It has already been a couple of months in Finland now, but it feels like I am here since ages. When I state 'I am getting familiar with Finn weather', I think it's too early to say that. I was happy not to suffer cough & cold ( I really hate it!) ‘coz when I arrived here almost everyone in my class had flue, one after another, and we had named it DSS-Flue! Gosh! I was unaware of my immune system till now... lol
Now the highways, sub-ways and every routes of Jarvenpaa are clearly set in geographical space of my mind. When Kanchan and I go for jogging we enjoy beautiful dusk as long as we can. We run alongside the lake, farms, woods and railway stations. Unfortunately, the weight machine has yet not shown any remarkable changes in kgs/lbs :))
These days we are busy bees. We hardly get time to sit together in our common kitchen and talk about our diurnal activities. Life is treating hard and tough, so far. Of course, we had not expected that it would be a cakewalk, 'lesser the expectation slighter the pain'.
Ranita a.k.a Nirupa Roy has many complains. She thinks she is the only person on Earth with all the miseries and, while trying to confront her, I feel like I am the wisest person on this planet who is here to distribute wisdom LOL. As it is said 'everything successful you do in your life depends on the people you align around you, sometime listening to your heart is crucial.' Hummm...Who agrees?
We have funny Jessica who never gets tired turning every situation humorous, and our apartment becomes a Cinema hall that has comedy movie on. Kanchan & I have discovered a new promising chefs in us. We cook weekend feast or say it a family dinner/lunch...Yummy! How about opening a Restaura in Finland?
The smell of the Asian spices, fragrance of incense and the loud music playing on youtube make us nostalgic.
Jokes apart, we’re social services students i.e. future Social Workers. Our Social Welfare and Policy class, if I want to be politically correct I should say - 'Social Welfare and Policies of Finland or sometime EU', says a lot about the benefits and welfare that Finn government provides to its citizens. Everything is so WHOA! Yeah, the taxation is there, but it is worth paying after all 'There’s no such thing like free lunch'- that’s what our lecturer Dennis always says. TRUE!! For third world country where we come from these kinds of facilities provided by state is nothing more than New Year’s resolution, you make it and you forget it.
And what surprise us is, despite the supports and facilities government is providing here, MALE suicidal rate in Finland is high. For some years this country was even on the top list of male suicidal rate. As far as we have observed, in comparison to Finn women, men are not very open and expressive, and when the emotions or feelings remain within themselves people get frustrated, lonely and isolated. #Observation
We're from the country where people never forget to put a beautiful smile on their face no matter what, but here most of the time you see people whose smile has been buried in the snow or frozen like lakes in winter. We've also met some middle age Finns who were so rude to us for no specific reason ( Use the right vocabularies for God sake! Please don't make us feel we're in foreign land, respect humanity)
Last week, we went clubbing. We really needed some fun to refresh our mind. We had to keep Ranita awake till 2230hrs 'coz either she goes to bed early or spends whole night on Skype. We wanted her to come with us 'coz it was a new experience for her. She thought that it would be awkward as she can’t dance (she thinks). Well, she surprised us when she effortlessly copied every steps we taught her on the dance floor. It was really a fun night until Kanchan and Ranita bumped into this lean & thin Indian guy. First Indian we have met here by the way! He tried to present himself like Mr. hottie having all the females following. Gimme a break dude! I am sure he realized where he stands when Kanchan told him GET LOST!
Then again, there was this drunk old Finn woman in the rest room, I'm sure she must have been going through midlife crises, the way she behaved with us was intolerable. Thank God we didn't loose our temper, she was so annoying. In spite of everything, it was a fun till we realized that our legs were hurting the other day.
The busy week days, the assignment pressure, stressful group works and rejuvenating field visits are helping us to deduct days from months & years to go back to Nepal. So many things to do.......
At the end of day when you come back home tired and cook for yourself, you miss those days when mom cooked your favourite dish; when you feel cultural indifference and make you feel sad, you miss your friends with whom you can talk/share whatever you like, and when you hear about the progressive reports of other countries you wonder when would your country be a part of these examples.
Now the highways, sub-ways and every routes of Jarvenpaa are clearly set in geographical space of my mind. When Kanchan and I go for jogging we enjoy beautiful dusk as long as we can. We run alongside the lake, farms, woods and railway stations. Unfortunately, the weight machine has yet not shown any remarkable changes in kgs/lbs :))
These days we are busy bees. We hardly get time to sit together in our common kitchen and talk about our diurnal activities. Life is treating hard and tough, so far. Of course, we had not expected that it would be a cakewalk, 'lesser the expectation slighter the pain'.
Ranita a.k.a Nirupa Roy has many complains. She thinks she is the only person on Earth with all the miseries and, while trying to confront her, I feel like I am the wisest person on this planet who is here to distribute wisdom LOL. As it is said 'everything successful you do in your life depends on the people you align around you, sometime listening to your heart is crucial.' Hummm...Who agrees?
We have funny Jessica who never gets tired turning every situation humorous, and our apartment becomes a Cinema hall that has comedy movie on. Kanchan & I have discovered a new promising chefs in us. We cook weekend feast or say it a family dinner/lunch...Yummy! How about opening a Restaura in Finland?
The smell of the Asian spices, fragrance of incense and the loud music playing on youtube make us nostalgic.
Jokes apart, we’re social services students i.e. future Social Workers. Our Social Welfare and Policy class, if I want to be politically correct I should say - 'Social Welfare and Policies of Finland or sometime EU', says a lot about the benefits and welfare that Finn government provides to its citizens. Everything is so WHOA! Yeah, the taxation is there, but it is worth paying after all 'There’s no such thing like free lunch'- that’s what our lecturer Dennis always says. TRUE!! For third world country where we come from these kinds of facilities provided by state is nothing more than New Year’s resolution, you make it and you forget it.
And what surprise us is, despite the supports and facilities government is providing here, MALE suicidal rate in Finland is high. For some years this country was even on the top list of male suicidal rate. As far as we have observed, in comparison to Finn women, men are not very open and expressive, and when the emotions or feelings remain within themselves people get frustrated, lonely and isolated. #Observation
We're from the country where people never forget to put a beautiful smile on their face no matter what, but here most of the time you see people whose smile has been buried in the snow or frozen like lakes in winter. We've also met some middle age Finns who were so rude to us for no specific reason ( Use the right vocabularies for God sake! Please don't make us feel we're in foreign land, respect humanity)
Last week, we went clubbing. We really needed some fun to refresh our mind. We had to keep Ranita awake till 2230hrs 'coz either she goes to bed early or spends whole night on Skype. We wanted her to come with us 'coz it was a new experience for her. She thought that it would be awkward as she can’t dance (she thinks). Well, she surprised us when she effortlessly copied every steps we taught her on the dance floor. It was really a fun night until Kanchan and Ranita bumped into this lean & thin Indian guy. First Indian we have met here by the way! He tried to present himself like Mr. hottie having all the females following. Gimme a break dude! I am sure he realized where he stands when Kanchan told him GET LOST!
Then again, there was this drunk old Finn woman in the rest room, I'm sure she must have been going through midlife crises, the way she behaved with us was intolerable. Thank God we didn't loose our temper, she was so annoying. In spite of everything, it was a fun till we realized that our legs were hurting the other day.
The busy week days, the assignment pressure, stressful group works and rejuvenating field visits are helping us to deduct days from months & years to go back to Nepal. So many things to do.......
At the end of day when you come back home tired and cook for yourself, you miss those days when mom cooked your favourite dish; when you feel cultural indifference and make you feel sad, you miss your friends with whom you can talk/share whatever you like, and when you hear about the progressive reports of other countries you wonder when would your country be a part of these examples.
XOXO
Jo_tee
