Lapland, Finland

No wish to provide constant grandmother old story updates. Will update once there is sufficient interesting stories to share! Unfortunately, the chances of Northern lights in lapland is very low, despite being above the artic circle already. I will be here for 3 days.. what a waste. My hope lies in Sweden and Norway after these 3 days, and i really hope to see it!

For now, check out my new profile pic on FB! Make sure u laugh or else its money back gurantee!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4842902&id=744201912

2.5 modules down!

Just completed 2 Final exams today. 1 more module pending a home written essay and im done with it too! Basically just left with 2 more modules in the next half of the Sem.

The statistics exam we had today. We only registered for the exam and didnt go to any lectures if you still dont know. Its the few times im doing a statistics paper without a calculator, not even a pencil to do working. Not because im over-confident, but because i forgot to bring my calculator and pencil to Finland! Its just not worth it to buy one here. But the paper was quite a joke. First time since primary school PSLE exam, my maths exam has MCQ questions! With only 5 mcq and 5 normal calculations questions, the time given was a luxurious 3 HOURS! Both of us were the first to leave after about 1.5 hours. And those around us must be thinking.. these 2 idiots were not seen throughout the semester and yet are the first to submit! Its not because we are going to score full marks, its because we felt we have done enough to secure a pass! You don always have the opportunity to attempt an exam with the intention of just passing isnt it? Savour the moment!

History exam was relatively simple despite the pre-exam scares. We studied only 4 out of the 8 pre-given essay questions. However our fears were put off when we saw the paper, because he gave 5 questions for you to choose 2 to write! And so of course, there were 2 questions in there which we had fiercely memorised over the last 24 hours. Time given was 2 hours.. and many people started leaving after an hour! Talk about exams being easy. Oh by the way, that One finland , 2 finland many finland question was one of the questions we attempted.

The dessert today at unicafe was something new, Pancake with berry sauce at 1 Euro.

This "Ota 3 maksa 2!" sign got us pondering for a very long time! They were fazer's donuts, with blueberry fillings in it. We thought that it was such a good deal for buy 3 get 2 free at 1.70 euros! This is the consequence of attending less than half of the Finnish course.

Anyway, after some clarification we realised it was buy 3 at the price of 2. The price is still amazing because 3 donuts for 1.70 is dirt cheap in Finland! One regular donut is sold at the price of 1.50 to 2 euros in a regular cafe...

And thats why we bought 3 of them to enjoy after our exams! The building on the right of the picture is where we stay by the way.

"Attention. This man broke the noticeboard."

The poster at our building.

Joke of the day must go to Kelvin. We went downstairs to get some spaghetti from the mart, since it was so near, at 0 degrees today, Kel went in his mat-style sandals with sweater and jeans. Another customer in the mart mistook Kel for being the shopkeeper and started asking him questions in Finnish! I think its probably because no ordinary man will be wearing sandals in such a weather!

Next week is recess week. We are off to Lapland on friday night on a roughly 10 day trip up North from Helsinki. The search for Northern Lights begins!

Hate history

How would you describe the notion “Finland” during 1500-1800? Elaborate on the notion of "There was no Finland, there was a finland, there were 2 Finlands and there were many Finlands" in the book of Lavery.

Awesome!