Introduction

Hello everyone,  

My name is Emilia Syrjälä, I am a 30-year-old mother of two little boys and happily married for 9 years. Currently I am a third year student of social sciences and I am writing this introduction letter just “a bit” late, since I have already done my traineeship abroad. But I guess it is never too late to go back to the thoughts that I had before leaving; although it is more than likely that the memories have formed new tones as looking them from this kind of retrospect.  

One day in early December last year, as I was sitting in the classroom, our teacher, prof. Helinä Nurmenniemi brought up an opportunity of doing a traineeship in Varna, Bulgaria during spring 2018. I immediately texted my husband and proposed that idea. It was all quite clear after he texted me back “Yes, let’s do that. My boss said that I can take those months off.”  

Many people asked us beforehand “how do you have the courage to do that from those circumstances (meaning; having kids & a house etc)?” I guess some were actually admiring this our “courage” but I could tell that some were also thinking that we are a bit nuts to take our kids away from their home for such a time. I understand that people wonder other people’s choices when those choices are something unusual for them, but for us there were no doubts. We had a confident trust that our kids would be fine – we knew already that they like traveling, since we had traveled together many times before. Doing my working practice abroad also meant that the boys would get to hang out so much more with their father, who usually here in Finland comes home from work right before, or during their bedtime.  

Of course there was a lot to do to arrange things before the departure (including for example renting our home, moving out & packing, finding a suitable apartment from Varna) , but it was still manageable.  So I can say that we were expecting to experience good things as a family, instead of worrying about anything. Meanwhile, from the traineeship itself, I was simply expecting it to broaden my understanding and to give me some perspective to working in the field of social services.  In the picture below it is me with my crew.