Eurovision 2010

Last night was the grand final of Eurovision 2010. Last year we had a great party on this night in Miraj vi's home. This year I didn't go anywhere to watch it live. I was just following the result online. Finland was out from semi final. After counting all the votes Germany became the winner of eurovision 2010 by. Turkey was second and Romania was third. Below are these 3 countries' song for this year eurovision.



Germany




Turkey




Romania



Programming Solution

A visit to city center, a museum and a church

I have been in Tampere for almost two years but I did not visit many places. Well, Tampere is not city of lucrative tourist spots. However, there are some churches and museums that people can visit. Today I visited the city center with Modestes and Joestin, the brother and sister who came from Lithuania last night.


Shaikat vi and me went to fetch them from Tampere airport last night. They will stay here until tomorrow evening. By this time they wanted to visit some places in Tampere but they do not know the places well. So I agreed last night to go with them this morning to guide them a bit ( later it turned out that I don't have good idea about places in Tampere :P ). We roam around the city centre for a while. Then went to a museum. It's a story based small museum specially for kids. I knew about this museum but never been there. We were in the museum for an hour. Then we went to a church. This is the first time I entered into a church. It is big but not much extravagant like catholic churches in Rome. It's more of simple style of Nordic culture. From the church again we roam around in the city and I told them what other places they can go and how. Then I left them and came back home.


It was good for me because I went to some places may be I would not go by my own. We took some pictures also but I am not sure if I will get those pictures ever because they are leaving tomorrow and I am not supposed to meet them by this time.



Programming Solution

Got new residence permit with category A

From my last post you came to know that I have got a full time job. After signing the contract I applied for a new residence permit of category A. Previously I was holding a Finnish residence permit of category B. All international students hold that category. With category B you can work only part time. Only exception is the university. If you work in the university as a research assistant then you can work full time with a B category visa. Since I am going to start my work from July I needed to change my status from B to A.


I applied on Tuesday, 3 days back. The girl in the police office counter told me it would take 5-6 weeks. Later that day I sent her email telling that I need it urgently because I will shift to Helsinki soon. This morning when I opened my email inbox I found her mail and she said the decision is made already, I can pick the residence permit on any working day. I was quite amazed to see it's ready only withing three days. I didn't make any delay. I went to police office with my passport and the girl attached the visa. It's a category A residence permit and will be valid for a year.


Here is my new residence permit. The one as upside down is the previous one.






Programming Solution

Got a job in Ericsson

I have been hunting for permanent job for several months. After all those efforts, today I finally signed a job contract. My employer is Ericsson. I will be working in Research and Development centre of Ericsson in Finland as a software developer. The job will start from July, 2010.


As I heard from my senior brothers here it is really difficult to get an interview call. I applied for lots of open positions in many companies but, so far, I got only 2 interview calls. One was in Nokia and another one is in Ericsson. The Nokia guy interviewed me over the phone for an hour. After 2 weeks time the guy informed me (of course when I called him, they don't usually call unless there is positive result) that I am in second position in his list and for that position they are going to hire only one guy. If the guy, who is their first choice, would reject the offer or unable to accept, in that case, they will offer me the position. I never called him after hearing that, neither did they tell me anything.


The second interview was with Ericsson in the second week of April. It was an in-person interview and I had to go to Helsinki to attend the interview. This interview lasted for one and half hours. There were two guys. All three of us were discussing about so many things. After two weeks of this interview one of those guys called me and said if I am still interested to join Ericsson they will offer me the position. They ask me to join from June, 2010. Unfortunately I cannot start from June since I am working in my department at the university. I explained the situation to them and after considering the situation they allow me to start from July. So we agreed when we are going to sign the contract and today is that very day.


After signing the contract, I went to see the apartment where I am going to move in. I also made the deal with the guy there. It was a very long day for me - I have done lots of things, so far seems successfully. Now I have to start preparing other stuffs I have in my hand. The first thing is patching up my masters thesis before leaving Tampere. I hope I can finish that on time.

At a glance, my interview experiences in Finland are as following:

1. Very less technical question
2. The employer wants to see the person's dedication and interest to the specified job.
3. I think, as a candidate, just answering the questions is not an impressive approach, rather participating in the discussion is much better. If possible, asking them relevant questions at times is a rule of thumb to me.


Programming Solution

Finally it's summer

After a long cold winter, finally summer came. It took long time. Last year, from the very beginning of May it was warm. This year, the winter was extremely cold, and till the end of second week of May it was not warm at all. But for 4 days now weather is really awesome. The sun is shining, temperature is around 25 degree. If you go out you will feel soothing gentle breeze all over your body. It's nice to go out putting just a T-shirt on. I am planning to start swimming in lake by the end of this week :)



Programming Solution

Vappu 2010

It was 1st of May, vappu in Finland. Last year the weather was great, bright and sunny. Temperature was around 20 degree. This year the weather was gloomy, no sun at all. It was raining a bit also. So the wappu did not turn out very nice. The number of rally was small. Still so many people went to city center and tried enjoying the wappu.

We started from our home around 11:30 am. The bus was full-packed. We managed to get in somehow. We roam around the city and saw the rally. We closely saw the dipping closely. It was quite cold but Finns were so desperate. We went to the fair and ate fried fish. It was delicious. We were in the city for 3 hours and then we came back. In the afternoon we went to the near by tower. It was a good day for all of us. Let's see some pictures :)





Starting from Hervanta





People 1: with various get up





People 2: with colorful dresses





Lots of colorful baloons, too much expensive





People 3: with strange hairstyle





Kid with a funny wig :D





Nice music from these guys. They dressed up like red-indian. I don't know where they are from actually.





Rally started





Another rally





The fair. Just like fair in Bangladesh :P





Junk food shop in the fair





Another junk food shop. Why does she look sad :-S





Some junk food





The first dipping





They look happy even if it was very cold





We were watching the dipping from distant place





On top of Hervanta tower





The highest watch tower in Tampere, taken from Hervanta tower.




Programming Solution