Another week...

Tomorrow will begin week four of my Finnish classes, and I must say that as much as I like the class and the people in it, I really don't feel like going back. Of course I will though. I am just so exhausted from it. Finnish is really very difficult to learn, and I knew this going into the course. My head feels like it is about to explode. Of course I have learned a thing or two in the class, so it isn't all bad. Unlike most other languages, I don't have anything to compare it to except for Hungarian and Estonian, and they are really nothing at all like Finnish. It really is a language all to itself. So tomorrow morning I am just going to suck it up and go try to enjoy myself in class. *sigh* The things I do for my husband. I cleaned the apartment from top to bottom this weekend, and got into every nook and cranny, so I will only have minor stuff to do during the week. That thought makes me feel much better. Now I am off to study some more, I have a quiz tomorrow! :-)

I Missed the Bus

I missed my bus today. It wasn't my fault though. I went out the stop about 5 minutes before the bus was suppose to come, and I waited. This was an early day for me so I had to be at the stop to catch the 7:13 bus. I saw my bus coming and stuck out my card and reflector to flag it down, I even began hopping a little bit and waving my hand when I realized that it wasn't slowing down. The driver just looked right at me and kept on driving. I was pissed. Since I had missed that bus, or rather the bus missed me, I had to wait for the 7:31 bus. That bus was 5 minutes late. Now my bus trip takes 30-35 minutes and then I have a 10 minute walk ahead of me, unless I am able to catch bus 69. Today I was not able to wait for the second bus because it would have made me even more late for class. I had to be there at 8:15. To top things off traffic was a nightmare. My bus didn't even make it to the final destination stop until 8:09. So I got to my class 5 minutes late. Lucky for me the door was propped open.

Update: I just felt like saying that even though my morning started off poorly, I actually had a nice day. My husband met me at the door when I got back from my class, and was just so sweet. I love his days off!

Tough Class!

Today my class was really difficult. Why do there need to be so many different ways to say/ask the same thing?!? I will be so glad when Friday rolls around. Tomorrow is a media tech day, so I have to wake up at 5:45. I am just not a morning person, Tuesdays and Thursdays are hard to get up for. I am just thankful that class lets out at 12:45. In other news, I got a new pair of scales today. I've been needing a pair for a while. It tells you your weight in kg, pounds, and stones. It also does other fancy things, but I haven't time to figure those out at the moment. Maybe I will do that later. Anyway, I had two 10 euro gift cards to use, so those plus my discount card left me owing 5,40 out of pocket. Not too shabby! I also got a personalized travel card today. I am excited about that. So now I just put 44 euros a month on the card and travel all of the public transportation (bus, tram, subway, etc.) I want. This is a good thing since I have to take the bus to and from my classes. I travel for about 35 minutes and then walk for 10. I suppose overall I have had a productive day. I even have a pork roast in the oven that I need to go check on. Supper is going to be yummy!!!

Passed it!

I am happy to annouce that I passed (100%) my first Finnish test today. Of course it was just labeling pictures, but when you have to remember the names of objects in a very different language (spelled correctly) it is an accomplishment. I am proud of myself. My teacher (opettaja) even let us out of class early today. Talk about having a good Monday (Maanantai)! Although, when my husband gets home he is going to have a lot of explaining to do, what we went over in class today went over my head a bit.

I Survived!

I did it! I sucessfully survived my first week of Finnish classes. My brain is fried, but at least I learned a few things. My husband is very proud of me, and greeted me with hug when I got home from class today. Now I plan to study and sleep the weekend away. Unfortunately, my SIL is sick with a high fever, so she will not be coming to visit us like she had planned. I hope she will feel better by Monday. I hope I am over my cold by then as well. I am looking forward to next week! Finnish is a difficult language to learn, but it never hurts to try.

Dazed and Confused!

What a day! My Finnish instructor was out sick today, so their was another instructor filling in for her. The substitute instructor was very difficult to understand, and she was also a little too fast paced for those of us that are in my beginner Finnish class! Thankfully, the guy that sits next to me sort of knew what was going on and was able to help me out a bit when I got hung up on something. I hope our regularly scheduled instructor is feeling better tomorrow because I want her back. I am also going to have a million questions for my husband tonight when he gets home from work!

Baby steps...

I managed to make it through my second full day of class today. Five hours of Finnish is a lot in one day. That doesn't even include the 2 hours of homework that we have! Somehow I did it though, I made it through the day. I even managed to recall a thing or two that we learned yesterday. Fancy that! Just three more days left for this week (and a million homemade flash cards to go!) and I can have a semi-relaxed weekend. My youngest SIL is coming for a visit, so I plan to have her drill me on what I have "learned" this week. Oh...and I mean drill! She really is a little drill sergeant. I know this because she has helped me with learning words before. She is fun to have around though, so I think I can overlook that other part!

A First Time for Everything!

I had my first full Finnish class today. I can't possibly tell you how many times I made myself look like an idiot today! For instance, I should be completely, 100% sure that I am from the United States. Guess what question I couldn't answer about a million times today? Yup, you got it. I could not tell when the instructor was asking me where I was from. You would think that after having gone around the entire room before she got to me, I might have caught on, right? Not I! I'm a slow learner apparently. This is going to be a LONG class. My husband did point out to me that I could only learn from this class, and that there was no way I could possibly come out of it knowing less than when I first went in. Thank you! I'll try to keep that in mind tomorrow! Now I must get back to my homework.

Mikä sinun nimesi on?

Minun nimeni on Stacy. <- At least I know my name!

Smuggled!

When I came back from the U.S. in June, I did not come back alone. The morning that I flew back to Helsinki, my Grandmother gave me some twigs from her Chenille plant to bring with me. Just call me Han Solo! We wrapped the chenille twigs in a damp papertowel, put them in a ziplock baggy, and I hid them in my make-up case that I put in my checked luggage. Somehow I actually managed to get them through customs without a hitch. Now my little chenille plant is looking lovely with its blooming chenille's! As long as you have a little bit of root you can be sure they'll grow!! I am thrilled that my plant is doing so well. I even had to call my Grandmother and tell her all about it. Below are some pictures!


This was my baby when I got her home. She sat in a cup of water for two days until I had time to go out and buy her a permanent pot!


This is my Chenille now. I know the picture is dark, but you can see how much she has grown in just the last 3 months. I love this plant. It is by far one of my favorites. My Grandmother has a love for plants and flowers that she passed on to me. If I had a larger apartment it would be full of flowers and plants of all kinds. I think soon I am going to need to transplant my Chenille into a hanging basket and find somewhere creative to put it here in the apartment where it will get plenty of sunlight. In the meantime, it will continue to reside in the window, creeping up whatever happens to be sitting next to it!

Give me back my bus stop!

For about two weeks now the city has been doing work right outside of our apartment. Our internet and hot water have been iffy. Sometimes the internet works and sometimes it stops right in the middle of trying to pay bills. Nice. They say that there was some sort of leak at our building, and they dug up a block and a half of the road trying to fix it. When I took a look outside yesterday, it looked like they were finally trying to wrap up this work they're doing. My husband and I will both be glad when they are done.


This is actually right beside the door to the apt. They have finally taken down the cones and tape from around it. It is just a huge, deep rectangle cut out of the ground that extends to the road.


Soon I will have the bus stop back!




All of the big machinery is gone. It was a such an eye sore. Everyday for two weeks that was all you could see when you stepped outside. It ought to be much easier for the cars and buses to get down the road now.

Happy Birthday to Me

I have had an extraordinarly good day. I turned 26 today, but do not feel a day over 25. I do plan to quit keeping count when I hit 29 though. So for my birthday, which has been all day today and such fun, I attended my very first Finnish class*. I am the only American in it, and beginning on Monday we will not be allowed to speak English in class. We aren't allowed to speak any language other than Finnish. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I won't make a complete idiot out of myself in the class.

Moving on...after class I came home to some beautiful roses that my husband went out and bought for me while I was at class. He had them sitting in a vase on the kitchen table when I got back. He also got me a yummy toffee cake. And when I say yummy, I mean yummy! To top things off I had an extra hot Birthday Sauna today. I felt so good afterwards. The best part of the day was just getting to spend time with my husband. Sure, we have been together since 2001, but this is only the 2nd birthday that I have ever gotten to spend with him. Needless to say, this birthday makes the top 10 list!


Aren't these just beautiful!?!?



I could eat one of these everyday!


*My poor Dad!! I was so excited about my class that I decided to call my Dad to talk to him before it started. Well, I seemed to be so enthused that I completely forgot which direction my 7 hr. time difference ran in. I ended up calling and waking him up at 2:30 this morning instead of the 4:30pm that I believed it to be. He wasn't mad though, he just went right back to sleep! Thanks, Dad!*

I hate my student loan!

Have you ever had one of those days where you just knew you'd end up having an aneurysm before bedtime? Really? Me too! The past two days have been exactly like that. The reason: my student loan! You see I pay it online because I am not in the U.S. It just makes it so much easier. I don't have to worry about getting out the little payment book, tearing out correct payment page, writing a check, remembering to write my account number on the check, finding a stamp and envelope, and dropping the bugger in the mail. I just don't have to worry with those little triffles. So when Monday rolled around I sat down at the computer first thing and found the loan site and logged in. So far, so good. With a click of the mouse I went to the 'make a payment' page. Still good. I see that all of my info. is still there so I just type in the amount I want to pay. Then I click on 'next'. We are still on the right track at this point, the end of my session is just two clicks away. I am on the verify page and everything looks to be in order, so I click 'submit payment'. The very next page then notifies me that we are no longer doing good. It reads: Unable To Process Your Change....(Error 2005). Well, what is that suppose to mean? There wasn't any change to process! At that point I try about 10 more times to make my payment, but I kept coming back to that same screen over and over again. I'm sure that by the 5th time it was mocking me.

What do I do? I go to bed (I also grumble to my sick husband who could really care less).

Tuesday rolls around and I hop on the computer and go to pay my loan, or so I thought. I log onto the site, I make my clicks, I get to the 'submit payment' click hoping that this time I will succeed, and what do I get for all of my troubles?

UNABLE TO PROCESS YOUR CHANGE....(ERROR 2005)!!!!!!!

The least they could have done was given me a message that read, "SORRY we are unable to process your change....Not even a sorry!!!

At this point I lookup the customer service number and call them. This normally toll-free call was not free because I am not in the U.S. Lovely, just something else that I have to pay for, right? Anyway, I call and the nice woman I speak to informs me that they have been having trouble with their site, and that is should be back up and running sometime that day. She also informs me that there is a 14 day grace period (when did these people start giving grace periods), and that I am actually a whole year ahead on paying my loan back. That translated into, "Even if you don't have your payment to us on time, there is no need to worry. You can quit pulling out your hair and know that you will not be having that aneurysm that you were so looking forward to. You are ahead on your bill. Good for you Stacy, have a cookie!"

So today rolled around and I skipped over to the computer with a goofy looking grin on my face, I logged into the site, made all of the appropriate clicks, and my bill was paid! I think I deserve another cookie!