Four Weeks and Ready for More!

Part of the trail on my bike ride to school.

Last Friday was a very interesting day at school. I was supposed to give a presentation to the 2^nd grade English class during the second half of my history class. At the beginning of my history class we started watching a movie and I asked the person who sits in front of me “Why?” He said that after the short break we had school elections (so no presentation to the English class). The elections consisted of the whole school sitting in on the student council meeting in the auditorium. Last year the school’s council made a profit! I was very surprised at the lack of speeches. There were four new members elected to the council: a boy and girl from each the first and second grade. When it was time for the 2^nd grade girls, who were up first, the three candidates each held up a number and we wrote down the number we wanted. No speeches. No videos. The candidates didn’t say anything, we just voted. And it was the same for all of the other categories. I thought it was very different from my school in Kelowna because if the entire school was to sit in one room, it would be the gym, and it would be squishy. Here, everyone sat in the auditorium in comfortable plush chairs with lots of extra room to spare. At lunch I sat with some guys from the third grade and after we finished eating they invited me to come to the store. I said “Sure” and the next thing I knew I was looking at an aisle of salmiaki (Finnish black liquorice) and energy drinks. Did you know that you must be over 15 to buy an energy drink in Finland? At the end of the school day, a friend invited me to a get together for that evening. So I went home and after his last class he picked me up on his motorcycle (my 1^st motorcycle ride!) and we went to the supermarket for supplies (hot dogs and hamburgers with buns). He dropped me back at home just to pick me up a couple of hours later. It was a good night with new friends. We played Wii, talked, listened to music, and played a game called Alias. In this game

Saturday was a super lazy day for me. What did I do? Absolutely nothing!

A player from Vimpeli Veto up to bat.

Sunday was lots of fun. A Rotarian invited me to go see a pesäpallo game in Vimpeli which is a nearby town. It is in the “playoffs” of Major League Finnish Baseball. He picked me up with his daughter and we drove about an hour. He assured me that it would be very crowded. The team in the finals was from this small town of 3000-4000 people and I later found out that almost 5000 people were at the game. Some friends left Kauhava even earlier to be there at opening; they ran into the stadium to get front row seats for all of us! I already had a basic understanding of how the game worked because I had been to a couple of practices. It was very impressive to see how quickly everything happened. My favourite part of the experience was all of the noises the audience made. When the opposing team was up to bat this obnoxious wall of sound echoed through the stadium, but when the home team was up it was unison applause. The Rotarian was very kind and bought me an ice cream cone (while he enjoyed liquorice ice cream!?!) and makkara. Although the home team narrowly lost the game, I am very glad I went and very thankful for the invitation.



This is Martin the German and me by the cottage.

Monday was back at school. Math was super easy; I even understood a word question without using my dictionary! History I read my English book and took Finnish notes simultaneously (they were both on the same subject); I’m not sure if this method of learning works but it is what I’m using for now. After lunch I studied verbs in geography.

That evening I was invited to go on a bike ride into the woods with the other exchange student and his host family. We went a long and convoluted way but ended up on the trail I went jogging on a couple of weeks ago. However, our destination was off the beaten path to a little day cottage where we had a fire and roasted makkara.

On Tuesday we had a substitute teacher in English class. She spoke English very well, but conducted half of the class in Finnish, unlike our regular teacher who speaks only English during the class. Physics we started voima and Newtonin lait (force and Newton’s laws). I had a bit of a surprise after lunch. In math we had a test. Apparently the teacher had told us a few times, but I guess that word is not yet in my vocabulary. But no need to fret! I got the teacher asked me to correct him if I saw a mistake, and I got 25/25. In the evening we went on a quick trip to Seinäjoki for some shopping.

Please don’t be a Finn and ask me some questions! (Finnish people tend not to ask questions)

Happy (belated) September Long Weekend! I hope everyone back home enjoyed the fair in Armstrong. Best of luck for going back to school: whether it is starting at university, graduating year, or whatever you are doing!