Here is another update from the last week!
Last week was called Päättöviikkö at school. It is a test week to end the period. As I mentioned earlier, the school year is broken up into 5 periods, each about 6 weeks. The first test was the previous Wednesday and the last class was just extended so we had more time to write it. Thursday was a normal day but then Friday and all of the next week we had only the exams. If you didn't have an exam (either you didn't have a class or the teacher said there was none) you didn't have to go to school. Exams were from 9.00-13.00, and we did have a lunch break in the middle. It depended on the class for how long you had to be there. My math exam I was able to leave as soon as I was done, but in my french class we had the exam before lunch then after lunch there was some feedback and self reflection as well as a video that was in a mixture of Finnish and French (with Finnish subtitles). So we were there until almost 1. Now the second period has started, and I definetely have harder classes. I have English (discussion based and 3 year students, lots of fun), Math (this period is trigonometric functions), German (beginning course), Music, Physics (will be a challenge because of the language I think I will be doing a lot of my own research), and Chemistry (also may be doing some of my own research but luckily some of the element names are very similar). I have only had the first week of the new schedule but so far I like it! On Saturday the 6th my counselor took me to a food and book fair. For the first 2 hours or so he showed me around, and introduced me to many people. I learned quite a bit about Mikael Argicola who is considered the "father of Finnish literature" as that was the booth that he was with, and then also about Aleksis Kivi who was one of the first Finnish novel writers. He wrote the tale "the seven brothers" which is a story that everyone here knows very well, and he is one of the earliest and greatest Finnish authors. I really appreciate him showing me around because I learned a lot and I met a lot more people that I would have otherwise. After I had about an hour to walk around on my own before we had to go, so I definitely spent a pretty good amount of that time in the food section as there was a lot of free samples and it was cool to see them preparing food. The Italian pasta stall had huge rounds of cheese, and they would put the hot pasta on the cheese and mix it up, in the process getting it cheesy as well. I couldn't understand much from the stalls but it was nice to look at pictures still. I did manage to find the one English book stall, Usborne Publishing which is UK based. The woman at the booth spoke fluent English and I had a chance to talk to her a bit, her friend had gone on exchange as well (maybe even Rotary, I can't quite remember). On Friday I realized that it was Thanksgiving on Monday. I had completely forgotten, and hadn't realized that much time had passed. It was a little bit weird knowing that I wouldn't be there for one of our bigger family dinners. I mentioned the fact that it was thanksgiving to my host mom, and she asked what sort of food we have, then she called her parents and we had our own dinner. I called my dad to ask him about cooking a turkey and a lot of other things (parents are so much easier than the internet), and he was very helpful. While we were on the phone my host mom was out getting food, and I spent a few hours the next day preparing to cook the dinner. I went from having helped cut up a few things and mash a bit of the potatoes to cooking a small thanksgiving dinner mostly on my own but I definitely had help. Sunday I cut up everything that needed it, so all I had to do on Monday was actually cook the food. We had a turkey breast (none of the stores had a full turkey), mashed potatoes (slightly lumpy and dry but they tasted good), roasted yams, gravy (my mom made it), and apple pie for dessert. I think it went very well and tasted good. I met my mom's parents for the first time and they were nice and they liked it too. On Sunday I went to a rock formation called Härmälän Rotko with the theatre group. A scene in the play is set there, so it was cool to go actually see it. It is basically a huge crack in the rock but you can walk through it and we could go ontop of the rock, and we were there at sunset so it was beautiful. 12/9/2022 01:57:55 am
Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you. https://odemebozdurma.com/ Comments are closed.
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AuthorHi! My name is Katerina, and I am on exchange in Finland for a year! Archives
April 2019
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