A few days of Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone!

I managed to haul much crap that are my material possessions over to my parent's house in Saarijärvi (a quiet 10,000 people town in central Finland) earlier this week. Now I'm staying here until I hop on that plane and soar over to London. Time to relax, take a breather, go on quiet walks in the nature (if no snow appears) and watch actual TV. (And be bored.)

We (mom & dad & I) had a very traditional Finnish Christmas. When I was younger I thought Christmas was pointless; it was just another day spent at home without the option to go out and see friends because they're all stuck at home too with their families. Oh, have I grown since then! It took me moving away from home to live on my own to learn to appreciate this holiday. It also helped when I started liking Christmas food. Sure, I've liked ham but didn't care too much for the casserole dishes (carrot, potato and swede). Now I was craving Christmas dinner for weeks! In addition to the food mentioned before we also had smoked salmon, cold smoked salmon tartare, rainbow trout roe and herring rolls. And the best gravy in the world! Made from the pig fat from the ham. Simple but oh so damn lovely! And of course the lovely Finnish Christmas bread - "joululimppu". Store bought, obviously, although that url will take you to a recipe. Only things we prepared ourselves were the potato casserole, herring rolls, cold smoked salmon tartare, smoked salmon, ham (which set the smoke alarm off, twice. No fire brigade was needed so no biggie!) and the gravy. And mom made mustard like every year. It's soooo good with the ham!

Omnomnomnom!

Not to mention gingerbread cookies, crackers and grapes with a cheese platter for "dessert" accompanied by Scandinavian mulled wine. Blue cheese is pretty much the only thing gingerbread is good with (apart from an android phone). I'm a cheese lover, have been since I was a little kid. My taste has since evolved but there were signs that I'd grow up to like cheesy things.

And repeat on Christmas Day! It'll take a few weeks to slim back down to my usual size...

Presents were pretty much absent this year. Dad tranferred some money to my account and I got them a DVD. I also got one gift in the mail from Maria, it turned out to be a tube scarf she knitted herself. Thank you! My one present was placed next to a plastic flower that almost looks like a poinsettia! There's really no room for an actual christmas tree here.

Everyone have a sparkling New Year's Eve! I'll be spending the night at work feeding the hungry drunken folk. I have 28 days until take-off and only 6 more shifts at work!

Don't do today what you can leave for tomorrow

Procrastination is what I do best. Everything in my life gets done in the very last panic of "this needs to be taken care of yesterday!"

I have to clear out my apartment on Monday. I sincerely intended to start packing today but watching Criminal Minds just seems much more important right now. Then I'll crash at my parents' for a month before boarding the plane! I've gotten rid of my bed and my bedside table mainly because I had friends come over and take them with them. So now I'm camping on my floor sleeping on a mattress and every knickknack that was piled on the table is now all over my floor. This is pretty much the state I'm currently in:

No worries, I have until Monday!


On another note: almost all paperwork is now done! Almost all school work is also now done! There's one essay still waiting to be written. I even bought a travel insurance and figured out how to handle money stuffs. So I've actually done lots. I still need to get a new passport and fill out a form for KELA and some summer school papers but then all official stuff will be taken care of. These can wait until January.

On Monday I'm leaving Jyväskylä behind and then I'll just kick back and enjoy Christmas. I will not spare one fraction of a thought to any learning diaries, essays or exams for at least seven months! I'll be working over New Years which is a bit of a bummer but it is what it is. I'll save some party-energy for next year then!

I've also had "Yay, I'm leaving" (or "Go away!") dinners with my friends; last Saturday I went out with a bunch of people and yesterday with two friends from elementary, middle and high school. Both times were much fun and the food was good! So I've kinda said goodbye to people already.

A lot of people have asked me if I'm nervous or getting scared. I'm not. Of course I'm excited but I'm not stressed or worried. Things work out, they always do. No, I don't have a room yet and I probably won't even find one before I'm already in the country but I can't worry about it now, I don't even know how to. I'll find a place eventually, until then I'll just have to make do.

But home is nowhere

Things are still pretty much how they were a month ago. Except that I have the Practical Training Agreement ready and mailed. I've been waiting for it to get back to me for two weeks now but day after day the mail man disappoints me. I also have all the other documents ready to go, I'll just need the Practical Training Agreement as an attachment to those before I can give them to the international office people. I also booked a flight for Thursday 26th of January. Well excited!

Finding a reasonable flight turned out to be much more difficult than I originally thought. Oh, and can you imagine that flying with Finnair would have cost almost 900€! That's insane! Finally I found a good flight with British Airways for a bit less than 90€. I still have to pay for an extra bag but I think I'll just do that in the airport. It would be 6€ cheaper to pay for it online but since my other bag is so humongous I'd rather check it in person. The info on the website about extra bags and size restrictions was way too confusing for me.

Finding a place to live has proven to be quite difficult. So far pretty much everyone is advertising rooms that are available NOW or next week or something, nothing for January just yet. I've also tried to suggest Skype chats to people instead of me going over for a viewing but no luck yet.

Have you ever

I'm pretty much a day dreamer type of a person. I have all these ideas and projects forming in my head all the time but most of them never even get started and the ones that do I never finish. I get really excited about new things in my life in a spur of the moment and then get bored with them just as quickly. So naturally I've spent a lot of time coming up with fun things to do when I live in London, even going so far as doing some research on some of them! That's unusual.

Things I'll (maybe...) do when I live in London:

Start boxing! I need excercise and I believe boxing would be fun and much more motivating than simply wheightlifting and running. I'm kinda bottom heavy and have strong legs and now I need to balance things out by buffing up my top half. And what better way than boxing! There's a pretty good (observation based on website) gym near to where I'll be working.

Get more into football! I like football, I really do. I just rarely bother to watch the games or keep track of what's going on. I'll make an effort during European Championships and the World Cup but that's it. I wish I could be bothered with other leagues as well.

Live music! Go to gigs! Of all shapes and sizes. This is the music capital of the world we're talking about. Or close enough.

Go to stand-up clubs! Ooooh, I'm probably most excited about the superb quality of British stand-up comedy and I get to witness it!

Go to see musicals! I'm a big musical fan (no, really. I can't even watch musical episodes of otherwise normal shows without turning into a sobbing fool) and the productions in London are amazing!

Of course I've also thought about my life in general but that's hardly worth mentioning here. I also have some vague plans about traveling a bit and whatever.

Any other suggestions? I'm open to all ideas. If you know about some exceptionally fun activities in the London area, I'll be happy to hear about them.

Taking care of business

These are the practical thingies that I need to do before I board the plane.This listing is more for me to remember and maybe you to check through if you're thinking about interning abroad. For the rest of you this post might not be very interesting to read.

Paperwork: There's the Practical Training Agreement, Training Agreement and Quality Commitment for Erasmus student placements, (rest are quite freely translated) another Erasmus training agreement, scholarship application for practical training completed abroad, certificate of semester abroad, proof of summer studies for KELA (the government office that gives me money for being in school) and another form for KELA letting them know I'll be spending a semester abroad. That's seven documents that I need to write and fill out before the end of the year at the very latest. I'm going to try to get them ready in a month so there's enough time for them to be processed.

Apartment (FIN): I was battling between terminating my lease and moving out completely and leasing my room furnished for 6 months to ensure I have a place to come back to if I need it. I decided to move out. At the end of December I'll be moving to my parent's house for a few weeks before taking off to London town. Before that I'll need to go through all my belongings, treasures and trinkets and haul most of it to a second hand shop, give away to friends or strangers or throw out. Things need to be get rid of. And that's a bigger job than you'd imagine. Going through my clothes alone will take longer than life. And I also need to decide what to do with all my furniture. Most of them are giveaways anyway so I can pass them on or leave them here if roomies need them but things such as my bed and some shelves that I'd like to keep will need a temporary home.

Apartment (UK): I'll need a roof over my head in my new location. I hear it rains a lot and four walls and a ceiling would probably do the best job at keeping me dry. I'll need to buy an umbrella too. I've been browsing gumtree and posted an ad on finn-guild's forum (Finnish-British organization) but it seems that I probably won't find a place for January until December. The ones that are being advertised now are free from the end of this month or from the beginning of November.

Shopping: I don't need too much (just somebody to loooove), only some bigger things like a new laptop. Well, want would be more accurate as this one is still working. But I want a smaller and lighter one that'd be easier to carry around. This one is also starting to slow down a bit but that could probably be fixed by installing Windows 7 on it. I don't care, I want a new one and it will be cuter. I'm also considering getting a smart phone to make it easier to document and organize my life. I used to think I'd never miss having one if I never get used to it but now it's just been one too many times that I've had to curse having a regular phone. If any of you have any suggestions for either, I'll be happy to hear them! I have one restriction for the phone though; it can't be sim-locked as I won't be using it with my Finnish plan. And the umbrella I already mentioned.

Bills and Memberships: Electricity and Internet bills need to be switched to my roomie's name. I also need to terminate my gym membership. I hope all goes smoothly as the Internet plan and my gym membership are fixed-term contracts.

Insurances: I'll need a travel insurance, obviously. Also getting a European Health Insurance Card could be a good idea even though travel insurance also covers health issues. The European blah blah is anyway free of charge so might as well. I'll need to look more into all of this with someone who actually understands something about insurances.

Plane tickets: Pretty obvious. I'm not in a rush with these since there's always cheap flights going to London. Also depends on when I'll have a place to go to. I'll try to rent from mid-Jan. so I'd have a couple of weeks to ride on the tube before I start work. It's a bit bigger a city than what I'm used to so getting around might be a bit more complicated and needs to be rehearsed before I have any actual responsibilites. I'll also need to find out how much luggage those cheap flights allow me to carry and how much extra bags cost.

NI number and other shit: I haven't yet had time to find out about all these British social security things, if I need them or not and if I should get it done even if I don't absolutely need it. I'll find this out soonish. I anyway can't really do anything about it until I'm in the country.


Now I'm going to call it a night and stard reading 100 facts about pandas. Or Book of General Ignorance. Listening to 75 boy band songs everyone should listen to before they die.

Wknd of leisure

It's contact free week now, fall break if you will. I don't actually get a whole week off but I had a full weekend of fun. I went to visit my friend Maria in Porvoo and took my mind off all of this school/interning chaos.

Friday was awesome! We went to Britney's show, both of us old school Britney fans. Crossed that off my bucket list! It was great, really. I've read quite a few reviews where they criticized her performing playback. Of course she's gonna use playback! That's what she's always done and always will. Going to her show and expecting live music and live singing is just delusional and stupid. She always sings little bits live and has the playback supporting her and that was the case now too.

SOON! At this point we were shaking of anticipation

It was a show, I'll say that. There were exceptional dancers, costume changes, elaborate props and everything. One thing I was a bit disappointed with was her dancing; it was a bit lazy and unfocused. Otherwise it was exactly what anyone could have expected, if they'd actually ever paid any attention to how her shows are constructed. After the show we headed back to Porvoo and stopped at a locad Irish pub for a drink. There was an Oktoberfest weekend going on, people were dressed up and singing German drinking songs (or so I suspect, I didn't understand any of it). Fun night.

On Saturday we went shopping. I had no money to spend but I made myself useful as a consultant when Maria was trying on clothes. We also stopped for a coffee and cake. I had ana amazing and amazingly huge slice of Tiramisu. Then we took the doggy for a walk, had an awesome meal and started getting ready for the night. She had Singstar she'd never played before so we took advantage of that and practiced for our future pop-stardom.

On the left: Our dinner - karelian hot pot and yellow turnip mash. On the right: Tiramisu in the front, After Eight cake and quark cake in the back.

Maria's cutesy giant shetland sheepdog Tito ready to conquer the fields of their back yard

After we started losing our voices we transferred our presence to a local nightclub. It's been ages since I've been to a proper dance club. The one I always go to is more indie/rock kind of a place with a dancefloor. I didn't really recognize many of the songs until at the end of the night when the DJ played some old school hiphop. That was so fun! We were sweating like little piggies after bouncing around like idiots for the duration of maybe seven songs.

Sunday was relaxing day. We watched the newest episodes of Gossip Girl and Fresh Meat, ate some chips and just lounged on the couch until I had to leave to catch my ride back to JKL.

Now it's time to get back to my life of filling out loads of paperwork.

Why?

In many ways I had the best and the suckiest Monday of my life this week. Ok, maybe not that many but who's counting. One, actually. I got two internship offers from two equally attractive companies; the other in fabulous NYC and the other in trendy London. How to choose? I hate choosing between two good options. I'm shit at it, it sucks balls and I never know how I can be sure I've made the right choice. I want to do everything and please everyone (well, everyone who matters).

After applying rational thinking I figured that in the long run I'd probably benefit more from interning in London just because I'll probably score a lot easier on the job hunt if it wasn't so damn difficult to hire me, as it would be in the US with all the visa hassle. And yes, one of the objectives of my internship is to get my foot between the door that is now in between me and my career. Sure, I'd have more experience, a reference letter and a bit longer CV after 6 months in NYC but none of the contacts I may get in London. The job itself also seemed a bit more versatile, so there.

So that's my reasoning for going to London. The main argument for going to NYC was that this might be the last chance I get to live in the States while moving to England will always be possible for a European citizen. Oh, well. I get to visit. And in the event of extreme want-need-demand I can always get hitched for a couple of years and get permanent residency.

And if any of you dare to comment that I probably made the wrong choice, I will put a curse on you! I've watched Buffy, I know how it's done.

London Calling

Sorry about the cheese in the headline, but that is exactly what this post is about. And what this blog is about.

I just secured an internship located in lovely London and I'm very much pumped up about it! I've been planning leaving Finland behind and moving my existence to the islands that are the UK ever since I started uni. Actually, I've been planning to get out of Finland ever since I was about 11 years old and I've already tried my wings twice but only temporarily. Which this move might also be, and then it might not. The internship will be 6 months but after that I'll probably try to look for a real job.

I almost got derailed during the application process and was dreaming about completing this part of my studies in NYC but now I'm right back on track and really excited! Not that NYC wouldn't have been absolutely amazing but London suits my long term plans a lot better. Tough choice still. Incredibly tough. If I'd go with my gut feeling, I'd go to NYC but for all the wrong reasons. I have to say, still, that logical reasoning really sucks right now. I think I'll dedicate a whole post to that chaos that went on in my head.

The application process itself couldn't have gone smoother. I sent the application on Saturday night, heard back from the company on Sunday, called them today (Monday) and they said that as far as they're concerned it's a done deal, they'll have me. Made easier by two of my friends from school who are interning there at the moment and have done amazingly making them trust this degree program. Thanks!

I now have about three months to get everything ready, handle all the paperwork and whatnot. So for now my posts will be about preparing. But hey, as the saying goes, well planned is half done!

Now I'm going to quote my all time favorite band Incubus (get used to it, it will happen a lot, I promise):
I've waited all my life. If not now, when will I?

IT'S NOW!