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

Karkku kieli leiri - Karkku Language Camp

The Karkku language camp that I have been attending for the past 6 days is over, and now I'm heading to the house of my host family. I learned quite a lot in those few days from a language perspective and also got a taste of the “Exchange Student” life. My baggage was lost, as I said before, so I spent the first two days in Karkku wearing the same clothes that I had worn to travel there. I would personally like to thank Dove “Cool Essentials” for helping me through that smelly time. 

In just 6 days I made friends that I feel that I have known for years, and will remember for the rest of my life. 

Have a look at some of the photos from the camp. We had a blast!

I am writing a post about my school experience now, and will post it when I feel I have a better taste of what it's like here. 

Claire

Finland’s little “Kanukki”

Tervetuloa Suomeen - Welcome to Finland

After many months of frustrations, orientations, excitement, tears, fears, and laughs, I have made it to Finland. I am currently writing this in Karkuu, a city 3 hours north-west of Helsinki, where I am taking part in a language camp for all of the Rotary exchange students that will be in Finland this year.

I went 31 hours without sleeping. WHAT?! Crazy, right? Somehow my body refused to let me sleep on my 11 hour long flight, and all the shorter ones as well. When I finally got to go to bed, I had to set an alarm for 4 hours from then. In the past 49 hours, I have slept 4. How am I still alive?

I tried napping a few minutes ago but it didn't work. I will try again now and see how it goes…

SUCCESS! Anyways…

My second flight, the one from Seattle to Amsterdam, was delayed by about 45 minutes and my layover in Amsterdam was a total of about 1 hour. About half way through the flight I had come to terms with the fact that I would miss my Amsterdam/Helsinki flight. I did end up making the flight (I had to book it across the entire Amsterdam Airport, which is unrealistically big, AND go through security in about 20 minutes) but half of my baggage did not. I am currently looking at my suitcase full of gifts and trinkets and wishing that I had spread my clothing evenly throughout the two suitcases instead of putting them all into one. I don’t know how long I can live off of the same pair of jeans and t-shirt. They smell awesome.

So far my Finland experience is quite like visiting Vancouver Island, except the signs are really funky. I have yet to be engulfed in the Finnish culture and people and language, but that is coming soon. I hope to update this after my first day of school, which is on the 12^th of August.

Until then, hyvää yötä/ huomenta/ whatever time it is where you're from,

Claire