First update from Finland. Well, during this year.

My time in lovely Budapest is over. Well, for this set. I am sure I will go back there. For the last 1.5 weeks I've been living at my home in Joensuu. It is kind of weird to be back living with my parents, since I haven't been doing this a lot in last 8 years or so. However, most likely I will move out here if I get a decent flat from Lappeenranta.

The main reason for going there would be to spend some time with the mitim-people. I don't see any thesis-related benefits at all if I do go there. The sad thing is that already this semester and especially after it, the roads of us mitim '11 students will go separate ways and we will spread around the world. So, spending time with some of the co-students would be cool - afterwards it will be harder and will most likely always require organizing. Bleoooh.

On a positive note, we will meet already this week since we have a thesis seminar at LUT on Friday. All of us needed to send the current copies of our thesises to our supervisors who should be at the seminar to give us some comments about them. I haven't worked on mine since the submission and do not intend to do so. A little break from that project is needed. But, starting next week its on again. At the moment I have approximately 30 written pages, all theory. Really should not be too much of a problem to get this project done before May.

Anyways, can't wait to meet other mitim people. Few more days to go.

Globetrotting 2010 in retrospect

I realized that I've been around quite much during 2010. Overall the whole year has been a good one, almost bordering great. During 2010 I had LOTS of new experiences and I saw way more than I thought I would. Some highlights in numbers:

• Had address in 3 different countries (Finland, Hungary and a couple of days in St.Pete, Russia)
• Visited or lived in 6 countries (Russia, Finland, Hungary, Mexico, Italy, Slovakia).
• Had overall 17 flights (oops, sorry about the carbon footprint...)
• Studied 3 languages (Russian, Spanish for a couple of weeks, Hungarian)
• ....and spoke or tried to speak 5 (previous + Finnish and English. Also few lines of Swedish)

My only gripes about the year was the summer - great weather, but not good from financial or career point of view. But, as often happens, there is a silver lining to everything. Because of the relaxed summer, I had lots of time to think about my future and things that I want. Now I know where to aim. If things go as planned, 2011 will be a year of major changes and achievements. 

I am sure 2011 will be a great year for me!

Short update

Many things have happened since the last update. Sorry for not writing that often. Anyway, here is a quick recap:

• Wrote thesis proposal & commented one. Got good feedback from Olga about mine, still waiting to hear something from LUT & GSOM....
• Contacted FinPro today to ask whether they would be interested in doing collaboration about my thesis topic. I hope the answer is positive.
• Been doing presentations & groupworks. One more paper left to deliver as well as preparing one last presentation. It will be cooool :)
• Been totally neglecting Hungarian studies. My priorities have not been good. I will correct my behavior (this time for real).
• Bought a cool woollyhat :D Also bought gloves. Now maybe I need to buy another scarf....
• It has snowed a bit in Budapest. Today was the first day when I saw some snow in here. Apparently there has been some also in some other days but have melted before I have left the apartment.
• Watched El Clasico. HUUUUUUUUGE win for Barca! Probably one of the most convincing performances I've ever seen on a football pitch. Well, that and Milan's 3-0 thumping of ManU few years ago.
• I was a bit sick, but now its better.
• Exams are starting soon. My first one is already next Tuesday!
• I can believe its Christmas in about 3 weeks. I don't want to leave Hungary
• ....which reminds me that I need to book my tickets back here for New Years and January.

I guess that's about it.

Time flies

It is already November. I can't believe that this semester is already over the half point! It feels like I have just moved in, but according to the calendar I've been living here for 2.5 months already. That's just crazy.


Next week few very good friends of mine are coming here to visit me, which is great :) So this week I need to study as much as I can so I can spend next week hanging out. In this case studying means working on 2 group works, writing at least 5 pages on my thesis as well as studying Hungarian. When I say studying Hungarian I mean reading a book in Hungarian. No, I am not that advanced yet, but trying to raise the level using native materials.


On top of these things, life is really good and I do enjoy myself in here.

Small snippets from this week

This week in bulletpoints:

- Finally managed to get a reply from my thesis supervisor. Now I just need to write something :D

- I was in Szarvaskö on Saturday. There I visited an eating-festival of sorts :) Ate for example some blood, delicious lángos and drunk some amazing hot wine. But the best part was definitely the deer meat I got home from there. It was sooooooo gooooooood :P

- I've been in Black&White party (everybody dresses in b&/w).  The evening was cool, the next day wasn't...

- I was also at a delicious dinner in some Italian restaurant with approximately 12 other exchange students. Great food and company - no complaints there. Thanks for the invitation :)

What I haven't done this week: I have been neglecting my Hungarian studies too much. I feel bad about that. :( But will make it up, i promise.

Also it seems that I've developed some kind of habit for future oriented thinking-sessions on Sundays. There are just so many ideas flowing in my head (and some in writing) that pull me in several directions, many of them extremely interesting. Now just waiting for thoughts to settle in and that final a-ha -moment.

HEUREKA!

So ok, here is the story: yesterday evening, I was tired, went to bed just after midnight. But for whatever reason, I just could not sleep. I was rolling around in bed for 4 hours or so (still checked the clock at 4:03) before falling asleep.


Soon the alarm rang after some 5 hours of sleep which of course was not enough. Despite that, I needed to get to the university.


The obvious consequence from the lack of sleep is that I have been tired the whole day. Kinda in a zombiesque state. Living, but not really.


After coming back home, I went on my usual "I wonder..."-state, where I end up watching videos or reading stuff just to open my mind to new things (ok, that is not the purpose of those, but often it leads to that). Then it hit me. It had nothing to do with what I was reading nor what I had learned during today. 


Suddenly, I knew what will be the core of my professional life from this point forward. I can't believe why I haven't realized this before, because it has been hanging in front of my nose the whole time.


I have found my mission.

Accomplishments of sick Saturday

At the moment I am a little bit sick. I woke up today at noon and since then I've felt kinda bad physically and feel like I never woke up mentally. However, since it would be just dumb to waste Saturday I've been torturing myself with some one hour of running (appr. 10 km). Apparently my running technique was so good that it needed to be filmed and broadcasted live. While I was running by the Danube, a camera helicopter really did film my running. Or perhaps some dudes who where driving their bikes like madmen on the roads. Nevertheless, I was in the forefront :D


I've also realized that I eat almost exactly 600 grams of cheese every week. This has happened now for 3 weeks running - I always run out of cheese on Saturday. Hence the visit to Tesco where I always seem to tire extra fast.


I also learned that it is impossible to find an umbrella from a clothing store from a mall. I checked P&B, H&M, Zara and few others but I couldn't find one to save my life. Oh well, then I'll just take the rain and soak.


My daily schedule has also included one lesson of Hungarian. I do understand better and better every day, but still am useless with the language. Hopefully in a few months the situation will be so much better.


At the moment a big part of us exchange students are at lake Balaton for some stupid fresh camp. Of course, I didn't go there since I've kinda seen those events. "Let's get to know each other!!!"-games etc shit, which of course means pointless name learning games, doing some useless tasks and just being forced to "have fun". No thanks. So, instead, I am most likely going to meet with some other exchange students who stayed in Budapest and spend some time with them. I am sure I will get to know more people better like this than by going to the camp. 

Introduction week starts

So, today I need to drag my ass to the uni since it's the first day of introduction week. Today they are going to tell about the uni and give some information packages etc. In the evening there is some kind of getting to know each other stuff - i.e. stupid name games, sitting in a ring and singing kumbaya. 


Later this week we'll have a pub crawl when we're gonna go from pub to pub. Also some sightseeing tours have been arranged, however I am not sure whether I'll go since I've already seen the places in January. Well, perhaps I'll go. Then on the weekend is the "biggest and most important event of the semester", some kind of exchange student camp at lake Balaton. I am 90% sure that I wont go there - the memories of St.Petes ice melting saturday are still vivid in my head. Nooooooooo thanks.

Starting to feel like home

Yeah, I am definitely beginning to settle to this apartment. Feeling good!

Moving again.

Yeeeyyyy, today I could move my stuff from my temporary apartment to my "semester-apartment". This place is huuuuuuge. Like 50-55 square meters that includes proper kitchen, a livingroom and a bedroom. Here is also a cable tv (although the tv itself is like 14 inches :D) which will be sweet when I want to do some listening comprehension on Hungarian. 

Earlier this week we went to lake Balaton, which is a really cool place. I'll post some pictures from there to facebook later on.

Otherwise I am very very tired. I haven't been able to sleep well in almost 3 weeks. That is exactly the same time when I haven't been doing any sports.. Not a coincidence I guess. I will definitely go and check out Margit island with my running shoes on the coming days.

First week in Hungary

Now I have been in Budapest for a week. Settling down here has gone well and I really like the vibe of this city. At the moment I am staying in my temporary apartment which is in a good location at Ráday utca. The apartment is cool and in a really nice building. And so far I haven't been able to burn the whole place down with the gas stove :D


Last Sunday we went to check out Sziget-festival which was really, really cool. The island location is perfect for this kind of festival and the feeling in there was relaxed. I went there without any expectations and was just curious what it was like. I saw for example Muse which was technically very good and sounded sweet, but somehow they didn't manage to excite me. Maybe it was the lack of alcohol :D The biggest surprise was by far a tent called Magic mirror which was kind of a rainbowish experience. The host, Diva Thomasz deserves a special mention.


Otherwise I've been just checking out the city and enjoying my time in here. I've also studied the language, but with that I am on a little bit frustrating level at the moment. I can understand some things, but way too few to really converse with someone. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I am able to have at least Tarzan-level conversations in Hungarian. That would be sweeeeeeeet.

Tiredness

You can quite easily see, that this month is not easy for us students of MITIM-programme. Most of us has been quite busy lately which has lead to a situation where good night sleep has been the suffering party. For example yesterday at 1:15 a.m. there was still 7 of my classmates (whos contact information i have) in Skype. I don't even want to estimate the total amount of us who were still awake.

And today, the classes started at 9 (as usual) which basically means waking up after 7 o'clock. Not that much sleep per person...

Tiredness could be easily seen today in the classroom. I was sitting for a while in the first row (yeah, imagine that) next to the wall where I could easily see other peoples faces. Most of them were tired or at least looked tired. Some were almost sleeping, or slept for a while :D

Now I really need to take a nap.

Some russki-style to my life

I have been here in St.Pete now for more than 2 months. During that time I haven't had my hair cut even once, although the need for a haircut have been there for about one month. Well, today I succeeded in getting a haircut. Nothing new (but maybe a little bit of mullet :D), but I am quite relieved to have gotten this one over with. The problem has been that there are not that many hairdressers in here that speak english. And it is quite retarded to ask someone to come to be our translator for your haircut... So today I went with a translator to a place nearby our university, where they actually did speak english (this time, last time no one did speak...).

It feels cool not to look like a homeless person anymore.