Pickin' Mushrooms and Courses

I've been told these are some
of the best mushrooms to eat.

Last Monday I slept in because it was still test week. Sometime between 10 and 11 I went to school to choose my courses for the next jakso (term, period, semester…whatever you want to call it). I met up with some friends who had finished their test for the day and we ate lunch and chatted. Then I went to see the counsellor who said come back tomorrow because he was invigilating a matriculation exam. So I chatted with more people before heading home to finish my paper on pesäpallo. In the evening, my host parents and I went mushroom picking. Siiri the dog came along with us, and she had a bright orange collar with a tracking device in it, so when we were picking, she could roam the woods freely and we would be able to track her down with some electronic device. We went to a side road on the outskirts of town that Jarmo knew had some moist, swampy areas…ideal mushroom growing conditions. We walked into the woods for only a few minutes before we stopped and started searching. 

Me with the 'shrooms.

Jarmo is the “mushroom man” in our family; he quickly found the first ones and there were more and more. I was sworn to secrecy about the patch: there were so many of what is apparently the best type of mushroom and “only family” is allowed to know where we went. After we picked fifteen litres, we had to leave the rest behind because we had no more container space. We went to mummi ja pappa’s house (grandma and grandpa) for coffee.

On Tuesday I went to school to get my schedule figured out. I had pretty much already choosen all of the classes that I wanted to take, I just needed the counsellor’s approval. He told me I was the first exchange student in ten years to plan my own schedule without his assistance. These are my classes for this jakso:

Sept. 21 – Nov. 8	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8 – 9:45	Math 13	Art	Math 7	Art	English
10 – 11:45	Spanish	Math 7	English	Math 13	Spanish
12:20-1:50	English	Math 13	Spanish	Math 7	Art

Because I had my courses picked, the next place to go was the book store to order my books. The shopkeeper spoke little to no English so I succeed in ordering my books by speaking only Finnish! Huge success! I went back to school for lunch and chatting. When eating, I felt some pride when my friend said, “I don’t know whether to speak to you in Finnish or English,” because she thought I have learned enough to carry on the conversation in Finnish. I asked her to speak Finnish, but everyone seems to be starting to talk to me in Finglish: a combination of words/phrases/sentences switching both languages. I went home and did something I am very experienced at, procrastinating. To this point, I still have not finished my pesäpallo report, but no one from the school administration has mentioned anything about it…. That evening I had Finnish for Foreigners. Because I have had the textbook for about a month before the course, I have already done lots of the exercises, so I just study on my own.

Drilling a block of wood for the handle of my knife

Wednesday was the1^st day of the 2^nd jakso. My second grade math class was pretty easy. In English we have a “permanent substitute”; our last teacher moved away so we have a brand new teacher (who won’t have completed university until the spring). She is very young and timid, but she has a nice, subtle, British accent. In Spanish class I can understand Spanish to English translations, and English to Finnish translations, so I understood most of what the teacher said. After school I went to a friend’s house to watch a television show he has trying to get me to see for a couple of weeks. I went home and made the salad for dinner and I was asked by my little brother if I wanted to learn the Finnish way to cut vegetables… just because I am not a good slicer and dicer doesn’t mean everyone in Canada cuts peppers like me. That evening I had my puukkokurssi (knife making class) during which I started making the handle: I drilled wood and cut up pieces of bark. Afterwards I stayed up very late tweaking presentation for Rotary Club. Thursday morning my alarm went off at 6:20, I thought I put it on snooze for 10 minutes… I woke up at 7:53 (class starts at eight) so I basically threw on clothes, grabbed my bag, rode bicycle as fast as possible with a piece of bread in hand. My first class was art. I have not taken art class since elementary school…this course is a free course where I decide what to do… should be interesting…Grandma (watercolour painter for those of you who don’t know), don’t be surprised if you get a phone call asking for art advice! I had 3^rd grade math next; they are about where I am in math. Their last test was on integrals and they are starting with lots of stuff to do with infinity. I also got back my test from the last math class I had: I got a 10 (I wanted a 10+ because I did the 2 extra questions correctly and I did all of the homeword which he counts as bonus marks). In 2^nd grade math I was a bit embarrassed; I didn’t do the homework because I slept in… At partio that afternoon we talked about schedule until joulukuu (December) and played games. Afterwards at Rotary, I gave a big presentation on Canada, Kelowna, my life, my family, and me. 

This is the picture of "äiti" that the man
thought was my "sisko". I miss you mom & dad!

When I introduced äiti ja isa (mom & dad) I had 3 pictures: 1 of them together, and a picture of me with each of them. I said “these are my äiti ja isa” and one of the Rotarians said “ja sisko!” (and sister)… “no, that is my mom”, “well she looks so young!”. Some more comments I received were “I like you because you had a white German short-haired pointer” (Abby, the dog we used to have) as well as “I like you because of your leadership in scouts and that you want to become an engineer”.

I really am enjoying my time here. Finnish, however, is a very frustrating language because of: the many different cases of nouns and adjectives (there are no prepositions, you add different endings for “to”, or “of”, etc.), the many types of verbs (although they all end in either –a or –ä, there are seven different conjugation patterns), and just generally not having a very large vocabulary.

FYI – I have been in Finland for 49 days!