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.

~~~~

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