Work hard, play hard

How come all the school work comes in short periods of time when you're first drowning under a massive workload and then you hang out for a week without anything to do, starting to miss activities and routines? That is the most odd phenomenon I've encountered lately, never before has it been this visible. There are some vague bits in between when life is normal but why does the rest have to go to such excessive ends? 

Last week was exam week, aka vacation. From Monday to Wednesday I was more or less surrounded by assignments but then I went home and did nothing. And today, only two days into the second period, I am drowning in work again. Every deadline has been announced so it feels like tons of work, though I managed it last period almost without noticing. Besides, I like almost everything I am studying at the moment, it is just a lot of work. 

Funny, how this same thing is going on in social life in addition to the studies. It seems like there are times when all kinds of new, exciting or scandalous things are happening at once and then there's a long period of nothing, only focusing on studies and your own stuff and nothing special is going on. Maybe it's a good thing, I don't know. But I sure hope that this Thursday will be one of those eventful nights, since it's our Magna Carta's Halloween party! We are supposed to wear something scary and I guess my costume is a bit more sexy than scary but I thought nobody would mind. It's Halloween, after all. Nobody expects us to be decent, physically, mentally or costume-wise.

Now that I've spent the evening being a hard-working university student, I will reward myself with two hours of perfection, The Notebook is on at 9pm. Ah, can't wait!   

Quote of the day

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” 

― Robert Fulghum, True Love

Roses and alcohol

That pretty much sums up the most important events recently. Today has been the first day since I moved to Jyväskylä when I have woken up in the morning and I don't have to go anywhere and I love it. I don't think I could have taken much more of being constantly going somewhere, today has been exactly what I needed. Well, I wrote a five-page paper about state funding versus tuition fees for university for my academic writing class, which took about five hours, but all in all it has been about relaxing. I noticed a funny thing with that assignment, though. I made a list of all the assignments and homework I have to do and I actually did start with the only one that I knew was going to take forever and would totally melt my brain. But this way, I only have stuff tomorrow that will be quickly done. Well done, me.

Okay, so the roses. Last Saturday I was playing piano at the wedding of my brother-in-law-to-be's brother (hahahah still so funny) and it was such a beautiful wedding and I had a blast. Everyone liked my playing and I looked totally stunning, even if I say it myself. I should probably start making a bit more effort on a daily basis as well, especially since I caught the bouquet! This obviously means that I'll find my prince charming from the campus within a year since I heard something about it having to happen within a year from catching the bouquet but that's fine by me. More than fine, actually.

On to the booze. Strongly related to the previous topic, though, even if it might not always be the best idea. On Thursday we had sitsit, which is an academic party where we sit by long tables and drink, sing and eat. In this order, literally. I had a blast, I laughed and sang so much and got to talk to some people I haven't talked with that much yet. During one evening I managed to speak Finnish, English, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Estonian and probably a few other languages. That can speak for itself. Spanish was fun, though, never knew I can actually speak it when I've had a few drinks. So had the other part of the conversation, though, so I don't really know if it made any sense after all. 

I ended up going to sleep at 3.30 am setting the alarm to wake me up three hours later so I wouldn't miss my information and communication technology-lesson and I woke up pretty sure I hadn't really slept at all and was still a bit drunk. However, image processing and power point presentations were not too hard (neither a good enough reason to get up, to be exact, but it's a little too late for that) and after two other lessons I got to hang out with my mom who came to visit me. Funny, how when I go home it is still my home but when she comes to my place, she's a visitor. Never really thought of that before.

Anyway, sitsit was such a fantastic experience we'll do it again next Thursday. Almost my entire family will come visit the following day so I gotta try to get a little bit more sleep than the first time. But, what can you do when you are out there having fun, singing karaoke, gaining student life experiences and bonding with your new friends, go to sleep? Hell no.

Always, always, always read the manual first

The last thing I needed today was a kitchen disaster. Well, apparently I trust my technological skills way too much since I thought I will manage the use of a blender without reading the manual first. Boy, how wrong was I. 

I started happily adding my ingredients; a little yoghurt, some berries, apple jam, nettle seeds... Then I turned the blender on and everything was fine for a while. However, seconds into my attempt to make smoothie, I noticed a pink stream of my special mix flooding to the table. What made an even bigger mess, though, was trying to clean it up since it took quite a while to find the source of the smoothie bleeding. There was yummy pink stuff everywhere.

So, what happened was that I hadn't made sure that all the parts were tightly in their place, which made the smoothie start leaking through the machine. After cleaning up the mess and carefully testing a new round, I managed to finish it (20 minutes later than I thought it would take). As I thought that now it's over, finally, I found out that to my great delight, the blender cup did not fit into my fridge.

And the glass level was stuck so I couldn't put it lower. Probably due to a previous soup disaster where I discovered my fridge full of soup instead of only one can full of soup after the frozen soup had melted. 

I give up. Technology, (or whatever I could call these attempts with machines), you win.
 

 

Daily life

Exactly a year ago my days consisted of sleeping late, choosing a movie to watch, watching it and repeating that a few times. It seems like it was forever ago, but it has been a year. However, it is hard to believe that it has already been a year. My life has changed so much since that time. There's so much more in it now.

My days now consist of waking up not-so-early but not-very-late, walking or riding a bike to school (3 kilometers), a full day of lectures, sometimes a bit less, taking the trip back home, eating, studying and going to sleep. Of course there are short periods when I watch television or do the laundry or wash the dishes or do sports something else obligatory in order to keep my apartment in order and my mind from exploding. I really do not even have time to do sports. Not an excuse this time, believe me or not.

I am not complaining, though. Yeah I have damned much work to do, far more than I anticipated. Still, this time it feels like I have a purpose in this. I am not just trying to pass time like I felt in Helsinki, I am here for a goal of getting my degree and going to work. Besides, everything that I am studying now is challenging enough but not too hard, which is what motivates me to actually do everything. 

As I am a person who always has to gather some extra activities when I already have a lot on my plate, I have been dealing with two camps and two piano playing gigs + practising alongside this all. The last gig, the final must-do-thing will be soon so I will be free to hmm, I don't know, RELAX for a while. Or take up a new extra-curricular activity to keep me busy until Christmas vacation. 

I have noticed something else, too. I am not so critical of myself anymore. I do not have the attitude towards studies that I have to be the best, I have to do my best. I do not have to try to impress anyone, if something is meant to happen, it will. I do not have to go out if everyone else does, I can decide for myself based on what I really want. Maybe I am growing up.

 

Twenty-something category

Feels weird to have my age start with number 2 instead of 1. This is totally new to me. As a tribute to my life experience so far I decided to write a list of 20 things I have learned during these past three weeks since it is kind of another milestone. Three weeks of university studies feel to have gone incredibly fast.

This list is a perfect description of what we've been doing here.

1. Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!

2. Yesterday's information and communication technology lesson's greatest teaching: the babies and the cats died, the bunny didn't.

3. Subject complemets, object complements, locative complements. Too many of them.

4. I finally learned the grammatical explanation for when accent marks are used in Spanish. The explanation I knew so far was "just because this word has it". Maybe it wasn't just part of high school syllabus.

5. My imagination can be very disturbingly creative under pressure of time limits. Say hi to the inventor of surgical equipment for elves and the Rat Woman.

6. The sight of a full fridge at home is like heaven. I have an entire fridge to myself, so you can imagine how much of its content is filled with food and how much with only the light. 

7.  Taking a selfie with random people without them knowing they're in it until they realize it themselves is a good way to start a conversation.

8. As an English student, some things just simply cannot be expressed in Finnish anymore.

9. History is not as boring as I've always thought.

10. Nothing is more annoying than realizing you have a flat tire in your bike.

11. The campus is filled with attractive guys. Especially the sports building.

12. You may never know how unexpected acquaintances you meet on campus.

13. You'd never have expected a course to start by group discussion on "where can you find computers?" Seriously, come on. We're adults. This is ridiculous.

14. First you have a backpack in primary school, then you refuse to use one in junior high and high school 'cause bags are cool but university makes you see the brilliance of a backpack. I wouldn't survive without one. Mine's super cute, as well.

15. You can go speed friending here. Isn't that awesome? Speed dating minus the goal of dating, that's creative, indeed.

16. We drink wine with our teachers wearing superhero / Hogwarts costumes. How cool is that?

17. I will be spending 6 to 12 months somewhere far. Madrid is my top choice at the moment and probably will continue to be.

18. Being messed up alone is kind of sad, being messed up together only strengthens the friendship.

19. I do not always have to be the one volunteering for everything. These people are so similar that someone is bound to volunteer themselves even before I start considering whether I should or not.

20. I will be damned sophisticated in five years!


 

Information flood has killed my inspiration for titles.

Well, I've lived here in Jyväskylä for a bit over a week now and I've been way too busy to write. I literally haven't had enough hours in a day to do it. So now that it is all starting to calm down, I can write down some thoughts.

Leaving Helsinki was really weird. I didn't quite realize I left for good until a while ago that I started connecting this place to my "home". However, I am happy with the change since this city feels more warm (literally as well since it's been almost +20 these past days) and friendly.

I was so nervous about the first day. Soon I noticed how nice my classmates seemed and I felt so relieved that I had been afraid of stupid things. Now that we've been closely together for a week I can say I have got to know many of them much better and we even have a WhatsApp-group which means I've made friends! I found people who are similar to me so we enjoy spending time with each other.

Last week I basically left at 9am and returned at 9pm and I was entirely exhausted so a weekend of camp activities couldn't have come at a better time. Besides, I got leftover food so I'm covered for this week!

The courses started yesterday with an interesting aspect since my first lesson was in Spanish, next one in English and the last one in Finnish. I received the right to study Spanish as a minor subject, yippee! I had to take a test and almost half of us didn't get it. But well, now that I got it, my year will be spent learning about grammar, language study, academic writing, the history of the English-speaking world, Spanish and pedagogical themes. Seems like I'll be a lot wiser next spring!

Some highlights: we talk in English with each other even with Finnish teachers, which I like a lot! History-teacher is a really sweet Hungarian lady, who managed to keep my interest level up the entire two-hour lecture. I drew a horse and had to write "a horse" next to it to clarify what it is and laughed so much with my new friend. I have cursed the "Brooklyn Bridge" of Kuokkala a hundred times already but I still love my neighborhood with the lake view and the trees.

Now that I've managed to do some laundry as well and have clean clothes to go on with, I will finish this and relax for a while before another exciting day full of learning about the university life and the English-speaking world today, since that is the course I'll be attending tomorrow.

Confusing and not at all organized and structured as I'll be required to write in class. To be continued.