Off the Record with Marilyn Kallasse
Marilyn Kallasse is a woman on a mission. She’s a 21-year-old international student from Estonia. Not content with simply studying PPS, she is the Chair of F.C. Sophia, and can often be found working at the Coffee Corner at the UB.
Rather than starting by asking you for a fun fact about yourself, can you tell me a fun lie about yourself?
‘‘I can’t lie. I physically can’t lie. I have never successfully lied in my life. I don’t know. There are no lies… there is only truth. That is not a good answer, but YOLO. I can tell you a fun fact about myself, though!’’
Oh! Go for it.
‘‘I am very intrigued by countries ending with -stan. Two days ago, I watched an hour-long video about Turkmenistan. They have all the Guinness world records for having the most marble buildings in their capital. Did you know that?’’
I did not know that!
‘‘Now you know!’’
What’s your favourite -stan country?
‘‘I am intrigued by Kazakhstan… the capital looks like a mixture of Dubai and Las Vegas together, and I am very intrigued by this. I watched a documentary about it, and the nature is very beautiful, so I am going to go there one day.’’
What is it like to do a full-time study, a part-time job and a board year all at the same time?
‘‘…It’s sometimes a very silent, loud scream… Sometimes it’s hard, but I’m a big fan of time management. To be honest, right now there are only two things in my mind, board and work. I rest is kind of like, in the background. It’s stowed in my filing cabinet. It is tiring, but I’m trying my best and right now I’m doing fine with it. I feel like an actual businesswoman, ‘cos I need to have my phone ringer on all the time. It’s a thing.’’
Speaking of being a successful businesswoman, what gives you a feeling of achievement?
‘‘If we talk about doing a board year, I think the most fulfilling feeling is when someone notices that I did this thing, or that thing, and says: ‘this was very nice’. I’m a big fan of words of affirmation. I’ve been getting a lot of ‘good job’s’ and pats on the back, and I’ve been going ‘whooo!’. It’s so goofy.’’
Do you have some wisdom for us?
‘‘I don’t wanna sound too cheesy, but I think people should be more kind to themselves. If there are days where you feel like you can’t do anything, like if you went to the library for 9 hours and all you did was Buzzfeed quizzes, that’s fine. I try to practise with myself saying that it’s okay, life goes on, and I shouldn’t hold it against myself. I think some of my friends struggle with this as well. It’s okay to realise at 12pm on a Monday that you’re done and you can go home. We ball. And some of us are bald…’’
[to me, as an aside] ‘‘You know how in courtrooms they have those keyboards to write everything down in shorthand? You would be so slay at that, typing all this down. It would be so slay.’’
If 2016 was the year of realising things, what was 2023 the year of?
‘‘I mean, I feel like people started realising things in 2016 and STILL haven’t fully realised everything. 2023 is – okay, another very cheesy answer – but it’s about being kind to yourself and others, and it’s just… I don’t know, life is hard and there is inflation, like, beer is getting more expensive, it’s all a lot. But I feel like at the end of the day, what we have is other people and ourselves and we should just be kind.’’
What is your favourite word in every language you speak, and what does each word mean?
‘‘So in Estonian, my native language, my mother tongue, the word is ‘tohuvabohu’. It means chaos. It’s a goofy word because, like, you can literally use it for anything. It’s the Estonian equivalent of ‘goofy chaos’. It rolls very nicely off the tongue. It’s not a common word in the Estonian language anymore, like, you would hear a grandmother say it. I think that’s very beautiful.
In Dutch it’s definitely the word ‘smoorverliefd’, because it means being ‘head over heels in love’ with someone, and I think it’s so nice in Dutch that it’s only one word. In other languages you have to use a lot of words to get the point across. But the Dutch came up with just one word for it, and I think that’s really beautiful. Also, shoutout to Doe Maar for writing a great song.
I think my favourite word in English… is an adjective, though. Does an adjective count as a word?’’
If I answer the question, am I allowed to keep this part in the interview?
‘‘Yeah… I guess… An adjective is a word, right?’’
Yes.
‘‘Okay… It’s probably goofy! Because with goofy, you can give away so many things. ‘That’s goofy’, as in, ‘I think that’s weird’, ‘that’s goofy’, as in, ‘I think that’s funny’… if I don’t know what to say, I can say ‘goofy’. It’s a good word.’’
Is it kind of like when Paris Hilton says, when you don’t know what to say, you can say ‘That’s Hot?’
‘‘Yeah, literally.
…Oh, and I don’t have a favourite word in German.[1]’’
Which musical album changed your life?
‘‘I think the album that has had a genuine physical effect on me was the first time I listened to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on the trolley to work – we have trolleys[2] in Estonia, goofy – and that’s when… I’ve always, you know, been surrounded by music, but that was the moment when I really realised what music can do to people. And it’s a great album!’’
What are you reading right now?
‘‘I haven’t started a new book, but I love Dolly Alderton, and I just finished a book by her where people write prompts to her and she responds to them. Sometimes women in their 20s can feel like they need to have a boyfriend, bla bla bla, and what she writes is that the biggest loves in her life have been her friends. I think that’s really important.
Next, I’m going to read Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma. It’s about a woman who moves to a different planet to start a new life. But I haven’t started, I’ve only read one page.’’
Speaking of starting a new life, what are your hopes for the future? Where will you be, and what will you be doing?
‘‘I see myself staying in Nijmegen and doing my Master’s here as well, maybe another board year. Then, I would like to work, for example, as an ambassador one day. I would like to be the Estonian ambassador in the Netherlands… but maybe that’s too ambitious.’’
Do you have any final messages for the Universe, before I end the interview?
‘‘Please come to F.C. Sophia’s Lustrum activities, it’s going to be really fun!’’
Anything else?
‘‘That’s it!’’
[1] I have received word that ‘tohuvabohu’ is also used in German. It is originally a Biblical Hebrew word meaning ‘primordial chaos’, i.e. the formless chaos/void before creation.
[2] A trolleybus is an electric bus that gets power from overhead wires.