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.

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.