Ack spaz
So yeah. Finland, Finland, Finland, the country where I quite want to be, to paraphrase the Pythons. It's taken me how many years to finally find a way to get there? Four? Five? Now I feel a bit like a dog who loves to chase a car, but has no idea what to do with it once he's caught it.
The excitement of celebrating this crazy good turn of luck is a little tempered by the amount of time I've got to accomplish everything. This whole process would feel a little rushed if I had *four* months - and with two, I am left wondering if I'll even make it into the country by the time orientation starts. I don't have a day to waste.
Reading up a bit on the things like student unions, orientations, clubs, housing and health centers, takes me back to my CMU days. Only now, I get to experience the world of academia with a good ten years of Real World under my belt... I thought for sure that would make me a less desirable candidate, but maybe they know that this means there's at least one Humanities major out there that can actually make a living! ;)
The program I'm applying for is this. Basically, I'll have a second degree with a pretentiously long name and no obvious real world application. What will I do with it once I'm done? I'll have two years to answer that question - but I do have a pretty cool proto-thesis idea floating around in my head regarding digital archiving for libraries and universities, and they must have liked it too. Glee!
I've sent off my student visa paperwork which is, overall, the most time-consuming part of the process. Normally it takes 8-12 weeks to complete, but I figured I'd get it in as soon as possible (3 business days after finding out I got accepted - I can move fast when I need to) to at least get the process rolling. Supposedly the university also submits a list of accepted students to immigration to speed up the process from their end. If it truly was too late in the summer to get this done, I think they'd have chosen someone from Finland or at least the EU for my slot. I can't help but wonder how many applicants there were, but for me to be one of the nine in the program, can't help but feel pretty honored about that.
Time to make some calls to some cat shelters about finding a home or at least a foster for my cats. I had to wrestle with this a lot when I was applying - but ultimately, I decided that yes, this was an undertaking I would truly give up anything/everything for. And I might have to. It's not going to be easy, but then again, priorities for such big changes in life rarely are. I only know for certain that if I were to pass this chance up, I'd regret it every single day for the rest of my natural life.
So yeah, I'm a bit stressed out, and not eating or sleeping as much as I should - it's quite overwhelming when I stop and think about how much I have to do in the next two months. But life will settle down once I'm there and have a chance to explore a bit (student discount of 50% on train tickets? Yes please!) I expect this blog will become a bit more active again (and also more bilingual, depending on my level of confidence and/or booze).
... anwyay, Onward!
The excitement of celebrating this crazy good turn of luck is a little tempered by the amount of time I've got to accomplish everything. This whole process would feel a little rushed if I had *four* months - and with two, I am left wondering if I'll even make it into the country by the time orientation starts. I don't have a day to waste.
Reading up a bit on the things like student unions, orientations, clubs, housing and health centers, takes me back to my CMU days. Only now, I get to experience the world of academia with a good ten years of Real World under my belt... I thought for sure that would make me a less desirable candidate, but maybe they know that this means there's at least one Humanities major out there that can actually make a living! ;)
The program I'm applying for is this. Basically, I'll have a second degree with a pretentiously long name and no obvious real world application. What will I do with it once I'm done? I'll have two years to answer that question - but I do have a pretty cool proto-thesis idea floating around in my head regarding digital archiving for libraries and universities, and they must have liked it too. Glee!
I've sent off my student visa paperwork which is, overall, the most time-consuming part of the process. Normally it takes 8-12 weeks to complete, but I figured I'd get it in as soon as possible (3 business days after finding out I got accepted - I can move fast when I need to) to at least get the process rolling. Supposedly the university also submits a list of accepted students to immigration to speed up the process from their end. If it truly was too late in the summer to get this done, I think they'd have chosen someone from Finland or at least the EU for my slot. I can't help but wonder how many applicants there were, but for me to be one of the nine in the program, can't help but feel pretty honored about that.
Time to make some calls to some cat shelters about finding a home or at least a foster for my cats. I had to wrestle with this a lot when I was applying - but ultimately, I decided that yes, this was an undertaking I would truly give up anything/everything for. And I might have to. It's not going to be easy, but then again, priorities for such big changes in life rarely are. I only know for certain that if I were to pass this chance up, I'd regret it every single day for the rest of my natural life.
So yeah, I'm a bit stressed out, and not eating or sleeping as much as I should - it's quite overwhelming when I stop and think about how much I have to do in the next two months. But life will settle down once I'm there and have a chance to explore a bit (student discount of 50% on train tickets? Yes please!) I expect this blog will become a bit more active again (and also more bilingual, depending on my level of confidence and/or booze).
... anwyay, Onward!