I injured my back this week at a Finnish forklift driving school. I went to the doctor. Waited for 2.5 hours to be seen. They never even looked at my back. They basically said "take 2 days off from school, if it persist then come back." Here I am 5 days later and my back still hurts.

Last year I had the flu for over a month. Each time I went to the doctor they would just give me a piece of paper for my Finnish language school absence. Finally on the 4th time visiting the doctor they did some test and discovered I had bronchitis. They gave me correct meds and I was fine a week later. Why couldn't they have done that the first time I went?

So, each visit to the doctor cost me 34 euros. 34 euros that came out of the money I get from the Finnish government, which comes from tax payers like my wife. The money I get from the government is about 500 a month while not in school and about 700 a month while in school. Now multiply those 4 trips to the doctor by 4. That's 136 for those of you from Alabama and Mississippi. Now add in that I had to pay around 50 euros for meds. That's 186. Now because of the sickness I missed about 3 weeks of school which caused my money to be around 550 euros. 550 minus the 186, well let's just say I didn't party much that month.

Sounds great about the free money right? In order to get a job in this country you have to speak the language if you do not live in the Helsinki-Vantaa-Espoo region, which I don't. So, I have to go to school for 2 years to learn a nearly impossible language, in a country that 85% of the citizens speak better English than some people in Detroit, Chicago, and Laredo, Texas. When I say it's nearly impossible I mean IMPOSSIBLE. The way they teach us at the school is not the same as "spoken Finnish." So even after we learn the basics we are still way far behind. AFter 2 years I probably understand about 10% of what is being said around me.

Now keep in mind that after you somewhat learn the language, to get nearly any job you have to go to school. Any decent company to work for pretty much demands that you have been to some kind of degree or paper. Want to be a truck driver? That's 1.5 years of school. Want to be a waitress? That's 1 year of school. Yes, 1 year of school to be a fricking waitress. Want to clean apartment buildings? That's about a 6 month school.

Now, while we are in this school they send us to what they call "work experience." So for example my forklift course is 6 months. 2 of those months we learn about warehousing and driving different forklifts, but then the other 4 months we actually work at a workplace as if we are doing a normal job. So starting 2 weeks from now I will go to work for a place that is somewhat like working in a Lowe's or Home Depot. I will work 40 hours a week, for nearly 4 months. The money I get? The exact fricking same government money. The company I work for pays me jack shite. They get me for free from the government. I make nothing extra. They also love to fill us up with nice hot cup of bullshite when doing this. They tell us, "work really hard and maybe that company will hire you." I don't know the actual stats, but I have talked to around 100 foreigners since I have lived here and none of them have ever gotten a job from this work experience bullshite.

I chose this life, I chose to live here. If I could go back in time 3 years ago when I made that decision to stay or go I wouldn't have stayed. The weather alone is just not fricking worth it. But for every moron that says that socialism is great I suggest you pull your head out of your arse. It works for now because most Finnish people have a lot of pride and so even though they can take the easy way out and live off of government assistance, they choose to work. But over the last 5 to 10 years that trend is starting to change and less and less young Finns are wanting to work when they can be lazy bums. Work for 6 months, get union supported. Leave the job for 2 years, and get 80% of their income. With the influx of refugees this boiling point has only been accelerated.

Yeah I know, TL:DR. Just bored while waiting for the Foosball games to start, which starts at 7PM for me and ends at about 9AM.