Accent français

I got it! It’s shiny, with great pictures, awesome codes and the big ‘United States of America’ on it. It’s there, in my 2 months old biometric passport.

The departure date is 22nd of September. 3 weeks to get rid of my finnishness :-( and this includes:

• Send a letter to the registration office, to tell them i’m leaving the country
• Tell the social security I’m out
• Tell the tax office, and pray for not getting terrible news, like I owe them thousands of euros
• Cancel electricity, internet connection, home insurance
• Redirect my subscriptions to French magasines to the US (and surely pay something)
• Cancel credit cards, but I keep my bank account (hopefully)
• Sort and pack at home and at the office
• Contact this agency that helps for the relocation (via the company)
• Get flight tickets, rental car, some accomodation
• Help and find a new good roommate for my dearest Ännchen
• Find out how much of my finnish wardrobe will be needed in CA
• Backup and burn stuff
• Maybe visit the must-see things that I did not see in Helsinki
• Offer several rounds of beer and dinners
• Unlearn Finnish. Oh wait 2 seconds… Done!

The work documents for the visa have been put in the mail yesterday. It’s now a matter of 3-5 weeks before I get the visa in my passport and can transfer to Palo Alto/California.
Like any big move, it’s exciting to go and sad to leave.

I can always watched this video of the countryside in Tours, at Aurelien’s place. I forgot to delete the sound, I was hoping to have a good soundtrack of the trees, the bugs and slow breathing. The squeek squeek is due to the mic of my camera which must be altered.

Ah France, what a wonderful country…

The French countryside from agathe and Vimeo.

Enfin je vais pouvoir dormir, sortir dehors prendre l’air et le soleil, prendre mon temps et décompresser. Ca fait 10 jours que je me suis cloîtrée à la maison, jours et nuits, ne sortant que pour acheter à manger (et voir Die Hard 4). Ca m’arrive de faire à peu près tous les 3 mois pour finir les deadlines de projet en beauté. Bien que les bureaux soient maintenant vides à cause des vacances, il y a toujours plus de distractions au boulot que chez moi… Ca doit en dire long sur l’efficacité du système. Et 14 heures par jour les yeux sur l’écran du laptop, c’est pas vraiment sain. Mais le client (interne) était content, m’a donné le top score; et je me suis éclatée sur le projet. C’est tout bénef.

C’est toujours plus facile de bosser dur pendant l’été, il fait sombre seulement pendant 3 heures. On est remonté à bloc avec tout cette lumière. Ca fait aussi 10 jours que le temps est magnifique. Etre dehors en T-shirt, et ne pas avoir froid paraît anormal en Finlande. La chaleur n’est pas écrasante, il fait seulement 20-22 degrés. Mais pour moi, le vrai visage de la Finlande, c’est sous la neige, quand elle est entièrement blanche.

We’re going to Sweden, Fred’s sweet home for midsummer. We’ll eat potatos and herrings, drink beer, listen to music – electronic of course. We’re having a party on Friday at one of his friends’ place PiG. It’s a big house in the country, with an awesome home cinema and console installation. I’ll probably be spending a bit of time driving a car or a motorbike on a 3×2 meters display. Driving games are the only ones I really like. I’m not sure I’ve much improved my swedish… I’ve skipped a bit the lessons at the beginning of the year… And as good excuse, the accent they have in SmÃ¥lland – although absolutely cute – makes it more difficult to follow conversations.

I have about 14 days from now on to wrap-up a project. Then I’ll be on 4 weeks holiday in France from July 7 to August 5, during which my big plans are to meet friends in Paris, and stay at the family’s place in the country, enjoy the garden’s products, swim in the pool and take naps on the grass, and hopefully start coding my little personal web project.

The big news is that I’m transferring to the Research Center the Empire N has opened in Palo Alto, California, babe. I’m a bit in the middle of the paperwork process. I have to dig out paper numbers, dates of all the times I was in the US. And if all goes as planned, maybe I’ll be there in September / October.

If I hear or read one more time somebody using the metaphor of a flower garden to discuss and reflect about a product, a business concept or whatever, I’ll start a group anti-freaking-flower-garden.
The metaphor is about the time and effort and love and water you put in the garden in the anticipation of seeing your flowers grow. I guess the emotions you’re supposed to have are those of pride, happiness, accomplishment, beauty.
I find it very naive and out of place. It’s even more amusing to me because most often this is brought up by guys. Well I’m glad to see that some men are so in touch with their flowery feelings. But seriously, is it the best you can come up with? Is your life a flower garden? Litterature would have been really boring if writers had described relationships, life experiences by comparing them to flower gardens.
Please stop.