Packing and Cleaning!

This is so weird. I have nearly everything packed, my room is empty and it smells like detergent.

This morning S. came back from Åland and I picked him and J., his travel company, up from the harbor. It was good to see him again after such a long time and it scares me, that we wont be living together anymore now. We had so much fun together and he was an awesome flatmate. I hope and well, I know we will see each other soon again!

When we came back I started packing the rest of my stuff. Most of it was already taken by my parents home to Germany or is already in Ekenäs, where I am going to stay for the next couple of weeks. I dont know what I am doing now. I dont have an internship placement yet and no job in Germany. So instead of hanging around in Germany and not doing anything I rather stay here in Finland, where I have at least A.

After most of the packing was done S. and I went down to the city center. S. wanted to buy still some things for his father, as a birthday present and for another friend. So we went to Esplanadi to a souvenir shop. After S. found what he wanted we went to Stockman and S. bought an ice hockey jersey of the Finnish national team, as a souvenir for himself.

When were back in Kannelmäki I cooked lunch. We ate and sat there talking. There and also before in the city we both, S. and I, realized how much we will miss this life here in Finland. Ok, Helsinki is not the most beautiful, not the most lively and not the best located city in the world, but we were living here for almost one year now and had our life here with a lot of fun and memorable experiences. It is and will always be a part of our life and I can say it is a good one.

After the lunch we started cleaning right away. We were emptying the cupboards, decided what to throw away and what I will take to Ekenäs. We were cleaning the cupboards and the dishes. It was actually not as dirty as I expected it to be. Then S. called his mother in Spain and I emptied my room in order to clean the floor. Now I am sitting here writing. The smell of the detergent gives me a small headache. Maybe it's also all the thoughts running through my head, all the good memories. Even tho I was complaining about this city and this flat all the time it is hard to leave. But I know that live goes on and that changes mean progress. And progress is always good!

I just have one night left. Tomorrow I will leave here! It is a weird feeling!

~M~

Packing

It's really weird, I am packing!

I am not going to leave Finland soon, but still I am packing. My parents are here visiting me and since I brought so much stuff in the first place it would be too expensive to take it home by plane. They are with the car here and so they can take a lot. I packed my backpack already once, just to get all the stuff in there, which I really wanna keep here and to see how much I get into it. I have figured out the rest, which is going to the suitcase and several boxes and then home to Germany.

It is an awkward feeling now. My wardrobe is so empty, my cupboard is nearly empty and stuff, which I didnt use in the whole year, but were filling this room are gone. Even tho it shows me with how few you can live a normal life it will be weird to wear all the time the same clothes and to live the next three weeks in a basically empty room.

On the other hand it's nice, I know what I have, I know that it will fit into the backpack and I dont have to plan what to pack where and worry about not getting everything in. I really feel now that I am getting closer to a change, and as I wrote before, I love changes. Really... I am moving forward!

~M~

Productive Morning

Nice, this was a really productive morning. I got up early, did my laundry, dried and folded the clothes. I was working for uni, cleaning my room, bringing down the bin and made my bed.

Now I am taking a break, listening to music and being shortly on the internet to write this post. My parents are coming today to Helsinki and I hope they bring better weather. After the couple of days in Ekenäs they are now coming to visit ME! Even tho they are not staying at my place I hope to see them and guess I will spend a lot of time with them.

Therefore I will go on later with the cleaning of the kitchen, corridor and bathroom. I will also bring some more order to my room. We anyways have had to clean and now we finally have a real reason ;-) Also, since we all are moving out soon it is good to start, otherwise it would be too much in the end.

I will also start later on, since I now have all my clothes here and clean to start packing. I have to pack all stuff I need in my backpack and hope I will not exceed 20kg. The rest will be packed into my suitcase and into several other bags, boxes and my laundry basket. I have to have that done until the 11th or 12th, since my parents are then leaving and going to take the stuff back home to Germany with the car.

It's a weird feeling, that I have to think about what I need for the rest of the time here already. It seems like yesterday since I came here, now it is soon over and I have to move on. But somehow it feels nice and especially exciting, since I dont have a clue (yet) where I will go and end up with my internship.

Anyways, I love changes, I love to move on, I love to experience something new!

~M~

Business as usual

I just sent four more applications, to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta (2x). Yesterday I asked my former Trainee Director from Tenerife for help and she was so kind to give me the contact details of the responsible HR persons. I didn't count (yet) how many applications I sent already, but it is really frustrating. Especially not getting back anything brings one down. It feels so bad that you are not even worth a simple one-sentence-mail like "thank you for your application, but we are not interested". For me that would be enough, a "No" is better than no reaction at all, since it brings clarity.

Anyways, I was in uni today. We had a guest lecturer from Spain. I reckon she thinks we are all stupid, since we didn't understand what she was talking about, since she was using different terminologies. But this is what happens, if Spanish temper meets Finnish (and tired-exchange-students') reservation. It was funny tho... somehow.

Then we had an HR workshop for our assignment. Normally I dont like workshops like these, but this time it actually helped a lot, since we did basically half our assignment already together in the lesson. Since it was not mandatory and half of the people were not there it was a relaxing and productive atmosphere. After the workshop my partner, G., and I stayed a little longer in uni to work on the assignment.

I came home by four and prepared lunch. I made rice and soy stuff in a chili-orange-sauce. It was really good and so much that I slipped into a food-coma after eating.

Now I'm going to watch an episode of some series and then start sewing my Halare. Maybe I will read for uni or do something else... There is always something to do!

~M~

Spring is here!

Spring is now definitely here (in Turku at least). A and I were just sitting outside on a bench enjoying the sun. Before that we had a walk along the river down to the castle and the harbor. The grass is green, the trees are sprouting and its nice and warm in the sun. The wind coming from the sea is still pretty fresh, but if you find a calm corner you start sweating right away!

I am now sitting here on the couch, was folding my washed clothes and will maybe start packing soon. I am leaving Turku again this evening, since I have to be in uni tomorrow morning 8 o'clock. The last workshop of the Business Planning course will then give us the possibility to finalize our business plan. It is weird to know that this is, among others, one of the last reports I am going to hand in here in Finland and if you see it like this also one of the last of my studies. After these reports there will be just my internship report, one or two reports in my last semester and then my Diploma thesis. Crazy, three years of studies are nearly over! Where did the time go?!

~M~

Easter

I am back from Ekenäs. I spend there the first half of Easter with A's family. We were just staying so short, since A's parents went this morning to Canada, to visit their relatives.

It is amazing, one year ago I was the first time here in Finland and saw A. the first time after Tenerife. As I said in earlier posts, it is incredible, how time flies. I am already one year in the family and about 8 months here in Finland for studying. I have the same feeling like every New Years Eve, when you realize, that the year is over and you start all over again.

The Easter holidays we spent eating and seeing friends and family. It was good to be out of Helsinki for a while again. To just relax and not to think about anything. Now, since I am back, uni work starts again and I will do now some research for the next essay, which I have to hand in next week. Even tho tomorrow is a public holiday, we are going to meet up with the group to work on the project. Gladly this is in the afternoon. However, I will get up early and will call some more hotels to finally get an internship placement. The hotels I called so far didnt had anything available, as I wrote before.

But life goes on, I will not give up, tomorrow the sun will be shining again... for sure!

~M~

Sunny day

It's crazy. Yesterday evening it started snowing and this morning when I got up there were 8cm more out there. Seriously it could finally stop snowing and get spring!!! Now the weather is really nice, its sunny and plus degrees, which means, all the snow is melting again and everywhere are huge puddles of dirty water and slush.

Anyways, I just came back from Pasila, where I had lunch with E. & S. After that I went to Lidl to buy some stuff for the next days, until I leave on Wednesday to Turku and from there on Thursday to Vaasa. I know I am writing again about it, but it's just because I am so looking forward to it. It's the first time to really wear my Halare. S. also just bought the last batches , he still was missing and hopefully is going on to sew.

Tonight we are going to Malmi, since F. one of our tutors invited us for dinner. Maybe this will give me some distraction from the stuff occupying my brain right now. I still don't have an internship placement and dont know where to apply. I mean, the problem right now is not, that there is too few, but too many possibilities. I just cant make a decision. But time runs out and I need to do something. But where should the motivation come from, when you have nothing to do ;)

~M~