My 90th post...

This blog is catching up to the old German blog and with this post, I will have posted a whooping 90 posts! [The German blog got up to 94 posts in total, none of which are open to the public anymore... sorry - I messed up and put my name in there somewhere.]

So point being, hi August! How have you arrived upon us so quickly?
This summer in Finland has been stupendous! I tutor twice a week for fun and spare change. Otherwise, the remaining 166 hours of my week are spent sleeping, eating ice cream, riding my bike, doing 1000 piece puzzles [or should I say A 1000 piece puzzle... though there are talks of a second being attempted after the first is completed], listening to music, going to the beach and swimming in the lake everyday and basically, living at WokWok part-time [where my friends work and spend most of their waking hours.]...oh and the fact that I spent over 11 hours watching extended editions of all the Lord of the Rings movies should also be mentioned as an activity.

Next Thursday my friend Jackie is flying in from Canada and I'm heading to Helsinki to get her from the airport. Then we have a few free days in and around Tampere to do as we please before we set off on our Scandinavian Adventure: Stockholm, Bergen and Oslo.

Speaking of Helsinki, I haven't heard anything about housing there yet and I'm wondering when/if I should try and find a private apartment for rent [since Helsinki has such reasonable prices of 500e/month for your home sweet 12m2 flats!] But we'll see... I'm supposed to hear back this month. And actually, the first orientation meeting is in the evening on August 25th... so less than 24 days left! Gah.!

Kesäyliopisto - Summer University.

So I'm gonna rewind a bit because it seems I've fallen a little behind. Let us go back, all the way back to June 28th-July 9th. The Summer University course I'd signed up for: Upper Level Intermediate 1 was running during that time. I attended every day that I could, though we were still in China until the 29th.
I have to say - that course was great! It ran from 9am until 1pm, we had a 15 minute coffee break about an hour a half in and that way, we all got to meet and make friends. The morning usually consisted of correcting homework and covering new grammar material... while the post-coffee-break portion of the course was more participative and had us talking in groups, reading and translating texts or playing various games. I learned a great deal, and the best part was, I remembered a lot of it at the end of the 2 weeks. I also got to meet some really cool people and we now have a facebook group so that we can get together and practice.

Now part two of this story is not as hopeful. I signed up for yet another week at the summer university: Upper Intermediate Level 2. Sadly, this class was completely different. We have a new teacher and her "methods" are unknown to the world... talk for 4 hours in Finnish, present Finnish grammar as a grammatical reference guide would, without rules, just blobs of information, no exercises until 2 days later, charts of word types inflected in different cases that we simply copy from the projector. And guess what? I really want my money back... But everyone is on vacation and refunds are not generally commonplace. So I wait.. and see what August and the return of some of the finance/invoice people has in store for me.

With the huge disappointment that was course 2, I have to say, there's a bright side! A lot of my friends are toughing it out through the course [which I can honestly say is extremely admirable.] While I have chosen to enjoy my summer... I think I can benefit more that way and be happier overall! So yesterday Juha and I went Mini golfing with Claudia and Emrah...the boys won :(. And I met Mia for a French lesson thereafter! I've also been tutoring people in English - I have 2 students. I earn a very modest income but HEY - I earn SOMETHING! So that feels pretty good.

This weekend is a getaway weekend! I haven't left Tampere since we got back from China...which I realize is not so long ago, but we're headed up North to Kajaani. Juha's family lives there and has a mökki there [summer cottage.] It will also be the northernmost point I have ever visited!! So I'm bracing myself for an all-Finnish weekend and hope I can keep up to the best of my ability.

And now, I'd like to start posting some China pictures!

Bundle of randomness.

ZOMG. I have lots to update BUT TODAY was a very important day - it still is - because today was the day that Hanken published it's admission decisions. I was really uncertain about how that would go, especially following my last 2 rejections letter. I turned on my computer, checked my email but they hadn't written me yet. I checked my other email, my Facebook, etc... and then noticed a new email. And yes, I GOT IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are two main reasons for all those exclamation marks:
a) I get to stay in Finland, worry-free for 2 years.
b) I didn't have half the prerequisites they specifically asked for but I did have a strong application [I got more adamant about this as time went on haha.] so I'm really happy they didn't just say no because I hadn't taken a few extra marketing courses. [Now I'm just hoping that this wasn't a mistake and that I won't get another email later telling me that I got the wrong email. That is however, highly unlikely.]

In other news, not that I can focus on anything else right now, SUMMER IS HERE! I love summer. And I welcome the sun and the heat... but my brain doesn't function so well in them. I may have to buy a hat or something. I get really dazed. I think I drank over 2 liters of water yesterday and it still wasn't enough. Mind you, I did spend most of yesterday keeping Juha company during work. So I wasn't even actually in the sun!

Last week, Eeva and I had our usual Kokkikerho [cooking club] and cooked up one of my favourite dishes so far: Mediterranean Vegetable Rice Pie - A-M-A-Zing! I can't wait to make that again.

Thursday Mia and I went to Koskenranta and ate an avocado. It wasn't meant to be a picnic or anything, but rather, a sampling of avocado. [She'd never had it before!] We also went to 3 different coffee shops trying to find decaf coffee before finally settling on a decaf cappuccino from Cafe Europa.

Friday was very confusing. I wanted to see an exhibit at TR1 on the Finlayson grounds and asked Kate to come but her phone was dead and things got complicated haha. I ended up at the park with Heikki, who was studying math. Then Mia came and we all spoke Finnish. Then Juha came with some coffee and Batchi Balls [sp?] and we played [more Finnish!]. Needless to say, it was a great day to practice Finnish. After that, Juha and I headed over to that exhibit and later took a walk around Keskustori, where Finland's first McDonald's [25 years old] had burned down that day. Along with it went several +1M euro flats that were newly renovated and situated on top. The street was closed down for hours and I think the area is still taped-off.

Friday evening I had dinner at WokWok with Mia before she left for Italy! Mia's mom also came by! I later finished my dinner at Jonne's with Jonne, Anne and Juha while watching the hockey game. Belarus vs. Finland was pretty slow and uneventful but Finland won 3-0 in the end! We had lots of time to chat and catch-up. Anne had just gotten back from a trip to Prague and Copenhagen.

Saturday was Juha's Birthday!!!! We delivered some flowers in the morning [work-related] and then had most of the day to enjoy without having to worry about work. We lazed around, had lunch at 2h+k [2 huonea ja keittiö - 2 rooms and a kitchen], went for a short walk through the park, went grocery shopping, went to Nina's tuparit [unofficial /house warming], met up with Heikki, met up with Tuomo, ran into Antti, met up with Jonne 2, went to Doris, met up with Jonne 1, went to Tillikka [it was closed], went to Armas, met up with Eeva. Called Pena, went home, fell asleep in random places, woke up, went to bed!

And now I'm burning with impatience to check out what courses and such Hanken has!!

P.S. We bought our tickets to China last night. June 20-29th, Shanghai here we come!