Narration.

It's funny... I realized today that as I go through each day and events occur to me, I narrate them in my head as if life were a book. I'm not going to compare my life to a movie nor a TV series, because let's face it, people wouldn't stay tuned in for very long, but I think inside my head there might just be a book hanging out in there somewhere. So after being awake for 8 hours today, this is what I've composed so far...


I woke up at 9am this morning, a little groggy but nothing too serious. I started my morning routine much like any other day: bathroom, make coffee, stir yogurt, check Facebook, etc. Juha got up at the same time and started his own routine: bathroom, check Aamulehti [lit. translation is Morning Paper], drink coffee, eat breakfast, etc. He looked up from his computer at one point to announce that today is supposed to be slippery. Instinctively I told him to drive carefully.

My morning was a little boring but that boredom was necessary to complete some university applications. I had to write something called a degree supplement... basically, European schools are supposed to write this for you so you can send it to schools you apply to after you graduate. Since McGill is not a European school, I had to write my own and ask someone to sign and stamp it. The purpose of the whole thing is to describe the context of the education system in your country and the nature of the degree, program, its structure... etc. I thought it would take me the entire day but it turns out, it wasn't so hard. It just involved some copy+pasting from the McGill website and some linking information. I even found an awesome chart for the Canadian Education system that made me really happy! Click here to see this magical chart which won't actually impress you much.

After finishing the supplement, eating lunch, watching an episode of Secret Diary of a Call Girl, eating a snack and studying some Finnish, I headed to the university to print off all my application documents and photocopy my passport. Just as I was walking down this little hill on my way, I thought about how I haven't updated my blog. As if by pure coincidence, at that very moment I find myself sliding down this aforementioned hill smack on my butt and I can actually feel the wetness through my pants. Last time I fell, I felt embarrassed. This time I just felt annoyed. I brushed all the snow I could feel off and headed along. So much for driving carefully - try walking carefully when a thin layer of snow covers huge ice patches formed by the recent BLAH weather. This brings me to a new point about Finnish weather, after all the beautiful snow has installed itself all over the city, it has to go somewhere when the weather gets warmer. Since the sewage system can only take so much, once we start dancing around the zero degree mark, we also have to start dancing around pond-sized puddles and deep slush. This exercise and bit of extra caution tends to put people in a bad mood. Understandably since I don't think anyone likes to have their feet wet.

I made it to the university unscathed by any more ice patches, met Juha, printed all my documents and turned them in at the near-by post office. It feels SO good to finally have three-quarters of my applications handed in! Of course, I still need to provide them with proof that I did actually graduate, but I won't be getting my diploma until June 2nd anyway so no point worrying about that. What I am worrying about is my progress in Finnish. I've been learning a ton of words lately but honestly, who wants to discuss how wide, narrow, fat, skinny, long, short, etc, etc, a book, person or day can be? How about food in general? [as if I don't do that enough] Or even the weather... yes, I now am armed with at least a dozen adjectives that relate to weather, seasons and more! So yeah, I learned all those words and many more, but I don't really have active use for them at the moment. I could write some stuff on here but that would involve BEARING my soul to you all AND boring you to death. So for now, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.

Fell on my butt.

The title says it all. Today, while walking home from class, I slipped and fell on my butt. And the most surprising thing, is that I think no one saw... well that's the second most surprising thing. The actual most surprising thing is that it took me 23 days of living in Finland until I actually fell on my butt. It's quite common here, especially if your boots have no grip. Anyway, I walked away laughing and for some strange reason, felt the need to tell this to this internet.

I made some friends in class today! One is named Donna and she's from Louisiana. The other is named Rabia and she's from Turkey but she's leaving for Curacao next week so she might be gone a few months. Her husband is being sent there for a job for 10 months. Donna and Rabia used to do a salsa class together but now that Rabia is leaving, Donna doesn't want to do it alone. I suggested going with her because it's not too expensive and I actually really wanted to try dancing somewhere. So I'll see how that goes. I think we missed the sign up deadline but the teacher used to attend our language school so maybe some strings can be pulled.

I FINALLY finished reviewing [most] of the material for the GMAT and now it's just down to a million practice questions before starting the full-length practices... which is gonna suck, as each exam lasts about 4 hours. I'm looking forward to noon on February 17th.

Anne and I made some AMAZING [and by we, I mean Anne] food this weekend! I was too full to each as much as I actually wanted to consume [all in sight]. But I am planning on making it again soon...
The food I've been making for myself lately include [this is more for my mom haha <3.]:
- Fried rice
- Tacos! [baha.]
- Tomato Salad
- Stuffed Peppers
- Cookies!
- Pasta with pesto and feta [an old classic]
...
It doesn't seem like much yet but I'm trying to find some things that are easy to make and will bring variety to my meals.

Meanwhile, I've put my drawing on the back burner for now. Gah! Between Finnish classes every day or twice a day [I have 7 classes every Mon-Fri] and GMAT studying and coffee dates, my robotic cow has been neglected.
I'll post pictures once they're ready/post-able.