion

Firstly, sorry I haven't updated in forever, a lot of things happened in my life at the same time, both good and bad, so lately I just haven't had time nor energy to put into the blog. But now things have calmed down and I should be able to update regularly again!

As one of the good things I can mention that I got accepted to the technical college in Tokyo that I had applied for! I'm really really happy and proud of myself for achieving that goal. It's gonna be one tough journey, but I will fight my way through it.

I know I said I would post pictures from my trip in the last post but that will have to wait just a bit more I'm afraid. Hopefully it will come up sometime.

BUT this blog is mostly and foremost about fashion and beauty, so therefore I thought I would write a bit about this years spring trends!

What is definitely most noticeable are the flower patterns that decorate everything from dresses to caps, here are some examples from CECIL McBEE's spring collection:

It's cute, but I feel like I would just have a really hard time coordinating this stuff, so I think I will stay away from this trend, if anything maybe I'll get a flower dress or something, then I don't need to coordinate that much.

Something else that is also very popular is horizontally striped shirts a'la this type:

This pattern I really like, and yes I got myself a shirt pretty much like the one above, it looks fresh, simple and is easy to fit together with other stuff in my closet^^

Speaking of simple, I've totally fallen in love with what the japanese call Onee-kei, it's very simple, mature and toned down. It kind of feels like I've found the perfect style for me. I've also found some new brands to fall in love with lately, my absolute favorite being EGOIST. Unfortunately it's not one of the cheaper brands, so that will be the kind of shopping you do when you feel you deserve something nice I guess (well it's not western brand expensive but if you're a somewhat poor student...).

Well I did one last run for the new years sale and got a few really nice things for just a few bucks.  Will probably post pictures later. If you're patient enough to wait until the very end of the sale you can get ridiculously good bargains, of course most of the best stuff will be gone but if you need like a normal shirt/a pair of jeans or off season shoes, then it's definitely worth the wait as the stores practically gives some stuff away for the price of practically nothing.

Well that was enough ramblings for this time, hope to write soon again!

Crazy new years sale in Tokyo!

And so I'm back from my one week trip to Fukuoka and Tsuyama! It had a great time and as soon as I manage to organize the pictures me and my bf took I'm gonna write more about it, so look forward to some beautiful photos ^^

Anyhow since new years just passed it means one big thing for the shopaholics in Japan, the crazy new years sale! And it really is crazy, with the yen being as cheap as it is you can buy loads of stuff without it burning holes in your wallet. Just as last year I headed into the shopping spree together with my partner in crime Johanna. This year I skipped the fukubukuro's (the lucky bags you can buy at stores that cost around 1万(600kr) but contains random clothes for about 4 times that money. I'd rather buy stuff I really want and this year I wasn't that interested in clothes anyhow. I already had some things in mind that I needed so I went on a hunt for that instead, and this is what I got away with, all from 109~

My old sunglasses had gotten a lot of scratches on them so I got these ones from MA＊RS 

I have two dresses that's a bit too "revealing" for my tastes so I bought this (actually the shirt version of this dress, couldn't find pic) to have under, and it still looks great!

I'm not really a fan of  F&V's clothes and accessories and to be honest I never thought I wold own a hat like this model, but after trying it on it actually looked really good when I have my hair loose and ruffled, it will go great with some outfits. 

Yay a new makeup bag from MA＊RS , outgrew my old one ages ago but I've just been to lazy to buy a new one... 

Also got two pairs of spring/summer shoes that I guessed no one wanted anymore, I really don't mind if it's still in fashion or not, it goes well with my clothes and were super comfy, that's enough for me. 

A while ago I came across a new years time sale while browsing Rakuten and got stuff for so dirt cheap it's almost crazy, can't wait to get it next week!

Now I can start pretending that I look forward to school starting again on wednesday, wihooo...

Until later~