Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Two Years Later: A Life Update!! Plus... tips on preparing to get your Swedish Driving License before you even move!

I have reappeared!! :D :D 

I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted on this blog.  Life has been both fast and slow, in extraordinary ways.  Becoming a mother and raising a now-16 month old has been I N T E N S E, to say the least! But our girl has officially begun förskola as of 4 weeks ago, and my newfound freedom to workout or study or really do whatever I want, has been brilliant! :)

And speaking of freedom, I finally - FINALLY!! - buckled down and got my Swedish driving license!! I have begun a YouTube channel where I plan to teach the driving manual for free, and offer tips and tricks and advice about the whole process.  I also intend to sell flashcards, which I had made during my own study time and found them to be monstrously helpful.  If this is something you think you'd be interested in, feel free to join me at TheoryWhiz Sweden!  

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Annnnyway. Today is January 30, 2018 -- which marks a very special day.  I have officially applied for my TUT extension! The website presently says that the waiting time is 2-4 months, and while I have seen some people recently get their extension approved within 24 hours, I also haven't verified if it was a family reunification permit they were extending or some other type of permit.  I am following the cases of a couple friends, they all have very simple and basic cases and it looks like they have passed the 1 month mark with no word.  So, perhaps we'll be looking at a similar 2-4 month wait.  I'll be sure to update this site when it comes through, for preservation of information.


Also, another big update... we are officially on the journey of making a sibling for our daughter! Who knows if it will happen or not; I'm not exactly young, after all.  I turn 35 this year.  And I also have thyroid disease.  But I am super super hopeful, and if we are blessed with  sticky bean at some point, I'm super interested in making a series on this blog documenting what pregnancy and midwifery care is like here in Sweden.  I am sure information on that process could be useful for women immigrating here and hoping to start a family of their own!

Now that I have my license and our daughter has begun school here, our plans for this year are sort of in the air.  I am thinking of signing up to finish Svenska som andra språk, which I had to drop out of around summertime of last year, given that I simply couldn't dedicate my time to it when I had such a small child so heavily dependent upon me.  My Swedish skills have come along brilliantly even without school.  I have taken to listening to Podcasts in Swedish (my favorite is förlossningspodden, for any of you out there who are interested in L&D and birth stories!) and simply reading my favorite novels in Swedish.  The only area I'm really not up to speed in is speaking Swedish, but that's mostly a combination of laziness and insecurity.  So, I think some SAS will go a long way with me in getting over that last hump in my language development.  Classes in my nearby kommun begin in the end of March, so my thoughts are to focus on doing a crash course of self-study until then to make the class as easy as possible on myself, focus on working out and getting my body strong and healthy for (hopefully!) a future pregnancy, and then keeping my eyes open for job opportunities if any arise.  My husband and I both agree that I should only look into working part time for now, so that one of us can be near Macy and able to take care of our animals at home.  He is working long hours, so it isn't feasible for both of us to have full time employment at this time.  

One way or the other, I'll likely be taking out CSN for SAS if I don't find a part time job, because we will need a little income now that my savings are coming to an end after 2 blissful years of not working :) I love the idea of being able to go through another pregnancy while not working a full time desk job, so hopefully the planets align and everything times out well! .... come to think of it though, hopefully I have my extension approved/PUT granted by or before school starts, or else I can kiss CSN goodbye O_o

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I think that's about all of an update I have for now! January 16th (2 weeks ago) marked 3 years since we submitted our application originally for my TUT.  And it marked 2 years from the date we got our positive pregnancy test with our now-daughter. It was an insignificant day last year, but this year, on January 16th, I was 6 days away from taking my first attempt at the Theory exam (written portion of testing for your Swedish driver's license) and I remembered thinking to myself, next year in 2019, I will look back on this day and hopefully remember it as a time when my life seemed so uncertain without a driving license, only to become one of the best times of my life once I had passed the test!

Flash cards I made for Swedish Road Signs
A quick note for those of you still waiting for your original residence permit.  *IF* you intend to one day drive in Sweden, I HIGHLY(!!!!) recommend you start the studying process now before you even move.  These exams are notorious for being extremely difficult to pass (well, at least the theory portion), with over half of students failing at least once.  The queues for signing up for a test (and the cost of each test!) are very long/expensive, so if you're going to tackle this beast, start NOW.  

My best tips for those of you who don't have a residence permit, but would like to take this time to get a head start, are below:

  1. Have your partner purchase the Driving License Book and Swedish Road Signs booklet for you now.  Your partner can buy these from a local trafikskola, or from a third party site like Bokus.  They come in various languages, but I believe the exams are only administered in Swedish or English (but I could be wrong!!)
  2. Study your buns off!! I read the driving manual seven times.  And I needed every single read through O_o
  3. Purchase a subscription to online practice tests.  I believe there are apps, although I never downloaded any.  But search around the app store as I know friends have said they used some (some apps might even be free?) Also, korkortonline.se has an EXCELLENT (free) break down of each chapter of the Driving License Book that isolates a lot of the really important information, and then you can try one practice exam for free there - or purchase a subscription to a databaseof 1,000 test questions.  Get going on that, and you will be many steps ahead on being prepared for your theory test!
One word of caution: Don't start studying TOO soon, as you may end up forgetting the information, or you may get yourself to a point where you think you know it all and lose your motivation to keep it burning in your brain before you move.  I read the Driving License Book for the first time in September, and then 6 more times between October and January ahead of taking the exam.  I feel like 8-10 weeks of studying is totally sufficient to prepare yourself as long as you can commit daily to the task of like an hour or two of study each day (reading the book, taking practice exams, or memorizing the Swedish road Signs). 

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Anyway! That's my update for now, and hopefully I'll have more fum updates soon, whether that's about getting my extension approved, or publishing videos about the driving process, or news of a new little Swedish-American creation of ours :D And hopefully some updates about either getting a job here, or pursuing Svenska som andra språk again.  To be determined!!



5 comments:

  1. Hi Meg, I would firstly like to thank you for your blog. Secondly, I would really appreciate it if you would shed some light on my situation which I will explain here. I am a non-EU Master's student in Sweden. My GF is a Danish Master's student. We have been here since August of 2017. However, we only registered ourselves this week at Skatteverket. My permit is till September of this year. I can apply for renewal if I pay tuition fee for next term. But if I go the SAMBO route I will not have to pay tuition as I will be entitled to all benefits that are enjoyed by my GF as a Nordic citizen while we await the SAMBO application. What should be the next course of action? I need to travel out of Sweden for a few months and will be back in August while my permit is still valid. What happens when I apply for the Sambo permit from Sweden? Will my student permit still be valid till September? Also, after September how would I travel out of Sweden? Thanks.

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  2. Thank you very much for your time and all this hard work to help us, people with similar situation. All the best wishes to you and your family!!!

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  3. Hej hej and thank you for your blog
    I will be moving to Herrljunga in 2 days. But, from Germany.
    Unfortunately that does not make it any easier or even quicker ����

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