Alright so, let's skip through all the details, but basically: I GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got an email last Tuesday from a company I had interviewed with in March, and they wanted me to start last week! So I went in on Friday and have since worked this week on Tuesday and Wednesday as well.
In the meantime, Jibbie, Juha's friend from Mannheim, came to visit us! She was visiting her twin in Mannheim and planned some stops along the way. I'm happy to report, Finland was among the stops! We took her to a hockey game [yes, it was my first hockey game ever!!!!] and sightseeing around Helsinki! [Though I sadly had to miss some of the sights due to school and work.]
Now I really want to tell you guys that: I LOVE TAMPERE!
Here is why...
I had lunch with Nina today and Juha came for a bit too. Then he left for Germany during lunch, and Nina and I hung out post-food.
Then I went to the bank and spoke in Finnish! Now only that but the bank teller was so sweet and started asking me how long I've been in Finland for, am I a student, etc. She was soooo nice and spoke to me so clearly and I understood everything she said!!!!
So I walked out of there with a spring in my step, went to get a bus pass, and basically got paid for it... it was in Juha's name but I asked if we could change the name. Apparently we could! [Juha, I owe you a bus pass! And some change.]
On my way home, I ran into a friend from school - Murat. Him and his friend were out buying a present for someone's birthday. We ran around town for a bit before we all headed home.
It was all quite random, but just a nice flow throughout the day! Tonight, I got plans with the girls :)
Showing posts with label bank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bank. Show all posts
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Update!
So apparently people actually read this because I've had more than one person ask why I haven't updated in a few days... or actually accuse me of NOT updating. I'm sorry to have done this. I guess once I started getting busy, blogging was ON my mind but not so much part of my schedule.
SO - where to begin?
Since I left off with the language school POSSIBILITY, I went there the next day and they told me to come back Monday after 2:30pm. So yes, that was a crap morning because I had to walk all the way back home and nap off the disappointment for 2 hours. But in the afternoon, I finally checked out this awesome doughnut (is that really how you spell it?) place with my friend Nina so the day did look up at the end!
Friday... what happened on Friday??... I can't remember...Ah yes! I wrote motivation letters and probably went grocery shopping...or something along those lines.
Saturday Juha and I hung out in our apartment for several consecutive hours during one morning - so yes, that was pretty exciting (this hasn't really ever happened before)! We tidied up and I even started my online drawing course. I drew some lines and shapes and a duck and a cow so far! It's actually really motivating to be able to draw and recognize the animal so I'm pretty pumped about that. Maybe I'll upload some pictures of that once I can upload pictures...
Matti and Anne then came and saw our place for the FIRST TIME EVER (Juha's brother and his girlfriend)! We are also now the proud owners of a Nepalese sleeping bag so we can better accommodate Veera, Essi, Xevi and Jose once they come in February! Rushed off to Juha's mom for "lunch" (a few hours late), and hung around there playing Yatzee and Penguin Party before going to see our friend Heikki (re: FB status: He tricks like a champ.) perform in a circus show.
The circus itself was like no other circus I've ever been too because it was on a stage BUT the acts themselves were very impressive (almost all of them). The act we went to see was by Team Unito, which I finally got to meet that day! They tricked for about 6 minutes (a hard feat)!!
Btw, tricking is a mix of gymnastics, martial arts, break dancing?, acrobatics ... it's basically awesomeness all around. Sadly I was a little to short to see everything going on at stage all at once but everyone I knew there had the same problem so I was not alone.
Other acts included pole-dancing 'acrobatics,' a 25 minute drag-queen-one-man-show, an intensely impressive juggling act, and a hilarious MC from Miama via Sweden etc...
Sunday I saw Anne for a couple of hours and she gave me so many great ideas for things to do from now on in Tampere that I don't think I'll spend anymore time looking for inspiration on what to do! One of these things included going to volunteer somewhere before if you can get turned down for a job for not speaking Finnish, you can't get turned down for volunteering! AHA!
But also, I do feel my Finnish is improving... over the past 2 days at least.
Monday I hung out with Heikki and we went to the bank (fail.), to the post office, to some store with a Swedish name (Clos...) and finally, grocery shopping at a BIG grocery store (first time in Finland)!
[Oh and back to the language school who told me I can join a non-beginning course which I went to today for the first time ever! - But more about that later.]
Then at night I went to my ENSIMMAINEN [first but with : on the 'a'] Finnish class. It moved at a pretty good pace I think because I'd already studied the material we did in class but it was nice to review it in the structure of a class so I wasn't bored at all. Apart from the two Estonian girls in my class, I definitely think I'm near the top of the class. There's one other guy who has studied Finnish before though so maybe behind him but ahead of the others who were just learning:
mä, sä, hän, me, te, he +olla (to be) for the first time.
Then I got home and made a big meal of SEVEN stuffed peppers and a tomato salad - very Romanian. The meat in the peppers was a little bland but it was my first try so I was pretty happy with that!
TODAY I went to my very first daily language course in the morning. This was very very different from the course I had last night. There were about 25-28 people in this class (vs. 15-16). Most of them had been in Finland 2-4 years and I think they (maybe) understood more than me but their language skills were really limited. Otherwise, the class progressed really slowly because the teacher tries to get everyone involved but I think that's important. I want to keep going to this class (and the other) because I think daily and sometimes 2-times/day will help me improve a lot faster than just one of the courses. I also think that since both teachers speak Finnish all the time, I'll get more used to it and eventually start understanding more too.
THEN after class, I had a nightmare of a time at the bank but here it is in point form:
- take a number and wait... (times are cumulative)
- 20 minutes and I'm no closer to being helped.
- 22 minutes and the numbers finally start being called.
- 25 minutes and I go in.
- 27 minutes and I'm out with my new VISA ELECTRON BANK CARD!
"Go use it" the woman at the bank says.
- 28 minutes I put my card in the machine...
... 28.3 minutes, my card has been eaten.
... 29 minutes, ask a lady if she speaks English (she doesn't)
... 30 minutes, we go up to the info desk together and she explains in Finnish that the machine ate my card.
- 30.5 minutes, the woman hands me ANOTHER number to wait in the queue.
- 30.75 minutes I complain that I've already waited.
- 31 minutes, there's only one woman in front of you, she says.
- 41 minutes, still waiting.
- 42 minutes, get called in.
- 43 minutes, the bank woman goes to get the card.
- 53 minutes, she comes back and says "I couldn't find it so I have to call someone who can always find it... if you can wait awhile..."
- 60 minutes.... "the card has disappeared. We have to order you a new one."
- 61 minutes: "can I take out some money now?" She says: "You have to go to the teller to do that." "No offense but I've been waiting an hour..." "Okay, okay, we'll do it here." (And thank God for that because in Germany I FOR SURE would've been sent back to the teller because that's PROTOCOL.)
Went home and ate lunch. FASCINATING !
Studied for the GMAT for over an hour.
Juha picked me up and took me to TYY (Tampere University of Technology) where Heikki was teaching an acrobatics class from 4-6pm. Class was really fun but I am now tired. BUT I do realize I one can be IN and OUT of shape but one can also become IN or OUT of shape... so I'm hoping to make the leap back to "into." [That means I want to improve haha.] And also look for ways to maybe get into the Tampere gymnastics scene... but one step at a time. [Oh! And this class was good practice for my Finnish because I learn little words, one at a time, and you hear them repeated over the course of the two hours.]
SOOOO in summary, I now finally have a weekly schedule:
Monday - Friday: 9am - 11:30am (Morning Finnish Class)
Monday AND Thursday 6:30pm - 8pm (Evening Finnish Class)
Tuesday: 4pm-6pm (Acrobatics class - if they keep me)!
That's about it for now. I'll do my best to update again ASAP but I also need to catch up on my GMAT studying. =O
SO - where to begin?
Since I left off with the language school POSSIBILITY, I went there the next day and they told me to come back Monday after 2:30pm. So yes, that was a crap morning because I had to walk all the way back home and nap off the disappointment for 2 hours. But in the afternoon, I finally checked out this awesome doughnut (is that really how you spell it?) place with my friend Nina so the day did look up at the end!
Friday... what happened on Friday??... I can't remember...Ah yes! I wrote motivation letters and probably went grocery shopping...or something along those lines.
Saturday Juha and I hung out in our apartment for several consecutive hours during one morning - so yes, that was pretty exciting (this hasn't really ever happened before)! We tidied up and I even started my online drawing course. I drew some lines and shapes and a duck and a cow so far! It's actually really motivating to be able to draw and recognize the animal so I'm pretty pumped about that. Maybe I'll upload some pictures of that once I can upload pictures...
Matti and Anne then came and saw our place for the FIRST TIME EVER (Juha's brother and his girlfriend)! We are also now the proud owners of a Nepalese sleeping bag so we can better accommodate Veera, Essi, Xevi and Jose once they come in February! Rushed off to Juha's mom for "lunch" (a few hours late), and hung around there playing Yatzee and Penguin Party before going to see our friend Heikki (re: FB status: He tricks like a champ.) perform in a circus show.
The circus itself was like no other circus I've ever been too because it was on a stage BUT the acts themselves were very impressive (almost all of them). The act we went to see was by Team Unito, which I finally got to meet that day! They tricked for about 6 minutes (a hard feat)!!
Btw, tricking is a mix of gymnastics, martial arts, break dancing?, acrobatics ... it's basically awesomeness all around. Sadly I was a little to short to see everything going on at stage all at once but everyone I knew there had the same problem so I was not alone.
Other acts included pole-dancing 'acrobatics,' a 25 minute drag-queen-one-man-show, an intensely impressive juggling act, and a hilarious MC from Miama via Sweden etc...
Sunday I saw Anne for a couple of hours and she gave me so many great ideas for things to do from now on in Tampere that I don't think I'll spend anymore time looking for inspiration on what to do! One of these things included going to volunteer somewhere before if you can get turned down for a job for not speaking Finnish, you can't get turned down for volunteering! AHA!
But also, I do feel my Finnish is improving... over the past 2 days at least.
Monday I hung out with Heikki and we went to the bank (fail.), to the post office, to some store with a Swedish name (Clos...) and finally, grocery shopping at a BIG grocery store (first time in Finland)!
[Oh and back to the language school who told me I can join a non-beginning course which I went to today for the first time ever! - But more about that later.]
Then at night I went to my ENSIMMAINEN [first but with : on the 'a'] Finnish class. It moved at a pretty good pace I think because I'd already studied the material we did in class but it was nice to review it in the structure of a class so I wasn't bored at all. Apart from the two Estonian girls in my class, I definitely think I'm near the top of the class. There's one other guy who has studied Finnish before though so maybe behind him but ahead of the others who were just learning:
mä, sä, hän, me, te, he +olla (to be) for the first time.
Then I got home and made a big meal of SEVEN stuffed peppers and a tomato salad - very Romanian. The meat in the peppers was a little bland but it was my first try so I was pretty happy with that!
TODAY I went to my very first daily language course in the morning. This was very very different from the course I had last night. There were about 25-28 people in this class (vs. 15-16). Most of them had been in Finland 2-4 years and I think they (maybe) understood more than me but their language skills were really limited. Otherwise, the class progressed really slowly because the teacher tries to get everyone involved but I think that's important. I want to keep going to this class (and the other) because I think daily and sometimes 2-times/day will help me improve a lot faster than just one of the courses. I also think that since both teachers speak Finnish all the time, I'll get more used to it and eventually start understanding more too.
THEN after class, I had a nightmare of a time at the bank but here it is in point form:
- take a number and wait... (times are cumulative)
- 20 minutes and I'm no closer to being helped.
- 22 minutes and the numbers finally start being called.
- 25 minutes and I go in.
- 27 minutes and I'm out with my new VISA ELECTRON BANK CARD!
"Go use it" the woman at the bank says.
- 28 minutes I put my card in the machine...
... 28.3 minutes, my card has been eaten.
... 29 minutes, ask a lady if she speaks English (she doesn't)
... 30 minutes, we go up to the info desk together and she explains in Finnish that the machine ate my card.
- 30.5 minutes, the woman hands me ANOTHER number to wait in the queue.
- 30.75 minutes I complain that I've already waited.
- 31 minutes, there's only one woman in front of you, she says.
- 41 minutes, still waiting.
- 42 minutes, get called in.
- 43 minutes, the bank woman goes to get the card.
- 53 minutes, she comes back and says "I couldn't find it so I have to call someone who can always find it... if you can wait awhile..."
- 60 minutes.... "the card has disappeared. We have to order you a new one."
- 61 minutes: "can I take out some money now?" She says: "You have to go to the teller to do that." "No offense but I've been waiting an hour..." "Okay, okay, we'll do it here." (And thank God for that because in Germany I FOR SURE would've been sent back to the teller because that's PROTOCOL.)
Went home and ate lunch. FASCINATING !
Studied for the GMAT for over an hour.
Juha picked me up and took me to TYY (Tampere University of Technology) where Heikki was teaching an acrobatics class from 4-6pm. Class was really fun but I am now tired. BUT I do realize I one can be IN and OUT of shape but one can also become IN or OUT of shape... so I'm hoping to make the leap back to "into." [That means I want to improve haha.] And also look for ways to maybe get into the Tampere gymnastics scene... but one step at a time. [Oh! And this class was good practice for my Finnish because I learn little words, one at a time, and you hear them repeated over the course of the two hours.]
SOOOO in summary, I now finally have a weekly schedule:
Monday - Friday: 9am - 11:30am (Morning Finnish Class)
Monday AND Thursday 6:30pm - 8pm (Evening Finnish Class)
Tuesday: 4pm-6pm (Acrobatics class - if they keep me)!
That's about it for now. I'll do my best to update again ASAP but I also need to catch up on my GMAT studying. =O
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Bank Card Pin! [More of a visual post]
In other news, I received my first letter EVER in Finland. 
I was so relieved to open the envelope and find all the information clearly listed within. [I used a translator.]
The top is in Finnish, the bottom is in Swedish.
Word of the day is tiskinpesukone - dishwasher.
I was so relieved to open the envelope and find all the information clearly listed within. [I used a translator.]The top is in Finnish, the bottom is in Swedish.
Word of the day is tiskinpesukone - dishwasher.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Winter Wonderland.
It's official, I now live in a winter wonderland. As of around 23:25 last night, as my delayed flight touched down, life feels very surreal.
It was snowing buckets - I mean in the sense that film crews had to be in the clouds sprinkling huge snowflakes down from the sky as I ran around trying to figure out where Juha was waiting with the car (his flight was less delayed than mine).
I'm completely at a loss for where to begin this post. So far, I've unpacked most of my stuff but don't have enough furniture to say I put it all in its place. I went to the bank and opened an account. The woman asked if I was studying here and I said not yet. So she said: so you're doing nothing. And I politely replied: well nothing official yet I suppose.
Later she asked me where I was applying to school and I told her. Later I realized that it's the first day back to work after the holidays so it was nice to see every out and about around town.
I tried getting a SIM card with a plan but was told I need Finnish ID issued by the police to get a place so... I think I have to go to the maistraati to register as an inhabitant of Tampere but even then, I'm not sure they'll randomly issue me an ID just because I need a phone. If that doesn't work, I'll have to get a prepaid phone... which I'm trying my best to avoid because 7 months of prepaid phones in Germany was 7 months too much!
My list of things to do is an entire page long. I don't mean point form in only the left margin. I mean a full page with spaces filled in inbetween. Some things are more pressing than others but I found it easier to focus on what was directly in front of me. I guess it also helps that I have an extra 7 hours if I'm comparing anything to Canada so my Canadian-related day doesn't really need to start until about 4pm or so.
Left on the list of things to do today is eat lunch, go grocery shopping, go pot and pan shopping and other household items shopping. I put on some music while unpacking to befriend the space... as random as that sounds, but it was especially because we don't have enough light in the apartment and need more lamps! And if I don't get a chance to go today before it gets dark, I'll go photograph the city and building surroundings tomorrow. There is a ton of snow here and it looks lovely! But the apartment will have to wait until it is clean before it can be photographed.
I was sitting on the plane yesterday fidgetting like crazy. 2 minutes would go by in what felt like half an hour. Copenhagen airport was unimpressive but alright. I took a picture or 2 of this long corridor that connects the different gates: A, B, C etc...
Everything is great so far but I'm at a loss for words because it doesn't feel like anything is out of the ordinary but my brain tells me I should be freaking out but all is well! Somehow the distance doesn't feel so big and it's really nice semi-knowing my way around town.
I'm looking forward to having more to say soon.
Finnish word of the day is free - as in complimentary- velotuksetta... and if that's wrong, then shame on me for messing up the word of the day!
It was snowing buckets - I mean in the sense that film crews had to be in the clouds sprinkling huge snowflakes down from the sky as I ran around trying to figure out where Juha was waiting with the car (his flight was less delayed than mine).
I'm completely at a loss for where to begin this post. So far, I've unpacked most of my stuff but don't have enough furniture to say I put it all in its place. I went to the bank and opened an account. The woman asked if I was studying here and I said not yet. So she said: so you're doing nothing. And I politely replied: well nothing official yet I suppose.
Later she asked me where I was applying to school and I told her. Later I realized that it's the first day back to work after the holidays so it was nice to see every out and about around town.
I tried getting a SIM card with a plan but was told I need Finnish ID issued by the police to get a place so... I think I have to go to the maistraati to register as an inhabitant of Tampere but even then, I'm not sure they'll randomly issue me an ID just because I need a phone. If that doesn't work, I'll have to get a prepaid phone... which I'm trying my best to avoid because 7 months of prepaid phones in Germany was 7 months too much!
My list of things to do is an entire page long. I don't mean point form in only the left margin. I mean a full page with spaces filled in inbetween. Some things are more pressing than others but I found it easier to focus on what was directly in front of me. I guess it also helps that I have an extra 7 hours if I'm comparing anything to Canada so my Canadian-related day doesn't really need to start until about 4pm or so.
Left on the list of things to do today is eat lunch, go grocery shopping, go pot and pan shopping and other household items shopping. I put on some music while unpacking to befriend the space... as random as that sounds, but it was especially because we don't have enough light in the apartment and need more lamps! And if I don't get a chance to go today before it gets dark, I'll go photograph the city and building surroundings tomorrow. There is a ton of snow here and it looks lovely! But the apartment will have to wait until it is clean before it can be photographed.
I was sitting on the plane yesterday fidgetting like crazy. 2 minutes would go by in what felt like half an hour. Copenhagen airport was unimpressive but alright. I took a picture or 2 of this long corridor that connects the different gates: A, B, C etc...
Everything is great so far but I'm at a loss for words because it doesn't feel like anything is out of the ordinary but my brain tells me I should be freaking out but all is well! Somehow the distance doesn't feel so big and it's really nice semi-knowing my way around town.
I'm looking forward to having more to say soon.
Finnish word of the day is free - as in complimentary- velotuksetta... and if that's wrong, then shame on me for messing up the word of the day!
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