Monday 9/3/2012
Orientation
day! Started off the day alone in the main room with my computer and the
internet was actually working. I was worried about the bus schedules but I
looked it up on the Tampere Journey Planner and it gave me three possible buses
to take to arrive at TAMK main campus 10 minutes early - 18, 28, or 16. Journey
Planner includes walking directions to the bus stop (thank goodness) so I typed
those into my I-pad. At 9:20 I crossed my fingers and headed out into the wilds
of Tampere.
No wrong
turns, no wrong buses. I made it to campus without any problems. Paying for the
bus was a little nerve-racking. He had a credit card scanner but he took one
look and mine and said it wouldn’t work (this I knew might happen), so I got
out my change and this is when I discovered that the 1 and 2 Euro are coins,
and I tried to give the driver a 5 cent coin instead of 50 cent. He was patient,
thankfully, while I figured out what I was doing and it worked out.
Found the
right building and the right room and found two other students already there in
the hallway. We were early and the room was locked. Eventually we were let in
and each got a folder with some basic information and paperwork to fill out. We
got our student discount cards so we could get cheap campus meals then we all
went as group to sign up for our student membership cards so we could get
discounts at other places (for instance, the bus passes).
TAMK main campus
We signed up
for our Student IDs but wouldn’t get them for two weeks so off we went to the
Finlayson campus. Finlayson is where all our classes will be. I learned of this
three days after I paid for my future apartment which is right by main campus.
Oh well. So we go by bus, this time we have our orientation guide to tell us
which bus to take which is a huge relief. Finlayson campus turns out to be
right by the city center where there is a huge bus connection and essentially
all buses lead to Finlayson. That makes it easy then. We walk to our campus building.
It is an old factory building of red brick. Inside it’s a little dark, a little
gloomy and yet not so much to make it depressing but just enough to give it
some atmosphere. Do you know what I’m talking about? Anybody have a comparable
building with atmosphere they know of? I haven't taken any interior pictures yet, but remind me and I will later.
So we get a
tour of the Finlayson area. There is a nice little restaurant called Dot, or
Zimberia, where students can get lunch for 2.70 Euros. Non students pay 7
Euros. We have lunch and the food is okay, but not 7 Euros good. I had meatloaf
and veggie & bean croquettes. The meatloaf was so-so, my mom’s is much
better. The croquettes were pretty good though, they looked like tater
tots. U can also get the soup of the day
and a salad plate. After lunch we went up to one of the classrooms and
continued some general get to know you, get to know the program stuff. Around
2:30 we were released, orientation had started at 10 am.
There were
eight of us at orientation; the class would have fifteen students. The Finnish
students didn’t have to go to our orientation so we would meet them on the
first day of class. Of us non-Finnish student, three were from Germany, one
from Greece, one from Taiwan, one from Russia, one from the UK, and then of
course me the American. It turns out
that Maria, from Russia, was staying at the same Hostel as me and was also
waiting for her apartment to be available. We headed back to the hostel
together only to realize we didn’t know which bus would get us back. I had my
three buses from earlier on my I-pad so I knew those would get us there if we
could figure out where they stopped at the city center. We tried one bus that a
fellow student told us would work, but when we asked the bus driver to be sure
he didn’t speak any English and couldn’t tell us for sure. We eventually found
the bus stop for bus 16 and took that because I knew that one went by the
apartment. After we got off the bus we little shop nearby to buy dinner. There
weren’t any prices except for the deserts, which looked really good. I just
bought a small deli style sandwich however and what looked like egg salad on
bread. It turned out to be egg salad on a potato which I actually really liked.
The sandwich was also good but the shop was more expensive than the grocery
store so I don’t plan on making it an everyday thing. Maria didn’t know where
the grocery store was so I showed her the one in the mall I had found in my ATM
search. We did some shopping and called it a day.
This was my shopping trip from Sunday...
My deli meal
That night,
after my daily family Skype, I go to unplug my laptop and I cannot get the
outlet converter out of the extension cord I’m plugged into. No matter how hard
I pulled I can’t get it out. It comes halfway out and stops. I can push it back
in easily then pull it back out to the same point and it stops. I ask the girl at the desk if she can do
anything, hoping maybe this happens all the time but she is just as baffled as
I am. I end up pulling the cover off the converter but still can’t get the
thing out of the extension cord. She replaced the extension cord so other
people could use it and gave me a different converter to use and she’d have
someone look at mine in the morning. Well that was incredibly talented of me. I
head off to my room to plug in my laptop so my I-pad can charge, it only
charges through my computer because I don’t have the right wall plug for it so
it won’t get fried. It is painfully slow though. Well, I get to my room only to
find that I can’t plug this converter into the wall. It is the right kind of
plug but all the outlets are inset and this one is too big to fit into the wall
to be plugged in. I give up and go to bed at 9:30.
Tuesday
9/4/2012
Finlayson building and me
First day of
classes! I figured out the journey planner for our new bus that morning. We
needed to be at Finlayson by 9:15 so we left at 8:50. We get ready and then
Maria tells me we should just walk rather than take the bus. I hadn’t even
thought about but it was a really short bus ride on the way home yesterday so
why not? Walking places wasn’t something I had even thought of as a
possibility. We walked to Finlayson and it was pretty nice out, I was a little
cold at first but once we started walking I was fine. We reached our classroom
right on time though most of the class was already there.
Starting off
my first class we did another round of introductions. The exchange students and
Finnish students were paired up with each other to introduce themselves then
share what they learned to the class. After that we talked some shop and then
broke for lunch. Today lunch was fish fillet and veggie & bean croquettes
again. I had pay extra today because I wasn’t suppose to get fish AND veggies
on the same plate. I figured that’s what they would tell me, but I really wanted
both so I paid the extra 1.5. I also got a salad. When we went back to class we
found out we were presenting our first homework assignment to class. I had
turned in my homework Thursday before I left the States. Our assignment was to
pick 5 films we liked and 3 we disliked and to include a clip for one of the
ones we liked. From reading the e-mail I thought that Peeko (our teacher for
this first week) was going to present this and show the clip, but no. We had to
get up and talk to the class. I was shaking when it was my turn but at least my
voice was steady (well, fairly steady). Maybe that public speaking class paid
off a bit? Anyways, for those of you who are wondering here are my top 5 and
bottom 3:
Five movies that I like are :
Pitch Black, genre action/horror
Back to the Future, genre comedy/sci fi
Conspiracy Theories, genre suspense/action
Lord of the Rings, genre fantasy
Forrest Gump, genre drama
Three movies I dislike are :
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, genre comedy
Twilight, genre epic romance
Series of Unfortunate Events, genre comedy
I’d like to
hear what your answer to this question would be! We didn’t get through all the
students by the end of the day so we have a few left to do tomorrow, then I
believe we will get to watch some movies in class. Being a film student is
terribly difficult work. Oh, and also one of the German students, Henning, is
also a fan of Joss Whedon. I was SO excited to learn that.
Maria and I
stop by the bus pass place on our way home since its right outside Finlayson
but the line is long and we didn’t feel like waiting around. We go to main
campus instead to get our free phone cards, but when we get there the office is
closed and is only open during the hours we are in class. We’ll just have to
try again Friday – class is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday with a few
exceptions. We stop by the grocery store
again on our way home. This time we try out S Market instead of K Market. S
Market is a larger grocery store outside of the mall, just across the street
from each other. I bought myself some cheese ravioli-pasta for dinner. We walk
back and it’s nearly 6 so we are ready to eat. The ravioli was delish. I even
had to cook to make it! I first had to boil water, which required a pan, water,
and asking for help turning on the electric stove. Next I put the prepackaged
raviolis into afore mentioned water that was now boiling. I stirred
occasionally for 4-5 minutes, STRAINED the pasta, and then poured it into a
bowl to eat. Whew. You see the strained part there? It was some hard work I’m
telling you. It was very tasty though so
worth the effort.
My pasta. Actual cooking!
Some salsa available at the S Market.....
I traded the
borrowed outlet converter back to the hostel people and got my stuck one back,
along with the whole extension cord to use until I could replace mine. Sort of
silly to carry an entire extension cord with me around the hostel, but my
electronics are worth it. Tomorrow my tutor is going to take me to buy the
various electronic gadgets I’m missing so hopefully it will soon not be an
issue.
Wednesday
9/5/2012
Second day of
classes went pretty much the same. I left early this morning and got my 30 day
bus pass. Tampere isn’t that big so theoretically I could walk everywhere, but
my apartment is farther from the school than the hostel is so I think I’ll
prefer taking the bus to get to school.
In class we
split up into groups and were assigned to create a rare/unusual character. My
group came up Disorder Jane. She goes through pretending to have mental
disorders to get free stuff, or just to con people for fun. She sees herself as
being perfectly healthy, but she has been faking these disorders for so long
she has become addicted to it and it has developed into a real disorder. The
only time we see her without a pretend disorder is when she is with her mother.
Her mother has been going through life without ever working which is where
Disorder Jane draws her conning inspiration. We present our character to the
class tomorrow and see what everyone thinks.
I went
shopping for my electronics. Got my phone, I-pad charger, and memory card
reader but could not find a wall adapter replacement. My current plan is to
wait until I move into the apartment then I’ll order it online and just work
from my I-pad for a few days.
Not really
too much new happened today. I have been told that in order to try the
“traditional” Finnish reindeer I’ll probably have to go to a restaurant, but
restaurants are expensive. Maybe someday. Today I just had the “spicy” sausage
at the cafeteria. The spicy I think was meant to be the sauce which reminded of
the Egyptian buttered chicken sauce my mom had made before. It’s not spicy in
the Tex-mex sense, but it was tasty.
Some other photos to share...
True Lies, Princess Bride, Galaxy Quest, Court Jester, & Total Recall to start
ReplyDeleteWhile You Were Sleeping, You've Got Mail, Sabrina, Annie for all time movie favs. I really loved the Avengers, oh and Pirates of the Caribbean series. I really like action with humor. There are a lot I like, but I guess the ones I didn't like are not very memorable. Or, you saw them first and warned me not to (like Twilight). :)
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