Happy Worker

So, my lay days are about to end, and on Monday I'm starting my summer job. I was lucky enough to get a job at a Finnish radio station called Sisuradio. That means I'll get to work in my own field, media, and in Finnish. Sisuradio is a part of the publish broadcasting company of Sweden, Sveriges Radio, and it's a national channel with local offices around the country. The main offices are in Stockholm. I'll be doing interviews and reports as well as hosting the regional broadcasts. I'm excited but a little bit nervous as well. It's always frightening to start a new job and this takes place in a region I don't know that well, and I'll have to use quite a lot of Swedish. But I do like challenges so this should be just the thing for me.

As for my Swedish skills, it's going better all the time. It's a language I've heard all of my life as my mom is bilingual, and I've also studied it for years. Still, it's been a challenge to start actually using it since it's just so much easier with English. But after coming here, I've made sure to speak Swedish whenever I can, and it's starting to pay off. It's just funny how much it varies from day to day, one day I feel like I can express myself very well and have decent conversations, then the next day it's a challenge to have the most simple little small talk. But I guess that's part of the process. Oh and it doesn't really help that I'm living in an area with the most difficult dialect in Sweden. My boyfriend told me that when he first moved to Sweden, he noticed that Scanian (the dialect of the Skåne region) was the only one they would text on Swedish TV. No wonder it's hard for me then.

But now it's time to put my language skills to a test. I'm starting my job on Monday, and right away I'll be sent to do an interview in Swedish. And not only that, I'll also have to drive to another city. I've never driven a car around here so here's hoping the car has a navigator. It'll go fine I'm sure, and at least the Swedes had the decency to switch to right-hand traffic decades ago.

First it's time to relax with a serious TV marathon, though - Saturday is the day of the royal wedding! They had an article in the newspaper today, asking different experts how to survive the marathon. So: loose clothes - check. Proper breakfast - check. Healthy munchies - check. One advice was to come to an agreement with your man about dividing TV time between the wedding and the football world championships, but luckily my man couldn't care less about football. So, let the royal games begin!

-Karoliina