Monthly music

Heya I hope you're ready to tune into my favourite tracks of the month! Don't really have time to explain them sry but hte first two are from The Originals soundtrack or episode songlist or whatever

Like the old 00's rnb that I liked :)

Gotta love Ellie :)

This time a French song :) That I actually heard in Estonia the first time :P

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

My Lovely Room :)

When I first learned that the uni accommodation is practically guaranteed for Erasmus students and it's only a 146 per month I was extatic. yay, that would mean that I can live off my Erasmus grant quite alright and maybe even keep most of my savings???? Oh please let this be true that by the end of this year I'll still have some money in one of my bank accounts :D Filled in the application - which I've ranted about already in the summer I think... oh you know I love my little rants of why can't everything just be easy :D Anyway during the summer I'd read somewhere that french halls might not be modern at all and all that shhh so practically scared myself that I will spend my next year living in a dump... not so happy days.

The building itself is huge and consists of corridors with doors - to rooms obviously, so as opposed to the UK where you're supposed to share a flat with a number of people, here you're basically living in your own tiny flat. Yes, bathroom is included and private so the first time ever!!!! I get to own my own bathroom (without a bath :( ) and it feels awesome!!!! LOL Everywhere I look - my stuff and no one else touches them without me knowing :D. The bathroom is very nice actually - a decent size shower cubicle - which has a slightly unconvenient door (or maybe it's me trying to man-handle things) that comes off it's hinge sometimes when I'm not careful + it's connection to the wall has cracks in it... Don't know if I should report it or hope that it lasts for my year and the door wont fall off :D. A toilet (obviously), and a sink with a cabinet all white and nice and big - I really don't have anything to put in there so it's empty at the time :P A mirror with two lights - the only sources of light in the bathroom - I think I've mentioned it before that one of the lightbulbs wasn't working when I moved in, but hey I got it fixed, and today it broke again :D lol the same (new bulb) one, hmmmm.... that's interesting?

When you walk into my room the door on the right leads to the beforementioned bathroom - on the left is a huge wardrobe - not a walk-in one though :( but I could fit in there, probably... need to find out ;) On the door is a lifesize mirror. Sounds awesome already doesn't it? So step into the room and on the right (after the bathroom) is the bed corner (did I tell you my saga with the bed sheets and duvet and pillow?). For some reason I have two chairs in my room and as I don't really need two chairs to sit on I put the little bedside table on one of the chairs so it is more convenient to look shows and skype while being in bed (like I started doing in cwrt mawr and in my north parade flat actually - force of habit?). Opposite the bed, next to the wardrobe are shelves, on the side, so it's not the best. The reasoning behind it is that the previous habitant or maybe the one before him/her had somehow flooded one leg of the thingy (sry I can't think of the word) and when I tried to move it round to have normal long shelves it almost came off.... well oooops... Anyway next to the shelves is a fridge (and I've bought a tiny hob as well so I can now cook in my room - I will tell you the kitchen saga soon) and next to that opposite the door is the table taking up the whole wall so the bed and fridge are in front of the table, in the middle of it is a pair of shelves again. And I have a huge window with shutters - that I actually shut every night!!!! :D The other side of the building has electrical modern shutters but my side has old manual ones that have bits fallen off :D but no matter still awesome :)

Oh and I have a phone :S like an inner telephone system so I can call to other rooms and they can call me, should work normally as well since it has full number on it. But I haven't really used a landline in years so I just stared at it for 5 minutes like really?

Oh I wanted to tell you how I pay my rent as well... It took me 5 goes to finally get the rent paid and that's because for some reason their card machine does not accept foreign cards and the lady who can handle cash is never there -.- And whenever she was there I had classes -.- But finally they said ok fine, you can't come tomorrow? Today afternoon then ok? Why couldn't you suggest that in the first place???? And I almost forgot about it :D It was already after 4 when I realized oh shhhhhhh.... have to go and do that asap and prayed that it isn't too late - you never know with the French they might be on a coffe or smoke brak or decided that their day is over and gone home or whatever but luckily the fifth time is the charm ;) :D

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...

Un roman Estonien

It's time to tell you about my saga with the french bureacracy, well as much as I've got contact with it so far.

The first part is about getting to do some sports with the university, I've previously mentioned it before so in short: I needed a medical certificate and the sports office and the international office told me to go see the uni doctor but hey-ho the university doctors said no-no-no we are moving so we can't do it and told me to go see a doctor in town... that I'd have to pay for -.- geee thanks. So after wasting time unnecessarily for a week one Friday I decide right, let's do this and luckily there were the numbers for the docs in the pamphlet I got from the international office - so tried ringing a couple and no answer -.- It took me so long to get into the mental state of being ready to phone someone in french and say what I want and no one freaking answered!!!!!!!!!

So a couple of days later I tried going to see them without an appointment. On the outside of the building it said that in the morning everyone could come in and afternoon is reserved for appointments - so went in and when I got to the door on the first floor it said APPOINTMENTS ONLY!!! wtf? Why oh why? So went all the way back home - 10 mins - to get my french phone - I never have it with me when I need it. So phoned them on the way back - nothing - no one answered yet again although it was the right number and office hours. Rang every minute until I got back there then finally gathered my courage and just went in hoping that there'd be like a desk or something to greet patients but oh no no no no just a waiting room and closed doors. So waited for a bit hoping that the doctor would come out and ask who the hell are you. But no no no sat there like an idiot for about 10 minutes til another lady who had an appointment - how if they don't answer their phone - was called in and since I do not have so much courage to just barge in and ask excuse me. I left :D lol it was a nice room though :D There was supposed to be 3 other doctors in the area so went out to look for them. Surprise surprise didn't find any -.- at the same time constantly tried to ring the other doctor to make an appointment and yeah you guessed it no one answered. Finally found another doc, went in and sat there, I was about the 6th person in the queue. So sat there about 20 minutes, one person had gone in in that time, thought fff this, I need to go to lunch at twelve, so pretended my phone rang and walked out. Saw that the doc's office was going to be open in the evening 18-19.30 as well, so decided to come back then and sit through all the waiting. My lecture finished at 6 and I got there about half an hour later being yet again the 6th or 5th person. The queue moved so slowly and it was 19.30 already and I was about third or something by that time, but I was certain that they can't kick people out just because the office hours are over and they didn´t. Instead, more people kept coming in! I think the last one, before I left, came in about ten minutes after 8 or something...

So finally my turn and after how much fuss the uni did about having the medical certificate I'd expect to get a proper medical examination. Wrong, he just wrote a letter, not even asking if I have any allergies or asthma or all the usual questions everyone always asks. He just asked for my name and absed on that yeah why not, she's fit to do sports no problemo... WHAT??? It took me a minute + two hours waiting approx. but that paper with the doc´s signature doesn't mean a thing!!! Because I might have serious asthma or something making me unable to do sports and he wouldn't know because he didn't ask me anything!!! But at least he didn't charge me anything for it :) and now i could go and register for sports.

Opening a bank account went quite smoothly . had to choose from 2 banks, made an appointment in the first but then decided to go with the other instead - they dealt with me immediately. Got my proof of address from the uni accommodation, passport and student card and that was about it, we spent like half an hour or 20 minutes setting the account up with some basic insurance in case I lose my passport or something - only 8 cents a month so why the hell not? And yeah the deal is that it only costs me 16 cents a month for this year - since I'm a student, later on will have to check is it worth while keeping my bank account open or not... if it doesn't cost too much I might keep it open for a bit for when I've finally decided what to do with my life and if I would ever possibly need it or not.

And finally - where I got the name for this post: Library or mediatheque as it's called here. Decided to subscribe since I had my proof of address letter already written - so why not, might come handy and yeah here as well as in the UK you have to prove your address everywhere -.- Got that done and went looking for a book to read, thought of getting a childrens book - so it would be easier to understand but saw the drama section first and after spending a couple of minutes just looking at the books something caught my eye - "Un roman Estonien" by Katrina Kalda, wow this is a sign - I must get that and I did feeling so good :)

btw just to let you know it's holiday time soon for me here :)

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...

A full week of lectures

The week we just had was full on uni work like I've never seen. Like school all over again - well almost. All because here there is a system for Tourism students who are doing an internship as well - work one week, lectures the other week - a good system I think :) but for some reason it seems that I have so many lectures when I talk to other Erasmus students who don't seem to be having any lectures at all basically, but I think it's due to the fact that I'm taking third year modules which are up to 3 hours long but most of the others are doing first year modules which are 2 hours max and even that's quite rare.

Monday

(2 weeks from now my weeks start 9AM with a two hour lecture: Culture Générale (first year languages department)) I thought this would be a bit easier than a third year tourism Geography module that I've missed lectures for already)

14.00 - 16.00 Arabe (first year law department) - I love this, I really do, I think it's so interesting (and really difficult). We are learning how to write . the thing about writing in Arabic is that you have to know the word beforehand phonetically because the vowels are marked as dots and lines above or under the consonant "letters". And understanding and learning it through French isn't as difficult as I had presumed to be honest... well it's all really basic so we don't have to do any translation yet. And guess what!?!?!?! Last week we did some writing and the teacher told me I had a nice hand-writing in Arabic! wow! :) YAY YAY I had the stupidest smile on my face :D But I still need to practice it a bit more to write qucker but I'm getting there :)

16.00 - 18.00 Langues et Culture Générales (second year business department) If you remember the first lectures I missed so I went to this one after I've already chosen the corsican language module and guess what. They're the same thing!!!!!!! Wtf have you named it like that then??? I had thought it was some lecture in France about culture or something but no! It's learning corsican language. Ok so now I have two modules that are basically the same thing -.- Shhhhhhhoot. But hey - different departments, different names, different teachers, different number of credits, so I should get away with that :D They've already approved my module choices so prob. no one will find out :D hahaha Evil :D but now it's a bit easier to get those credits :)

Tuesday

9.00 - 12.00 Droit du Tourisme (third year Tourism department) This module is every other week and since he uses powerpoint I can keep up pretty well :)

This week: 14.00 - 17.00 Marketing (third year tourism department) we've only had that on Tuesday's for two weeks. And thats it. normally it's on every other Friday morning 8.30 - 12.00. We have to write down what he says but since I've done marketing before I recognise some things so it's not that complex to understand :)

14.00 - 16.00 Techniques d'expression en francaise (first year languages department) basically it's french grammar for french people so extremely useful but at the same time extremely difficult. We are doing exercises and I have no idea what the hell is happening :D last week he always asked if I understand - well it's good to know that he cares and explains everything again but at the same time it makes me feel so stupid, like please it doesn't matter - I'll go home and go through everything again and explain it to myself ok.

Quite conveniently this weeks lecture was cancelled so I could go to the marketing one without missing any lectures :)

17.15-18.15 - Aquagym - yes that's a part of my degree here :) Can't fail that. well I can but only if I don't show up.

Wednesday

every other, so not the busy week this time: 9.00 - 12.00 Communication Touristiques (third year tourism department). I managed to go to the very first lecture on this module :D And it was sooooo interesting - she told us all about the tourism governing bodies of France, how the system works and so on :) unfortunately I noticed on the timetable that the next two lecture are going to be like an excursion on Moday - the whole day but since I do not know anything (because I'm an Erasmus student - it means that I'm not yet fully registered for the modules therefore can choose whatever I want - I'm not in the official e-mailing lists for modules etc. so I don't get any news of cancelled lectures or anything like that) I probably won't go.... Even if I wanted to go I wouldn't know where to meet up with anyone :D but it's kinda good - because I'm assuming it'l be a visit to some tourism office or something and we'd have to ask questions and what not and I'm just not ready for that yet - it takes time for me to get used to things :D + I won't miss my beloved Arabic lecture and I probably have a test in the corsican lecture.

13.30 - 15.00 Droit des Relations Internationales (second year law department) the hardest and most difficult module I have!!!! OMFG I don't understand a thing because it's really specific and uses the specific vocabulary. Well a definit fail but hey, I'll stick it out and do my best because it is useful and interesting, lol :D Ooooh last time the lecturer was talking about something (dont ask me what) and then turend to me and said she's not sure how it is in Estonia - I was like I don't know then she said something else and I was like yeah I think that's right. LOL that's exactly what I do when I don't understand a thing - first try to say idk and then just kinda agree :D I think we have some kind of quiz next week - why oh why??????????

16.00 - 18.00 Francais langue étranger - French language class exclusively for Erasmus students - the first two weeks have been quite a waste in my opinio because we haven't actually learned any french but seeing as we have to write exams here we should be doing more intense work in those lectures and maybe it'll start from next week, hopefully because the first week we spent getting to know each other - who does what and wants to improve what and the second lesson we spent at the library...

Thursday

11.00 - 13.00 Corse (first year language department) a.k.a corsican language, from the scratch :) It's not really hard since it's like a mix of french, spanish and italian, so you could use logic to understand

And that's it with Thursday!!!!!! Every week!!!!! Only two hours!!!! like a vacation :D

Friday

8.30 - 12.00 Marketing - this is where it is every other week.

9.00 - 12.00 Histoire et Sociologie (third year tourism department) every other week (so one week it's this and the next it's marketing). I don't really know what to say about ths lecture - the first three ones were with on lecturer - who talked a bit quick and really liked to talk (the students don't really like him - they don't dislike him but his just not one of their favourites) and the next ones are going to be with someone new.

From November I'll have Géographie humaine (first year law department) in the afternoon for 2 hours I think. Hopefully not too difficult to understand :)

This is my life this semester :) Not too bad :) but can't even compare to the timetable I had in Aber :D

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Missing lectures

But it's not always my fault! Okay ;) :D

Starting from the beginning when I got here. Here different departments start their academic year on different weeks. I got here on Sunday and the next day was the beginning of the tourism and economy and law departments. First two days i obviously spent on registering and all of that - I didn't even know where or when lectures are. Languages started a week later. As I wanted to do spanish I worked my timetable around that, but on a fatal wednesday a lecturer told me out of the blue: "hasn't anyone told you that this isn't for beginners?". Well obviously not, I wouldn't be here otherwise. -.- That was the longest 2 hour lecture I've had. I just kept on wishing that she would give us a 10 minute break so I could run away but noooooo. Obviously I panicked (in my head) and wanted to sort out a new timetable as soon as possible. Finally done but since I had to choose tourism modules and some from the economy and law department meant that by default I'd missed two weeks of lectures already -.-

Friday 8.30 (why does this lecture start so early?????) I was ready to go to my first marketing lecture. Got there a couple minutes earlier - here everyone comes practically on the dot not 10 minutes before. No one was there... hmmm... In that building they have the room timetables on the doors and I was definitely in the right room but all alone... This is weird... Waited until 9.05 (usually most lectures start at 9 in the morning) and no one. Actually to tell you the truth I was a bit relieved since it is a 3,5 hour lecture and just too much for me :D so yeah No lectures on that Friday then :)

According to my new timetable on Mondays I have two lectures in a row, both two hours long. Went to the first one - arabic - enjoyed it a lot. The second one was Languages and Regional Cultures for second and third year business students but since it had three groups I decided to skip it that week and find out which group I should go to before making a total fool of myself :D + I was tired from the previous 2 hour lecture + I just wanted to go and hide under my duvet and never come out :D

Wednesday I had International Relations Law for second year law students. Got there :) but then noticed it was a little office and only 4 students went in. OMG, obviously I ran as quickly as possible. I have to mentally prepare myself beforehand :D and I just wasn't ready for that yet - I like to be invisible but it's hard when there's only four other students besides me. In my defense: What would you have done? You don't completely understand the language - it's second year law and only four people!

This Wednesday my day was supposed to start at 9 with a tourism lecture. For some reason before going to the lecture I wanted to double-check the room and voilà. I couldn't find it anywhere... -.- Finally found that it had been moved to the next Monday and as a comment it said in translation like an excursion. What??? but I have other lectures on the Monday?!?!?! OMG why does everything have to be so hard?

Next Thursday the International Society or International Office or whatever has planned a hike or something to the nearby mountains. On a Thursday! Surely everyone's got lectures. And I don't know if I can afford to lose a lectures worth of information but I want to go and have a walk in the mountains!!!! I think I'll do it. That will also give me a chance to practise my french with the other people :) Or at least take pretty pictures :P

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...

Nice surprises

Monday, decided to go and get the certificate for my health insurance back home, walked to the office and surprise surprise, they had lunch, how the hell I managed to pick the hour they had lunch. Went back later, got my certificate, so up the hill, to the library to scan it in, everything went well until I wanted to log into my mail to check if the scan got there or not, surprise surprise, my laptop won't connect the uni network, tried switching wifi on and off and again and again, nothing, obviously I had lecture in less than half an hour, so quickly to this IT helpdesk, grab the number, bugger, 3 people before me, waited there, swearing in my mind that why did one guy managed to pick the number 2 seconds before me and why is the queue moving so slowly. Someone got their things done and another guy came to serve, so yaay, oh no, I was wrong as he suddenly goes to help the other one, noooo, we do not help the other person here, I have a lecture to attend and I need my laptop fixed before in case the lecture is boring and I need to surf the Internet. Phew, finally they were both dealing with different people and It was my turn soon, so I tell what's my problem and he asks when did I last used the uni network, um, end of the last academic year, and he asks me again when did I last used it, gees, before summer obviously if it was at the end of the last academic year, how is that so hard to understand now? So my user was blocked, why oh why, he first tells me to wait for 15-20 min and try again, and if not to go back, but then reckons he could do everything he can straight away, halleluujah, why would I wait and come back if the problem can be solved now.

To the next annoying thing, had a dissertation fair in my department today, so we were supposed to go and ask people who are related to our topic about our dissertation, surprise surprise, none of the lecturers related to my studies/dissertation were there and wait, it gets better, they are all on research leave or sabbatical, great, I just don't have anything else to say other than amazing, how I'm supposed to get some good advice now??? So annoyed with that, first of all  got up for nothing and secondly, how do they let people in the same area leave at the same time? Bring on some war or theory or intelligence adviser for third world dissertation then!!!!!!!!

Ems