Ok, so a few hours after my last two posts I have follow ups:
1. First and foremost- go to Matt Roberts‘ blog to read about his email correspondence adventures with Rapleaf when he tried to opt-out.
2.My good Finnish friend read my email and called right away to straighten me out on a couple things. Aside from laughing and being somewhat annoyed that I published her washroom on the internet, here were some of her comments:
-the allowance hasn’t moved for 14 years, so based on what the gov’t money is supposed to cover (i.e. living expenses while studying), it doesn’t anymore. I get it – we just have totally different government social systems (not to mention values towards youth and education)
-students don’t usually recycle – not too convenient (I beg to differ…) but families always do
Oh and one more thing that I forgot to mention:
It’s illegal to walk in the dark (majority of the day, if not the entire day in the winter) without reflectors on. It has to be out of your pocket, on your bag or something.
Here are some interesting things from my new home in Finland that I thought I could share:
looks like Thunder Bay – forest, lakes etc.
every single person in Jyvaskyla owns a bike and rides it everywhere – the bike trails are amazing! (I myself will be included as one of those people shortly)
some pretty small bathrooms…
surprisingly, they don’t recycle plastic – unless you drop it off at certain super markets – but when you do recycle it, you get something like 15 cents for it
more surprisingly, all of the finnish people that I know don’t recycle at all it seems (or very little)
education is free + Finnish students get 400 euros each month for living expenses allowance each month is still small
Students will be students….the Finnish students protested last year that the student allowance of 400 euros should be raised, so parliament raised it. (I was shocked… but their philosophy on education is completely different, and not necessarily in a bad way)
I can take as many classes as I want in whatever field and I don’t have to pay a cent
I’m sure there is so much more to say but that’s it for now.
Oh, but I wanted to share something else. You know how most orientation programs get a rock band or something? Guess what we got? A male choir. But… it was the best damn male choir I’ve ever seen. Hilarious (but would have been better had I understood the language!)
