Update Week 13

Like I promised, I WILL eventually get to doing the second part of that last post...but im a lazy sack, and I decided that today I wanted to write about something else. (Sorry!)

Today I thought that I would write about how things are going so far and a little about what ive been up to lately. I don't think ive ACTUALLY made a post about what my own personal life is like yet, (and that might be because I like to rant a lot about random stuff.) and im sure as "interesting" as I am, that maybe it might be worth writing a little bit about. :)

Everything is kind of in a regular routine now, and things have really started settling in, which is good!

I go to school, I actually DO some of the work in class now. (Keep in mind though, that by "some", I mean I have the smallest idea of what we are supposed to be doing.) I can participate more in class, and hold basic conversations with people, and I have settled in to finding things to do with people, and well...basically things have settled in. :)

 

I guess ill start by talking about how school is going, and then go on from there:

This past week, I gave a presentation in my Geography class about Thermal and Geothermal Engergy...IN FINNISH! I didn't give the WHOLE presentation myself, and to completely honest, I really didn't give much of the presentation in the first place. BUT I did it in Finnish! I was kind of expecting it to go wrong, but I KNEW that I couldn't just chicken out...To tell you the truth, I actually wish that I would have given MORE of the presentation instead of only reading just 2 of the slides in the presentation.It went pretty well actually!

Unfortunately though, my teacher called in me during the next class to answer a question...asked in Finnish. (I think that me speaking in front of my class in Finnish, made her think that I actually understand a lot more in Class than I ACTUALLY do.)

It was embarrassing because I REALLY had no idea what we were talking about, so I sat there awkwardly, and then just decided to look down at my paper and just say a random word.

All she said was my answer was wrong, and then called on the next person.

It was pretty embarrassing, and I STILL don't know what she asked...but at least I tried, right? :)

I take all of my notes for all of my classes in Finnish, and then I come home and just google translate all of them as "homework."

I ended up switching out of my business class a few weeks ago, and getting into an art class. (Too bad I didn't know that my art class would be about drawing people!)

And for any of you who know me, I am a TERRIBLE artist! I cant even draw a ROCK!

This actually makes this class REALLY entertaining for me though.

I am taking the class with another exchange student, and we just spend the whole class laughing at how terrible our drawings are.

Everyone in the class is REALLY good at art, and it makes me super embarrassed when my drawings just look like sad circus clowns, or moldy pieces of bread...

The teacher once actually came up to me after I had finished my drawing, and told me that I was supposed to draw the person in my class who was modeling for the drawing...THAT is how bad my drawing was!

I have actually been taking pictures of all of the drawings that I have done at the end of every class, so that I can remember just how BAD my drawings were!


I am only taking a total of 5 classes, so I have at least 2 hours to waste everyday in between some of my classes. Fortunately, some of the other exchange students at my school have a 2 hour break at the same time as mine, so we have gotten to know each other pretty well by spending a lot of time together!

Every Tuesday and Thursday ive been taking Finnish classes at another school in Oulu, and next Wednesday I have my first exam! Which really shouldn't be all that difficult, but it DOES mean I will have a 10-11 hour school day, because the exam is 3 hours and it is RIGHT after my school day until around 8pm!

Im not really stressed about the test because it should be pretty easy for me, but I am worried about just how LONG the day will be! But I think that because the exam is in the evening, that it means that ill be able to listen to Finnish for the entire day before I take it, which will be good practice. :)

I have actually been tutoring one of my exchange student friends who goes to my school for our exam. All of the Exchange Students who go to my school are all in the same Finnish class, and I am pretty good friends with most of them; and we help each other with our Finnish, even though our Finnish is not very good.

We have also gotten into teaching each other our own languages during our free time at school, so this past week I have been learning Spanish, Thai AND Finnish. ;)

They teach me some of their native language, while I help them learn the basics of Finnish.

My Finnish isn't much better than theirs, but since my native language is English, they know that I only speak Finnish with my host family and I am only learning one language instead of learning both English AND Finnish at the same time, like they are.

Its really nice that I can help them with their Finnish, although I feel a bit unfit to do the job, because I am no where NEAR fluent, and I just barely conversational! But it makes me happy that I can help them with the things that I do know about the language.


And now I am SURE that this post is getting boring, so I will switch it up and talk a little bit about the more current things that have been happening, and add a few pictures from this past week to go along with them. (Because pictures make everything better.):

This was the sky last Tuesday when I was walking to Finnish class.

 

I couldn't help but take a picture!

 

This might sound stupid...but for some reason, there is gravel ALL over all of the sidewalks!

 

I have asked other exchange students, and NONE of us know why there is gravel all over them! We have come up with different ideas as to why, but they are just ideas that are full of nonsense...we don't really want to ask anyone about it though, because we know that we will probably sound ridiculous if we did. :)

 

I have wonderful and amazing friends who give me one of their jars of peanut butter from their package from home...

 

This week was my FIRST TIME in 3 MONTHS to have peanut butter!

 

I have a friend who is another Exchange Student from the USA, and he gave me one of his jars of peanut butter that he got from his package from home!

 

I literally almost died of excitement! :D

 

Unfortunately, everyone who I have gotten to try it hasn't liked it at all. :(

 

I apologize for the horrible picture quality...but YES, this is indeed one of my HORRIBLE drawings from art class!  Sadly, this is actually one of the BETTER drawings I have done. (And yes, this is super embarrassing to post, but I thought that if I mentioned it, I HAD to eventually post a picture of proof.) :D

 

 

 

 

 

I have some good news though!

 

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Tonight I am actually going to my FIRST EVER hockey game!!!

 

I am going with one of my RYE (Rotary Youth Exchange) friends from Chile, and it is her first ever hockey game too. :)

 

I am actually SUPER excited, because hockey is a pretty big deal in Finland, (My host dad really loves it.) and now I get to finally go to a REAL hockey game! So that is SUPER exciting! :D

 

 

 

I am not really sure what else to post about from this week to update about, but hopefully this was a good enough update about the types things that have been going on this past week, and how everything is going so far.

 

I know that I need to get better at updating about the kinds of things that im doing instead of just ranting about all of the good things, or the bad things or just RANDOM things in general.

 

So hopefully in my next few blog posts that I write, ill be able to add more pictures and talk more about the things that im up to. But HEY, this is a start, right? :)