Last night it was still snowing; and this morning I wake up and the world is grey, dripping, slippery and WARM- almost 4°C. I want my winter back!

Today was the day- language course finals. Starting at 9.00 with text understanding, which was still sort of okay, I think (though I had a bit of trouble understanding some of the questions). That was followed by vocabulary and grammar- there they lost me. I looked at the words and felt exactly like I did in the very first test, right after I came to Finland. I was basically guessing my way through. Writing was okay, listening & understanding mixed, and talking- oh well, stressful. ;-) Now I'm glad that it's over. Tomorrow is the Finnish independence day (and German St. Niclas day) and on Friday we don't have to show up in school either, so I'll have 2 free days. Nice!

Two hours in the snow with Seita were enough even for her- she's sleeping now. Ha! But honestly, walking through 20cm of snow is a da... good workout. I think I'll be quite sore tomorrow.

Today is most definitely a nice day. Not only did we get tax returns (I'm loving it!), but it's been snowing the whole night through and hasn't stopped yet. Looks so beautiful! I was quite happy that I'd Ieft the bicycle at home, though.

This morning I woke up with a sore throat and the feeling that I should better stay in bed... On the first day in the new job, of course! So I ate Burana (finnish medication that heals everything! ;p), put a lot of tea inside me and got going. It went quite okay, I think. It's a lot of work for 4 hours and in the beginning it might just be a bit stressful. But I think I'll be okay. A lot of the people there are happy to have some company for a while, so I actually get to practice Finnish language, as well.

It's almost december, which means the language course is almost over and it's basically almost next year. It's most definitly my last language course at university (I think I'll miss it a bit...), which means I should probably finally find something to do for next year. Something in my own profession for a change, that would be something. Didn't think that it would be much of a problem- get my papers accepted in Finland and then do some internships in different areas, to get both work experience and the necessary special terminology. And keep studying Finnish. Well, unfortunately it's not that easy. My title doesn't exist in Finland, so I have to prove that I'm really allowed to work in my job. It seems that there's a cheaper, but long and a rather expensive and who knows how long way to get that done- but I wouldn't know that for sure. Because the mail that I sent to Germany a month ago asking about the requirements for the cheaper way went unanswered so far. They did confirm that they got it, though.
So basically, I'm not sure what I can do and where I can do it. Without approval of my diploma it's gonna be hard to even get an internship. I was sort of hoping that at some point in my life I would actually be able to work in the job for which I went a good few years to university.
Might just happen that out of pure frustration I'll go back to school (didn't I want to avoid just that???) and become a nurse. Now that they get more money.

Yesterday evening Virve and Keijo came by with Niila to celebrate Virve's birthday. I cooked (trout stuffed with herbs and lots of garlic- hadn't done that in a while), Virve baked, Keijo was responsible for music and pictures... :-)



Niila and Seita hadn't seen each other for quite a while, and it was quite hilarious to watch them play. They're still the same size- I'll have quite a big dog, I think. Nice.



Today we ended up with 4 visitors altogether. First my Albanian coursemate stopped by, followed quite closely by one Finnish friend and her little daughter. I was very glad about her coming, since she's also a good friend of Tapsa's and I hadn't been so sure if we'd stay in touch. With her I noticed again how much more easy it is to speak Finnish with people I've known and spoken Finnish to for a while- I'm neither stuttering like an idiot nor feeling so ... insecure with them. ;-) With Virve and Keijo yesterday we also tried- but since we talked mostly English lately, Finnish feels weird and we soon end up switching back.
Anyway, then Virve missed me so much that she stopped by again for a cup of coffee. ;p
It was the best weekend I had in a while.

Yesterday at school we were in the language studio. Which means, at least half of the time, talking into the computer. While there's plenty of others sitting around doing the same thing. I hated it. I don't even talk to answering machines if it's not absolutely necessary. And then there's those cute time limits- 10s, 20s. How would I know how long 20s are??? And then one of the tasks was to describe for 2 minutes, what a good and a bad day would be. I ran out of words at halftime... Now I could do better. Besides that class, yesterday was most definitly a good day.
In the morning I decided to take the bus for the first time. The weather had been dancing around freezing point, so it was as slippery as could be and I didn't wanna take the risk of falling and showing up at the job interview looking like a pig. Well, got on the bus, and who's the driver? A friend of mine. That way I could afford taking the bus more often. ;-)
The job interview was right after school- I basically had to run there. It was very short and very successful. I start work next Saturday. Guess they were desperate, but I don't care much! ;-) Of course when I got out of there the bus had just left (goes once per hour). That's one more reason why I rather take the bicycle- I hate waiting. So I decided to walk home. It didn't even take as long as I expected; I was there in a bit under an hour. The river was looking quite beautiful with the ice. I love water.





On the way I stopped at the pharmacy. Last week they didn't want to give me my medication because it hadn't been 3 months since the last time. They'd kept the recipe though and told me to pick it up yesterday. Then in the morning I read in the news that the smaller pharmacies might be closed because of the strikes (yes, Finland is on strike as well!). Luckily they were open when I went there- only for a few hours, but oh well.
At home I got a temporary cleaning attack. Practising for the job or something like that. And just when I was done my neighbour stopped by and asked if I wanted to go to the Kotiteollisuus concert with her. Jeez, I hadn't been out dancing in years- I definitly wanted to go! Ended up coming home at 3 in the morning. Now I'm sore from dancing and hungover from watching all those drunk people, but I had a blast.

After working and studying at the same time for almost 8 years before I moved to Finland, I was starting to get afraid that I had entered the age of free weekends. But no need to worry. Yesterday I sent 3 applications- to McDonalds, of course; for a cleaning job in a nursing home (that's how things repeat themselves) and as personal assistant to handicapped people. This morning I already got a call from the cleaning company, asking for a job interview. Wow! Would be a nice job to have- only 8 hours per weekend. So I would actually end up having some free time... Now I still have to find out how much money I'm allowed to earn without losing unemployment money.