back to the museum

As my language course was over at friday...I am slowly returning to my duties as an EVS volunteer.
From Monday (tomorrow) I'm at the museum again and I'm actually looking forward to it cause I have been slacking off too much XD
Just kidding ofcourse, I was very busy with the language course :)

So, see you at Tuesday, when I'll be posting my next job-connected post :)

the end of the course

So, I have finally finished the Estonian language course.
I got a certificate - I now officially have the language fluency of the A1 level.
That's the basic basics, of course...but with that I got 4.5 ECTS points which will come in handy for my future university :)

It was nice, the teacher was nice, the other language students were great too.

Now, starting from Monday...resuming my voluntary work; I have been slacking off long enough :P

visiting Palamuse, the straw museum and a zoo

Today I had an another trip with my language school. We visited the straw museum first where you could see different thing made of straw and a huge straw hat XD

Afterwards we went to a school-museum, a place where the most famous Estonian movie "Spring" was filmed... The place had really a lot of stuff connected to the movie and the real school itself and it's conservated that way...to remind us how it was before.

Then we went to the zoo where we saw a lot of interesting animals (well, I haven't been in a zoo for a long time, so it was quite exciting for me XD )
...and then back...

Anyways, the day was quite interesting. I will be posting some pics one of these days.

Nägemist!

visiting the Estonian Printing Museum

Well, my class has visited the printing museum - my workplace today and Lemmit has shown everyone around.
It seems that even the language school staff was surprised because they never heard of it before :)
I think it was quite nice for everyone cause they didn't seem bored at all...nice job Lemmit! :D

...and...today we went to the police station to finally get my residency permit and the ID-card...and ofcourse, as usual in bureaucracy, we were turned down at the counter with the excuse "that, yes, I did get the residency permit, but we still have to recieve the notice for the ID-card". Rubbish...I mean, why bother to send an e-mail with "your residency permit is done" without having it ready??
Oh well...additional few days of waiting won't kill me, I guess...

Until next time!

day in the city

One part of the this week's last class we spent in the city and we were given assignments - we had to go to the drug store and translate some stuff, to the bookstore and find something interesting in estonian, etc.

I thought we would need to do it by ourselves and I was prepared for the worse, but luckily, our teacher went with us and guided us, so it wasn't a problem after all :)

So, this week's lessons are over and unfortunately our teacher Katrin left for some business in Tallinn and won't be teaching us anymore. We will get an another teacher, but it's a shame, cause I was already used to her and she was great. But, well, I guess it's supposed to be like that.

visiting a nature centre and a museum

Yesterday after language class, we went to the Kiidjärve looduskeskus, the ants preservation centre and Põlva talurahvamuuseum afterwards. It was quite a nice trip and it was beautiful weather (and pretty hot) so we were really lucky it wasn't raining :)

We had a powerpoint presentation about ants in the centre by a guy adequately called Ants (yes, it's his real name XD )

 and then with the buss to the ant preservate

 some of the people have been gathering blueberries btw.

 and some of them had more luck :)

 can you guess what this means #1 ?

 this was our fountain of youth, which girld needed to test :)

 and the park-museum in Põlva - a pretty cool place

 this lotus flower I like the most - the Räpina flower

 the peasants' house

 a well and Brad - our American friend and fellow eesti keel colleague

 can you guess what this means #2 ?

 a froggy...if you can see it (brown one)

 pipes aren't allowed...and cigarettes are apparently XD?

 a pretty nice old font - Lemmit, what do you say? :)

And today, visiting the Estonian National Museum - Eesto Rahva Muuseum I took a few photos and really enjoyed the ambient (it kinda reminded me of my library where I used to work in Croatia :D)

 two hard-working peasants :)

 the national Estonian dresses

 and an old fashioned TV - I can't remember when I last saw something like it :)

Well...all in all, it was quite fun and I'm always up to visits of this kind :)

Ok, that's all for today. Seeya!

Eesti keele tundide

So, today was my first "real" language class as we were studying a lot (from 9.30 a.m. to 16.30 p.m.)
I must say it's very hard, but pretty interesting indeed :)
I won't be writing much during these few days, cause I don't have anything specific to write about, as I'm no longer volunteering in the museum; I have only the course during this period :)

So, head aega :)

My first poster :)

So, yesterday we were printing those posters and I must say that I am happy with the result, considering it's my first one.:)

 the entire layout set inside the machine

 the strawberry clichey - fastly made by Ahto, one of our artists :) 

 3 different types of applied paint on the rollers

 the first outcome...as you can see, the paint is still not worked out enough 

 and the final, decent print :)

 nice colors...but a nightmare to clean XD

So, here is my first poster :)
As for tomorrow, I'm starting my official Estonian language course...and hopefully I will get my motivation for further learning. I am indeed looking forward to starting it.

So, until next time...cheers! :)

Something new

And finally something new - after I completed my assignments with postcards which, btw. look quite nice (if I may say so):

 these are the four types of postcards I have been doing a lot :)

 This one was pretty hard to make...and I made 45 of them (made the text first, then the clichey of the Jaani church)

 this is the clichey of the church whose layout I made...

...and printed it on this machine - the Bostonpress

(and btw. that plastic glass contains machine oil, hence it's not my drink XD)

After those I started these again:

 the scalpel and the measuring "thingie" XD

and the glue and the sand paper

to prepare the letters spelling "STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER" (my host's idea :D) and print it on a big  poster together with a big strawberry clichey in the middle.

this is reversed text (if you get distinguish them regardless the sun)

Today I have completed the preparations for printing and made the text frame and format and tomorrow we will probably test it on the huge Frankenthal machine.

I'll upload the result :)

Cheers.

First freak-out XXD

Today I was working with small letterset printing and I was making a layout for a postcard on which will be a part of a poem and a clichey (an imprinted "shape")...some kind of more complex work.

Now, I thought it wouldn't be a problem at all, cause I have already made some layout frames before...but NO, this one was totally screwed up (or at least I screwed it up XD). It took me a lot of time to choose the font I wanted to use and make the layout with it...only to discover I have positioned everything in a wrong way and the frame couldn't close, it wasn't even straight. Then my troubles started... As I'm a total beginner in this and I don't understand the widths and heights completely yet, I started shifting and changing position, half of the letters fell from the line and everything went wrong-it was horrible; a true chaos :)

My initial assignment was to make a postcard with the part of a poem and a chirch clichey, both in different colors...and that's why I need shifting, because I'll need to print the text in one color first and then the clichey in the other color-all in the same layout.

So, as I don't want to write only the great and interesting POSITIVE experiences...here is one negative and frustrating.
BUT, as this is a part of the learning process, I am not expected to master everything in two weeks, so I accept my lack of knowledge and hope I will do better next time :)

Review #2

So, I'm here for 41 day already...time has really passed fast :)
I got a better insight into Estonian culture and people, learned a lot of new things, made a lot of friends and improved my english. As a real lot of things still have to happen/occur/take place, I'm looking forward to each and every one of them.

There are practically no negative aspects of my stay here and I'm thankful for that.
I hope that the rest of my stay will be like this or even better!

As I still haven't said it - European Union - thank you for this fabulous opportunity! Without you, it would never be possible :)

I'll see you guys in a few days when I'll, hopefully, have something to write about.
Cheers.

Final preparations for the Museum opening

These days was quite busy-while I had my own assignments, everyone else was moving stuff all the time, setting the display cases and trying to make best use of the space available.

I, in the other hand, was still making a lot of notebooks and postcards so there is stuff to be sold during the Hanceatic days.

Today, they started to set the exhibits, so everything should be ready in a few days.
And as my language course starts in 10 days, I have to make as much stuff as possible, cause I won't be present almost at all during the events.

Well, not much new...these days are repetitive, but it's supposed to be like that. It can't always be interesting and amusing :)

Cheers!

Another normal day

Nothing really new. I am still working with letters, combining them, making phrases and printing them on the Bostonpress machine, and making notebook covers and postcards in the end.
Classical procedure after making covers - cutting paper, making holes and binding.

This new guy-Kalju, which will be leading the graphic design workshop is moving into the printing museum, so there was a lot of moving and transporting stuff.

Today I have met an Italian couple from Florence, showed them around the museum (they even bought 2 of my notebooks :D) and talked with them for half an hour...it wouldn't be strange if I was in Croatia, but it was quite interesting and I was happy to meet a neighbour so far away from home :)

trip to Meleski

Yesterday I went with a friend and my colleague in Meleski village, about 60 km south of Tartu.
The countryside was once again breathtaking :)

 me holding the estonian national flower :)

 the blue cornflower - estonian national flower

 the second biggest lake in Estonia - Võrtsjärv 

a really beautiful place :)

 my friend Marilis relaxing and enjoying the sun :)

 Madis-my colleague from NELK

 the observatory with Madis and Marilis

 Emajõgi river - a cool shady place but lots of bugs and mosquitoes :)

after sightseeing we went to the local glass museum (and I'm thanking Madis for this, because I would probably never know about that place, because only the local people know about that :D )

 some local church, which is really nice from the inside

 the memoriam for the local casualties in the war

(right side of the church)

 a very nice organ

 in front of the glass museum

 little glass figures

 I really liked the blue and purple glass shards (glass sand) :)

 beautiful glass swanns

 "deformed" mugs XD

 glass pig #1 :D

 glass pig #2

the abbandoned old glass factory repurposed for concerts :)

this was some random concert and the guys were very good - they played spanish acoustic music :D

It was a very enjoying trip and I hope there will be more of these :D

Goran out.