Visa, Funeral and Party

I got my visa today! So another big thing under control.

I've been checking so many times for how long I really can be in the States. And I finally found a page where it is said clearly enough so that I don't worry anymore. It's just that in every place it says that one can stay in the US as long as is said in the visa. And it's 31 Dec in my case! I remember clearly that I've read many times that it's that time plus 30 days. But all I could find from the embassy's pages was that how much earlier I can enter US! But now I used half an hour to really find it. And here it is:

The initial admission of an exchange visitor, spouse and children may not exceed the period specified on Form DS-2019, plus a period of 30 days for the purpose of travel. The 30-day grace or travel status period is intended to be a period following the end of the exchange visitor’s program and is to be used for domestic travel and/or to prepare for and depart from the U.S., and for no other purpose.

From here.

So, now I stop worrying about that. It says so in my blog and I'm always right, right? (Please Kirsikka, leave a comment). Muaha!

And the funeral is over too. It's funny that before the funeral I cried once when I heard that grandmom had died (if the one time isn't counted, I cried when I thought she'd going to die last Fall), and once at the funeral (well almost all the time at the chapel). Then I felt relieved. It was over. The ceremony as it self was boring. There weren't any Karelian pasties!!!! Who cares if they had been bought from some shop??? Grandmom ALWAYS made them! Bah. And all the relatives from that side are lunatic. Well, almost all. Most of them.
One of her children is the craziest. She was there AND wrote an address where was something like this "Mom, sorry mom, you were important blaa blaa". Oh, so strange! They were always fighting (mom says there's gotta be something at the background, no-one can be that angry with ones mom!) and now she was so regretting and all. And everyone could see it's only a fake show. She's just so weird. She is! Her kids couldn't come there because they are having some fight (that has lasted as long as I can remember)... I just can't understand. I hope I don't have to invite them to any parties! I do hope so though if I'm going to have any party (meaning wedding or something, which means that at least SHE should have died.. she's over 70... mean but still...) I need to invite them. I'm not going to participate in their fights, as long as they don't fight in my party!

I'd post a pic of grandmoms coffin but I don't consider it acceptable. So I won't.

After the funeral we got back home and I left almost immediately back at lab, did some cell things and got back home. After that we went to Emmi's and Elina's birthday party. I had booze from the midsummers and took it with me. And drank it all. Plus the punch. Though not all of it. Muaha. Then I felt like partying and went to Karma where the sock sweat and urine smelled (not nice) and the floor was all sticky. But we spent some hours there, and I even danced! And drank three ciders. And water. After that we went to get some pizza and walked home with Kirsikka. I had a really good night and after being a bit quiet at the sisters place (Elinas actually) I felt nice. We spoke english at the pizza place and it was fun. I have no idea what time it was when I got to bed, my watch is at clockmaker. Next day I woke up at 9 am and couldn't sleep because I knew my parents would be here in a few hours (they were going to my aunts cottage, it's about an hour and a half drive from here). We had time to clean the house (the usual Sunday cleaning) and to recover a bit. I had a slight hangover. But not too bad. Now I can be sober for a month. Well, three weeks. Then I'm going to Tampere to celebrate my leaving with some friends and after that the next weekend I'm going to celebrate it again in here.

Oh, I just realized that I'm going to leave in a month! It can't be so soon...

And my cells... I don't have enough time to repeat my experiments as many times as I'd like to and would be recommended but I just need to cope with that. If I'm hard working, I'll get my experiments done in a three weeks. Then I'll have few days to think what I've done and few days off too. The latter one sounds quite nice.

And the final thing in this blog entry; I hate this summer! I mean the weather. It's nothing but rain and gray sky! It makes me feel tired!

I still had something to say but I forgot it so it must be nothing interesting. Oh now I remember, I turned one watch in our house to display the Iowa time. Now I don't feel so bad when waking up and staying up late. Handy.

Visa Interview

I had my visa interview yesterday and it was quite scary! Not really. The security protocol there was the scary thing.

So I left on Monday to Tampere, missed the train I was supposed to go by, got late at my parents house, went late to bed and slept about three hours. At 3.30 am I woke up to make coffee and our bus to the train left 4.50 am and the train left 5.33 am. Too early! So we were at Helsinki at 7 am and walked to the embassy area. It was beautiful and when we reached our destination, the US embassy, there was right away a policeman (quite handsome one) questioning us, who were we, what were we doing there and I had to show my applications and passport. Then he said that we should go to some cafe to wait until it's 9 am. So we walked to the beach (harbor actually) but the cafe was open only after 9 am. And mom got a call from her cousin who told that their other cousins husband had just died. So she cried and was really sad. And she said I shouldn't comfort her or she will just cry. So I gave her a big hug and tried to cheer her up.
Then we walked back to the embassy and I got in exactly 9.05. I went through a security check, got escorted (by other handsome policeman) to the interview place and waited there for an hour! There were three desks and the interview people were all behind this glass and you talked with them via microphone (just like in prisons... or in movies, muaha) and everyone could hear what you said to them and what they said to you! The first desk checked my application and took it in. After about half an hour the second desk asked my finger prints (the device looked just like the ones which removes your fingerprints!) and finally the third desk asked me three questions: where will you study, what will you study and how long have you studied in university. And then I got escorted back (by the first handsome policeman), got my bag back and then it was it. It was quite fun (with my imagination).

After that we went shopping. And it was... exhausting. We had this list but finally we got only half of the things (and the list wasn't long!). We sought for FIVE hours a shirt for me for the funerals! There weren't ANY nice and conservative, black shirts anywhere!!! Well there were but then they cost like 100 €. Finally we found this nice dress for me (it was quite expensive though in sale). Then we tried to find some quiet pizza place but couldn't find one (mom wanted a pizza) so we went to some chicken fast food place, ate nuggets and tried to use our last hour finding the last things we were supposed to buy. But still we didn't get all. Then the last train left and I read a cosmo with a BIG cup of coffee in front of me, changed train in Tampere (which luckily waited our late train) and got home 10 pm. And I was so exhausted!!! I couldn't even go to shower and I'm still tired. But my things to do -list is now one thing shorter. Visa in order, it should be here by tomorrow or Friday.

Last week on Sunday we had our anniversary and we went to eat to Banthai (surprise surprise). The food was (as usual) delicious. After that we went to home and just relaxed the rest of the day.

Tomorrow I'll have hard day again. I need to do hundred different things and I hope I can keep all of them in my head so that I'll do them also! I will.

And on Saturday we'll go to the funerals.

Rough week. Luckily it's already Wednesday, halfway through the week.

We'll go soon to downtown and find Tarmo a dress shirt and a tie for the funerals and some other things and then we'll go to Waynes Coffee for a chocolate coffee and big chocolate muffin!

Friend Gone

Many things done.

Flights are now (finally) in order, Tarmo will come to US via Amsterdam and stay one night there. He'll be at Tennessee at 20:30 if I remember correctly. When it's time, I'll try to book my flight to Tennessee about that time too. So we'll go to our hotel (or whatever) same time.

Which reminds me that I should start to look some houses/rooms that are rent. We'll rent a room for us because it will be more convenient that way to us and won't cost too much (I hope). If I just find some room that will be near the university, we don't have a car to use there. But we'll figure out something.

My visa should be ok too, I filled some forms (and it was a hell). I spent two hours filling the forms and trying to call to our international services office to ask some questions about the form. But there were no one who could help me. The officer said I should try later, so I went to eat and tried again. She said they have some meeting and after that there should be someone. So finally I got answers to my questions and filled the forms completely. After that firefox jammed. My other form wouldn't print out and acrobat reader jammed too. So I restarted it and filled the forms again. And same thing again. I was so nervous and mad! Tarmo came to rescue me while I was filling my forms for the second time and after I lost it. We tried to fill the forms via explorer but still I had problems to proceed with the other form (I did get the other form out though). I had to go to walk a bit to calm my self down and Tarmo tried to fix the computer. Finally at 3pm I got all the forms (and I started to fill them after 9am) and paid all fees and reserved an interview.
But I was so tired! I was supposed to do some apoptosis tests but I couldn't do that so I reserved the laminar for this day. I slept a bit and Tarmo bought us some candy. Have I ever told how cute he is! If he hadn't come there and helped me, I would have never finished the forms and would have ended up to some mental institution. Muaha! But really, I mean it. After I typed my information to the forms for the fourth time he checked that they all went right. I was so tired.

I don't understand it. Why did I get so tired about that? Maybe it was so stressful and I should have done some other things too that day. And it's not that the form was hard to fill, it's the computers. They seem always (well quite often) fail me when it's something I must do just that moment and I can't do home. This time I needed the printer and had to fill the forms at university for that reason. If I had been home, I'd have thrown the PC out of the window.

But, flights are in order and visa is almost in order. I'll have the interview next month.

I have some bad news too. Saana left. Snif.
She came to Jyväskylä to finish her courses and spent one night at our place. We went to terrace and to picnic. Next day we went to university to finish up things (that was the day I was fighting with the visa thing). We went eating and quite soon from there she left to her train back home. I knew all day that she'd go but when she was leaving, it happened so quickly. I hardly had time to say goodbye. Which is good, I would have cried. I almost did when she left but then I had to call about the visa.
Tarmo conformed me when I said I was sad. He said "You'll have skype and we can go and visit her". She will study at Ireland and we thought we could go there next summer for a vacation. She agreed. Nice!
But I miss her already! She is one of my best friends and even though we are quite different (and then again, we aren't), so I'm not surprised about my sorrow. I'm happy for her, I know she really wanted to go to study all those whale things (muaha) and she didn't like to be in Finland. And now I have one place to go to vacation for a reason! And it's always nice to have friends all over the world. I know we'll stay in touch. She's too valuable to lose.
But now I get all emotional, I better stop this issue here.

So, I went to do some apoptosis test today. The weather was (and is still) so good that I thought we should go out to do something with Tarmo. So we went to grill and ate in our backyard and after that rested for some time laying in the sun. But I'm so sensitive to sun so we couldn't be there too long. But we were there long enough to get my hands all red (though not burned, luckily). After that I reorganized my exchange papers and made do-list. Not much to do anymore. Some little details (including sending some of my stuff to US and getting the damned visa).
I realized I'll be in Finland only for two months anymore. I'll be leaving so soon! I know that this time will go fast, I'll be doing my masters thesis work intensively, I'll need to go to Tampere for that too and arrange leaving party one weekend (next month) and go to Tampere one weekend to see all my friend there too. And I really don't know how I can arrange all this time, I'm going to do all kinds of tests to my cells almost every day! Not to mention all the reading and writing I should do.
But no panic. This is why I scheduled my work to be done ready next Spring. I will not do it badly.

Oh it's so hot! I can't concentrate. I'll go and do something not related to thinking.

ps. Vepa dyed my hair and I love my new red hair!!! She put some stripes on it too, but I don't have any pics about it yet. But here's one pic of me and Saana.

Saana and me

ps. my arm looks like some animals leg. Muaha!