These past few weeks have been rather busy and, in a way, seem to have flown by. So busy, in fact that I haven't had anytime to work on the craft projects discussed in the previous blog entry; neither have gone anywhere since that post. Someday I will finish my hat and sock gray-wool rectangle, but that day has not yet come.
The 'week seven' was the last week in the first grading period, the week proceeding the exam week. Rather than reviewing the entire week for the exams, we seemed to learn new material until right before the exam, only taking about a day for review in most classes. And then came the exam week. I was very, very stressed about my exams, and it seemed to me that I was maybe stressing a bit more than my peers, and therefore most of my stress wasn't entirely necessary. The exam week is set up so that everyone takes one exam each day. The days of the exams, school starts at 8:00 in the morning. Students must test for an hour and then leave whenever they are finished with the exam, the longest time they can test being four hours, ending at noon. On my first English exam, I had finished all of the exam apart from the essay before the first hour was up. I then spent about half an hour writing what I thought was a pretty good essay within the 150-250 word limit. Upon finishing my essay, I recounted my words and realized that, while writing, I had somehow counted wrong and had actually written a nice 265 word essay. I then spent between twenty and thirty minutes going through my essay and trying to cut it down to proper length, ultimately ending up with a 249 word essay on which I scored nicely. Also, the morning of the Tuesday of the exam week it snowed. Sort of. There was a mix of snow and not quite snow in the air, but none of it stayed on the ground at all and stopped by the time I had finished with my exam.
The Saturday following the exam week there was another meeting for the exchange students in Helsinki and a Beach Party (vlog). Now the concept of a beach party in Finland in late September was a bit perplexing to me as 'beach' implies warmth and outside isn't warm. It was at an indoor 'beach' which was essentially a large room whose floor was covered in a lot of sand and whose temperature was raised to what I was told to be 26°C. Before the beach party, however, we did other things in Helsinki. I went exploring, ultimately searching for the Starbucks*. I walked around for a while and looked in a few shops, bought myself two headbands as my hair is now at that somewhat unmanageable point where it is too long to just wear it down as it covers my eyes and my nose, but is yet too short to put in any sort of ponytail that would be acceptable for someone of my age to wear. I knew, generally where the Starbucks was, but wasn't entirely sure and so I asked a few people for directions. I followed them and found a Ben and Jerry's, where I got myself a cone of Phish Food (which has always been one of my favorite flavors) and again asked for directions to the Starbucks.
I was informed, from the Ben and Jerry's, that the Starbucks was only just down the street from there, probably less than a block. I thanked the lady for the directions, ate my ice cream, and headed to the coffee shop, which was now very easily within my reach. I got into the Starbucks and found myself at the end of a very long line. I waited in line for maybe fifteen minutes, before ordering my venti Pumpkin Spice Latte. I was somewhat surprised that the barista spelled my name right as that usually doesn't happen, even in the US.
After getting my Pumpkin Spice Latte, I made my way back to the train station, where I was to meet the other students shortly. It was fun to see everyone again and to meet the students who had arrived in Finland since our first meeting at the end of August. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant that was pretty yummy and then went to the beach party. At the beach party, there were a lot of people who were, presumably, alumna from other programs within the organization. There were some organized games, which the six of us played as a team, our team name being 'The Princesses', which, if I remember correctly, happened at my suggestion. I'm not sure if we won any of the games, but I do know that we beat the record at the limbo, the prior being at 80cm, and us getting it down to 65cm.
Last Saturday I made dinner. I decided to get back to my Southern roots and make fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits. I realized partially through the meal that I should have made sweet iced tea to accompany the meal, but it was too late. Next time, I suppose. Another thing that I realized while making dinner that evening was that I'm not sure if I have ever even made fried chicken before. I followed a recipe and, at least in my opinion, it turned out pretty good.
A small revelation I have had in these first few months is that the lunches are rather different from what I remember from when I went to public school in the US, and it isn't just the food. I remember one day when I was at school, I had a disposable, plastic knife in my lunch with which I intended to put hummus on crackers to eat for lunch and I got in trouble for having the aforementioned plastic knife. Here, we have lunch provided (for free) from school. We have glasses that are actually made out of glass and utensils that are actually made out of metal, including knives. The first time I was given a metal knife with school lunch, I was slightly surprised, but by now it has sort of become normal, the initial shock having worn off. Another thing that has become somewhat normal to me is it being just about freezing when I wake up and seeing the thermometer reading right around 0°.
*The Thursday before this I was talking to one of my friends about my slight despair at not being able to have any Pumpkin Spice Lattes this year as I was under the impression that there were no Starbucks in Finland and she informed me that there was (at least) one in Helsinki, which made me extremely excited and happy because I thoroughly enjoy my delicious, over-priced, seasonal coffee.
Hello! My name is Annie, and I'm an American student who is also thinking about going to Finland to finish out my high school career. I have some questions s for you though, first being this: how is school when you don't know Finnish, as I am assuming. Do the teachers simply speak English, or do you have an interpreter with you? Also, could you explain a little on how the diffucltiy level compares to American schooling? I think it's great that your doing this! Keep posting!
ReplyDeleteHello, Annie! I am glad you have reached out to me and would love to answer your questions. Before beginning my exchange year, I anticipated that I would not do well in school for at least the first grading period because I, as you have assumed, had not yet learned Finnish. In school, the instruction is in Finnish. I do not have an interpreter and having one would put me in the minority among exchange students as having your own, personal interpreter is not common practice. I am currently learning Finnish and my host family is supporting me in this endeavor. In my opinion, the difficulty level of the classes I am taking mirrors the difficulty of the classes I have taken in the United States, though I do not know the rigor of the classes you are taking, and so cannot make any assumptions about how my experience with classes in Finland compares to your classes. It is nice to hear that you enjoy reading about my time in Finland! Feel free to ask me any other questions you may have.
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