What's up!

So my sister's school started today at eight and mine starts at nine. So I am in my school library at the moment. Just to update you what else has happened to me during this week. On Tuesday I was walking to the cafeteria (it is located in the next building) when I almost lost my balance and I dropped to my knees (I was already inside) . So I hit my knees quite hard to the floor and I was surrounded with teenagers. I have to say that none came to ask me if I was okey. Well I did get up right away. The rest of that day was okey, as I didn't feel any different. Just a little bit tired legs.  In the evening it hit a bit more hard that I had done something that day that my body did not like.

Monday evening when I got the news that my visa has arrived I was very happy for a while. Then when I was in the shower I said to myself, that I think I am getting the flu now. During the night I got the sore throat and during Tuesday I got the runny nose. So while I was doing the balancing act, I was also "ill". I use quotation marks as I do not have a fever and this hasn't stopped from participating in school.

Yesterday we had (well still have) a snowstorm. It has been snowing since yesterday morning with small gaps in between. The roads were cleaned during the day, but it hasn't helped much. So yesterday I spent some time connecting with other students, before driving home. Can you guess where this is leading to ;) I was really careful when I was driving the "big" roads and when I arrived to the small road which is the last leg of the way home, all I was thinking was "stay in the middle of the road, stay in the middle of the road, where is this car trying to take me? I am not in the middle of the road, damn I have to call my brother in law." So yeah I drove off the road. Well I did have two of my wheels on the road and I was able to get off the car so that I was on the road. My speed was so slow that nothing happened to the car. But I can't say that I haven't driven off the road any more. Well I say that it was about the time! I have driven for 7 years now without any accidents (car was stolen from me, but that was not my fault) so I needed to experience something.

One good thing that came of it. Although at first my brother in law did not see it that way. He had to warm up the tractor (see how safely I drive off road... near home, when I know there is a tractor that can pull the car...) and he decided that he will also have to clean up the snow from the yard/parking space/what ev. He also cleaned the road a bit around the house and cleaned the neighbors yard/parking space/what ev. He did say when he came in, that it is snowing so much that he will need to clear the space again tomorrow morning. If he hadn't done so last evening, the tractor might not have been able to clear everything as fast today as it did. I saw a road (when we dropped off my nephew) where the snow was piled next to the road every 10 meters or so. 

I haven't yet found an apartment. I haven't yet asked if the place has one bedroom places available. But I do take suggestions ;) Tickets I do have... This seems to be a very long post, so I will continue later with more information on what I need to do and what I have done already.

Waiting is finally over

I am way too eager and I posted this too early. Sorry. Just a quicky today too. I have school this week and I have the flu so don't have the energy to write much. So basically the wait is over. I have got my visa and I have got my tickets. I will be moving out of Finland on 27 of next month. Wohoo!

I finally got it!

Just a quick note before going to bed. Today I got my approval letter! This means I will be moving in the end of next month. Bit of sad news as well. The apartment I wished to have is not available. I have a back up plan to take a one bedroom apmt instead or  a other bachelor apmt from elsewhere. Damn. I really liked the first  choice.

Whose to blame?

My brother in law was late. My niece was expecting to go swimming with her dad. She was really upset and my sister had to talk with her. My niece was about to be happy again about the swimming, when he busts in and asks (angrily) "well, are you ready to go". When she says that she will not go, he decides that as a punishment they will not be going for two weeks.  (I was upstairs but I could hear it all there.)

So she is feeling even worse now and storms to her own room. I can hear him swearing the he came back for nothing. Well he is still downstairs and she is crying in her own bed. My sister is talking with her to calm her down. Then a bit later she comes out of still a bit murky. He then shouts if my niece would like to go skating with him. Well she says no (she has still hurt feelings) And then he starts to yell and leaves slamming(!) the door. Then I watch from window how he drivers angrily away. She returns back to bed and starts crying.

After she calms down, she wants to call to her dad and apologies. I didn't hear it but my sister told me that he did not apologizes his behavior, but forgave my niece. She has done a card as well... I really hope that he will feel really bad about his behavior... Just have to point out that I do not have children so I do not know if this is normal behavior. I just felt so sorry for my niece and so annoyed that my brother in law is such a child! She is 6 years old, so what is his excuse??

More papers to fill

Today about 30 mins ago, I received an email from Allianssi. What-a-ya-know I will need to fill up another paper and send it in normal mail to Sweden. Right. So I will have to wait for few days for the letter to get there :( Oh, man. So I do not think I will be receiving my Visa in this month. But I am happy that at least this is a step forward.

I am trying to think that there is a purpose for me waiting for this long. One can only hope. But back to the paper I have to fill. It is about family. I have to list my family members and their birthdays, address and occupation. Well how am I supposed to know all that stuff! I know my sisters and my dad's. I am not so sure about my mother and brother. I think that was the most difficult paper that I had to fill up.

I am also lucky that it was just this one thing and not many papers. But know I will wait till tomorrow that I will be able to take the letter to the post office.

Useful information

I have been checking out the day passes and weekly passes in the Toronto area. I still think I will get a car, but I think that it will be very useful to know about the public transportation as well. I do not see myself driving in the city center. 

Anyway, I saw that the day pass is about $10.75, which is not that bad. Just need to really be in the need of it. The one time fee is $3 which with the current exchange rate is pretty much the same as here. Well without the exchange rate can wary quite a bit for that to change as there are different prices in different cities. I think that the current one in Helsinki area at the moment is under 3€ (2,5-2,75). 

I also saw that there should be Ikea and Wal-Mart quite near by, within 5 km radious. Not going to be carrying lots of stuff in my hands at first, so I will be renting a car as soon as possible. Might even rent it for the first few days. Then I think I will be checking out where can I buy or lease a car. It should not be too hard as there are quite a lot students in Toronto area. So there should be some selling as they are moving out and a year from now there should be some moving in and looking for a car.

I have my internet connection chosen, ready for me to have an address where to order it. I will also have my phone line from the same company. I am so going to be missing Finland in a sense that I already have had two appartments where there was free internet. Also I have used a cable + mobile stick with under 30€ per month. Now I see that the price for the phone and internet is going to be at least lil' over $100... (That's about 75-80€.)

Information hunting

Well I already reported that Allianssi informed me that there are some delays. Well I searched the embassy pages to learn more about the delay. Then I run across this interesting information: "Please note that the 2013 IEC initiative has not yet opened for applications. It will open before February 1, 2013, and more information on the online process will be made available on this website. Stay tuned!"

So they have changed the process to be online.  I am not sure what this means for me. All I know that I will have to wait untill the initiative opens to get my visa. I already talked about this with my aunt. She said that waiting has never been our familys strong suite. Well I have been waiting for what 8 months now and have been planning this for about 10 months, so I don't suck at waiting. It's just the last few months that are the hardest for me. 

Within 10 days the process will start. Then I will have to wait maybe a week or two to get my visa. Then I will book the flight, get my travel insurance and inform my government that I will be moving out. I think I will be able to post pone my origianl plans about two weeks. This would mean that I would be moving in to my new appartment (where ever and what ever it might be) closer to 15th of March. 

More waiting

As you would have it, I will have to wait a bit more. I just today received an email from Allianssi telling me that they indeed have received my application and all my attachments are okey. There is nothing missing. Unfortunately there is some delay in the Stocholms end... They (the embassy) have received new instructions and they have not yet released the information of how many will be able to go this year. So a bit more waiting and guessing if I will need to fill up more papers or not.

I want to move out already, so this was not the best news that I could have received. I hope that the delay that they have mentioned won't be that long. I would really hope to get some news this week. It would mean that I do not have to reschedule my whole plan. My friends have already bought tickets to go there in the end of March, so I hope I will be able to get there before that. It is just annoying as hell, I tell you.

I also found out that the place where Allianssi will be locating us is a Hostel and not a Hotel... So... Yeah, I am not too happy about it.

Have I yet mentioned that my sister might be coming over during the fall time to do her internship over in Toronto... But more about that in another post. Now I am trying to concentrate on working.

I see trouble in the future...

Little bit of background information. Our mother owns a flat, but does not live in it. She lives in with her boyfriend. A week ago he had an accident and was taken to the hospital. Yesterday there was a meeting of the flat owners in the building where our mother owns the flat. She did not go there. She has not gone there at least for two or three years. She owes some money to my brother in laws father. The flat was bought from my father in laws father. She also owes some money to the condominium. 

So yesterday the condominium meeting decided that they will start to ask the money from our mother and sent out a letter to her. (She received them, but usually doesn't read them.) So in few working days she will be receiveing a letter from the condominium and if she reads it will be quite angry. I know that she will not call my sis, as she has not called her in a long time. She prefers to call me instead...

So I anxiously wait for the call to come.

I can't wait untill I am able to move to Canada. At least then I will have a very good excuse not to answer her calls.

Waiting cont.

It didn't arrive yesterday. So next week, everyday I will be checking my email every five minutes if the Visa would arrive. Waiting is so hard. I already want to pack my bags... I just can't wait till I am able to live in a new country. I would love to travel a lot more than I do now. Here goes hoping that my next job will allow me to travel a bit more.

More pics from yesterday

From kitchen window. Still not quite as light as in reality.

So wonderful

Sunset :)

Picture update :)

I just love these colours!

I was a bit late coming home. This is about 2 pm and the sun is going down.

No colouds and the trees are white :)

Bunny!

Bunnies

Yes, we feed the birds (rest of them flew away as I came too close. This one flew away as well, but I was fast enough to take the pictrue)

Airplane!

Wonderful

My hair thingy broke :(

Snow horse by my niece

Todays weather is like -22 and lighter than it shows in the pic

Snow lantern little bit melt from the top, but really nice when it is lit and is dark.

/edit: I have been thinking of doing this for a while now. Hence two posts in a day

Organized organization

I don't know where to start. I just yesterday realized that one of my online classes is not next week, but during the next after that. Well we have our contact week with the school at that time... Do you see where I am going with this! We start at eight or half past and the day ends at five. The class starts at half past five. So there is 30 minutes time to get home and online. Some travel from another country and might not be able to access internet during the evening! Where is the point!

Lets discuss about the teachers organizing skill a bit further. We have due dates on our paper and we have been informed that if the paper is late, we will get a lower score. This semester we have given in three papers as a joint assingment. The JA1 (join assingment part one) was individual and the rest were a group work. The joint assingment included three courses. So far I have received feedback from two teachers about the JA1. We delivered the JA2 and JA3 way before the due date. There was plenty of time between JA2 and JA3... I am sure you will know where this is heading. 

So last Monday we got our group feedback on JA2 almost a week after the JA3 due date. After seeing the feedback I can say that it would not have been helpful, but at least it was just feedback from one teacher. So what I am trying to say, is that we have not received any feedback from one teacher. Two has given some, but way late considering that we have already returned the final paper! Hmmm, maybe I have not been very clear why the feedback is important. Well the JA's are a build up case. The first paper was mainly introduction of the case company, a deep analysis, one would say. The second paper was taking the three case companys and bringing them together. The final paper was even more into depth analysis and understaing the case companies. So basically the feedback is needed, so that we will know that we are going to right direction and have understood what teachers want.

One teacher actually has been very organized. She is not part of the JA group per se. She is the one that checks the spelling and grammar. So this final paper has been submitted to her as well, so that she will be able to review it and give a grade to another course on how we write academic papers and how we have followed her instructions. Her feedback comes latest a week after the due date. She really is amazing! 

The guys are the worst, because they won't give any feedback.

No Visa yet

Still no Visa. Well I am not expecting to receive it for another week. But still I wait for it to come everyday.

/edit: Was not able to finish this because of no privacy. Forgot already what I was about to write.

I wish I was living alone already

So if you see a full washing machine, what do you do? Well my brother in law empties it from the dirty clothes and puts his dirty clothes in. Right.

When there is two doors in a room and a person sleeping in that room. Of course you will then leave the other door open with lights on in the doorway. Grrr.

I think you can notice that I am having a really good day today.


//edit: "Look, your aunt is still sleeping!" and leaving the door open again. I have told them that I am trying to change my sleeping pattern so that I will not have that big of a jet lag. Well I think you won't understand it unless you have experienced jet lag...

Don't you just hate waiting

I hate waisting time. One way waiting is waisting time. It is not if you do something with your time when you are waiting. Now some of you know that I have wanted to do my Master's pretty much ever since I knew there was a thing called Master's. I do not lie, when I say I would not mind having a PhD as well. It just seems that there is no topic that would intreset me that much that I would follow that through. Also I did not start my Master's around the time I could have started it. One reason being I already had too much on my plate to have room for the studying. 

I applied to my program before my Granny died and I got in after she died. It was just perfect! Sometimes I do feel like my friends and relatives do not understand how much work it is to study and work at the same time. Well some do not understand that while I work from home, I still actually do need to work. To some it just means that I sit at home doing nothing. My sister and brother in law do understand that I work and what I do. Still sometimes when I am working they come and ask me little things that they could easily do by themselves. It is annoying when you have to stop every five minutes or so to do something. Now I am alone, and am really enjoying it. Still it is a bit hard to find the rythm that I had for work.

This leads me to the real topic. I am just waiting for the time to pass. Two more weeks and then 30 days. In the meanwhile I need to estimate the times when I need to inform the government when I will be moving, when to get the insurance, when to call to Canada to open a bank account. Just waiting for the time to pass and the right time to act upon these needs. In the meanwhile of all this waiting, I work and study. I use my time not just waiting idlely. Sometimes it is really hard, not to be able to live your own life but accomodate to the life of others. 

I also do some planning on what to get and when to get it. It all depends on how much money I have saved up. At the moment I do have my rent and deposit. I do not have much after that. Just the basics covered. My friends informed me that they will be coming when I have stayed little less than a month... Oh well, I can't promise that I will have a flat at time. Or beds. I might have a bed for me, but there is no way in hell I am spending hellavalot money on others beds, when I have just enough money for me. So we will see it when I get there. I have already planned to canvas the area for flea markets and see if I can borrow some from my neighbours. To buy new everything x3 seems a bit much.

Christmas holiday

Snow lantern

Our Christmas tree

Some sunlight

See where I got a christmas card from!!

Snake for my nephews birthday a month ago

Hedgehog for my nephews birthday :)

UArctic trip

Full plane, so without this tag I would not be able to take my bag with me

Flying with KLM

I have my Pooh with me!

Flying with Delta from Schiphol

Amazing view

Do notice that the atmosphere is getting lighter aka more sunlight

At Winnipeg charging my phone at bathroom

First cup of Tim Hortons

At first hotel waiting for my room.

It says Xylitol!!

My first coins

First room! Yes I will be sharing my room with another participant

Pictures from bus ride

Different kind of Angry Birds candy

At Elkhorn or near by town actually. Now from the bus, but we did also walk around here

View from the Hotel number 2.

This room was also shared. But see how big it is!

At the near by town which is closed for winter

Sunset at the Elkhorn

Sunrise from the bus trip back to Winnipeg

At the third hotel

At the museum. I wasn't able to take that many pics as we kind of run through it.

Ice bear!

Sunset from my room

Flying again

With KLM