... everything is happening at once, and usually very differently from what was planned. And so Tapsa and I split up after more than 5 years together. Which also means, I'm looking for an apartment. In Finland. And that turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. I suppose, there's not that many rental apartments in Finland; people seem to prefer buying something to live in. well, I turned in application forms and now am on a few waiting lists. I already heard of 1 (!!!) free apartment- but there's a lot of people applying for it. Let's see; the decision will be made on Friday at the latest. Would be great if I got that place!
Besides that, I feel like I'm in a neverending nightmare of bureaucracy. Huh, I thought I left that behind in Germany. Well, here it's at least as much. When I first came here I was told, that I'd have to send my diplomas to a place called "opetushallitus" to see if they're valid in Finland. That takes 200€ and about 2 months; official translations and official copies. Well, I finally got all that and was ready to send everything in. Luckily, I didn't understand the application form and went to a local project, that helps foreigners with all sorts of questions- KOODI. That, by the way, is a really awesome project and has helped me so much already. Anyway, the woman there sent an e-mail to opetushallitus asking about what I wanted to know- and got an e-mail back saying, that I don't have to send my stuff there, but to a completely different place. Takes 300€ and about 20kg of paper. I've already described my thesis (in English; still have to translate it to Finnish) on two pages; translated the names of every single seminar and lecture I've ever been to to Finnish and described my internship on 1 page (still English). That was the easy part. Now I'll have to explain- in Finnish- how the hours were counted when I was studying (we used something called "Semesterwochenstunde"- hours per week for 1 term) and how much that would be worth in the now valid European credit point system... As far as I could see so far, that is almost impossible to say.
But at least this week we have "etäviikko", which means, vacation with tons of homework. ;-) And on Wednesday I'll "go South" with friends, their dog, and my dog. Seita and I will spend some time on a farm near Lahti and then go on to Helsinki to see Hanna, Niko and Hiisi. I'm very much looking forward to that!