Londonward

I didn’t remember that London air tastes so acrid, and it’s not just because of fireworks. Still, it feels nice to be back - but I do miss the ease and comforts of life in Helsinki.

Contributors to an immediate rise in blood pressure upon arrival are the good-for-nothing landlord’s inability to fix our erratic central heating (and other outstanding issues) and the insane amount of work coming up. Here’s to 2008, may it be better in all ways.

After a surreal drive through empty, mist-frosted roads, with the yellow streetlights creating a hypnotic, far-away pattern on the dashboard and the others in the car, I arrived. And it feels like home.

It’s been a mad rush this past forthnight. It all culminates today: 3 essays, an oral presentation and then I’ll be done. This term has gone by in the blink of an eye, and I can’t believe that I’m halfway through my degree. Well, almost. In any case, it’s all been such a rush that I can’t even begin to relax now. Because of stupidly expensive plane tickets, I now have wednesday and thursday afternoons to prepare for any and all eventualities over Christmas - gifts, administrative stuff like rent, good-byes, the lot.

I already know one gift I’m going to give. The rest - I don’t know when I’ll figure them out and actually get them.

I’m terrible at gifts, which makes stressing out about everything in general even more unpleasant. What I’d need is something to relax with right now, not tomorrow when all my friends from school will be done with their work. There’s so many excellent things going on around this city, and I can hardly be part of anything because I’m either too busy or too flying out of the country.

Oh, the salary and student support issue did get sorted out eventually. That is, if either one of you were still wondering.

Oh, bureaucracy.

To qualify for financial support, I have to send the Finnish government my results for the previous year as well as confirmation that I am continuing as a student. I originally sent both my transcript for last year as well as a certificate of registration for 2007-2008 in October. I received a letter back stating that they were not sufficient and to send a paper with “the number of completed credits” and a statement that I “have advanced to the next year”. The LSE doesn’t issue any other documents than the ones I sent, and I got a letter stating just that to accompany my transcripts when I sent them again.

Yesterday I received a letter stating “since you have not provided us with documentation in the form that we ask, we have to cancel your financial support effective the first of December”. Great. I wouldn’t be as pissed off or indeed desperate if this wasn’t just insult to the injury of my wages being delayed. I have talked to another Finnish student in my department, and he said that LSE documentation was sufficient for his applications. So why not mine?

I fired off a rather caustic email to Kela last night. It seems that I’ve been stuck with some nazi support officer that enjoys making poor students living overseas squirm. Maybe a supervisor will read my email and beat some sense into her. What part of “no other documentation supplied by my university” does she not understand?