Viikkokatsaus

I’ve been trying to motivate myself to work for the past two hours now. Suddenly it seems much more interesting to finish decorating my room (I’ll try to get some decent photos by tomorrow… it’s starting to look very nice even though I never would have thought I liked a room with so much orange and purple in it) and listening to my childhood favorite shows’ themes on YouTube… I still know words to Tao Tao, Around the World in Eighty Days and Alfred J Kwak, just to mention a few :D

I really do like my second job (much more than the one I do during daytime, to be honest). I just need to relax every now and then too. I feel like I’ve been working non-stop since arriving here. I had a bit of a meltdown this weekend, mostly because I was so tired…

I think I need to tell you a few things about where I live first, so that you understand. Grenoble is probably the most dangerous city in France with several different mafia groups and a pretty important population of immigrants. And I happen to live right next to one of the worst ghettos of this city. It’s usually ok, but I don’t feel very safe about going jogging all by myself or coming home with the tram late at night (after sunset). But so far I’ve felt safe enough to walk to work, through a park that lies in the middle of the notorious cité.

Thursday, though, I walked in the park on my way home around 5.30pm and passed some adolescents who were fooling around. They started throwing things at me but I ignored them and then one of them took a rock, about the size of a large strawberry, and threw it right into my head. It hurt pretty bad. Before I even realized, I was yelling at them the loudest I could, I just sort of exploded and I’m not even sure what it was that I told them but it was in Finnish anyway. Such a primitive reaction… They ran away laughing and I continued walking shaking with rage. And then I started to hyperventilate. I thought about everything that could have happened, if the rock hit my face for example. You just don’t do that to people. I called Maxime crying and barely breathing and luckily he managed to calm me down. He’s so good at these moments, all calm and reassuring…

So that was it. Apparently it happens all the time, the young people in the cité don’t have anything to do so they do tout et n’importe quoi… I’ve stopped going to the park in the evening, though. It makes me mad that I can’t walk or run there without needing to be afraid but I still prefer to avoid the place. If only for my mum whom I haven’t even told because she wouldn’t sleep for at least a week if she knew about this.

This weekend I felt I really needed time to just relax. Maxime had made some research and planned a dozen things for us to do - and all I wanted do was to sleep… He was really cool about it though. We went for a very nice drive in the countryside Saturday evening. The weather was perfect, very hot and sunny and I felt so happy! I find sitting in a car funnily calming and relaxing so it really was a perfect way to spend a melting hot afternoon. And then I slept. For ten good hours during the night and some more Sunday afternoon. Perrrrfect. With some very delicious Italian ice cream on top :)

Now I think I’m off to bed… I’ll work hard tomorrow then!

Sweet dreams everyone.

Happy

Kiva päivä takana. Vaikka maanantai olikin… Aamulla oli vähän toinen fiilis, kun heräsin puoli seitsemältä naapurien mekkalointiin ja alakerrassa odotti viikonlopun tiskivuori. Selvisin kuitenkin töihin ja selvisin päivän (huimasta neljän puhelun) urakasta. Töissä oon jo vähän alkanut selvittää, ketkä on ärsyttäviä tyyppejä ja keihin voi luottaa. Onneksi meidän toimistossa on enimmäkseen kivoja :)

Illalla olin luvannut mennä lenkille Charlotten kanssa. Siitä tuli enemmän lönkyttelyä, koska Charlotte ei ollut juossut pitkään aikaan ja lisäksi vielä seitsemän jälkeen oli melkein +30 lämmintä. Tuli kuitenkin hyvä mieli, kun huomasin, että oon jo hyvässä kunnossa, eikä tollainen pikku hölkkä tuntunut missään.

Kotona laitettiin ruokaa yhdessä. Tai Charlotte laittoi ruokaa sillä välin kun mä kävin suhkussa :D Syötiin parvekkeella ja ilma oli vielä ihanan lämmin ja tuoksui etelän lomalta, ah. Viikonloppuna satoi, joten nyt ilma on vielä melko raikas ja (parasta kaikessa) vuoret näkyy kirkkaina, kun niitä ei ympäröi saasteharso!

Nyt nökötän koneen ääressä, kuten tavallista, ja lipitän uutta lempijuomaani, vihreää minttuteetä. Maistuu ihan hammastahnalta, mutta on ihanan makeaa :D Ihan kohta hyvää yötä, bonne nuit!

Päivä elämässäni

I’ll take you with me on a tour for one day of my life, namely yesterday.

06.30 My alarm goes off. I get up within the followinf five minutes and take a look out of my window. The mountains are all blue and look like they are much further away than during the daytime… I get back to my bed and start my computer. I’ve finally started working for my second job as a freelance translator and am excited to get it going. I work a while on calibrating the program to be able to start subtitling.

07.15 I realize I need to be at work 15 minutes earlier today. I get dressed (very hard to know what to wear when it gets +30 both outside and inside the office during the day). Downstairs I’m faced with last nights dishes and feeling uninspired to start doing them I have a bread roll for breakfast instead of the usual oatmeal. Which, by the way, I need to buy in magasin bio because it’s considered some sort of hippie health food here…

08.20 On my way to the office. I cross a big park just next to our building, go past a huge shopping centre and I’m pretty much there. A small 25 minute walk. Nice. Except that today it’s hot hot hot already in the morning and I’m feeling very sticky and sweaty.

08.45 We have a meeting outside the coffee machine. I’m the only one present, though. The punctuality here… I sneak off to toilets to freshen up myself and when I get back a few other team members have shown up.

09.10 Finally everyone is here ready to start shooting our commercial film for company’s five year birthday (all the workers are divided into groups and there’s a big competition). But the cameraman is stuck in traffic jam somewhere outside Grenoble. So we wait some more.

09.40 We start our shoot. I can tell you what it was about but you have to promise me to keep quiet because it’s top secret! We did a small film about shoe addicts on an addict anonymous meeting. Everyone presents themselves (in their own language: Finnish, French, Italian, Spanish and Danish), Hi, I’m Anna, I’m a shoe addict and I haven’t ordered anything in two weeks and four days… In the end the psychologist present in the meeting receives a phone call where it is confirmed that her shoes have arrived. After, everyone else’s phones start ringing and it ends in evereyone rushing out. To buy shoes. It doesn’t maybe sound that funny told like this but I think it’s going to be pretty good!

10.30 Back to work. My Finnish colleague leaves to her group’s shooting and I, feeling brave, activate my phone. And I receive a call, yuppii! The client doesn’t actually need anything so it’s an easy case. I’m still pretty happy about myself :) The rest of the morning I translate product descriptions.

12.00 Lunch break. We go down to a small park right next to the building where we work and settle down in the shade of a tree. It’s very hot. I’m wearing spf 50 sun screen and even in the shade my skin goes reddish… We’re laughing a lot, as usual, and at 1pm I’m feeling ready to attack the translations with new energy.

14.30 Hot hot HOT. We start the air conditioner and, as always, in about five minutes the French girls next to our office knock to our window to inform us that they are freezing.

15.00 It starts to rain. I’ve never seen anything like this - it is literally pouring down, we can see about one meter outside the window. The mountains have dissappeared completely. The air gets much fresher, very nice!

17.00 Time to go home. Yayyy! I manage to get home without getting wet - perfect timing :)

18.00 I’m feeling restless and don’t feel like sitting down to my computer again to start working on my translation just yet. I decide to go do weekend’s grocery shopping now already. My Frenchie is coming down this weekend (I find this French way of monter and descendre in their country, depending on whether you’re going to south or north, very funny) and I’m out of some basics, such as cheese, bread, wine and jam.

19.00 I’m done with shopping and get outside the store. It’s raining again and this time there’s lightning and thunder, too! I hurry home, afraid that the wheat flour I bought would turn into dough in the rain…

20.00 I have some unimaginative pasta for dinner and finally attack my translation. My room-mate calls to inform she’s coming home a bit late tonight which means I can concentrate in peace and quiet.

22.00 -ish. Charlotte finally gets home and we chit chat for a while both sitting behind our computer screens trying to get some work done.

23.15 I decide it’s time to shower and go to bed. I fall asleep in about two seconds…

Eka viikko takana

I didn’t have internet at Maxime’s place after all. And anyway I was way too busy to sit down and write… The little town where he lives celebrates every year on the weekend of Pentecoste with different theme and this year’s theme was Brass bands and circus. There was “world championships of brass band music”, though we counted only six nationalities, one of which was an invented one. It was still lots of fun! There were concerts on every corner of the historic town centre and as the weather was really nice, we ended up spending the days out, hanging on the terrasses of cafes drinking espresso and pastis and eating ice cream (I’ve found my new favourite : cinnamon ice cream). Very nice.

The weekend (even if it lasted exceptionally until Monday) went by too fast and tomorrow it’s time to get back to business once again…

I’m still on training so mostly I just sit down by someone else’s desk and follow what they do, taking notes. It’s pretty intensive so I’m very tired when the day ends. I’m looking forward to getting really working, the Finnish customer service doesn’t seem to be too charged ;) (On the other hand the sales start in a few weeks and then I think it will be worse)

It’s getting slowly better here, weather-wise. It looks like I’m finally going to need some sunscreen tomorrow :) In the evening I feel really dépaysé, as they say in French (i.e. I feel very stronly the change of environment). It get’s dark around 10pm while in Finland atm it doesn’t get dark, period. Also there are cicadas making noise outside our building which makes me feel being on vacation somewhere on the Mediterranean!

Life is very sweet right now.

Bon appetit !

Herkullinen ja ravitseva illallinen…! Churroja ja nutellaa, pääruokana olin nauttinut ranskalaiset. Onneksi edessä on uusi viikko ja terveelliset työlounaat :)

Je suis là

I’ve finally arrived to France. Yesterday afternoon, to be more precise. It hasn’t really sunk in to me, though.

On Saturday we were celebrating my brother’s graduation. I hadn’t exactly finished packing yet and when one of my aunts, the one living in Helsinki right next to the airport, suggested that I come stay at her place the last night I started panicking. I wasn’t mentally prepared to leave my family just yet. I ended up crying like a baby and finishing packing my stuff in a hurry… I seem to have forgot about half of all the small stuff I still wanted to pack. Oh well.

Since leaving home I’ve felt pretty unreal. Everything went really smoothly: I slept really well the night before leaving, there were no problems on the airports, I even got some sleep on my flight and on the bus from Geneva to Grenoble. Maxime was waiting for me with a little basket of fresh rasberries and he took me to my appartment. The appart is very nice, as is my roommate, and once the weather gets better I’ll provide you with a picture of the view from my window. I can see the mountains and the sunrise <3

My first day in the office went well, too. I’m in the same room with a very international team: one other Finnish girl, one Dane, one Swede and three Italians. We receive phone calls from all the four countries and it’s really funny to listen to several discussions in two or three different languages in the same time! In general all the people working in the office are young (I seem to be the youngest though) and the ambiance is relaxed. There are regularly soirées and sorties and they really seem to care about our well-being. I get always foolishly happy about little things like us having right to some free refreshments during the day, or being able to sit out in a park to have luch… I’m very easy to please, you know!

All in all everything seems very nice, but as I said, I haven’t really understood yet that I’m not on holidays (I get that feeling all the time because the air smells warm and humid, very unlike the Finnish summer breeze). I will stay here, for a good while.

Ylioppinut

 
Onnea Simpalle!

Ta-daa!

 
Sain kandinpaperit käteen VIHDOIN tänä maanantaina! Mua saa nykyään puhutella neiti kandidaatiksi, tai jos sattuu olemaan mun äiti tai mummu, myös humanoidi käy…

Juttuja

Sairaaaan kiireinen viikko takana, siitä siis blogihiljaisuus. Tai ainakin tuntui kiireiseltä, vaikka aika suurelta osin oon vain loikonut sohvalla salonkikoiran kanssa ja kokkaillut itselleni syömistä (äitillä on vähän ideat vähissä kasvisruokien valmistamiseen enkä mä halua syödä pelkkiä kasvispihvejä ja pakastevihanneksia kahta viikkoa…). Maanantaina kävin myös äitin kanssa jalkahoidossa :) Nyt on jalat kesäkunnossa ja erityisesti edustuskunnossa pikkuveljen lakkiaisia varten!

Tiistain ja keskiviikon - luultavasti kesän kauneimmat päivät - vietin siskon kanssa autossa matkaten toiselle puolen Suomea hakemaan mummua ja bebe-leivoksia Tampereelle edellä mainittuja lakkiaisia varten. Ekana päivänä riitti vielä jännitystä, kun ajoin autoa ekan kerran varmaan vuoteen, ja popitettiin Vilman kanssa hyvää musiikkia täysillä. Mutta takaisin päin tullessa neljä puoli tuntia kesti loputtoman kauan… Matkaan lähdettiin totta kai aamunkoitteessa, joten matka kului pitkälti haukotellen, rekkajonon takana körötellen.

Tiistaina kävelin siskon kanssa Saimaan rantaan, tarkoituksena alun perin uida, mutta vesi olikin ehkä kahdeksanasteista, joten tyydyttiin loikoilemaan laiturilla. Järvi oli ihan tyyni ja siinä oli ihanaa maata tuijottelemassa sinistä taivasta ja kuin suoraan matkailumainoksesta repäistyä maisemaa venemajoineen… Tuli taas etukäteisikävä Suomeen :)

Huomenna lupaan kertoa suurista uutisistani!