The NeverEnding journey to Dublin

Last week I learned many new things about Ireland and particularly about Dublin airport. I was visiting my good friend for the weekend and I was supposed to fly back to Brussels on 20th. My fight to Finland was on 23rd. Due to the weather conditions, I got stuck there for additional 6 days...


My flights got cancelled for 4 times, out of which 3 times I was already at the airport, at the gate, waiting for the flight... After the 4th cancelled flight to Brussels, I decided to book direct flights to Finland. So, I was finally in Helsinki on 26th of Dec.


The first two times my flights were cancelled, I was able to take the situation with humor. But after that, the "stress management" became harder and preventing the tears was impossible. Specially when I realized that I'm not going to be home for Christmas...


Well, there's always an upside too. Fortunately I didn't spend the time alone at the airport, but I stayed with a new good friend of mine for the whole time. I even got invited for the Christmas dinner (with salomon specially cooked for me!) and got presents from Joulupukki (Santa Claus). I was very impressed by the warmth and friendliness of the Irish people. 


Even though I spent the Christmas away from my family, it was one of the best Christmases I've ever had. At least one of the most memorable :)

exams coming up..

..but before that, there´s Christmas...


So, during the Christmas holidays I can´t do anything else but to study (or try at least while travelling between Southern Finland and Northern Finland & packing my things for Lappeenranta in February).

Here´s my exam schedule:


10.1. at 8:30 Global Information Management
10.1. at 13:00 Business Intelligence Methods 


15.1. at 13:00 Environmental Economics (I loooove this course!!)


17.1. at 8:30 Russian culture and language II (oral exam.. oh my...)


26.1. at 13:00 Business Process and Operations


28.1. at 15:00 ICT Strategy & Architecture (oral exam!!)


I´m bit worried about the workload in the beginning, although happy that the two exams on 10th are touching the same issues (a little bit). I love the Environmental Economics course, but worried at the same time, since it can be rather challenging.. Russian exam is horrifying me, since I´m really not able to produce anything sensible in speaking.. and the teacher speaks quite fast and I don´t understand... I hope I´ll pass.. 
Business Process and Operations course covered a looot of topics and concepts and the exam will be multiple choice (I usually suck in those). So a lot of reading is required to pass that one.. ICT Strategy & Architecture wouldn´t worry me, but it is oral exam and I have never had an oral exam about something else than languages... So, we shall see how that will turn out. 


Friday is my last day of working for the CSR Forest project, so from now on, I´m able to focus more on my Master´s thesis. Looks like a lot of work for the beginning of next year.. and hopefully for the rest as well after the graduation ;)

Joulua odotellessa

Muistaakseni kirjoitin viime syksynä Pietarin erikoisista jouluvaloista, jotka vilkkuivat ja välkkyivät kaikissa sateenkaaren väreissä. No, pettymyksekseni Brysselin jouluvalot menee samaan kategoriaan. Ihan kaikissa mahdollisissa sateenkaaren väreissä valoja ei sentään ole täällä, mutta vilkkuvia diskovaloja kyllä löytyy. 

Siitä on joulutunnelma kaukana. Täällä on vakuuttavampi joulutori kuitenkin kuin Pietarissa, ehkä niiden tunnelmaa on vaikea verrata kun myytävät tuotteet ja naposteltavat ovat niin erilaisia (Venäjällä shaslikia ja olutta, Belgiassa vohveleita ja glögin tapaista kuumaa maustettua viiniä). Mutta tori täällä on suurempi ja kojuissa myydään krääsän lisäksi ihan kunnon tuotteita. 

Tänään vierailin Merimieskirkon joulumyyjäisissä (lähellä Thronen metroasemaa) ja ostin sieltä piparkakku-omena keksejä jos niistä saisi joulutunnelman. Sain vierailtani glögiä ja piparkakkuja jo aikaisemmin, eli joulufiilis on sikäli pelastettu. Kaipaan kyllä niitä hyvällä ja maltillisella maulla koristeltuja joulukatuja Suomessa. No, kohta olen jo siellä...




Winter Pret

Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää! Happy independence day!

Ja kyllä, me järjestetään itsenäisyyspäivän vastaanotto Brysselissä. "Oi maamme Suomi..." 

Past weeks

I have been down with a cold for the past few weeks, fortunately getting better now. Belgium is surprisingly cold, specially indoors as the apartments aren´t very well isolated.

We had a Global Village event, where we promoted our home countries (Finland!) and our home Universities (LUT!). To our surprise at our stand, there was also marketing material for Åbo Akademi (the Swedish University in Turku) and Helsinki University. It would have been nice to know beforehand, so that we could have found out some information about those two universities. But we didn´t, so we were only able to tell people about the two cities and our university. I´m always happy to promote Turku which I consider to be my home city, since it is the closest city to my home village. (And BTW, name Turku is not at all related to Turkey. Name of Turku comes from a word "tori" which means a marketplace) 

We got finally our exam schedule for January too. It looks quite ok, except the 10th of Jan. when I have two exams in a row.. It´s going to be a tough day :o

Wellwell, I guess I´ll just continue with the group works now..