Last Entry

I'm finally back home.

Leaving Iowa City wasn't that easy. And by that I mean, that the flights were cancelled. It was so foggy that you couldn't see 2m ahead of you. So I slept the night at Cedar Rapids airport. I was so pissed off and disappointed not to see Tarmo that day. The night wasn't that bad, I made a nest from my luggages and slept a bit. The next morning there was a bus going to Chicago at 10 am so I took that. I had already rescheuled my flight for that day to Nashville. So I went to the airport and was really excited, finally I could see my baby! But no! 20 min before the flight was supposed to leave, it was cancelled. There was no flights to Nashville available for that weekend. So I got a flight to New York and slept the next night in there as it was no point going to a hotel for few hours. They also lost my luggagges, but that was only good thing as I was supposed to leave them to Nashville anyway.
So the next morning I left to our hostel and found out that there was no room left and they're going to transfer us to their daughter hostel but Tarmo needs to be there too before they can do that. So I left to the airport to wait Tarmo. And FINALLY we met! I thought that I had cried more but eventually it felt so natural to be with him. As if he'd been there the whole time :)

So we left to the hostel, got transferred to a better hostel and spent our Christmas in NYC. It was fun and nice and beautiful. After that we left to Nashville, rent a car and drove two days. We also visited The Smoky Mountains! I also met the professor in Vanderbilt and we spent one day in his labs. I was sick on New Year's eve, so I didn't celebrate, but it was OK, as we had time to rest. Finally we left back to Finland on Friday, all our flights were on time (except the last flight was 15 min late). We were two days at our parents house (slept most of the time and visited my friend who had a beautiful baby girl!) and finally yesterday we came back home! It felt sooooo GOOD (in Bruce Almighty style) to sleep in my own bed, under my own blanket, with my love.

Finally back home!

I'm still very tired, very jetlagged, wake up 2 am and can't sleep after that. Luckily we have some time to adjust back to this rythm.

Now that I look back the Fall I spent in Iowa City, I'm really glad that I left there. This experience gave me a lot self confidence, I never thought that I'd ever dare to travel after two nights in airports in NYC metro, alone. I also met many many wonderful people, visited beautiful places and had so much fun! I always knew that the time wouldn't be that easy all the time but most of the problems were still quite unexpected. This was my dream, and it was worth it. I won't do it again but I wouldn't want to miss this experience either. If I didn't have life so strongly in Finland, I maybe would've stayed longer. Everyone who wonders if exchange would be nice, DO IT! It really is worth it. It was a dream come true.

Finals

Finals week. This required much more work than I expected. Haven't had time to be home, haven't had time to see friends :( And tomorrow I'm leaving. And Tarmo is on his way here, I believe I don't even need to say how excited I am :)
Exams... Three down, still one to go. They've been OK, tomorrows exam is going to be horrible. Two hours and 200 points. 100 points from the first two thirds, another 100 points from this thirds. So far we've had one hour and that's been just and just enough (or not), this time it's the 2 hours but there's no extensions to that :F And I've already used my learning capacity for this year, I simply can't stick any new info in my brain! But I'll pass. That's my goal.

So, after I see Paola, Meike and Kaisa, I need to go home and finalize my packing. I also need to burn my pictures and that's going to take whole night as I fought with my computer last night when I burned pictures for Paola.
1) My computer seems to have mental problems with opening the dvd thing (lost the word)
2) My computer seemed to be too tired to burn anything as it just shut off this morning twice (it just stopped working, even the clock stopped) when I was burning some pics for Melissa
3) It takes AGES to burn all my pics, even without all this problems above...
So, this night is going to be long, as I'm going to be home only around 7 pm. I also need to do some laundry, but I might leave that to tomorrow morning as I want pack only clean clothes. And I need to get rid of my furnitures. And all my closets need to be empty by tomorrow morning 8 am as Dez needs to check in and in order to do that I need to check out and I need to do that early so that I can still go through my notes before the exam. After the exam I'll go to have lunch and after that I'll be leaving! No need to say that I'm superbusy!!

But now back to neurobiology, still one hour time to go through... My brains will explode!

Don't Mourn What Is Gone, Greet the Dawn

So, The Time is here. I need to leave.

I've been so excited the whole week but now that it really is time to leave, I don't want to leave. My life is so strongly in Finland and I want to go back. But at the same time this has started almost to feel like home. I love Iowa City and I love all the people I met. I'm going to miss so many of you, luckily we don't live in isolated worlds, all the wonders in internet (like Facebook ;) are our savior.

I don't like goodbyes. That's why I don't say goodbye.



Thank you all, thanks for making my time in Iowa and elsewhere in US amazing.

*hugs*

ps. This is the best video I found from youtube, the video itself isn't what I wanted to show, listen the song :)

Under 100 Hours!

Oh, I'm so close!

Last lectures are over, all that is left is The Exams. This week was full of studying as usual, and the weekend was amazing. On Friday night we had a Farewell party for the international students and we baked some pie with Kaisa. It wasn't as good as it should've been but it was ok. After all the eating and gift things me and Kaisa decided to go and have one ciders at a Irish pub and they had ONE type of cider in there :D But we were happy, even I though it was apple cider :P After that we came back home and just hang out with some international students. On Saturday I finished my readings and packed my big suitcase! It's quite heavy and full, though I still should be able to fit my blanket in it. And all the rest of my stuff needs to go in smaller bag, I don't know yet how, but that needs to happen. In the evening we went to Cory's place (got invited by Nathaniel :>) and it was so much fun! We stayed there until 4 am and came home, but this time we went straight so sleep ;) I wasn't even that drunk so I feel just fine now :)

Sorry, still no pics as this connection is as usual slow and shit.

Oh yeah, and Ash straightened my hair! It's never been like this, sleek and smooth! I like it but I'm too lazy to do this my self :P

I have one review session this evening and I'm going to go through the notes before that with Kaisa. Luckily I don't have exams tomorrow but I need to go through some notes and call Miki. Next week I also need to go to the bank and do all that leaving stuff... Going to be busy, busy!

I've just been talking with Tarmo the whole day, he went to his parents yesterday. He'll be here in five days!!! Miss him so much...

I still need to try to concentrate on my exams... I'm not happy about the fact that the hardest and most important exam (Neurobiology) is on Friday, so I can't afford to let my mind slip...

Fun Four Months

Oh last weekend was amazing! I did nothing related to studies ^^ And on Saturday night we had Judith's goodbye party and it was so much fun! First we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to eat and after that we went to Joe's place, Sports Column and Summit. In Sports Column there was some wrestling going on on tv so it wasn't that nice place, especially when they run out of smirnoff ice!!! And Kaisa and I just drank total of three of them!!! And while we were on our way to Summit we found some more people to join us! After the bar closed we went to Andrew's place, but before that we went to liquor store to get some more booze. After that we went to Cory's place and finally got back home. But oh no, the party wasn't over, me and Kaisa came to my place to amuse Tarmo :>
We finally went to sleep around 7 am :D The next day I didn't have as bad hang over as I thought I'd have but I really couldn't move much.
Meike came to do some analysis here but otherwise I was just laying in bed and surfed in internet.

And I've been here now over four months! Amazing! I can already say that I'll see my love next week!!! So excited!!!

We didn't have classes today as there was supposed to be an ice storm. But I got that e-mail only at 2:30 pm so it was already a bit too late for me but I went to library to do my lab report. And in the morning there was several power cuts so I read the rest of the Developmental biology... But I really don't get it, it's not even that bad now! It's only raining water! It's not even slippery as there isn't minus degrees outside! And it really pisses me as today I'd had the most interesting lectures ever :/ And it really isn't bad! I know it'll be slippery in the evening as the temperature drops...
And the funny thing is that here they don't use stud tires! Only chains :D And Cory laughed at me when I said that I even use stud tires on my bike during winter! :D And I laughed at the chains... But I don't get it, here it really is winter, why don't they use studs??? And then they use salt! LOTS of it. It's really annoying because your pants have white stripes on them and then the salt comes in and argh! Use sand! No wonder you can't even touch the Iowa River water because all the salt goes in there :F It's really bad for the environment!

We also had a fire alarm, again, last night. I was already in bed but luckily wasn't sleeping yet. Dezerae said that there's been more fire alarms during this semester than ever in a whole year! I don't get it, what's wrong with this years people?!

What else... I'm really looking forward to next week and the day I see my babe again! Missing him so much!

I also remember how I said two months ago that "Oh, two months has gone by, I guess it's going to slow down now..." But no, time really went by fast :) And I'm really happy that I came here, I've learned a lot. I've had great courses (though I still hate the exams...) and I believe this did good for my English as well :> Though I know I make more mistakes now as I don't pay attention as much anymore to what I'm saying. But I'm more confident and not as afraid to speak anymore. I've also learned to appreciate more for what I have and how thing are in Finland. And as I have said before, this was not easy but it was worth it.

But it's not the right time yet to say these goodbye things. I'm just starting to realize that it really is over soon... But I have a whole life waiting in Finland and I really need and I want to go back. I'm happy to go back :)

Pipettes in My Heart

So, one more week of lectures ahead!
On Thursday I had my last lab and oh my god but it really hurt in my heart! Not the thing that it was the last lab but the thing what we did. We got our fruit flies drunk and to do that we needed to measure 10 ml with a pipette that was 1000 µl. I got the pipette in my hand and was wondering what size pipette it is as I couldn't see any labels and wondered would it be 500 µl or 1000 µl as it looked big but not as big as our 1000 ml Finnpipette. The group was wondering how I can know such a thing and aone guy said that it says 1000 in the top of the pipette and so I said that then it's ten times this. He watched me and was like wtf, ten times thousand is ten thousand... how can that be 10 ml... He almost didn't believe when I said that believe me, its ten times 1000 µl :D Then they concluded that they'll look the scale on nunc-tubes and measure it with it :D Oh my god!!! And oh my, this wasn't yet the thing that hurt me, it was the way they used the pipettes! They had ethanol in the pipette and they held the pipette horizontally!!!! OH!
Just needed to share that. But let's keep in mind that they weren't pipette biologists but behavioral biologists but it still hurt my heart :D

Tonight I'll go ice skating! And tomorrow is Judith's farewell party.

Oh yeah, and I got first answer regarding my future and I'm happy happy! ^^

My Dear Finland

Blah. 16 freaking days!
My mind has been in Finland the last two days. I've been planning my spring and next Fall... If I'm hard working, I should graduate during/after summer! Cool! I'm also planning to go to elsewhere to do my Ph.D. though I'm going to stay in Finland... but nothing more on that, that's going to be the spring issue I have to deal with...

I'm waiting so much for the next two and a half week to go by! Then I'm going to see my babe!!! Missing him so much! Now I've gotten myself in a point where I'm just waiting to go back home... Or to be more specific, waiting to see my love. Waiting, waiting and waiting.
Finals are coming soon, I've lost my motivation to read properly but my goal is to pass all the courses, I'm going to take only passed for them, not any grades as they'd lower my average. But even though my motivation is low, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't read. I still need to study to keep my mind happy ^^ I can't just do nothing, I'd feel bad about myself.

I'll go and "celebrate" one of my friends leaving on Saturday. So I get some social life again! Last weekend I just enjoyed my peace and tried to sleep and relax :) Then it's only one more week of studies, then it's over. Well, then it's finals and then it's really over!
I already packed stuff away that I don't need and tried to estimate how much space do I have and that if I need to panic how I get all my stuff back in Finland :D It seems to be ok. Though I still need to think what to do with my blanket, I paid a lot for it, too much just to give it away so I need to see if I could take it with me if no-one is going to buy it... Luckily I've been reasonable and haven't bought A LOT stuff. And I'm going to send some christmas presents to my parents so that the could at least think that I'm with them.

Ashleigh came from NYC and told it's really beautiful. I'm looking forward going there with Tarmo! Oh I just said to Kaisa today that I love him so much, I love that he just brainstorms with me (about the future) and stuff... The nearer I get to The Day, the more enthusiast I get! Oh please let this three weeks go by fast!!!

By the way, it snowed. Or actually it rained ice during the weekend and the ground is still white (and slippery). And I'm starting to be too goofy, I forgot my keys to the store downstairs last night :F