basic stuff about myself and Joninablog. 

I am a Finnish 51-year old woman. I live in Turku, Finland  with my boyfriend. I love music, pretty much any genre goes. I do not discriminate against genres, but if the music or artist/band sucks in my opinion, then it is bye bye from my playlist. I love to read books, but recently I have had problems with actually focusing and concentrating on reading. ADHD ? Who knows... well, let us leave that to the mental health professionals for now. This blog will cover stuff that interests me and hopefully also other people on the world wide interwebbididdly (Yes, I am still a fan of the Simpsons! even if it´s not "cool" anymore.) But I am Gen X, so I don´t give a fudge what the cool kids think about that anyway! 

New career for Jonina? 

Yes, Jonina is applying to Turku University of Applied Sciences. So I might be either a librarian or social worker when I finally grow up. Maybe I should make a poll... -> which career would suit me better? I have studied at customer service and stuff like that way back in the 90s, but that was a looooooooooooong time ago, so now I have to brush up on my math skills. What skills, you ask? Well, maths has always been my achille´s heel, I suck at it. Since elementary school actually. I have wondered why I was not left behind because I was so bad at this particular subject... maybe they took pity on the new outsider kid in school or whatever? well, so I never learned to count some stuff properly. I started a maths prep course today, well yesterday really, as it´s already Saturday morning here in Turku. Well, anyway.. the teacher was really good and understanding and cool about us there not knowing much about the basics. There were only three students in the classroom. Me and two women who were immigrants living in Finland now. They also had to learn basic maths and calculus for entrance exams. They must have it even more difficult, as Finnish is not their mother tongue. .! Finnish is sometimes difficult and tricky even for us Finns! trust me! I just hope I will learn to count percentages  in my head, cause we are not allowed to use calculators in the entrance exams I am taking. I think I will probably do okay in the other parts of the exam, like Finnish, Swedish and English. The exam is in two months, so I have some time to study. Wish me luck! 

SOME OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF RECENT YEARS 

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami was an interesting read. I had read Dance, dance, dance by him before, but that book actually made me hesitate about reading any more of his books. But I am glad I eventually got around to read Norwegian Wood as I enjoyed it more than Dance, dance, dance. NW seems to be the most liked and popular book by him, at least that is the book that is almost always mentioned or recommended in book blogs and Facebook posts! And I must mention, that I am not by any means a professional critic, and I have noticed that I am not so good at giving feedback on , say books or music, even if I love books and music.. I am a work in progress, like this blog I just started. 

I became a Miranda Hart fan thanks to the brilliant Miranda show. This was over ten years ago. I actually bought the book when it came out in paperback here in Finland, but I only read it last year, for some peculiar reason... The book is very mirandaesque. Anyone who has seen the tv series will know what I am writing about. In this book Miranda writes about the most embarrassing moments in her life, yes, true stories! Because, sometimes, fact is stranger than fiction. Or funnier, in this case! It has been a while since I read the Caitlin Moran book, so I this menopausal brain can not remember it all, BUT, hold on, it was an amazing coming of age-style funny and poignant book. Pachinko was just a beautifully written historic novel., highly recommended by none other than Barack Obama- yes, it says so on the cover. So in this case you can and should believe the printed word. Face it by Debbie Harry is a fine rock memoir, it has, if my memory serves me right, an entire chapter dedicated to the thumb, so what´s not to like? thumbs up from me, this whole books is everything you can expect from the cool, stylish, iconic Blondie front woman. The book tells the true story of this New York based band of New Wave rockers. The ups and downs or being a famous icon, to the comeback in the 90s and so forth.

The Maid is a tale about, yes, a maid in a swanky hotel. There is murder, but not so much mayhem in this otherwise pedantic and polished maid´s life. So, these are just some of my fave reads of recent years. Perhaps YOU will read, or maybe have already read these, well, lucky you, then you have, or are in for a treat! ,