The End of my Finnish School Experience

I realize that I haven't posted in a long time, but here I am again, I have been meaning to post since I have been back in the US but I have been busy (I am also a member of the world wide Procrastination club!). After being back in the states for so long my english is most definitely better than it was when I last posted, but alas my finnish has dwindled! Which makes me sad to the end of the Earth. 

I will start with where I left off. 

The last several weeks of my time at Luostarivuoren Lukio were some of the greatest in my life. But these great weeks were draped in sadness of the knowledge in the back of my mind that I would soon have to leave all that I knew behind and return to that place I "lived" in before I truly lived. 

There is nothing worse than a goodbye. 

The last weeks of school I spent a lot of time by the river with my friends, enjoying the spring/summer, and admiring how green everything had suddenly become. I also became OBSESSED with Eurovision...To this day I am still disappointed that Sweden won...

I had to do a couple short speeches in finnish for my school and for Rotary. The speech for Rotary was long, but I wrote it all myself, and surely enough I had many grammatical errors, but I didn't want anyone to correct me, because I wanted Rotary to know that it was MY finnish that I was speaking and nobody else wrote my speech for me (because I know a lot of exchange students who did that in the past). I wore my beautiful (and heavy) Rotary blazer while I presented and I talked about everything from my trip to Estonia to how I though the rain was exciting when I first arrived. I was so depressed when I walked out of that door afterwards, because I knew it was my last Rotary meeting, and I was so sad at the thought of no longer being that club's exchange student. And of course I would miss the delicious food every Tuesday. 

My speech for my school was a little different. Different in that I cried many times during the writing process. It was late at night and my emotions were high and I couldn't bare the thought of leaving behind all these wonderful people that I have met! I would miss everything about it like to the smiles I have gotten from people I barely know and the waves on the street from friends I talked to six months ago, but we still wave whenever we see each other. It hurts me to think about the idea of no longer being the center of attention as the strange and shiny toy from another country that everybody asks questions and is so friendly to. 

Thankfully I managed to not cry during my speech, because that would have been a bit embarrassing...I actually made a lot of people in the room laugh with a couple of the jokes I made, which was a great moment because finnish audiences are the hardest to present in front of. 

A bit grainy photo of the three exchange students in Luostis 2011-2012

Ykis paras asia tapahtuu minulle koulun viime viikkossa. Robin, Suomen Justin Bieber, mene luostarivuori ennen lukio (middle school) ja lounsassa yks päivä mä nähdän hän ja minä juoksin hänelle  ja kysyäin englaneksi "Can I have your augograph??" ja hän sano "Mitä?" ja mä selitän että mä olin vaihto-oppilas, ja hän antoi mä hänen allekirjoitus! Best moment of my exchange right there...I set out from the beginning of my exchange saying to my friends "I am going to get his autograph or else I am not going back to the US". It was kind of symbolic that it happened in the last couple weeks of school. 

One of my last finnish school lunches...My friends were embarrassed that day that I was taking pictures of my lunch..but that's what they get for being friends with the exchange student 

I should also note how obsessed I was with the Finnish hockey when the world cup was in Helsinki. It was amazing watching Finland play, I loved it so much, and I died a little inside when they lost and Russia won...that seriously killed me a little. It was a bit scary when Sam and I were in town on the day of the USA-Finland game and we were wearing our american flags and everything, just to be trolls. But then USA lost and everything went as planned. My host father did threaten that I would sleep outside if US won that game...Was he serious? We will never know....

My host parents gave me the job of baker for my host brother's graduation party, which was the day after school got out. That meant 200 pulla. All before 12:00. Being the cook that I was, I demanded of myself they be fresh, so I would make them the same day. On top of that, it was the day I left for Eurotour, so I invited several of my friends from all over finland to come to my host brother's party (since we left in the evening) They came over and it was all a good time. Although it was one of the most busiest mornings, I really enjoyed making 200 pulla because in the end, I can say that I made 200 pulla in just four hours. 

That was the day I had to say goodbye to my very good friend Winnie from Taiwan, who would be leaving for Taiwan when I was on Eurotour. It made me very sad to say goodbye, but I plan on making a trip to Taiwan in the not-so-distant-future, so who knows when I will see her again! 

That evening I left for my Eurotour, which was, as I expected, the greatest two and a half weeks of my entire life.....

more on that soon.....

Lately....

Hyvää Päivää!!

It has been forever since I last blogged!!!!! I know! But in my defense, I have been busy, like really busy! But I know I have to blog, so I am just going to go through some things that are going on. 

It is May! Which is awful! Because that means that I only have two and a half months left of exchange, which is a thought that is looming over me like crazy! It sucks that I am leaving soon. I really don’t want to go back, though some times I find myself thinking that it isn’t all that bad, but most of the time I think that going back is bad. School is ending soon, which is terrible! Especially because usually May is one of my favorite months of the year because school is wrapping up, and now I hate it for exactly that reason! But oh well, Eurotour is coming! Which starts exactly the day after school ends, but I will tell you more about that later on! 

This was a actually from a while ago, I haven't imported all my May photos yet, this one is from April sometime

On the first of May it was a holiday in Finland, so people got off of work and school. It is international labor day, and Finland is one of the many countries that celebrates it. But Finland's tradition on May Day is very different from other countries. It is called Vappu in finnish. On the 30 of April, every one goes to the city center, and there were many people there when we went. There was at least 30, 000 people there. They completely covered the square and the hill next to the square, and then at exactly 6:00 in the evening, everyone who has every graduated from High School puts on their graduation hats (it is very traditional to keep your graduation hat here) and the graduation hats are different from american hats. They almost resemble sailor hats. So they are all white. It is really cool to see all those people with white hats in the center, wearing them. And it is tradition for you to wear your graduation hats for the rest of the night on the 30 of April and all of the first of May. So then after everyone puts their hats on in the center, people make their way to parties and party hard for the rest of the night, and late into the night. Many many people get drunk, and everyone always has a glass of champagne at all times. I have come to the conclusion that Vappu in Finland is by far the greatest day in the world's champagne industry. 

So then the next day, people spend the day in the parks, in picnics, and the parks were crowded! I went with some of my finnish friends and one of my exchange friends from a small town outside Turku, who came for the day. After the picnics my exchange friend and I went to the carnival that was in town and that was exciting. 

This doesn't even begin to show how many people were in that park! But my camera disappeared before I could take any more pictures..

Unfortunately I lost my camera in the picnics of Vappu, putting a damper on what would otherwise be a perfect day, but thankfully a week later we checked with the police and someone had turned it in!!! Which was just incredible and I was so thankful! I still find myself staring at it, thinking "is this real? Did I lose my camera there and someone actually turned it in??" Now I am taking a lot of pictures! Though this leads to tons and tons of eye rolls of my finnish friends, and even some of my exchange friends, I understand the most importance of the taking pictures, now that I have been without my camera for a week 

Lately I have been baking Pulla, which is a very finnish bread. I now am baking it every friday, as to prepare myself for when I bake it in the states, and everyone will be at awe of the amazing finnish foods! 

I went to the Karl Fazer chocolate factory the other day. For those of you who aren’t finnish, Karl Fazer is a finnish chocolate, sweets, bread, and other delicious food company. The most famous of all their food is their milk chocolate, which I know I have mentioned in this blog as being something I spend a lot of my money on...and it is safely said the greatest chocolate in the history of the world. Period. No question. So it was amazing to go to the factory and see where the headquarters are. We were able to eat as much chocolate as our stomachs could hold, and that was amazing! Though, I was expecting more of a Willy Wonka thing, I learned that it is indeed just a factory...nothing all that magical about it..though when you taste the chocolate you think otherwise...

Om nom nom..chocolate...and even better, all you can eat chocolate! 

The World championships of Ice Hockey is happening right now, and since Finland won last year, the games are in Finland. Finnish flags are everywhere and there is so much advertising and crazy Finland things around. It is very exciting! And Finland is very good! Hopefully they will win again this year! 

Nähdän mun paras ystävä Coloradosta huomenna. Hän on Monica Weller, sä voit nähdä hänen bloggi täällä. Olen onnelinen että nähdän hän, koska viime aika nähdäin hän oli Tammikuu! Hän on kuin mun sisko! :D Myös Eurotour:lle me olemme ydessä huonessa ja emme nukua koska me puhu niin paljon! 

Pian mul on esitys Rotarylla! On suomeksi....ja mul on pelkää! 

See you all soon!!!!

Nähdään!!!

Koeviikko Update

Moi Taas! On koeviikko taas tai oli koeviikko viime viikko. Minulla oli yksi koe. Koe oli uskonto kurssissa. Uskonto kurssi oli englanti kielissa, sitten olin hyvä tuo kurssissa. Oli kiva kurssi. Tykkäin se. Ensi jaksossa minulla on englanti, kuvataide, biologia, ja espanja.


Joku asiat tapahtuu:


Nyt on uusi australialainen vaihto-opilaat suomessa. On jännittava! Vielä minä tarvitsen tavata eniten uusi vaihto-opilaat mutta olen pian.

Nyt olen KUUSITOISTA! Mun synytpäivä oli 24. Tammikuu. Nyt voin kertoa ihminen mun ikäva ilman outo näyttää! Yippie! Oli mun "sweeet sixteen" mutta kuustoista ei ole suuri asia suomessa. Tykkään mun synytpäivä nyt mul on vaihto-opilaat kaverit, koska olen kertoo hyvää syntypäivää kuin kymmenen kielissa!

Saain tanssi kurssi koulussa. Oli ihana! Rakastan tanssit kurssi! Nyt tiedän tanssit. Yllätys että minä oppin tanssit nopea! Koska tanssi opettaja ei puhu englanti, ja oppin tanssit koska katsoin. Niin mun tanssit on paska, mutta oh well! Minulla on lisää tanssit kanssa mun ensi postissa.

Minä menein kaks jääkiekko pelit. Oli ihana pelit. Yksi oli TPS-Rauman Lukko. Mun isäntä perhe on raumasta, niin he haluai Rauma voittaa, mutta peli oli turussa, niin oli paljon ihmiset että haluaivät TPS voittaa. Ja minä, tykkän Rauma, mutta haluain TPS voittaa. TPS voitta peli! Oli ihana! 4-3! Me istumme paikkassa missä kaikki suuri TPS penkki oli, ja oli hauska nähdää hullu olivät kun Lukko saai maalit. Oli hullu!

Minä myös menein peli Raumassa. Oli Lukko-Helsinki. Helsinki voitta. Oli surullinen. Penkki raumassa sanoi PALJON huono sanat! Oli tosi hullu!


Ok, so I am going to switch into English now, since it is much easier to use...I have to say that I type much faster when I am typing in english. But you should be proud of me because I only used Google translate like a couple times while writing that! Which is good!

So it was test week last week, Normally I do my test week update during test week, but I didn't find time to do that. So I am updating it now. Another period/semester/term (whatever you want to call it) ha come and gone! It is crazy how fast it has gone by! I only have two periods left until my exchange is almost over! Which scares me! I don't want this to ever end!  So thinking about the end is scary! But anyways, back to what I have been doing lately. A lot has happened, at the same time that nothing big and noteworthy has happened...it is more like a bunch of little amazing things happen every day, things that aren't really worth putting in my blog. But here are some things that have happened:

I went to a couple ice hockey games! They were pretty awesome, the atmosphere was really nice, and I can see myself becoming a big ice hockey fan when I get back (though lately I have been thinking that there are a lot of things that I will become when I get back, so I am not sure if a huge ice hockey fan is one of them, but you never know...) I went to one game that was in Turku. It was a Turku TPS vs. Rauma Lukko (those are the two teams). My host parents are both from Rauma (a town a little ways north of Turku) and so they were rooting for Rauma, but I have to say that I was rooting for Turku TPS because I like Turku so much, but I like Rauma so of course I wouldn't have had a problem if they won. We sat in the section where there were a lot of Hardcore TPS fans, so it was funny how they reacted when something bad happened for TPS. They were shouting loudly in finnish the entire games, and I recognized several cuss words thrown quite a few times. But TPS won that game, which was awesome!

I also went to a game in Rauma and it was Lukko against Helsinki. It was a bit different because the stadium was a lot older, and the atmosphere was a bit different, but it was still a fun game. I thought that the TPS fans said a lot of bad words, but they were nothing compared to the Lukko fans. Lukko lost that game, so their fans were furious. It is funny how ice hockey games are such a family thing, yet the words that the fans use are so terrible! But then again, this is Finland, and cussing is not as big of a deal here as it is in the US.

So also now I am 16! Yay! Now I can tell people my age and they won't give me weird looks (which are a lot more common than you would think, not many 15 year olds go on exchange)! I didn't do anything special for my birthday, which is quite lame for it being my sweet sixteen, but I don't really care, I think I will have a sweet seventeen when I get back so it doesn't matter all that much. But my exchange birthday was also really nice too, because I was wished happy birthday in so many different languages!

My cake

So now I have already started my new schedule at school. It is pretty nice. Though I am sad to say goodbye to some of my old classes. I really liked a couple of them. But hopefully my new classes will be just as nice. I took the test in one of my classes this last test week. I took it in my religion class, because the class had been taught in english, so I really didn't have an excuse not to take the test. It was good though, I think I did well, though who knows yet?

In the new period I am taking Two english classes, art, spanish, and biology. The only class that I think will be any difficulty for me will be the biology class. I was going to take math, but I chickened out, and decided to take another english class. English class is nice. I mostly just read things out loud for the rest of the class so they can listen to how a native speaker would say something. It is nice, better than english class at home where we write essays....haha! Spanish is pretty easy because it is a low level of spanish and I have already studied it.

My life lately..summed up in several objects