Hey! Today it's raining... And I really wanted to go running but I'm not willing to take the risk of getting sick now. Maybe it gets better later today *fingers crossed*. Anyway, since I'm telling myself I'm stuck indoors and I'm doing my best to procrastinate washing the huge pile of dishes already from yesterday (I know... gross... I was so lazy and slightly busy), I will now write about what I talked with my sister yesterday: school life, (boooooriiiiing..... Nope, if you read forwards). In more detail, school life in different countries and how people see and act to it.
As it has become clear in my earlier posts I'm studying at a university in England at the moment for my second year already (still two to go though...). My sister is studying at a university in Helsinki and right now doing an exchange in Belgium. There we got three different universities and countries to compare, all in Europe though. But the differences are BIG I might say. First of all England. What should I start with... £9000 a year. Yes, I start with the money I have to pay for each year just to be able to study here. I have no clue what they use all that money for... Think about it, about 16000 students everyone paying £9000/year or more if you are an international student. And still we have tiny lecture rooms where the air runs out till the end of the lecture and at least once during the lecture someone accidentally flips their creaky tables down making everything from laptops and notebooks to phones fall down. I would really like to see their budget sheets some day... Anyway, lets continue. Besides the tuition fee we are paying our food which in university is fairly cheap, £3-5 lunch. And of course everything you need for studying, rent for an apartment which might be even £400-500 for a shared house and even more expensive if you want to live by yourself like I do, travelling and other stuff. And majority of the students here work part-time just to cover some costs.
In Finland it's a bit other story. Studying is free, no tuition fees (I'm not kidding) and actually, you are kind of paid to study. Students get support from the Finnish government, the amount depends on the level of your studies but often is around 300-400€/month. And of course you can get a student loan with a very low interest rate (not bad I can say). University food is extremely healthy and around 2€ lunch. Travelling within Helsinki is easy with monthly bus/train/subway passes with a student discount of about -50%. Renting apartment is... Almost guaranteed by the university or city. There are loads of student apartments in Helsinki rented by the city or university, shared apartments, studios or almost anything. The rent varies from 200€ to maybe 500€/month (hard to say as it depends on the apartment size, location etc.). But when I lived in a shared student apartment with two other people in Helsinki my rent was about 250€/month. And yes, it includes everything: water, electricity, WiFi. IN HELSINKI. The rent my sister and her husband are now paying in Belgium for their kind of shared apartment is ridiculous, it is more than 700€/month. And my sister told me that is the normal amount of rent in the area they live in, which is not even Brussels. Back to Finland, on top of all the previous, students get a huuuuge amount of discounts and cheap services and all kinds of opportunities for practising nearly anything you are interested in, for example sports, arts, crafts and the list goes on, which here in England I have found really hard to find. I love fashion and I want to make clothes, but I have found one fabric store from Bournemouth where the selection of fabrics was... terrible. Maybe I'm just bad at searching or then here practising these kind of interests are not supported. Which is a shame.
(google)
Anyway, what I find weird is that as can be seen from the previous, the education and all the possible services for students in Finland seem exceptionally good, amazing actually, still generally put every student there complains, and students here in England too. "I have to find a part-time job", "I have to pay rent, so much money...", "my house is so cold", "I got so much work to do", "I don't have time for all this" and so on. Yes, at university level students have loads of work to do, even in Finland. But c'mon... Now when I have seen and experienced the student life in England I got nothing to complain about the studying in Finland. Even finding an apartment from Helsinki is piece of cake when compared to the apartment hunt I went through here. I was looking for an apartment with my boyfriend and no-one wanted us. No-one wants students and if they do, they need a guarantor which needs to be a full-time worker based in UK... Well where could I get someone like that???? So yea, I don't have a guarantor. And my boyfriend is self-employed and to provide consistent evidence of income you are supposed to be self-employed at least for three years... He has been for one year. No guarantor either as he is not British. It was a hunt to find an apartment and it was a miracle we finally found one, not a great one but it has a roof and floor. And a bathroom... I am great to get lost from the topic. Complaining, it is just ridiculous in Finland. I have a tendency to do that here too which I'm trying to fix from my behaviour... But as a comparison, my sister told me how now in Belgium she had been talking with some students from Africa and they told her how their or their friends' families sold everything they had just to get their child to school. It is a privilege for them to be able to study and some of them have their own families, husband/wife and kids in another country and they don't have money to go see them even once while they are studying. And still they are happy. Because they can study, get a good education. It is a privilege. Not a duty, not a requirement. No complaining.
(google)
Why do we complain then? When we can hear stories like that which show how good everything is for us. How easy it has been made for us to study. I think it's just because it is so easy to find negative things and point them out and put the focus on them instead of concentrating on the good things in life. For example, when you are sick everything seems depressing and you moan and complain but have you noticed your partner has cooked for you? Did you thank him/her? Did you appreciate it? Or just complain how you can't taste it cause your nose is so blocked and you have lost your appetite. Maybe less complaining would be better... Like my boyfriend always says, haha.
Ed Sheeran - Perfect (something beautiful, those lyrics)
