My classes won't start until September 18th. I took a train to Vantaa on Sunday, spent a night at the Karlsson clan's house – we went to sauna, ate pancakes, drank some cider and watched a film – and in the morning, Jouni drove me to the station near my university, where I stored three of my four heavy bags. I met Milla and Senja at the station; and the giggling started. When we went to our new university*, which is in the building adjacent to our old university, and met up with Sini, the fourth member of our strange little girl-team.
Nearly all Media Communication majors were present, and I can count with fingers of one hand the number of people who actually greeted us – or, at least, greeted us first. Fucking Finns, seriously. But that's a rant for another day... Niklas was a refreshing change to the rest of them, he came straight out to give us a hug and chat – he's been an avid reader of the blogs Milla and I have been writing during the exchange year, and we never even really hung out before we left. We all sat in the auditorium for an hour and a half… gave applause when we found out that they still haven't managed to put together a time table and that our classes won't be ready to start until the 18th… got mostly pointless and unimportant information (non-information) about the university and the beginning semester, filled a few forms in the student affairs office to get our student discount cards for various things, and whatnot. And for this, I paid 60€ in train fares. Bah humbug.
It was great to see Milla, Senja and Sini again. The best thing was that we've all been exchange students – albeit Sini and Senja were only abroad for one semester – so we could freely diss Finland and Finns and talk about culture shock and differences, without insulting anyone's patriotism. Sini was planning to go right back to her hometown, while the rest of us decided to go out drinking. In the end, we just had dinner together and ended up going to Senja's place to watch while the boys played video games. Eventually Milla got bored with it and went home. I stayed for the night and took a train back to my hometown the next day.
My phone rang at around 2AM last night, and I knew it would be Madam Juha, drunk as usual. No one else calls me at that hour. He's going to start yet another school, and was his usual hectic self. It's as if nothing has changed in the past 10 years...
Life in Finland, so far, seems pretty pointless. I sit at my parents' flat and watch TV and play video games, and hope that I will soon be notified of an available student flat in the capital area. I'm neglecting my email and get bored with chatting, because, at the moment, I have nothing to talk about. I can't wait for the classes to start; I'm hoping they will be challenging and interesting enough to keep me busy, and I'm hoping that my internship for next year will come true as planned. Meanwhile... I'm going to go watch a movie, or something.
*There are many universities (or polytechnics, or universities of applied sciences, as they're now called) in the capital area, and currently many of them are being rearranged – Laurea, Metropolia and Stadia universities are swapping and rearranging students.
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