Month: December 2023

Last week and 15h to beat, let’s go!

I did fourth task for support group at very beginning of the week, started last week on Sunday but finished this Monday. We needed to learn vocabulary while using three different techniques. I used Quizlet, AWL underlining tool and collecting and separating words into groups thing. Then we needed to write a short text how it goes. it took me almost 3h, but it was worth it because words were academic, and it was useful to learn it for the future text reading.

Of course some news reading on my way to the campus. As usually, some news about the boarder situation, the government has opened two boarder station and now thinking closing it again. This week is a great strike coming on and a lot of news how will it affect. For now we know that public transport is about to be shut down for one day, meaning trains, underline and busses. Presidential poll is accelerating and all the candidates have been selected. A lot of old material is about to be sniff out, like their graduating values last week.

We did one “coffee group” meeting with Victoria. We decided to make pre-Christmas party for our friends, so we meet and planned it. We also discussed this ALMS journey and how we have done and what. We got conclusion that it could have been easier took basic course but now we did this. Maybe after 2h or a bit before it we did change into Finnish.

I did listen one more podcast episode. It became a bit boring to listen that much podcasts but it was the easiest thing to do while you needed to do something at the same time. This time speaking about; “How building up skyscrapers changed the World?”. Talking about how high building changed the city visions and city planning. More people into same building and at the same time more people space to live. Basically, it made the million cities possible. It really chanced world. They also talked the dark side about skyscrapers, its vulnerability. Such high building are more prone to earthquakes etc.

One word list about article; “Soul of the City: The Depth of How “Urban” Matters in the Sociology of Religion” (Emerson & Knight Johnson). Total 1h reading the first 10 paces, collecting the words, and translating them. I decided to do the separating thing I learned from vocabulary group so +15min.

I watched one document: “Holy dilemma”. It was story behind catholic priest who has wife and three kids. Normally in catholic tradition, priest need to be unmarried. I watched it without texts and did understand everyhtign, something religuous words I needed to google but I got the big picture.

I did the last support group task at the end of this week. It was summary text with graphs or pictures, how this support group was and what did you learn. It was easy to write and took me just over an hour. After that there was feedback section, and I did it too.

On weekend I watched my series Task master UK, three episodes so I got my hours full. It was the same season than few weeks ago, the Australian comedienne, Sarah Kendall, was there doing the tasks. Third episode I watched was the last and one and Sarah Kendall wan the show!

Here is my last timetable for this period:

And here is my timetable about the whole course:

 

This week real struggles with time.

I finished my book on Monday evening and it took about 40min to read it. Over all very interesting and good book. Harry Potter is so famous and still popular scene that this book was sell success. It was a peek behind the scenes and why not a fan want to do it.

I did news reading only three times a week, about the same 15min. I got to the Campus on two days because of Finland’s independents day and my sisters high school graduation party. This week news of course about Presidential reception/Castle party. How nice dresses and personal suits! News about the cool weather and more about the border situations.

I listened one more podcast episode, “What if New York City was a country?”. The podcaster were talking about such a large area like New York being its own ecosystem or independent economic center. They mentioned that New York has a lot of opportunities and structure that even smaller countries don’t have. Ner York is apparently pretty independent city or area in USA and that is why they were spinning the possibility of New York being a country. Obviously, it is not going to happened but interesting talk.

And hare was this week, a lot to do outside school so quite small effort.

Here is my timetable:

This week I tried to do a little bit more because next week will be full.

News reading of course. This week cold weather and more snow says forecasts. The conclusion for eastern border; closing. Finland’s government decided to close all but two borders between Finland and Russia. In Turku has built the largest cruise liner. The ship is 365 meters long and has room for 7600 passengers. Do we really need that big ship to pollute oceans more? Later this week news told that the last border on east been shut down, no more suspected and undocumented immigrants.

Tasks for the support group. I did third vocabulary task for the course, and it took about 2h this time too. We needed to think about vocabulary learning methods we have used and try other’s methods. I did try a for example freerice website, where you have to know meanings or synonyms for words. According to the website you will donate some rice as humanitarian aid for every correct answer. The other I tried was knoword, and it was very fun. It was like Alias, you needed to guess the word by given hints. There were a few difficulty levels but the easiest one was good for me.

I did watch one document: My Muslin Husband, from HBO. I watched with English texts because their were peaking Romanian over the half of the time. It lasted an hour and it was very interesting, related to my studies as well. It was about how two Romanian people fell in love when other is Muslim and other one not. Document filmed their life and struggles with parents’ acceptation. The man, Daniel was Muslim, and his upcoming wife Alexandra needed to turn into Islam so that they could get married. Document shows Alexandras feelings about hijabs and covering, but feeling about how to live with Muslim man when you are not that religious.

I did watch four episodes my series Task Master UK. Every episode was 45min. I started new season and in this season there is one actor/comedienne who is from Australia. Her accent is a bit tricky sometimes and other competitors are laughing to her words sometimes. Even it could be hard to understand I did not put texts on.

I did one word list from one of my courses articles, it took me 45min to read the text again and collect some words down, then translate it. I tried one method learned from support group and separate the words in to three groups; verbs, nouns and adjectives. I saw that I got more adjectives than others, so maybe adjectives are the hardest group for me and I need to lean it more.

I read my book after the long time. I took some me time one evening with tea and chocolate and read a few chapters more. It was chilly and I have missed reading something not so academic. I got in to it and read over an hour. The actor was talking about how he got friends and how they spent time out of scenes. He also remembered they needed to do schoolwork in “school bus”. Sounds funny, but the teacher was tough and made sure they did learn something.

And that was the week, here is my time table:

This week some time planning, where can I buy more time for the week?

I read news from Yle. All together an hour in this week too while my to the campus. A lot of news about the situation on eastern Finland borders. The government is about to close some borders because Russia is pushing undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers over the border. Some problems with Olkiluoto 3 again, its been shut down for few days because of bug. One study about how Finland´s dark season on winter effects on how babies sleep. It sounded logical and I think that it affects how everyone sleeps. I have noticed by myself that I sleep more on wintertime, and it is still harder to wake up feeling refreshed.

I listened one podcast episode. It was separated on two sections as usually, one hour and 20min per one. This time it was about housing problem in the USA: What if housing in the United States wasn’t so expensive? Really interesting topic and I enjoyed listening to it on a walk. In the USA there is a lot of homeless and segregation and income differences which can be huge. The podcasters were talking about New Yorks situation as one example and it was interesting, because if you think about New York, first thing you might have in your mind is skyscrapers, rush, traffic, fame and big as descriptive adjective. But it is larger area than you thought and larger value of difference… Almost like slums outside the central, people sleeping on streets, crime, dark alleys and dark areas where even the locals won’t go. Housing is very expensive and in USA there is not welfare sosiety benefits as we have in Finland, how can you by a house without anything? Even rents are pretty high. Housing problem and homeless is a real problem in America and they are trying to do something about it because it has started to show up to tourists and news. Not so likely imagine, how will they want their cities to look like? How can they make it different?

And that was it about this week …

Here is my timetable: