730 Days

10.4.2017 elli ja joonas

Spring is upon us!

Our blog’s activity has been pathetic at best over the last little while. We’ve settled in to life here and so we keep having less and less things to share! However, since I last wrote quite alot has happened so I thought it would be time for an update!

Work for both of us has been crazy busy.. The days go by so fast it’s hard to keep track. Joonas is still super happy with his now not so new job, and is getting more freedom and respsonsibility within their company. I’m also finally in the groove of things and have been able to contribute to two major projects and have spent quite alot of time superivising students. We have a new addition to the group, a Chinese girl who is staying for a year and so I’ve been showing her the ropes and helping her out in the lab quite alot. We also had a visiting student from France who was working on some of the techniques that I’m familiar with and so with a couple of other people we took him under our wing and helped him out. I’m especially excited for the end of May when another French student will be coming to work with me on some ellipsometry experiments.. we will work together for a month and hopefully get a paper out of any of the resuts she is able to get while at Mac. We’re also getting a master’s student from Switzerland coming to do his master’s thesis starting in September, which I will have the privilige of supervising almost completely.. this will be my first official supervisory role ever so I am super stoked about it! Other than that, we’ve now landed on conference season and we just spent a week in San Francisco and will be spending a week in Montreal at the end of May.

San Francisco was an interesting city. As a city it was really nice, geographically it’s really diverse and the weather was great! The sun was shining almost all week with highs of about 25 degrees and a light breeze. Apparently it doesnt get much hotter than that every, so temperature wise it would be agreat place to live. The city is super busy, everyone seems to be in a continuous hurry, running around in business attire or then sports clothes. It came across as a really young place as well, which makes sense as it’s in the IT hub of the US. The food there was also crazy good, we had some really good seafood and familiarized ourselves with Sushirittos! The only drawback though is that it is a super expensive city.. Our Airbnb accommodation for a week cost almost 3000euro and the food was really expensive as well. The city also seems to have huge problem with homelessness, unfortunately the scene in the streets is tainted with a homeless person every 150m or so – some of them are obviously just down on their luck but there was also a considerable number of people who had very evident drug addictions. Other than that, the conference itself was really good, my talk went well and it was so nice to see everyone!

Earlier in the spring we had a house full of guests! Joonas’ brother, his wife and their baby along with my sister-in-law’s sister stayed with us over a long weekend. It was so nice to see them all and even nicer to meet their little one who was born after we left for Canada so hadn’t had the chance to meet yet. We spent the weekend exploring Toronto, taking the dogs to the dogpark and vising the Mac campus and Hamilton.

This week we have a new guest coming to visit in the form of my little brother! So far we dont have anything planned so will probably play it by ear once he gets here. We’ve been very fortunate to have people come and visit us, it really helps aleviate our homesickness and Bugi is always excited to see people she recognizes!

Last week was also Bugi’s 8th birthday! I cant believe she’s been a part of our family for so long already, it feels like we just picked her up! I feel like she gets sweeter and cuter every day, but I might be biased 😀Other than that, everything is pretty much the same here! Molli is growing fast and every day Bugi seems to be getting more and more tolerant of her. I stayed home today to catch up on emails and get some odd jobs finished that had to be put on the shelf the week before we left to San Francisco. It’s been a really nice day, so I ate lunch on the balcony with the pets and enjoyed the warm weather!

Well that’s all for now, it’s time to get back to work! Hopefully everyone is doing well! 🙂
-Elli

Suhteet Ystävät ja perhe Matkat Työ

10.2.2017 elli ja joonas

Commuter Lifestyle

I have a bad habit, well many, but this one is a habit that I undertake almost daily. I love watching people around me, I like to see what people are wearing, whether or not they have wedding bands on, how they hold themselves, what they are carrying… all sorts of details of totally random strangers intrigue me. As I mentioned in my last post, I now commute to work which means every day I get on the same train at the same time and head to work with the same bunch of commuters. And so, I now have a bunch of strangers in my life who I recognize and watch. And it’s probably a little bit crazy.

There’s a guy who gets on at the same stop as me and commutes to school as well. We always stand at the same spot on the platform and get into the same train car. I presume he’s done the same optimization as me, since this car is the one that stops right next to the door at the next station that leads to the bus terminal where we catch our bus to school. He always wears the same thing, it’s like he’s just a copy-pasted figment of my imagination. He wears a pair of black canvas vans that are covered in salt stains and has the longest eyelashes ever.

Then there’s resting bitch face girl whom I’ve decided I really dislike. She also commute to the university and must be on the train before I get on, but she’s in our optimization team as she is also always in the same car as me. She has the snobbiest presence I have ever seen on a person, and bolts out of the train almost before it has had the chance to stop so she can get the ‘best’ seat in the bus. She drives me absolutely crazy.

There’s also a girl who gets on a couple of stops after mine whose hair is always done really nicely. She is really good as braiding her hair and so it’s always in one kind of a braid or another.

One of the people I am most curious about is this British woman who I sometimes see. She works at the university and everyday wears a black trench coat and this absolutely hideous hat that’s been pulled really far over her eyes. She was wearing this ensemble when it was still 25 degrees outside. She’s incredibly pale so I think she’s either a vampire or then just very British and can’t handle the sun. I always think about how hot she must feel.

Then there’s me. The crazy one who watches everyone else wondering if they’ve noticed that we’re always on the train at the same time. wondering what features they see when they notice me. The blue coffee thermos I have with me everyday, my beanie with its’ huge pompom, my Fjällräven bag or absolutely nothing, because they aren’t insane?

This weird stalking and listening to podcasts makes my commute a rather interesting one!

-Elli

Työ ja raha Matkat Työ