Månad: oktober 2007

Licensed to Drive

Johan Dahlberg 8 kommentarer

Yep, that’s right! I am now officially entitled to drive on my own. My current licence is only temporary (one month), but in about two weeks I should be able to get my actual licence.

But then it gets confusing: The licence I’ll get then is also only temporary, but on a two-year basis instead of a month. In Finland you have to go through a second stage about two years after you’ve gotten the first licence. Only then will you get the actual licence.

However, this probably doesn’t apply to me. As I’ll (probably) move abroad next summer, the current licence will still be valid. I won’t have to do the second part 😀

Anyway, right now it doesn’t really matter at all to me if I have to go through something in two years or not. I’m just happy to have a licence at all 😀

University + Book fair

Johan Dahlberg 1 kommentar

Yesterday it was time for third year students all around the Swedish speaking regions in Finland to visit universities and college institutions in the Helsinki area. We were all given the opportunity to go to two locations, mine being Arcada and the University of Helsinki. And honestly: they were both a major disappointment!

Arcada was in fact very nice – a modern building with all kinds of technological assets. But they had nothing to offer that suited me. Upon visiting we were split in several groups depending on our interests. I chose the media line, but it turned out not to be what I had hoped. The school focused too much on the technological aspects of filming, sound editing, etc. and not at all on writing or the aspects of media as a whole, which is what I’m interested in. There was too much focus on the practical stuff than on theory…

Helsinki University was the complete opposite: too much heavy theory but no practical stuff at all to mix things with. And this university didn’t offer quite what I was looking for either.

Both schools offered some interesting exchange programs, though.

But then again, what does all this matter to me? This time next year I’ll be out of Finland, for good and bad, and probably study in Göteborg (Sweden) instead 😉

To change to another subject, today my mom, sister and I went to the Book fair in Helsinki, hosted this weekend. While the fair was mainly aimed at Finnish speakers plenty of Finnish-Swedish books and authors were present. Even authors from Sweden, for example Liza Marklund, took part 😀

At the fair I bought four books, the most interesting actually being one featuring simple phrases of ”broken English” – mistakes that people have made when speaking, writing or expressing themselves in English. Surprisingly, most of these mistakes are Japanese, Chinese or Norwegian, but also statements spoken by native English speakers, for example by sports commentators, are represented. A few examples:

”The lift is broken, please use the elevator instead.”

-”Is your wife OK now?” -”Yes, she’s feeling pig again” (”pigg” in Swedish and Norwegian meaning alert or spirited)

Right now I’m heading for bed. Today is the day time is turned back an hour, so as tomorrow will be an exceptionally long day I’ll need to get as much sleep as I possibly can 😉

Good night!

Family Day

Johan Dahlberg 4 kommentarer

It’s not too often that we – my family and I – get to do stuff together. I mean, my father is often out travelling with work during weekdays (actually, he just left for China a few hours ago and won’t be home until Friday) and on weekends everyone is too tired to do anything major.

However, I’m still under the impression that we do stuff together more than the average family. We always eat dinner together around the table (if my father isn’t home that day, the rest of us still do) and sometimes we even sit and talk for an hour or two after dinner. It’s rare that we don’t gather around like that at least once a day.

On the higher level we travel a lot together (holidays, visiting family in Sweden, etc.) and throughout the year we do have our family moments. For example, yesterday (Saturday) we went to a restaurant followed by a movie (Rush Hour 3 – hilarious!). It might not sound like anything special, but it’s always nice when you can get together and spend a whole evening just talking and laughing.

The point is, more families should spend quality time together. Instead of going out with friends all the time, spend the weekend with the family. Even smaller things such as having dinner together at home instead of going out can be great fun. Or, if that’s what you usually do, do something special instead of just hanging around at home!

Family love is underestimated…

Jumbo

Johan Dahlberg Lämna en kommentar

Yesterday we (my sister, mom and I) went to do some shopping. These were the main things on the list:

  • A table for my sister at Asko
  • The biggest available storage box at IKEA
  • General shopping at Jumbo (aka. ”The Mall”)
  • Two Chico’s Burgers and one salad (+ dessert)

Starting from the top of the list, we went to buy that table, which we had been told should have arrived by now (it was sold out a few weeks ago when we last checked). There was only one problem: We went to Isku instead of Asku! Damn those Finnish companies. Strangely, Isku didn’t have the table in question, but in all the confusion someone popped the bright idea: Perhaps we were supposed to go to Asku?

So we did, and there the table was displayed. But: It was sold out (again!) and wouldn’t arrive again until December. So this time we decided to order it so we could be sure to get it next time. Now we just have to wait a couple of months once more.

Next up was IKEA. It’s odd how a store can be so structured (just follow the path, you can’t get lost) and still be so confusing. It took us forever to get to the department where they sell storage boxes.

But once we got there, we took the largest one they had and that was it. Nothing got in the way this time and we got exactly what we were looking for (plus a few other things we had no clue we needed).

Then we went to Jumbo, which was the ”main thing” of this trip. Jumbo is a shopping mall (I prefer the one in Alberga – it looks a lot better there and I like the stores they have to offer) between Helsinki and Kyrkslätt (which is where I live). There we did some general shopping and bought more stuff we didn’t know we needed.

At Jumbo we also went to Chico’s, the best restaurant in Finland! Great burgers (no McDonalds junk) and awesome desserts! Today, however, I really don’t feel like going back there…

We finished off the trip by doing some last-minute shopping and then we went home, happy, full of food, and with the trunk full of stuff.

Autumn

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Autumn has officially arrived. In fact, winter is surprisingly close. The warm days have been exchanged in favor of colder and darker periods. Trees are naked and last week the first snow fell (even though it disappeared in a second).

They say this week will be warmer, but despite that the autumn depression is over me. I don’t really feel like writing. Heck, I don’t really feel like doing anything. I’ll probably go into hiding and stay away until Spring. Or, I’ll take a six month vacation. Hawaii perhaps?

See you when I’m in a better mood 😉

The Day as History

Johan Dahlberg 1 kommentar

Today has been an exceptionally normal day (!). I’ve been to school (two X 75 min psychology, among other things) which was fun as always, but still a bit tiresome. I mean, psychology followed by health knowledge followed by psychology again (same boring teacher every time)… who can stay awake through that?

Upon getting home I started my regular blogging session. I also wrote an essay for a radio contest (Yle X3M – Swedish speaking radio in Finland) and did a Helium check (searching for new Marketplace titles looking at contest statuses).

The past hour or two I’ve been ironing clothes. My sister was (and still is) vacuuming and my mother did general cleaning. Add to this loud music – madness!

My dad is coming home from Hogwarts tonight 😀 Well, not exactly Hogwarts, but it’s a castle and a school, located in England, and was used as inspiration for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. I don’t think they actually filmed anything there though, but according to my dad, who’s been there for five days now, it actually does look like Hogwarts.

Anyway, ten minutes to nine, I’ll be off to get some tea now. In an hour or so I’ll watch a recorded episode of Heroes 😀

Good day!

Helium.com

Johan Dahlberg 2 kommentarer

Lately I’ve developed my writing skills and expanded from short story writing to writing articles. This is due to the simple fact that I discovered this wonderful website a few months ago: Helium.com!

Helium is a great source of information as anyone can contribute with articles. Sounds like Wikipedia, you think. Well, in theory it is, but there’s one major difference: on Helium you earn money for your work!

Sure, you don’t earn much. I mean, they don’t give you any free money. What you get is parts of Helium’s advertisement income, based on how many clicks your articles generate. Personally I have more than 30 articles but I’ve only earned around $1,45 through advertisement income. However, there are other ways…

Helium has two features that can easily earn you some extra cash: Contests and the Marketplace. The money are added to your Helium account and can be requested through PayPal at anytime you want (with the requirement that you have at least $25 on your account), so there’s no need to provide bank account details in advance.

Contests

Every Tuesday a new set of contests are started. There are 10 categories ranging from Arts & Humanities to Computers & Technology. You can see the current contest categories here.

Each category has 25 titles for people to write articles on. Simply, each title acts as a guideline to what your article should be about, for example ”Good cars for teen drivers” or ”Tips for a vegetarian bodybuilder”.

While each category acts as one contest, you score points based on two things:

  1. How many articles you write in the category of your choice,
  2. How well your articles rate on the site.

The contests end every Monday night. 1st prize: $75.

I’ve already won one Helium contest 😀

Helium Marketplace

The Marketplace is perhaps even more interesting than the contests. The concept is simple: Publishers (magazines and websites) make a list of ”titles” they want articles on, along with some guidelines for how the articles should be written. Anyone can then write on the titles they find interesting, and the publishers will, on a given deadline, select one or several of the articles they like. How much they pay? $16 to $200.

Personally I’ve sold two articles, both only worth $16. The damn publishers demanded full rights to the articles, meaning I can’t sell them to anyone else.

For a list of publishers, click here. To see the offered titles, click the name of the publisher(s) you find interesting.

So if you’re interested in writing articles, and perhaps earn some extra cash, check out Helium.com 😀

Back to School – Test Week Aftermath

Johan Dahlberg 2 kommentarer

The past week and a half consisted of the frequent so called ”test week”. English (both the student exam and the course 7 standard test), Swedish, German and maths, all packed into a total of five days of test taking. The results: decent. Here are the four standard tests, from lowest (worst) to highest grade:

The grades range from 4 (failed) to 10 (perfect). 8 is what’s expected of you. + is slightly better, ½ is the same as ++.

  • Maths – 5
  • German – 7+
  • Swedish – 7½
  • English – 9

These grades were actually expected. English have always been my strength, maths my weakness. In German I usually get 8 or 9, but due to lack of time I have had to skip three courses (from course 3 to course 7 :O ), which should explain the grade drop there. The only one I really don’t have a good explanation for is Swedish. 7½ is quite a disappointment, I must admit.

Now, the fifth test is the English final exam – the one that really counts and gets written on your diploma. So how did that go? Let’s see:

  • English Final Exam – 285/299 points

Quite good, in other words. In fact, I finished best in the entire school *proud* 😀 That should ensure a good grade on my diploma 😉

Anyway, now that all these tests are over and I’ve received the results it’s back to normal school again. *Sigh*

Racism…

Johan Dahlberg 1 kommentar

…is a bad thing! Call me a racist if you disagree, but I’ll stick to my belief. It’s surprising how people can think of Muslims as suicidal terrorists or even citizens of neighbor countries as helpless brats without actually knowing them.

I’m bringing this subject up because my sister had a little incident yesterday (which she handled extraordinary well) with a friend saying some rather bad things. No names mentioned, but the problem was that this ”friend” commented my sisters Swedish pronunciation (actual Swedish whereas the ”friend” speaks so called Finnish-swedish, which in short could be called a Swedish dialect commonly spoken in Swedish speaking parts of Finland) and said that she shouldn’t speak so loudly at school as Finnish people dislike Swedish people (!). My sister replied:

”I’m quite sure they would rather speak to someone with my pronunciation than to someone from who shit is the only thing coming out of the mouth.”

That shut her up 😀