I'm holding the most beautiful card ever. No, it's not a credit card with unlimited limit all though that would be awesome...but...it's my WORK AUTHORIZATION CARD!!! YAY! It came while we were in Finland! Last Thursday Aditi sent me a message saying that my card was approved and It would be here any day now. Today as I walked into the office it was handed to me! It usually takes them about 3 months to process...mine was done in 2 weeks! Woo Hoo!!! If everything goes well in the job hunt I will be able to start working on June 1st. Just thought I'd share my wonderful news.
Blog about our trip to Finland will follow sometime soon! I gotta go smile a little wider! Later
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
COCONUT!
So not only are we leaving to Finland tomorrow but our new local right-around-the-corner Dunkin Donuts was opened today! And since I'm home today I thought I'd go visit the place, get some fresh air and obviously great coffee. I walk in, order my usual french vanilla and got a flatbread sandwich as well. As I was leaving a guy who I assume was the owner said "I'll see you tomorrow". GREAT! They already know I'll be a regular!
So I got home, eat the sandwich which was great and then sniff my coffee. It's coconut!
COCONUT! I hate coconut! I won't let this discourage me though...We're leaving for Finland tomorrow, I'll get to see my family and friends and introduce T to them...and the people at DD are new so I'll know to taste my coffee tomorrow before stepping outside.
Now I gotta go pack and stuff! See ya all, well most of you in Finland!
So I got home, eat the sandwich which was great and then sniff my coffee. It's coconut!
COCONUT! I hate coconut! I won't let this discourage me though...We're leaving for Finland tomorrow, I'll get to see my family and friends and introduce T to them...and the people at DD are new so I'll know to taste my coffee tomorrow before stepping outside.
Now I gotta go pack and stuff! See ya all, well most of you in Finland!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
3 Days till Finland
Yesterday was my comprehensive exam and I expect to pass. Just got a text message saying we all passed but I haven't heard from the Professor so I will wait till tonight to get the results. After that, just finish these 2 courses and I'll graduate. YAY!
We'll be leaving for Finland in 3 days and we're both so excited. I get to spend some quality time with my family and friends and introduce T to them finally. Only thing making me sad right now is that as it stands now, we won't see my friend Noora at all. She's one of the first people I told about T and I wanted the 2 of them to meet. We have a pretty tight schedule and too few days to see everybody and go to all places. Sigh. It's been too long since I last saw her. :-( This sucks!
Does anyone else think that this season of American idol totally sucks? Other than Danny, everybody else is like a background noise. We did not see the Hollywood week for some reason but it seems like the people who were really good at the auditions have just come down a level in the final 36. I wasn't even able to listen to all of them because they were just so bad and forgettable. And the song choices this season...OMG! They've gone for way too difficult or songs that no one has ever heard before. And then when you rape that song, it makes it really bad. During previous seasons there has been many people who have been unique and memorable from the beginning. This season it's just Danny. I liked Anoop a lot too but he has made some bad song choices lately.
We didn't watch yesterday's episode because we are hooked on the biggest loser and they're on at the same time. I gotta say, Mike is my favorite. He just such a good kid, giving his prize of year worth of grocery's to a member of the OPPOSITE team, losing enough weight to keep his dad in for so long and just being a good person. We both are on team Mike for this one! I also like Tara just because she is hard core when it comes to working out and losing weight. She's losing over 10 pounds every week, except this which was a BAD all around, but she really understand what it's about. And After yesterday's weigh-in she said she let herself down. She wasn't pointing fingers to the trainer like Felipe was or making excuses. She just said she let herself down.
Now Felipe...shut up bro and start working! You're not there to be part of a team and to win all the challenges, you are there to LOSE WEIGHT! You are there for yourself, not for your trainer, not for a show, but to LOSE WEIGHT! Stop crying, stop placing blame and work your ass off! If your trainer doesn't train you, you make sure YOU do twice the work! When you leave the biggest loser camp it's YOU who needs to keep working out, YOU who needs to exercises and YOU who needs to make sure you eat healthy and well. Jillian wasn't the one who poured those drinks down your throat or force you to eat burgers, fries and fried chicken. That's what you get for "relaxing". That's why you are at the camp. Take some responsibility, shut up and work on it. You've lost so much weight so far, you can do it. Just please shut up!
Sorry about my little rant but he doesn't seem to get it. And he was so cocky yesterday that it was time he lost at something.
Anyway, Sox is crying upstairs so I need to go see her. I'll probably blog again before we leave but then probably don't have time to do so in Finland.
Later
We'll be leaving for Finland in 3 days and we're both so excited. I get to spend some quality time with my family and friends and introduce T to them finally. Only thing making me sad right now is that as it stands now, we won't see my friend Noora at all. She's one of the first people I told about T and I wanted the 2 of them to meet. We have a pretty tight schedule and too few days to see everybody and go to all places. Sigh. It's been too long since I last saw her. :-( This sucks!
Does anyone else think that this season of American idol totally sucks? Other than Danny, everybody else is like a background noise. We did not see the Hollywood week for some reason but it seems like the people who were really good at the auditions have just come down a level in the final 36. I wasn't even able to listen to all of them because they were just so bad and forgettable. And the song choices this season...OMG! They've gone for way too difficult or songs that no one has ever heard before. And then when you rape that song, it makes it really bad. During previous seasons there has been many people who have been unique and memorable from the beginning. This season it's just Danny. I liked Anoop a lot too but he has made some bad song choices lately.
We didn't watch yesterday's episode because we are hooked on the biggest loser and they're on at the same time. I gotta say, Mike is my favorite. He just such a good kid, giving his prize of year worth of grocery's to a member of the OPPOSITE team, losing enough weight to keep his dad in for so long and just being a good person. We both are on team Mike for this one! I also like Tara just because she is hard core when it comes to working out and losing weight. She's losing over 10 pounds every week, except this which was a BAD all around, but she really understand what it's about. And After yesterday's weigh-in she said she let herself down. She wasn't pointing fingers to the trainer like Felipe was or making excuses. She just said she let herself down.
Now Felipe...shut up bro and start working! You're not there to be part of a team and to win all the challenges, you are there to LOSE WEIGHT! You are there for yourself, not for your trainer, not for a show, but to LOSE WEIGHT! Stop crying, stop placing blame and work your ass off! If your trainer doesn't train you, you make sure YOU do twice the work! When you leave the biggest loser camp it's YOU who needs to keep working out, YOU who needs to exercises and YOU who needs to make sure you eat healthy and well. Jillian wasn't the one who poured those drinks down your throat or force you to eat burgers, fries and fried chicken. That's what you get for "relaxing". That's why you are at the camp. Take some responsibility, shut up and work on it. You've lost so much weight so far, you can do it. Just please shut up!
Sorry about my little rant but he doesn't seem to get it. And he was so cocky yesterday that it was time he lost at something.
Anyway, Sox is crying upstairs so I need to go see her. I'll probably blog again before we leave but then probably don't have time to do so in Finland.
Later
Monday, March 9, 2009
Who killed Jenny F***ing Schecter???
I don't know. Do you?
Yesterday was the final episode of the L-word, EVER. T's high school friend Tara invited us to her house to watch it with a bunch of other people (we met them at the season premiere of s6). We're all excited, finally we'll find out who killed the much hated Jenny and hopefully the series would end on a happy note...yeah, not so much. In very Ilene Chaiken like style, the whole episode was just a fill-in, nothing of substance and certainly NO answers. Just like it's been since the beginning. I don't have the energy to get too emotional about it, I guess I am used to it not being what I want it to be. And since the show is important to me and T as it is what got us together, it does hold a special place in our hearts. I'm just very disappointed.
This season was sold to the audience with the slogan "Who killed Jenny" so everybody thinks the final episode will reveal the answer. Nothing. All the episodes in between had someone pissed off at Jenny or even saying I'm gonna kill Jenny, Jenny you're dead or something to that effect. They show interrogation of the whole gang but no clues as to who might have done it. They speak about Jenny but nothing about her death. I mean even when she's dead she's still the center of the show. She was killed on the first episode which made us all happy and then the rest of the 8 episodes are flashbacks! It's like she never died! I'm not a bloodthirsty person, I don't want people dead so please don't read this like I do, but SERIOUSLY?!? I guess I should be glad this was the end of the L-word because s7 would probably be about Jenny's ghost!
Sigh. Letdown. MAJOR letdown.
On Saturday Nutley had it's annual St. Patrick's day parade so we walked there in the gorgeous weather, almost 20 degree Celsius. We were both wearing t-shirts and sweating after the walk. It was really fun watching the parade and being able to walk there. It's exactly the kind of thing we wanna be doing and one of the reasons why we are looking into areas away from NJ/NY.
This is the week for FINLAND! We will be leaving on Saturday, getting there on Sunday and then it's gonna be an action packed week! I can't wait to see my family and friends again!
Now I gotta go back to work and hopefully get some more time for studying as well. I have my comprehensive exam tomorrow. Later!
Yesterday was the final episode of the L-word, EVER. T's high school friend Tara invited us to her house to watch it with a bunch of other people (we met them at the season premiere of s6). We're all excited, finally we'll find out who killed the much hated Jenny and hopefully the series would end on a happy note...yeah, not so much. In very Ilene Chaiken like style, the whole episode was just a fill-in, nothing of substance and certainly NO answers. Just like it's been since the beginning. I don't have the energy to get too emotional about it, I guess I am used to it not being what I want it to be. And since the show is important to me and T as it is what got us together, it does hold a special place in our hearts. I'm just very disappointed.
This season was sold to the audience with the slogan "Who killed Jenny" so everybody thinks the final episode will reveal the answer. Nothing. All the episodes in between had someone pissed off at Jenny or even saying I'm gonna kill Jenny, Jenny you're dead or something to that effect. They show interrogation of the whole gang but no clues as to who might have done it. They speak about Jenny but nothing about her death. I mean even when she's dead she's still the center of the show. She was killed on the first episode which made us all happy and then the rest of the 8 episodes are flashbacks! It's like she never died! I'm not a bloodthirsty person, I don't want people dead so please don't read this like I do, but SERIOUSLY?!? I guess I should be glad this was the end of the L-word because s7 would probably be about Jenny's ghost!
Sigh. Letdown. MAJOR letdown.
On Saturday Nutley had it's annual St. Patrick's day parade so we walked there in the gorgeous weather, almost 20 degree Celsius. We were both wearing t-shirts and sweating after the walk. It was really fun watching the parade and being able to walk there. It's exactly the kind of thing we wanna be doing and one of the reasons why we are looking into areas away from NJ/NY.
This is the week for FINLAND! We will be leaving on Saturday, getting there on Sunday and then it's gonna be an action packed week! I can't wait to see my family and friends again!
Now I gotta go back to work and hopefully get some more time for studying as well. I have my comprehensive exam tomorrow. Later!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Update
I have few minutes before the L-word second to last episode starts so I thought I'd blog
- I finished my resume yesterday. We came up with a kick ass objective and now my professor is reading it and will give me some pointers so after he is done I will start sending it out. Well actually after we come back from Finland since I wanna be here in case I'm contacted
- There's 13 days till Finland! Our schedule is filling up fast and we're both excited about it! We get to see Elviira and Marianne, hopefully Noora, eat blueberry pie, celebrate St. Patrick's Day on Tampere with Saara and do some shopping in Helsinki, Tampere and Forssa. We'll also go see a basketball game. It'll be so much fun!
- We went to see the reader on Friday. It was weirdly good and weirdly bad. I'm gonna use the word weird here a lot because that's how I felt afterwards. Our mood after the movie was nothing like after Slumdog Millionaire. This was like stunned silence. T was bored to tears and I was looking for the idea behind the movie. Couldn't find it. Was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too long. Can't believe Kate got an Oscar for that.
- We just finished a cook-out. I think we're trying to go back to cooking few meals each time so we don't need to cook every day.
- We are waiting for a major snow tonight and tomorrow. So far this year all the "major storms" have been duds so who knows if this will stick but that's the rumor. We might both stay in tomorrow. The city is supposed to be hit the hardest and T thinks the commute will not be worth it.
- Portland, Phoenix and Charlotte are areas of interest right now.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Mug shots
I was supposed to go get my picture taken for the OPT application today and in the application package they had suggested a place in Upper Montclair. With all the bussed and trains I'm taking to to go there I had to leave an hour earlier than usual so that I could do this before work started. I get to the place and see these signs "Everything must go" and "Closing down sale". Awesome. I walk in and the guy doesn't even turn around. When he finally does he tells me they no longer take passport pictures. GREAT! Can you recommend me a place that do and take the official US passport pictures and not the old fashion ones...no. So my mug shots were not taken yet but T is taking me to a place that does tonight so it's all good. I have everything except the pictures and a check for $10000000000000 million thousands hundreds billions that they want for the card. I have a meeting with Aditi on Thursday morning and we will go through the application. It's very convenient that the person giving me a ride home 3 times a week is also the person in charge of the immigration things here at school!
Work permit application, check.
My boss is out today because her son is sick so I have been able to take care of some of my personal business. I have a little stats project I should be doing but sooooo do not feel like it so I will leave it. Instead I will work on my resume!
One of the great things about America is the fact that berries, fruits and vegetables are always in season. I just had a snack of blueberries and strawberries that T made for me yesterday. Our local Farmer's market has watermelon and cantaloupes all year round all though they are a little bit more expensive now during the winter time but not anywhere near as expensive as they are in Finland during winter!
Later!
Work permit application, check.
My boss is out today because her son is sick so I have been able to take care of some of my personal business. I have a little stats project I should be doing but sooooo do not feel like it so I will leave it. Instead I will work on my resume!
One of the great things about America is the fact that berries, fruits and vegetables are always in season. I just had a snack of blueberries and strawberries that T made for me yesterday. Our local Farmer's market has watermelon and cantaloupes all year round all though they are a little bit more expensive now during the winter time but not anywhere near as expensive as they are in Finland during winter!
Later!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Every day is a Valentine's Day
when you live with the one you love (According to T)! So our plans for V-day didn't exactly go as planned but we had fun regardless. More about that later.
On Friday I headed to the city to see Saara. It was the big day, the day my salmiakki storage was filled once again! And boy, did she do good! I have all kinds of salmiakki, T got her chocolate and Vanilla kossu so we are now good until we can go to Finland ourselves and get some more of that good stuff. But anyway...
I took the bus with T to the city, walked the 16 blocks to Saara's hotel and got there around 9:15am. We decided to leave the candy etc. to her hotel since we weren't sure how much walking we'd be doing and frankly it was a big ass bag so it was best that way. First we went to eat breakfast in a diner and yapped away. It has been awhile since we last saw each other so we had a quite a lot catching up to do. After breakfast Saara wanted to do a little shopping and other than the Mac computer she wanted to buy, we were able to find it all. When we were done shopping, we went to have dunking donuts (breakfast had included few cups of coffee). After that we met up with T for lunch near her office and I was glad to find out T and Saara got a long great! After lunch we decided to go have a drink in an Irish bar, at this point Saara had gotten texts from the other members of her Finnish delegation that they were bar hopping so we decided to do the same. I just couldn't find the bar I was looking for so we went to drop of Saara's shopping bags to her hotel (stopped by at Starbucks on the way), I used a lifeline and called a friend about the bar address, I took my salmiakki and booze bag with me and we went to O'Lunney's. 5 of Saara's friends met us there and T joined us after work. We had a great time, drinking cider and telling stories...Valtteri especially was full of great stories! One end of the table was all about poop stories while the other end was concentrating on academic stuff. Guess which end we were at?!? We decided that since it would be St. Patrick's day while we will be in Finland, we will stay in Tampere for that night, crash on Saara's couch and meet up with Salla and Valtteri as well. O'Connell's and Soho, watch out!
We really had a great time and it was awesome speaking Finnish again. Commenting in Finnish on facebook and speaking to my mom once a week isn't exactly enough of Finnish. I notice I forget words and sometimes how the grammar goes.
Like I said, we had plans for Valentine's day that did not materialize. T was supposed to have a brunch with her mom (while I stayed home being lazy and watching TV), come home after that and we would have made dinner and rent movies but then her sisters called and wanted to see us so the whole plan flew out the window. Instead we went to her moms, she made seafood linguine (one of my fave dishes that she makes), Carly came over to hang out with us and then we went to her dads, had dinner with them, watched Madagascar 2 with her sisters, played Rock Band and I played with their pet bunny who is 16 pounds/ 8kg (bigger than Sox!!!). We got home around 9:30 and watched an episode of Desperate Housewives we hadn't seen yet. It was a fun day and since we might be somewhere far away next year, we thought it would be a good idea to see everybody. And like I said, every day is a Valentine's day when you live with T! I don't need a calendar mark for that!
On Sunday we just chilled, only thing we did outside the house was go to Farmer's market to get the veggies and fruit for this week. Other than that we just basically read. I finished the 3rd book of the twilight series and T was towards the end of the 4th one. I think she should be done by now since she had the day off today and less than 100 pages left. I will have my nose in that book soon enough!
I didn't have a day off today so I'm at work right now. I have been doing some job searching, nothing serious just yet but just to see what's out there. I'm also thinking about attending my graduation ceremonies...I'll need to talk to T about that.
Have a great week everyone!
Later
P.S. Good luck Saara for tomorrow!
On Friday I headed to the city to see Saara. It was the big day, the day my salmiakki storage was filled once again! And boy, did she do good! I have all kinds of salmiakki, T got her chocolate and Vanilla kossu so we are now good until we can go to Finland ourselves and get some more of that good stuff. But anyway...
I took the bus with T to the city, walked the 16 blocks to Saara's hotel and got there around 9:15am. We decided to leave the candy etc. to her hotel since we weren't sure how much walking we'd be doing and frankly it was a big ass bag so it was best that way. First we went to eat breakfast in a diner and yapped away. It has been awhile since we last saw each other so we had a quite a lot catching up to do. After breakfast Saara wanted to do a little shopping and other than the Mac computer she wanted to buy, we were able to find it all. When we were done shopping, we went to have dunking donuts (breakfast had included few cups of coffee). After that we met up with T for lunch near her office and I was glad to find out T and Saara got a long great! After lunch we decided to go have a drink in an Irish bar, at this point Saara had gotten texts from the other members of her Finnish delegation that they were bar hopping so we decided to do the same. I just couldn't find the bar I was looking for so we went to drop of Saara's shopping bags to her hotel (stopped by at Starbucks on the way), I used a lifeline and called a friend about the bar address, I took my salmiakki and booze bag with me and we went to O'Lunney's. 5 of Saara's friends met us there and T joined us after work. We had a great time, drinking cider and telling stories...Valtteri especially was full of great stories! One end of the table was all about poop stories while the other end was concentrating on academic stuff. Guess which end we were at?!? We decided that since it would be St. Patrick's day while we will be in Finland, we will stay in Tampere for that night, crash on Saara's couch and meet up with Salla and Valtteri as well. O'Connell's and Soho, watch out!
We really had a great time and it was awesome speaking Finnish again. Commenting in Finnish on facebook and speaking to my mom once a week isn't exactly enough of Finnish. I notice I forget words and sometimes how the grammar goes.
Like I said, we had plans for Valentine's day that did not materialize. T was supposed to have a brunch with her mom (while I stayed home being lazy and watching TV), come home after that and we would have made dinner and rent movies but then her sisters called and wanted to see us so the whole plan flew out the window. Instead we went to her moms, she made seafood linguine (one of my fave dishes that she makes), Carly came over to hang out with us and then we went to her dads, had dinner with them, watched Madagascar 2 with her sisters, played Rock Band and I played with their pet bunny who is 16 pounds/ 8kg (bigger than Sox!!!). We got home around 9:30 and watched an episode of Desperate Housewives we hadn't seen yet. It was a fun day and since we might be somewhere far away next year, we thought it would be a good idea to see everybody. And like I said, every day is a Valentine's day when you live with T! I don't need a calendar mark for that!
On Sunday we just chilled, only thing we did outside the house was go to Farmer's market to get the veggies and fruit for this week. Other than that we just basically read. I finished the 3rd book of the twilight series and T was towards the end of the 4th one. I think she should be done by now since she had the day off today and less than 100 pages left. I will have my nose in that book soon enough!
I didn't have a day off today so I'm at work right now. I have been doing some job searching, nothing serious just yet but just to see what's out there. I'm also thinking about attending my graduation ceremonies...I'll need to talk to T about that.
Have a great week everyone!
Later
P.S. Good luck Saara for tomorrow!
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