Hyvää Joulua! - Merry Christmas!

Terve kaikkille,

Minä tiedän joka minä tarvitsen kirjoittaa uusi viesti, mutta se on joululoma ja minä haluan olla Manninen perheen kanssa (nykyinen isäntäperhe). Minä vaihtan perhee keskellä joulua ja uusivuosia, ja minä olen surullinen lähteä Manninen perhe, mutta olen jännittynyt tavata ja asua uusi perheen kanssa!

Uusivuosin jälkeen, minä kirjoitan viesti joulusta ja lomasta!

Kiitos olla kärsivällinen! Hyvää joulua, ja onnellista uuta vuotta 2014!



Hello everyone,

I know it's about time I wrote another blog post, but right now it's Christmas holidays and I want to spend as much time as I can with the Manninens (my current host family). I will be changing to my new host family between Christmas and New Years. I am very sad to leave the amazing Manninen family, but am also excited to get to know this new family!

After New Years I will write a blog post about my crazy Christmas holiday!

Thank you for being so patient! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Lapissa - Lapland

Last weekend, I was in Lapland with 145 other Rotary Exchange Students. It was the first time I had seen almost all of them since Karkku, so it was amazing to see everyone. Some people have changed since the last time I saw them, and some haven't changed at all.

The camp took place in Muonio, which is quite far north! (Muonio on google maps: https://goo.gl/maps/RrBBl) We saw reindeers, many reindeer(s?), and even got to ride in a pororeki (reindeer sled)! We also went to a husky "farm" as you might call it, where they breed sled dogs for the various trips they offer. None of the dogs are sold from the farm, they are raised for the sole purpose of being sled dogs. We also saw Santas Village, which I had already visited with my host family back in September, but it was quite different with all the snow on the ground!

The first two days of the trip we visited a ski hill. I put a lot of emphasis on the word 'hill'. Where I'm from in Canada, we have mountains everywhere you look. I also live a few hours away from the Rocky Mountains (http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalliovuoret), so I know what a mountain looks like. Finland has no mountains. Thankfully, I knew this before signing up for the Lapland trip, so I chose to cross-country ski instead of down hill. I had only done it a few times before many years ago, so I was quite a sloppy skier. I still had a nice experience skiing around the little trail and, occasionally, falling on my butt.

The main part of the trip was really spent bonding with the other exchange students and sharing stories about our new lives. I had an amazing time in Lapland and cannot wait for the Russia trip!

And now, here are some photos from the trip.

The sky in Lapland has this very mystic glow about it everywhere you go. At least, when the sun is around it does, which is approximately 4 hours each day :P

The "ski hill" with either the sunrise/sunset behind it. In Lapland, you really never know which one it is :D

Me and my American friends practicing our "Finnish smiles"

PORO! (REINDEER!)

A nice view of Reindeer butt during the sleigh ride

Can you spot the real reindeer?

Standing on the Sverge/Suomi (Sweden/Finland) border! 

Revontulet - The Northern Lights

" Claire! Äkkiä! Äkkiä äkkiä äkkiä! Tule tänne! Katso ulkona, on... "

" Revontulet "

Olen vielä nähnyt revontulet Kanadassa, mutta siellä se oli heikko ja tylsä. Täällä oli erilainen. Jolloin minä olen nähnyt revontulet, olen huutanut 'MÄÄ MENEN ULOS!' ja olen laittanut minun kengät nopeasti. Se oli kaunein asia olin ikinä nähnyt. 

Minä olin ulkona puolituntinen, katsotaan revontulet. Minä en osaa unohtaa tuo päivää.

"Claire! Quick! Come here! Look out side, look at..."

"The Northern Lights"

I'd seen the Northern Lights before in Canada, but in Canada they were weak and really quite uneventful. What I saw in Finland was very different. When I came to the door and saw the beautiful green lights in the sky, I screamed "I'M GOING OUT!" and threw my shoes on. 

I followed my sisters out to a field near our house to better see the lights, and stayed there for probably about half an hour. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my entire life. Behind the shimmering green colours you could see many stars in the sky. As I watched the lights dance I saw a shooting star slide across the sky. If I hadn't felt so darn cold, I would have thought it was a dream. It was truly the most amazing and breathtaking thing I had ever seen in my whole life, and I will not forget it. 

After the beautiful light show I ran to bed because I had to leave for Lapland at 4:30 the next day!

Vähän Halloween - Sort of Halloween

>>>>English below<<<<<

Tänä Perjantaina (15.11.2013), minun lukio oli pukua päivää, kun opiskelijat pukeutuvat kaltainen julkkis ja videopeli, kirja, ja elokuva ihmiset. Minä pidän todella Halloween, se on minun lempiloma, no tänä päivä oli mahtava!

Myös, koulun jälkeen, minä olen mennyt katsoa ilotulitus Kempelessa. Kanadassa, joka Halloween, minä menin katsoa ilotulitus, no se muistutti minua Kanada.

Minä olen yllättin kuinka monta opiskelijat oli pukeutua! Minä olin tosi onnellinen joka yli puoli teini-ikäiset olivat jonkinlainen pukua. Se oli mahtava päivä, ja minä haluan kiittää kaiki joka autivat! Kiitos kiitos kiitos :D

Ja nyt englanti, koska minä tarvitsen...


Finland doesn't celebrate Halloween as we do in Canada and North America; no one dresses up, no one trick-or-treats.... NOTHING! This was an extremely depressing fact to me, because I adore Halloween. So, when I found out my lukio was having a dress up/ theme day, I jumped for joy!

This Friday, November 15th, the students were to dress up as either a celebrity or a character from a video game, book, or movie. I had been told by some of the other students that "probably no one is going to dress up because Finns aren't really into that kind of thing," so I had really lowered my expectations. I can proudly say that more than half of the lovely teenagers dressed up in some kind of costume! I was ecstatic!

Later that day, I went with my host father and some of my host siblings to Kempele to watch a little firework show. Every Halloween up until a few years ago, my family and I would go down to the Lavington Fire Hall and watch a big firework show after filling our bags full of candy. The exploding spectacle was quite nostalgic, and I enjoyed it immensely.

And now for some hilarious/ awesome/ horrifying costumes some of the kids had at my school.

Link (me) and my friend the Mad Hatter!

Pikku Myy, a character from the Moomins

Dexter Morgan

Pamela Anderson herself (that's a man, btw)

How homework is done at MULU

This is what I wore on October 31st. I "dressed up" as a Finn. Straight hair, button up shirt, sweat pants, and the essential wool socks. Every little bit counts, right? :)

Elämän suomessa - Life in Finland

As of today, I have been in this beautiful country for 3 entire months. It feels as though I just got here, but also that I have lived here my whole life at the same time.

As the previous blog post says, my language learning has steadily progressed, but I still speak terribly. Those rumors you heard are true: Finnish is hard! The language is so different from Germanic languages that sometimes I just laugh. I find I'm having to re-wire my brain as far as creating sentences goes. Until recently I've been trying to relate everything to English, French, or even German, but with no success. With Finnish, I have to start from square one: a blank slate.

For those of you that are curious, here is a list of some things that I've found particularly challenging or different in my language learning:

• Articles: they don't have 'em! This makes speech easier, but at first I was always saying "yksi", their word for "one" as my own little article. I got over this eventually.
• Prepositions: they don't have 'em. Their "prepositions" are either endings put onto words, or "postpositions". But even the postpositions don't live by themselves, you still have to put an ending on your word (usually an 'N')
• Gender: they don't have it! They don't even have "he" and "she", just "hän". Everything is totally neutral in the language. This is great for me, but can make learning English quite challenging for most Finns. He/she mix ups can be very entertaining sometimes!
• The partitive word ending: my arch nemesis. English has nothing like this, but it can kind of be related to a more complicated object direct in French. I get this wrong constantly.
• The alphabet: this was very challenging at first, but is now quite easy. Here is a video I've found of the Finnish alphabet. It's not perfect though. Note the very different pronunciation of the letters "j" and especially "y", as well as the additions of ä ja ö. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAc8Z4pfhFo&feature=youtube_gdata_player
• The nonsense words: every language has them! Finns are very partial to the word "niin"... No niin, niin, niinkö, eikö niin, ai niin are some of their favorite phrases. "No niin" is a word that can be used to mean... Almost everything. It can be "is that so", "really", "well well", "now then", "well then", "so", and "huh". When in doubt: no niin.
• Words are pronounced as they are written. There are no silent letters like you find everywhere in French. This is handy when someone says something I don't understand, because I can normally find it in the dictionary very easily.
• When you decide to learn Finnish, you're really signing up to learn two languages. They have written and spoken. Spoken is kind of like English internet slang. They just chop letters out if words, leave out endings, or just cut out words. Almost no one speaks "written Finnish", so my spoken sentences containing both written and spoken words often make my friends laugh. I go from toddler to president in a matter of words!

I know I seem to be 'thankful' for a lot of things, but I feel I cannot emphasize this enough: I am so thankful that the students in my school and town are so cooperative and helpful. I have many friends who are always willing to help me out, no matter how weird or confusing the question is. From attempting to explain Quantum Physics, to helping me translate todennäköisyys, to even showing me how to make coffee, every moment they help me is a moment they could be doing something else more productive. Every second anyone spends with me is thoroughly appreciated, and I hope everyone knows that. Minä rakastan minun pieni koulu Muhoksella, and I would not change it for anything in the world.

Mahtava - Awesome

The reason I haven't really been updating my blog is because I have been experiencing what I'm calling "extreme language learning". What's that, you ask? Let me describe something for you first...

Oh my god, I know the answer. I thought. I can answer this question. I can do it. This is it. I shot my hand up. Saikkonen, my physics teacher looked at me, paused for a second, and said "Claire?" seeming to draw out the "a" in my name. I took a deep breath and said "kahdeksan piste nolla kertaa kymmenen toista." "kyllä" he said, smiling. I let a slight smile show on my lips, but on the inside my brain was having a dance party in my skull. YEAH BABY!!! You're the master! Achievement unlocked tothemax! Take that Finland! I had just answered "eight point zero times ten squared", but I might as well have cured cancer. I spent the rest of the class floating on a cloud of euphoric bliss. I didn't even bother paying attention, it was no use to try; I was way to busy giving hi-fives to each of the neurons in my brain.

In case you haven't guessed, my language skills have improved immensely. Since the beginning of the second jakso, I have actually understood what was going on in class. Admittedly, most of my courses are on things I have already studied, but it still feels awesome. This jakso I have Math, two music courses, PE, English and two Physics courses. 

The subject of the math course is Probability, which is essentially just a class full of word problems. To say my homework is painful would be an understatement. 

The most common response of the kids at Muhoslukio when I say I'm taking two physics classes is looking at me quizzically and asking "why?" I'm in a second year physics class that is all about acceleration and force, with classic problems and situations. I love this kind of physics, so I can't complain (side note: this is the class I was in during the above description of me kicking the Finnish language in the pants. I mean that in the most affectionate way possible). 

My other physics course I have with the third years is quantum physics. I frequently grin at myself during the class and think well, Claire, you're attempting to learn Quantum Physics in Finnish. "And for my next act, I will be teaching myself the Cello as I skydive." Know that it is absolutely ridiculous when I say that I have legitimately learned stuff in that class. Honestly. I'm not even joking. My very basic background I received in High School helped me out a little at first, but the material was very quickly very beyond what I had learned. When I'm not laughing at myself, I'm staring down the teacher and absorbing every gigantic word he spits out, and sometimes I learn something new.

So yeah, this is my life right now. It's pretty awesome. Here, have a photo:

Kesämökki Pudasjärvellä - Summer Cottage in Pudasjärvi

On the way to Ullan Vanhemman kesämökki (Ulla's parent's summer cottage), Ulla played a CD of children's Finnish songs. I was happily listening to the CD, having no idea what the songs were about, when suddenly I recognised one. The tune was very familiar, but I couldn't place it. Then, I herd them say "puff" and I knew; this was Puff the Magic Dragon. I was a little bit too excited, honestly, and made my family listen to it again, because I wanted to see what I understood. Yeah, I only got "puff" and the occasional word, but it was still great!

The next two links are the Finnish Puff song. The first one is the original that I listened to, the second one is more... Upbeat? I dunno. The second one has lyrics, which I find handy, but probably won't help any of you English folk at all :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKz9X8VMZ84&feature=youtube_gdata_player

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbM6HK5lhg4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

My time at the actual cottage was very nice, though I had more homework than I would have liked. The weather was also less than agreeable, but that was alright in the end. 

The most eventful thing this weekend was the Savusauna (smoke sauna). This is a sauna where there is no chimney, so all the smoke stays inside the little hut. It took about 5 hours to warm it up, and once it is done heating you let all the smoke out and let the fire die out. Because of all the smoke the walls are totally black and you're not supposed to touch them, which is sometimes hard when you're stumbling in the dark! I learned that, a hundred years ago, women gave birth in saunas like this. It makes sense, but it had just never occurred to me, and I thought it was a cool little factoid!

The old savusauna, no longer in use, but still looks cool!

"Are you ready for savusauna?" my family asked me, and I was totally down. I became very not down when I asked the temperature of the sauna and they responded with "120℃." My jaw hit the floor. THESE FINNS ARE GONNA KILL ME, I thought. I almost passed out when they said "it was 140℃, but we figured that was a little hot." And so, after saying my goodbyes and updating my will, I walked out to certain death... But came back alive! I really enjoyed the Savusauna, even though it sometimes hurt to breathe. I felt like I had been baptized in fire, to be all dramatic, but it was truly amazing. Honestly though, the best part was walking out of the sauna into the 3℃ air and thinking that it was not nearly cold enough outside. I really wanted a snow bank to dive into, or even better a frozen lake! But no such luck. 

A look inside the sauna

Because there isn't any body of water nearby, this is a little "swimming pool" was made beside the old sauna.

So there you are, my fun and frightening weekend at a cottage. Next week is koe viikko (test week), and I'm gonna study for my English test!

Pesäpalloa Peli - Finnish Baseball Game

Alright. I want you to think of everything you know about American Baseball. Collect all of that info up from the far corners of your brain. You got it all? Perfect, now throw it out the window, because you won't need it here.

I watched three Pesäpalloa peli today, and I still don't really know what's going on. But here is a short summary of what I learned today. Just saying, most of this is probably wrong. Anyways, here we go...

There are two teams and there are two positions: catchers (defensive) and hitters (offensive). Each team has 9(?) people on the field at a time. The field looks like this:

1-pesä, 2-pesä, 3-pesä are the bases. Notice how they are not arranged as they are in American Baseball. Actually, you shouldn't notice that, because you threw away your previous baseball knowledge. I was just testing you... Anyways, the fact that the bases are arranged in a zig-zag shape makes the game look super random for someone who has no idea what's going on (AKA me). 

Each base can only have one hitter on it at a time. The hitters can... steal bases... but this is rather confusing and I will get to that later.

The catching team spreads its players around the field as they like, each team does it differently, but there is always a pitcher. The pitcher stands right beside the batter, and to pitch he throws the ball up into the air. A "proper pitch" is when the ball would land right on top of the home base if the batter had not hit the ball. If the pitcher throws three bad pitches, the hitter gets to walk (and the other men on the bases move in order to accommodate him. If there is a man on 3rd and he walks home, it does not count as a score).

A hitter that is on a base can run pretty well whenever he wants to. If the hit was out of bounds, if something went wrong, whatever, he can still run. This is called "stealing the base". In pro pesäpallo this never happens  but I was watching amateur players and they do it all the time (the reason amateurs can pull it off is because the defensive team may not be paying attention or might not be able to catch the ball as well).

Okay, now if a batter hits the ball and it isn't out of bounds (boundaries are the outer lines in the picture. The ball has to land inside the lines, but can roll out. This includes the line at the very back. If you "hit it out of the park" in pesäpallo, you just hit a foul), and all is well, he can run to first base and the players move respectively around the field and everyone has a happy day... but if the ball is caught before it hits the ground, that's when shit hits the fan.

If the ball is caught from the air, the player batting is out. Any player on the offensive team that is out in the field at the time and was not standing on a base (AKA, trying to steal a base) must run to the next base. They cannot go back to the base that they were stealing from. They have to book it to the next base before the defensive team brings the ball to the base that they were supposed to be on. This is called "burning". This is the part that I am by far the most confused about. and it seemed that they were adding more rules onto these rules every time it happened. Take this whole paragraph with a handful of salt. It's probably wrong.


And that concludes my pesäpallo lesson for today. Below are some links to videos and the Wikipedia page about the game. I hope that you are more confused about the game than you were before! :)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pes%C3%A4pallo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TynjeWIoUY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vK49TOVZEQ

Epäonninen Päivä - Unlucky Day

I can honestly say that since I have arrived in Finland, I have not experienced an extreme emotional flare. Meaning, I've never felt homesick, lost, frustrated, or alone to a point I could not handle.

The above statement was 100% true, until today. Because today was.... it just was.

Today was my first day of Suomi language course in Oulu, and coincidentally, my first time alone in Oulu. I figured I might get lost on the way from my bus stop to the school, so I made myself a map from Google maps with all the cross streets and everything. I thought I was really damn through. While on the bus though, a series of events and misinterpretations lead me to get off at the wrong stop. I was 3km away from where I was supposed to be, but I didn't know that. I walked confidently in one direction, certain that I was going the right way. I stopped after a half of a kilometer and retraced my steps, then went a quarter of a kilometer the other way. I didn't see any of the street names on any of the maps I made. I knew something was wrong. I phoned my host mother and asked her to check where I was and she told me that I had gotten off at the wrong stop. She dropped everything she was going and drove half an hour to pick me up and bring me where I was supposed to be. When I finally arrived at the Finnish course (an hour late, I might add) I found out that I had signed up for the wrong one. I went down to the main desk and switched my courses, then trudged, defeated, to my bus stop. I got there half an hour before the bus was set to leave, but I was alright with waiting. And that's what I did. I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. 45 minutes passed, no bus. Oh god no, I thought, the bus has to be here. I can't have missed it. But I had. It turns out that at that particular time the bus left from a different station. At this point I walked behind the bus station building, sat down in the dirt, and cried. I had never felt so... Dependant before. I was so useless, helpless, and stupid. After a solid cry, I checked my bus schedule and found out the next bus left at 22:10. It was 21:00 at this point, and I was done with life. I phoned my host mother to let her know I'd be really late getting home. I insisted that I would wait for the bus and that she should not come drive into Oulu again to rescue me, but she would here nothing of it.

When she drove up a half an hour later, she smiled at me and said "epäonninen päivä."  I could not help but laugh, and she joined me. It had truly been an unlucky day. On the drive home we had a long conversation in Finnglish, and I was able to step off the emotional roller-coaster that I had been riding all evening.

I cannot now, and I don't think I will ever be able to express my gratitude towards my host mother and family. The support that they give me is phenomenal  and they are truly an amazing family. I hope that if/when I have a family, mine is at least half as loving and comfortable as the Manninens.

Lisää Vaellus - More Hiking

Ulla, Jukka, Elias and Anne, Ulla's sister, took me up to Saariselkä to hike the beautiful trails of northern Finland. 

As you might notice if you type Saariselkä into Google, I was well above the Arctic Circle. This marks my first time being above the Arctic Circle, and I spent almost 72 hours up there. 

We timed the trip perfectly with the changing of the leaves. The whole area was a beautiful golden colour with little patches of orange and green and occasionally red. There were moments during the hiking that I would have to stop, look around me and say "wow, I'm really here. This is really happening." 

I am so thankful that I had to opportunity to experience such beauty, and am forever thankful of my amazing host family.

We were visited by a lovely group of birds that were perfectly alright with sharing Elias' food.

"Making Friends"

Attempting pancakes.

The failed attempts

Suklaa Muro

Hello everyone.

I have noticed that my posting skills are rather lacking in this month, and maybe you have too. I've been spending so much time trying to learn Finnish that I forgot about this little thing.

I am currently writing the blog posts that I should have posted now, and will publish them during this week and next. I am writing them as though they just happened, because I want to! Don't question me... And the dates will represent that as well. So really, I'm just covering my tracks to make it look like I posted them on time..... But don't tell anyone.

As a consolation prize, please enjoy this brief little story that is not relevent to anything except the title of this post:

A few days ago, Selja (host sister) and I went with Ulla (host mom) to the store to get groceries. Ulla asked me to pick a cereal from the aisle and Selja came with me. There were many choices, but I was leaning towards this trail mix looking one with fruit and nuts and oats.... But I did not fail to notice Selja eyeing up the chocolate section with a certain lust in her eyes. The Manninen house is not one you find full of Fruit Loops and Corn Pops, so I decided what the hell, let's get some chocolate cereal.

Now, we bought this while most of the family was away, so Selja strategically didn't tell anyone about the box of pure sugar in the cupboard, and of course I didn't spoil her fun. Today though, during evening snack, she was munching on some chocolate delight when Aapeli, my little host brother, gasped and exclaimed "SUKLAA MURO?!?! MISSÄ?!" I would have paid a sack full of Euros to get his facial expression on camera as I handed him the box. He devoured two bowls, and I suspect it will all be gone in the morning.

This, my blog readers, is why I love my isäntä-perhe.

Anyways, Claire out.

-originally posted on 15.9-

Oulanka Kansallispuisto - Oulanka National Park

I have returned, in once piece, from my 35km hiking course in Oulanka National Park. It was a program offered by my lukio that I took with about 30 other students from second and third year.

I had a wonderful time, it was absolutely amazing. I really love hiking, so this trip was right up my alley. I'd done hiking trips before so I knew how to pack and what to bring, as well as what to expect. The Manninen's graciously lent me a backpack, sleeping bag, mattress and even a stove. My backpack weighed in at 15kg, about 33 pounds, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. 

I am very thankful for my enthusiastic hiking partner Emi, who hiked at a ferocious speed that motivated me to keep walking. She was very patient in answering my questions about her life in Finland and singing me the Finnish alphabet, and she only laughed a little bit whenever I forgot the word for 'path' (which is polku Emi, I remember it now!). 

This trip was also a great opportunity for me to meet the elusive Finnish teenager! Admittedly, I didn't talk to as many of them as I had hoped, but I still think I am on my way to making friends. I have wonderful memories of sitting around the campfire attempting to understand what everyone is saying, and the absolute joy I felt when I understood what was going on. There were some very confusing moments though, such as one where I was certain some of the guys were talking about roasting and eating another student. Thankfully I had misunderstood. I also have a hilarious memory of Teemu interrupting a conversation to say "Claire, say 'about'", obviously hoping I would pronounce it 'aboot'. He was disappointed by my answer and left the fire. 

On the final day, after we'd made it to our destination, another student wanted to do some more hiking to a little camp about 3km away. I had sworn to never walk again ten minutes earlier in a dramatic flop to the ground, but I agreed to go with him. I left my pack behind but the crazy kid brought his backpack with him. We had a lovely conversation about biking, and he was very excited when he found out I lived close to Whistler. During that little trek I made a promise to myself that if someone asked me to come somewhere I would go, even if the antisocial humbug part of me wanted me to stay home. I realised that, if I stayed in the comfort of the Manninen house all the time I would never see the rest of Finland. 

Altogether, the experience was one that I will not forget, and would recommend to any other exchange student visiting Muhos lukio.

Probably the most disappointing group photo ever taken, but it's what we've got!

My tent group.

Pikku Erilaiset - Little Differences

So I've been in Finland 27 days now, and here are a list of some differences that I have found. I read once that the big differences in countries aren't that big of a deal, it's the small things that stand out. Well, whoever said that was very right. Here's my little list of differences!

*Please note, these things may not be true for all of Finland, but in Muhos this is how it is.*

*I have been corrected on some of these things, and have changed them.*

1. Their hole punches (Canada on left, Finland on right).

2. They leave their bags in the hallway at school and even sometimes in stores, just sitting there, unattended.

3. They don't lock their bikes when they put them out.

4. Classes aren't on time, despite the stereotype of Finns always being early!

5. Students call teachers by their first names.

6. The trees are all really tall and skinny.

7. The street name comes before the house number in your home address.

8. The houses all seam to be painted with a "barn theme" (meaning the windows and doors have wide white trimmings and the rest of the house is a solid, and normally bright, colour)

9. Bathrooms have sinks, paper towel dispensers and mirrors in each stall.

10. There is a Nintendo Wii sitting in the hallway of my school for anyone to play. It is not locked down. There are no chains on the TV. It's just sitting there.

Ilmakitaransoiton MM-Kisoihin - Air Guitar World Championships

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!

Eric "Mean" Melin

So, as you may have guessed, I went to the Ilmakitaransoiton World Championships last night, and it was totally awesome. There were competitors from Belgium, USA, Russia, France, and even Bulgaria and Japan! 

For those of you who have never been to the AGWC, there are two rounds: The first round is where each performer has 60 seconds to impress the judges and are scored from 4 to 6 on their performance. In the first round the competitors get to choose their own songs and arrangement of sounds. In the second round, each performer performs to the exact same song, and each interprets it differently. The lyrics to the second round song were literally "I've gotta find some way to get my hands on your electric butt". Yep. Not even kidding. The song was by a local Finnish band called The Wedding Crashers. After the second round there was a tie for first place, which has apparently never happened before, between Doug "The Thunder" Stroock and Eric "Mean Melin" Melin. In the final round, the finalists performed to Wheezer's "Hash Pipe". It honestly wasn't the best song for Air Guitar-ing, but oh well. The two American finalists ROCKED the stage, but the Dave Grohl look alike Eric "Mean" Melin took home first prize, which was a clear guitar. It looked pretty cool actually.

Here are a few videos and photos from the show. I can now scratch this off of my Bucket List! :D

This guy painted himself with tiger stripes.

51-year-old man from Japan!

And throw in some Gay Pride

Rockin' the Free World

This is Eric "Mean" Melin playing the final song.

Some more footage of the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq5aWzD_MfM

  

and the official website: http://www.airguitarworldchampionships.com/en/event/agwc-2013

Muhoslukio - Muhos School

I arrived at the Manninen's house at 19:30 on August 10th, 2013. I was exhausted since I had taken a 6 hour car ride there from the Karkku language camp. Despite my obvious zombie-like movements, the family greeted me warmly. The Manninen family have 7 children, one of which is currently in the United States on a Rotary Exchange. I won't lie, when the six kids introduced themselves, I forgot their names almost instantly. I practiced a lot the next day and got them all down though, don't fret!

The Manninen’s have a sauna in their house, just like every other Finn, and I have been in it once already. Sauna is definitely something I could get used to, even though my first experiences at Karkku were... unpleasant... Sauna is a nice place to relax and get away from the noise of 6 kids. I like this family a lot, each kid is amazing, but it's quite a shock to go to this full house from my very quiet home in Canada. I am gradually getting used to the constant interruption of laughter or screams or crashes, and it makes sure my life is never dull!

Muhoslukio has 135 kids. I counted. The school is essentially grade 11, 12 and 13. The kids in "grade 13" are my age. They actually call themselves by their years, vuosi 1, vuosi 2, vuosi 3, which makes more sense. I have classes in all of the years, so my experience is very broad. This välitunti (term) I am taking English, Suomi (Finnish), German, History, Music, and Art. My school day times vary greatly from day to day, but I kind of like it. There is a lot of independence in this school system, and it teaches each student responsibility.

I am putting quite a bit of effort into learning Finnish. I speak “Finglish” to my family, and am always asking kuinka sanoan tämä suomessa which means “how do I say this in Finnish”. Every little bit of Finnish that I learn seems to help me the next day, and there is always something to build on. Despite this, I am still absolutely useless in my classes. I just sit there and stare at the teacher with a totally blank look plastered on my face. My goal during class is to figure out the general topic that the teacher is talking about, but sometimes even that is too hard for me. When that happens I get really frustrated with myself and pout for a minute, then to cheer myself up I make up the subject that the teacher is talking about. It can be anything from "why Pluto deserves to be a planet" to "what to do during the Apocalypse" to even "why dolphins should all wear earmuffs". I had better start understanding soon because I am running out of weird topics.

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Here are some things that I have done in the past week-and-a-half since I arrived at the Manninen's...

SAW A REINDEER (okay actually 7). Scratch that off the bucket list eight days in...

Visited the Manninen's Summer Cottage and almost died it was so beautiful (slight hyperbole there)

I ate dirt ice cream and grass soup with my host sisters (will post pictures later, promise!)

Did some "tricks" on the trampoline with my little host sister Vilma after it had rained.

So far, 17 days in, I have had a total blast, but the shock and excitement of the arrival are starting to wear off, and I'm already starting to feel rather hopeless and alone. I know this will pass, but it is starting to get harder for me... Don't fret though, I know that this is all part of the exchange process and will go away soon :)

I'm working on a post about the differences between Muhos and Canada, and should have it up in a few days. After that I plan on taking a break from the blog for maybe a month or so. 


Anyways, thanks for reading!

Claire