GRATULERAR!

'Jag har glädjen att meddela dig att du har beviljats ett stipendium på x Euro ur 'Otto och Johanna Beltzners fond' för utbytesstudier [...] vid Åbo Akademi under läsåret 2010-2011.'
In English: I'm going back 'home' to Turku in August and even get money for it. :) Well or something like that.

After I 'ran' into a little note on this scholarship for German students by 'my' Åbo Akademi, 2 days of crazy application writing in Swedish (good that I haven't done anything in that language for about 3 years) and some great friends helping me with language corrections and running after signatures, while I enjoyed my birthday and the ESC2010 in Oslo, I got a big envelope from ÅA on June 10th. June 10th!!!! 10 days after the application deadline! Why can't Germans be so fast with answers? Anyway, big envelopes are usually a symbol of getting into a University (I think I saw to much US TV since in Germany you never get a big envelope if you get into a school!).

So I got the scholarship, still don't know how! Because my Swedish is so bad and I've been to ÅA once before but well I won't complain but am thankful for the opportunity to go back to my beloved Finland and hopefully finish my thesis there, since that is the main reason why I am going. So no partying, no traveling, no wasting time and money, just studying!
Hahaha ok you don't actually believe that right? Of course one needs a little party once in a while, a few travels and getting to know people, having fun and very important: improving my Swedish and Finnish.

I have to be in Turku at the latest on August 24th, so I just have 10 weeks to organize everything: confirming my place at Åbo Akademi, terminating my rental agreement in Magdeburg, booking a flight to Finland, getting a room in Turku, writing a lot of essays so that I can focus on my thesis in Finland, emptying my room and hopefully selling a few things, packing bags and potential postal packages, securing my finances, etc.
You see I will be very busy during the next weeks ... but it will be worth it.
And I'm good in planing so I don't expect any stress, especially since I hate stress ;)

Well, and why am I writing all that in a blog although I said I will never write a blog?
Last time I went to Finland I started with long mails telling what I did, uploading pics and getting almost no response and after awhile I was too busy ... or lazy ;) to write anymore. So I want to do it differently this time. I won't bore anybody with long mails but everybody who wants can read my blog and look at the pics I uploaded whenever they want. I try to write short entries from time to time so everybody knows where I am and what I'm doing. Comments on my post are, of course, very welcome, as well as ordinary e-mails or even real mail when I get my new address in Turku.

So I hope you enjoy reading this blog. :)
(Let's just hope it survives longer than my 'newsletter' in 2005.)

*hali* or *kram* (as we say in Finland ;))