Two Weeks have Come and Gone



Siiri, my dog, with Post-It vocabulary in the background.

On Friday, I had geography first period. During geography I just sit with my Suomea Suomeksi (Finnish in Finnish) book, but today during the second half of the class we went to the computer lab. The teacher told us to all go to this neat website that would let you choose what features a map would show (like contour lines, roads, etc.). The student sitting beside me said, “Type in your address!” so I subconsciously typed my Kelowna address and the website told me that that particular address was unable to be located. The student then informed me, “It has to be in Finland.” But I couldn’t remember my address here in Kauhava. So the teacher gave me the address of the school. English was last period. I think the teacher likes having someone else who knows a lot about English in the room. She always looks to me if she is trying to find a synonym. This class, we got a new list of vocabulary terms and she asked me to read it off because I have perfect pronunciation. During the mid-class break, someone told me that I sound like the CD that they listen to. When English was over I rode my bicycle to the kirjakaupa to pick up my math book. After school and after work, Ilari drove Jarmo and me to Lapua where we met up with Jaana. Ilari then drove to see his girlfriend while Jaana drove us to Seinäjoki where we picked up Iiro from the hospital. He was in the children’s ward and had been watching DVDs all day. The nurse said (via Jaana) that they didn’t find anything wrong with him so he was free to go. Because they had given him so much relaxant medication, Iiro had a very difficult time walked and needed a human crutch. For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant of Iiro’s choosing. After dinner, we went to the house of one of Jaana’s friends and then proceeded to drive back to Kauhava.

Saturday was a day of sleep. I woke up at 11. I ate brunch. I went on a run for just more than an hour down the cross-country ski trail. I watched televisio [yes I did purposefully leave out the ‘n’, now you know a new Finnish word]. I had a nap for two hours (because I didn’t have enough sleep…). For the rest of the day I just lazed around the house. I ended it off with a hot sauna. Meanwhile, whenever Iiro tried to move, or do something, he had to use furniture, walls, brooms, and people as support.

To celebrate my two-week-aversary here in Finland, I spent all of Sunday lazing around the house. My legs ached from my run on Saturday so I just watched TV. There is hardly anything to watch here in Finnish, except the news. Almost everything is English with subtitles but there is the occasional Swedish or German program, again with subtitles. I feel like the only show ever on in my house is The Simpsons because my host brothers really like watching it. There are countless hours of The Simpsons on the pvr.

One of the players, who was on my team
tonight, up to bat. But for a second week, I forgot
 to get someone to take a picture of me.

On Monday after school I watched Herkules, in Finnish of course, but I stopped my movie experience when I found out that Jack Layton, the official leader of the opposition and the leader of the New Democrats party of Canada passed away early in the morning. I remember when Layton was running in the 2004 election I thought to myself, “He looks like a swell guy to vote for.” Okay I might not have used the word swell but you get my point. I went to pesapällo practice again. I was better at catching and throwing this week, but the beginner’s luck (not that I had any) must have worn off for batting and running.

Today, Tuesday, I met the other exchange student at my school. He is from Germany and is here with another program called AFS, but I don’t know what that is. He sat near me in my physics class, but I cannot remember his name. This evening I went to a Scout meeting. For anybody who has known me for a long time, you probably know that I have been in Scouts for an even longer time. I know my sister made good friends by connecting with Scouts in Argentina on her exchange so I though I would try it out here. I think tonight was a sort of “welcome back” get together. I don’t know if there was any schedule of plans. There is a scouter who speaks English who tried to explain the Finnish Scouts organization to me, but I still only vaguely know what will happen in scouts here. When I got home after the meeting I went through the local Opisto course guide; an opisto similar to a community college and/or recreation centre. I found a “Finnish for Foreigners” course that I am going to enrol in.

Sorry there aren’t many good pictures. I am getting lazy and not taking photos at opportune moments. If there is something you would like to know about my time in Finland, send me a message or leave a comment and I might answer it in my next post (no guarentees).

Oh, and thanks for reading this. I was so excited when my views surpassed 1000.