Miscellaneous

Here are some updates:

1) After two and a half weeks of being here, I have a job teaching an English conversation course. It seems there's a pretty significant need for English teachers here, particularly for conversation courses. This is probably because lots of Finns have a good academic understanding of English, but no forum in which to practice.

I'm immeasurably lucky that English is my native language and that English is currently the lingua franca. I come to appreciate this more with each step I take towards assimilation here in Finland.

2) I received a call today from a nurse at the neurologist's office. I have two free months of my medication waiting for me there. I am as thankful and as shocked as can be. I'm not used to benevolent doctor's offices bestowing charity on me. Rather, I'm used to assholes who ignore me and wrong me and make grievous errors, all at huge expense. Thank you, nurse, and thank you, Finland. You have given me the best sort of culture shock.

3) Rami and I were approached by two Mormons on the street today. Rami says he's seen a lot of Mormons here over the years, and that they always appear in pairs. They looked very, very young, and they're no doubt Americans on a mission. From the little snippet of religious babble we heard one of them speak, it seemed as if he spoke Finnish pretty decently. I wondered if maybe I should have been a Mormon missionary and taken advantage of their language training.

I regret not saying, "Hello, I'm American, too!" Surely two kids here on their own, enduring scowls and rude brush offs day after day would appreciate seeing and hearing someone from their homeland. I decided against it, though, because I didn't want to encourage them to pursue my conversion. My heart is as hard as a rock and a hard place. Still, I can't help feeling that my reasoning was, forgive me, "unchristian." If I see them again, I'll give them some love from an eastern elitist.