Autumn reflections.

This year, autumn is spoiling me. My favourite season has always been that part of autumn, where the mornings are refreshingly cool, but not cold, the days are full of sunshine but not hot, and somewhere in the branches of trees, next to the singing birds, the wind is composing its own song, just perfect background music for anything.

Toomemägi will definitely be more colorful this year, when the autumn will have come with its full palette. Last year it had chosen pure gold for the whole hill and nothing else. This time, even most of the leaves are still green and trying to keep the last bits of summer, here and there one can already notice red, orange, yellow, warmly honeybrown. The maple-tree right opposite my favourite reading bench has had two branches colored for two weeks already. Nothing more, just those two branches as a small reminder that the summer is indeed over.

And there I sit on my favourite reading bench, although this time reading has been replaced with solving of differentials and integrals. Due to "unexpected dental disaster" the Semiotics lecture got cancelled and I had unexpected free time. The weather had gone from grey and rainy to autumn fairy tale in one morning. Each page of this fairy tale takes one step closer to the winter or at least colder days, and I just cannot say "no" to perhaps the last opportunity to enjoy the silent happiness of reading up on the hill. Or preparing for the upcoming test in my so beloved (absolutely no sarcasm here!) mathematics.

That it is noon already, I know not only by the Raekoja bells - a group of tourists come up the hill, along the same path I have seen so many tourist groups coming. They always come around twelve, one o´clock latest. At the same time, my lunch-buddy arrives and we decide to go down the very same path, passing the tourists. Germans this time, a group that my secondary school headmaster used to call "empty-nest-tourists" or people who have raised their kids to have their own lives and their own kids and now enjoy a little bit more careless lifestyle.

Number of them stop to look back at us, when we have passed, some gaze at us when we are still passing them as they would have seen a ghost. So they noticed I am wearing colors. Well, it is not that hard to notice the cherrybrown-white-green tekkel on my head - whole Spanish group took pictures of me, when I was sitting on my bench and reading in colors the other day, Japanese not only took pictures, but also asked, "what does the hat mean". Germans, in turn, actually have a clue of what they see, as they also have corporations, but they might have different connotations as in Germany corporations sometimes get unfairly associated with movements even as bad as neo-nazi. Oh well. The tekkel on this side of the Europe carries whole different story.

For me as a Latvian the opportunity to wear the colors when going for a lecture in Oeconomicum or walking down the Lossi street, meeting someone in Raekoja plats or sitting up on the hill and reading - it is an opportunity to state the not-so-obvious. That, although my love towards my sweet, little and absolutely wonderful Latvia has not changed a bit, perhaps only become stronger, Estonia and everything Estonian has grown to be quite a part of my identity. So strong, that my weekly travelling between Riga and Tartu is not "going to school and then coming back" anymore. It is "going from home to home" with the only difference being ability to understand the language used around me.

But hey - I will be able to speak Estonian one very soon day!

Small tidbits

Tere-tere!

Estonian course is still my favorite so it's nothing new about that. Still haven't learned about partitive, so it still seems relatively easy :D

• Tartu is truly magical city. Why?

Sitting in (luckily the one and only) boring lecture in Physicum a random guy walks past the windows while smoking pipe 0_o And today it happened again - only looking from Chemicum. I don't think it was the same guy.... And I still can't decide if it's simply fancy or some sort of new hipster thing. But, hey - looks cool!

A question - what Latvians do when they have "apple year" in their garden? Usually it's - trying to give them away to friends, relatives, anyone who has gotten slightly less amount apples from their garden, making juices etc.
What do "Tartu-ians" in apple year? They just put a box of apples in bus stop. Okey, this bus stop is quite far from city center and connects institutes of chemistry, physics and medicine. Still - so tasty apples! I should have taken more than just two...
And they put apple boxes near house gates too. Seems like very effective system. At least I like it! :D

• Kitchen-y things

Last weekend I decided to try and make banana pancakes.

Challenge No.1. - I have never made even normal pancakes (from start till end).
Challenge No.2. - no scales or cup with mL on it.
Challenge No.3. - small pan (ok, later I borrowed a bigger one from flatmate :D )

The outcome? Mountain (but in Latvian and Estonian sense of mountains) of terribly delicious pancakes - with approval stamp from my flatmates in form of "I have to admit, you are a good cook".
Which is something I never would have thought to hear maybe year or two before...

• Sort of serious stuff

Talked with my MSc thesis supervisor, finally know (or more like - have slight inkling) what my topic will be. And I'm excited. And very, very scared.

But that's not the important thing I wanted to write. The best thing is just two sentences from my supervisor "There are types of master's work when you go to lab, have like, thousands of samples, one method you use to analyse them and afterwards compare results. This (referring to my topic) will not be the case."

And I can't wait next weekend, when I'm going home :3
But I really don't wait for 2am in Monday when I will have to drag my awfully heavy and full bag of home made stuff from bus stop to dorms... -_-
But enough of whining - I'm going to enjoy Teadlaste Öö (researchers night) tonight (:

Oh, and I probably have mentioned to at least some of you, that one of things I want want are spices (f.e. basil, oh my, basil) in pots, so you can use them fresh. So my joy of today is rosemary! First step to collect them all :D

P.s. Still waiting for Laiksne to write something here too...

Super duper

Tere~

You may never know what a new day will bring you, right? Like waking up today (thankfully and happily my lectures started only at 10:15) research groups (for my masters thesis) was one of the last things in my mind and - come evening and suddenly I have two super awesome supervisors (more or less :D ).

If scientists can say that "Everyhting in life happens for a reason and that reason usually is physics" I can honestly say that my motto is "Everyhting in life happens for a reason and that reason usually is Karin".

I´m afraid of not being good enough for them and so on, but at the same time I´m super excitded and will do my best. But not this evening. Thank gods there is only one lecture tomorrow, because I´m completly useless!

Laiksne has even started to sing to me: "Let it go, let it go~"  (if you don´t know what kind of song this is, I don´t want to be your friend).

From "normal life": first attempt at eating healthier (aka more vegetables&fruits): Mish-mash omelette with paprik in ratio 25:75.
Conclusion - next time don't put so much paprika in it -_-

Aaand Laiksne's husbands lazanja, because I can't say no to lazanja! And because she has the best timing :D


Head aega, friends!

22

Tervist!

It has already been 22 days (from all my 22 years of life) since I can call tell: "Yes, I'm living in Tartu and I'm here not for a vacation, for a month, or even a semester, but much longer.". Me, who sometimes is so patriotic (deep, deep down into my small black heart) it even hurts, I have willingly moved to another country.

Life is weird like that sometimes, isn't it?

But that's for small intro. And, let's be honest - to study in Tartu has been my (seemingly unattainable) dream for a very long time. Not for 2 years when Karin (smart, beautiful, wonderful Karin) showed me new Chemicum building and told me about one of masters programs there. Since moving here I've been catching myself remembering - when I was visiting Tartu - how beautiful and captivating the city had seemed to me and how I liked the taught of studying here. Years went, and well, people forget. I had other dreams, other problems and new foreign cities.

Then I went to Riga, to study chemistry (actually quite unexpected development) in University of Latvia. And joined sorority Dzintra. And went to Tartu again. And again. And again - and remembered.

And now I'm here to stay.

At the same time everything feels like returning home - meeting friends, remembering known-but-long-forgotten things- like how almost everything is within walking distance. Finding out about new changes. Celebrating 1st September with friend - drinking vine from my mismatched glasses at night in Toomemagi, in ruins of Cathedral. Discovering peppermint&chocolate ice cream, sharing excitement about Estonian language. And most of all - seeing people who not only breathe university - it's in their bloodstreams, into their atoms and molecules. Becoming one of them, slowly and at the same time rapidly. Like waves in Emajõgi.

P.s. I'm still searching for my name. Since almost nobody understands "ū" - which is important for me, a reminder from Latvia which carry around constantly. For now, for my Estonian friends I'm starting to write it like "Ruuta", but in IDs etc I'm still Ruta :(

P.p.s. To my friend who asked if I'm going to write blog about my time here and I answered "Ha, no, why would I ever do that?" - well, I should have know better, being in Tartu with Laiksne! :D