Facing the future and the changes it brings

Well well well, it's been a while. I haven't forgotten about this, but I've had more pressing matters to attend to and quite frankly my life has been filled with work, Netflix, sleep, and a side of horse polo. There hasn't been any time to write and I've not had the need to make time for that. Thus, I'm in no way surprised that I haven't written anything since last year. I've been working on my MSc in Social and Applied Psychology at University of Kent, and I am more than happy to say that it is now over. The year was filled with stress and work, but I managed to squeeze in a ridiculous number of flights (and a few train journeys) around Europe — for work.

Over the past 12 months I have been to at least Switzerland, Finland (x5), France, Netherlands (x2), Belgium, and Japan. Out of those, only France, Belgium and Japan have been holidays, and about five days around first of May in Finland. Everything else, volunteering with YFU or WAGGGS. Safe to say I'm quite done with the commute from Canterbury to Heathrow Airport, haha.

Itsukushimajinja in Miyajima, Hiroshima

As a result of my last trip to Japan in late June I decided to do something I've been thinking about doing for a few years now; apply for a job in Japan. After all, I didn't get funding for a PhD and if I'm having a gap year, might as well do something I've thought of doing but have never really had the time for. I spent a weekend writing job applications and got an interview for one job, the other day they called me offering a position and here we are. 

I'm moving to Kanazawa in Ishikawa prefecture at the end of November and will be living and working there for a year teaching English.

It feels weird to be going back home. I'm thrilled, of course, but at the same time a little bit terrified. It's been 6 years and 156 days since I left for exchange and a lot has happened since. My exchange was in no way a walk in the park, and in a way I am really glad that I had no prior knowledge of the challenges that it brought to me. However, as I've said a thousand times before, I don't regret it. It was one hell of a ride and I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for my exchange. The past years of living in the UK have of course taught a lot more, but living in a foreign country where you don't speak the language during your formative years is bound to change you.

I have no illusions that I wouldn't get a culture shock this time — I'm pretty sure I will, I mean, living and working in Japan after being a student for the past 15 years and basically having very little responsibilities is going to be a shock. As is the fact that Kanazawa actually gets SNOW during the winter. However, I'd like to think that after being an exchange student, having travelled back three times and having lived in another country for four years, it would be a little bit easier. The challenges will be different, even though this time I won't be expected to be social once I get home, I'm also going to be in charge of everything myself. There will probably be times when I wish I could just be back in England where I know exactly how things work and I feel at home, but I'm looking forward to the challenges. It will be weird to be at work on the 24th of December — at least I get the Christmas abroad I've always wanted, haha.

I'm not making any promises about regular updates, we all know those would probably not be fulfilled anyway. I'm going to try to update regularly though, but we'll see. In terms of language... I don't know, more than likely to be English, but who knows if I get a sudden urge to brush up my Finnish? (unlikely).

I'm going back to Finland for over two months in a couple of weeks time and it's going to be the longest I've been there since summer 2015. It's going to be weird and I'm already dreading the darkness of October and November, but at least at the end of November I'll be heading back home to Japan. ...and it is necessary to be back there, I need to get my visa sorted and all those fun formalities you need to do prior to moving to a non-EU country. It's gonna be a lot of paperwork, but hey, I'm going home!

xx,
Kiia

At the junction of interest and passion

While 2016 can be argued to have been a bad year on many fronts, after careful consideration I could conclude that at least for me, it wasn't too bad. Academically, I finally got the chance to conduct "real research", got offered a job as a research assistant, started as a statistics tutor, continued as a student rep and started yet another research project alongside a lecturer. Personally, well, living in Paris was an experience that I wouldn't change for anything, despite it being a bit challenging to live in a house with strangers after getting used to living on your own. However, it is the academic matters I wish to focus on this time, because let's face it, it's all that matters?

I have known for quite some time that I want to get into academia, get a PhD, maybe work as a post-doc researcher and POSSIBLY eventually consider trying to get tenure. I've just always thought that an academic career cannot be a real, viable career option because let's face it — even getting on to tenure track is difficult, let alone getting tenure. You need to be ready to work casual contracts, work-life -balance seems like a utopic dream and the work itself quite solitary and requires a lot of menial things e.g. marking. Thus, I never really considered academia as an option for my future, it was one of those things I just "wanted to try for a while and then move on". As I've spent most of my semester 1 sat in a windowless cubicle, desperately waiting for people to show up to do my study, I've been alone. However, I've been in an environment where our lecturers work. I've had the chance to get a glimpse of what academia is like and with all the ... despair and sometimes madness that comes with it... I'm loving it.

It certainly isn't easy, I have absolutely no illusions. I'm collecting 96 participants for a lab study, I lived in my cubicle from the 11th of October until the 19th of December. Five days a week, with the exception of a week in a conference in Iceland and a three-day trip to Norwich. On average, I spent 7hrs/day just sitting in a windowless room, consuming absolutely ridiculous amounts of caffeine. I managed to get 93 participants but I had 33 unexcused no-shows i.e. people who never showed up nor informed me that they are not going to show up. It was bothersome and made me want to cry and/or scream multiple times but at the end of the day I wouldn't change this study into an online one. Sure, lab life is tiring, boring, painful, cold, solitary and whatnot but at the same time it makes me feel like I'm actually doing something. I've been able to get so much more out from this year as I've had the chance to focus on the things that really interest me; social psychology and statistics.

I've also had the chance to discuss with my supervisor/tutor/boss about academia and grad school; his words further ascertained my thoughts about possibly wanting to get into academia. At some point in early December it just hit me: I want to become an academic. I actually want to lecture, I aspire to be as inspirational as some of my lecturers have been. I want to do research. I want to dedicate my life to the things I'm passionate about, not just interested in. There are a number of research areas that I find absolutely fascinating, but they are not the areas I'm passionate about. They are the ones I read about at 2am when I can't sleep, my passions are the ones I focus on during the day. I'll happily start my days by reading interesting journal articles, I enjoy reading research. Sure, at times it is boring and weird and confusing but for the most part I just love learning. Yes, I spent one of my Sunday's reading about the 100 most influential papers of 2016 because... science. I ended up googling about the differences between Hodges' g and Cohen's d as effect size metrics because I had no idea what Hodges' g was. (Turns out it had been mentioned in a lecture at some point but I had no recollection of that happening.)

It has been a weird discovery; I've never thought of myself as an academic, I always wanted to travel a lot and make a lot of money. Academia might facilitate travel but money? Ah, if only. However, from what I've seen, academia allows (and forces?) you to dedicate all of your time to the thing, whatever the thing might be. My days in semester 1 were: lab -> home -> wine -> netflix -> bed (x ad infinitum) and while it was exhausting at times, I absolutely loved it. My breaks (and favorite time of the week) were statistics tutoring for first years on Tuesday evenings; I've been able to leave my cubicle for an hour and just not think about anything because first year stats are just great fun. This might sound really sad, even the workshop leader said that it is sad when I said that the workshops are the highlight of my week haha. However, I'm not sure if that's necessarily a bad thing?

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As of 3:35pm on the 16th of January, I was finished with data collection. Most of the day I spent thinking about the happy dance I'll perform once I'm finished, but at the end of the day my happiness manifested by closing a door a bit too loudly and telling my supervisor how "this feels incredible". At least the worst was over.

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All of the above was written on the 16th of January but never published. Things got too busy, I'm hesitant to say "life got in the way", as many would argue I don't have a life. After all, I mainly read papers, write, code tweets, tutor stats, and watch netflix. Sometimes many of these simultaneously. Second semester got busy with deadlines, returns of things from first semester and promises of future.

I have been conditionally accepted for an MSc in Social and Applied Science at the University of Kent.

I've gained a second RA position.

I've been working as a stats tutor for 2nd year students.

I ended up playing in a national polo tournament and our team came 2nd in our division.

I've been working on my dissertation write-up.

I've been drinking wine and watching Netflix, and consuming lots of coffee.

I've hated everything and everyone, but at the end of the day been so grateful for everything.

I love science and I love learning.

I've finished my dissertation as of 9:58am on Monday of this week and I'll be returning it on Friday, followed by ridiculous amounts of champagne with Ellie — because we're worth it.

It's been a wild ride and this is only the beginning.

But first... it's Japan calling in six days!

Supervisors, tutors, and getting along with people.

I've been trying to find the right platform to talk about a thing that I've found really important and those who've seen my tweets (and heard me talk about pretty much anything uni related) know what it is. Before coming to university I never thought about supervisors but after getting the chance to work alongside two great ones... good supervisors make a difference.

Although I was a student academic rep in my first year I still felt like there's a gap between students and lecturers, which is quite normal. After all, lecturers are in a position of authority. However, having respect and appreciation towards someone doesn't mean that communication has to be awkward, as I've discovered during the past year. When I was starting up with my research project I was excited but also kind of scared — how could I, a second year student, do anything that would be of any importance and why would anyone really care about it?

I was lucky to be paired with a lecturer who has been incredibly helpful — never in a million years would I have thought that I could work alongside people at a departmental level and feel like they appreciate my input. It has been so different from the "supervisor — student" -setting we had in the IB with our extended essays. My supervisor back then was bad, or well, both of them were, and I didn't really get any support whatsoever. While some part of it was certainly my own fault, I'm not able to think very highly of those people as supervisors. However, past is in the past and it was a good learning process, the whole IB experience was.

Different people will quite likely have their own opinions on what makes a good supervisor and it's not really a "one size fits all" -type of thing. However, I've personally found that a good supervisor is someone who makes you feel at ease when talking to them. They make you feel respected and somewhat at level with them, not inferior and an idiot who knows nothing. Someone being approachable and you having respect towards them are not mutually exclusive concepts — I really respect most of our lecturers and if they're easy to talk to, it's a definite bonus.

The same goes for personal tutors. Again, it's not a one-way street and having rapport requires effort from the student as well. It would be silly to expect to have a good professional relationship with someone whose name you barely remember and whom you've met once in the beginning of your studies. For the most part tutors do want to meet their tutees but students just don't make use of office hours due to various reasons, but one of the most common ones seems to be not knowing what to talk about.

We are supposed to meet with our personal tutors once per semester and got an email about this in the beginning of semester 1. I went to meet my tutor sometime in October and turned out that I was the first tutee to see them because "we are supposed to". Even I spent two weeks thinking about things to talk about, wrote multiple lists in order to have a somewhat coherent idea of what to say. After the meeting I was left with the most peculiar feeling; I felt relaxed and happy even though I'd been talking about things that stress me out (e.g. dissertation/FYP/whatever you want to call it).

Towards the end of semester 1 we were slightly bombarded with deadlines, which meant that I ended up practically neglecting my research project for a good month. After all, assignments do come first. When my supervisor sent an email before Christmas asking about progress and if I'd attended a presentation session in the beginning of December it slightly freaked me out. Yes, I'd done that but apart from the presentation I hadn't done much. The response I received from my supervisor was surprising: I wasn't told off for not doing enough, I was told to not worry?! At university it seems like lecturers are more humans and just overall less scary than teachers in high school were. Of course, this is my very subjective experience, but I'm extremely glad about this.

As my second year at university is coming to an end, dissertation has definitely been a topic of discussion for the whole of semester 2. We had to submit preliminary topic ideas around February and we got paired up with supervisors a bit later; I got extremely lucky and got my first choice of supervisor. I am so happy and excited to work on my dissertation with them. The past month has been filled with ethics, proposal, and material creation, but now it seems like everything might be ready? As long as my proposal is deemed as a pass, I can submit my ethics by the May DL I received a green light for my ethics just over a week ago, will be hearing back from the ethics committee within the next few weeks and hopefully have ethical approval before the start of semester 1 in September, which means the start of data collection! It's kind of funny how this whole dissertation process seems like a process akin to getting married/having children/having to get along with a very difficult person — in one moment you're over the moon and ridiculously excited but in the next you feel like defenestrating everything and everyone. But maybe that's what it's all about? Doing research is definitely not a linear process.

Overall, during these past few years at uni I feel like I've finally found "my thing". Doing research is amazing. Presenting at conferences is fun (based on one conference). Learning is great. I'm so glad to be right here right now even though this is not necessarily where I envisaged myself to be ten years ago.

However, Paris is calling in a week (and one day!) and it will be yet another adventure. Not necessarily the greatest times of my life 24/7 but certainly a learning experience and alongside work, it will be filled with more research as per my dissertation research plan.

Year 2 of uni is officially over and the day after tomorrow I'll be heading back to Finland. Thankfully the weather should be nice, Winchester is supposed to have rain for the rest of my stay :|

Sinä lähdit Pariisiin, sanoit olevasi onnellinen.

Aktiivisen blogin pitäminen ei ole juurikaan ollut "to do" -listan kärjessä tämän vuoden aikana ja ehkä se on ihan okei. Se vapaa-aika mitä yliopisto on antanut on mennyt paljolti Roihun nettisivujen parissa — olen viime syksystä asti toiminut englanninkielisten nettisivujen mestarina ja hommaa on riittänyt. Lisäksi yliopisto on ollut toisena vuotena ihmeellisen aikaavievää. En edelleenkään vietä tunteja valmistuen luennoille, mutta saatan käyttää jopa viikon practicalin kirjoittamiseen. Hard work pays off though ja tänä vuonna arvosanat ovat olleet siedettäviä, ehkä näillä lähdetään sinne, minne tulevaisuudessa tarkoitus olisi?

Kesätöiden saaminen on haastavaa lähes jokaiselle ikäiselleni (±5v) ja kun itsellä tilanne alkoi näyttää pelottavan tyhjältä päätin tehdä radikaalin ratkaisun. Olen aina leikitellyt ajatuksella au pairiksi lähtemisestä, mutta koskaan en ole toiminut varsinaisesti asian eteen. Tänä vuonna kuitenkin loin profiilin aupairworldiin ja muutaman päivän sisään sain yhteydenottoja seitsemältä perheeltä.

Ensisijaisesti olisin halunnu Aasiaan, sillä siellä on koti. Aasiassa ei kuitenkaan tällä kertaa ollut mitään sopivaa, joten Eurooppa tuli vaihtoehdoksi ja yhtäkkiä alle viikon etsimisen jälkeen varmistui, että asun Ranskassa ensi kesän. Tarkalleen ottaen kyseessä on yksi pienistä kylistä juuri Pariisin ulkopuolella, mutta perheen äiti käy töissä Pariisissa ja matka on junalla noin 30min, joten käytännössä kuitenkin Pariisista on kyse. Olisiko parempaa voinut sattua?

Nyt monet saattavat ihmetellä miksi minä lähden hoitamaan lapsia. Kyllä, en ehkä halua omia lapsia, mutta on olemassa suloisiakin lapsia ja tämä perhe vaikuttaa aivan ihanalta. Lapset ovat 6 ja 8v ja perheellä on lemmikkejä — voisiko parempaa toivoa? Tuntuu jollain tapaa hyvin helpottavalta lähteä "vain kesäksi" ja näinkin lähelle. Toki on outoa asua yhtäkkiä jonkun nurkissa, mutta ainakin minulla on oma huone, mikä on sinänsä parannusta Helsinkiin :D

Exam period on itselläni pian ohi ja motivaatio opiskella viimeiseen kokeeseen on aika matala. Miten voi jaksaa enää kun ulkona on +25°C ja kyseessä on pelkästään open book statistics exam? Onneks maanantai-iltapäivänä on aika juhlistaa toisen vuoden loppumista lasillisella kaverin kanssa — tätä on odotettu! Uskomatonta ajatella, että syksyllä palatessani Winchiin olen jo viimeisen vuoden opiskelija.

Jollain ihmeen keinolla sain myös hankittua asunnon ensi vuodeksi ja kiitos lähellä sijaitsevan kesätyön, pystyn jättämään tavarat nykyiseen asuntoon ja tulemaan vain viikonlopuksi Englannin puolelle muuttamaan. Tämä tuntuu niin luksukselta viimevuotisen kassirumban jälkeen, ihanaa ajatella etten joudu pakkaamaan kaikkea matkalaukkuihin ja rinkkaan ja/tai etsimään kesäsijoituspaikkaa!

En väitä muuttuvani aktiivisemmaksi bloggaajaksi enkä lupaa mitään muutakaan, mutta kesän aikana olisi hauskaa kirjoitella Ranskan puolelta — tykkään lukea au pair blogeja ja vanhojen blogitekstien lukeminen toimii hyvänä aikakoneena sitten joskus tulevaisuudessa.

Languages, challenges, and courage.

It feels really peculiar to actually say this but occasionally I find it easier to express myself in English. Yes, I am absolutely terrified of possibly making mistakes with my grammar etc. but then again "everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days", right? It's partially due to my Finnish nature — there is always someone who is better so you probably shouldn't even try. It's also just the fact that I live in England and I continue to believe that my vocabulary is inferior to everyone around me and occasionally there are words that I see that make me go "um wait what?". Then there's the fact that my favorite words are meticulous, illustrious, and equilibrium whilst my (now former) flatmate loves words with "k" or "c" sound in them, majority of which I do not wish to state here, but like the c-word. This said, I know that I'm not terrible with English, I've graduated from the IB and I'm studying a degree in a university in English. Last year,  I've had a 78% on one of my practicals and my grammar was an A. Nevertheless, for some odd reason I'm really scared to write anything in English when someone else than a lecturer/close friend might see it. I see natives making mistakes almost daily but I feel like I shouldn't make mistakes, it's not my first language so surely I should be able to speak it perfectly or then just not even try? No, that is not how it's supposed to go.

I experienced the exact same fear when I was in Japan as an exchange student. I went there with a basic knowledge of the language; I was able to introduce myself, read hiragana and katakana and recognize some kanjis. During the first weeks I spoke English with my family and it was so so so difficult to even start to say phrases in Japanese. I got annoyed at myself for not speaking Japanese but I was so scared to make mistakes and/or not being able to say what I wanted to say so I just continued with English. At one point my host mom sat me down and just told me that I need to start to say things in Japanese, even if it's a simple "学校は楽しかったです" ("school was fun") or "えええ、この食べ物は本当に美味しいです" ("this food is delicious!") or just one word in a sentence. I just had to start to use the vocabulary that I had and start to ask more questions when I didn't know what something was in Japanese. It was difficult, I felt like an idiot for only being able to contribute to our dinner conversations with an occasional "can you give me x?" or "this is delicious" but I did it. At school, I had conversations with my classmates and I didn't understand the majority of the things that were said to me but I just nodded and agreed and pretended I knew what was going on. Then there were the moments when I realized that I actually can speak Japanese, like that one time when I was able to visit a shoemaker and explain that the shoes were too small. It was a small thing but it felt like I'd just won something great — I was able to make myself understood in a language that I could barely speak three weeks before that.

There are times when doing or saying a thing feels really scary and I'd rather write my notes in a different pen (anyone who knows me knows that that is a big thing, as I have my one and only pen that I use to write my notes) but I end up saying/doing the thing anyways. It is moments like those when I tend to think back at the times I've been the most scared I've ever been and the whole exchange experience is quite often the one I think of. At the time it didn't seem that terrifying but now that I think about it... it was a brave thing to do. I'd just started high school and decided that I can live on the other side of the world, in a country that speaks a language with a whole different writing system and that has a culture nothing alike to the one I've been brought up in. When people ask about my exchange year I tend to say that it was a learning experience like no other and that it was definitely not the best time of my life but oh so worth it. That's me being as diplomatic as I can but the truth is, I would not change it for anything. The amount of courage and self-confidence that Japan gave me... I couldn't have acquired it in any other way. The people I've met, thanks to my exchange year, have been (and continue to be) incredible. It was a tough way of learning but it was worth it.

In summer of 2014 I returned to Japan with Jasmin and it was me who did most of the talking (since Jasmin forced me even though her Japanese is so much better than mine & we were in the Kansai -region and I don't speak Kansai-ben). Yes, I probably made mistakes but it was okay as I was understood everywhere. Even in immigration when we returned from Seoul and decided to speak Japanese because it felt so natural. The reason why it was so easy to just speak Japanese might be the fact that whenever a gaijin speaks Japanese you get complimented. Every. single. time. You say "okay" to a cashier and you get complimented for your language skills. With a language like English... well, you kind of just expect to be able to speak it perfectly if you're even going to try. I tend to laugh when people say that English is a difficult language, compared to Finnish it really isn't that bad (despite the fact that words aren't pronounced as they are written) but in general English is quite simple. However, it is not my first language and in general I feel like I can express myself at least well enough for people to understand me. If I've been able to acquire a high school diploma in English and I can study in an English university that should say something? Maybe, who knows.

The truth is, even if my English isn't perfect all the time at least I am capable of speaking four other languages as well. Except when I can't find the word in any language and I'm left with a massive confusion of "what an earth is this in ANY language?!?".

Joys of being bilingual.