Lots of little things

The most exciting things in the last week have had to do with school. I guess this makes sense since that's why I am here. Needless to say, this post will be heavily loaded with photos of school adventures. First is my student ID card, which is actually a decent photo of myself, for once. And then there is my new Finnish ID card, it serves as my main source of identification these days.

I need to start learning Finnish to decipher some of these phrases.

This photo, however, I hate. 

My bicycle ride to school takes maybe around 7 minutes and it's downhill along the lake. It is a great way to start out my mornings, especially while it is still lined by trees with beautiful leaves. 

This is my bicycle, sorry for the terrible photo. It's honestly a piece of crap, but it was cheap, so it'll do.

This is the view from my balcony! I head down that little trail and turn right! :)

Pretty trees!

Looking back towards my flat.

One of the courses I am taking right now is titled Environmental Management & Economics. One day during the course, we got to go on a field trip to a local furniture manufacturer ISKU. We got to hear about ISKU's environmental management approaches, only after the complimentary breakfast they provided for us! They are a very eco-friendly manufacturer, and it was very interesting touring their facilities. 

This machine was testing how many times the chair could be sat on before it broke.

This machine was testing how far the chair can be bent before it snaps.

 Another course I am taking is titled Urban Water Protection. We got to take a field trip in this course as well to the local wastewater treatment plant. It may sound like a disgusting tour, but I found it really interesting! I have always wanted to go on one of these tours, and I finally got the opportunity. This is one of multiple wastewater treatment plants that services Lahti, and it is in a cave! I thought it was brilliant when I learned that the plant is in a cave; it's a genius way of solving the problem of the smell permeating the nearby neighborhood. This facility is taking most of their sludge that results and burning it to harness energy, it's awesome!

I was really hopeful I'd see Batman. 

It was shockingly not as smelly as I thought it might be; they flush clean air into the cave once an hour.

There were many processes happening that I won't bother boring anyone with.

 In other school related news, Valeria and I have gotten the opportunity to involve ourselves in a green roof project that one of our professors is working on. We have the very important task of going up to the roof after every rain event and emptying the canisters that are attached to the green roofs. There are 8 green roof blocks, separated into 4 segments each, resulting in a total of 32 jugs to be emptied. Prior to emptying the jugs we measure the amount of water that passed through the green roofs. Additionally, we are measuring the electroconductivity of the water. We are measuring the quantity of water in order to determine how effective the roofs were in retaining the rain water, and we are measuring the electroconductivity of the water in order to see how many nutrients passed through the green roofs. The general idea is that effective green roofs, ideally, should retain a significant portion of the rain water, and they should also retain a lot of the nutrients that the rain water has, in a sense purifying the water that passes through. A large problem with stormwater is the amount of nutrients it contains and then passes to the waterbodies, potentially overloading them resulting in eutrophication. 

The green roofs!

I  was in charge of measuring this particular day.

And then I would read my result to Valeria, the recorder!

It's pretty exciting stuff, as you can see!

Other than these exciting stories, everything else school related is rather ordinary. I have my first exam this week, I am a little nervous, but more excited to get the ball rolling! I have been studying a lot, or at least it feels like it! 

It's difficult to focus when the sun is shining, but I remain diligent.

And my last bit of school news is that I was awarded a 1600 € grant!!!!!!! All International Masters Students were eligible to apply for a chance at one of the 50 startup grants that our University was offering. The only basis for this grant was our letter of motivation that we wrote for our application to the University, so it was out of my hands a long time ago, before I even knew that this letter would also be used for receiving possible grant money. I learned that there are 25 International Masters Programs at the University of Helsinki, and therefore 2 students from each program received such grants. I received the email on Thursday right before touring the wastewater treatment plant! I was so excited! This money will really help me out a lot, especially since I still haven't been able to find a job. The other person from my program that received a grant is Steve. We will go to Helsinki on November 1 for an International Student Grant celebration, and it said there will even be free food! Haha, it's the little things sometimes! 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My weekend is now drawing to a close, and it was a sunny weekend, which equals a good weekend in Finland! I am in a good mood whenever the sun shines and am trying to be very positive about the weather, regardless of the cold, as long as the sun shines! On Saturday we went and picked more apples from someone's tree! We got three baskets worth, they're so delicious! I have even attempted to make apple cookies out of the plethora of apples, they were kind of flaky, go figure. 

I'm a real Johnny Appleseed.

I ate four apples in one day; no doctor visits for me.

Gluten free baking is kind of whack.

At least I didn't burn them.

Last exciting story, I have been running a lot lately. I figure with so much time on my hands I really have no excuses to not be running. It also helps that Valeria likes to run, so we have been running together a lot. Aaaand not to mention, it is still not a frozen tundra outside, so I am taking advantage of the opportunity to run outside while I still can. Today as we finished our run the sun was setting over the lake and it was beautiful! We stayed outside for a bit and watched the ducks and the sunset, it was great.

It truly looks as if the sun is rising when it is really setting here, it's incredible.