Halfway Through

Greetings and salutations to the people! It has now been a month since we last wrote one of our stunningly hilarious blog posts and we know it is hard to get by daily life without reading these things.  A lot has happened in October. Now, those things will be somewhat covered in this blog post, but we will go into more detail about October in the blog post for next week. 

So then you must be asking yourselves, what is this blog post about then? Well, since we already passed the midterm exams week, we thought we’d write a “Halfway through this shit” – kind of post. We hope you’ll like it. We also hope you get mixed feelings and completely flame us. Same difference, right?

Enjoy the ride…

Misconceptions vs. Reality (Our Reality)

Keen readers of this blog will remember us writing about the first days, and how nothing of value was actually accomplished. So far, so good, since I still don’t think I've, personally, managed to achieve anything significant.

Well maybe the exchange experience is not about achieving something; maybe it’s more about (insert girlish stuff about feelings e.g. sex and the city and puppies). To be honest, I don’t care about discussing how we feel about exchange, and if I’d discuss those things, I’d completely destroy the endless amount of street cred flowing from within these blog posts.

However, what we will discuss, in list form, is thoughts we had before exchange and how they actually turned out to be:

Now for comical reasons, these are the thoughts of Mr. Nice, first name super followed by some grumpy and cynical Finnish insights:

I’m going to miss my family and friends every day, and that is why I feel the need to either call them or video chat them all the time

False, even if you’d been breast fed till the age of 21, the fact is, from time to time you completely forget that you even had a life outside exchange and subsequently you get partially annoyed by a lot of contacting by friends and family. Or maybe I just cannot appreciate little things in life, meh. 

We still love you all, folks back home

Many things back home feel distant and almost surreal, something you notice especially when reading the news. Just to give an example, following the Nokia mobile phones unit deal with Microsoft I mainly chuckled at the doomsday-ish headlines in Finnish newspapers following the news (and the comically worried Whatsapp messages from my mom regarding the subject)

I’m going to make so many friends and take interest in their cultures

Now, to be honest, this was not my intention to begin with, but just for the sake of comedy, I will address this common misconception. FALSE. EVEN IF, AND I SAY IF, on the off chance that you actually meet people from interesting cultures or cultures you have something in common with, what is the chance that those people will actually become your “friends”? I mean, there’s only a certain amount of commitment and energy you can put into making friends and actually making friends that will last beyond exchange. This is why, when you come to exchange, a) You will not care about different cultures except if they annoy you, b) You will only make a handful of friends you will keep in touch after the exchange and all the rest will be those dreaded people hanging on your Facebook friends list that you won’t even say hi to if you see them somewhere. Social media, right!?

I’m going to miss all things Finland, from salmiakki to Pirkka Lager and the magnificent wilderness of the fatherland.

False. I have been a true to heart city-slicker all of my life (as much as you can be in a country the size of Finland). In all honesty, I have never understood all the “oh the forests are so magnificent” BS. I mean come on, I can go to a park to watch trees. I get anxious if I have to spend over 48 hours in the countryside. Hell, I feel so after 30 minutes in the suburbs in Helsinki. So no, I don’t miss the postcard perfect nature of Finland.

When it comes to typical Finnish cuisine and delicacies, there really is not that much to miss in all honesty. SAQ has Finlandia Vodka, I can work with that. 

The most beautiful part of Finland. And also a river in the background.

I’m going to take interest in the studies I have and finish the courses strong

Ok, to be honest, I don’t think anybody actually cares about the grades they get on exchange (excluding those universities that are as naïve to believe that people take so much interest in the studies, and therefore state that exchange grades matter. I mean seriously, where do you come up with this shit?)

Exchange is not about the studies. It is not, stop acting like it is. Now I know this, because I took courses that actually seemed interesting and turned out to be just annoying. Don’t get me wrong, they are still interesting, but the fact that I would rather be doing something completely else than studying at the moment pretty much ruins it all.

I’ll hang out mostly with people from other countries

No, you will seek comfort in people that come from the same country, and after that maybe reach out to some Swedes or Norwegians. Locals?  I never actually chatted with one for more than a minute. Well, we did play football with two guys the other day, but they were Anglophones and thus acceptable people. Then again, “BOOM, YOU JUST GOT INTERCEPTED” doesn't really count as conversation, now does it?
 

You will learn so much from other cultures and see the short-comings of your own culture

Yes and no(what a surprise!). What is surprising though, is the stuff you learn about your own culture once you get some perspective from a distance. There is a saying in Finland, To be born in Finland is akin to winning the lottery. I used to think that this was just another mantra being stuffed down your throat to justify the socialist welfare society since age 7. We come from a country where you can expect everything to work and to be on time (except the trains) and it’s perfectly ok to be pissed if that isn’t the case. 

Not pointing any fingers here, but living in a certain province in a certain North American country has shown that “unparalleled joie de vivre” has less to do with enjoying life and more with being a shitty excuse for not meeting reasonable standards.    

“I’m glad the English won the colonial wars, because otherwise everything would suck” 
Upon seeing English tourists, “Actually, I take that back, nobody should have won the colonial wars” - Ville

Every day is an adventure

It really isn't. There comes a point when living abroad stops feeling special and just becomes everyday life. You go along following a set of routines, but that’s completely ok. It’s ok to reach that point where you’re content with staying home, cooking a dinner and watching a horror movie or two on Netflix instead of going on a binge-to-end-all-binges drinking escapade, even though it is a Monday night. 

I will get to see the world

Now, with this I can agree with,  even though it is a little bit close minded (no it is not) to think of North America and adjacent Islands as the world. I've gotten to see a continent and, as a cherry on top, a culture that I have always admired since being a little kid. All those days and nights spent watching cartoon network and playing video games really made a dent in my brain. So far, we've been to Quebec City, Toronto, New York and Cuba + I've been to Boston.  So far all of the places I've visited outside Montréal have made a lasting impression, whether that impression was bad or good, can be read in future blog posts (next week)

Impressions of the University, HEC Montréal

Actually, there are not that many negative things to be said about HEC Montréal, other than the fact that we got completely hustled with the private insurance bullshit. For the main part the courses are ok, apart from the fact that some courses do not seem to be driving towards a purpose. This may be because of the lack of a straight forwards major system. In Finland, at least in the Aalto University School of BINNIS, we choose a major and we usually stick with it and its course schedules. Changing your major can be a pain in the ass in Finland. Here, it seems that people just wander through studies, cherry picking stupid courses that do not make any sense. Some of the course outlines in HEC Montréal remind me of Finnish high school studies in social sciences. HEC Montréal, C’MON MAN!

Now here comes the inevitable comparison between Aalto BIZ and HEC Montréal.

Bad things about Aalto BIZ administration = Everything. Everything is so difficult and the people working there won’t really cut you any slack. Handling official documents is like a relay race, where at first you give somebody the document, they run to their boss, who runs to a state office (where the document spends most of its time in the “lets fucking chill – pile” and after 2 months you get whatever document you needed when it is already too late.

Bad things about HEC Montréal administration = Despite the weird insurance scheme, nothing so far.

Also, HEC Montréal seems to grade its midterms and exams in one quarter of the time of what it takes for Aalto BIZ professors (read: clueless assistants) to grade them. It seems that at HEC Montréal they are graded somewhat within a week. At Aalto Biz they are graded in a month, WHICH IS THE MAXIMUM TIME ALLOWED TO GRADE A TEST AND HALF THE TIME THEY SCREW UP THE GRADINGS. SERIOUSLY MAN, BRINGS MY BLOOD TO A BOIL. DO YOUR JOBS. And don't you dare bring up the "but it's free, don't complain" argument. Just don't. I have an axe. 

Oh and by the way, at Aalto Biz you have to register to the course and the exams separately, which actually makes no sense and causes people to actually have to remember to register for the exams. Now, I know what you’re thinking, Boohoo just register for both at the same time? WRONG. The exam registration opens later than the course registration. Good job Universities of Finland, way to go. Damn you to hell Oodi (name for the Finnish web portal universities use)

Well, what can I say really? From what I've heard, the Finance courses seem to be really good here in Montréal which seems to yet again be a one up against our home university. Then again, you might have noticed that anything I say here comes from incredibly credible sources that for some reasons I cannot even cite and should therefore be taken as seriously as you can.

HEC Montréal 6 – Aalto Biz 1 Vi ses på torget

Whatever else we need to say

So far exchange has been great (Never believed I’d say that after all we've written). Even though making long lasting friendships here is very hard and requires actual dedication and commitment to it, I find it to be very rewarding and enriching. God, I’m getting nauseous just writing about this.


I think thus far the main takeaway has been the fact that we've seen the world and experienced things that we could not experience by sitting at home in Finland watching Netflix (makes you think though). We've experienced the “big city” feeling in the U.S. and the North American teaching styles at HEC Montréal. It is still hard to say what this experience will amount to in the end, two cynical Finns coming back home and hating everything, or two optimistic Finns equipped with a diverse social tool set, willing to step out of their comfort zones when needed? My guess is on the former but you never know.

Letting this blog go on even further would probably bore everybody, so we'll just end it here. Be ready for another blog post next Monday. It is going to be a Cuba edition, where we weigh the benefits of Communism vs. Capitalism and discuss why Habanero street bands should add David Guetta's Play hard to their repertoire. 

Have a nice cold-ass week,

PEAC’M’OUT