Yrityslabra

Greetings from Mexico!

Something in english for a change.. As told, we have each year some exchange students from across the world studying in the lab. One of them was lovely Jimena from Mexico who studied here in fall 2013. We asked her to write something to the blog about studying and spending time in Finland for one semester. Lets see what she wrote! :)

On my stay in Finland I embarked on what was the most beautiful experience of my life till now. I met friends for all my life and changed my perspective of life. I discovered that the weather, the sunlight, the 8 hours of difference and the kilometers between the countries are just phenomena because at the end I discovered that Mexicans and Finns are more alike than everybody thinks. 

In that time of my life I began to think, to plan and to know myself. 5 months in where the most amazing and important part of the day was looking at the stars in the sky. I remember myself going out at 3 am in Lapland just to catch a northern light, I didn’t see anything, but maybe it wasn’t my time to see one, it was not the perfect moment (that make me feel that I must come to Finland again).

If I learnt something of Finns was that the life is full of small moments, moments that only happen once and they are like shooting stars, also that they can be anywhere, specially outside your window.  Enjoying the first snow like if it is the last one, protecting yourself from cold in the warm house of a close friend, tasting salmiakki and spitting it out every time I tasted it, I miss it a lot now!

When I think about Yrityslabra, I think the following:

1.      Its better to make 1 perfect thing than 5 imperfect.

2.      A good teacher is not the one who gives you 24 hours homework, it is who invites you a beer and helps you as if he was your best friend.

3.      There are so many ways to have a correct answer, and you have to find out the way.

4.      My family thought I wasn’t studying.

5.      Learning and working with a cup of coffee in a red sofa is much better.

6.      Grades are just numbers, the most important part is to realize how much you failed and how much you grew because of that.

7.      Drinking wine in school at a Christmas dinner is not illegal.

Nowadays Mexican schools doesn’t have kitchens or cafes in schools, not even a red sofa, the teachers think that not sleeping makes you wiser, going to school everyday is part of normal life and if you don’t get a good grade you are wasting time and money, and also gaining a big scold. Despite of these differences, I’m sure that there is something in common with Finns and Mexicans, the desire to be better everyday. I learned to work every day with heart and effort, to don’t give up even if I have a -1.

Once I had a dream to come to Finland, now its real; I met awesome people, I got to know a school warm as the hearts of its students, a landscape infinite in its beauty, a desire to live and grow that never ends and a lot of memories and moments that I cherish in the deepest part of me.

Jimena De La Vega Silva

Querétaro, México