NESU stole my heart on a sunny winter day, 27 of February in 2014. Just some months earlier I had moved to the other side of the world (read: Oulu) and even though I had already met many awesome persons, I had no idea what the student life would be after that day.
On that Thursday morning, I headed for the life-changing sitsiparty to Jyväskylä (some of you might be able to identify with me in this…). This sitsi party was not the first one I attended, but it was the one that made me fall in love with NESU. That day and night were the perfect summary of what NESU is all about: first we arrived to a preparty to an apartment owned by a totally random person, welcoming us with open arms (… and a bottle) to his home. Few hours later, I had made friends from basically all of the NESU cities, and already signed up for my next sitsi party. Finally, when I got lost in the middle of the night on the streets of Jyväskylä, I found help by shouting SAMLING. How was it possible? I had arrived to a totally new city with completely random people, and I already felt like I was home with my best friends. There was no doubt: This was something I wanted to be a part of!
Beginning of that day, my calendar started to get full of NESU events, and the struggle was real when trying to focus on the basics of international financial reporting while having “Internationalen” playing in my head. After a while, when it was not enough only to attend the parties organized by others, in 2016 I joined NESU-Finanssi as the sits coordinator and vice-chairman. During the autumn 2016 the biannual NESU conference was also organized in Oulu, and I was responsible of organizing the best event of the conference week: the Gala night. That conference was definitely one of the best NESU events I got to attend, partly because I was able to be part of organizing something so incredible for other NESU people and see their happy faces after it!
Despite of me spending almost third of my studies abroad, NESU managed to play an important part in my life. Sitsit, NESU Dagen, Conference, Wappurundi… When thinking about the events I ran through during a couple of years, from the well-planned Conference trips to the spontaneous sitsi trips, I can only smile. Already from the beginning the most impressing thing with NESU events were the friends – it never mattered whether you saw them every two weeks or two times a year – it always felt like it was just yesterday when you were last time together trying not to vomit the badly mixed Vergi shot in NESU Boomi’s sits (thank for plenty of those btw) or trying not to fall asleep when heading to Oulu’s “X” sitsi place. And because of these experiences together, these persons would turn out to be friends for the rest of your life.
When thinking further, even if the best thing about NESU is the amount of friends you make and the variety of experiences you get to have, at least the second best thing is to introduce NESU to someone important in your life, and see how NESU changes the life of that person. I will never forget the day when I convinced one of my best friends to attend her first sitsi party (in Jyväskylä, of course), and the sparkles that I saw in her eyes after that event; she had fallen in love with NESU as well.
Finally, in addition to the friends and experiences, it was NESU that also encouraged me to be myself and learn that these people, “the NESU family”, would accept me always as I was, without judging. Surrounded by these persons, nobody was ever considered as a better person than another one, and nobody was left outside – it was always okay to be “a little bit” weird. And every time, it felt like arriving to this other world; I would guess that Alice in the wonderland felt that when jumping down the rabbit hole. As the previous persons sharing their experiences have stated: It is something that you have to experience in order to understand it.
Now, what is left from all these events? My closet would say too many useless outfits (nun dress, panda jumpsuit, mustache, countless wigs and hats…), my wallet would say a lot of debt, my body would say a lot of kilometers and hours spend on the road; but my mind would still only highlight the unbelievable amount of happy moments and incredible persons. Even though I might have to describe myself already as “retired from NESU”, it doesn’t mean my heart and soul wouldn’t stay NESU-minded. You might still find me singing my all-time favorite sitsi song “Livet är härligt” on the streets of Helsinki, and if I catch someone talking about Buffalo, I will definitely be sitting on my right hand from that moment on. – Oh, and If I hear SAMLING, I will definitely not miss the party (even now)!
NESU – the best you can do with(out) the overalls on!
Jonna “Yolo“ Elomaa
Vice-Chairman of NESU Finanssi 2016
Gala Coordinator of NESU Autumn Conference 2016