My work

I work in the office for international relations. They are two persons in this office. My supervisor and an other person. My supervisor is teaching but she also does administration work at the office. The other person working with administrative tasks and takes care of all the work with invitations, visas and registration of international students (all from former republics of the Soviet republic).

The first week I didn't have so much to do, but now I think there is always something for me to do, but I can's say that I'm stressed.

I usually start working at 9.30-10 in the morning. I search for opportunities (scholarships and exchange programs) for the students to go studying abroad (so far nobody has been abroad). My task is also to find a way to get the students interested in going abroad as exchange students and also to find a system to inform them which the opportunities are. I'm also give a course in cross cultural communication once a week (this was one of my supervisor's courses that I took over when I came). So far I have had two classes. The students in this course are studying English their 3rd year and they all around 20 year old. An experience, since I'm not used to talk for 1 ½ h and definitively not in English. It's difficult to keep the flow of talking. I remember that I have always like teachers who have been telling their own stories and given examples from their own experience, but now when I do it myself, I only feel stupid and egocentric.

I also prepare different presentation about Finland and Sweden. This week I had three presentations for different groups of students. The subject depends of what the the groups studying. I always start with a general presentation of the countries and then I continue with their subject. This week it has been music, literature and theater. Next presentation will be about design. I'm not an expert in these subjects, but I guess with some research I can tell about the most important things. If the students don't know English my supervisor translates (which are all groups except the one who are studying English).

The students are usually very interested and ask a lot of questions. It's really difficult to answer to their questions. Is it expensive, is it cold, at what age do people get married, what do we eat, how much is the interest when buying a flat, are we open or closed people? I mean everything depends on what you compare with. I have got a lot of questions about theater this week, since the students are studying to become actors. I said that we don't go to the theater so often, so now they think we are the most uncultured people in Finland and Sweden. I don't know. Do we? Then I also said that we don't have so many theaters. Then later I read in a brochure that I have, that Stockholm is one of the world's most “theater-packed” cities. Is it? I'm a bad ambassador for the countries, I don't know anything, only telling lies. Here in Jekaterinburg there are about 30 different theaters, drama, operas, ballet, private owned... Another question I got was what my opinion is about that Finnish people in the north cross the border to Sweden in order to pick (steal) berries... (I think he had heard about this in the news or sth) :)

I often start the presentations with asking them what they know about Finland and Sweden This are the most common answers: ABBA, Swedish families (!), Volvo, Ikea, Nokia, Santa Claus and sauna. They also know Astrid Lindgren, Ingmar Bergman, Ville Haapasalo, Tove Jansson and they recognize almost all the artists that are known abroad when I mention them. The most popular characters of Astrid Lindgren seem to be Pippi and Karlsson på taket.

Today (Sunday) I had a presentation for a group of part time students (at another university, my supervisor give courses in three different universities). They are already working as actors but want to get a higher diploma. They come to Jekaterinburg for a month twice a year during four years. They were really nice and had a loooot of questions. After the lesson they invited me for lunch (three students prepare their lunch every day, different students every day of course). I liked it a lot. Really nice!

Oh, back to my day at work... around 14.00 we go for a very fast lunch in the university. You can choose between different salads, main dishes and deserts. You pay separately for everything you take (dishes, bread, drinks, pirogies etc). It's quite the same every day. Main dishes are soups, meat balls, fish or chicken with rice, pasta or potatoes. I usually eat a salad, a main dish, a piece of bread/pirogi and drink juice. For that I pay about 70 rubles which is about 1.70 €. We finish the lunch really fast, in about 15 minutes and then we go back to our office. I like the food, but remember that I eat and like almost everything! Fika breaks are not exciting :)

We usually finish around 17.00.