Taikakäsi

I'll try to explain the concept of "Taikakäsi". "Magic hand". My hand got that nickname back to the days I was doing my first Master's in Vaasa.

This is how I study: I pay no attention in the classes, I really cannot focus three hours and listen to somebody speak. One hour maybe, but not three. I don't think I never took notes. I always think that I will remember the important stuff later, of course I cannot. Studying for an exam a week earlier is impossible, three days is the maximum I can do. But then I lock up in my room and start studying. The first day is normally a waste of time. On the second day I realize that I do not have time to read everything. The third day I panick, select the stuff I will read and I then study like a maniac. And I study during the night. Usually I only sleep a couple of hours in the night before the exam, and I'm always thinking "why can't I have one day more?" At this point I have no clue about how the information I have read connect to anything, I just have pieces of information that I know well. So I drag myself to the university tired and confused.

Then comes the exam. It really doesn't matter how much time I have to make it: I either know or I don't and either ways I'm fast. When I get there, I'm still very clueless and very sure that it will be a nightmare. If the test is mathematical I know if it was ok or not, and I'm much better with numbers than essays. So when I have an exam with essays, I really don't know how they were. After the exam I can't tell if I'm going to get 5 or 15. Because sometimes I have beautiful answers, but they are not exactly fitting the question that was in the exams. Some professors can be tricked with writing BS, others not.

So this is why my hand is called Taikakäsi. I seem to be clueless (and I am!!) but somehow Taikakäsi stays cool and goes to the exam and writes good answers. Sometimes I'm relly amazed how good I did when I really wasn't expecting much.

Kids: this is not the way to study. I hate it, too. Stupid uneccessary stress and I bet the information is out from my head as quickly as it went in. I'm trying to change, but I'm too lazy.

But this works for me. Got the best grade from my class for one exam.

Food, once more

I have stopped using a belt.

Heko heko

The Finnish woman that was registering the votes was kind of unfriendly, so I tried to break the ice with a limping joke. She didn't laugh. I admit that the joke was really, really bad. Like father, like daughter.

Porto freaks

I don't know how many freaks there are in Porto, but I'm quite sure I met the majority today. And my most used sentence here "I don't speak Portuguese" doesn't work with them, because they don't seem to mind at all. In the bus I had to listen a 20min monologue from a very strange granny who probably gave me Ebola virus. All I understood was that she was going to the pharmacy.

After the voting I had a walk on the beach, the weather has been amazing here btw. At some point I sat down and during that 15 minutes I had the pleasure to meet two very special people: one guy who was listening to his CD-player (yes, CD) and singing loudly along, sometimes asking me if I recognized the song (not a chance). After he left, a woman sat down next to me, don't know where she escaped from but she also wanted to sing and she also had a lot to say, unfortunatelly I have no idea what that was. I didn't even bother telling her that, I just smiled and thought to myself: "WHY ME?".

Btw, the homeless guy is doing good, he has a friend now. And yesterday I was happy to notice that my favourite hooker is back.

P.S. To be fair, I also met a Finnish guy who was definitely from somewhere outer space.

Pekka Haavisto

Tomorrow I'll go by bus to the other side of the city, so I can draw no 2 in a piece of paper. It's totally worth the trouble, I'm so very proud to tell here that Pekka is in the second round of the elections, no matter how he might not be the most traditional candidate in the history of electios.

Reclamação

I went to my Portuguese class again today, and guess what I learned? To write a reclamation letter in Portuguese. I really wonder at what point that is in the syllabus in Finnish for foreigners class. But apparently it is a useful skill in this country.

Lazy days

My holidays is going great - I'm barely doing anything. Tomorrow I might go and register to this country. Might be that I'm here a bit illegally.

Futuuri

Finnish people might know that there is no future tense in the Finnish language. Guess how many there is in the Portuguese language? Four. Maybe more, but I saw four. And which one to use depends on the time, but also how formal the context is and how probable it is that something happens. And once you have decided which one to use, THEN you still need to find the correct declination of the verb.

I find the imperative form more useful. Then I can be bossy in Portuguese as well.

Ryanair

I was a bit confused what to do during the holidays. But then I discovered that I live in a city with Ryanair!!! It's like a whole new world opened uo for me. Just need to decide now where to go.

Finnish party...revisited

Saturday I hosted a Finnish party with another Finnish girl at our place. It was a lot of fun, we had a quiz, some drinking songs and of course great Finnish music. But what I'm mostly proud of are these beautiful things:

And this is blond Finnish me:

VAT 2

-Can I pay with credit car?
-We prefer cash.

From now on I'll ALWAYS ask for a receipt.

it's not all that bad

Exams are over. If I passed all of them, I have 3 weeks off. Ou jee!

Plan C

I just got fired. And I'm not even working. Not everybody can do that.

Information Systems

I got my first grade! 15/20. Go Emilia!

Reaching new levels of tiredness

Today I had my third exam (one to go on Friday) and straight after that my new Portuguese language course started. Shock therapy indeed. Now I'm going to read Seiska and Hymy, maybe visit the blog of my Favourite Finnish Celebrity. And in the morning I go to my PhD class.

VAT

I went to pay something and the guy asked if I wanted a receipt. I said I didn't need one and he said "Oh great, better for us. Otherwise we'd have to pay taxes."

1. Too much honesty
2. The accoutant in me is a bit troubled
3. No wonder the economy in this country is a disaster.

PT

They called me from the gym because I haven't been there for a month. Kind of nice. But freaky.

Apparently I'm not busy enough...

...on Monday I'll start another Portuguese language course. Just when I was going to have some time off. I must hate myself a bit.

Fever

For the last three days I've been in my bed, freezing from fever and trying to study. The success wasn't that great. I still had fever in the exam and at one point I asked the professor about one question that I just didn't understand, he tried to explain but I still didn't get it. The other professor came and tried to explain but I still didn't get it. Looking forward to Monday's exam.

Finnish party

I should be studying, but instead I'm planning a Finnish party since I just love theme parties. Just need to use a lot of imagination to figure out 1) What to serve 2) some program to the party. Suggestions are highly appreciated.

Weirdest compliment ever

"You have pretty eyes. My eyes are pretty too, but yours are prettier."

1/4

First exam done, I think it was good. Three more to go. During the weekend I didn't even think of exams, now I need to restart. And this week I need to go to the immigration office to tell them that I'll be here. Kind of forgot to do that earlier.

Hugs and kisses

I wrote an email to the library and accidentally signed it:

kisses,
Emilia

Oh, Portugal. What you do to me.

Plastic bags

I'm very proud of my flatmates: they are folding their plastic bags nowadays and our drawer is super organized.

But why do we have so many plastic bags? I'll tell you: Today I went to a supermarket and bought bread (that was in a bag), a shampoo and three bananas. I went to Froiz (a Spanish supermarket) and there the plastic bags are for free. The cashier put the bag of bread in one plastic bag, and the shampoo and the bananas in another one. The most ridiculous thing I saw for ages!! I wish the plastic bags were banned, at least these stupid small ones that break so easily that you can just put a couple of products in one. gnaah.

Library

I went to the library at my faculty to study. Dream on. The place was so crowded that it was almost impossible to find a seat. And it's soooo loud. One poor security guy going round telling people to be quiet, but as soon as he is gone the noise goes up immediately.

And have I already complained about the teenage couples snogging in the studyrooms? My goodness they are annoying. Well they all live with they parents so I guess they need to do it at the university. A BIT disturbing though.

Home, but not alone

I was in the kitchen downstairs, and the electricity went off. My flatmate was in the bathroom and I was going to switch on the safety fuse. I was looking for the flashlight, when a small guy with long hair appearred from our guestroom and scared the living daylight out of me. That was my flatmates brother, but I had no idea that he was visiting. Nice guy. This house is funny.

Elections

I discovered today that I can vote for our elections in Porto. So next week I'll go and give my vote to the most handsome man, as usual.

Snicker

I'm always amazed how my last name confuses people. I was in the security check at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, greeted the person working there in Finnish and then showed my boarding pass. After that the question of "do you have liquids in your bag" was in English (and I was so tired still at 5am that I replied in English, too). Then I went to Tax Free and bought A LOT of salmiakki. I greeted in Finnish and showed my boarding pass, and again the language changed to English. "Do you like salmiakki?", asked the guy at the counter. Come on, like any foreigner would ever buy that amount of salmiakki. I feel very Chinese.

Flights

As some of you might know, I have very strange karma with flights and usually something strange happens. Cancelled flights, oversales, missed connection flights, lost luggage and the weirdest one: being the only passenger in a plane. But good things as well: upgrated seats, extra days abroad in nice hotels, vouchers and this time, what really saved me a lot of money - there was a bit of chaos at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport so they didn't weigh my clearly too heavy luggage. Apparently they think it's impossible to fit more than 20kg to a rucksack (obviously they never met a Pro Packer like me, it was closer to 30kg). I also had a handbag and another bag, sometimes they are very srtict about the one handbag rule, luckily I look very innocent and I had already prepared a speech of "you cannot possibly assume a woman to fit all her things to ONE handbag", but luckily that was not needed.

Finland

Finland was good. I spent some days in Helsinki, Kajaani and Kokkola, met my family and managed to see a lot of friends as well, got really cool christmas presents and ate, ate and ate a lot. Really needed the break from studies and managed to reach a level of a complete relaxation, so much that I'm worried how it's going to be tomorrow when I'm supposed to start studying for my exams that start next week.

The small materialist in me is happy about my "new" clothes that I brought with me here, I was so fed up with wearing the same clothes all the time. Now I have 5 new pairs of shoes (well one pair is actually new, waterproof shoes, highly appreciated here) and two winter coats so bring on the Porto winter, I am prepared!

Happy New Year!

I was celebrating last new year in my glitterpants dressed up as Lady GaGa. This new year's eve I spent in a monastery dancing to Portuguese music. I hope this year will be as random as its first day.