back to Helsinki

However I’ve started my blog with a post about my love with Finland, telling you the truth in the past months I didn’t feel myself too well here. I guess it’s because I’ve spent too long time here and I had to face more difficulties then during other periods of my life. I cannot say that I was suffering but somehow I lost my enthusiasm and I have started to think that maybe I have to move somewhere else. But at the moment I cannot, I really want to finish my education here. 

The best solution for my homesick was to fly back home andto spend there almost the entire summer. I worked in June in a hotel as maid (a cleaner) but honestly that’s not my job. I am stupid to clean, that’s the true. I wasn’t able to do my tasks on time and I really did a horrible job. It sounds more than ridiculous but that’s the true, I am an academic person or at least the secretary type. I can learn more hundred pages within days, I can write good essays about everything, I can solve mathematical problem or think logically but I am not able to physical work. Maybe I am not strong enough or I just cannot pay attention of tiny details while cleaning but I really sucked at this hotel. It wasn’t my employers fault, it was me. You can hear horror stories about treating foreign workforce at workplaces like this but here everything seemed to be pretty okay…Maybe I write about this experience later I just don’t want to think about this month at the moment.

So I had an amazing summer in Hungary, I lived with my family in my old room. I could see that the previous three years have been really difficult for my parents too and I am sure that they will be happy if I could find a job a ‘little bit’ closer. I am really thinking about moving to Germany or Austria after graduation, the absence of my family is the hardest thing to cope with when I’m in Finland.
The saddest thin about being home for such a long while was to realize that I have really lost a lot of friends. A lot of close friends. I know that I have to accept that we all are changing and these changes just separate us.  I don’t wanna figure out who is responsible or whose fault is this situation, I guess the only thing what I can to to let them go. I don’t look back in anger and I don’t have any bad feelings, I try to keep the nice memories and move forward.  I wish that they will remember me later. At this point we are walking on different ways, on ways that might never meet. So goodbye my old friends it was a pleasure to spend so many remarkable moments with you. Thank God I still have few closer friends and I hope these friendship will last until the grave.

During my holiday I had several times the idea to leave Finland and to move to Budapest. I could easily find a well-paid job there and my life would be definitely easier. But then why the hell I was fighting for years? I came back to Finland for nothing? And finally I attend a college what I really like and I have found a degree program what completely fits to my career prospects..Should I give it up? Give up something again? I gave up the love of my life -the law school- because of my love to Finland I cannot just go away. I have to stay here and I have to fight for my future and for my dreams. It will be more than difficult because I have to find a job to cover my expenses and I also have to study really hard. I have to sacrifice even more. The most ipmortant is to be much stronger and persistent. I don’t know how I will manage but I won’t give up!

I came back last Monday. That was the first time when I was not happy about it. I have a lot of fears and doubts. The only thing what helps me is my school, I have great courses and great teachers this semester. My classmates are also really nice even though I feel that I’m kinda outsider there, it is still difficult for me to be nice and friendly. I am socially awkward – I am a much better person when I’m online. When I have to leave my comfort zone what means my laptop I freeze and I don’t know how to behave. I have to practice or to learn how to be more natural and kind. I’m a really warm-hearted girl, I like to help others I just cannot communicate on the right way…
So, at the moment school keeps my ‘Finnish dreams’ alive. I had a nice week there and I hope that I can be a good student and gain a lot of new knowledge. 

That was the first time to come to my own place, I live now in a student apartment in Eastern Helsinki. This area is horrible, this is the “ghetto” of Finland. I have never been before and I didn’t think that this kind of places do exist in the safe Finland. There are a lot of strange people on the streets, it seems to be really unsafe, I am seriously thinking about buying a pepper spray or something to protect myself. On Tuesday a bunch of homeless people decided to move in to our staircase…Fortunately someone called the police but it was really scary. The only good thing is that I live close to the metro station and I can get kinda fast into the center. But it’s still a great feeling that I have a home. It’s a bit old-fashioned, small and dirty but it’s mine. I have worked for it. That’s where I have started my new life in Finland.

Well, I am back. I try not to worry about the future I live for the moment instead. I know that it won’t be easy but I cannot assume that things will go wrong. I’m rather optimistic and assume that I will have a great time here and I will find the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t poison my days with the ‘what if…’ thoughts and I try to avoid to see the ‘worst outcome.’ It’s much better to fight with a smile and with a positive attitude. 

Helsinki, I am back – and I will stay here until I graduate. At least! 🙂

Why Finland?

In January 2011 I arrived to Helsinki and I planned to stay here 5 months. But I’m still here and I will stay at least till my graduation. I guess I have a lot of things to tell. 🙂  In a nutshell: after being an exchange student I came back as an au-pair, later I started to study in a Finnish college, but I didn’t like it so I changed. I used to in Espoo  for three years –  then I have moved back to Helsinki…As Finland has played an important role in my life I’d like to start this blog with my feelings about this country.

Why you just decide to give up your completely ordinary life and take the risk to move in a foreign country? Seriously, I don’t exactly know why I love Finland so much, I just cannot stop to love it since the moment I arrived here.

I came here for the first time three years ago as an exchange student. I think everyone who is in higher education should take the chance and study a semester abroad. Even though it sounds like a cliche but it can broaden your mind and change your life completely. That happened to me too. I always have  been the ‘good girl’ and I have never thought about living abroad – I had exact imagination about my career and about my future. Before finishing my studies I’ve just applied to a scholarship abroad, I thought it would look like amazing on my CV. My goal was to choose a country whose culture is more different than  my home country’s.  Since I speak German fluent all the German speaking countries were excluded, I had to improve my English. I prefer cold weather than hot, so Finland seemed to be the ideal choice for me. I cannot describe the euphoria what I felt after getting the scholarship – I couldn’t stop reading about Finland.

 

One of my first pics in Helsinki 🙂

As I came here this euphoria continued during very day. Finland is a country where everything works: I have never had problems with administration, with the public transport or with simple everyday matters. Finns work effectively and they are usually nice if you have any question. That’s true that they are shy but not in a negative way. I really enjoy that they avoid stupid small talks and don’t whine about their problems. And they are very polite too. The best thing what helps you is that almost everybody speaks English fluently. They have their cute accent but you can understand everything what they say.  Once even a homeless men switched to English to ask me for a cigarette as I’ve told him that I don’t speak Finnish at all.

I love Finnish culture. I love those silent and hard-working people with a great sense of humor. A lot of foreigners tell that Finns are too closed and they don’t talk or they are rude. No way! You just have to be patient and don’t force a friendship or a relationship. They don’t wait for a phone call from a friend every day, they like to have their own personal space and they respect others’. They don’t call you every day because they don’t want to disturb you. They aren’t too talkative for a while but once they consider you as a friend they will show their ‘real face” and let you show yours. This mutual respect is the starting point of a great friendship or a relationship. At the beginning I felt that I’m really outsider and nobody will accept me, but after a while I found great friends and I still think that Finns are amazing on the way they are.
They do respect each other as well, they are honest and reliable. They always buy a ticket in the public transport vehicles however they know that usually nobody checks them. If they find something on the street what doesn’t belong to them they take it to the police or to the office of the lost and found things. Seriously a lot of my fiends found there their lost phone or wallet.
Finns are also tidy, all the public vehicles are usually clean, so the waiting rooms and other public places.

Besides the culture and people I also like that Helsinki is pretty safety. Of course there are places what are more dangerous but I often just walk home alone in the middle of the night. I never get robbed or attacked and especially on the weekends there are plenty of policemen on the streets maintaining the public safety.

The landscape is very amazing too. Can you imagine a capital with a lot of parks, lakes and a beautiful seashore? And the forests, they look like magical places. The countryside is more different than the capital region but it has its beauty too, the neverending forests, the clean sky, the thousands of lakes..It is fascinating how the modern world meets with nature! Finns like and respect the nature much, they are somehow ‘forest people’: enjoy to be outside, to go fishing, picking up berries, hunting and so on.

Of course living here has its bad sides too, my biggest problem is that even though Finns are friendly they don’t accept foreigners completely. I won’t say that they are racist or xenophobic but sometimes it makes me really upset to feel that I’m an outsider. But I prefer to write a separate post about it.
A lot of people think that it can be horrible to survive the long and cold winters – I won’t lie that I’m jumping happily when it snows in April, but it isn’t as bad as you imagine. 😉 It’s amazing to have four seasons, to observe the long days in the summertime and enjoy the lovely snowy days in winter. I love this country and if I will have the chance to work have after graduation I wouldn’t think about it. 🙂

Ars poetica?

First of all, feel yourself welcomed on my page, unfortunately I don’t have any fancy greeting post or anything, I’ve just planned to drop a couple of lines about this blog and about me.

What is the title? Pieni means small, little in Finnish. I wanted to choose a blogID what sounds unique but still has a connection to me; Finland and Finnish language takes a marginal part of my life that’s why I decided to run this blog with this bilingual title.

I was thinking a lot about writing a blog anonymously just to protect myself. Then I thought that writing articles by a random person without a face is not too authentic.  I won’t hide neither myself nor my opinion.

What you should know about me? Well, if I’d start to describe my last 4-5 years it would sound like a soap opera, so without the details: I am a 26 years old Hungarian girl who currently resides in the capital of Finland. I have moved here in January 2011 as an exchange student at the university of Helsinki and after the expiration of my scholarship I decided to come back and start a new life here.  I plan to write about my bigger “episodes” later. I am a student at the moment at a Finnish college (officially called university of applied sciences), after quitting a law school in Hungary I try an experiment in the world of information technology, hopefully I can overcome my obstacles more successfully in the future.  Besides studying I worked three years as an au pair. (Au pair is the babysitter who lives together with the family.) 

Why I write this blog? Because writing and online communication are my hobbies, I have been writing more blogs in Hungarian, I also had some experiments with blogging in English but I wasn’t persistent enough.  Although I still enjoy to express myself in my mother tongue I consider posting in English as a great challenge: I now that I’m not a professional or an academic user of the English language but I would like to improve and to practice. So sorry for grammar mistakes, typos or anything – I don’t want to write a piece of literature but I would like to share a piece of my soul and to introduce my little world. And with English I might reach more people, I’m just playing with the thought to have readers all over the world…:)
I also plan to give to this blog a proper design later – my dream is to be a web designer one day – when I have the proper knowledge about HTML5 and CSS. 🙂  I hope you don’t have enjoy the random wordpress themes for long!

What I will write about? I don’t know and I don’t want to know. As I mentioned I like “online communication”, I feel myself the most comfortable in the front of my laptop. I am going to share feelings,  experiences, maybe some good stories…or just random thoughts.  As a foreigner, as an adult student and as a socially awkward type I have a lot of topic to write about. Just like everybody I have my ups and downs and I don’t want to promise now that I’ll spread positive energy or any good advices. I can only promise to be myself; to give a little piece of my world to you!

I hope you will enjoy it!:)

Petra